Cheat Sheet
The Best In Brief
CIA's Secret Plan, Revealed
How long does it take for the CIA to declare an operation infeasible? In the case of stealth assassinations of al Qaeda leaders, more than seven years did not suffice. As it turns out, the initiative's label as "sporadic" and "embryonic" is what justified it being kept secret from Congress. The plan involved spy-movie-style assassinations of al Qaeda big shots instead of Predator drone missile strikes, which have consistently killed innocent bystanders and caused public outrage. By law, Congress is supposed to be informed of all CIA operations and highly classified material can be revealed only to congressional leaders. When CIA Chief Leon Panetta learned of the highly classified operation he called an emergency meeting with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, apparently recognizing that he had on his hands an ineffective program that would be a major political liability.
Partner Sites: Expedia| Hotels| Hotwire| Urbanspoon| Vimeo
So Panetta and the dems still want to kill the Al Qaida leadership, but they will only use Predator missile strikes on Al Qaida leaders that also kill innocent civilians rather then using both Predator attacks and targeted attacks by the CIA on the Al Qaida leaders?
Huh? What are the democrats thinking----If possible, wouldn't it be preferable to have the CIA kill only Bin Laden rather then blowing up innocent civilians as well?
I think the point was that a program like that should have been shared with the Congressional committee. That way it could be monitored and even lauded when successful.
As I understand it, Panetta wasn't pissed about the course of action just the fact that Congress wasn't kept in the loop. If something went wrong, the international community would have been able to attack us in the public arena and catch our leaders with their pants down around their ankles. Not to mention, I'm sure there is some international law or treaty that says you can't (probably in the Geneva Convention now that I think about it).
The real question for me is: If this has been in place 7, almost 8, years, why haven't they killed any of the big doggs? Why is Bin Laden still wheeling around his dialysis machine and making terrorist's angriest home videos from a cave?
A sane voice amidst the madding crowd!
But no, it's not against our laws as of 10/21/2001 when Our President signed a "finding" authorizing the killing of Al Queaida leaders
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/11/04/us.assassination.policy/
You did, however find the real problem with the program, lack of Congressional oversight. You didn't fall for the red herring that so many tighty-righties will put forth that, "anything is justifiable to preserve freedom and safety; including compromising freedom and safety!"
Your right and I'm glad rapier is happy. The program never got off the ground. Now we will see if it is killed by Congress or given approval.
Give me a break!
This program was so very important, so vital to national security, that it took on an "On again, off again nature"?
It was so effective that after seven years it had not produced any results?
I have come to believe that the only infinite capacity human beings have is the hypocrisy of the American right wing. They criticize President Obama because the stimulu package has not healed the economy in less than six months, but a CIA program of over seven years needs more time and support.
Wow, even Dick cheney couldn't say that with a straight face!
Well Duh ! Targeting Al-Qaida is as wrong as not telling congerss doesn't make sense. If your going to tell congress you might as well tell Al-Qaida before it's the headline in the NYT or on CNN or MessNBC. They're digging deep to cover I can't move my face Pelosi. I suspect there were hundreds of plans being developed as that's what the CIA does, make plans..
Apparently, Panetta has the smarts to know:
1) when an operation is unfeasible
and
2) the fact that Congress must be informed of how our money is being spent. This is an issue that relates directly to the "power of the purse"
Yeah, well they didnt tell Congress and they didnt do anything for seven years, so the CIA is still as reliable as it was in the Bay of Pigs and when it told us that the USSR was a massively powerful threat. Talk about government waste, waste that useless agency.
The CIA is never going to be 100% accurate ... its the nature of their work, but if you don't think the USSR was a threat even if they only had a handful of nuclear weapons then you are being very naive given the political climate at that time. Also, the Bay of Pigs failed in large part because Kennedy cancelled critical air support at the last minute -- that wasn't the CIA's mistake. His timid response reminds me of Carters equally timid, late, and failed attempt to rescue our hostages in Iran. At least Kennedy learned from his experience and was more successful during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As for your question about why the CIA, more recently, didn't inform the Congress "for seven years" about a 'plan' -- not an 'action', then please read "bcaldwells" posts on this page ... he can inform you with facts to supplement your emotions.
