My comments are a late entry. Not because I disagree with the views of others who already have commented on whether the United States should be trying to assassinate al Qaeda's leaders, but because I had to carefully re-examine the evolution of my own thinking. In 1987, I wrote a lengthy essay addressing the question, "Should our arsenal against terrorism include assassination?" I offered five arguments why it should, and ten why it should not. But first a word on context: In the 1980s, we were confronted primarily by Middle Eastern terrorism, in some cases, supported by state sponsors. Most of the attacks took place in Europe, whose governments were, for the most cooperative, and whose police forces were competent. The exception was Lebanon, which was in a state of civil war. The model assassination campaign was that of Israel against the leaders of Black September following the Munich incident. I should point out that at the time, as now, assassinating terrorist leaders had a great deal of popular support in the United States, but continued to be publicly (and in my view, correctly) rejected as an instrument of American policy. Arguments for assassination included: 1. Assassination may preclude a greater evil. The theoretical assassination of Adolf Hitler in 1938 was offered as the clinching argument. 2. Assassination produces fewer casualties than retaliation with conventional weapons. This remains true. 3. Assassination would be aimed at the persons directly responsible for terrorist attacks. 4. Assassination o terrorist leaders would disrupt terrorist groups more than any other form of attack. 5. Assassination leaves no prisoners to become causes for further terrorist attacks. This was often a motive for terrorist hostage-taking in the 1970s. The arguments against assassination included: 1. Assassination is morally wrong. I admitted then that this was an arguable point. 2. Assassination is illegal. Again, context is critical here. We were talking about covert operations outside of any framework of war. In a state of war, enemy commanders are legitimate targets. 3. In combatting terrorism, we ought not to employ actions indistinguishable from those of the terrorists themselves. 4. Assassination could be seen to justify further terrorist attacks against us. It would not serve our strategic goal of de-legitimatizing terrorism itself. 5. Our opponents would have the advantage. "They are elusive," I wrote, "hard to find, hard to get at." This one still applies. The fact that U.S. authorities have been trying to figure out how to kill al Qaeda's top leaders for more than a decade suggests that it still ain't easy. 6. The replacement for the person we kill may be even worse. (With al Qaeda today, I would be willing to accept this risk.) 7. Whom do we kill? And again, context is important. In 1987, number one on everybody's list of most wanted terrorists was Abu Nidal. (He died years later of natural causes, underscoring the difficulty of executing assassinations.) But at the time, people were also talking about going after Libya's Colonel Qadaffi, Syria's Hafez Assad, and Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. These were heads of state and that changes everything. 8. Who gives the order? Ultimately, it goes to the president to lift the executive order banning assassinations, but presidents ought not to be involved in every operational decision. 9. Assassins have their own agendas. This was, and remains a danger when we talk about commissioning others to do the killing. We have had some unfortunate experience with this. 10. In the long run, it doesn't work. This one, I believe, remains a caution. Assassinations may have disrupted, but certainly did not end the terrorist campaigns against Israel. I am not convinced that the deaths of bin Laden and Zarahiri would end the jihadists' campaign, although it would deprive the movement of its most effective communicators. I wrote then that, as a former soldier, I accepted that blood may be spilt in the defense of one's country, that military force could not be ruled out as a possible response to terrorism, and that combatting terrorism will at times require aggressive covert operations. I also noted that "Being at war, openly engaged in military hostilities, would make a difference. Short of war, however, I concluded that assassination has o place in America's arsenal. I believe that today we are at war with a deadly enterprise called al Qaeda, a war that immediately after 9/11, I said we should openly declare. A framework of war does not mean that military force would be our sole response. The campaign against al Qaeda would have to be a multifront, multifaceted effort, involving intelligence, law enforcement, diplomacy, political warfare, and the application of military force, overt and covert. Where the rule of law applies and the long arm of the law can reach, we must rely on diplomacy and law enforcement. Where it does not, we will use other means. Within this context, attempts to capture or kill al Qaeda's leaders are legitimate. That said, strategic judgments and operational circumstances will determine the course of action--the when, where, how, and whether the risks to those involved and to our broader strategic objectives are worth taking. In some cases, likely to be rare, we may take the risk, but the expectation that by authorizing the removal of a few terrorist leaders, we will end the struggle is an illusion.

