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CIA Assassination Programs: New Evidence


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It was reported over the weekend that the CIA director, Leon Panetta, has told the congressional intelligence committees that he has discovered a CIA secret operation that was being run by Dick Cheney. Panetta discovered that information about this program was withheld from Congress. So far, details of this illegal program has not yet been released to the public. However, rumours are suggesting that it might be linked to Seymour Hersh’s claim that Cheney oversaw an “executive assassination ring”.

Is this the reason that Don Bohning/CIA took objection to my article on Operation 40 where I argued that the CIA developed an assassination program in the early 1960s? An assassination program that Carl Jenkins and Chi Chi Quintero confessed had been used on John Kennedy. Maybe the CIA fear that this story will increase interest in previous assassination programs.

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AJ Weberman wrote on my facebook page: "CIA was going after real enemies for a change. They should be given a free hand when it comes to Islamists." I replied "I imagine that was the same argument used by right-wingers when the target was left-wing leaders in the 1960s and 1970s".

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AJ Weberman wrote on my facebook page: "CIA was going after real enemies for a change. They should be given a free hand when it comes to Islamists." I replied "I imagine that was the same argument used by right-wingers when the target was left-wing leaders in the 1960s and 1970s".

Shame on A.J. for that comment!....and I held him fairly highly for much of his JFK work. Well, he obviously has a blind-spot. Further, how the hell does he know who the 'enemies' (so-called) were in this little 'project'. Best I can tell, the 'enemies' of the Bush/Chaney gang included most progressive, independant thinking Americans and World citizens, as well as a few who might [MIGHT!] have meant harm to the US....but even most of them - to the extent I can determine - were either scapegoats and/or 'blowback' from prior covert ops of the USA itself. Assassination is illegal, immoral and only justified as a last defensive effort in time of Real war. Preemptive, offensive killing is always wrong, as are sham wars.

"It is not only a right but a duty to assassinate a tyrant."

- Dominican priest Frather Jean Qusset

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"It is not only a right but a duty to assassinate a tyrant."

- Dominican priest Frather Jean Qusset

I assume Qusset was talking about someone like Hitler. That is different because the crimes of Hitler or a political dictator are in the public arena.

I find the idea of the CIA working as a judge and executioner very disturbing. I am rather old fashioned and believe everyone deserves a fair trial. Are you in favour of the assassination of non-Muslims? Or is this a religious issue?

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"It is not only a right but a duty to assassinate a tyrant."

- Dominican priest Father Jean Qusset

I assume Qusset was talking about someone like Hitler. That is different because the crimes of Hitler or a political dictator are in the public arena.

I find the idea of the CIA working as a judge and executioner very disturbing. I am rather old fashioned and believe everyone deserves a fair trial. Are you in favour of the assassination of non-Muslims? Or is this a religious issue?

The CIA learned most of what they know about assassination from the British.

Personally, I'm not for assassinating anyone. I helped form COPA as a counter-assassination organization.

What does being non-Muslim have to do with it?

The special ops unit they set up after 9/11 as a surgical strike force was to be used to go into combat zones or behind enemy lines to take out terrorist leadership, a task they say that the Preditor assumed. I'm sure if they used the strike force instead of the drones there would be a lot less civilian casualities. While they say this special unit was not made operational, it appears this is the unit that was used a few months ago that people were complaining about violations of soverign territory, remember?

As for Qusset, I think he was talking about DeGaul. More specifically Lt. Col. Bastien-Thiry, the real Jackel who led a team of assassins who machine gunned DeGaul's car, a failed attempt that was made into the movie "Day of the Jackel."

I only recently got interested in this as a result of the Houma arms were said to be for the OAS and the Revolt of the French Generals in Algeria - which took place in April 1961 around the same time as the Bay of Pigs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Bastien-Thiry

Jean Bastien-Thiry (19 October 1927 – 11 March 1963) was a French military air weaponry engineer who attempted to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle on 22 August 1962, to try to prevent Algerian independence.

Bastien-Thiry was born to a family of Catholic military officers in Lunéville. His father had known de Gaulle in the 1930s and was a member of the Gaullist RPF. He attended the École Polytechnique, followed by the École nationale supérieure de l'Aéronautique before going into the French Air Force where he specialized in the design of air-to-air missiles. In 1957 he was promoted to become principal air military engineer. He was married to Geneviève Lamirand, the daughter of Georges Lamirand, (who was Vichy France Minister of Youth until 1942). He had three daughters with her.

