http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/19/AR2009081904315.html?wpisrc=newsletter
CIA Hired Firm for Assassin Program
Blackwater Missions Against Al-Qaeda Never Began, Ex-Officials Say
By Joby Warrick and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 20, 2009
A secret CIA program to kill top al-Qaeda leaders with assassination teams was
outsourced in 2004 to Blackwater USA, the private security contractor whose
operations in Iraq prompted intense scrutiny, according to two former
intelligence officials familiar with the events.
The North Carolina-based company was given operational responsibility for
targeting terrorist commanders and was awarded millions of dollars for training
and weaponry, but the program was canceled before any missions were conducted,
the two officials said.
The assassination program -- revealed to Congress in June by CIA Director Leon
Panetta -- was initially launched in 2001 as a CIA-led effort to kill or
capture top al-Qaeda members using the agency's paramilitary forces. But in
2004, after briefly terminating the program, agency officials decided to revive
it under a different code name, using outside contractors, the officials said.
"Outsourcing gave the agency more protection in case something went wrong,"
said a retired intelligence officer intimately familiar with the assassination
program.
The contract was awarded to Blackwater, now known as Xe Services LLC, in part
because of its close ties to the CIA and because of its record in carrying out
covert assignments overseas, the officials said. The security contractor's
senior management has included high-ranking former CIA officials -- among them
J. Cofer Black, the agency's former top counterterrorism official, who joined
the company in early 2005, three months after retiring from government service.
Blackwater became notorious for a string of incidents in Iraq during which its
heavily armed guards were accused of using excessive force. In the deadliest
incident, 17 civilians were killed in a Baghdad square by Blackwater guards in
September 2007 after the guards' convoy reportedly came under fire.
The plan to kill top al-Qaeda leaders was thrust into the spotlight in July,
shortly after Panetta briefed members of two congressional panels about the
program. Panetta told House and Senate leaders that he had only recently
learned of the program and, upon doing so, had canceled it. Panetta also told
lawmakers that he thought they had been inappropriately kept in the dark about
the plan -- in part because then-Vice President Richard B. Cheney had directed
the CIA not to reveal the program to Congress.
The CIA declined to comment Wednesday about Blackwater's alleged involvement in
the program, which was first reported Wednesday night on the Web site of the
New York Times. Efforts to reach Blackwater for comment late Wednesday were
unsuccessful.
Agency officials again defended Panetta's decision to terminate the effort and
notify congressional overseers.
"Director Panetta thought this effort should be briefed to Congress, and he did
so," CIA spokesman George Little said. "He also knew it hadn't been successful,
so he ended it. Neither decision was difficult. This was clear and
straightforward."
The House Intelligence Committee has launched an investigation into whether the
CIA broke the law by failing to notify Congress about the program for eight
years. Current and former agency officials have disputed claims by some
Democratic lawmakers that the withholding of key details of the program was
illegal.
"Director Panetta did not tell the committees that the agency had misled the
Congress or had broken the law," Little said. "He decided that the time had
come to brief Congress on a counterterrorism effort that was, in fact, much
more than a PowerPoint presentation."
The effort, known to intelligence officials as the "targeted killing" program,
was originally conceived for use in Iraq and Afghanistan, but officials later
sought to expand it to other countries in the region, according to a source
familiar with its inception.
It was aimed at removing from the battlefield members of al-Qaeda and its
affiliates who were judged to be plotting attacks against U.S. forces or
interests. The program was initially managed by the CIA's counterterrorism
center, but its functions were partly transferred to Blackwater when key
officials from the center retired from the CIA and went to work for the private
contractor.
Former agency officials have described the assassination program as more
aspirational than operational. One former high-ranking intelligence official
briefed on the details said there were three iterations of the program over
eight years, each with a separate code name. Total spending was well under $20
million over eight years, the official said.
"We never actually did anything," said the former official, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because the program remains highly classified. "It never
became a covert action."
A second former official, also intimately familiar with details of the program,
said the Blackwater phase involved "lots of time spent training," mostly near
the CIA's covert facility near Williamsburg. The official said the teams
simulated missions that often involved kidnapping.
"They were involved not only in trying to kill but also in getting close enough
to snatch," he said. Among team members there was "much frustration" that the
program never reached an operational stage, he said.
The CIA -- and Blackwater -- were not the only agents that sought to covertly
kill key members of al-Qaeda using small, highly trained teams. A similar
effort, officials say, was undertaken by U.S. Special Forces.
"The targets were generally people on a kill or capture list," said a source
familiar with Special Forces operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "How did
people get on the list? Well, if we knew that people were involved in planning
attacks, they got on the list. More than half were generally captured. But the
decision was made in advance that if they resisted, or if it was necessary for
any reason, just kill them."
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