Less A Secret Assassination Program, More “Get Smart”?

July 15th, 2009 by Sonny

The American Conservative » CIA Hit Teams.

Philip Giraldi from American Conservative reports that the CIA program kerfuffle involving VP Cheney seems to have been more an effort to hide incompetence than guarding an effective tool of the CIA.

They would enter the target countries as businessmen on false passports, some of which would be non-American, obtain weapons sent ahead through the diplomatic pouch to the US Embassy, kill the target, turn the weapons back over to an embassy contact, and leave the country. The program used delta soldiers initially because CIA SOG was fully engaged in Afghanistan. The first hit attempt was in Kenya, was botched, and the deltas had to be bailed out by the Ambassador who had not been briefed on what was going on under his nose. The program was suspended after that but never quite terminated.

Undoubtedly this isn’t something the CIA would like the world to know…

h/t Balloon Juice