CIA Vet: Agency Doesn't Need Secret Program To Target al Qaeda

By GottaLaff

Remember that Ultra Super Duper Secret Illegal Cheney CIA Program that I posted about earlier? Well, well, well, looks like it was Ultra Super Duper redundant... unless it was those darned Americans they were targeting:

Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, told TPMmuckraker that because we've been in a state of war against al Qaeda since just after September 11, there would have been no need for a secret CIA program that received special legal authorization.

Since the war on terror began, said Cannistraro, the CIA has routinely conducted operations targeting top Qaeda leaders. "The CIA runs drones and targets al Qaeda safe houses all the time," said Cannistraro, explaining that there's no important difference between those kinds of attacks and "assassinations" with a gun or a knife.

Cannistraro said the Defense Department has also conducted such targeted efforts, under an initiative that New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh has written about. [...]

But Cannistraro cautioned that that DOD program has nothing to do with the secret, unidentified CIA program which Cheney is said to have hid from Congress, and which CIA director Leon Panetta ended last month.

As for what the program did involve, Cannistraro suggested that it involved Americans as targets, and that it went beyond surveillance, but declined to elaborate. He added that, though Cheney may have directly ordered the CIA to keep Congress in the dark, the veep wasn't acting alone. "The approval was from the president," said Cannistraro.

But prosecuting would throw us into a tizzy. Don't let on, but I think we're already in one.

She said "blow-WHAT" on live TV to David Shuster?

By GottaLaff

Background on Dickless' assassination ring here. Posts on detainee abuse and torture here.

Marcy Wheeler (aka Emptywheel at Firedoglake) just said the following on MSNBC, live, right there on the Tee Vee Machine... after which David Shuster turned 15 shades of red (actually, here are Tweets by her of what she said):

(click on image to enlarge... no pun)

Guardian: CIA planned al-Qaida assassinations in friendly countries, officials say

By GottaLaff

Sy Hersh originally reported about Cheney's assassination ring, and I posted about that here. Now this:

Dick Cheney, the former vice president, ordered a highly classified CIA operation hidden from Congress because it pushed the limits of legality by planning to assassinate of al-Qaida operatives in friendly countries without the knowledge of their governments, according to former intelligence officials.

Former counter-terrorism officials who retain close links to the intelligence community say that the hidden operation involved plans by the CIA and the military to launch operations, similar to those by Israel's Mossad intelligence service, to hunt down and kill al-Qaida activists abroad without informing the governments concerned, even though some were regarded as friendly if unreliable.

The CIA apparently did not put the plan in to operation but the US military did, carrying out several assassinations including one in Kenya that proved to be a severe embarrassment and helped lead to the quashing of the programme. [...]

Another former senior intelligence official responsible for dealing with al-Qaida said that assassination plans were reined in after similar covert operations by the military were botched and proved to be embarrassing, particularly the killing in Kenya. [...]

The official said he believes from conversations with serving members of the CIA that the area of real concern in Congress is that the planned operations may also have involved the covert surveillance of American citizens, a particularly sensitive subject in the US.

There appears to be common agreement among knowledgeable former intelligence officials that the controversy goes beyond the immediate question of assassination and capture of al-Qaida operatives as there have been numerous killings and detentions since the 9/11 attacks. One former official said that the Bush administration discussed the assassination question in the context of a ban introduced in the 1970's in response to several failed CIA attempts to murder Fidel Castro and concluded that as the US had declared itself at war with Al-Qaida and the Taliban the ban did not apply.

Peter Bergen, a senior security analyst at the New America Foundation, said that the secret operation must have gone further than that to have created such a backlash in Congress. "If it's an assassination programme of al-Qaida leaders that is hardly surprising. Clinton had an assassination programme against Bin Laden. There have been 27 drone missile strikes against al-Qaida alone this year," he said.

But we shouldn't look back. Just keep moving along...

VIDEO: Seymour Hersh discusses Dick Cheney's "Executive Assassination Wing"

By GottaLaff

Original posts about the Nation of Dick's Merry Band of Assassins can be found here and here.



Tiny little Dick Cheney and his people will have none of this. "There's no such thing."

Interesting update: Hersh corrected Wolf Blitzer, saying he (Hirsh) called it an assassination "wing", not "ring", not that it really matters. I stand corrected, as does CNN.

Political Carnival EXCLUSIVE: First-hand knowledge of Cheney's assassination ring's existence

By GottaLaff

One of our Commenters, who must remain anonymous, has generously shared what little information he is able to with me about Dick Cheney's horrific "executive assassination ring", originally reported by Seymour Hersh. Anonymous and I have e-mailed back and forth for a few months now, and he was going to allow me to use some of his Iraq experiences for a series of posts.

However, things have changed for reasons that are explained below. This is all Anonymous is now allowed to reveal:

I can confirm for each of you that the assassination ring does exist. I spoke with one member of the Delta Forces on a regular basis. I can not repeat anything that I was told, but I can tell you that even the so-called terrorist knew exactly where they were housed on our base at an undisclosed location in Iraq. Laffy, i'm sure you know who I am. I can not repeat anymore than what I have typed from fear of reprisal. Which is also the reason why I never came back to you on what happened to my wife and me while being in Iraq last year.

[W]e have people out there that can and will hunt me down. [...] But those guys would have to come by our tent to pick up all their cargo that would be airlifted from random parts of the world. I can tell you that I know for a fact that it truly does go on. But I swore that I'd never repeat anything that was ever told, or pictures that I saw with my own eyes. Pictures that those guys could be severely punished for showing anyone out of their official channels.

Yes, I realize this is coming from an anonymous source, although I do know his name and have for some time, and have seen photos (from his time in Iraq and other venues) of him and his wife and even his friends. I also understand that he is not saying any of this under oath, but neither was Sy Hersh... yet. It is all hearsay for the time being.

I posted this to buttress Hersh's words. And I wanted to buttress Hersh's words to emphasize the following:

Dick Cheney and George Bush must be prosecuted. There must be a thorough investigation, and they must be prosecuted. How many more posts about these criminals will I have to write before this will happen? What does it take?

President Obama, I'm a fan, but I strongly disagree with your belief that "we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards". That is a very bad precedent when it comes to dealing with very bad people doing very, very bad things. Please, for the sake of your country, reconsider.

Let's hope that Attorney General Holder has other ideas.