Drone Attacks Signal CIA’s Willingness to Assassinate Terrorists

[babylonsister]

Drone Attacks Signal CIA’s Willingness to Assassinate Terrorists
Recently Uncovered Program Wasn't Sole Approach to Agency's Targeting Killings
By Spencer Ackerman 7/13/09 8:02 PM


An MQ-Reaper drone prepares to land after a mission in Afghanistan (U.S. Air Force photo)


In October 2002, a suspected al-Qaeda operative named Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, whom the United States believed to be a participant in the 2000 assault on the U.S.S. Cole, took a drive through the northern Yemeni mountains that had become his home. An unmanned, remotely piloted CIA Predator drone tracking al-Harthi from the sky released its payload, a Hellfire missile, into his car, killing al-Harthi and five others. Rather than deny responsibility for the strike, the Bush administration boasted of it. “One hopes each time you get a success like that, not only to have gotten rid of somebody dangerous, but to have imposed changes in their tactics and operations and procedures,” Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told CNN.

The 2002 Harthi strike — the first successful one of its kind — yielded scores more attacks on al-Qaeda targets from pilotless drones. Those strikes have proliferated intensely over the last year in the tribal areas of Pakistan, as CIA officials believe they stand the best chance for killing Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants. Such forays into assassinations since 9/11 help provide context for understanding a still-secret post-9/11 program canceled last month by CIA Director Leon Panetta that might have represented another erosion of the U.S.’s three-decade ban on such targeted killings.

“Killing people during war is different from the U.S. government targeting specific persons, outside a battle zone, for killing,” said Vicki Divoll, a former lawyer for both the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “And even in the so-called war on terror, most lawyers who study this issue believe that targeted killing of a named terrorist falls within the ban in a presidential executive order that has been around since the Ford administration.”

The executive order Divoll referred to has come to be known as EO 12333, which President Reagan issued in 1981, building on the efforts of Presidents Ford and Carter. It states, “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.”

Very little has been revealed about this new program, but the drone strikes appear to be entirely separate from it. On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the program Panetta shut down was an inchoate effort to hunt and assassinate terrorist leaders that did not progress far beyond the planning stages. The Guardian added on Monday that the effort was geared toward al-Qaeda members taking refuge in U.S.-allied countries, where the use of military force — and in some cases, the cooperation of domestic law enforcement or intelligence — could not be contemplated. Neither the CIA nor the White House would comment on the program.

more...

http://washingtonindependent.com/50693/drone-attacks-signal-cias-willingness-to-assassinate-terrorists

[MadMaddie]

1. Here is the problem I have with this

If a suspect or suspects (lets just say 1-5) are gathered in Afghanastan and they are in a populated area....the US sends in a drone to bomb them. All 5 are dead plus innocent civilians.

Now you may say that's okay

but wait....

Lets look at it from a different angle....

Let's say we have 5 extremely violent gang members, KKK, any other violent group and they are gathered in one spot in a neighborhood......now let's use that same drone to bomb them. (See the problem.)

Would we send in a drone to bomb them and the neighborhood? No we would send in a group of highly trained, well armed police tactical units to take them down.

These are police issues not military issues.....

[BobRossi]

2. "No we would send in a group of highly trained, well armed police tactical units to take them down"

Like Waco?

[MadMaddie]

4. Waco was mishandled from the start

They could have taken Koresh down in the town and that would have been the end of it. That effort was the FBI wasn't it? Not local swat teams. The FBI blew it no doubt.

Are you okay with bombing indiscriminately in populated areas to get 1 guy?

[timeforpeace]

3. Is Cheney involved this time?

[boppers]

5. 8 years ago:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63203-2001Oct27?language=printer

[Solomon]

6. Missing a lot aren't you? The point is this thing which

is supposedly accountable to the President ONLY, was operating for six months into Obama's term as President without his knowledge.

What the fuck is Cheney doing operating a secret CIA program during Obama's term?

This is nothing short of treason.

[jimshoes]

7. I can only hope that they have taken cheney

into custody and are "interrogating" him for many long hours to get to the bottom of this treasonous action he is evidently the head of.

[RC]

8. Delusional much?

He'll just say "Donno" and they will say "Ok" and let him go.

[jimshoes]

10. A dreamer perhaps

nt

[boppers]

9. Who said Cheney was still involved?

Apparently I missed that part, I was under the impression that it was basically on auto-pilot, eventually passed to Panetta, at which point he stepped in and said "No."