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WASHINGTON: Fresh details have emerged of a highly secret plan by the US Central Intelligence Agency to assassinate members of Al Qaeda.
According to serving and former government officials cited in the US media, senior figures in the terrorist organisation would have been targeted as part of the response to the September 11 attacks.
No missions were ever carried out and the programme has since been shut down. But its existence and the way American lawmakers were kept in the dark are creating a political firestorm.
The CIA programme remained front page news on Tuesday, with the New York Times reporting that the plan envisaged small teams sent overseas on assassination missions.
The paper describes "myriad" difficulties with the approach; among them, the question of its legality.
John Prados, a senior fellow at the National Security Archive at George Washington University, said: "The use of assassinations is not generally acceptable and certainly violates American laws as well as general international laws and practices."
On Capitol Hill, the revelations are fresh ammunition for Democrats seeking an investigation into CIA activities. There is particular concern that lawmakers have been kept in the dark or actively misled.
That anger grew after current CIA Director Leon Panetta told members of Congress that then Vice President Dick Cheney had ordered the agency not to inform lawmakers about the assassination plan.
Prados said: "The fact that Vice President Cheney could give an order to not brief Congressional committees about this activity is unique, I think, in US experience. I have never heard of an equivalent case."
So far, there has been no comment from Cheney. The episode could keep the National Security Archive going for years.
Prados said: "I would be surprised if in fact, number one, we don't get more details about what this activity was and, number two, if it does not also emerge that there are other activities of a different nature, of a similar nature - whatever - but other activities that were also kept from the intelligence oversight committees."
If that suspicion proves correct, oversight of the CIA will become an even hotter topic.
Questions are already being asked about why the agency's current director was not told about the assassination programme until four months after being sworn in. When he finally learnt about it, Panetta cancelled the plan.
- CNA/yb
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