[Siuchingach]

You beat me to it, and your thread title is cleverer than mine would have been

[nAKMzyBN]

I don't know what is more frightening: Chaney giving the order to withhold information from Congress or the CIA following it.

[GustavM]

The program in question seems to be Cheney's secret, and highly illegal, assassination program which was revealed by the journalist Seymour Hersh (He's the guy who broke the story about the My Lai Massacre).

That was my first guess, then I read this passage in the Opening Article:

Officials quoted by the New York Times say the programme was launched by anti-terror operatives at the CIA soon after the 2001 attacks, and involved planning and training but never became fully operational.

Another unnamed official told AP it was an embryonic intelligence-gathering effort, aimed at yielding intelligence that would be used to conduct covert operations abroad. My understanding of Hersh's revelations were that Cheney's operation did NOT involve intelligence gather but rather that Cheney dispatched "hit teams" to assassinate high-level terrorists and others and that this operation was fully functional and that a number of targets were located and killed.

[xT0U3UGh]

1) This sounds like a whole lot of noise to try and defend Pelosi et. al. There was a secret program that was concealed from Congress! Except it never actually got beyond the planning stages and we won't tell you what it was... for all we know, it could have been a plan to replace all the coffee machines at Langley.

2) There are few things I could be less offended by than CIA operations to assassinate terrorists.

--Except assassinations are against U.S. law.

[Ruiceara]

Yes principles exist but a bit less for you, we know.

[Ngdyoysv]

--Except assassinations are against U.S. law.

Are they? What would you call these predator drone attacks against the hideouts of AQ leaders?

[lzwha]

Gosh- so hardcore and worldly-wise, and yet so young, tender and inexperienced...

... ah, Alles klar !

In 1976, President Ford issued Executive Order 11905 to clarify U.S. foreign intelligence activities. The order was enacted in response to the post-Watergate revelations that the CIA had staged multiple attempts on the life of Cuban President Fidel Castro.

In a section of the order labeled "Restrictions on Intelligence Activities," Ford outlawed political assassination: Section 5(g), entitled "Prohibition on Assassination," states: "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination."

...

Additionally, the Clinton administration fired cruise missiles at suspected guerrilla camps in Afghanistan in 1998 after the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/11/...nation.policy/
Eh, the key phrase in that article would be "political assassination," e.g. heads of state, ministers, etc. Who here can explain to me why that Order necessarily encompasses leaders of terrorist organizations hostile to the United States? Would blowing OBL's brains out be a "political assassination"?

[dahlilaninfo]

--Except assassinations are against U.S. law.

And so is an invasion of Canada and yet we plan for it anyway.

[blogwado]

Are they? What would you call these predator drone attacks against the hideouts of AQ leaders?

I was kind of wondering the same thing.

It seems that Cheney just didn't trust members of Congress with the information which is a major problem. Sometimes I wonder how long the federal structure of the government can hold with America being a superpower. Obviously not every member of Congress can be informed about all aspects of intelligence operations but it bothers me when they are shut out completely.

[Rellshare]

Obviously not every member of Congress can be informed about all aspects of intelligence operations but it bothers me when they are shut out completely.

It's not at all clear that the relevent parties were shut out of the loop or that the program met the legal requirement for being reported to Congress about.

As for Cheney not trusting Congress, is that a problem when they prove themselves untrustworthy?

[Hitfaromarf]

1) This sounds like a whole lot of noise to try and defend Pelosi et. al. There was a secret program that was concealed from Congress! Except it never actually got beyond the planning stages and we won't tell you what it was... for all we know, it could have been a plan to replace all the coffee machines at Langley.

So your charge is Panetta & co is willing to scapegoat CIA operations in order to cover Pelosi's hide?

[Xavier_Spinner_Wheels]

It's not at all clear that the relevent parties were shut out of the loop or that the program met the legal requirement for being reported to Congress about.

As for Cheney not trusting Congress, is that a problem when they prove themselves untrustworthy?

I'm far from being an apologist for most of the democratic members of Congress, but it doesn't matter if Cheney trusts them or not. It isn't his place to pick and choose who is trustworthy. If the CIA followed the procedures in place then all is well but if they didn't then there is a major problem with Dick just deciding who can be trusted and who can't. Surely you can see where that might lead. It doesn't matter what his intentions were, what matters is the message that it sends.

[FelixQY]

So your charge is Panetta & co is willing to scapegoat CIA operations in order to cover Pelosi's hide?

Nope. Didn't the initial leak about the program came from a Congressman, who presumably found out about it from a CIA leak?

[economex]

1. Cheney had no authority to order diddly-squat while the President was on duty.

Sure he does. The president is perfectly capable of delegating his authority.

[Zaebal]

The secret CIA program revealed to members of Congress late last month involved a series of planned attempts to assassinate top al-Qaeda leaders -- efforts that never progressed to an operational stage, according to current and former intelligence officials.

