CIA Assassin Program Was Nearing New Phase

[liberal N proud]

Panetta Pulled Plug After Training Was Proposed

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 16, 2009

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 back burner 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, 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.

"It was a judgment call," Blair said in an interview. "We believe in erring on the side of working with the Hill as a partner."


Much more at link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/15/AR2009071503856.html?nav=rss_email/components

[C_U_L8R]

1. They lie for eight years and..

suddenly we are supposed to believe all this truthiness.

How about this... we don't believe nothing and appoint a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of it all.

[corpseratemedia]

2. we have memories (unfortunately for the propagandists) we remember the bragging

* was touting about killing AQ leaders, so we know this is a fake cover story.

[jimshoes]

3. Actually they have been actively working to

kill the all the number two Al Qaeda guys first. I think we've gotten several hundred of them so far.
edit for a Luckovich cartoon

[babylonsister]

4. I'd really like to know who authorized this 'new phase'. nt

[ThomWV]

5. It is just pure cover-up bullshit that this program was about assignations or that it was dormant

Yeah, right, they had a program that was devised over the course of 8 years ago but never put in place. Yeah, right, they had a secrete assignation program even though we had an Army doing exactly the same thing in public.

This program so shook up Leon Panetta that he shut it down immediately on learning of it and notified Congress as quickly as he was able - and we're being told it was some mundane program that virtually every American alive already believes has existed as long as the CIA, or and that it had never been activated during the 8 years it has been in existence? Give me a break.

[Junkdrawer]

6. We trained Death Squads. The Salvador option.

Doesn't that sound like what really happened?