After returning to power with the intention of maintaining Algeria as "an integral part of France", de Gaulle made a sudden reversal of policy in September 1959 and began gradually opting instead for the secession of Algeria. As a consequence of this new policy, one which most military officers and even several of De Gaulle's close associates disagreed, two referendums on self-determination were held. The first, in 1961, and a second on 8 April 1962 (known as the French Évian Accords referendum, 1962) (actually French Government Statements[1] since there were no agreements, the FLN having refused to sign them off) which was not in accord with the French constitution, Article 3, as citizens living in Algeria were barred from this referendum.

Bastien-Thiry, who was involved with a still-mysterious organization (Vieil État-Major, which was probably supported by high-ranking officials, politicians and the heads of large companies), cooperated with men of Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS) which was already carrying out assassinations and bombings to try to prevent Algerian independence. Bastien-Thiry was not, however, actually a member of the OAS organization.

Bastien-Thiry led the most prominent assassination attempt against de Gaulle. The group set themselves up in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart on 22 August 1962. De Gaulle's car, an unarmored Citroën DS, and nearby shops were raked with machine gun fire, but de Gaulle, along with his wife and entourage, were able to escape without injury. After the attempt, some fourteen bullet holes were found in the president's vehicle, with another twenty striking the nearby Café Trianon, and an additional one-hundred-eighty-seven found on the pavement. This event was fictionalized in the 1971 book The Day of the Jackal. De Gaulle credited the unusual abilities of the DS vehicle with saving his life — the shots had punctured two of the tires, but the car was still able to escape at full speed.

Arrest and Trial

Bastien-Thiry was arrested when he came back from a mission in the United Kingdom. He was brought to trial before a military tribunal presided over by General Roger Gardet from 28 January to 4 March 1963. He was defended by a legal team consisting of attorneys Jacques Isorni, Richard Dupuy, Bernard Le Coroller, and Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour who would be a far-right candidate for the presidential election in 1965. While claiming that the death of de Gaulle would have been justified by the "genocide" of the European population of newly-independent Algeria (a reference mainly to the Oran massacre of 1962), he claimed that while the other conspirators may have admittedly been trying to kill the head of state, he had only been attempting to capture de Gaulle so as to deliver him to a panel of sympathetic judges. Bastien-Thiry, who had been certified as "normal" by psychiatrists in spite of an history of clinical depression, was convicted and sentenced to death.

Why de Gaulle Changed His Mind on Possible Clemency

De Gaulle as President of France had the power of clemency. He pardoned those who fired the shots, but refused to pardon Bastien-Thiry despite an appeal from Bastien-Thiry's father to spare his son's life. The president had before the trial expressed his intention to grant clemency to Bastien-Thiry, saying the "idiot" would "get off with twenty years and in five years I'll free him" (Lacouture, 328). However, according to his son-in-law Alain de Bossieu, after the conspirator's conviction, de Gaulle stated four reasons for refusing to alter the sentence.

1. Bastien-Thiry had directed his subordinates to fire on a car in which there was an innocent woman present (Madame Yvonne de Gaulle).

2. He had endangered civilians, namely the Fillon family, who had been traveling in a car near that carrying de Gaulle.

3. He had brought foreigners, specifically three Hungarians, into the plot.

4. Finally, and most serious in de Gaulle's eyes, while the other conspirators did the actual firing and had thus placed themselves in some danger, Bastien-Thiry had only directed events from afar, acting as a lookout for the gunmen.

Execution

The execution took place only one week after the trial, which was unusual. Probably the biggest security plan in French judicial history was organized to take Bastien-Thiry from his cell to the place of his execution. There were 2000 policemen posted along the way and 35 vehicles used. The government feared an escape was planned, and there had been a plan but it was abandoned. Paradoxically, the police plan was headed by Jean Cantelaube, a former security officer of De Gaulle. He has been recently identified as an intelligence agent who provided information to Bastien-Thiry's organization.

Jean Bastien-Thiry was executed by firing squad at the military fortress of Ivry-sur-Seine on 11 March 1963, while clutching his rosary. He refused to be blindfolded. He was 35 years old.

About Bastien-Thiry, de Gaulle said "The French need martyrs ... They must choose them carefully. I could have given them one of those idiotic generals playing ball in Tulle prison. I gave them Bastien-Thiry. They'll be able to make a martyr of him. He deserves it."

Edited by William Kelly
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The CIA learned most of what they know about assassination from the British.

I think that is highly unlikely. Have you got evidence for this claim? James Angelton and William Harvey definitely were not very impressed by the lack of help they got when they asked for help from MI5/MI6 in the attempt to assassinate Castro.

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The CIA learned most of what they know about assassination from the British.

