What CIA program was Cheney trying to hide from Congress, you ask?
By John Amato Tuesday Jul 14, 2009 11:00am
CSPANjunkie's video highlights the outrage members of Congress felt after learning what Dick Cheney was up to with the CIA.
And there's a lot of speculation going on about what possible CIA program Dick Cheney was trying to hide from Congress. Trusting the WSJ when it comes to the Bush administration is like trusting the Yanks to win against the Angels in Anaheim. (I was due for a bad baseball analogy.)
TIME magazine has a few sources that make a case that's a bit more believable.
It is the biggest mystery in Washington at the moment. Here's what our colleague Bobby Ghosh says his sources are telling him:
Speculation abounds about the nature of the secret program Dick Cheney asked the CIA to keep from the Congressional oversight committees. The most sensational reports suggest it was plan to find and kill top Al Qaeda leaders – like the covert Israeli campaign to take out the perpetrators of the Munich killings.
But two former ranking CIA officials have told TIME that there's another equally plausible possibility: The program could have required the Agency to spy on Americans. Domestic surveillance is outside the CIA's purview -– it's usually the FBI's job – and it's easy to see why Cheney would have wanted to keep it from Congress.
Both officials say they were never told what was in the program, and that they're only making calculated guesses. But their theory gibes with other reports, quoting ex-CIA officials, that say the program had to do with intelligence collection, not assassinations.
“People may want this to be about hit squads bumping off shady Saudis in Geneva, but that's very unlikely,” says one official. “More likely, it was a plan to spy on some suspicious American citizens or organizations, without telling the FBI.”
A third CIA official who is familiar with details of the program says it was deemed unworkable and cancelled in 2004.
With Cheney's love of spying, this makes perfect sense since catching and killing terrorists just like Jack Bauer is something that any member of Congress would have signed off on in a heart beat. Spying and keeping secrets is Darth Cheney's MO and when he sends his daughter out to defend him only sends up more red flags.
Digby writes:
This is something so far off the charts that even the wingnuttiest wingnuts distanced themselves from it:
Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, said last week that he believed Congress would have approved of the program only in the angry and panicky days after 9/11, on 9/12, he said, but not later, after fears and tempers had begun to cool.
Does that sound like something about killing Al Qaeda or spying on Muslims in America? They did that anyway. This is something else.
In other words, the only way possible a program like this might have been contemplated was when Americans were utterly terrified. You can count on Cheney to be consistent when it comes to playing the fear card.
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certainly is a DICK!
This is big and I'm in the group thinking this has something to do with something other than what he's said it's about... I don't believe a dick any farther than I could throw one and I never believe anything that this DICK says... ever!
His daughter is a She-DICK as far as I'm concerned... she learned too well at daddy's feet. I don't trust her either!
VIDEO
Suskind:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/319122...
Rachel Maddow
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/319122...
J'all hear palin has a new spokesman?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml8E_SE9c7k
Probably work on recalcitrant terrorists as well.
I have it on the best of authority, Liz Cheney, that if the plan was to kill Al Qaeda leaders then the democrats are foolish to bring this to light now because it just shows the democrats are a failure at keeping the "homeland" safe. Then Liz goes on to say she has no idea what the plan was but "we kept the homeland safe". Liz won't say if her father had the authority to tell the CIA to put a lid on it but she believes the law would have allowed him to if he did. Liz got us all straightened out on all this.
She turn anybody straight
Except maybe her sister.
She managed to explain all this while yelling over what everyone else was saying. She's got a talent for being so very obnoxious, I guess that's what makes her a republican.
I defy Liz or any other Bush-Cheney apologist to speak one point at a time, and without misdirecting the discussion.
Do you mind if I copy your comment? I'm a little short of time 2day.
C (K)
I (G)
A (B)
Is that code? ;)
the cheney family like the bush family
appear to be all deception, lies and
do-what-we-tell-you and not as we are
doing to you without your knowledge.
cheney like many in washington dc who
have been there too long, misuse and abuse
their positions and spend too much of their
time covering up what they and many in the gop
are doing that borders and in some cases,
crosses the lie of decency and legality.
