CIA Had Secret Al Qaeda Plan

Source: The Wall Street Journal

By SIOBHAN GORMAN

WASHINGTON -- A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter.

The precise nature of the highly classified effort isn't clear, and the CIA won't comment on its substance.

According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting on a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts. The initiative hadn't become fully operational at the time Mr. Panetta ended it.

In 2001, the CIA also examined the subject of targeted assassinations of al Qaeda leaders, according to three former intelligence officials. It appears that those discussions tapered off within six months. It isn't clear whether they were an early part of the CIA initiative that Mr. Panetta stopped.


Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124736381913627661.html

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snip

Amid the high alert following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a small CIA unit examined the potential for targeted assassinations of al Qaeda operatives, according to the three former officials. The Ford administration had banned assassinations in the response to investigations into intelligence abuses in the 1970s. Some officials who advocated the approach were seeking to build teams of CIA and military Special Forces commandos to emulate what the Israelis did after the Munich Olympics terrorist attacks, said another former intelligence official.

"It was straight out of the movies," one of the former intelligence officials said. "It was like: Let's kill them all."

All they had to do was stop paying them.

It was their baby, all the way back to the Sov/Afghan war, and maybe before.

I was begining to wonder why we were sending so many troops, agents, guns and money over there for all these years.

GREAT WORK PRESS CORPS, you're doin a heck of a job keep'n us informed... just think, if it wasn't for this story, we would still be under the wrong impression that we were just bringing democracy and training their civil servants all these years, phew. I was beginning to wonder what kinda phd's we were training over there after all these years.

:evilgrin:

Going after and killing Al Qaeda operatives was somehow some secret secret plan that was never acted upon, but we went ahead and started a war with a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 based on CIA 'intelligence'.

I thought the whole point of Iraq was to go after Al Qaeda.

I am not buying this.

I read this and my reaction is "So what?" We have a plan to kill the people who were behind 9/11. And this merits some kind of "OHMYGODOHMYGODWECAN'TDOTHIS!"

But we can turn a neighboring country into kitty litter. No big deal. :eyes:

was indeed a member of Al Qaeda though?

In America, we do not ordinarily combine the roles of arresting officer, prosecutor, defense counsel, judge, jury and executioner in one person. Sure, some perps are shot in the act, but that is not the goal. Nor was it the policy that the CIA would kill only those caught in the act.

We know for certain (or as certain as humans can be) that many who languished in prison and suffered torture at our hands were innocent. However, horrible it may have been to hold them for years, summary execution would have been more horrible for their dependents and loved ones.

That's whats going on here! Can't let this CAT outa the bag! Bush et al KNEW something was going to happen on 9/11 but it turned out to be BIGGer than they thought... re: PNAC!

of Saddam and Rummy did.

They're just trying to convince us it wasn't operational?

Nothing to see here, let's move along folks........keep it moving now :wow: :wow:

They're going to make us believe their crimes were committed because they were keeping us safe.

In the meantime, we all know the Bush administration was warned of the attacks of 9-11 yet did NOTHING!! They knew airplanes would be used, yet airlines were never notified. Cheney command NORAD to stand down on 9-11.

coming to a television network near you.

Lizzy will be on morning scab tomorrow, that means pops is probably taping a six part series with sean hannity as we speak.

revelation. Suppose that they (R's and their spokes-paper the WSJ) know Cheney's assassination team is going to be exposed. Then suppose they are trying to get ahead of the curve with these leaks and frame it as a strictly anti-terrorist, James-Bond-style operation.

If all goes according to plan, TV news will pick up the "anti-Al-qaeda" characterization when they talk about the program, and probably that's the image that will stick in the public's imagination. Then we will find out in dribs and drabs that they weren't just killing terrorists, that they were killing people they didn't like, or who were just in their way (or worse, in the way of their corporate cronies). By this time, the water will have been muddied, and most people won't know what to think.

Look at how the wiretapping revelations went: First, it was just a few select terrorists in foreign countries, then it was just communication between the US and foreign countries, then it was anyone and everyone under the sun.

Sorry, just thinking out loud here...

I'm sure it was vital to spy on those amish peace freaks. They should be glad darth vader didn't sic the death squad on them. Why is everyone complaining about this vital program?

considering we're talking the CIA...and more especially not shocking in a country that would torture people

so while targeted assassinations may have been a part of the overall game plan of criminality....this can't be the bombshell shocker the press has been talking about

there has to be more to it...(limited hangout?)

a nation that looks forward, rather than investigating and prosecuting crimes.

Passing that, the OP says Ford dismantled the CIA assassination squads. So, in theory, this would have been reinstating them after several decades, which would be news. But, beyond that, the program was kept from Congress, and failing to report to Congress (or an appropriate committee within Congress) may well be against the law.

The only question now is, if yet another law has been violated by Bushco, what, if anything, will be done?

i am pretty sure i remember hearing them bragging about the program back in 2001.

i think this is a smokescreen to make it look the dems are WEAK on fighting terror... rush's talking points.

This is not the road of justice! You do not simply decide who your political enemies are and kill them.

but that is BS, it certainly wasn't secret.

those the military was to capture or kill in Iraq?

But, even if there were rumors of a CIA assassination unit, there is a difference between rumors and making legally required disclosures to a Congressional committee.

According to an October 21, 2001, Washington Post article, President Bush in September of last year signed an intelligence "finding" instructing the CIA to engage in "lethal covert operations" to destroy Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization.

White House and CIA lawyers believe that the intelligence "finding" is constitutional because the ban on political assassination does not apply to wartime. They also contend that the prohibition does not preclude the United States taking action against terrorists.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/11/04/us.assassination.policy

i remember them being proud of it & most folks thought it only common sense after 911

Fox News has the same B.S. story-second only to Sotomayor story on their website

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/13/cia-secret-al-qaeda-plan/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MQ-1_Predator

(armed with Hellfire missles - its called Reaper)

"In the winter of 2000-2001, after seeing the results of Predator reconnaissance in Afghanistan (see below), Cofer Black, head of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center (CTC), became a "vocal advocate" of arming the Predator with missiles to target Osama bin Laden in the country. He also believed that CIA pressure and practical interest was causing the USAF's armed Predator program to be significantly accelerated. Black, and "Richard", who was in charge of the CTC's Bin Laden Issue Station, continued to press during 2001 for a Predator armed with Hellfire missiles."


"On 3 November 2002, a CIA Predator (being flown by an Air Force pilot from a French military base, Camp Lemonier, in Djibouti) was again used in a military strike. A Hellfire missile was fired at a car in Yemen, killing Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, an al-Qaeda leader thought to be responsible for the USS Cole bombing. It was the first direct US strike in the War on Terrorism outside Afghanistan.<28><37>"

assassinations. Didn't we know about and weren't we discussing assassinations way before the Panetta statement about ending a program with all the shocked statement of Congress?

I sense that there are 'assassinations' and a 'shocking program' are separate.

Sop why are we linking them?

We even knew about burial grounds for those massacred.

We're mixing them all up? By intention?

it was a SECRET
now the Secrets out and we got to shut this baby done

If it had anything whatsoever to do with al Qaeda, then it more likely would be about letting them escape.