washingtonpost.com: CIA Weighs 'Targeted Killing' Missions\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>
\nCIA Weighs 'Targeted Killing' Missions<\/b>\n
Administration Believes Restraints Do Not Bar Singling Out Individual Terrorists\n<\/p>
By Barton Gellman
\nWashington Post Staff Writer
\n\nSunday, October 28, 2001; Page A01 \n\n<\/p>
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Armed with new authority from President Bush for a global\r\ncampaign against al Qaeda, the Central Intelligence Agency is contemplating\r\nclandestine missions expressly aimed at killing specified individuals for\r\nthe first time since the assassination scandals and consequent legal restraints\r\nof the 1970s.<\/p>
Drawing on two classified legal memoranda, one written\r\nfor President Bill Clinton in 1998 and one since the attacks of Sept. 11,\r\nthe Bush administration has concluded that executive orders banning assassination\r\ndo not prevent the president from lawfully singling out a terrorist for death\r\nby covert action. The CIA is reluctant to accept a broad grant of authority\r\nto hunt and kill U.S. enemies at its discretion, knowledgeable sources said.\r\nBut the agency is willing and believes itself able to take the lives of terrorists\r\ndesignated by the president.<\/p>
Clinton authorized covert lethal force\r\nagainst al Qaeda beginning in 1998, and The Washington Post reported last\r\nSunday that Bush has signed a more encompassing intelligence \"finding\" that\r\ncalls for attacks on newly identified weaknesses in Osama bin Laden's communications,\r\nsecurity apparatus and infrastructure.<\/p>
Bush's directive broadens the\r\nclass of potential targets beyond bin Laden and his immediate circle of operational\r\nplanners, and also beyond the present boundaries of the fight in Afghanistan,\r\nofficials said.But it also holds the potential to target violence more narrowly\r\nthan its precedents of the past 25 years because previous findings did not\r\npermit explicit planning for the death of an individual.<\/p>
Bush and his\r\nnational security Cabinet have been plain about their intention to find and\r\nkill bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader the administration blames for the Sept.\r\n11 attacks.<\/p>
The public face of that campaign is a conventional war\r\nin Afghanistan using uniformed troops. Yet inside the CIA and elsewhere in\r\ngovernment, according to sources, much of the debate turns on the scope of\r\na targeted killing campaign. How wide should the government draw the circle\r\naround bin Laden? And in which countries -- among the 40 or so where al Qaeda\r\nis believed to operate -- may such efforts be attempted?<\/p>
Though there\r\nare differences on those matters, some officials observed that the agency\r\nis surprisingly undivided in its willingness to undertake the mission.<\/p>
\r\n\"There's nothing involved in this operation that isn't being debated by somebody\r\nsomewhere, but our responsibilities are pretty clear to those who have the\r\ntop secret code-word clearance and the need to know,\" said a senior intelligence\r\nofficial.<\/p>
Botched assassinations in the 1960s and 1970s, and their\r\nairing in congressional hearings in 1974, left deep scars on the CIA. Executive\r\norders signed by three presidents since, beginning Feb. 18, 1976, were interpreted\r\nuntil recently as forbidding clandestine acts of targeted killing.<\/p>
\r\nIt is significant that the directive Bush signed last month took the form\r\nof a presidential finding. As defined in the Hughes-Ryan amendment of 1974\r\nand the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980, a finding concerns only the use\r\nof appropriated funds for covert action by intelligence agencies. The military\r\nchain of command uses separate legal instruments called operations orders,\r\nnumbered sequentially and prefixed by year.<\/p>
As officials debate the\r\nnew finding, the new consensus position, according to a participant in the\r\ndiscussions, is that \"we should use all the weapons at our disposal.\" He\r\nlikened targeted killings to \"clipping toenails\" because al Qaeda is capable\r\nof growing a new cohort of leaders. \"It won't solve the whole problem, but\r\nit's part of the solution.\"<\/p>
The CIA's Directorate of Operations, which\r\nruns the clandestine service, is mindful of a traumatizing past in which\r\nassassination attempts in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East were\r\nblamed on rogue agents when they failed. The agency is determined to leave\r\nno room this time for \"plausible denial\" of responsibility on the part of\r\nthe president and the agency's top management. That does not mean that operations\r\nwill be publicly proclaimed, one source said, but that the paper trail inside\r\ngovernment must begin undeniably with \"the political leadership.\"<\/p>
The\r\nSenate Select Committee on Intelligence, remembered commonly as the Church\r\ncommittee, reported on Nov. 20, 1975, that plots against five foreign leaders\r\nunder Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon\r\nwere deliberately organized in terms \"so ambiguous that it is difficult to\r\nbe certain at what levels assassination activity was known and authorized.\"<\/p>