In response to Shane Harris' questions:

1. I would be very surprised were Congress to undertake a serious ivestigation of any of the past transgressions. Neither the conviction nor the political courage is evident. One need only look at the list of proposed panelists for the commission Pelosi is putting together for this to be confirmed. Almost no heavyweights and no one at all we might even suspect of determination to do a searching investigation. Among the names indicated we find Fred Thompson of TV fame.

2. The Holder investigation will be self-limited. Obama has made it abundantly clear that he will have no part of a probe into torture, rendition, surveillance or anything else associated with the 'war on terror.' What Holder has in mind seemingly is an investigation of those personnel (mainly contract workers) who did things outside the 'square' of permissible actions established by the Bush Justice Department guidelines (as drawn in the air by Obama a couple of weeks ago). In other words, a replay of the unconscionable Abu Ghraib farce. Except this time the indicted will have competent lawyers. Let's visualize what they will do with Obama's figurative square in cross-examining Bush era officials: so, "waterboarding was allowed, but not while prisoners are shackled to the floor, which my client is charged with doing; could you please tell the court how interrogators were to protect themselves from convulsive violence on the part of the terrorist?"

3. As to the future, I find it unable to comprehend how this assessment can begin without knowing precisely what has been done with what effect. That is something we likely will never know given strong preferences in the White House and the Congress.

cheers,

Michael

I would not be surprised if the Congress, with its overwhelming Democratic majority, would seek to conduct as broad an investigation as possible. After all, investigating the CIA in particular is red meat to the political Left, and the Congress, particularly the House, will be playing to its base as we approach the mid-term elections. Moreover, any such investigation would focus on events that happened during the Bush Administration, enabling the Congress to engage in a new round of Bush-bashing, which would-- at least so the bashers no doubt would hope-- not only be popular with the public (or at least the public that might vote Democratic) but might divert attention away from other policies with which Democrats are associated and which, like health care, may not be progressing as swiftly as those on the Left may have anticipated.

Investigations, replete with hearings, make great poitical theater, especially in the age of C-Span. With the CIA cast in the role of villain, an investigation may not make it to Broadway, but it will certainly permit many members of Congress to demonstrate their acting skills.

Whether the Administration will tolerate such an investigation is an entirely different matter, however. President Obama cannot afford to demoralize the CIA (or the Defense Department) whose efforts are critical to success in Afgfhanistan, a war that is now clearly identified with his Administration. The president, of all people, understands Congressional dynamics; once the Congress is off and running on any subject, it is very difficult to rein in. A wide-ranging investigation--which no doubt would address the DoD's record as well as the CIA's-- simply would not be in the Obama Administration's interest. Not only could Admiral Blair and Leon Panetta be expected to oppose it, but, equally, if not more critically, so too would Secretary Gates--who happens to be the most popular, and, by most accounts, the most effective member of the Cabinet. All in all, an investigation would do the Administration no good and much harm. Whether it can convince those on the Congressional left to curb their enthusiasm, is however, very much an open question.

The Democrats are intent on scoring points on this, so there will probably be some sort of spectacle, an auto da fe with sacrificial victims in dunce caps served up so that the congressional bloviators can strut their stuff on television. Having testified a couple hundred times before the two oversight committees, I can say that the members and the staff always seemed deeply suspicious of whatever was briefed. They were justified in that. Briefing these committees is a fine art. One tries to say just enough, but not too much. Why? I briefed the senate committee once on a rather secret matter and the next day a foreign military attache came to my office in the Pentagon to tell me how Senator "X" had told him about the matter I had briefed. This was not uncommon. Politicians are politicians. There will be a circus of some kind and then people will go back to their work. Some of them will have new scars.

First, let me clear the anger I have for this whole stinking messed up process. You cannot ask your CIA people to risk life and limb, provide them with multiple layers of legal opinions supporting their actions, provide briefings to the Congressional leadership on these topics and then turn around and prosecute them in a different Administration. The United States is not some third-world country where you can engage in vendetta politics because you didn't like the policy of the previous guys.

Second, Holder and the Dems on the HPSCI are being pressured by the left wing of the Democratic Party who have hated the CIA and intelligence for 40 years. Their willingness to engage in nostalgic hate would be humorous if not so damaging to the lives of CIA officers and the security of this country. To these left wingers, I say sit down, shut up and get over it.

