CIA Assassin Plan Was Set to Go Active

[BlueJessamine]

Source: Washington Post

CIA officials were proposing to activate a plan to train anti-terrorist assassination teams overseas when agency managers brought the secret program to the attention of CIA Director Leon Panetta last month, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The plan to kill top al-Qaeda leaders, which had been on the agency's backburner for much of the past eight years, was suddenly thrust into the spotlight because of proposals to initiate what one intelligence official called a "somewhat more operational phase." Shortly after learning of the plan, CIA Director Leon Panetta terminated the program and then went to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers, who had been kept in the dark since 2001.

The Obama administration's top intelligence official, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, yesterday defended Panetta's decision to cancel the program, which he said had raised serious questions among intelligence officials about its "effectiveness, maturity and the level of control."

But Blair broke with some Democrats in Congress by asserting that the CIA did not violate the law when it failed to inform lawmakers about the secret program until last month. Blair said agency officials may not have been required to notify Congress about the program, though he believes they should have done so.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/15/AR2009071503856.html

[timeforpeace]

1. Good info, thanks. So we're bombing entire villages in Pakistan instead of assassinating leaders?

[BlueJessamine]

2. you are welcome!

[earcandle]

3. I think this is a snow job.

[timeforpeace]

4. It clashes with the current fashionable meme about this, that's true.

[Old and In the Way]

8. I agree....seems like a new cover story is being fabricated.

This don't smell right.

[MindMatter]

10. "It turns out the Dems didn't really want us to kill Osama after all."

This is complete bullshit. We had already effectively declared war on al Qaeda, and defined the war theatre to be basically everywhere (you have heard of the "global war on terror"). So by definition, if you kill an al Qaeda operative, it is a a war casualty, not assassination.

That could not possibly be what Panetta stopped. And these assholes are free to put out this meme because the real program is classified.

[asjr]

5. The trouble with those Republicans is they

have read too many David Baldacci books and consider themselves latter day James Bonds.

[MadMaddie]

6. It has been 8 years and they were getting ready to go active

WTF? Epic-Fail

Oh yea I think they wanted to target Americans. There is no way that the CIA director would halt hit squads that were going to target OBL or other targets....they were going to target Americans.

[earth mom]

9. Yikes....

:yoiks:

[Soylent Brice]

7. K&R

[HCE SuiGeneris]

11. Total BS

Smoke, mirrors, and a very bad substitute for the truth.

[ShamelessHussy]

12. Then... WTF have we been reading about in the papers all these years!?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6065305

And of course the M$M doesn't call'm on it :argh:
- Cept Rachel, of course ;)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x337013

[MadMaddie]

16. Remember * didn't care where OBL was during year 2 of the

fiasco in Iraq...

[hootinholler]

13. Which WaPo mockingbird wrote this crap?

Joby Warrick, who to his credit did report the aluminum tubes were not nuclear centrifuge grade.

He has the intel beat at the Pest, and as such deserves watching.

-Hoot

[Papa Boule]

14. Oh I get it. It's a gullibility test. n/t

[Dumak]

15. This is to put a layer of obfuscation over the real assassination program.

On the back burner for 8 years my a.s.s.

[tanyev]

17. We've been killing a seemingly endless supply of #2 and #3 guys for years.

Why activate a secret assassination team now?

[MindMatter]

19. And why keep it secret?

They have bragging about this shit. That ain't no secret program.

The fact that they are launching this smokescreen should give us some clues as to the real thing.

[Bankhead_ATL]

18. I have a odd feeling that this secret program was......

really bigger then what they are telling us. This secret program could have cause a complete meltdown of the United States or another 911....Hmmmmmmmmmm