I think that is highly unlikely. Have you got evidence for this claim? James Angelton and William Harvey definitely were not very impressed by the lack of help they got when they asked for help from MI5/MI6 in the attempt to assassinate Castro.

I was thinking of those guys in OSS who were trained by MI6, including Angleton (and Harvey).

And then I thought of the case of Admiral Darlin.

I'm sure that it wasn't in the interests of the British to kill Castro, just like, after awhile ,it was no longer in the Mafia's interest to kill him. If they couldn't get the British or the Mafia to do it, then the CIA had to develop the capability for themselves.

Nor do I think this "assassination" program that is being exposed was strictly CIA, but a Joint Task Force of primarily military special ops units.

The raid into Syria last winter (see other thread under political conspiracies).

These guys weren't trained to go in and play chess. If they discovered the location of Bin Laden, they were to go in and kill him.

The Preditor drones made the unit unnecessary, though it appears they used it in Syria on that one occasion, which sparked the ire of a few people concerned about Syira's soverignty.

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It was reported over the weekend that the CIA director, Leon Panetta, has told the congressional intelligence committees that he has discovered a CIA secret operation that was being run by Dick Cheney. Panetta discovered that information about this program was withheld from Congress. So far, details of this illegal program has not yet been released to the public. However, rumours are suggesting that it might be linked to Seymour Hersh’s claim that Cheney oversaw an “executive assassination ring”.

Is this the reason that Don Bohning/CIA took objection to my article on Operation 40 where I argued that the CIA developed an assassination program in the early 1960s? An assassination program that Carl Jenkins and Chi Chi Quintero confessed had been used on John Kennedy. Maybe the CIA fear that this story will increase interest in previous assassination programs.

John, I don't think it was primarily a CIA operation. They're just the whipping boys and might have picked the targets.

The unit was most certainly a Joint - Special Ops military unit(s) run out of Florida.

The outrage in Congress isn't over the mission of the unit, it's that Congress wasn't informed.

That's also OUR issue - the idea that the CIA can continue to with hold records about political assassination - JFK's assassination - and we should take it and run with it.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/ti...?inline=nyt-per

But Congressional Democrats were furious that the program had not been shared with the committees. The Senate and House oversight committees were created by law in the 1970s as a direct response to disclosures of C.I.A. abuses, notably including assassination plots against Patrice Lumumba of Congo, Fidel Castro in Cuba and other foreign politicians. President Gerald R. Ford in 1976 issued an executive order banning assassinations.

That ban does not apply to the killing of enemies in a war, government officials say. The Bush administration took the position that killing members of Al Qaeda, a terrorist group that has attacked the United States and stated that its goal is to attack again, is no different than shooting enemy soldiers on the battlefield. The Obama administration, which has continued to fire missiles from Predator drones on suspected Qaeda members in Pakistan, has taken the same view.

Kenneth Anderson, a law professor at American University who has studied targeted killings, said the United States first made the argument in 1989 that killing terrorists would not violate the assassination ban and would be a legal act of self-defense under international law.

The complete story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/us/14intel.html?hp

WASHINGTON — Since 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency has developed plans to dispatch small teams overseas to kill senior Qaeda terrorists, according to current and former government officials.

The plans remained vague and were never carried out, the officials said, and Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, canceled the program last month.

Officials at the spy agency over the years ran into myriad logistical, legal and diplomatic obstacles. How could the role of the United States be masked? Should allies be informed and might they block the access of the C.I.A. teams to their targets? What if American officers or their foreign surrogates were caught in the midst of an operation? Would such activities violate international law or American restrictions on assassinations overseas?

Yet year after year, according to officials briefed on the program, the plans were never completely shelved because the Bush administration sought an alternative to killing terror suspects with missiles fired from drone aircraft or seizing them overseas and imprisoning them in secret C.I.A. jails.

Mr. Panetta scuttled the program, which would have relied on paramilitary teams, shortly after the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center recently informed him of its existence. The next day, June 24, he told the two Congressional Intelligence Committees that the plan had been hidden from lawmakers, initially at the instruction of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The program was designed in the frantic weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks when President George W. Bush signed a secret order authorizing the C.I.A. to capture or kill operatives of Al Qaeda around the world. To be able to kill Osama bin Laden or his top deputies wherever they might be — even in cities or countries far from a war zone — struck top agency officials as an urgent goal, according to people involved in the discussions.

But in practice, creating and training the teams proved difficult.

“It sounds great in the movies, but when you try to do it, it’s not that easy,” a former intelligence official said. “Where do you base them? What do they look like? Are they going to be sitting around at headquarters on 24-hour alert waiting to be called?”

A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment for this article.