In reality, what is likely to happen is that Holder will be forced to move ahead with a "limited" investigation of CIA and the HPSCI will likely do the same. Lives are going to be turned upside down for no reason. Lawyers are about to become much richer and the cost of professional liability insurance is going up for CIA employees.

The other effect -- the most damaging one -- will be to our national security. With ex-ante prosecution and persecution like this, CIA officers are not going to take a chance in a chance filled war. Our allied intelligence services are going to think we are nuts "again" and be reluctant to truck with us. And -- God forbid anyone thinks of this one -- Al Queda and our other enemies are going to have a propaganda field day.

My one slim hope -- and it is slim - is that this lags until August recess and everyone has a chance to catch a deep breath. Sadly, doubtful.

In all my time moderating this blog, I haven’t seen every one of our respondents agree on a single idea. But in this case, there is almost complete unanimity on the following: 1.) No one should be surprised that the CIA was pondering how to kill terrorists, and 2.) Those who proclaim shock and outrage now either haven’t been paying attention or have some ulterior political motivation. To points 1 and 2, many of you have pointed out that news reports of CIA targeted killing programs, as well as the Defense Department’s own foray into that territory, preceded the “revelations” of this program by several years. And to point 2 exclusively, the majority of you think that Congress’ objections to this program has less to do with the program itself than it does lawmakers’ offense at having not been specifically told about it. This anger persists even though lawmakers were clearly informed that the CIA had the authority, from President Bush, to kill members of Al Qaeda, per his intelligence finding of 2001.

Let me shift the focus of the question now. We’ve been looking at this matter retrospectively. I’d like to know what our experts think will happen next. Are we heading for an investigation? And if so, how broad will it be? It’s hard for me to imagine that either party would be willing to mount a full-scale inquiry just of this one program. But is it possible that this will be the final spur some in Congress have been looking for to set up a wider probe? Do the recent reports that Attorney General Eric Holder is contemplating whether to bring prosecutions against individual interrogators play into this? Would anyone be willing to suggest that we might even be heading towards a new Church Committee? Let’s hear some predictions on where Congress and the administration are likely to go with all of this.

In the Democrats’ intensifying efforts to justify Nancy Pelosi’s baseless accusations against the CIA, one fact repeatedly escapes their mention: we are a nation at war with an enemy who has vowed to destroy our citizens and allies.

For over two decades, al Qaeda and other terrorists have been attacking our nation: from the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in October 1983 to the Pan Am 103 bombing in 1988; from the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 to the Embassy bombings in 1998 to the USS Cole in 2000. While al Qaeda declared war against the United States a long time ago, it took the tragedy of September 11th and the loss of thousands of lives before America decided to fight back.

Now some in this town want us to return to the pre-September 11th mindset that treats terrorism primarily as a law enforcement matter. It is this mindset that fosters feigned outrage at the CIA’s proposal.

In law enforcement where a suspect enjoys certain constitutional rights, a federal agent could never kill a suspect, except in self-defense. But on the battlefield, against terrorists bent on our nation's destruction, different rules must prevail.

We must use every available tool at our disposal to defeat the enemy. That means that our military and intelligence operators must have the authority to take out our enemies, through any lawful means, at any range. This is not assassination. This is war.

Ironically, those who do not have the stomach for the CIA’s so-called “kill authorities” are often the same people I hear asking why there are not more air strikes directed at al Qaeda and Usama bin Ladin. Air strikes are an important component of our war strategy, but it comes as no surprise that they can cause the loss of innocent civilian lives. Killing our enemies at two feet is simply more accurate and less likely to cause “collateral damage”—a goal we must accomplish if we are to gain the wholehearted support of the Afghan people. The bottom line is we need both tools to win this war.

