Where's Your Allah Now See!! (Say like Edward G. Robinson in The Ten Commandments
Posted on 11/06/2002 3:46:44 AM PST by Pern
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 — The lethal missile strike that killed a suspected leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen was carried out under broad authority that President Bush has given the C.I.A. over the past year to pursue the terror network well beyond the borders of Afghanistan, senior government officials said today.
The president was not asked to authorize the specific decision to fire the missile that killed the suspected Qaeda leader, Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, the officials said. But Mr. Bush had been advised that the C.I.A was pursuing Mr. Harethi.
Under the rules that Mr. Bush had approved, his personal approval for specific operations was not required. He had delegated operational control over Predator strikes against Al Qaeda to his military and intelligence team. Officials would not identify the officials who did approve the strike.
The decision to approve the missile launch was made by "very senior officials" below the level of the president who had been closely monitoring the surveillance of Mr. Harethi and his associates, the officials said. They were seeking an opportunity to kill Mr. Harethi in a setting that would minimize the chance of unintentional casualties.
The officials said C.I.A. officials wanted to avoid a repeat of their failed effort last year to use a Predator to kill Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader. The strike against him was aborted because of the possibility that others in a crowded house might be killed.
The strike was authorized under the same set of classified presidential findings, legal opinions and policy directives, some of which were prepared after last year's attacks, that have set the rules for the administration's campaign to prevent terror. These orders gave the C.I.A. wide powers to pursue Qaeda terrorists anywhere in the world. But the Predator attack was the first known use of lethal military force outside Afghanistan.
The missile strike represented a tougher phase of the campaign against terror and moved the Bush administration away from the law enforcement-based tactics of arrests and detentions of Qaeda suspects that it had employed outside Afghanistan in the months since the fighting there ended.
Instead, the officials said, the missile strike demonstrated that the United States was prepared to employ deadly force against individual suspects in countries like Yemen, where Al Qaeda is believed to have regrouped in recent months.
At the same time, the State Department's spokesman today reiterated American opposition to "targeted killings" of Palestinian militants by Israeli forces. The spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, rejected comparisons with Israel's practice against Palestinian militants, saying circumstances were not comparable.
Senior Bush administration officials said the attacks reflected the broader definition of the battlefield on which the campaign against Islamic terrorism would be conducted.
Today, Mr. Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as the president returned to Washington, said the United States was engaged in "a different kind of war with a different kind of battlefield."
He added, "The president has also made clear to the American people that one of the best ways to fight the war on terror is political, diplomatic, military and that sometimes the best defense is a good offense."
Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, said in an interview with CNN, "We've just got to keep the pressure on everywhere we are able to, and we've got to deny the sanctuaries everywhere we are able to, and we've got to put pressure on every government that is giving these people support to get out of that business."
The missile strike did not violate the longstanding ban on the assassination of political leaders because none of the men were regarded as leaders under the law, current and former officials said. Government officials have said since Sept. 11 that the assassination ban does not apply to Al Qaeda.
Officials of what... Iraq?
How...how... barbarian !!!
And I hope they all look like a cross between Rosie O'Donnel and Janet Reno!
Where's Your Allah Now See!! (Say like Edward G. Robinson in The Ten Commandments
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