The Bourne termination

LA Times:

In movies, the CIA has so many prolifically lethal assassins roaming the world that the main problem often seems to be reining them in.

But details that spilled out this week about a real CIA assassination program indicate that when the plotting is being done by spies instead of screenwriters, the obstacles are not so easy to surmount.

According to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, the CIA spent seven years trying to assemble teams capable of killing the world's most wanted terrorists but could never find a formula that worked.

The struggles came during a period in which the agency had been given unprecedented authority and resources, and a cause -- responding to the Sept. 11 attacks -- with broad public support.

But officials could not solve daunting logistical problems, including how to get teams close to their targets while keeping U.S. involvement secret and being able to extract them safely if they succeeded in killing a terrorist.

In interviews, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the aim of the effort was broader than has been described in newspaper accounts this week.

In particular, officials said, ambitions for the program expanded to include creating teams that were made up not only of CIA personnel but counterparts from other countries, presumably Pakistan; and to be capable not just of killing high-value targets but also executing raids and other operations to gather evidence and intelligence that might lead to elusive Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri.

Former officials said support for the program persisted in recent years largely because it could compensate for a crucial shortcoming in the ongoing campaign of Predator strikes. The drones had emerged as a potent weapon against Al Qaeda in Pakistan but had failed to bring the agency closer to Bin Laden.

"The bottom line is that you've still got No. 1 and No. 2 out there," one former high-ranking U.S. intelligence official said. "If all you do is blow stuff up and burn stuff up, you never get information that could lead you to the prize."

As a result, CIA leaders continued to pursue the idea of elite paramilitary teams that could mount lethal operations on short notice but also quietly capture lower-ranking Al Qaeda members and raid sites struck by Predator missiles to gather any intelligence material left behind.

...

"The program [Panetta] killed was never fully operational and never took a single terrorist off the battlefield," said George Little, a CIA spokesman. "We've had a string of successes against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and that program didn't contribute to any of them."

...

It will be disappointing for fans of counter terrorist fiction to learn there are no Jason Bourne's, or other fictional characters with a license to kill. Certainly bin Laden and Zawahiri are worthy targets, and Democrats are not going to look good taking them off of a target list.