CIA hired private contractors for secret assassination project

[Peikko 1,575]

The CIA hired contractors from the controversial private security firm Blackwater to take part in a secret operation to track down and assassinate members of al-Qaida, it was reported today.

According to the New York Times, the deal with the firm, Blackwater USA, was agreed in 2004 but was only revealed to Congress in June this year after it was discovered by the CIA's new director, Leon Panetta.

The Blackwater deal did not result in any assassinations, the report said, as it ran into legal, practical and diplomatic difficulties, and the programme was closed down before Panetta took over in February. It is unclear whether the firm's employees, many of them former soldiers from US special forces, were meant to carry out the killings or simply help with training and surveillance.

However, it is a damaging revelation, illustrating the extent to which the Bush administration's "war on terror" was outsourced – in this instance to a company surrounded by controversy for a string of incidents in Iraq in which Blackwater guards were found to have opened fire without justification. The Iraqi government consequently refused to renew the company's operating licence. Earlier this year the North Carolina-based firm changed its name to Xe Services. According to today's report it still has classified contracts with the CIA.

The report also draws attention to the Bush presidency's practice of loosening legal constraints on the CIA's counterterrorist operations and failing to inform Congress. Former vice-president ####### Cheney has defended both the measures taken and the administration's secrecy, arguing they were justified by the special circumstances of the "war on terror".

The Abu Ghraib prison scandal brought to light the CIA's use of private companies to interrogate suspected terrorists, but Blackwater's involvement in a programme of targeted killing raises even more serious questions of accountability.

An internal CIA review of the programme found that the CIA leadership under the Bush administration did not think it was necessary to tell Congress because the project was not far enough advanced.

However, one unnamed official told the New York Times: "It's wrong to think this counterterrorism program was confined to briefing slides or doodles on a cafeteria napkin … it went well beyond that."

Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, refused to give details of the programme but said: "Director Panetta thought this effort should be briefed to Congress, and he did so. He also knew it hadn't been successful, so he ended it."

Some Democratic congressmen believe the outsourced assassination programme may be one of many covert operations that have yet to be uncovered, and have called for further investigations of the secret side of America's "war on terror".

Link

Outrageous government spending? Yeah, and it's got nothing to do with bailouts or health care!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Something I seem to remember from a while back was that not long after 9/11 the Bush administration repealed a law that basically limited what the CIA was allowed to do (a law that was brought in after the Bay of Pigs fiasco under Kennedy).

Of course, outsourcing wet work and torture gives the government plausible deniability when it comes to discussing the legalities of these things (something the last administration relied on extensively to justify its actions in Iraq and Afghanistan).

Edited August 20, 2009 by Private Pike

[tmma 467]

This is not news and nothing new. They've been doing this for years-albeit the 'contractors' have different names and different...uhm....'skill sets'........But in reference to Blackwater and their presence in Iraq and Afghanistan- honestly anyone who is suprised at this is either naive or been living under a rock since the Iraq conflict started.

[Peikko 1,575]

This is not news and nothing new. They've been doing this for years-albeit the 'contractors' have different names and different...uhm....'skill sets'........But in reference to Blackwater and their presence in Iraq and Afghanistan- honestly anyone who is suprised at this is either naive or been living under a rock since the Iraq conflict started.

Hold on a minute. No one has suggested this is 'something new' - personally I don't know if this is commonplace in US governments or not but each case that is uncovered must be scrutinized in the press and in congress or we are simply complicit in this. So, yes, this is news whether or not anyone is 'surprised' by it or not.

[tmma 467]

This is not news and nothing new. They've been doing this for years-albeit the 'contractors' have different names and different...uhm....'skill sets'........But in reference to Blackwater and their presence in Iraq and Afghanistan- honestly anyone who is suprised at this is either naive or been living under a rock since the Iraq conflict started.

Hold on a minute. No one has suggested this is 'something new' - personally I don't know if this is commonplace in US governments or not but each case that is uncovered must be scrutinized in the press and in congress or we are simply complicit in this. So, yes, this is news whether or not anyone is 'surprised' by it or not.

Cool your jets, Cleo. It's commonplce in just about all Governments ( including the UK). Do they scrutinize covert ops there? Anyway-it's not at all suprising either way.

Edited August 20, 2009 by tmma

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

This is not news and nothing new. They've been doing this for years-albeit the 'contractors' have different names and different...uhm....'skill sets'........But in reference to Blackwater and their presence in Iraq and Afghanistan- honestly anyone who is suprised at this is either naive or been living under a rock since the Iraq conflict started.

I think the question is to what extent this is legal, and if it was, why the CIA wasnt doing it directly.

Here's what I think - if the CIA were to look into this sort of programme it would require Congressional approval. That isn't the case in relation to private contractors who operate (at least they did until people got wind of what was going on) in a legal vaccuum for the purposes of prosecution. In other words using private contractors allows the government to wash its hands of any wrongdoing by making sure that the chain of responsibility never reaches up to the executive level.

Its much the same reason how Bush and Cheney could blame the intelligence agencies for providing "bad intelligence", when there is evidence to the effect that the policy was pre-determined and that the government was just looking for intelligence to justify a decision that had already been made.

[Peikko 1,575]

This is not news and nothing new. They've been doing this for years-albeit the 'contractors' have different names and different...uhm....'skill sets'........But in reference to Blackwater and their presence in Iraq and Afghanistan- honestly anyone who is suprised at this is either naive or been living under a rock since the Iraq conflict started.

Hold on a minute. No one has suggested this is 'something new' - personally I don't know if this is commonplace in US governments or not but each case that is uncovered must be scrutinized in the press and in congress or we are simply complicit in this. So, yes, this is news whether or not anyone is 'surprised' by it or not.

Cool your jets, Cleo. It's commonplce in just about all Governments ( including the UK). Do they scrutinize covery ops there? Anyway-it's not at all suprising either way.

Covery ops? I am interested in accountability and this does raise questions which need to be answered regardless of whether this is new or even widespread, in my opinion of course

[tmma 467]

This is not news and nothing new. They've been doing this for years-albeit the 'contractors' have different names and different...uhm....'skill sets'........But in reference to Blackwater and their presence in Iraq and Afghanistan- honestly anyone who is suprised at this is either naive or been living under a rock since the Iraq conflict started.

Hold on a minute. No one has suggested this is 'something new' - personally I don't know if this is commonplace in US governments or not but each case that is uncovered must be scrutinized in the press and in congress or we are simply complicit in this. So, yes, this is news whether or not anyone is 'surprised' by it or not.

Cool your jets, Cleo. It's commonplce in just about all Governments ( including the UK). Do they scrutinize covery ops there? Anyway-it's not at all suprising either way.

Covery ops? I am interested in accountability and this does raise questions which need to be answered regardless of whether this is new or even widespread, in my opinion of course

Typo. Corrected.

IYO. ok.

[Peikko 1,575]

Ah, covert. Yes, anything that's iffy is scrutinized in the press if information becomes available to the press.

[meowmeowmeow 1]

big shock

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

The Blackwater deal did not result in any assassinations,

Move along, no story here.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The Blackwater deal did not result in any assassinations,

Move along, no story here.

Kind of like if you plan a bank robbery but are arrested after you've already decided not to go through with it?