- The post-Watergate consensus which forced the CIA and
the FBI to fight America's dirty wars to the cleanest of standards is under
attack as Washington begins its war against terror.
President Bush has now handed £650 million to the CIA and told the
organisation it can kill Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants.
That decision had been foreshadowed in the president's public statements
and had been supported across the political spectrum. There have even been
calls from within the FBI for agents to be allowed to torture suspects.
According to the Washington Post, an intelligence order signed by Mr Bush
last month directed the CIA to undertake its most sweeping and lethal covert
action since the agency was founded in 1947.
"The gloves are off," a senior official told the paper. "The
president has given the agency the green light to do whatever is necessary.
Lethal operations that were unthinkable pre-September 11 are now under
way."
Talking about the refusal of some of bin Laden's suspected aides now under
arrest to talk, a senior FBI agent said: "We are known for humanitarian
treatment, so basically we are stuck.
"But it could get to that spot where we could go to pressure . . .
where we won't have a choice - and we are probably getting there."
By "pressure", the agent appeared to mean injecting a so-called
truth serum into a subject or even physical beating.
A presidential executive order banning assassinations was signed by Gerald
Ford in 1976 as a reaction to the disclosure of the CIA's botched attempts
to kill Fidel Castro of Cuba and Patrice Lumumba of the Congo during the
1960s. Each of Mr Ford's successors signed similar orders.
The assassination ban was never adopted by Congress, and the White House
argued last month that it did not limit military actions against bin Laden
or his al-Qa'eda network.
Mr Cheney said he would be delighted to receive bin Laden's head "on
a platter", and his ally Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon chief, said
that the "world would be a better place" if a senior al-Qa'eda
operative had been killed.
Mr Bush's new edict signalled an end to ambivalence on the issue and was
supported by both Republican and Democrat senators. The Republican John
McCain said: "The unprecedented aspects of what we are facing clearly,
I think, warrant using whatever means necessary."
When asked whether he was concerned about Mr Bush replacing the executive
order, the Democrat Joe Lieberman said he was "absolutely comfortable"
with the move.
He added that he had no objection "as a matter of principle and morality"
to extending the order to Saddam because of the threat he posed to Americans.
Although the FBI is unlikely to request permission to torture people, its
inability to make progress with key suspects has led to frustration at
the legal constraints on interrogations. "We are 35 days into this
thing and nobody is talking," said one FBI agent.
A shift might come if an al-Qa'eda terrorist were apprehended and it was
believed that he had information about an impending attack.
David Cole, a professor of law at Georgetown University, said "the
use of force to extract information" could happen in circumstances
where the FBI was confronted by a "ticking bomb".
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- http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/
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