Targeting Americans?

Isn't that what terrorists do?

Report: CIA Assassin Program Could Operate Anywhere -- Even Inside U.S.
Since the news broke (sub. req.) at the start of the week that CIA director Leon Panetta had pulled the plug on a secret program to assassinate or capture al Qaeda leaders, we've been raising questions about one key aspect of the story. In particular, what was it about the program that was so shocking that Dick Cheney reportedly ordered it kept secret from Congress, Panetta quashed it as soon as he heard about it, and Congressional Democrats risked being painted as soft on terror by shrieking about being kept in the dark?

We may have gotten a good piece of the answer here: The Washington Post reports today on how the program had been revived and then put on hold several times since 2001. But it also says, referring to the "presidential finding" with which President Bush authorized the program in 2001:

The finding imposed no geographical limitations on the agency's actions, and intelligence officials have said that they were not obliged to notify Congress of each operation envisaged under the directive.

"No geographical limitations" presumably means that operations could potentially be carried out in countries, friendly or unfriendly, that are far from any war zone -- including even the US itself. And it seems likely that they would be carried out without notifying the foreign country in question.

Just thinking back to the days during the anthrax attacks. Remember the odd deaths of an astonishing crowd of microbiologists? If, for example, take Cheney... If he had had a hand, say... in sending militarized anthrax to governmental and news media offices... wouldn't he want that covered up?

You know it would be irresponsible not to speculate....

After all that blathering face time with the nation

Has Cheney finally gone to ground as the fingers begin to point to him?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The CIA withheld information about a secret counter-terrorism program from Congress for eight years on orders from former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, the New York Times said on Saturday.

Citing two unidentified sources, the newspaper said Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta disclosed Cheney's involvement in closed briefings to congressional intelligence committees late last month.

Panetta, who was named to head the agency earlier this year by President Barack Obama, ended the program, which remains secret, when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, the Times said.

Intelligence and congressional officials told the newspaper the agency began the program after the September 11 attacks and said it never became operational and did not involve CIA interrogation programs or domestic intelligence activities.

The newspaper said its efforts to reach Cheney through relatives and associates were unsuccessful.

That's the excuse the CIA is going to stand by? Cheney made us do it? ...



... all righty then... works for me!

Cheney probably thought he wasn't being that obvious

But I'm sure he has his 'I-told-you-so' speech already written and locked in one of his man-sized safes...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA director Leon Panetta says it's almost as if former vice president Dick Cheney would like to see another attack on the United States to prove he is right in criticizing President Barack Obama for abandoning the "harsh interrogation" of terrorism suspects.

"I think he smells some blood in the water on the national security issue," Panetta said in an interview published in The New Yorker magazine's June 22 issue.

"It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point."