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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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August 19th,
2009 - C.I.A. Sought Blackwater’s Help in Plan to Kill Jihadists |
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C.I.A. Sought
Blackwater’s Help in Plan to Kill Jihadists By Mark Mazzetti New York Times August 19, 2009 Washington - The Central
Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private
security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and
assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former
government officials. Executives from Blackwater,
which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq,
helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A.
spent several million dollars on the program, which did not successfully
capture or kill any terrorist suspects. The fact that the C.I.A.
used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E.
Panetta, the C.I.A.’s director, became alarmed and called an emergency
meeting in June to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the
program for seven years, the officials said. It is unclear whether the
C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda
operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program.
American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly
controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government
officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority
raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations. Officials said the C.I.A.
did not have a formal contract with Blackwater for this program but instead
had individual agreements with top company officials, including the founder,
Erik D. Prince, a politically connected former member of the Navy Seals and
the heir to a family fortune. Blackwater’s work on the program actually ended
years before Mr. Panetta took over the agency, after senior C.I.A. officials
themselves questioned the wisdom of using outsiders in a targeted killing
program. Blackwater, which has
changed its name, most recently to Xe Services, and is based in North
Carolina, in recent years has received millions of dollars in government
contracts, growing so large that the Bush administration said it was a
necessary part of its war operation in Iraq. It has also drawn
controversy. Blackwater employees hired to guard American diplomats in Iraq
were accused of using excessive force on several occasions, including
shootings in Baghdad in 2007 in which 17 civilians were killed. Iraqi
officials have since refused to give the company an operating license. Several current and former
government officials interviewed for this article spoke only on the condition
of anonymity because they were discussing details of a still classified program. Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A.
spokesman, declined to provide details about the canceled program, but he
said that Mr. Panetta’s decision on the assassination program was “clear and
straightforward.” “Director Panetta thought
this effort should be briefed to Congress, and he did so,” Mr. Gimigliano
said. “He also knew it hadn’t been successful, so he ended it.” A Xe spokeswoman did not
return calls seeking comment. Senator Dianne Feinstein,
the California Democrat who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee, also
declined to give details of the program. But she praised Mr. Panetta for
notifying Congress. “It is too easy to contract out work that you don’t want
to accept responsibility for,” she said. The C.I.A. this summer
conducted an internal review of the assassination program that recently was
presented to the White House and the Congressional intelligence committees.
The officials said that the review stated that Mr. Panetta’s predecessors did
not believe that they needed to tell Congress because the program was not far
enough developed. The House Intelligence
Committee is investigating why lawmakers were never told about the program.
According to current and former government officials, former Vice President
Dick Cheney told C.I.A. officers in 2002 that the spy agency did not need to
inform Congress because the agency already had legal authority to kill Qaeda
leaders. One official familiar with
the matter said that Mr. Panetta did not tell lawmakers that he believed that
the C.I.A. had broken the law by withholding details about the program from
Congress. Rather, the official said, Mr. Panetta said he believed that the
program had moved beyond a planning stage and deserved Congressional
scrutiny. “It’s wrong to think this
counterterrorism program was confined to briefing slides or doodles on a
cafeteria napkin,” the official said. “It went well beyond that.” Current and former
government officials said that the C.I.A.’s efforts to use paramilitary hit
teams to kill Qaeda operatives ran into logistical, legal and diplomatic
hurdles almost from the outset. These efforts had been run by the C.I.A.’s
counterterrorism center, which runs operations against Al Qaeda and other
terrorist networks. In 2002, Blackwater won a
classified contract to provide security for the C.I.A. station in Kabul,
Afghanistan, and the company maintains other classified contracts with the
C.I.A., current and former officials said. Over the years, Blackwater
has hired several former top C.I.A. officials, including Cofer Black, who ran
the C.I.A. counterterrorism center immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. C.I.A. operatives also
regularly use the company’s training complex in North Carolina. The complex
includes a shooting range used for sniper training. An executive order signed by
President Gerald R. Ford in 1976 barred the C.I.A. from carrying out
assassinations, a direct response to revelations that the C.I.A. had
initiated assassination plots against Fidel Castro of Cuba and other foreign
politicians. The Bush administration took
the position that killing members of Al Qaeda, a terrorist group that
attacked the United States and has pledged to attack it again, was no
different from killing enemy soldiers in battle, and that therefore the
agency was not constrained by the assassination ban. But former intelligence
officials said that employing private contractors to help hunt Qaeda
operatives would pose significant legal and diplomatic risks, and they might
not be protected in the same way government employees are. Some Congressional Democrats
have hinted that the program was just one of many that the Bush
administration hid from Congressional scrutiny and have used the episode as a
justification to delve deeper into other Bush-era counterterrorism programs. But Republicans have
criticized Mr. Panetta’s decision to cancel the program, saying he created a
tempest in a teapot. “I think there was a little
more drama and intrigue than was warranted,” said Representative Peter
Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. Officials said that the
C.I.A. program was devised partly as an alternative to missile strikes using
drone aircraft, which have accidentally killed civilians and cannot be used
in urban areas where some terrorists hide. Yet with most top Qaeda
operatives believed to be hiding in the remote mountains of Pakistan, the
drones have remained the C.I.A.’s weapon of choice. Like the Bush
administration, the Obama administration has embraced the drone campaign because
it presents a less risky option than sending paramilitary teams into
Pakistan. Copyright 2009 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/us/20intel.html |