The cause of Panetta's panic

NY Times:

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects.

The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A.’s director, became alarmed and called an emergency meeting in June to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the program for seven years, the officials said.

It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.

...

The House Intelligence Committee is investigating why lawmakers were never told about the program. According to current and former government officials, former Vice President Dick Cheney told C.I.A. officers in 2002 that the spy agency did not need to inform Congress because the agency already had legal authority to kill Qaeda leaders.

One official familiar with the matter said that Mr. Panetta did not tell lawmakers that he believed that the C.I.A. had broken the law by withholding details about the program from Congress. Rather, the official said, Mr. Panetta said he believed that the program had moved beyond a planning stage and deserved Congressional scrutiny.

...

The story seems to bury a change from other stories about this matter that attempted to implicate former Vice President Cheney in some violation of the law. Instead it appears that Cheney's position is perfectly logical and reasonable and involved no violation of the law. It is a big never mind from the tone of early stories in the Times about this program. The never mind is covered by a new revelation that also deserves a big so what.

Anyone who is surprised that the CIA was trying to kill al Qaeda leaders hasn't really been paying attention to events following 9-11 or the authorization of the use of force passed by Congress after the attack. Hiring Blackwater should be no different from hiring a foreign agent to take care of the business.

It is more than passing strange that Democrats are so concerned about our killing an enemy that is dedicated to mass murder of US non combatants. If they think there is something wrong with that, they need to be removed from positions of responsibility for our war effort.