"WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President Bush early this year signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to conduct covert operations to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, The Washington Post reported Sunday."
"The covert program included authorization to use lethal force to capture Hussein, the Post said, citing informed sources."
This is nonsense! I seem to recall that after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, new laws made the CIA unable to commit assasination or kidnapping of a foreign leader. When did the LAWS change? And even if I am not remembering correctly, is this any way that we want America to operate? There;s no Honor in this and it only gives foreign governments the right to act to us in the same manner!
On the other hand, if Bush were to be kidnapped by foreign governments . . .
posted on June 16, 2002 11:55:55 AM new
There seems to be much support from both parties for this despite any legal questions. Although I don't have as much of a problem with this as many here, I wonder why the CIA has not yet accomplished its directive. BTW- I don't think we give or don't give foreign governments any ideas. They have their own agendas and there are very few who truly are our allies. Saddam is a very real threat. Don't you think preemptive strikes are sometimes necessary?
posted on June 16, 2002 12:05:28 PM new
Snap out of it Borillar! Bush is going to get rid of all the bad guys in the world so we can all live happily ever after....
posted on June 16, 2002 01:11:09 PM new
You mean........when all of the rest of the bad guys are gone he'll complete his task through a voluntary act of ultimate sacrifice for his people and his country?
posted on June 16, 2002 01:14:55 PM new
>>You mean........when all of the rest of the bad guys are gone he'll complete his task through a voluntary act of ultimate sacrifice for his people and his country?<<<
posted on June 16, 2002 01:49:39 PM new
Though it is illegal, it is covered in the "He needed killin'" laws found in some Texas communities.
There are only 10 types of people in the world
Those who understand binary and those who don't
posted on June 16, 2002 02:07:57 PM new
The original prohibition on assasination was a presidential finding. Any of those can be set aside by a later finding.
posted on June 16, 2002 04:25:31 PM new
Kid nap the guy ? what the hell ever for would we want to do something like this ?
risk soldiers lives for this asswipe, no way Jose,
(what you have to figure out now is which asswipe I meant)
posted on June 16, 2002 05:52:03 PM new
Washington Post story
President Broadens Anti-Hussein Order
CIA Gets More Tools to Oust Iraqi Leader
By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 16, 2002; Page A01
President Bush early this year signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to undertake a comprehensive, covert program to topple Saddam Hussein, including authority to use lethal force to capture the Iraqi president, according to informed sources.
The presidential order, an expansion of a previous presidential finding designed to oust Hussein, directs the CIA to use all available tools, including:
• Increased support to Iraqi opposition groups and forces inside and outside Iraq including money, weapons, equipment, training and intelligence information.
• Expanded efforts to collect intelligence within the Iraqi government, military, security service and overall population where pockets of intense anti-Hussein sentiment have been detected.
• Possible use of CIA and U.S. Special Forces teams, similar to those that have been successfully deployed in Afghanistan since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Such forces would be authorized to kill Hussein if they were acting in self-defense.
The administration has already allocated tens of millions of dollars to the covert program. Nonetheless, CIA Director George J. Tenet has told Bush and his war cabinet that the CIA effort alone, without companion military action, economic and diplomatic pressure, probably has only about a 10 to 20 percent chance of succeeding, the sources said.
One source said that the CIA covert action should be viewed largely as "preparatory" to a military strike so the agency can identify targets, intensify intelligence gathering on the ground in Iraq, and build relations with alternative future leaders and groups if Hussein is ousted.
Another well-placed source said of the covert plan, "It is not a silver bullet, but hopes are high and we could get lucky."
Yesterday afternoon, a CIA spokesman declined to comment.
Bush's intelligence order shows that the administration has begun to put money and resources into a policy that has publicly consisted mostly of tough rhetoric. Sources said the CIA initiative is part of a broader Bush administration plan to remove Hussein that includes economic pressure, diplomacy and what officials believe will eventually include military action on a large scale.
The president has made plain in speeches and interviews his desire to remove Hussein, by military force if necessary, but has offered few details of how he plans to do that. The Pentagon is considering a range of options, including an invasion that would use 200,000 to 250,000 military personnel. Sources said such an operation probably could not be launched until next year.
In an April 4 interview with British journalist Trevor McDonald that was later published by the White House, Bush was asked, "Have you made up your mind that Iraq must be attacked?"
"I made up my mind that Hussein needs to go," Bush responded. "That's about all I'm willing to share with you." Pressed, Bush said, "The policy of my government is that he goes."
Then two weeks ago at the U.S. Military Academy he declared that he would take preemptive action against regimes he deemed a threat to the United States. "If we wait for the threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long," Bush said.
Officials said that although military confrontation with the Iraqi army may be inevitable under Bush's policies, it was only prudent for the administration first to expand its efforts on all fronts, including the diplomatic, economic, and covert.
Tenet has also argued forcefully that compared with Afghanistan, Iraq represents a much more difficult target for the CIA. In Afghanistan, the warlords and tribes often could easily be bought off and were enticed to change sides and join up with the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance forces as they began to overrun the Taliban. There is no such tradition in Iraq, officials said, and the standing Iraqi military is eight times the size of the military forces that the Taliban controlled before it fell last year.