The idea of leaving this job to the military probably is correct but it is more than a bit absurd. Our generals, I think, have proven over the last 30 years that they cannot possibly win a war, why should we think they could get an assassination done? Blessed with the best troops on earth, they have failed repeatedly and utterly. They now, for example, have a vastly undermanned field army deployed in Afghanistan, and one whose supply lines run through hostile Pakistani tribal lands and territory being used with Russia's cynical and perhaps transitory permission. In addition, the army's new genius commander in Afghanistan has made his troops’ rules of engagement -- which already made them targets not killers -- even more restrictive. Even our generals apparently have bought on to our bipartisan elite's insane belief that it is better to have America's soldier-children killed in war then to alarm the effete media and Europeans by using U.S. military power effectively until we achieve victory. Wars do often solve problems and there are military solutions to some of the problems America faces, but only if we put protecting America first. As General Marshall did at the start of the second Great War, the first step is sacking the general officers who do not "get" that their job is soldiering and killing not nation-building, and that process should start today with Petraeus and McChrystal.

Assassinations are necessary because our governing elite believes it is possible to go to war against a man -- Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, etc. -- rather than a nation-state. Our concern for the lives of foreigners is touching but unconscionable and self-defeating. Rather than using three 50-cent, 50-caliber rounds, or three $75 million cruise missiles, to kill those three gentleman, we have lost 3,100 Americans in NYC, Washington, and Pennsylvania; nearly 5,000 in Iraq; hundreds in Afghanistan -- and this, of course, does not include dead Afghans, Pakistanis, and Iraqis, or the tens of thousands of Americans, Brits, Australians, Canadians and others who have been wounded or maimed. We also have spent a trillion dollars to not win two wars, and have shredded the NATO alliance. Are these costs really worth incurring just to ensure that we are not angering those who are basically anti-American? And against these figures, any contention that assassination is immoral ought to be greeted with howls of laughter and a straight jacket for the person so contending.

Finally, I have never really understood the purpose of the E.O. against assassination. If it is to please the media, the Democratic left and moderate Republicans, the Europeans, and the apostles of globalism and multiculturalism, then it is a monstrous injustice to the American people and a sign of how little their political leaders care about their security. If it is to stay in step with the devotees of international law, it is feckless; the post-WW II international law regime went out with the Cold War's bath water and has yielded to the return of a Hobbesian world in which the simple equation is that: If an act benefits America and protects its citizens that act by definition is legal and moral. And if it is to make sure no one tries to assassinate U.S. leaders, it lacks faith in our republican system which was designed to produce leaders who were talented, expendable, and replaceable, and certainly not demigods who are to be shielded from assassination by incurring the human and material costs to the citizenry noted above. Surely, if the republic cannot produce adequate replacements for the last eight men who have served as president and vice president we are in more trouble than any possible harm Islamists could inflcit on us.

Are we at war or are we not? The foolish exagerations of the Bush Administration aside, it is still difficult to argue that we are not at war with the few hundred medieval fanatics who lead the takfiri jihadis. They want us dead or at the least destroyed as a culture. We have little choice but to return the favor for these few irreconcilable enemies. Their enmity is not based on some supposed group memory of colonial oppression. Their enmity is only heightened by our alllince with Israel. Their enmity is based firmly in their sense of us, the people of the West as "the other," the enemies of God and the fulfilment of his will in this world. Such enmity can neither be placated nor assuaged.

The question should not be whether or not the United States should pursue and eliminate these people, but rather whether the CIA is a suitable instrument for such action.

I agree with Bob Baer. This job should be left to the armed forces. War and killing are their business. The CIA should welcome the changes that came a few years back that limited their role to the fine art of espionage. That was a liberation, not a crippling loss of function. If the law requires change to bring armed forces special operations under effective congressional oversight, then change the law. The country needs CIA as an effective clandestine infomation collection service. They should not be distracted from that critical task by the war making that is the proper business of the Army and Marines.

Wrong Question, Right Answer

This question skirts the real debate. The real argument should be over whether it is appropriate to use CIA operations as a political football to advance partisan agendas. Speaker Pelosi got in a bind for claiming she was lied to by the CIA…that left her defenders scrambling to prove the CIA lies--hence the outrage over the most recent revelations. Add to that the desire of some to run against Vice President Cheney in every future election.

Arguably this all started not after 9/11 when the program was first conceived but on April 16, 2009 when the Justice Department released documents on terrorist interrogation tactics used by the CIA. There were immediate cries that the memos showed the Bush policies to be both wrong and wrongheaded. Cheney cried foul, calling on the Administration to declassify and release additional material that described the full scope and context of the program, including the effectiveness of the CIA interrogations. The Administration said no. Obama threw fuel on the fire deliberately scheduling a national speech just before a long-scheduled Cheney speech at AEI.

