Secret CIA Program Planned Assassinations of Top Al-Qaeda Leaders

Officials Say Program Never Progressed

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 13, 2009 6:04 PM

The secret CIA program revealed to members of Congress late last month involved a series of planned attempts to assassinate top al-Qaeda leaders -- efforts that never progressed to an operational stage, according to current and former intelligence officials.

The CIA has long possessed the authorization, granted by President George W. Bush in a secret 2001 directive, to use lethal force against a small group of top al-Qaeda leaders whenever they were located. Although the agency's attacks on terrorist camps using pilotless aircraft is well documented, the CIA's program involved operatives "striking at two feet instead of 10,000 feet," a current intelligence official said.

Neither the officials nor the CIA would elaborate on the program or explain how it differed from other, well-understood attempts to destroy the group's senior leadership. But one current U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the program was small, intermittent and "exactly the kind of work people would expect the agency to be doing."

(More here.)