Big Scary CIA Program Democrats Are Freaked Out About? It Involved Plans To Kill Or Capture Al Qaeda Members In Wake Of 9/11

Last week Democrats and the media (BIRM) wet their collective pants over a super-secret and scary program that CIA Director Leon Panetta canceled the second he found about it.

What could cause Panetta such fear and anger? Well, it seems the previous administration considered ways to, I hope you are sitting down when you read this, kill or capture members of al Qaeda!

According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting on a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts. The initiative hadn't become fully operational at the time Mr. Panetta ended it.

In 2001, the CIA also examined the subject of targeted assassinations of al Qaeda leaders, according to three former intelligence officials. It appears that those discussions tapered off within six months. It isn't clear whether they were an early part of the CIA initiative that Mr. Panetta stopped.

Awesome, almost 8 years after 9/11 and the CIA is still working on this idea and haven't developed a plan for this? Are they backed up doing threat assessments on the Warsaw Pact or something?

And don't you feel safer knowing the Director of CIA immediately upon finding out that the CIA might actually come up with a way to kill or capture top al Qaeda leaders canned the effort? What happened to getting bin Laden as Job One?

Now congressional Democrats are in an uproar because they weren't told about the program. Except they were told and there really wasn't a program anyway.

The official noted that Congress had long been briefed on the finding, and that the CIA effort wasn't so much a program as "many ideas suggested over the course of years." It hadn't come close to fruition, he added.

Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said little had been spent on the efforts -- closer to $1 million than $50 million. "The idea for this kind of program was tossed around in fits and starts," he said.

Here's the odd thing, according to the article Bush and Cheney opposed the idea of issuing a 'kill on sight' order against certain al Qaeda leaders (though they did authorize it if captured proved too difficult or dangerous). Given our use of CIA owned and operated Predator drones that everyone knows about, what exactly is the big deal here?

This seems like nothing more than a minor skirmish in the ongoing war between CIA and people like Nancy Pelosi. The thing is by over playing this, it seems like Panetta is taking Pelosi's side.

CIA spend a lot of time and energy warring with the Bush administration. Now it looks like they are going to be fighting it out with the Democrats and their own director.

Good think we aren't at war or facing a terrorist threat or anything so we have time for this crap.

Breaking: Dick Durbin doesn't know his massive ass from his elbow. A reminder, Durbin is the number 2 man in the Senate behind Harry Reid.

posted by DrewM. at 10:34 AM

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