Then a month later when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came under fire for not pushing back on the CIA interrogation methods, she claimed that she had been left in the dark. Then she and CIA Director Leon Panetta went to war over who was briefed on what. The CIA said she was briefed, as did Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Ranking Member Pete Hoekstra (R-MI). She said the CIA lied. Panetta defended the CIA.

Finally, when news broke of a covert CIA program and Panetta stated that Congress had not been informed…came the predictable knee-jerk claim of “see we told you so Cheney and the CIA have been lying to us all along.” No sooner had that hue and cry reached crescendo when more facts began to appear—suggesting that the program had been authorized by Congress—and that leaders were then not briefed further on details because the program was never implemented.

None of this back and forth has anything to do with the question raised here. No surprise there—this question is not what the debate has ever been about.

The tension between secrecy and transparency in democracy is permanent and purposeful. We can never be complacent in deliberating between the right to know what our government is doing (the cornerstone of freedom) and keeping the secrets that keep us all safe. When that just and honest discourse is poisoned for blatant political purposes, however, both our freedom and security are placed at needless risk. The present debate represents the worst of the worst.

The U.S. and Israeli situations with regard to counterterrorism are quite different, both with regard to the adversary and the relative situations of both countries. That said, I believe that Israel offers important lessons, for better and for worse, as the United States goes down this road. I've written extensively on this, most recently a long piece for the Wall Street Journal.

Colleagues,

I propose that we begin by sweeping aside the rubbish cluttering the electronic ether on this issue, an accumulation equal parts litter from the Langley fabricators and

regurgitations from a slothful press. What we know seems to be the following:

1. The CIA, as commanded by Dick Cheney, was designing a wide-ranging program to liquidate persons who they judge hostile to the United States in terms of some loosely defined terrorist connection. The Agency for decades has taken considerable license in doing just that with other reference points under a Presidential directive (see Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes). Let’s also recall the revelations of the Church Committee in 1975-6.
2. This venture was chewed over for 7+ years but was never set in motion - we are told.
3. It was kept secret from Leon Panetta who, upon eventually stumbling across it, decided to terminate it – if in fact his order is being executed.
4. Panetta ran to Congress to tell the Group of 8 and they were ‘shocked’ beyond belief.

INFERENCES

1. A 7+ year delay in response to an ukase from the Vice-President post 9/11 strains credulity.
2. A powerful recoil by ‘even Republicans’ among the ‘8’ from Panetta’s recitation is utterly incommensurate with the ‘facts’ about the CIA’s plans as they have been publicly described, especially since they are in full conformity with stated American objectives in the ‘war on terror.’ It is likely to Panetta gave some details about another, operational program lodged in the Pentagon. His shocking testimony may have been about: killings on the soil of friendly countries; ‘accidents’ in the form of misidentifications and/or collateral damage; kidnappings, incarceration at ‘black sites, torture; free-lancing, inter alia.
3. There is considerable evidence that such an ‘Executive assassination ring’ was indeed put in place by Don Rumsfeld years ago. It supposedly was a dedicated unit (Task Force 121) based in the Joint Special Operations Command. On this, see Sy Hersh’s reporting going back to 2003. Let us also recall that George Bush boasted in his Second Inaugural Address of our success in eliminating terrorists who never will be heard from again. (ad lib-ed remarks not in official transcript).
4. CIA Operations were peeved by being kept out of the action. Their attempts at hooking up with their DoD counterparts in some partnership, or competing against them, at last seemed on the point of success when somehow Panetta got wind of it.

QUESTIONS

1. Exactly who was killed by whom? Where? When?
2. Can we believe that Bob Gates was unaware of this enterprise? If we cannot, did he try to kill it or just ride along upon discovering its existence?
3. Why the preference for the DoD rather than the more experienced CIA? Were ‘specialists’ from the latter seconded to assist the former?
4. Given the stories circulating about such an operation since 2005, did Obama or any of his senior national security appointees make any effort to find out what had gone on/was going on? If not, was this another expression of the ‘let bygones be bygones’ philosophy that has set policy on torture, illegal surveillance, extraordinary rendition, etc?
5. Will there be a strategy by the current administration to keep the ‘ultra-secret, highly classified’ information about these illegal, counter productive actions from being revealed to the public?
6. Will any tangible evidence ever be presented of connections between these crimes and actual threats to the United States – past or ‘going forward?’ We might remind ourselves, in this regard, of the abundant testimony by FBI Director Mueller, among many others, that we never learned anything of serious value from either the use of torture (including that of Zubyaid and Mohammed) or from illegal electronic surveillance.

