TBD on Ning
CIA's secret program: Paramilitary teams targeting Al Qaeda
By Greg Miller—LA Times—July 14, 2009
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.
CIA officials quickly endorsed the idea 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 former U.S. intelligence 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 paramilitary 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, dismissing suggestions that the effort was aimed at assembling teams of assassins that would roam the world looking for lesser terrorist targets.
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 agency had a plan after Sept. 11 for paramilitary forces to take out Al Qaeda figures overseas. Congress was never told.
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.
CIA officials quickly endorsed the idea 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 former U.S. intelligence 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 paramilitary 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, dismissing suggestions that the effort was aimed at assembling teams of assassins that would roam the world looking for lesser terrorist targets.
Tags: CIA, Cheney, Criminal Investigation, Leon Panetta
Views: 12
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by ZenDog on
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Ya, it's interesting. It appears to me that the whole thing is coming out because of questions surrounding how honest the CIA has been within the framework of Civilian Oversight. Nobody really cares if Osama is taken dead or alive, do they? No they don't. Not in this part of the world anyway.
I think the CIA's main problem here is that it has too many partisan officers playing politics. It is public knowledge after all, that the CIA lied to Reagan about an earthquake that took place in the North Atlantic - they said it was a Russian nuclear test. Why they made such a claim remains unknown - at least to me. Maybe that information has been made public, I don't know.
And no one is talking about human engineering, the rigging of U.S. elections - as in Florida 2000 - or the engineering of accidents with death resulting. I find these topics of much greater interest, but then again, we already know,
he's just plain mad . . .
Free the Butterflies I say,
and Kiss my Ass. -
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Civilian oversight, we the people, is our essence.
I agree. It is disconcerting to know that Sen. Leahy demanded answers from the Air Force about 12 years ago regarding satellite technology and they refused.
And it seems everyday the ranks of the tin foil hat brigade just get bigger, with no explanation.
Rumors of some paradigm shift circulate quietly, yet the paradigm remains undefined.
I believe the War on Drugs will come to a conclusion fairly soon, thus ending the creation of small, ear pulling networks operating in the private sector at street level, but if we do not examine how and why groups like the Heaven's Gate cult are created, then all of the procedures and processes that underlie this kind of research, this kind of iconographic creation will remain.
I'm not comfortable with that. -
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Say, I don't suppose we can send Dick Cheney to jail can we? At least until he discloses the minutes from his conversation with Kenneth Lay of the former Enron mega-energy-scam?
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Permalink Reply by brujo on
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Dick Cheney will be the boogie man of American politics until he dies.
It was just 8 years ago when the September 11 attacks occured, and there are a lot of people who have forgotten how vulnerable we felt after that happened. I have friends living in Manhattan that are never going to be the same.
I don't think anyone is upset over the intentions, I just think they're upset over not disclosing it more fullly.
BTW, I think the CIA should have reported it's intentions to the oversight committee that looks into these things. -
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Permalink Reply by Dexter South on
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The CIA should NEVER be involved in things like this... It should deal with intelligence , period. This is a military matter. Why cant we stop them from these types of activities. To begin with, the CIA is a dishonest organization! We should NEVER trust them for anything but getting info. How can you trust an organization who's main activity is to lie?
If this has come out, can you imagine what hasn't?
How do we even know they didn't havent it operational? You know, they could be lying about it and I would bet on it.. -
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Permalink Reply by Golanv on
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My first thoughts upon reading the article, Dexter. I think I would bet on that one with you. Yikes. I'm supposed to be sleeping but after looking at that pic of Cheney I'm wide awake again.
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Permalink Reply by Grace Linda on
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The more of this stuff you hear, the more it lets you know that these dudes forgot that they lived in a democracy, even though that is always their excuse for the horrors they unleash on others in the name of democracy.
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Permalink Reply by John Turberville on
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I look at Cheney and see one of the most arrogant men on earth. His eyes say "Yeah, so what are you gonna do about it punk!"
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