CIA Secrets

"CIA has Secret al-Qaeda Plan"

Adding to the deluge of Bush era CIA programs that are now coming under intense Washington scrutiny, Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal has broken a story specifying the secret CIA program that DCI Leon Panetta terminated in June.  

So far, the story goes that Panetta was first told of the program by subordinates on June 23rd. Immediately following, "he ordered the program ended, requested the review of briefing practices and arranged to meet the Senate and House Intelligence Committees in closed-door sessions June 24 to inform them of the program."

According to Gorman, in the 45 minute sessions, Panetta informed the committee of a secret program that:

"Was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives... One former senior intelligence official said the program was an attempt "to achieve a capacity to carry out something that was directed in the finding," meaning it was looking for ways to capture or kill al Qaeda chieftains...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.....Eventually Mr. Bush issued the finding that authorized the capturing of several top al Qaeda leaders, and allowed officers to kill the targets if capturing proved too dangerous or risky. 

Panetta also told the two Intelligence Committees that Dick Cheney had "directly ordered" the CIA to conceal the program from Congress over the past eight years.

Following the briefing, members on both committees were very upset.  Diane Fienstien (D-CA) who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, stated that "this is a big problem, because the law is very clear. ...And I understand the need of the day...— but this — I think you weaken your case when you go outside of the law."

In the Blogosphere, Laura Rozen speculates that the Presidential finding may have allowed Americans to assassinate people in friendly countries without consulting the allied government.  Congress already knows that the CIA captures and kills targets in foreign countries, either through drone strikes or elite commandos.  It does not matter if the foreign government approves the murder in a place like Pakistan (where the practice infuriates the puppet government) but if the country was Britain or Germany, the Democratic Congress would definitely go apeshit.  This may also be the "executive assassination ring" story that Seymour Hersh has been sitting on for a couple months now.