The CIA has long possessed the authorization, granted by President George W. Bush in a secret 2001 directive, to use lethal force against a small group of top al-Qaeda leaders whenever they were located. Although the agency's attacks on terrorist camps using pilotless aircraft is well documented, the CIA's program involved operatives "striking at two feet instead of 10,000 feet," a current intelligence official said.

Neither the officials nor the CIA would elaborate on the program or explain how it differed from other, well-understood attempts to destroy the group's senior leadership. But one current U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the program was small, intermittent and "exactly the kind of work people would expect the agency to be doing."

Both officials said the program never progressed to the point where congressional notification was required.

"It didn't go anywhere," the current intelligence official said.

The program touched off a political firestorm last week when several Democrat lawmakers complained that the CIA had misled Congress by failing to disclose its existence to the proper oversight committees.

Members of House and Senate intelligence committees said they were informed of the secret program by CIA Director Leon E. Panetta, who gave lawmakers a series of closed-door briefings shortly after he learned of the program himself. Two lawmakers quoted Panetta as saying that the program had been kept from Congress at the request of former vice president Richard B. Cheney.


Senior White House officials said Obama has been briefed on Panetta's decision since the president returned to Washington early Sunday morning. The officials said the White House was not consulted before Panetta cancelled the program but has had discussions about it in the aftermath of the decision. The officials declined to elaborate.

On Sunday, key Democrats called for investigation into whether the agency broke the law by failing to give required briefings to Congress. The claims of inappropriate secrecy also fueled calls for the Obama administration to launch a formal investigation into the CIA's counterterrorism policies under the Bush administration.

Some details about the CIA's reported kill-0r-capture program were first described in an article late yesterday on the Wall Street Journal's Web site. Today, former and current intelligence officials characterized the initiative as a series of discrete attempts to locate and kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his top deputies -- attempts that were associated with new leads about their possible whereabouts. Bin Laden is believed to be living in a rugged area along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"This was a well-guided, authorized activity that was conducted under the law," said a former senior intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the program's secrecy.

The current intelligence official said the program was small -- with expenditures of less than $1 million -- and would have relied on teams of operatives already available for covert strikes overseas. One reason for the failure was an inability to pinpoint bin Laden's precise location, the officials said.

Some Republican lawmakers who were briefed on the program said today that they were mystified by the controversy and perplexed by Panetta's reported decision to cancel the program.

Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond (R-Mo.), the ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence, said he asked Panetta during the briefing if the program was illegal or inappropriate and was told "no."

"So my third question was, 'Why did you stop it?' " Bond said. "What they've done is to put the CIA into a CYA position."

But Democrats said the problem wasn't the operation itself but the excessive secrecy. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), also a committee member, said the failure to disclose was typical of the previous administration, which he said was contemptuous of the oversight process.

"The vice president said 'Our way is the only way' -- and anyone who didn't subscribe was jeopardizing national security," Wyden said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...071302589.html

[cheapphenonline]

Tempest meet teapot

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Vice President Dick Cheney is getting a "bum rap" over reports that he ordered the CIA to withhold information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress, two former U.S. intelligence officials told CNN Monday.


Former Vice President Cheney reportedly told the CIA to withhold information about a counterterrorism program.

According to both officials, any intelligence program of "great sensitivity" is first approved by the White House after a series of meetings. In any such situation, once the administration decides to pursue a covert program, there is discussion on whether Congress needs to be briefed, the officials said.

President George W. Bush "delegated" then-Vice President Cheney to chair many of the meetings that followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the officials said.

At issue is CIA Director Leon Panetta's testimony last month to a congressional committee that he was told Cheney ordered the intelligence agency to withhold information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California and chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told "Fox News Sunday" that Panetta testified "he was told that the vice president had ordered that the program not be briefed to the Congress."

"I think this is a problem, obviously," Feinstein said, adding that the law requires full disclosure of such operations to Congress.

The disclosure by Panetta to both the Senate and House intelligence committees about Cheney's involvement was first reported in The New York Times.

Neither of the former officials who spoke to CNN would discuss the details of the program in question, but both said the CIA was developing a certain post-9/11 counterterrorism capacity.

As one official put it, "It should come as no surprise that we would go after the bad guys, the terrorists."

Both sources said the program that Panetta discussed fell under a presidential finding that broadly authorized covert counterterrorism activities. They said Congress had been briefed on that finding in the fall of 2001, and there was no requirement to brief lawmakers on a program that had not been implemented.

"When it goes operational, then you brief them," one of the former officials said.

The sources said the program was canceled several years ago -- but for reasons unknown to them, it was put back on the table though still not implemented. Panetta terminated the program when he found out about it last month.

Panetta briefed lawmakers on June 24 on an unspecified counterterrorism program, according to a letter from seven House Democrats to Panetta made public last Wednesday. The June 26 letter characterized Panetta as testifying that the CIA "concealed significant actions from all members of Congress, and misled members for a number of years from 2001 to this week."

The letter contained no details about what information the CIA officials allegedly concealed or how they purportedly misled members of Congress http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS...l?eref=edition