Ex-Powell aide suggests CIA assassination program was actually active
Published: July 15, 2009
Updated 4 months ago
The secret CIA program allegedly aimed at assassinating suspected terrorists abroad has raised the eyebrows of at least one former senior Bush Administration official who hints that the program may have actually gone into effect, despite the denials of the agency and congressional staff who have been briefed.
The aide, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, was chief of staff to Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell. He says he heard “echoes” of the program from US ambassadors abroad, who informed him that clandestine military teams were being dispatched to their countries.
“We, very early on, after 9/11, at the State Department, learned from our ambassadors in the field that there were teams being dispatched to their cities, to their countries, and these teams were clandestine and essentially aimed at capturing al Qaeda leaders or al Qaeda affiliates and interrogating them,” Wilkerson told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Tuesday. “So the fact that it might have gravitated over to the CIA or the CIA might have joined in, which is something that happens a lot these days with Delta Force and other special operators is no surprise to me.
“What I suspect has happened is what began to happen while I was still in the government, and that was we’re killing the wrong people,” Wilkerson added. “And we’re killing the wrong people in the wrong countries. And the countries are finding out about it, or at least there was a suspicion that the countries might find out about it, and so it was shut down. That’s my strong suspicion.”
CIA Director Leon Panetta announced this month that he’d shut down the program last month when he first learned about it.
The State Department, under Colin Powell, asked the Pentagon which countries were being targeted but found out little information from then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Wilkerson asserts.
“After some hemming and hawing, which was Rumsfeld’s forte, he finally admitted that he had dispatched some of these teams,” Wilkerson explained. “I don’t think we ever knew the full range of his deployments.” Wilkerson believes the CIA became involved in the program of targeted assassinations later.
“It’s laughable [the idea] that the CIA has never lied to Congress,” Wilkerson quipped. “They lie to Congress on a routine basis,” said Wilkerson. Historically, it’s presidents that take the fall when the CIA lies to Congress. Wilkerson says it’s unprecedented for a vice president to fill that role as Cheney appears to have done.
This video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast July 14, 2009.
Download video via RawReplay.com
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“it’s presidents that take the fall when the CIA lies to Congress. Wilkerson says it’s unprecedented for a vice president to fill that roll as Cheney appears to have done.”
There goes our boy…. setting precedent. Or maybe Cheney was the President.
But I thought the VP had no power?
Kind of impossible to “shut down” something that is not operational. Maybe a wise democrat could demand a fucking investigation? Nah whom I kidding. Make me a deal. If no NEOCONS are in prison by election day 2012 we all vote 3rd party???
This is so scary. If Cheney was doing this in America?
Wilkerson added. “And we’re killing the wrong people in the wrong countries. And the countries are finding out about it, or at least there was a suspicion that the countries might find out about it, and so it was shut down. That’s my strong suspicion.”
We must have serious investigations and get to the bottom of Cheney’s treason.
SIGN THE PETITION
Demanding both a
Commission of Inquiry
and a Special Prosecutor at ANGRYVOTERS.ORG.
http://ANGRYVOTERS.ORG
Cheney is the sacrificial lamb to ‘protect’ Bush, Rove, Rummy, & the others.
Leaks & whistleblowers:
Small tidbits at a time
sacrificial lambs have their throat sliced and the blood drained from them while hanging upside down. Cheney is smoking $50 cigars and eating Kobe steak.
~ bad heart.
Can we start referring to him as Col. Lawrence Wilkerson or some variation in titles, yet please? This guy has thrown himself on the sword so many times for the American people and the world exposing the criminal acts of the bush administration, he deserves better than to be constantly referred to as Powell’s Aid.
Thanks.
How bout:
General “I forgot about my integrity and oath to the Constitution for 8 fucking years” Wilkerson ?
I don’t believe the assination squads were only eliminating suspected Al Queda targets. They were targeting foreign political liabilities in much the same way former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko poisoned in Britain. There is much more to this than we are being told.
Yes, much more. The fact that there is a rogue government element operating assassination teams that still take orders from Dickhead Cheney, and there intended purpose was never to eliminate al-Qaeda members, but rather, anyone who might stand in the way of the Bush/Cheney agenda.
Like Kelly and Bhutto, maybe?
Once again the cover-up is the point, not whether or not Cheney/CIA was “justified” in wanting to secretly kill al Qaeda leaders. The fact that Cheney “ordered” others NOT to reveal to congress the existence of this plan/operation IS AN ILLEGAL CRIMINAL ACT!
Is it possible that some of our allies were participating in this program with the CIA? England, Israel, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Australia? What would the world and or local political consequences to leaders in those countries be if they had known about secret assassination teams and either aided and abetted them or quietly acquiesced to missions outside of and or in their own countries?
