Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Shades of "Bourne Identity!"

http://www.truthout.org/071509A
FRIDAY 17 JULY 2009
The Man Who Knew Cheney's Secret
Tuesday 14 July 2009
by: Benjamin Sarlin  |  Visit article original @ The Daily Beast
The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh was mocked in March when he referred to Dick 
Cheney's secret squad of CIA assassins. Now, he talks to The Daily Beast 
about the next shoe to drop.
 Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh raised eyebrows back in March when he 
told an audience at the University of Minnesota that Dick Cheney ran a 
secret hit squad that he kept hidden from Congressional oversight.
"Congress has no oversight of it. It's an executive assassination ring 
essentially, and it's been going on and on and on," Hersh said at the time. 
He added: "Under President Bush's authority, they've been going into 
countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and 
finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That's been going 
on, in the name of all of us."
"I said what I said, they can always say what they say," Hersh told The 
Daily Beast. "The last time they said the government doesn't torture, this 
time it's the government doesn't assassinate."
Some observers accused him of rumor-mongering and a top former military 
official threw cold water on the story, but with the recent news that the 
CIA allegedly kept Congress in the dark on a covert program, Hersh's words 
suddenly look more and more prescient. Yesterday, the New York Times 
reported the hidden program in question was a death squad authorized by Dick 
Cheney without Congressional approval.
Now, there are key differences between Hersh's reporting and the Times' 
latest piece. Hersh suggested that the assassination ring was conducted out 
of the Joint Special Operations Command rather than the CIA. Moreover, 
according to Hersh's sources the program was operational, leaving a trail of 
bodies, while The Times cited officials saying that the CIA hit squad never 
actually carried out a mission. The Times and Hersh could conceivably be 
reporting two distinct squads.
The Daily Beast tracked down Hersh in South Asia, where he says he has not 
been able to read the New York Times piece but has received calls buzzing 
about the report. Asked about the officials quoted in the Times' report who 
claimed that Cheney's assassination ring never became operational, Hersh 
offered a skeptical response.
"I said what I said, they can always say what they say," Hersh told The 
Daily Beast. "The last time they said the government doesn't torture; this 
time it's the government doesn't assassinate."
Hersh said that his words in Minnesota were exaggerated in the press, since 
he had already previously reported on covert operations that he alleged were 
out of Congress' view. In February 2005, he published a report the President 
had authorized Donald Rumsfeld to organize special operations in South Asia 
and the Middle East without going through the CIA, and thus having to report 
them to Congress. In July 2005, he wrote that the White House circumvented 
Nancy Pelosi to organize covert operations led by retired CIA officers and 
non-government personnel to influence the Iraqi elections.
"In my reporting for this story, one theme that emerged was the Bush 
administration's increasing tendency to turn to off-the-books covert actions 
to accomplish its goals," he wrote in the July 2005 piece. "This allowed the 
Administration to avoid the kind of stumbling blocks it encountered in the 
debate about how to handle the elections: bureaucratic infighting, 
congressional second-guessing, complaints from outsiders."
As recently as July 2008, Hersh published a report that the White House was 
exploiting technical differences between defense and intelligence operations 
in order to get around briefing Congress on pursuing "high value targets" in 
Iran through covert action.
"There is a growing realization among some legislators that the Bush 
administration, in recent years, has conflated what is an intelligence 
operation and what is a military one in order to avoid fully informing 
Congress about what it is doing," he wrote then.
Beyond his own reporting, Hersh said President Bush's own speeches provided 
evidence of secret assassinations.
"Go read George Bush's January 2003 State of the Union speech," he said. 
"He's talking and he says we've captured and detained 3,000 Al Qaeda members 
and other terrorists-crazy numbers-and said some of them will never bother 
us any more. And Congress cheers."
Bush's full quote then was:
"All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many 
countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: 
They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and 
allies."


In poche parole dittatura.
Dittatura in nome di una democrazia di facciata. 

 wrote in message 
news:4a61e2b6$0$1105$4faf...@reader3.news.tin.it...

#_...e squadre speciali con licenza di uccidere.
Di particolare valore rivelatorio, la conclusione dell'articolo:
".... many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way:
They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and
allies." ~G.W.Bush
G.