Wait a minute! When did the US electorate elect Dick Cheney President of the US? Where did he get the authority to tell the CIA what to do? Is anyone upset about that fact alone?
no... mauiboy
hehe, how stupid would you have had to have been in 2000 to think that Bush would actually be the leader of his administration? The dude obviously doesn't have the tools it takes to actually be the leader. Did a great job of getting the 'necks and "speak american" types to vote for Cheney though! Damn I'd like to drink a beer with him!
Is it that hard to inform congress to what your doing you do have get funding for it.Not unless your hiding something
Actually if you read the article, it was simply a an idea , a plan, a study that never went any further than the investigation stage. To make a mountain out of this embryonic mole hill is ridiculous. This program that was being thought about is not without precedent though in that the CIA and the NSA has had the power for decades to conduct operations of this manner. Typically Congress is informed once the operation has come together and is ready to be executed.
Congress in 2001 gave the executive branch the power to do such a thing in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in fact, Congressional approval is not always needed. When I was in Afghanistan in 2002-2003, we were given the green light as soldiers to take out al Qaeda or Taliban types if the situation called for it meaning; if attempting to capture that individual(s) could result in unnecessary danger to you or those under your command, then killing the target was allowed.
As it turns out, this program was never feasible anyway given the conditions that one would be in in attempting to find, identify and execute. Probably why this never got iff the ground. There are hundreds of brain farts that float around the CIA on a daily basis, some never get out of the fart stages and most that do get out of the brain fart stage never get out of the feasibilty stage. Once they get out of the feasibilty stage however, and move to planning , that's when the CIA and other agencies go to Congress. This is how it has been for ....forever.
Your sanctimony on this one is a bit over the top. Also, the 1975 law that prohibits assassinations only applies to recognized officials of state. It does not ...does not apply in the case of al Qaeda which is extra governmental at best. If we took out Bin Laden in a black op,I'm not sure anyone would have standing to complain or file suit. The ACLU can't, our European "allies" can't, the Taliban can't and al Qaeda certainly can't.
Thank you for your very informative message. This is what I would expect the CIA to do. Otherwise, what's the point in having them at all.
Pelosi and the Congressional democrats screamed that they hadn't been informed about waterboarding....until the CIA officers and the written meeting logs proved Pelosi and the democrats were lying.
Now the democrats are screaming again that the US shouldn't be trying to kill Bin Laden.
Helloooo Democrats. Theres a war going on. A basic rule of military strategy is to kill the opposition leadership during a war. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, you know.
And.....they scuttled Bush on Iraq and were adamant that Bin Laden be caught and the war rage in Afghanistan, where we had a reason to be.
This user is no longer registered.
Before any of you who want to crucify Cheney and the CIA start making ridiculous assumptions about misleading the Congress, it might be good to know how the process works.
Congress and the president authorize the military and intelligence services to devise ways to win wars and subdue our enemies (yes, we have REAL enemies). In this law, there is "X" amount of dollars budgeted to the CIA for the development of programs that will help to acheive this end. As I stated before, there are a lot of brain farts that drift around intelligence agencies- a lot of creative thinkers if you will. Someone says, "hey why don't we come up with a plan to capture or even assassinate al Qaeda leaders???!!!" This idea is intriguing to some chief in the CIA and since he has money in his budget to explore ways of beating the enemy, he spends the money looking into the development of all of this- before it even goes into a feasability study. The fact that it never really came to any fruition and was never close to being implemented means that there must have been a great many career intel officials who determined that this would not work.
Trust me, you do NOT want Congress hearing about every crazy ideas that intelligence guys are dreaming up and exploring. Most of this stuff is pie in the sky and fantastical. If you were to aprise Congressional comittees are even the heads of every idea that is being explored and examined, people like Jane Harmon(D) and Pete Hoekstra(R) might just want to move in at the CIA because they could never leave- too much stuff it would make your eyes glaze over.
Congress and the heads of those committees have told the CIA and the NSA more than once that they want to hear about programs as they are being moved to the execution and planning stages because then they know they are dealing with something important. To inform Congress about every step you are even thinking about puts them to sleep- and that's when it gets dangerous.
