The left has their collective panties in a wad over a New York Times revelation that Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the CIA to keep a program on the down low.
The program, it turns out, had a really nefarious agenda, one that should be plastered all across the headlines and caused hands to be wrung from coast to coast. Dick Cheney wanted the CIA to, dear God it hurts me to write this…he wanted them to find, then capture or kill terrorist leaders.
I know, it’s horrendous. What’s worse is, it was intended to happen at close range to minimize collateral damage and it never really got off the ground. We should be ashamed:
A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter.
…
According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting on a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts. The initiative hadn’t become fully operational at the time Mr. Panetta ended it.
Imagine the gall of the Bush Administration, trying to kill the enemy and not telling the Congress. You know, this is exactly what was needed, an international version of The Boondock Saints. Too bad they didn’t follow up on it more.
Jonathan Tobin writes in Commentary:
While this particular dog certainly won’t hunt, the Times and its cohorts on the Left must hope that the accumulated weight of accusations will ultimately lead to the appointment of special prosecutors to settle these partisan scores. The real villain here isn’t Cheney or others thinking about stopping al Qaeda; it is a partisan press that seeks to criminalize the efforts of those who were trying to protect us from our enemies.
Agreed. The press won’t focus on the fact that the program was a good one, but that it was kept secret. They will play up the rogue vice president aspect and try to further damage the right even though the AP says “Congress has a right to know everything the CIA does, but the president can by law limit those told about covert operations to just the top four members of the House and Senate from the two parties and the senior members of the intelligence committees” and “Panetta told the committees there was no indication that there was anything illegal or inappropriate about the effort itself.”
Anything they can do to get the focus off the failures of this president and back on the efforts of the last to kill those who would harm us.
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