This Is What Got Democrats In A Tizzy?

Pardon me while I stop laughing at all those who breathlessly wondered when US Attorney General Eric Holder would start filing indictments against Bush Administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney.

Apparently the super secret program that the Vice President kept from Congressional leaders was nothing other than a plan to capture and kill top al Qaeda leaders.

A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter.

The precise nature of the highly classified effort isn’t clear, and the CIA won’t comment on its substance.

According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting on a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts. The initiative hadn’t become fully operational at the time Mr. Panetta ended it.

In 2001, the CIA also examined the subject of targeted assassinations of al Qaeda leaders, according to three former intelligence officials. It appears that those discussions tapered off within six months. It isn’t clear whether they were an early part of the CIA initiative that Mr. Panetta stopped.

So why exactly did CIA Director Panetta stop this program? What exactly was he uncomfortable about? More to the point, why was this program not fully operational when Panetta ended it? Could it be that this program was ended because it wasn't an efficient use of CIA limited resources at a time when other efforts, such as UAV airstrikes, have been shown to be quite effective?

The takeaway from this is that the Bush Administration was contemplating a secret initiative that would have worked towards a goal of eliminating top al Qaeda terrorists like Zawahiri and bin Laden. Seeing how a President's foremost goal is to provide and maintain the security of the United States, eliminating the terrorists responsible for the grievous loss of life on 9/11 would be a priority.

Democrats will claim that this proposal somehow broke the law because Congressional leaders were not kept apprised of the CIA proposal, but given how this plan fizzled out before it got to the operational stage, and was superseded by other programs like the UAV airstrikes that have killed dozens of al Qaeda and Taliban thugs, including several high profile targets, this is much ado about nothing. It's part of an ongoing attempt by Democrats to politicize and criminalize policy differences.