\r\n\"The important thing is that the accountability chain is clear,\" said John\r\nC. Gannon, who retired in June as deputy director of central intelligence,\r\nthe agency's second-ranking position, in comments that mirrored those of\r\ncolleagues who declined to be named. \"I would want the president's guidance\r\nto be as clear as it could be, including the names of individuals. You've\r\ngot to have the political levels behind you so the intelligence officers\r\nare not left hanging.\"<\/p>
With explicit authority, he said, \"I think the\r\ncase officers are capable [of targeted killing] and would follow instructions,\r\nand would, I think, have the capability of succeeding.\"<\/p>
National security\r\nofficials noted that the White House and at least three executive departments\r\nalready maintain lists in which terrorists are singled out by name. Executive\r\nOrder 12947, signed by Clinton on Jan. 23, 1995, introduced a legal category\r\nof \"specially designated terrorists.\" The list is maintained and amended\r\nby the secretary of state and by Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.\r\nMost recently the FBI named 22 men on Oct. 10 as its \"most wanted terrorists,\"\r\nof whom 13 are linked to al Qaeda.<\/p>
One view, apparently a minority\r\nposition but one expressed in private recently by two senior managers in\r\nthe Directorate of Operations, is that the clandestine service should target\r\nnot only commanders but also financiers of al Qaeda. \"You have to go after\r\nthe Gucci guys, the guys who write the checks,\" said one person reflecting\r\nthat view. It is easier to find financiers, he said, and killing them would\r\nhave dramatic impact because they are not commonly prepared to die for their\r\ncause.<\/p>
\"You can make the case that getting the funding people would\r\nhave a tremendously chilling effect\" on al Qaeda's capacity to raise and\r\nmove money, acknowledged Frederick P. Hitz, who was inspector general of\r\nthe CIA from 1990 to 1998 and is not generally in favor of targeted killing.<\/p>
\r\nRep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga.), who introduced a \"Terrorist Elimination\r\nAct\" eight months before the Sept. 11 attacks, said fundraisers are legitimate\r\ntargets for death. \"Under traditional terms of war, those who assist belligerents\r\nare belligerents,\" he said.<\/p>
A more common view among those willing\r\nto discuss the matter was that any list of terrorists marked for death will\r\nlikely be short.<\/p>
\"Some of these guys are potential recruitment targets\r\nto be debriefed,\" one case officer noted. Many others are in countries in\r\nwhich local circumstances make the political risks of covert homicide very\r\nhigh. The case officer said that opinions will certainly be \"more split in\r\nthe directorate the farther you get away from bin Laden.\"<\/p>
If Bush has\r\ndrawn up such a list, it is among the most closely held secrets of government.\r\nIt could not be learned whether names have been proposed to him by the clandestine\r\nservice, or whether he has signed orders that would amount to individual\r\ndeath warrants.<\/p>
Spokesmen for the White House and the CIA declined\r\nto comment for this article. But the administration has laid down a public\r\nrecord that offers further evidence of the agency's new authority.<\/p>
\r\nOn Sept. 17, after Bush remarked that bin Laden is \"wanted dead or alive,\"\r\nWhite House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Executive Order 12333, signed Dec.\r\n4, 1981, by President Ronald Reagan, remains in effect. Like its counterparts\r\nunder Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter, Executive Orders 11905\r\nand 12306, the directive forbids assassination but does not define the term.\r\nFleischer declined four times to interpret the text. \"I'm going to just repeat\r\nmy words and others will figure out the exact implications of them, but it\r\ndoes not inhibit the nation's ability to act in self-defense,\" he said.<\/p>
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, speaking Oct. 15, went slightly further.<\/p>
\r\n\"It is certainly within the president's power to direct that, in our self-defense,\r\nwe take this battle to the terrorists and that means to the leadership and\r\ncommand and control capabilities of terrorist networks,\" he said.<\/p>
Whether\r\nsuch operations are within the agency's competence, or consistent with a\r\nculture that its employees describe as deeply risk averse, is another question.<\/p>
\r\nHitz, who supervised wide-ranging internal reviews of the lapses of the clandestine\r\nservice, said he doubts the agency is prepared for orders to kill.<\/p>
\r\n\"After fifty-plus years, the CIA is an organization of bureaucrats,\" Hitz\r\nsaid. \"This is not what intelligence officers do. They're not trained for\r\nit. And the intermediary stuff is what went to hell in times past. If you\r\ngo out and hire a bunch of brass knuckles types . . . it strikes me that\r\nthrows in the hopper all the things we learned about this bit of business\r\nin the Church committee investigations.\"<\/p>