Finally, how as a nation are we going to cleanse ourselves of the odious residue from these outrageous actions taken in the name of the United States by unscrupulous, panicked leaders who engaged in a cynical exploitation of a scared and trusting country?

Cheers,

Michael Brenner

High value targeting or strategic decapitation has been an element of nearly every successful counterinsurgency campaign. The Israelis may rely on it more than other counterinsurgents, but most (if not all) use it. It is not a panacea--it cannot bring victory alone--but can make a contribution to an integrated counterinsurgency campaign. The United States simply cannot take it off the table in its global counterinsurgency campaign against Islamic radicals.

That said, we must develop mechanisms to do it correctly. This includes not only have the intelligence and personnel to be successful, but also having a means to assure that every operation is necessary and likely to succeed. Ultimately the President must make this call, but Congress should also be fully involved in some way that can assure mission security.

That high value targeting or strategic decapitation is difficult and dangerous does not mean that we must eschew on. Only that we should do it carefully, with foresight, and with the sadness that the world is such a dangerous place.

There is no real operational issue here, only a political one.

In 1996, having already attacked us once, Al Qaeda declared war on the United States. It was not until they attacked on 9-11 (the fourth direct attack) that we in effect declared war on them. There are no significant legal issues with DoD or CIA taking out Al Qaeda leaders. In areas of combat, they are fair game, in other areas, we will of course have to deal with the domestic laws of third parties, something which should not stop us from pursuing people who have declared war on us and continue to carry out operations against us and our allies. As one of my blog colleagues noted, whether we kill the enemy with drones, or hit squads, or A Teams, or proxies, or tank rounds is a logistical and tactical issue, not grist for the more serious Beltway mills.

Domestically, we are dealing with a bruised Congressional leadership who were exposed as being full partners in the US enhanced interrogation program. The CIA director's "confession" of the sin of thinking about committing activities in the national interest was curious and not justified, unless he was beating the Congressional leadership (or some zealous legislator) to the punch.

CIA will have some legitimate accountability issues in the coming months, but the uproar over an alleged “targeted assassination” program ought not be one of them. Indeed, there is something strangely contrived in the latest “CIA Scandal” playing out in Washington summer stock. In the end, the drama will probably tell us more about Congress and the politically flawed oversight process than it will reveal about CIA missteps in carrying out its mission.

At issue is the claim that for the last eight years CIA has had a program to kill or capture al-Qaeda leaders wherever they might be found, and that the agency did not report this activity to Congress as required by law. The outrage has been amplified because it has also been reported that former Vice President Cheney instructed CIA not to brief the program to Congress. Implicit in that charge, it would seem, might be that the program itself originated with Cheney or his boss, the president. Never mind that no targeted killings seem to have been carried out under the program, or that it never apparently got off the ground. It’s the outrage that counts.

Who could possibly question that targeted killings were considered an option by the CIA in a post-9/11 atmosphere. Of course the option should have been in the mix, and still should. But the crunch is in the implementation. Old hand professionals at CIA readily understand the difference between the fantasy of a John Woo action sequence and an intelligence operation with a lethal outcome. There are those at Langley who know there is precious little intelligence reliable enough to be the basis for a death sentence. When human intelligence is involved, the odds against reliability become even more daunting as the intelligence sources sometimes try to get us to do their heavy lifting by passing off their enemies as ours.

I have no more information than the media on this latest CIA story, but I suspect that the targeted assassination program had gaps between concept and execution that couldn’t be bridged. Pretty soon after 9/11 there were cases of mistaken identity in the “extraordinary rendition” program. CIA on occasion allegedly snatched the wrong guy. Those failures would have prompted caution, if not passive resistance, at CIA when it came to launching operations to kill based on pretty much the same kinds of intelligence. Old Langley hands would also have remembered the heated debates inside Mossad on its targeted assassination programs. Could we actually do any better? Maybe, but maybe not.

