Darth Cheney & CIA Deceived Congress

[FORD]

And if Bush and Cheney were to deliver Bin Laden, theyd be heroes for it and you'd be crowing along with everyone else the praise they'd receive

The BCE was never remotely interested in "delivering" Bin Laden. That much was obvious on 9-12-01 when the only planes flying in this country were BCE chartered private jets evacuating the bastard's family. It was even more obvious when they reportedly allowed him to be airlifted out of Tora Bora.

And shortly after that, the son of a bitch was dead anyway. But not from a BCE bullet.

[Big Train]

She was vindicated? When and how?

Panetta to CIA employees: We told Pelosi the truth - Glenn Thrush - POLITICO.com

This is Panetta's memo:


Message from the Director: Turning Down the Volume

There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I’m gone. But the political debates about interrogation reached a new decibel level yesterday when the CIA was accused of misleading Congress.

Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.” Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.

My advice — indeed, my direction — to you is straightforward: ignore the noise and stay focused on your mission. We have too much work to do to be distracted from our job of protecting this country.

We are an Agency of high integrity, professionalism, and dedication. Our task is to tell it like it is — even if that’s not what people always want to hear. Keep it up. Our national security depends on it.

[Nickdfresh]

That's the current policy, we aren't talking about that. We're talking about Tricky Dick and what has been going on even before 9/11. Panetta, to his credit, ended what could be construed as a death squad operation (as best we can tell).

[Kristy]

If Darth's lips are sneering, he's lying.

Really? Looks like he's regurgitating evil to me.

[Nitro Express]

All the shit that has gone down in The Executive branch the last few years makes Watergate look like no big deal. You had Clinton getting blow jobs from interns while deregulating the banking and investing industries, passing NAFTA and then little monkey boy rolls over the US Constitution with The Patriot Act and invades a sovergn nation based on a lie. Then this rock star is spending like a drunk rock star and Michael Jackson dies and gets all the attention. Rome is burning and I can't find my fiddle.

[Nickdfresh]

more info:

CIA's secret program: Paramilitary teams targeting Al Qaeda
The agency had a plan after Sept. 11 for paramilitary forces to take out Al Qaeda figures overseas. Congress was never told.

By Greg Miller
July 14, 2009



Former Vice President Dick Cheney (Karen Bleier / AFP-Getty Images / March 12, 2007)

Reporting from Washington - The secret CIA program halted last month by Director Leon E. Panetta involved establishing elite paramilitary teams that could be inserted into Pakistan or other locations to capture or kill top leaders of the Al Qaeda terrorist network, according to former U.S. intelligence officials.

The program -- launched in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- was never operational. But officials said that as recently as a year ago CIA executives discussed plans to deploy teams to test basic capabilities, including whether they could enter hostile territory and maneuver undetected, as well as gather intelligence and track high-value targets.

The initiative evolved through multiple iterations, and was close to being scrapped several times as CIA officials struggled to find solutions to daunting logistical challenges. But even as the Predator drone emerged as a potent new weapon against Al Qaeda, CIA officials continued to pursue the secret program as an additional lethal option.

"You always want to have capacity because you cannot predict opportunities," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official with extensive knowledge of the program.

With the emergence of the Predator, the official said, "we still wanted to explore having that capacity, but there wasn't the same sense of urgency that may have existed before."

That official and others spoke on condition of anonymity given the acute sensitivity of the issue.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano declined to comment on the nature of the program.

The existence of the program, and the fact that it was kept secret from lawmakers for nearly eight years at the direction of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has fanned an already heated atmosphere in Washington over the Bush administration's intelligence programs.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials have said that in terminating the program, Panetta may have been more concerned about the fact that the initiative had been kept secret from Congress than he was about the merits of the program.

A U.S. intelligence official said Panetta has not ruled out reviving an effort to develop a similar close-range capability in closer collaboration with lawmakers.

"If the United States ever needs something like this in the future, we'll find better ways to build it," the U.S. intelligence official said. "That includes briefing Congress earlier on. Panetta understands all that. He's an aggressive proponent of counter-terrorism, pushing tools and tactics that work and have the support to be sustainable. This one didn't."

