Legalizing Assassination

by Polly Mann, WAMM

I was filing a September 2, 2001 Guardian Weekly article entitled "CIA to get go-ahead for a return to murderous cold war tactics" when I discovered in my CIA folder a September 1998 article from the New York Times, which identified "increasing pressure in official Washington to consider assassinating [Osama bin Laden]."

Back in 1998, Sen. Joseph Biden (Dem., DE) said, "I would very much like a legal memorandum from the FBI, stating whether or not the prohibition against assassination of heads of state applies to organized crime units, and/or terrorist units."

My question is, "Why should it be necessary to have a prohibition against assassination?" Assassination is murder and murder is a crime, no matter who commits it or who authorizes it. War is killing legalized by the state, but assassination -- the targeting of a specific, usually high-profile individual -- has never been legalized by the United States.

Sen. Arlen Specter (Rep., PA) said the rules forbidding assassinations do not apply to situations in which the United States is virtually at war with an international organization. However, Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan signed orders denying any agent of the U.S. government the right to engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.

The State Department not only has confirmed this prohibition but has criticized Israel for its admitted assassinations. An e-mail in my file from Reuters dated August 4, 2001 quotes a senior State Department official who said, "the United States remained opposed to Israel's policy of targeted killings of suspected Palestinian militants."

Provision for the conditions under which an individual could be targeted for assassination is not included in the Constitution or any federal, state, or local statute of this country. Yet, over the years, there have been reports of assassinations and attempted assassinations of individuals defined as enemies of the United States and it has been rumored that the CIA has been responsible. Who could issue such an order to the CIA? It would have to come from the highest source: the White House. The Congress has been and still is "out of the loop." It is, of course, understandable. They couldn't be trusted to keep such a deadly secret! After all, some of them might even demand an investigation of such extra-legal operations!

So what's with this recent Guardian article saying U.S. intelligence agencies are preparing for a return to covert operations of the kind that made the CIA notorious during the cold war? Wouldn't you think that somebody in the Congress would sit up and take notice, demand a hearing, an inquiry, an investigation -- anything -- questioning the right of the administration, or a governmental agency, to authorize or conspire in murder? Not the Senate Intelligence Committee. A staffer for Sen. Bob Graham (Dem., FL), chair of the committee, said that the senator and the committee are in favor of repealing the ban on assassinations.

Back in September 1998, in discussing the likelihood that Osama bin Laden might strike at the United States, FBI Director Louis Freeh said that while the prohibition against killing heads of state was clear, he was unsure about the legality of assassinating others and would study the question. Perhaps it was then that Osama bin Laden began planning the attacks on the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon.

Word Up!

London Newspaper Reports U.S. Threatened Afghanistan in July 2001

"A Guardian investigation has also established that Bin Laden and the Taliban received threats of possible U.S. military strikes against them two months before the assaults on New York and Washington. The warning originated at a four-day meeting of senior Americans, Russians, Iranians and Pakistanis at a hotel in Berlin in mid-July. The threats of war unless the Taliban surrendered Bin Laden were passed to the Afghan regime by the Pakistani government, senior diplomatic sources revealed.

"The Taliban refused to comply, but the serious nature of the message raises the possibility that Bin Laden, far from launching the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon out of the blue, was launching a pre-emptive strike in response to what he saw as U.S. threats."