There has been intense speculation about the nature of the program since members of the House Intelligence Committee disclosed last week that Mr. Panetta had put an end to it. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the secret program was intended to capture or kill senior Qaeda leaders.

Current and former officials said that the program was designed as a more “surgical” solution to eliminating terrorists than missile strikes with armed Predator drones, which cannot be used in cities and have occasionally resulted in dozens of civilian casualties.

“The Predator strikes have been successful, and I was pleased to see the Obama administration continue them,” said Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “This was another effort that was trying to accomplish the same objective.”

Mr. Bond would not discuss specific details about the terminated C.I.A. program.

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The CIA learned most of what they know about assassination from the British.

I think that is highly unlikely. Have you got evidence for this claim? James Angelton and William Harvey definitely were not very impressed by the lack of help they got when they asked for help from MI5/MI6 in the attempt to assassinate Castro.

I was thinking of those guys in OSS who were trained by MI6, including Angleton (and Harvey).

And then I thought of the case of Admiral Darlin.

I'm sure that it wasn't in the interests of the British to kill Castro, just like, after awhile ,it was no longer in the Mafia's interest to kill him. If they couldn't get the British or the Mafia to do it, then the CIA had to develop the capability for themselves.

Nor do I think this "assassination" program that is being exposed was strictly CIA, but a Joint Task Force of primarily military special ops units.

The raid into Syria last winter (see other thread under political conspiracies).

These guys weren't trained to go in and play chess. If they discovered the location of Bin Laden, they were to go in and kill him.

The Preditor drones made the unit unnecessary, though it appears they used it in Syria on that one occasion, which sparked the ire of a few people concerned about Syira's soverignty.

ALSO, I think all US Special Ops outfits are based on British SAS - who, in the last paragraph of this article, appear to be on missions very much like TASK FORCE 88 and the secret CIA unit that was never operational.

http://www.eliteukforces.info/special-air-...sk-force-black/

Following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, 2003 it has been reported that an SAS Squadron has been assigned to a joint US/UK group of Special Operations units operating in the country, known previously as Task Force 145 (TF-145).

Now reportedly renamed to TF-88, this cream of Western Special Operators consists of several elements:

• TF Black - - made up of an SAS sabre squadron, supported by a Company of SFSG(TF Maroon). Some SBS operators are thought to be attached to TF Black.

• TF Blue - US Navy SEALs from DEVGRU (Seal Team 6)

• TF Green - 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment - or 'Delta Force'

• TF Orange - signals intelligence gathers from the ISA

Elements of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), US 24th Special Tactics Squadron, the UK's 7 and 47 RAF Squadrons, along with a RAF Puma flight, provide specialised air support for TF-88. American military intelligence operatives alongside the UK's Joint Support Group, elements of MI6 and the SRR are believed to be attached to the Task Force to provide intelligence support. 18 UKSF Signals and their US equivalents (Task Force Orange) provide signals intelligence (SIGINT) capabilties to the task force.

The primary role of TF-88 is to hunt down senior members of Al-Qaeda operating in Iraq. To this end, the Task Force has had several successes including the killing of Al-Zarqawi. In response to a spate of kidnappings involving Westerners, TF-88's remit expanded to include countering this threat.

TF-Black is based in headquarters known as 'the Station', within Baghdad's green zone.

Task Force Black Operations

• In July 2003, an SAS team performed a close target reconnaisance of a residence in Mosul, thought to contain Uday and Qusay Hussein, Saddam's sons. British commanders pushed for the SAS to raid the house but are denied. A combined force of US Delta Force and the 101st Airborne eventually attacked the building and killed Uday and Qusay.

• Operation Marlborogh

In July 2005 an SAS sniper team neutralized an insurgent bomb squad before they could reach their targets in the city.

• In March 2006, in a bloodless operation, the SAS rescued British activist, Norman Kember, and 2 Canadians who had been kidnapped in Baghdad

read more : SAS rescue Norman Kember

September 5th, 2007 - A 30-man SAS team assaulted a house that intel had pinpointed as the location of a senior Al-Qaeda figure. The mission was a success but sadly it costs the life of one of the SAS assaulters.

As with its other commitments such as counter-terrorism and training, the SAS rotates a Squadron into Task Force Black on a 6-monthly basis.

Edited by William Kelly
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I was thinking of those guys in OSS who were trained by MI6, including Angleton (and Harvey).

And then I thought of the case of Admiral Darlin.

I'm sure that it wasn't in the interests of the British to kill Castro, just like, after awhile ,it was no longer in the Mafia's interest to kill him. If they couldn't get the British or the Mafia to do it, then the CIA had to develop the capability for themselves.

