WSJ's Siobhan Gorman breaks the secret CIA program. "A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter."

See some of my questions in the update before it came out this morning:

Update: I don't know what it was -- and will be overtaken hopefully by revelation of what it program really was. But if it was say contemplating collection on "bad guys" for being taken out without the consent/cooperation of liaison services in allied countries like Germany whence some of the 9/11 hijackers had come to the US -- without apparently the a) decision to do it b) with affirmative Cheney order not to brief any iteration of the Congressional oversight committees - gang of 4, gang of 8, -- there are still several questions:

1) it had to be something that Panetta could still have "cancelled" June 22nd when he learned about it. So did the collection program exist, if not the action part of it it would have implied?

2) they were already collecting on the suspected bad guys in allied
countries and elsewhere -- so was this (not yet proved, entirely hypothetical/speculative) a separate collection channel? a program where the collection would have been channeled just to a small group -- including Cheney -- for considering action?

3) was there a Bush finding?

Munich?

According to Gorman's story, there was a finding.

Continued pure speculation from Siobhan's tremendous work. That what was so controversial about the collection program that even Bush/Cheney never implemented that we yet know was that it envisioned taking out targets without consulting allies in allied countries. Not just killing bad guys on the battlefield or in non allied countries, etc.

Because certainly a) collection on bad guys already was and is happening and is hardly the least bit controversial and b) as we know from drone strikes in Yemen previously, etc. -- they did already authorize taking out al qaeda suspects on occasion. See this (h/t Marcy Wheeler).

So - the CIA is obviously already collecting on the suspected bad guys. That's paid for. That's what they are supposed to do. And US is trying to kill them on the battlefield in Afghanistan, in drone attacks in places like Pakistan and Yemen and Afghanistan, etc.

So what was so controversial here that Cheney wouldn't allow it to be briefed to Congress? And cost so (according to Hoekstra in WSJ) little?

Perhaps not a whole separate collection on bad guys effort (after all, what else would anyone expect the CIA to do after 9/11 but do as much collection on suspected bad guys everywhere?), but a separate (computer/database ?) channel for collection, going to Cheney, that was about contemplating killing/capturing or training people to do so in countries where it would have been controversial to be found doing so?

Unlike say Yemen, where the US did it? Without an extraordinary degree of controversy, at least here? (Or was Yemen an outgrowth of this finding?)

In other words: it cost too little to be a whole separate collection program. That is what all these CIA station chiefs and case officers were doing, one thought - collecting info on suspected bad guys all around the world.

So this separate super secret not implemented collection program - that it cost so little and the controversial nature of it -- are what's perplexing to me.

Speculation: that they might get caught having contemplated killing people in france germany britain or italy etc. without consulting allies is enough for Dems to go bonkers - and Republicans like Hoesktra to say they might have contemplated it September 12 - but not after. You don't want to lose your alliance in the war on terror over this.

Also - wonder if there is some sort of regular renewal required for whatever "finding" or whatever authorized this collection program at the CIA. And that is why it was brought to the attention of Panetta only June 22nd (renewal every six months? Every year?) Perhaps it only then too rose to the top of pile of things the new DCI general counsel learned about as well.

(And, nb, Seymour Hersh reported on this.)

Update 2: talked to a former CIA CTC official who thinks it was assassination that was the controversy and that it was unlikely to be contemplated for countries in Europe since they were getting so much cooperation from them, etc. but more sending CIA special teams to hunt and kill targets into places like Pakistan. And that they would not brief Congress because sending people into harms way where if they get caught could not help them, etc, he said.

He said when military does the same thing, it's okay, but when CIA does it and it's called assassination and problematic.

"The difference is the hunting and killing aspect. When you send U.S. CIA officers on the ground inside Pakistan to hunt and kill people -- when that's done by the military special forces - it's ok, legal, military. When agency does it, it's assassination. September 25 (when it was authorized in a finding), they were in a panic." Why would program be canceled if now it's an open secret US is using drones to kill suspected bad guys in Pakistan, etc. " The program went as far as collection and lost the target. Or they militarized it. There was a tremendous battle over who had lethal operational" authority for any lethal action.

Posted by Laura at July 12, 2009 08:52 PM