Leading Democratic lawmakers have said it was illegal for the CIA not to disclose the program to intelligence committees, and called for an investigation.

"Individuals who ordered that Congress be kept in the dark should be held accountable," Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Monday. Feingold also said he had expressed "deep concerns about the program itself" in a classified letter to President Obama.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the former vice president may have broken the law by instructing the CIA to keep the program secret.

But current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that Cheney's role has been mischaracterized, and that the agency was not obligated to disclose the program because it was never close to being operational.

The former officials said that Cheney was never involved in managing the program, and that his instruction not to brief Congress came shortly after the initiative was first proposed.

"It was more like, before you go around and start talking about this, see if it is something you can make happen," said one of the former officials.

Legal authorities for the program were grounded in a comprehensive memorandum that President Bush signed just days after the Sept. 11 attacks, a 10-page document giving the agency powers to pursue Al Qaeda targets with lethal force.

A 1976 order signed by President Ford banned the CIA from carrying out assassinations. But that prohibition does not apply to killing enemies in war.

Panetta ordered the program terminated immediately after learning of it last month, and called emergency meetings with the House and Senate intelligence committees the next day to brief them.

The U.S. intelligence official defended Panetta's decision to dismantle the program, saying that it "never fully took shape" and "was derailed repeatedly over the years by concerns about its feasibility. So killing it cost virtually nothing in operational terms."

The program was launched at a time when then-CIA Director George Tenet and other top agency officials were scrambling to sort out what the agency would do if it could determine the location of Osama bin Laden or other high-level Al Qaeda figures.

CI

CIA officials quickly endorsed tdea oea of developing small paramilitary teams that could carry out "surgical" strikes on high-value targets. But the program repeatedly bogged down on basic operational and logistical questions.

"Do you put them in Waziristan and sit there and wait?" said a second fo U.S. inteintelligence official with knowledge of the program. "It's one of these things that makes a lot of sense until you start trying to make it work."

The official described internal debates over whether the teams should come out of the CIA's Special Activities Division -- its longtime paratary ary wing -- or whether they should be developed in partnership with U.S. military special operations forces.

The military was faulted after Sept. 11 for its tendency to require elaborate plans and large backup forces even for small-scale operations, a factor that had played into failures to capitalize on opportunities to catch or kill Bin Laden before 2001.

The former U.S. intelligence official said the program was designed to provide an option beyond guided bombs or Hellfire strikes from Predator aircraft.

The initiative was also focused exclusively on the top figures in the Al Qaeda chain of command, the former official said, dismissinggestiestions that the effort was aimed at assembling teams of assassins that would roam the world looking for lesser terrorist targets.

Link


greg.miller@latimes.com
_______________________________

Logistics issues buried CIA assassination teams
Officials say need for secrecy also hurt ability to assemble squads to target key terrorists

By Greg Miller | (Chicago) Tribune Newspapers
July 19, 2009

WASHINGTON - -- In movies, the CIA has so many prolallcally lethal assassins roaming the world that the main problem often seems to be reining them in.

But details that spilled out last week about a real CIA assassination program indicate that when the plotting is being done by spies instead of screenwriters, the obstacles are not so easy to surmount.

According to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, the CIA spent seven years trying to assemble teams capable of killing the world's most wanted terrorists but could never find a formula that worked.

The struggles came during a period in which the agency had been given unprecedented authorities and resources, and a cause -- responding to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- with broad public support.

But officials could not solve daunting problems, including how to get teams close to their targets while keeping U.S. involvement secret and how to extract them safely if they succeeded in killing a terrorist.

In interviews, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the aim of the effort was broader than was described in newspaper accounts last week.