Why isn't that Christanic terrorist in prison? Why is he allowed to walk freely? The terrorist butcher should at minimum be executed for his treason if not his Christian war crime atrocities against humanity.
His reputation has been damaged, according to Gramps McCain. Ain't that enough?
/snark
You are confusing two totally different (but both illegal and operative) programs from different agencies. Yes, the surveillance was much wider than has originally been reported. However, that is under the NSA, not the CIA. The CIA does not have the internal infrastructure to do this; the NSA does.
The CIA program is exactly what it was reported to be: a program to assassinate al-Qaeda leaders. What makes it different from the drones is that this program was to operate in countries that we are friendly with without their knowledge or approval (e.g. think of sending covert ops into Spain for an assassination attempt). Supposedly the only time it was ever carried out was in Kenya, and the ops botched the job pretty thoroughly.
Great take! Others should pursue this avenue.
Cheneys hatred of the CIA is well known. For him to use them for covert US operations makes no sense. A more willing accomplice would be General Hayden, both as head of NSA and later at CIA. His attitude matches Cheney, that laws are for others to be constrained.
I agree with you. Although I despise the CIA, the CIA is not to blame for everything. If anything, Cheney had a rogue group working under the cover of the CIA. After all, there was the "Office of Special Plans" where all intelligence was funneled through Cheney and Rumsfeld before Bush even saw it.
General Hayden has never conducted himself in a manner that would build any trust with me. The NSA needs to considered as all intelligence agencies because I bet you will find there are rogue groups within all of these that use them as cover.
the whole system needs a root canal.
i'm going in for one today!
as for the Cheneys, it appears that the entire family takes smug shelter in the rhetorical and legal loophole.
to a Cheney, the spirit of the law is a partisan concept where the parties involved include the Cheneys and their enablers on one side and everybody else on the other.
without a strong hand guiding the process, it's simply impossible to have an honest discussion with this slippery clan.
Warrantless wiretapping and summery executions are most certainly illegal. And the possibility that is being discussed of the CIA involved with domestic surveillance is totally seperate from the well known (and totally illegal) NSA program. Try to keep up please! Programs that have been widely known about for years is NOT what is being discussed here!
You are 100 percent correct. What ever the nefarious secret is (some sort of "wet work" to be sure - it (the c word) is not equipped to do what is known as "SIGINT" (Signals intelligence) They are mostly HUMINT (Human intelligence) They work with and rely upon "no such agency" for their SIGINT to do their HUMINT. Its all quite sick. No, the C word is all about wet work. Always has been..its what they rellish. ptuuiie on all the three letters!
One minute Liz Cheney was arguing that the plan was never put in place, then she argued that it was a good plan because it kept the homeland safe. She's pretty good at not knowing what she's talking about and trying to sound like she does know what she's talking about but she can't tell you what she's talking about.
If anything had anything to do with Dick Cheney, you can bet it wasn't what was best for you and me. Maybe he wanted to take all the lawyer's hunting and then shoot them.
Here's Rove on O'Reilly:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article2...
Dick Cheney....before he dicks you.
most of the people here have been subject to this program at least once.
An NSA bot sniffed my blog once.
Oooohh! Did it tickle?
maybe it had to do with a list of americans who were against the abuses the government were perpetrating. this is an organization that
compiled a list of purported communists in indonesia in the early sixties in which it is estimated that 250,000 people were killed.
i would put nothing past scum like cheney
In September of 2003, two Italian women on a humanitarian mission and both named Simona were kidnapped in Iraq. The word in Italy at the time was that these girls were on some sort of a "list" and that's why they were kidnapped.
"I said what I said, they can always say what they say," Hersh told The Daily Beast. "The last time they said the government doesn’t torture, this time it's the government doesn’t assassinate."
..announcing it would have meant producing results of some kind. How can you perpetuate a war if you kill all your enemies? Then, W dismisses OBL, doesn't think much about him. Then, they torture to create the al-Qaeda/Iraq link and send in the clowns: KBR & Halliburton with no-bid contracts who killed American soldiers with shoddy electrical work.
