It's Wasn't Only Cheney Who Had Assassination Programs: Clinton Did It, and Obama Does It, Too

By Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports. Posted July 16, 2009.

Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said after Clinton issued his 1998 "lethal finding," U.S. operatives worked with Afghan rebels for two years in an attempt to kill bin Laden. "There were a few points when the pulse quickened, when we thought we were close," Berger later recalled. Among the alleged attempts on bin Laden's life by Clinton was the 1998 bombing of Afghanistan (which was coupled with a massive strike on the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan).

Coll observed of the Clinton policy: "Clinton had demonstrated his willingness to kill bin Laden, without any pretense of seeking his arrest."

After 9/11, the CIA, which had been frustrated by some of the hurdles to assassination posed by the Clinton administration's legal team, now had the conditions and the commander in chief it needed to take its assassination program to the next level.

The main operations were run out of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center (CTC) headed by J. Cofer Black, who had served as Clinton's CIA station chief in Sudan when bin Laden was there in the 1990s. After 9/11, Black's division at the CIA was authorized by Bush -- with the consent of Congress -- to hunt down bin Laden and others alleged to be responsible for 9/11. As I describe in my book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army:

Before the core CIA team, Jawbreaker, deployed [to Afghanistan] on Sept. 27, 2001, Black gave his men direct and macabre directions. "Gentlemen, I want to give you your marching orders, and I want to make them very clear. I have discussed this with the president, and he is in full agreement," Black told covert CIA operative Gary Schroen. "I don't want bin Laden and his thugs captured, I want them dead …  They must be killed. I want to see photos of their heads on pikes. I want bin Laden's head shipped back in a box filled with dry ice. I want to be able to show bin Laden's head to the president. I promised him I would do that."

Schroen said it was the first time in his 30-year career he had been ordered to assassinate an adversary rather than attempting a capture. Black asked if he had made himself clear. "Perfectly clear, Cofer," Schroen told him. "I don't know where we'll find dry ice out there in Afghanistan, but I think we can certainly manufacture pikes in the field." Black later explained why this would be necessary. "You'd need some DNA," Black said. "There's a good way to do it. Take a machete, and whack off his head, and you'll get a bucketful of DNA, so you can see it and test it. It beats lugging the whole body back!"

The actions of the teams run by Black were certainly known to Congress. In fact, Black testified in front of Congress in 2002 about what he called the new "operational flexibility" being employed in the "war on terror."

"This is a very highly classified area, but I have to say that all you need to know: There was a before 9/11, and there was an after 9/11," Black said. "After 9/11, the gloves come off." By 2004, Black claimed that "over 70 percent" of al-Qaida's leadership had been arrested, detained, or killed, and "more than 3,400 of their operatives and supporters have also been detained and put out of an action."

The existence of this program is not secret. It has been documented in books by former CIA operatives, is discussed in public speeches by former officials and is reflected extensively in the congressional record.

Obviously, the House and Senate intelligence committees should investigate the assassination policy under the Bush administration. Cheney's role is central to that. Prosecutors should also be authorized to do the same. If there is a nefarious program the public is unaware of and it was unlawfully concealed, it should be brought out into the light.

But, the truth is that a real investigation -- one that actually seeks to get to the broader truths of these matters -- would require investigating the current assassination program under Obama and the roots of the program that preceded the day when George W. Bush took power. That means looking at the Clinton White House and further back. It means looking at both Democratic and Republican assassination teams.

The sad fact is that nobody on Capitol Hill has demonstrated in any way that he or she has the political courage to do that.

See more stories tagged with: democrats, cia, dick cheney, extraordinary rendition, blackwater, george w. bush, bill clinton, cofer black, ronald reagan, assasination squads, billy waugh

Jeremy Scahill, an independent journalist who reports frequently for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now, has spent extensive time reporting from Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is currently a Puffin Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His writing and reporting is available at Rebel Reports.

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