But those concerns would have been weak arguments to carry downtown to the White House advocates of the plan. The top down order would have been clear -- just get better intelligence and get on with the program.

Hence the probability of the “program that never was”. In CIA lore there has been precedent for such foot-dragging. During the decade-long CIA Covert Action supporting the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, both CIA Director Bill Casey and President Ronald Reagan were convinced they had the USSR on the ropes. That thought stimulated an occasional top-down idea for a program to ramp up even more covert pressure on the Soviets. Let’s call one of those ideas Project X.

Bill Casey loved Project X. But no one else at CIA did, to the extent that my verbal instructions from one grizzled Deputy Director for Operations during those years were clear: if Casey asks how we are doing on Project X, tell him that it is moving along, very carefully, but moving along. And that’s the way it was played. It was a program that never was. When Bill Casey died, the program died with him. Was this locker room fantasy Project X ever reported to Congress? Of course not.

So as this story plays out in the Congress, those most outraged should understand that if their real target here is the former vice president, there may be consequences in taking down CIA in the process. There is already blood in the water with the prospect that Attorney General Eric Holder may investigate CIA personnel and contractors for excesses in the enhanced interrogation program. If that does, indeed, occur without broadening any investigation to include senior authors of the programs downtown, it will be a disgrace on the level of pinning the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison a handful of feckless enlisted soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company who were convinced they had top down cover.

Time to stop the silliness.

It makes no sense for the CIA to become involved in assassinations. The CIA has not had a military component since Vietnam. CIA operatives today are liberal arts who do their best work sitting behind the wheel of car debriefing a source. The assassination program going to hearings apparently never got off the ground. No targets were picked, no one was deployed, no weapons issued. If it ever came to actually carrying out an assassination, the CIA would have had to turn to the military, to either currently serving officers or retired officers. So why not give it to the military in the first place? (Predators and Hellfire missiles are something else, which incidentally could also be managed entirely by the military.)

As for the morality or effectiveness of assassination, there is one country alone who systematically assassinates: Israel. The Israelis have been fairly effective running targeted killing teams in the West Bank largely because it's their turf. They know the Palestinians, they listen to their telephones, and in the event of a mistake they can deploy thousands of troops at a moments notice. In Pakistan, in contrast, neither the CIA nor our military would have the same advantage. It is unlikely a program of targeted killing in that country would work.

Morality? An ex CIA operative is not the best one to answer that question.

See my piece in Time.

The question posed is whether CIA should assassinate terrorist leaders. Attacking and killing terrorists is a response to the war declared on the US by al Qaeda which launched suicide bombers in New York and Washington in September 11, 2001. The US, as its reply, officially declared war on the terrorists and authorized CIA killing of al Qaeda militants. This Presidential directorate (Finding) was also briefed to the Congress. In an official wartime environment, there is no definition for the media use of the word “assassination,” just killing of the enemy wherever and however found. The CIA regular program of launching drone attacks against al Qaeda members has emphasized the terrorist killing objective, whether in Pakistan, Afghanistan or in other areas such as Yemen and Somalia. Sometimes these attacks are unilateral, and sometime briefed and approved by the host government in advance but publicly denounced by them for domestic political reasons. But the purpose – the elimination through killing of terrorist members – is authorized by Presidential dictates and Congressional briefings. There are few distinctions between a gunshot killing on the street or a remote plane bombing, except that drone attacks often have collateral civilian losses. The Department of Defense had until recently run its own Special Operation anti-terrorist killing squads in countries without the knowledge of either the American Ambassador, or often the knowledge of the CIA Chief of Station in the operating theater. A number of errors in highly classified military operations designed to kill terrorist suspects in third countries have built pressure against the Defense Department special anti terrorist programs, especially when the wrong person was killed in one of the operations. The argument was made that CIA should be given that job.

