CIA Vet: Agency Doesn't Need Secret Program To Target al Qaeda

By Zachary Roth
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/cia_vet_agency_doesnt_need_secret_program_to_targe.php?ref=fpblg

Earlier today, we raised a few questions about the notion that the secret CIA program that Dick Cheney reportedly withheld from Congress concerned an effort to kill or capture al Qaeda leaders. And now a top counter-terror expert is doing the same.

Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, told TPMmuckraker that because we've been in a state of war against al Qaeda since just after September 11, there would have been no need for a secret CIA program that received special legal authorization.


Since the war on terror began, said Cannistraro, the CIA has routinely conducted operations targeting top Qaeda leaders. "The CIA runs drones and targets al Qaeda safe houses all the time," said Cannistraro, explaining that there's no important difference between those kinds of attacks and "assassinations" with a gun or a knife.

Cannistraro said the Defense Department has also conducted such targeted efforts, under an initiative that New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh has written about.

(snip)
As for what the program did involve, Cannistraro suggested that it involved Americans as targets, and that it went beyond surveillance, but declined to elaborate. He added that, though Cheney may have directly ordered the CIA to keep Congress in the dark, the veep wasn't acting alone. "The approval was from the president," said Cannistraro.

Americans were the targets--an inconvenient person saying distasteful things--someone like a Wellstone, or a guy who re-wrote the program for the 2004 Presidential "win"

but then, who can say? Only CHENEY and his puppets.

If they "waterboarded" him he would spill the beans! :evilgrin:

accused of sending the anthrax. Suspicious deaths that certainly benefited the * admin.

and blaming al Qaeda.

Sy Hersh already wrote something similar back in 2005.

And yet, anyone who questions the official myth about 9/11 is a conspiracy nut, lol!

how much an attack would embarrass Obama? Almost like he was hinting to someone to do that...

and we definitely need a new 9/11 investigation--one that isn't tainted by torture

the dots to current ones is like getting a donkey across a bridge...but, weren't there credible reports of guys with british accents and wearing local garb (robes, etc) being caught by the Iraqs around the time of the bombing of the golden mosque? Then there were reports of Bush wanting to use our planes disguised as UN planes to provoke Hussein? Lots of stories about Hussein not being caught as popularly detailed either...lots of stories about Bin Laden being caught already or dead already too. Stories about dem leaders being blackmailed. Confirmed stories of forged letters about uranium. Confirmed stories of illegal rendition.

All these take plots and manpower. Why not assume the worst and start digging from there? Why do these guys get the benefit of the doubt all the time?

Again..if we hear about illegal assassination plots on al Queda...we should automatically believe that it is a cover story for much worse. Always is.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/something_not_adding_up.php?ref=fpblg

The New York Times is also reporting now that the secret Bush-era CIA program kept from Congress and terminated last month by CIA Director Leon Panetta was a plan to assassinate top al Qaeda officials that was never implemented. This is additional confirmation of the Wall Street Journal story that essentially reported the same basic outlines of the still-classified program.

The Times compares the program to drone attacks against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "This was another effort that was trying to accomplish the same objective," Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), ranking member on the Senate intel committee, tells the paper.

But as a former CIA counterterrorism chief told TPMmuckraker today:

"The CIA runs drones and targets al Qaeda safe houses all the time," said Cannistraro, explaining that there's no important difference between those kinds of attacks and "assassinations" with a gun or a knife.

So regardless of how you might feel about targeted assassinations, it's not at all clear why this particular program would be so radioactive -- compared to what the U.S. was, and still is, doing more or less openly -- that (1) Cheney would demand the CIA not brief Congress about it for eight years; (2) Panetta would cancel it immediately upon learning of it; and (3) Democrats would howl quite so loudly when finally informed.

Or to think about it another way, put yourself in the seat of a Democrat on one of the intel committees after 9/11. If you had any doubt about whether the intel agencies were targeting al Qaeda leaders, wouldn't you have demanded that they show you proof they were? And if you didn't have any doubt that they were, why are you complaining now about not being briefed?

It doesn't add up. There's more to this story to be told.

links
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/us/14intel.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/new_info_brings_more_questions_on_secret_cia_progr.php#more

another revealing and teachable moment about how truly owned they are.

when i first read this BS it sounded like a sound-byte from Rush talking about how the dems want to read terrorist their RIGHTS and have them attend counseling instead of FIGHTING them.

but it certainly fits like a glove with the NARRATIVE we are feed from the M$M, huh?