Goss says CIA ban excludes terrorists

CIA Director Porter J. Goss told lawmakers that the ban on assassinations by U.S. intelligence is still in force, but that it does not prohibit the agency from killing the terrorist enemies of the United States.

The assassination ban, contained in Executive Order 12333, "would not bar the use of lethal force in self-defense, for example, in appropriate cases against members of al Qaeda planning attacks against the United States," Mr. Goss said.

His comment, an unusually candid statement about an area of law and policy that officials rarely touch on in public, came in a series of written answers to questions from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
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"They wanted to keep the ban in place," the former official said. The self-defense exemption "was a legal fabrication to save face, to say, 'Yes, it still applies, but just not in these cases.'Â "

The former intelligence official said some Bush administration lawyers used a theory of anticipatory self-defense to justify their legal analysis that the ban did not apply to terrorists.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050324-114414-9779r.htm