In particular, officials said, ambitions for the program expanded to include creating teams that were composed not only of CIA personnel but counterparts from other countries, presumably Pakistan; and to be capable not just of killing high-value targets but also executing raids and other operations to gather intelligence that might lead to elusive al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Former officials said support toe pro program istedsted in recent s lar elr becauseause it could compensate for a crucial shortcoming of the ongoing campaign of Predator strikes. The drones had emerged as a potent weapon against al-Qaida in Pakistan but had failed to bring the agency closer to bin Laden.

"The bottonelis ths that you've still got No. 1 and No. 2 out there," one former high-ranking U.S. intelligence official said. "If all you do is blow stuff up and burn stuff up, you never get information that could lead you to the prize."

As a result, CIA leaders continued to pursue the idea of elite paramilitary teams that could mount lethal operations on short notice but also quietly capture lower-ranking al-Qaida members and gather intelligence.



The broader dimensions of the program may accouor why shy some lawmakers, particularly Republicans, have been critical of CIA Director Leon Panetta's decision last month to kill it. House Democrats, angry that the program was kept secreom Congrengress at least partially at the urging of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, said Friday that the House Intelligence Committee will investigate whether the CIA broke the law by not promptly filling in Congress.

Lawmakers last week continued sparring over Cheney's role and whether Congress had been properly briefed. The CIA said the program was never of substantial value to U.S. efforts.

"The program (Panetta) killed was never fully operational and never took a single terrorist off the battlefield," Georgeorge Little, a CIA spokesman. "We've had a string of successes against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, and that program didn't contribute to any of them."

The broadejeotivesives of the program may also help explain why counterterrorism officials saw a need for the CIA to develop its own elite paramilitary teams, rather relying on U.S.U.S. military special operations soldiers already deployed across Afghanistan.



A second former official with extensive knowledge of the CIA effort said it was seen as crucial that the units reside fully within the CIA so the U.S. government would be able to deny involvement if a team were exposed.

Special operations forces routinely carry out clandestine missions, but -- unlike their CIA counterparts -- operate with the expectation that their ties to the U.S. government will not be denied if the mission breaks down.

"Keeping activities like this secret is the biggest challenge," said the second former U.S. intelligence official.

And even if an assassination team succeeded in killing a senior al-Qaida figure, "what happens to the shooter?" said Mark Lowenthal, a former senior CIA official. "We don't senoppe on on suicide missions. I'm sure they were troubled ow to get get the guy out of there."

In its initial conception, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the CIA program was seen mainly as an effort to assemble teams capable of carrying out targeted killings. But officials said it went through multiple iterations.

Most recently, the program's focus had shifted toward intelligence collection, officials said, the latest in a series of efforts toward the end of the Bush administration to finally find bin Laden.

gpmiller@tribune.com

Maybe not such a bad idea? But why the need for "plausible deniability?" That's just spy novel shit...

[Dolemite!]

All the shit that has gone down in The Executive branch the last few years makes Watergate look like no big deal. You had Clinton getting blow jobs from interns while deregulating the banking and investing industries, passing NAFTA and then little monkey boy rolls over the US Constitution with The Patriot Act and invades a sovergn nation based on a lie. Then this rock star is spending like a drunk rock star and Michael Jackson dies and gets all the attention. Rome is burning and I can't find my fiddle.

But Rome isn't burning. It's shining bright and dazzling everyone with it's brightness!

[Big Train]

If it was a theoretical exercise done as a "black op" that was never implemented, what's the fuss exactly? If they find evidence this thing got to be operational, then yea I'll agree that's across the line, if they were not told.

At this point the best anyone can say was that they were guilty of planning an exercise. A sensible one, given the nature of this conflict. They shut down an exercise and make it public to continue to use the outrage over Bush as a tool for public support. Every time Barry's numbers dip, you can bet something along these lines will pop up. And Ford and Nick will be there to catch it and not question anything.

Nick, you say it was happening before 9/11, but both of your supporting articles do not support that claim.

My guess is that this is a way for Team Barry and the CIA to get over that previous nastiness, bury Pelosi's sins, bring out the ghost of darth and get some media cover while they pass even worse legislation.

[Big Train]

Not only that, for the people who think the concept is so horrible; What is a Predator drone if not a roving death squad?