On the other hand, some intelligence reports show that contempt for Hussein within the Iraqi leadership, military and among the population runs very high.
On Feb. 28, USA Today quoted a former top CIA official as saying Bush had approved a covert plan against Hussein, but the story provided few details.
Vice President Cheney has taken an active role in the administration's Iraq policy. A key briefing on the president's intelligence order took place in Cheney's West Wing office. Cheney acted as a kind of quarterback, one source said, introducing the subject, and then turning the briefing over to Tenet, who outlined the covert plan.
Another key player is Gen. Wayne A. Downing, the deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, who has a large and expanding staff within the White House. Downing, a former commander of U.S. Special Operations forces, and the CIA are trying to identify individuals or groups that might fill a leadership vacuum if Hussein is toppled, sources said.
Over the years the CIA has had a contentious relationship with the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a leading anti-Hussein opposition group that has been funded by the United States and is led by Ahmed Chalabi, who is based in London.
Last month, The Washington Post reported that Downing has been meeting with leaders of two Kurdish parties based in Northern Iraq, an area protected by U.S. and British air patrols that try to enforce a "no-fly" zone for Hussein's aircraft.
For at least the last six years, the CIA also has supported another Iraqi opposition group, the Iraqi National Accord.
The Iraqi operation comes at a time when CIA resources have been vastly expanded for the war on terrorism, and the agency's operational capacity is already stretched.
The CIA is still operating in Afghanistan, and Bush has authorized covert action to disrupt, capture or destroy terrorists in as many as 80 countries. Worldwide terrorist targets go well beyond Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and include the Iranian-supported Hezbollah terrorist organization and other terrorist groups.
A highly classified worldwide attack matrix describes the levels of CIA covert action in these countries, including propaganda operations, support for internal police and foreign intelligence services, and lethal covert action against terrorist groups or individuals.
Several officials voiced concern that the CIA, which significantly cut back its covert actions and clandestine intelligence gathering in the 1990s, may be overextended.
"You can't take on the world," said one person with extensive CIA experience over the last several decades.
Other sources said that the Iraq covert operations can be managed and run by a small nucleus working at CIA headquarters, various stations, bases and special facilities abroad.
In addition, a covert action necessarily results in a vast increase in the flow of information about the target country, what some CIA officers call "the ground truth." This not only comes from human sources but also from communications intelligence and satellite surveillance.
From this, sources said, the CIA will glean much more information about Hussein, his possible locations, his security and travel patterns, how he communicates with his inner circle, the command relationships with his military and security service, and his possible vulnerabilities.
Hussein has been in power since 1979, and in 1990 had his puppet legislature declare him president for life. He is notoriously suspicious, elusive and unpredictable. Iraq is a police state that exists in large measure to keep Hussein in power.
According to various intelligence reports, Hussein often travels at night, moves among various residences, palaces and bunkers, and deploys decoy look-alikes. Those suspected of the slightest disloyalty are removed from his circle or killed.
"He is already totally paranoid," said one source, noting that immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, Hussein moved some of his military equipment, apparently anticipating possible U.S. military strikes.
Hussein's staying power is remarkable. In the months after he invaded Kuwait in 1990, the United States learned of several attempts on his life that he thwarted. "We had knowledge of at least one," said a former senior official from the first Bush administration. After U.S. and coalition forces defeated and drove Hussein's forces from Kuwait in March 1991, inflicting one of the largest and most visible military humiliations of the post-Vietnam period, the former official said, "We thought some colonel or brigadier general would march in and shoot him."
It didn't happen, and despite predictions from Arab leaders and the CIA at the time, Hussein survived. He has been defiant since. Hussein's forces regularly threaten U.S. and British aircraft enforcing the no-fly zones created after his defeat in 1991, and the United States has retaliated with airstrikes.
In late 1998 Hussein shut down United Nations inspections of Iraqi facilities suspected of making weapons of mass destruction. President Bill Clinton in December ordered operation Desert Fox, which involved about 650 bomber and missile sorties against 100 Iraqi targets during a 70-hour period.
Hussein still did not let in the U.N. inspectors, and they have not been there since. For nearly four years Hussein has been able to pursue what were once robust chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
The belief that Hussein is continuing to develop weapons of mass destruction is what has largely convinced Bush and his war cabinet that Hussein must be toppled, officials said.
In the April interview with the British journalist, Bush said, "The worst thing that could happen would be to allow a nation like Iraq, run by Saddam Hussein, to develop weapons of mass destruction, and then team up with terrorist organizations so they can blackmail the world. I'm not going to let that happen."
"And how are you going to achieve this, Mr. President?" the interviewer inquired.
Bush replied, "Wait and see."
Staff researcher Mark Malseed contributed to this report.
posted on June 17, 2002 04:27:45 AM newSupport for enlarging the CIA's role against Iraq came Sunday from three potential Democratic presidential candidates in 2004: Biden on CBS' "Face the Nation," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota on "Fox News Sunday" and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri on ABC's "This Week."
posted on June 17, 2002 10:11:38 AM new
I am still trying to be neutral in my statements - but speaking of ousting Saddam Pres. Bush said:
"The policy of my government is that he goes."
