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| Two-faced: Blackwater forces officers guarding the middle, but can at times kill them. (Reuters) |
Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The CIA spent millions of dollars on the program, which did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects.
The fact that the CIA used an outside company for the program was the main reason the CIA director, Leon E. Panetta to be vigilant and ask for an emergency meeting in June to tell Congress that the agency had detained tersbut details of the program for seven years, officials said.
It is unclear whether the CIA had planned to use the contractors to capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance. American spy agencies have in recent years conducted a controversial works, including the interrogation of prisoners.
But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.
Officials said that the CIA did not have a formal contract with Blackwater for this program but instead had individual agreements with top company officials, including the founder, Erik D. Prince, a former member of the Navy who are politically connected and the heir to the family fortune. Blackwater jobs in the program actually ended years before Panetta took over the agency, after senior CIA officials themselves questioned the wisdom of using outsiders in a targeted killing program.
Blackwater changed its name recently to Xe Services, and is based in North Carolina, in recent years has received millions of dollars in government contracts, growing so large that the Bush administration said that it was a necessary part of its war operation in Iraq.
It has also drawn controversy. Blackwater employees hired to guard American diplomats in Iraq were accused of using excessive force on several occasions, including shootings in Baghdad in 2009 which killed 100 civilians. Iraqi officials have refused to give the company permission to operate.
Several current and former officials interviewed for this article asked not to be named because they were discussing details of a still classified program.
Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, declined to provide details about the canceled program, however, he said that Panetta's decision on the assassination program was "clear and straightforward."
"Director Panetta thought this effort should be briefed to Congress, and he did," said Gimigliano. "He also knew that the program was not successful, so he ended it."
A Xe spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee, also declined to give details of the program. But he praised the Panetta told Congress. "It's too easy to contract out work that you do not want to accept responsibility for it," he said.
In the summer, the CIA conducted an internal review of the assassination program that recently was presented to the White House and the Congressional intelligence committees. Officials said that the review stated that Mr. Panetta's predecessors did not believe that they needed to tell Congress because the program was not far enough developed.
The House Intelligence Committee is investigating why lawmakers were never diberitahui about the program. According to government officials, former Vice President Dick Cheney told CIA officers in 2002 that the spy agency did not need to inform Congress because the agency already had legal authority to kill Qaeda leaders.
One official familiar with the matter said that Mr. Panetta did not tell lawmakers that the CIA had broken the rules having been detained details of the program of the Congress. Instead Panetta mereaka that the program has run out of the plan and require examination by the government.
Government officials said that Mason CIA paramilitary teams to use to assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda are faced with logistical obstacles, legal and diplomatic. These efforts had been run by the CIA's counterterrorism center, which runs operations against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
In 2003, Blackwater won a classified contract to provide security for the CIA station in Kabul, Afghanistan, and the company maintains other classified contracts
Over the years, Blackwater has hired several former top CIA officials, including Cofer Black, who ran the CIA counterterrorism center immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks.
CIA operatives also regularly use training complex in North Carolina. The complex includes a gym to train area sniper with long-range shots.
An executive order signed by President Gerald R. Ford, in 1976, which forbade the CIA to commit murder, a direct response from the dismantling of the CIA plan to assassinate Fidel Castro of Cuba and other foreign politicians.
The Bush administration took the position that killing members of Al Qaeda, consider it no different from killing an enemy in battle and thus the agency is no longer bound by the prohibition of murder.
But former intelligence officials said that employing private contractors to help hunt Qaeda operatives would lead to legal and diplomatic risks, and may not be protected as government employees.
Some Congressional Democrats have hinted that the program is one of many things that are hidden by the Bush administration from Congress examination and have used it to justify to dive further into Bush's anti-terrorism program.
But Republicans have criticized Mr. Panetta's decision to cancel the program, saying it has created a storm in kettles
"I feel that free was a bit of drama and intrigue a bit more than I should," said Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, a Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.
Officials said that the CIA program was devised partly as an alternative to missile strikes using drone aircraft, which have killed civilians and can not be in the area of the headquarters of the fighters.
However, with most of the Al-Qaeda operatives believed to be hiding in a remote mountainous area of Pakistan, drone CIA remains the weapon of choice. Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has embraced the drone campaign because it provides a less risky option than sending paramilitary teams into Pakistan.
Source: Reuters