Let's see:
Roams around in foreign countries undetected.
Able to shoot lethal amounts of firepower at an established target.
Can accomplish this day or night.
Is controlled remotely.
Does not need to notify Congress.

Yup, sounds exactly like a roving death squad to me.

Barry's administration has several of these attacks already under their belt.

Oh, the outrage....

[Nickdfresh]

If it was a theoretical exercise done as a "black op" that was never implemented, what's the fuss exactly? If they find evidence this thing got to be operational, then yea I'll agree that's across the line, if they were not told.

What does that matter? The point was that is was deliberately covered up to frustrate oversight. That they were too incompetent to implement the program matters not...

At this point the best anyone can say was that they were guilty of planning an exercise.

"Exercise?" You mean like covert aerobics?

A sensible one, given the nature of this conflict. They shut down an exercise and make it public to continue to use the outrage over Bush as a tool for public support. Every time Barry's numbers dip, you can bet something along these lines will pop up. And Ford and Nick will be there to catch it and not question anything.

I don't have a problem with the plans necessarily. I have a problem with the notion that they don't have to fucking tell Congress about it and thus concentrate even more power in the executive branch and frustrate the notion of "checks and balances."

Nick, you say it was happening before 9/11, but both of your supporting articles do not support that claim.

I didn't say "this" was happening before 9/11. I basically said that other questionable, even illegal policies that have since been defended as necessary for preventing "terrorism" were instituted even before 9/11. A specific example would be the illegal electronic wiretapping of US communications that began almost as soon as Bush took office, and was then made to seem to be a reaction to the "pussy liberals" after the attacks when in fact violating the US laws under FISA using illegal surveillance did not stop terrorism, just eroded our civil liberties with no gain in security...

My guess is that this is a way for Team Barry and the CIA to get over that previous nastiness, bury Pelosi's sins, bring out the ghost of darth and get some media cover while they pass even worse legislation.

Right. It's all a monolithic conspiracy where Obama and his handlers have absolute power over what the congress does...

[Nickdfresh]

Not only that, for the people who think the concept is so horrible; What is a Predator drone if not a roving death squad?

Let's see:
Roams around in foreign countries undetected.
Able to shoot lethal amounts of firepower at an established target.
Can accomplish this day or night.
Is controlled remotely.
Does not need to notify Congress.

Yup, sounds exactly like a roving death squad to me.

Barry's administration has several of these attacks already under their belt.

Oh, the outrage....

My, what a wonderful Strawman argument you've assembled.

[Blackflag]

BT's argument sucks...but you guys have really got to stop misusing the term "strawman"...

[Big Train]

My, what a wonderful Strawman argument you've assembled.

What exactly is strawman about it? It is the reality of the situation. Because I bring this up, you think I'm trying to make an excuse for Darth. I'm just saying the "outrage" aspect is a bit overstated. Were there not attacks via Predator recently that Obama claimed he had no knowledge were taking place? That there was a Predator base most were not aware of ?

[Big Train]

What does that matter? The point was that is was deliberately covered up to frustrate oversight. That they were too incompetent to implement the program matters not...

And that is a good point. I'm not disputing that whoever is on the congressional committe probably should have known, as I said in my first post. But the charge was that they might have implemented something that by all account it appears they did not.

"Exercise?" You mean like covert aerobics?

You are the military expert, not me, but don't they do this sort of thing all the time as a theoretical exercise?

I don't have a problem with the plans necessarily. I have a problem with the notion that they don't have to fucking tell Congress about it and thus concentrate even more power in the executive branch and frustrate the notion of "checks and balances."

Then please clarify for me why they have black ops. It's possible I may be missing something here. My understanding is that black ops are things we never bring up, hence why they are black ops.




Right. It's all a monolithic conspiracy where Obama and his handlers have absolute power over what the congress does...

Well, when the supermajority shoe fits...

[Big Train]

BT's argument sucks...but you guys have really got to stop misusing the term "strawman"...

What happened to no more useless drivel?