MI5/MI6 told Angleton/Harvey that they no longer carried out assassinations and suggested the names of retired officers. Angleton reminded them that they had attempted to kill Nasser in 1956.

I am of course no defender of the British intelligence agencies that have killed individuals over the years. That includes figures in the IRA.

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The CIA learned most of what they know about assassination from the British.

I think that is highly unlikely. Have you got evidence for this claim? James Angelton and William Harvey definitely were not very impressed by the lack of help they got when they asked for help from MI5/MI6 in the attempt to assassinate Castro.

Not to start a "Dump on Britannia Movement", but there is substantial evidence that Wickliffe Draper learned many of his Eugenics beliefs from the British Empire Loyalists like

Roger Pearson, Eric D. Butler, Robert F. Gayre and even A.K. Chesterton. And Rev. Gerald L K Smith brought over the British Israelism Movement to America and started his Christian

Defense League and his Christian Nationalist Crusade based on those teachings. And as for the Intl Assoc for the Advancement of Eugenics and Ethnology, the British influence there was

quite massive. Sir Barry Domville, from Shickshinny Knights of Malta was a British Nazi spy as well. How about a thread on the British influence on Eugenics, Ethnology, anti-Semitism, Colonialism

and Racism and how it all affected the JFK plot and the plotters? To what extent was American slavery just an extension of the Rhodes and British inspired slave trade industry in Africa?

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"It is not only a right but a duty to assassinate a tyrant."

- Dominican priest Father Jean Qusset

I assume Qusset was talking about someone like Hitler. That is different because the crimes of Hitler or a political dictator are in the public arena.

I find the idea of the CIA working as a judge and executioner very disturbing. I am rather old fashioned and believe everyone deserves a fair trial. Are you in favour of the assassination of non-Muslims? Or is this a religious issue?

The CIA learned most of what they know about assassination from the British.

Personally, I'm not for assassinating anyone. I helped form COPA as a counter-assassination organization.

Hmmm... does that COPA counter-assassination mandate include character assassination as well? Just curious.

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Guest Tom Scully

Bill and John,

I know a little bit about predator drones offensive operations because I have a member of my household who has worked closely with the Air Force special ops combat air traffic controllers in these two, as well as other engagements:

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section...p;article=63211

http://usarmy.vo.llnwd.net/e1/soldiers/arc...fs/may09all.pdf -(page 7 )

In addition to the combat decorations he received as a result of his performance in the actions described at the two links above,

he was invited last year to meet the CIC:

3723115032_1cc443cd61_o.jpg

I don't think the predator drone is at the center of this latest disclosure because of my impression of the number of participants who would have to

be "read in", if the predator was the routine weapon of choice. The predator is based locally but it is piloted from consoles in Nevada. Within a reasonable distance from the target (in the same country, possibly in the same province) a weapons control and targeting team do the actual lining up and shooting, based on instructions from a combat air traffic controller at work on the ground with special forces ODA.

I'm not saying the predator is not used for assassination, but I suspect it is not the preferred weapon or manner in which the operation is usually executed.

First, a couple of curious bits of reporting:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2...r_special_.html

2 Marines grilled in secret war; special unit killed 19 Afghan civilians

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK

daily news staff writer

Sunday, January 27th 2008, 4:00 AM

....Weeks of tedious and often closed classified hearings have revealed much about the tragic killings, which the Marines claim were the result of a "complex ambush" of their convoy.

But witnesses at the hearings and other sources have also made new disclosures about sensitive U.S. "black," or covert, operations along the Afghan-Pakistan border and how the Marines tried to get in on the action despite orders not to.

Galvin's company - the first Marine special ops unit ever deployed to combat - moved into Jalalabad Airfield in Nangarhar Province in February 2007.

"There were rumblings that these guys were cowboys," said a counterterror operative working at the base then.

The Marines set up quarters alongside CIA and Navy SEAL teams at Jalalabad, said two sources with direct knowledge. However, Galvin was ordered to do "special reconnaissance" on drug traffickers and other insurgents instead of going after the top-priority targets.

"They heard about all the sexy stuff going on but they weren't allowed to play," said a source familiar with the unit's activities.

Galvin quickly capitalized on his CIA contacts, the source said....

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3134322.ece

Special forces win the right to take their secrets to the grave

Michael Evans, Defence Editor

January 5, 2008

All members of the special forces are to be guaranteed anonymity in death as well as throughout their lives as part of a new move to raise morale in the country’s most elite military units, The Times has learnt.

Defence sources said that the head of the special forces had intervened to demand a new no-identity policy because of concerns that morale was being damaged.