The CIA has fucked this country up, its standing in the world, and every operation the agency has ever laid a hand on. Despite its huge known budget and unchecked power, the CIA is considered to be THEE shadow government of America — funded by illegal stock manipulations and drug trafficking that are said to provide it with an annual budget which rivals that of the entire U.S. government. Think about it. It was the CIA that wanted the Bay of Pigs, and pushed for a nuclear exchange during the missile crisis, and killed JFK, and missed the Soviet Union’s economic collapse, and contra-ed Central America, and missed India’s nuclearization, and invented crack cocaine, and was complicit in 9/11 to fuel America’s MIC via creeping militarism, and made all that money from shorting airline stocks beforehand. It is a perfect example of why the founding fathers opposed the creation of standing armies and military complexes. They well understood that if such forces were perennial, the government they were forging would then possess the very means by which all governments have always imposed tyranny on their own people. The CIA was created post WWII to prevent another Pearl Harbor — something entirely unnecessary. America’s might was/is perfectly sufficient to overcome any such attack, nuke-u-lar or not, and ramp up for war whenever it is necessary. The failed doctrine of preemption — whether it be GWBs or the CIAs — is immoral, illogical, inefficient, and impossible. And it has usurped the democratic experiment that was America.
The CIA should be flat entirely abolished.
GET RID OF THESE AGENCIES ONCE & FOR ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
notcia . com
Bunch of traitors & frauds!!!!
insider-magazine . com
what i don’t get and haven’t seen brought up by anyone in the news is when did Obama get informed that the cia was lying to congress?
If the cia had been reporting this activity directly to cheney and panetta didn’t get informed until 3-4 months into his appointment then i guess the insinuation is that we had a rouge element that didn’t report to anyone. Why has Obama been silent on this and how come NO ONE in the media is pursuing this line of questions?
what “media” ? NY LYING Times or the LA Slimes mo’ lies. Or the Washington “All bidders welcome” Post? You catch my point.
I agree why has Osama been quiet on this since it was allegedly his soldiers who were ICED and he releases a NEW OSAMA BIN LADEN TAPE!!! once a quarter ? Is OSAMA BIN LADEN Still a CEntRal IntELLiheNce AssET ?????
(i know you asked about obama but i couldn’t resist)
Does anyone really believe that the CIA isn’t kneed deep in all sorts of plots to kill people, every second of every day? Hows that democracy in Honduras working out btw, lol. The whole world isn’t watching like with Iran.
THEY’RE COVERING FOR AN ONGOING, IDEOLOGICALLY-DRIVEN DOMESTIC TARGETING AND TORTURE ‘OP’ THAT USES GOV’T-BACKED CITIZEN VIGILANTES AS A COVERT, GPS-LINKED NATIONWIDE BROWNSHIRT ARMY
There would be no reason to cover up this “op” are described.
This appears to be an orchestrated attempt to divert media attention from the REAL story — a DOMESTIC TORTURE black op that CONTINUES to victimize unjustly targeted Americans. This fairly well-known mainstream journalist is one of them. Please read this story. And if you know any media types, tell them they are being snowed and deceived and thrown off the trail — AND MAY BE “TARGETS” THEMSELVES…
http://nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funded-vigilante-network-terrorizes-america
http://nowpublic.com/world/domestic-torture-radiation-weaponry-americas-horrific-shame
)R (if links are corrupted / disabled):
http://NowPublic.com/scrivener RE: “GESTAPO USA,” DOMESTIC TORTURE VIA RADIATION WEAPONRY…”
They compare this to when your parents and your kids are sitting around and your mother tells about “the time when your dad” got caught smoking behind the garage..hah hah hah ……..Well fuckers, this bullshit gets people killed so they can steal. No pass.
When it comes to Dickhead Cheney, NOTHING surprises me.
There were assassination squads put in place, and operating domestically, right after 9/11. It wasn’t CIA, but indicators show it had Rummy’s name all over it. With Dickhead’s blessing, of course.
There was a guy on MSNBC ex-counterterrorism official, IIRC, who said they tried a couple of runs that went badly. It got screwed up and they assassinated the wrong person (at least once). It seems that NOW they’re (CIA-SpecialOps program) not even owning up to giving it a couple of ‘test runs’, so it never went into effect.
And yes, Cheney was (is) Bush’s hit man, just like Gonzo was (is) his scumbag attorney, and Rove was (is) his #2. It all gives Bush that “plausible deniability”. His entire administration was a mob of no-conscience loyalist who deluded themselves that they were in service to the country…through Bush. It’s inconceivable to them they broke any laws and without the threat of treason charges and jail time, they are fully aware it’s setting precedent for the next President (R).
I believe Col. Wilkerson got it half right.
It sounds to me like the Bush/Cheney administration settled on two components to their assassination program: one involved using CIA agents and U.S. military special operations teams to go after suspected al Qaeda members and supporters anywhere in the world (not bothering to inform that country’s CIA station chief nor U.S. ambassador about what they were doing) , while the other involved overseas recruiting, training and activation of assassination squads derived from citizens in a specific country…ala School of the Americas, Iran/Contra, right-wing death squads in Central and South America during the Reagan years.
Oh, I get it. We’re seeing a repeat of the Iran/Contra scandal, just in a different form, but with the same attempt by certain hardcore Republicans (especially the holdovers from Reagan’s Iran/Contra scandal) to keep their little overseas right-wing death squad program hidden from Congress.
Cheney Bushes hitman?
You’ve got it backwards. Bush was Cheney’s frontman, the puppet.
Nothing was beyond The President of Vice, Cheney, in terms of murder, maiming, and destroying. He likes it.
Notice the media is reporting it? That counrty just could be Iran. That girl that was shot to death and the Iranians are fingering America. Iran has the goods on Us-trial is coming up. I agree,it’s to get Bush off the hook,Cheney can take it.
Just imagine if Chinaset up death sqauds and went after the investment community :^/