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Posted on 03/19/2018 6:47:50 AM PDT by billorites
As director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo reportedly set up small teams of commandos to kill suspected terrorists, according to a report by BuzzFeed.
Pompeo, who has said the agency would become more "aggressive" and "vicious," pushed for such lethal operations after he took over the agency in January 2017. The military and the National Security Council were initially resistant to the plan, according to BuzzFeed, but the proposal was eventually approved.
"They are getting people on targeting lists," one of the sources told BuzzFeed. "Small teams are locating and killing bad guys. That's what we are doing."
"It's a small number where it has been kinetic, but it is happening," another source, a former intelligence official with knowledge of the program, told BuzzFeed.
The two sources also told BuzzFeed that Pompeo "pushed for the capabilities and the authorization to launch lethal ground operations."
The operations are being coordinated by the agency's Special Activities Center, which manages the CIA's paramilitary activities. The current head of the SAC, a former aide to both Pompeo and his predecessor, John Brennan, is a former commando who has pushed for more aggressive operations, including the use of the SAC to kill terrorists.
While the Obama administration halted a CIA effort to start a similar program in 2009, it did expand drone strikes, which the CIA continues to use.
The SAC only has about 100 members, but their ranks have grown under President Donald Trump.
The CIA denied that the agency was running such a program, with a spokesman telling BuzzFeed, "Your story is wrong."
Trump has picked Pompeo to take over the State Department, after former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was abruptly fired. Trump said he plans to select CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel as Pompeo's successor.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Works for me.
Good!
Seriously, how is this “news?” Every CIA director has approved kill teams to take out terrorists. Was there media outrage when George H.W. Bush became vice president? Or President? Not like this.
I look forward to Pompeo bringing his unique skills to the State Department.
Cool! Did they club baby seals in their spare time? /s
His teams obviously did not do enough killing.
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Leak,we must!
And the problem with this is???
I have no problem with this at all.
So?
People who pay too much attention to Hollywood sometimes think that real spies are like James Bond. They’re not.
That being said, it’s obvious that the spy business is sometimes the killing business. Oddly, the people who pay too much attention to Hollywood seems upset about that.
Was it called operation Treadstone?
Now if we could only get President Trump to set up a Cabinet level “Department of Journalistic Integrity” and appoint Mike Pompeo as its Secretary, too!
Maybe I should send this clown Alamo Girls research...
The “Phoenix” is rising from the ashes. Those of you select Vietnam vets will know what I am talking about.
Bkmrk
Time to start using them. Here.
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