You've got to keep that stuff quiet or risk losing your phoney-baloney jobs! Yeah, I know, cynicism - prove me wrong! Appoint a special prosecutor and prove me wrong! I dare you! I double dare you!
Triple dog dare.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XlPwsmkPHI
I see this bruited about rather a lot, the idea of Americans being terrified after 911. I know quite a lot of Americans living as I do on a border town and I remember a lot of sad Americans. I remember a lot of angry Americans and I remember a lot of utterly disgusted Americans. I can't say I recall meeting or speaking to any terrified Americans. The majority, if I were to take a poll down memory lane, were seriously pissed off. It would probably be more honest to attribute a lot of the things the Bushies tried to get away with to using the anger the American people felt rather than just to fear.
..us to be afraid; it makes it easier to screw us!
Sounds like rape.
..safer now?
W and Cheeney = domestic terrorists?
The only thing I was afraid of after 9-11 is what the govt would do in retaliation. I think my fear in that respect was grounded.
I remember reading in the weekly local paper a week or 2 after 9/11 a letter to the editor by a highschool classmate of mine who's now out in MN or MI warning against just that. I was so proud of him I wanted to get his address and get in touch and thank him for writing.
Ben DuBois if you're a C&L reader and see this Ted Blodgett says THANKS for that letter to the editor!!!
Passing out packs of smokes to Iraqian children.
.
Camels spit.
http://www.redstate.com/dan_mclaughlin/2009/0...
Funny, Hilary didn't quit when the rabid right went after Chelsea caling her a dog (Limpballs) and saying her dad was Janet Reno (McNasty). Guess that's the difference between a Democratic fighter and a Republican quitter.
Redstate pretends not to know Sarah the Quitter's self-serving decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska was all about the money and building a possible presidential run. Why dont they just change the name of their blog to Shillstate?
See:
)O(
Tue, 07/14/2009 - 12:10 — ysbaddaden
J'all hear palin has a new spokesman?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml8E_SE9c7k
Probably work on recalcitrant terrorists as well.
That queen's 15 minutes was 14 minutes too long.
as Krugman would say. Exactly what the hell will it take for congress to investigate, indict and convict??? A murder committed on the floor of the Senate? Doubts..
that it was a domestic assassination program against people with no connection to terrorism, just the 'wrong' political ideas.
Dr. David Kelley, Sen. Callahan from Missouri, ...........open list add your own contributions.
.....that it was a domestic assassination program against people with no connection to terrorism, just the 'wrong' political ideas.....
Reminds me of the Cowboy from Texas still wearing his boots who showed up over here in a restaurant in September 2004 and told me, "Your politics are wrong".
The neocons are now busy busy busy trying to convince us all once again that it is damaging to national security to speak of the CIA in any way, shape, form, context, concept, nuance, language, etc.
The rabid right wants us all to believe that little old lady Muricuns are frightened out of their shitty knickers over the possible harm that WILL COME should anything that Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Heyden, or any CIA operative did be brought to light.
But, I wonder ... where was their concern and outrage when Val Plame was intentionally outed?
If Jack Kennedy had lived, we would not have the pestilence of "that" agency today. He wanted to tear it in a thousand pieces, and scatter the pieces to the wind. He was so disgusted with their actions (including Northwoods) that he fired all of the agency high rollers. Its pretty plain what happened that dark day in Dallas - and the agency got even stronger and more vile. They were and are, responsible for coups, murders, insurrections, and all manner of criminal conduct. Might want to read John Perkins book "Confessions of an economic Hitman"
May everything that Cheney has done, come back to him times three.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Hersh_US_has_be...
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that the military was running an "executive assassination ring" throughout the Bush years which reported directly to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The remark came out seemingly inadvertently when Hersh was asked by the moderator of a public discussion of "America's Constitutional Crisis" whether abuses of executive power, like those which occurred under Richard Nixon, continue to this day.
