WASHINGTON: As much as the Obama Administration wants to focus on current issues, this is one jack-in-the-box that they can’t keep locked up.
The problem is that, during the Bush administration, the CIA ran a secret program for nearly eight years that aspired to kill top Al-Qaeda leaders with specially trained assassins, but the agency declined to tell Congress, allegedly because the initiative never came close to bringing Osama Bin Laden and his deputies into US cross hairs.
Because the program never carried out any missions and because Congress had already signed off on the agency’s broad authorities after Sept. 11, the officials and some Republican legislators said the CIA was not required to brief lawmakers on specifics of the program.
But congressional Democrats are furious that the program had not been shared with the Senate and House Oversight Committees which were created by law in the 1970s as a direct response to disclosures of CIA abuses, notably including assassination plots against Patrice Lumumba of Congo and Fidel Castro in Cuba. In 1976, President Gerald Ford issued as executive order banning assassinations.
What makes things a bit confusing here is that this ban does not apply to the killing of enemies in a war, government officials say. So the Bush administration took the position that killing members of Al-Qaeda, a terrorist group that has attacked the US and stated that its goal is to attack again, is no different than shooting enemy soldiers ion the battlefield.
Making this even more complicated is that the Obama administration, which has continued to fire missiles from Predator drones on suspected Al-Qaeda members in Pakistan, has taken the same view.
All this took off last week, seven House Democrats on the Intelligence Committee released a report revealing that CIA Director Leon Panetta had “recently testified to Congress that the agency concealed information and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001” about an unidentified CIA operation that was an “on-again, off-again” effort until Panetta stopped it in June.
Then the New York Times reported on Saturday that former Vice President Dick Cheney gave “direct orders” for the program to be concealed from Congress.
On Tuesday, an intelligence official hinted to the Washington Times that the program “involved assassinations overseas but declined to provide further details.”
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the now-terminated initiative “was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill Al-Qaeda operatives.”
The WSJ also wrote that in 2001, the CIA “examined the subject of targeted assassinations of Al-Qaeda leaders,” but “it appears that those discussions tapered off within six months” and it “isn’t clear whether they were an early part of the CIA initiative that Mr. Panetta stopped.”
The plan was never carried out, and Panetta canceled the effort on the day he learned of it, June 23. The next day, he alerted Congress, which didn’t know about the plan.
Though some Republicans acknowledge that its “wrong if somebody told the CIA not to inform the appropriate members of Congress,” several GOP lawmakers have sought to defend Cheney and resist an investigation.
The revelation has intensified a growing battle between the executive branch and Congress over the conduct of the CIA and US intelligence operations.
Democrats in Congress are calling for an investigation into whether or not it was properly briefed on the matter. Congress frequently feuded with the Bush Administration over intelligence matters. Democrats expected that tension would abate under the Obama Administration, but lawmakers have frequently found themselves at odds with Obama’s decisions to continue or not investigate controversial intelligence policies initiated under George W. Bush.
The tug-of-war will enter a new round as soon as this week, when the House is expected to take up a bill that would expand congressional oversight of intelligence activities, especially of covert-action programs. The White House has said it would veto the bill if passed.