Coroners at inquests into the deaths of special forces’ members are to be told only to refer to them as Soldier A or Soldier B.

Families of members of the SAS and Special Boat Service (SBS) killed on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan or elsewhere had expressed anger that the Ministry of Defence appeared to have sanctioned the publishing of their names. They made it clear that having been obliged to maintain absolute secrecy about the role of their husbands, fathers or other relatives, it was unacceptable for names to be published after their deaths, making them vulnerable to unwelcome media attention....

Considering the recent reported history has me wondering if Blackwater has an integral role in this. I know first hand that US military special ops personnel take training at Blackwater's huge, private corporate North Carolina property.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7761272

Transcript for May 8

Guests: Gary Schroen, former senior CIA agent, author; James Carville; and Mary Matalin

NBC News

updated 11:34 a.m. ET, Sun., May 8, 2005

...Guests: Gary Schroen, former senior CIA agent, Author of “First In: How seven CIA officers opened the war on terrorism in Afghanistan;”....

...MR. RUSSERT: On September 1, 2001, you began a 90-day phaseout retiring from the CIA. Then came the horrific day of 8:46 AM, September 11, 2001. All our lives changed. You were asked to stay on at the CIA. On September 13th, you were summoned to the office of Cofer Black, the head of counterterrorism for the CIA. What did he tell you? What was your mission?

MR. SCHROEN: The mission was to--the first part of it was to go in and link up with the Northern Alliance, formerly headed by Ahmed Al-Massoud, and to win their confidence and their agreement to cooperate militarily with us. They were the only armed force on the ground in Afghanistan opposing the Taliban. The second part of it was, once the Taliban were broken, to attack the al-Qaeda organization, find bin Laden and his senior lieutenants and kill them.

MR. RUSSERT: Kill them?

MR. SCHROEN: Kill them.

MR. RUSSERT: Wasn't it illegal for us to kill foreign leaders?

MR. SCHROEN: I don't think at that point that the--I think the administration had gotten to the point where bin Laden and his guys were fair game.

MR. RUSSERT: As part of war?

MR. SCHROEN: As part of war.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Black gave you specific instructions on what he wanted you to bring home.

MR. SCHROEN: That's true. He did ask that once we got bin Laden and killed him, that we send his head back in a cardboard box on dry ice so that he could take it down and show the president.

MR. RUSSERT: Where would you find the dry ice in Afghanistan?

MR. SCHROEN: That's what I mentioned to him. I said, "Cofer, I think that I can come up with pikes to put the heads of the lieutenants on," which is the second part of what he wanted done. "Dry ice, we'll have to improvise."...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...99682-3,00.html

.....Blackwater Becomes a Player

Erik Prince, 37, Blackwater's ambitious founder and sole owner, could have taken over his father's billion-dollar auto-parts empire. But he was attracted to the battlefield from a young age. He enrolled in the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., and although he finished college at a school closer to home, he eventually became a naval officer and was attached to the élite Navy seal Team 8 based in Norfolk, Va. He served in Haiti, Bosnia and the Middle East. In 1995, when his father died, Prince left the Navy and returned to Michigan. He and his sisters sold the company, and Prince took his share and founded Blackwater USA.

Before 9/11, Blackwater mostly trained swat teams and other specialized law-enforcement officers at its 6,000-acre campus on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina. With the war on terrorism, however, a new niche business developed. The State Department did not have the internal resources or Marines to protect all of its diplomats and overseas embassies, but Blackwater had access to a deep roster of former special-forces soldiers who, it argued, could do the job. It wasn't long before Prince was offering a broad range of services, from protection by bodyguards to aerial surveillance, for the State Department, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies. In 2003, Blackwater landed its first truly high-profile contract: guarding Ambassador L. Paul Bremer in Iraq, at the cost of $21 million in 11 months. Since June 2004, Blackwater has been paid more than $320 million out of a $1 billion, five-year State Department budget for the Worldwide Personal Protective Service, which protects U.S. officials and some foreign officials in conflict zones.

Prince's political connections may well have helped his company win these crucial contracts from the Bush Administration. He was a White House intern under George W. Bush's father. His family have long been G.O.P donors; his sister Betsy Prince DeVos chaired the Michigan Republican Party from 1996 to 2000 and from 2003 to 2005. And Blackwater has hired U.S. national-security vets onto its executive staff. Among them: Cofer Black, the onetime head of counterterrorism at the cia, and Joseph Schmitz, a former Pentagon inspector general whose duties included investigating contractual agreements with firms like Blackwater.