Hersh replied, "After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet."
This is what it was.
Just who would Cheney find suspicious? Any democrat, liberal, member of the media, basically anyone but himself. The man is a nutcase.
Vegans in Minneapolis?
It also Nexis in with this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jFWvZr-QLo&vi...
The US government has allegedly set up a special security wing with the sole task of distancing Washington from any involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
nvestigative journalist Wayne Madsen claims the group has since grown into a disproportionate counter-intelligence force, mainly targeting journalists and prosecuting whistleblowing security officials.
Read more
According to Madsen, this group is fully operational and is called the Q Group of the National Security Agency and its headquarters are within the headquarters of NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland. Q Group works in close cooperation with the FBI counter intelligence officers, as well as local police department intelligence units.
"the military was running an "executive assassination ring" throughout the Bush years which reported directly to former Vice President Dick Cheney."
As I recall, this is illegal as can be is it not?
how they stopped doing something that they never started that had been in their plans for 8 years. You can't cheat, use logic.
Ya, and don't forget Paneta has officially admitted he has put an end to it just recently. I think it may have been conceiled from Paneta too, until he did some digging himself... what?
The Democrats will complain mightily about this latest revelation (=confirmation) that Bush/Cheney violated our laws and our constitution. But will the Democrats ever actually do something about it, other than whine?
No. Of course not. Given this perennial pattern, the Democrats are just as much to blame as the Republicans for enabling and ultimately protecting our politicians who violate our laws.
Shame, shame, shame on them. I am voting independent next time. And if any Democratic organization from now on tries to solicit me for donations, well, you can guess how I'll respond. Just like them. Nada. Zip. No can do.
I think he was abducting small American school children and pulling their wings off. Then he kept them in the "man-sized safe" and later used them to experiment with torture techniques. He wore nylons and stiletto heels throughout. Unless somone starts coughing up the facts, this is what's going to happen. I will think the worst. (I already do anyway.)
Better to have him fess up (even if it takes waterboarding) and lock him away for life. Evil evil man.
PS How could ANYONE believe in conspiracy theories in the good ole U$A. Shadowgm?
..illegal and considered torture. The USA doesn't tort..oh, wait. Never mind!
Do I need to add a snark/?
a rumsfeld protege. The j.edger protege theory sounds reasonable though.
Maybe this is what Bob Woodward couldn't talk about. Remember that?
I remember that well because it spooked me for some reason. Woodward basically said that when or if "it" (technology, program etc.)was revealed to the public it would blow minds.
God only knows what went through Cheney's sick paranoid mind. I have a feeling it wasn't good or legal.
When it is so secret you have to hide it from a bought-and-paid-for, rubber-stamp, GOP Congress, who would approve of any killing to "keep America safe" (or just for fun), you know it's really bad shit.
I think meglomaniacial sociopath Cheney has more than one secret 'Assenins Club'. NOW? they're 'outraged' ........ppllllleeeeeeeeeeeezze!!!!
I think meglomaniacial sociopath Cheney has more than one secret 'Assenins Club'. NOW? they're 'outraged' ........ppllllleeeeeeeeeeeezze!!!!
CNN needs a magic wall dedicated to understanding the Bush cabal crimes.
I don't think Americans care if "terrorists" are killed. In fact, they would approve of it. So, I don't think that's much of a bombshell.
Likewise, didn't we already know Cheney/Bush was spying on US? Yes, all of us, not just those they suspected of talking to terrorists.
I feel like it's "deja vu all over again."
Didn't we already know this? Or is it that it is now official -- maybe?
are the facts that:
a) killing "suspects" is called murder under our laws. Whether Americans like it or not.
b) a CIA surveillance progarm would be something far different and more sinister then the well known illegal NSA surveillance program.
I don't think Americans care if "terrorists" are killed. In fact, they would approve of it. So, I don't think that's much of a bombshell.
Likewise, didn't we already know Cheney/Bush was spying on US? Yes, all of us, not just those they suspected of talking to terrorists.
I feel like it's "deja vu all over again."
