Tenet ended the program because the agency could not work out its practical details, the officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified program.
Porter Goss, who replaced Tenet in 2005, restarted the program, the former officials said. By the time Michael Hayden succeeded Goss as CIA chief in 2006 the effort was again flagging because of practical challenges.
CIA Director Leon Panetta drove the final stake into the effort in June...''
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jUYIQzuMD55oCy3UG7v6wITLOBewD99F53C83
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Well kiss my ass.
The media, executive branch and congress are spinning this hard and fast. If you go back and read Hersh in March, he outlined a military based operation under military control operating at the behest of Vice President Cheney.
The way Hersh put it out was that the program was started under an admiral McRaven and involved Navy Seals between 2001-3. This was the early period in 2001 that resulted in about 2000 deaths by suffocation and heat stroke death of prisoners locked in cargo containers. Their bodies were hidden in mass graves in Afghanistan. If you remember there was also a prisoner revolt and shoot out that resulted in the capture and conviction of some American kid trying to go native with Islam. These fiascos were under the upper level command of Lt. General McChrystal who was commander of JSOC.
So guess who is the top commander in Afghanistan? Why that would McChrystal appointed by team Obama.
Do you see what's going on here? If Obama allows the Congress or Attorney General Holder to open a deep level investigation, then he is going to have to replace McChyrstal and most of Obama's Middle Eastern policy will be discredited.
I think there were not two programs, but one coordinated and undocumented arrangement between the CIA, the Pentagon, foreign secret services like Moussad and Pakistan's military secret police. I think the whole program is still running and is the basis of our intelligence system in the Middle East to identify and locate targets for the drone system, which is in effect the replacement system for teams on the ground like the Seals. The very last thing the US government wants is a dead Seal on the forensic lab table of some Iranian or Pakistani coroner's office.
Obama is continuing the whole war on terror package and these off-the-books covert ops are all of a piece of the system. Here is The Nation, Pakistan piece that outlines sort of the same thing:
So then the US spin is to isolate the problem with the CIA and Cheney, and keep the military involvement off the table, because it is still in this business and still off the books. That's what all this wiggling bullshit from Obama is about. He is getting into the same cover-up system as Cheney and the Necons.
I realize all this sounds like Area 51 wacko conspiracy stuff. Hersh has fought for years against this reputation. It goes back to Vietnam. The Pentagon Papers were no revelation to me. I knew the US was up to no good after the summer of 1963 when our puppet Diem was rounding up, torturing and killing Buddhists in a predominately Buddhist country. And then in the winter 63-4 when a bunch of military assholes wearing dark glasses and brocaid embulettes were supposed to represent South Vietnames freedom from Communist oppression. I was dumbfounded that the US public evidently couldn't tell the difference between outright military repression and an open society.
Obama is headed for a meltdown if he doesn't get out in front and open the books. Sooner or later the rightwing will have his ass with this stuff, and simultaneously cover its own ass. So he will eat the shit of a liar and fraud, while the virgin rightwing reclaims its chastity.
God, I want to scream. Fucking close this shit down and get out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Honduras... tell Israel to fuck off... start doing the right thing here dude. We've been through a decade in hell. How about some joy for a change?
Am I going to be sending Obama a telegram congratulating him on his wise decision not to run in 2008 the way I did Johnson in 1968?
CG