The Pentagon didn't plan for the contractors going so heavily into the war theater, says Lawrence Korb, Department of Defense manpower chief under President Ronald Reagan. "When they went into Iraq, the assumption was they had won," he says. "They did know there was going to be continuing fighting. This thing grew far beyond where anybody thought it would."....

.......The highest-paid independent contractors are known as tier-1 personnel. These are the former U.S. special-forces soldiers. On Helvenston's tour in Iraq, he was making about $600 a day. He was on a 60-day rotation and stood to make some $36,000 in two months.

What Went Wrong in Fallujah

When Helvenston was killed, Blackwater was expanding its business in Iraq from being just bodyguards. The company wanted to make a bid to take over security for convoys delivering kitchen supplies to U.S. military bases in Iraq...

http://web.archive.org/web/20070224012444/...519&tref=po

By BILL SIZEMORE, The Virginian-Pilot

© March 30, 2006

Blackwater USA says it can supply forces for conflicts

Stepping into a potential political minefield, Blackwater USA is offering itself up as an army for hire to police the world's trouble spots.

Cofer Black, vice chairman of the Moyock, N.C.-based private military company, told an international conference in Amman, Jordan, this week that Blackwater stands ready to help keep or restore the peace anywhere it is needed.

Such a role would be a quantum leap for Blackwater and raises a host of policy questions.

Until now, the eight-year-old company has confined itself to training military and police personnel and providing security guards for government and private clients. Under Black's proposal, it would take on an overt combat role.

"We're low-cost and fast," Black was quoted as saying. "The issue is, who's going to let us play on their team?".....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0301476_pf.html

Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake

German Citizen Released After Months in 'Rendition'

By Dana Priest

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, December 4, 2005; A01

.........The Counterterrorist Center

After the September 2001 attacks, pressure to locate and nab potential terrorists, even in the most obscure parts of the world, bore down hard on one CIA office in particular, the Counterterrorist Center, or CTC, located until recently in the basement of one of the older buildings on the agency's sprawling headquarters compound. With operations officers and analysts sitting side by side, the idea was to act on tips and leads with dramatic speed.

The possibility of missing another attack loomed large. "Their logic was: If one of them gets loose and someone dies, we'll be held responsible," said one CIA officer, who, like others interviewed for this article, would speak only anonymously because of the secretive nature of the subject.

To carry out its mission, the CTC relies on its Rendition Group, made up of case officers, paramilitaries, analysts and psychologists. Their job is to figure out how to snatch someone off a city street, or a remote hillside, or a secluded corner of an airport where local authorities wait.

Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: Dressed head to toe in black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be a day-long trip. Their destinations: either a detention facility operated by cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA's own covert prisons -- referred to in classified documents as "black sites," which at various times have been operated in eight countries, including several in Eastern Europe.

In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the CTC was the place to be for CIA officers wanting in on the fight. The staff ballooned from 300 to 1,200 nearly overnight.

"It was the Camelot of counterterrorism," a former counterterrorism official said. "We didn't have to mess with others -- and it was fun."

Thousands of tips and allegations about potential threats poured in after the attacks. Stung by the failure to detect the plot, CIA officers passed along every tidbit. The process of vetting and evaluating information suffered greatly, former and current intelligence officials said. "Whatever quality control mechanisms were in play on September 10th were eliminated on September 11th," a former senior intelligence official said.

J. Cofer Black, a professorial former spy who spent years chasing Osama bin Laden, was the CTC's director. With a flair for melodrama, Black had earned special access to the White House after he briefed President Bush on the CIA's war plan for Afghanistan.

Colleagues recall that he would return from the White House inspired and talking in missionary terms. Black, now in the private security business, declined to comment.....

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/3/27/8527/72512

DeVos Wages War On Public Education, But Meet His Brother In Law...

By Bruce Wilson Tue Mar 27, 2007 at 08:52:07 AM EST

topic: Education and Public Schools section:Public Education

Last March 31, 2006, I covered the Christian right's war on public education and a Department of Education commissioned study that revealed public schools, if anything, outperform their private school counterparts. But, does Amway fortune heir Dick Devos care, or does he view institutions of public education, that Jefferson saw as integral to American Democracy, as obstacles in the way of a long range scheme to undermine democracy ? In a 2002 Heritage Institute address Devos, a leader in the war on public education who wants Intelligent Design in schools, is associated with Christian Reconstructionist views, and has been a significant funder of the "Council On National Policy" and served as the CNP's president in the late 1980's, outlined a "stealth strategy" for eliminating public schools. If DeVos succeeds in his jihad against public schools and American Democracy, maybe his brother-in-law Erik Prince, who owns Blackwater USA, the subject of a new expose by Jeremy Scahill and possibly the most powerful private mercenary army in the world, could help out with the ensuing anarchy... for a price, of course. (See Nation article on Blackwater, or full story for video with Jeremy Scahill )...... http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070402/scahill

http://www.pogo.org/m/dp/dp-IG-LATimes-09032005.pdf

Pentagon Investigator Resigning

By T. Christian Miller

Times Staff Writer

September 3, 2005

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's top investigator has resigned amid accusations

that he stonewalled inquiries into senior Bush administration officials suspected of

wrongdoing.