Didn't we already know this? Or is it that it is now official -- maybe?
Uh ohhhhhhh...Congress is angry! NOW we'll finally see some accountabi---zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzz
zz
zzzzzzzz
zzz
zzzzzzzz
z
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z
Well, lots of members of Congress and their families are on Facebook, so they might be upset to find out about the program.
of interrogation and other illegal activities http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/14/fein...
Will Obama/Holder blow him off?
Bush-Cheney raped the entire system of American Government. Great! Now WTF are we going to do? We're all f@cked now. Well, maybe, if the DOJ recovers... things will be different. maybe the DOJ will route out the scum from head to toe in the CIA, the Bush-Cheney cabal, and Congress. Then Congress will resume it's oversight! Then we have a working government again - wopee! BuschCo will finally become a thing of the past, and the economy will soar.
Like i said - no big screen TV, no restaurants, or holiday trips until bush-cheney go to jail... when they do go to jail i shall reward the system with some of my money, not before.
Investigating the crimes comiitted by BushCo., will not damage the reputation of the U$A (like that dick, Cronyn, said yesterday), that's already been done. It will restore your good name. People all over the world will think, OK, the USA is good on it's word, and truly stands for freedom, democracy and the rule of law. (We don't think that now.)
And they can drop the chilling effect meme any time. These Bush-Cheney fascists belong on ice.
Imagine how chilling it will be for recrutes into any office of the US from this point forward if they don't arrest the bushCo peoeple. and god help the innocent people now trapped in these offices... the horror, the horror.
prosecute please.
Let's not kid each other. It was domestic spying and some or much of it was done on Dems, just like Nixon, all under the bullsh*t claim that it was done for national security. They are too paranoid not to go after Dem senators (which has already been revealed as a mistake), but also people like Rather who they later took down. Cheney is the scum vomit of the eath and one of the world's truely worst persons.
Well, are the members of Congress just grumbling about being made fools of (again) by the Bush "administration," or do they actually plan to do something about it?
Dick Cheney is like a Bond villain, only with extra evilness in place of the charisma and charm.
and reminding them
NUREMBURG.....Not just part of a film title
conspiricy theorist time!
The execution of known AQ leaders wouldn't be something that most americans would find objectionable or want to stop. Plus as in earlier comments, it was already known about, and already carried out in other cases anyway.
I'm guessing that the program was to commit further acts of terrorism themselves, and then blame it on parties that they didn't like.
Time to investigate just how far they went.
Boy, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Watch this clip.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2166
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/per...
Maybe Bush/Cheney were doing corporate spying for fun and profits.
He spent a lot of time at lunches with Republicans. Remember the Tuesday Senate Lunch meetings? Remember Trent Lott and the story about secret jails? Stuff was discussed at those meetings.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Senator_tells_C...
Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) told CNN's Ed Henry Tuesday afternoon that he believed it was a Republican senator who gave information about secret CIA jails abroad to the Washington Post, RAW STORY can report.
Lott said that much of the information contained in the Post report -- which stated that the U.S. was holding terrorist suspects in secret CIA jails overseas -- was discussed at a meeting of Republican senators last Tuesday.
But it will also be a tragedy. When all those mofo's start spilling their guts to cover their ass's.
Screw it. Bring em all down. No matter what party.
Every bit of electroinic information on everyone (including congress critters and ex-presidents and CEO's) in a giant database at Deadeye's disposal.
Wild arsed guess but could be.
The Bush administration proved again and again that they wanted to spy on Americans. In fact, I believe they were electronically looking at everything they possibly could - without a warrant. What do you think they were doing in that little room at AT&T in San Francisco? They were spying on all of us, all the time, without warrants or any sort of oversight. That is ILLEGAL and immoral and just plain messed up.
The GOP is trying to make this into just a little, unimportant thing when they know that when the real news gets out, everyone, on the left and right, is going to get really angry about this.
It just seems to me that this whole idea of "murder squads" is a decoy to distract us, because most of us wouldn't care if they went and killed terrorist leaders.
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