The Church committee, for\r\nexample, exposed eight distinct plots against Cuban leader Fidel Castro's\r\nlife from 1960 to 1965, some of them comically inept. One effort, strongly\r\nresonant in the context of recent events, contaminated a box of Castro's\r\nfavorite cigars with botulinum toxin in February 1961. Another laid plans\r\nto place an exploding seashell at Castro's customary skin-diving venue; still\r\nanother infected a wet suit with poison fungus and proposed that U.S. negotiator\r\nJames B. Donovan present it to the Cuban leader as a gift.<\/p>
Today the\r\nDirectorate of Operations retains a \"special activities\" branch, but case\r\nofficers who retired recently said it has had neither status nor funding\r\nin recent years. \"The paramilitary part of the directorate has atrophied,\"\r\none case officer said.<\/p>
Senior officials said the president's finding\r\ndirects new forms of cooperation between the CIA and uniformed military commando\r\nunits. Some knowledgeable sources said it is also possible that the instruments\r\nof targeted killings will be foreign agents, the CIA's term for nonemployees\r\nwho act on its behalf. That is controversial, because it involves risks of\r\nbetrayal and conflicting agendas on the part of the agents, but it is also\r\nseen in parts of the agency as advantageous.<\/p>
\"As a force multiplier,\" one source said, \"we can use Jordanians and Sudanese and Egyptians that are willing to do this for us.\"<\/p>
\r\nThe legal basis for Bush's order is perhaps its least controversial aspect,\r\nat least among government lawyers who have studied the question.<\/p>
Since\r\nthe late Clinton administration, executive branch lawyers have held that\r\nthe president's inherent authority to use lethal force -- under Article 2,\r\nSection 2 of the Constitution -- permits an order to kill an individual enemy\r\nof the United States in self-defense.<\/p>
In 1998, an interagency group\r\nled by then-Assistant Attorney General Randy Moss produced a highly classified\r\nmemo of law on assassination. The group concluded that recent presidents\r\n-- from Reagan in Libya to Bush in Iraq -- had been needlessly cautious in\r\nordering broad attacks against enemy headquarters if their real objective\r\nwas to kill an individual leader. Because executive orders are entirely at\r\nthe discretion of the president, they wrote, a president may issue contrary\r\ndirectives at will and need not make public that he has done so.<\/p>
Under\r\ncustomary international law and Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, according\r\nto those familiar with the memo, taking the life of a terrorist to preempt\r\nan imminent or continuing threat of attack is analogous to self-defense against\r\nconventional attack.<\/p>
That interpretationwon out over a proposal by\r\nWalter Dellinger, Moss's predecessor, who wanted to amend Executive Order\r\n12333. Dellinger proposed to forbid assassination \"without the prior written\r\nexpress authorization of the president.\" Presidential \"findings\" on lethal\r\nforce, he said, were too often drafted overbroadly simply \"to avoid calling\r\nwhat we're doing 'assassination.' \"<\/p>
The Bush administration's update\r\nof that analysis is strengthened by the Joint Resolution of Congress of Sept.\r\n14, which gave the president authority to use \"all necessary and appropriate\r\nforce\" against \"persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or\r\naided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.\"<\/p>
The\r\nprospect of extrajudicial killings by the U.S. government is a departure\r\nfrom one of the touchstone intelligence restraints of the post-Vietnam era.\r\nIt inspires strong qualms among some of those who have thought about it professionally.<\/p>
\r\n\"In my heart I am often for assassination, but in my head not,\" said Anthony\r\nLake, Clinton's first national security adviser, reaching back toan Italian\r\nRenaissance family notorious for murder and fratricide for an analogy. \"Until\r\nyou can show me the firewall between those whose deaths you're positive would\r\nsave a large number of lives, and those about whom you're not positive, then\r\nI think you're on a slippery slope to becoming the Borgias.\"<\/p>
Staff researchers Mary Lou White and Margaret Smith contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p> \n<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n© 2001 The Washington Post Company\n <\/p>\n\n\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"Armed with new authority from President Bush for a global campaign against al Qaeda, the Central Intelligence Agency is contemplating clandestine ...","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/10\/cia.html","filesize":"14.2 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/10\/12505.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}