On June 22 the CIA Director Leon Panetta briefed the Congressional House intelligence committee of a previous Bush Administration proposal for CIA to develop “hit squads” targeted against al Qaeda terrorists anywhere they are found. Panetta said he had turned off the planning in-house and realized that the incipient planning, though never reaching the actual program status, should have been briefed to Congress. There is considerable question as to whether the speculative program had reached the level that would have required earlier briefing to the intelligence committees, although a good argument for political sensitivity could have been made for consultation with both Chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House Intelligence committees. But in the event, the House Intelligence Chairman’s letter to Panetta was leaked by Reyes’ office to the media. The apparent reason for the deliberate leak was to garner support for the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who had considerable egg on her face from the official denials that she had not been briefed in 2002 of CIA interrogation tactics, such as waterboarding, that have been described as torture practices. Panetta’s briefing to the House gave Pelosi and supporters additional blame to former Vice President Dick Cheney who had directed that the “hit squad” planning not be briefed to Congress and had a major role in the extreme CIA interrogation methods that Pelosi had denied knowing about at the time. In short, intelligence has continued to be a foil for political interests. Cheney’s fixation on Saddam Hussein led to a number of serious errors such as the invasion of Iraq. The more general paranoia among neo-conservatives may also have played a role in the promotion of extreme interrogation methods of al Qaeda suspects by Cheney and his office. As a result, the responsibility for handling high-value terror suspects will now be given to a new interrogation task force outside the traditional intelligence channels that are now discredited given the past history. Also, the executive misuse of CIA and the resulting political pressures negatively affected the intelligence collection performance in the last eight years. It may also have led to Congress making its own blunders in intelligence oversight. With the political turmoil, the bureaucratization and weakening of intelligence channels now a reality and an ineffective Congressional oversight performance, it will be difficult to improve important intelligence collection in this environment.

Americans have a vision of themselves. Our vision, our ideal, is one of fairness. We work hard. We play hard. We give the other guy a break. But, we are also tough and like to win. In our past wars, we have used many means possible to win. We have used spies. We have bombed with napalm. We even used nuclear weapons -- all to defeat enemies who are out to destroy us.

However, assassinations – the deliberate killing of an individual directed by the state –is a line we have been justifiably reluctant to cross over the years. It seems unfair, immoral, and empowering our government to do something we think is un-American. Still, we have drifted on and over that line for many years and in many conflicts. Today’s reality challenges the “perfect” vision of a world in which we would not need to assassinate our enemies. So, we are forced to ask again, should the United States engage in assassinations and if so how.

I am no lawyer. I do understand the taking of human life is one of the powers of a state. One of my favorite legal thoughts comes from Justice Robert Jackson that the Constitution is not a “suicide pact.” In defense of the United States, in an age of terrorists willing to kill innocent at home and abroad, we simply cannot deprive ourselves of using whatever means necessary to take their lives first. The choice, for an American, is a distasteful one.

The revelations of Watergate and secret spy activities at home and abroad in the 1950’s and 1960’s colored a generation’s view of assassination. Bungled Cold War plots sometimes verging on the comic and causing more trouble than gain. In response to this reaction, President Ford issued an Executive Order in 1976 specifically outlawing it. President Reagan – a hard Cold Warrior – reiterated the prohibition again in 1983 and no other president or Congress has repealed the prohibition.

However, nothing is static and laws are “interpreted” in the context of their times. The terrorist wars on America since the mid-1980’s have pushed the definition of assassination to some extraordinary “twistifications.” President Reagan was willing to use 500 pounds bombs on Libyan leader Quadaffi’s house in retaliation for a bombing in Berlin in 1986. The Clinton Administration made no bones about the fact it wanted Bin Laden and his colleagues dead directing cruise missile strikes at Afghanistan in 1998 after the embassy bombings in East Africa.

After 9/11, with three thousand America civilians killed in less than two hours on our home soil, the Bush Administration issued a legal finding instructing the CIA to use “lethal covert action” to destroy Bin Laden and Al Queda. The Bush lawyers justified the finding by declaring that the ban on political assassinations did not exist in time of war. And, it sure seemed like war.

So what does this all mean? Like our democratic friends around the world – Britain, France, and Israel – we are going to have to grow up and face an ugly reality. We are fighting opponents who will use any means possible at any time to kill us.

America’s distaste for assassination is outweighed by its desire for living in peace and survival. We don’t like sanctioned killing, but we are willing to have it. We would like it clean and distant. Bombs dropped from Predator drones killing terrorists in Pakistan seem less messy than killing than killings them up close and personal. Still, in this ugly knife fight with terrorism, we cannot allow our enemies to ever think we have surrendered that option.

Assassination is a dirty business, which America will engage in because it has to do so.