Does anyone else find it significant he does not say the policy of the United States government - or the policy of my administration but seems comfortable speaking of it as his private possesion and as if it is natural it should express his personal whim?
posted on June 17, 2002 10:17:39 AM new
Of course, it's his possession - probably for the rest of our lives until he is responsible for destroying the world. His presidential term will probalby never end.
Martial Law will be declared before the next election and he will be controlling his possesion forever.
He has some smooth SOB's telling him what to do next.
Yes, that immediately caught my attention. I see many such Freudian slips from administrative spokespersons. After the attacks one of the first things that I noticed, because it was literally used almost everywhere, was that the name "President Bush" was substituted in every construction where one might normally say "the country," or "the nation," or "the government," etc. That drilling of the name, making Bush synonymous with America really startled me. Also, the expressions "the president's war against terrorism" or "the Bush war against terrorism" were used frequently for about a month. I've never seen this sort of usage before and it is unnatural, though it was dropped after about a month. And I can truthfuly say that I would have felt just as disturbed to hear the name of any president, regardless of political party, used in that context. If this has ever been done before, I am not aware of it. That was only the beginning.
posted on June 17, 2002 11:19:19 AM new"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier...just as long as I'm the dictator..."
--Bush, Jr. ,Washington, DC, Dec 18, 2000, during his first trip to Washington as President-Elect--
posted on June 17, 2002 11:29:30 AM new
Antiquary, if I'm not mistaken , I recall Nixon using the third person when referring to himself - "the President did so and so..." That usage was jarring to me then and Bush's usage is especially jarring because he's such a nincompoop. ( Perhaps it's better in a way because Bush is such a dolt that he couldn't approach Nixon's deviousness. It's Bush's handlers whom I worry about. Didn't we learn anything about questioning our president's tactics and credibility after Watergate?)
[ edited by saabsister on Jun 17, 2002 11:32 AM ]
posted on June 17, 2002 11:47:35 AM new
The answer to that question is because they agree with the administration's decision that doing so is in our nation's best interest.
And I agree, the democrats are feeling political pressure 'to go along'.....as the voters were beginning to see the democratic leaders as hindering the President when he's trying to fight those who wish to destroy our nation.
posted on June 17, 2002 12:05:11 PM new
saabsister,
I agree with Helen that the answer to your question is no. I remember Nixon's tendencies to speak in the third person, but the media didn't buy into his power trip then. Of course that was before most of the news sources in the nation were gobbled up by huge corporations who cut news department budgets, and especially those of investigative reporting, to the bone and TV networks shifted financial support to the increasingly entertainment-oriented newsmagazines and whatever one might call some of those performances where marginally knowledgeable talking heads get together and yell at each other.
I agree with your analogy to Watergate also. Until fairly recently I avoided making that comparison because I thought it a too simple analysis of the current crises in democracy and perhaps too partisan, but I was wrong. Especially if you combine the attitudes toward power and control with the situation of the nation under McCarthyism. Of course, Nixon was a prime player in that shameful episode, but was able to distance himself from it over the years. So that's a prime example of how soon we forget the abuses of the past.
posted on June 17, 2002 12:59:43 PM new
As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
posted on June 17, 2002 02:48:10 PM new
Remember that it was Edward R. Murrow who finally kicked the feet out from underneath McCarthyism and Senator McCarthy. Back then, there was just a similar crisis in the nation that scares the heck out of me that it so closely echoes our current political landscape.
+ McCarthyism's vilified enemy: Ivan the Communist
- Bush's vilified enemy: Abdul the Terrorist
+ McCarthy used scare tactics to hold a nation hostage to allow his agenda of terror to continue
- Bush uses scare tactics to hold the nation hostage for his ratings and to pursue his agenda
+ McCarthy made it unpatriotic to criticize him. Even the President was afraid to criticize him.
- Bush has also made it unpatriotic to criticize him. Democratic politicians and the Press are afraid to criticize him.
+ It took only one (1) notable and well respected person to tell the Americans that the Emperor Had No Clothes.
- Today, the Republicans own most of mainstream media, so just one notable and well respected person isn't enough to show that this Dictator has No Clothes and is not Well Endowed Either.
I'm sure that others can make quite a few comparisons between the two other than the ones that I've pointed out above.
posted on June 17, 2002 03:14:32 PM new
Either that one man of courage or a conspiracy of faggots and marxists perverts and other degenerates that would drag this country thru the mud until things got so bad that a dope smoking theif would be to sit in our hallowed grounds and commit bizarre acts while telling the poor to have responsibility and meanwhile setting us up for a one world police state.
posted on June 17, 2002 03:22:19 PM new
The use of the FBI, then under the beloved J. Edgar, who worked assiduously to find any scrap of information that could be used, often only for political blackmail however.
Accusations based only on suspicions but designed to effect character assassinations.
The Patriot Act and presidential discretion which removes the restrictions that were placed on the FBI by Congress because of the ability to abuse.
