CIA Program of Illegal Targeted Killings Creates Uproar

(Washington Post) – In legal terms, Kenneth Anderson, a law professor at American University said, there is no real difference between killing a terrorist with a missile or with a handgun. “In political terms,” he continued, “there’s a real difference. The missile feels more like regular warfare, even if it’s carried out by the C.I.A.”

But any targeted killings make many specialists in international law uneasy. Hina Shamsi, an adviser to the Project on Extrajudicial Executions at New York University, said that any calculation about inserting an assassination team would have to consider the following: the violation of the sovereignty of the country where the killing occurred; the different legal status of the C.I.A. compared with the uniformed military; and whether the killing would be covered by the law of war.

“The issue is a complex one under international law,” Ms. Shamsi said, “and it encompasses all of the contentious issues of the years since 2001.”

In his 2006 book “State of War,” James Risen wrote that the C.I.A. set up paramilitary teams shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks to hunt down top Qaeda operatives. Mr. Risen, a reporter for The New York Times, wrote that the operation was soon disbanded before the C.I.A. carried out any operations. But the spy agency continued to develop plans to focus on Qaeda operatives, and top C.I.A. officials were briefed periodically about the progress of these efforts, the officials familiar with the program said.

The New York Times(2006) – C.I.A. Fires Senior Officer Over Leaks

During the Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, called “Operation Cast Lead”, 1417 Palestinians were killed, of which 926 were civilians, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

On 6 January 2009, the family home of Hussein Deeb, where many civilians had taken refuge, was hit by Israeli shells. 14 family members were hit, of which 11 died.

B’Tselem Israel’s Assassination Policy: Extra-judicial Executions

(The New York Times) – A turning point in Secord’s career came in 1966 when he was attached to a secret Central Intelligence Agency unit at Udorn Air Base in northeastern Thailand. For two years he helped coordinate flights by Air America, a C.I.A.-owned airline, to supply the Meo tribesman armed and trained by the intelligence agency to fight the North Vietnamese in Laos.

It was during this time that he met Thomas Clines, a career C.I.A. officer who later helped him put together the contra supply network, drawing on agents Mr. Clines knew while stationed in Miami after the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, colleagues say.

In 1972 General Secord wrote a master’s thesis for the Naval War College titled, “Unconventional Warfare/Covert Operations as an Instrument of U.S. Foreign Policy.” In such operations, ”bureaucratic obstacles should be dismissed out of hand,” he suggested. So should opposition from ”the press, Congress, academia and others.”

…
General Secord’s name was linked to Edwin P. Wilson, a former C.I.A. agent accused of supplying Libya with plastic explosives, and to a company, Eatsco, that pleaded guilty to overcharging the Pentagon by $8 million for shipping American arms to Egypt.

He was never charged with a crime, but his reputation was hurt and he took early retirement from the Air Force in 1983. Thirteen days before retiring, he joined Stanford Technology Trading Group International, a company owned by Mr. Hakim, the arms dealer.

Evidence From an Airplane

When a cargo plane of the contra supply operation was shot down in Nicaragua, telephone logs were found in it showing calls from a rebel safe house to General Secord’s office at Stanford Technology and his home in Virginia.

Little is known of how General Secord first became involved in providing supplies to the contras. But the Tower Commission report suggests that it was General Secord’s efforts for the contras that led Colonel North to write him in November 1985 when the White House had trouble arranging the shipment of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles from Israel to Iran as part of the arms-for-hostages deal.
[Shipment 500 TOW anti-tank missiles from Israel to Iran]

In 1984, North masterminded an attempted drug trade sting against Nicaragua. North’s colleague, “retired” Gen. Richard V. Secord, purchased a C-123K cargo plane from Southern Air Transport. It was outfitted with hidden cameras and turned over to DEA agent Barry Adler Seal. Seal then force landed at a military airfield in Nicaragua, where he got photos of a Nicaraguan official, Federico Vaughn, investigating. That photo then became the basis of much disinformation on a supposed Borge-Castro narcotics trafficking ring. President Reagan used the photo on television, stating, with utterly no evidence or justification, that a box in the picture was filled with drugs. Like a bad penny, the same plane returned to Nicaragua in October 1986, carrying Eugene Hasenfus.

In the 1986 congressional elections, North assisted in the political campaigns of Senators Paula Hawkins (Rep.-Fla.) and Jeremiah Denton (Rep.-Ala.). They lost. But interestingly, Denton’s Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism and Hawkins’s Subcommittee on Children, Family, Drugs and Alcohol were both favorite platforms for Ledeen to spread his media hoaxes.

Ledeen and Contragate

Ledeen’s role in Iran-a-scam and Contragate begins with his secret missions to Israel. But it is unclear who was urging whom to do what. According to leaked portions of a Senate Intelligence Committee report, the sale of arms to Iran was planned and implemented by the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad. Each time that the United States rejected further participation in the Israeli plan, some Mossad agent was urgently dispatched to the United States to put their plan back on track. Throughout the leaked Senate report, there are references to “the Israeli plan.” And the text of a memo by Lt. Col. Oliver North titled “Covert Action Finding Regarding Iran” reads: “Prime Minister Peres of Israel secretly dispatched his special adviser on terrorism (Amiram Nir) with instructions to propose a plan by which Israel, with limited assistance from the United States, can create conditions…”

But instead of trying to shift the blame to Israel, the White House sought to delete all references to the Israeli role from the Senate report and the media accounts followed suit.