Defense Department Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz told staffers this week

that he intended to resign as of Sept. 9 to take a job with the parent company of

Blackwater USA, a defense contractor.

The resignation comes after Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) sent Schmitz several

letters this summer informing him that he was the focus of a congressional inquiry

into whether he had blocked two criminal investigations last year.

E. Schmitz, the Defense Department's inspector general, is suspected of blocking investigations of

senior Bush officials.....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5083102602.html

Pentagon's IG Takes Job at Contractor

By Griff Witte

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, September 1, 2005; Page D03

......Schmitz's new job will be chief operating officer and general counsel for the Prince Group, a firm that's divided between Michigan-based Prince Manufacturing and North Carolina-based Blackwater.........

.........Paul Behrends, a spokesman for Blackwater, said he is unaware of Schmitz's office undertaking any investigations of the company. "Joe has run the process of transitioning from the government to the private sector through the appropriate channels. There's no conflict of interest," he said.

But Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, said, "The inspector general is a standard-bearer for ethics and integrity for the Pentagon. To see a person who has been holding that position cash in on his public service and go work for one of their contractors is tremendously disappointing," she said.....

Edited by Tom Scully
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Tom,

I think you are correct in directing attention to the military and Predator, as the whole CIA thing, I think, is a ruse.

The military, specifically, as you mention - US Navy SEAL teams set up right next to CIA...and were in training and operations with British SAS, just as Task Force 88 were described.

The CIA Cowboys can plan to set up operations like this for years and never use them, but the Navy and other special ops boys are already on line and in action, "we don't need no badges."

As other articles have already pointed out, the CIA team was designed after the Mossad posse that went after Carlos the Jackel and his cohorts, but ended up killing an innocent waiter instead.

And the British unit that contributed to the Task Force 88 counter-al Quada unit in Iraq (mission accomplished), lost one soldier in that operation, which put a damper on using these units at all, especially when they can just hit them with a missile from a Predator without any losses at all.

Just as you have your inside sources, I know a SEAL Team 6 guy who was with Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He is operationally very good, but unlike those mentioned in your article, who don't want their special ops role revealed after death, my experience with these guys - that is playing pool and drinking with them - is they are very egotistical and proud and unlikely that they would want their heroics kept secret forever.

Nor do they allow anyone to say they were a Navy SEAL if they weren't and send guys out to straighten the false braggarts out.

Just as these special ops units are based on the British SAS models, there was Ian Fleming's British Naval Intelligence Special Ops Unit - he called his "Red Indians," who were sent in behind the lines in advance of Allied troops to capture enemy officers and civilian leaders and valuable documents.

Then there was Operation 40 for Cuba, which apparently touched a sensitive nerve with Don Bohning, and the Phoneix program in Vietnam, that my friend was affiliated with in Vientam, and who now trains SEAL TEAM 6 rookies.

While the military always maintains the capabilities these types of special units offer, they change their names. Seal Team 6 is now DEVGRU - Development Group - and Task Force 88, used in Iraq, Africa and apparently in that Syrian raid last October, no longers exists under that name. But you can be sure it still exists.

My friend was also recruited by Blackwater, but he's retired, over the hill and doesn't need the money.

I don't believe that they would outsource an assassination squad to such a Yahoo Cowboy outfit like Blackwater, who shot themselves in the foot at the OK Corral in Iraq.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/07/15/wh...sassins-bullet/

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Is this the reason that Don Bohning/CIA took objection to my article on Operation 40 where I argued that the CIA developed an assassination program in the early 1960s? An assassination program that Carl Jenkins and Chi Chi Quintero confessed had been used on John Kennedy. Maybe the CIA fear that this story will increase interest in previous assassination programs.

It now seems that in 2004, George Tenet terminated a secret program to develop hit teams to kill al-Qaida leaders, but his successors resurrected the plan, according to former intelligence officials. Porter Goss, who replaced Tenet in 2005, restarted the program.

If you remember, Don Bohning quoted an interview with Porter Goss to deny that Operation 40 was a CIA program to kill political figures in Cuba. We can now see why this is still a sensitive subject for those CIA officers who were around in the early 1960s.

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