Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- [In the cause of freedom, humanitarianism and the rule of law, of course.] Sydney Morning Herald September 18, 2001 Enter the hitmen: US prepares to turn nasty The Cold War warriors are back in control as the White House considers revoking a ban on CIA assassins, writes Gay Alcorn in Washington. In January, United States Congressman Bob Barr proposed ending a 25-year ban on presidential powers to order assassinations. His resolution languished. Not one member of Congress backed him and the President, George Bush, didn't reply to his letter. Like everything else, that attitude changed with the terrorist attacks on the US last week, which are estimated to have killed 5,000 people. Before, the Bush Administration was suggesting that Israel refrain from assassinating suspected Palestinian terrorists and bring them to trial instead. Those niceties of peace are being reassessed, and with them America's idea of itself as the shining example of democracy and rule of law. In 1976, the then US president, Gerald Ford, signed an executive order banning the president's right to order assassinations after the CIA botched an attempt to kill the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro. On Sunday, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said that "everything is under review", including the hit-squad ban. Mr Powell has great stature in the US as a diplomat, a Republican moderate, a Vietnam veteran and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. Until Tuesday's strikes, he was all-but sidelined by the Bush Administration's hardliners, whose main goal was the rapid development of a missile defence shield to protect the US against attacks from "rogue states". Even Time asked on its cover: "Where have you gone, Colin Powell?" '); document.write(''); document.write('��advertisement '); } } // --> The US media now call him "General" Powell again. He is the reassuring voice on TV talk shows and a key member of Mr Bush's war cabinet that met over the weekend. But the tough men, the policy hawks, were there too. The Vice-President, Dick Cheney, is at the head of this band. He was defence secretary for George Bush snr, and is a great personal friend of the President. No fan of Mr Powell, Mr Cheney spoke bluntly on Sunday of reassessing the authorisation of assassinations. He also questioned another symbol of American superiority - its reluctance to put known abusers of human rights on the CIA payroll. (The practice was scaled back dramatically after disclosure in the mid-1990s that a Guatemalan army officer employed by the CIA was a suspected torturer.) "To be able to penetrate [terrorist] organisations you need to have on the payroll some very unsavoury characters," he said. "It is a mean nasty, dangerous, dirty business out there, and we have to operate in that arena." Mr Cheney did not believe there was any law preventing the assassination of the chief suspect for Tuesday's attacks, Osama bin Laden, "but I'd have to check with the lawyers on that". Would he like bin Laden's head on a platter? "I would take it today." Most Americans would support Mr Cheney's sentiments, even if some lawyers are queasy about the legality and symbolism of sinking to the enemy's tactics to defeat them. M.Cherif Bassiouni, an international law expert at DePaul University in Chicago, believes it is "impermissible" under international law for a nation to order assassinations. "I think it is a wise policy to not have the intelligence agencies be judge, jury and executioner all wrapped into one. The potential for abuse is too big and the symbolism is too harmful," he told the Los Angeles Times. It was another key member of the Bush Administration, the Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, who most starkly underscored the dramatic change in policy. Instead of concentrating only on fighting terrorists, the aim was "ending states who sponsor terrorism". Mr Wolfowitz's aides now say he erred, that he meant to say the US would end support for such states, yet Mr Bush has made clear he intends to take a tough stance against any nation which harbours terrorists. Mr Wolfowitz's hardline views are consistent with his attitudes towards previous conflicts. He advocated removing Saddam Hussein from office after the Desert Storm operation expelled the Iraqi leader's forces from Kuwait. Three years ago, Mr Wolfowitz, along with the now Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, and Undersecretary of State, John Bolton, wrote to President Bill Clinton criticising his Iraq policy. Ousting Hussein "needs to become the aim of American foreign policy", he wrote, a suggestion that has re-emerged this week, if only unofficially. Though well regarded now, Mr Armitage, another veteran of the Reagan era, has a past tinged with controversy. He worked closely with Colonel Oliver North in clandestine White House efforts during the Reagan presidency to trade arms to Iran and send some of the profits to Nicaraguan contra rebels. That was against the law, and was enough for President Bush snr to withdraw his nomination as Army Secretary in 1989. __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? 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