Hmmm... Obama's numbers star to slide and we all of a sudden have a brand new scandal about Bush/Cheney? On a program that was approved by Congress that "gasp!" tried to kill terrorist leaders? The Obama machine is smooth. The smoothest we've seen at controlling the press to this point. If you want to wake up visit www.myangryelephant.com We try to be fair.
And if you're interested in doing more than just posting on comments sections, send a writing sample to myangryelephant@yahoo.com We're looking for applicants from both the right and the left.
How many times has the CIA done it's bidding around the world to the DETRIMENT of the ideals of the US. Read "The Shock Doctrine" and understand that the CIA has undermined our national interests abroad before, which is why the are mandated to brief members of congress about their programs. I don't buy in to the argument that it was only an idea that was "trial-ballooned" for eight years. Even the previous administrator wasn't aware of the program. Where does Cheney get away with telling the CIA not to contact congress about any program. A plan to assassinate foreign leaders is what prompted the Congressional mandate in the first place. There are too many unanswered questions about this and other programs of the previous administration. It's time for some of that transparency to come out that those on both sides of the hill have been complaining about lately
Perhaps the sun or the stuff they grow in Maui is getting to your head. This plan as reported was never really a plan even as the CIA goes, This was an idea that Cheney may have floated out there, Someone perhaps Tenet to placate his boss diverts a small portion of his budget into researching (brain farts)an idea to either assassinate or capture Al Qaeda leaders who are NOT covered under the 1975 law that Ford signed. Also if you read the Patriot Act it basically gives the CIA a green light to do such a thing. Panetta is a political hack with no experience in intel and he probably did this to throw his good frien Nancy Pelosi a bone to help her out, He should know better because development groups like this are common place throughout the CIA. if what the NYT and WSJ are saying about the money spent on this program, the intel chiefs probably kept it alive just to keep Cheney happy... certainly nothing has come of it and if it did, I suspect that Pelosi, John Conyers, Dick Durbin and possibly Diane Fienstein and Barbara Boxer would be the only ones losing sleep over a plan to possibly kill people who were trying to kill us.
Additionally, those who decry the CIA I suppoose do so out of a misplaced belief that the US has grand ideals....we never had, we've had great PR about our ideals, but in practice and reality, we act like any rational actor would when it comes to our interests. All nations have intelligence agencies, the bigger the country, the bigger th intelligence agency. The Soviets had the KGB, the GDR had the Stassi, the British have MI 6 and 5, the French have the Securite, the Chineese have their version and the US the CIA. The truth is, we need an apparatus like the CIA if we are to be a world power.
I suppose many on this site would rather that we capture these people bundle them up and hand them over to US Marshalls or the FBI so that they could be arragned in Manhattan at the Federal Court building so that a Magistrate could hold them over for trial. Yes, we can offer Zawahiri and Bin Laden constitutional protections and I suppose we do this so that we can show the world the Majesty of our system and that somehow the rest of the world by seeing all this will see that we are good and idealistic people that believe in justice. Yeah and the Cubs are on the verge of a baseball dynasty. This is nothing. You have a better case about complaining about torture(waterboarding - something that all Marines are subjected to by the way) and renditions(been going on for 15 years -ask Holder if you dare) than you do about this.
The main problem I have with the CIA is that they do not have any accountability. Hopefully I am wrong, but I wonder if it has become so large and secretive that no one really knows everything that goes on and if what they are doing is working or not. I would think that after 8 years they could at least have a plan to get Bin Laden and other leaders. Maybe we are trying to use high tech to find them when low tech and more person to person techniques would be more effective.
The intelligence they are gathering a lot of times seems questionable or out right wrong. The individuals who work there are probably so protective of their projects you probably could not get a truthful answer if you asked them if it is working or if a change of stragedy would be more effective.
The point of an intelligence agency is to be secret or it does not work. If you broadcast what you are doing then what's the point? Typically, the guys at Langely do get it right, but their assessment of how to divulge this info for public consumption can be a bit over protective. But, understand this, the only way CIA ops become public is through the OK of the Senate Intel committe, the House Intel committee and the executive branch in consultation with the AG. If one of those players objects to the info getting out or how it is to be presented, it does not get out. that's the dirty secret that neither the Republicans or Democrats want to tell. This is theatre...nothing more.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.