Cheney’s assassination squad run out of Pentagon; allegedly targeted BB

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Special Reports Last Updated: Jul 16th, 2009 - 00:40:03

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Cheney’s assassination squad run out of Pentagon; allegedly targeted

Benazir Bhutto
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Jul 16, 2009, 00:24

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(WMR) -- WMR has learned from U.S. intelligence veterans that the

secret intelligence operation run by Vice President Dick Cheney was not

under the aegis of the Central Intelligence Agency but was a component

of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Department of

Defense.

The JSOC unit carried out assassinations of foreign individuals, including

politicians in countries friendly to the United States, under the direct

orders of Cheney. One former intelligence official described the

operation as a new “Phoenix Program.”

During the Vietnam War, the CIA’s Phoenix program, carried out, with

the cooperation of U.S. Special Operations forces, identified key

Vietcong leaders in South Vietnamese villages and towns and later

assassinated them. What the CIA was involved with from the days

subsequent to the 9/11 attacks was a similar operation in Afghanistan

and Pakistan that identified key leaders of “Al Qaeda” and the Taliban

and planned their assassinations.

However, what the CIA abandoned was Cheney’s use of the operation, in

part organized under then-CIA director George Tenet’s “Worldwide

Attack Matrix” or “WAM,” to target real or perceived political enemies

in other countries, possibly including individuals in the United States. CIA

director Leon Panetta officially terminated the CIA’s residual role in the

assassination program after an eight-year involvement and informed

Congress that they had been misled about the nature of the program.

The only actual part of the CIA that worked with the Pentagon’s

assassination unit under JSOC was the Special Activities Division (SAD)

of the CIA, itself largely comprised of former U.S. Special Operations

personnel, including a number of former Delta Force members.

Far from being concerned about revelations about the program, WMR

has learned that rank-and-file CIA officers are ecstatic about the

revelations concerning Cheney’s operations. In knowing that most in the

CIA, perhaps with the noted exceptions of deputy director of the CIA,

Stephen Kappes, and acting CIA general counsel John Rizzo, were not

involved in Cheney’s assassination ring, which is considered by many CIA

officers to have been illegal, there is a certain amount of glee in realizing

that Cheney may soon face the legal music on ordering illegal

assassinations.

One retired CIA officer who was involved in the original clandestine

targeting program before it was altered by Cheney, believes that the

CIA has Cheney “by the balls” over the new revelations about the death

squads.

WMR has been told by a U.S. intelligence source that the one person who

poses the greatest threat to Cheney is former CIA director George

Tenet, who claims that Cheney’s operation was so secretive he was not

aware of its details. Tenet has been described as having few friends

from the Bush-Cheney administration and has nothing to lose by making

public what he knows about Cheney’s role in the assassination operation.

Although the Cheney/JSOC operation continued under CIA directors

Porter Goss and General Michael Hayden, neither are considered

particularly vulnerable, except for their possible testimonies under oath

before congressional committees.

The most high-profile target of the secret Cheney assassination squad,

according to high-level CIA sources, allegedly was former Pakistani Prime

Minister Benazir Bhutto, assassinated on December 27, 2007, in

Rawalpindi, the heart of Pakistan’s military and intelligence community.

WMR reported the assassination as follows on December 27, 2007:

“Bhutto was reportedly first shot in the neck and chest and then killed in

a suicide bomb blast at a campaign rally. Bhutto’s closest advisers

immediately suspected the involvement of Pakistan’s military and

intelligence complex in the assassination, an event which is thought by

many to strengthen the hand of Musharraf and Pakistan’s dictatorship.

The global corporate media, in practical unison, began echoing the tired

tripe that ‘Al Qaeda’ was responsible for Bhutto’s assassination.

However, ‘Al Qaeda’ was fostered by Pakistan’s military and intelligence

community with large amounts of funding from Saudi Arabia and the

Gulf.”

According to our CIA sources, Cheney decided that every effort should

be made to ensure that his friend, Pakistan President Gen. Pervez

Musharraf, remain in power in Pakistan and not be replaced by Bhutto.

Cheney allegedly authorized his secret assassination unit to hit Bhutto

and then maximize his political gain by blaming the attack on “Al Qaeda.”

Cheney’s alleged hit on Bhutto also involved U.S. and Pakistani electronic

surveillance of her communications. On February 21, 2008, WMR

reported: “The late former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto knew

that all her phone conversations and e-mails were being monitored by

Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and ‘other intelligence

agencies,’ according to her long time friend and co-author Mark Siegel.

Siegel made his comments last night in a speech at the National Press

Club highlighting ‘Reconciliation,’ a book he co-authored with Bhutto

shortly before her assassination. Siegel said he and Bhutto were

convinced that during her five years of exile in Dubai that all their phone

calls between Washington, DC, and Dubai were being monitored by ISI.

Since ISI does not possess its own significant eavesdropping capability

in the United States, Bhutto’s reference to ‘other agencies’ is an

indication that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was

eavesdropping on Bhutto and passing some of the intelligence to the ISI

and the government of Pakistani dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf.”

The House Intelligence Committee is promising to investigate the details

of the program and on July 12, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said he

believes there will be additional revelations forthcoming about the

super-secret Cheney program.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

Copyright © 2009 WayneMadenReport.com

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and

nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the

Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).

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