The Pieces Start To Fall Into Place

This morning's big story in the NY Times is a big one, that the CIA's hit squad to assassinate terrorists consisted not of military troops but our old friends from Blackwater.

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.

Officials said the C.I.A. did not have a formal contract with Blackwater for this program but instead had individual agreements with top company officials, including the founder, Erik D. Prince, a politically connected former member of the Navy Seals and the heir to a family fortune. Blackwater’s work on the program actually ended years before Mr. Panetta took over the agency, after senior C.I.A. officials themselves questioned the wisdom of using outsiders in a targeted killing program.

And considering the very serious legal allegations against Eric Prince and Blackwater earlier this month involving murder, illegal weapons smuggling, extortion, intimidation and a host of other crimes, this story now takes on a whole new dimension of nefariousness.

Needless to say, the GOP wants any and all investigations into this unfinished Bush business dropped immediately.

Nine Republican Senators are urging Attorney General Eric Holder to drop the idea of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Bush-era torture practices, news reports indicated Wednesday.

The appointment of a special prosecutor would “have serious consequences, not just for the honorable members of the intelligence community, but also for the security of all Americans,” nine GOP senators told Holder in a letter, as reported at the Hill.

Among the nine are Kit Bond (R-MO), who is the ranking GOP member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The others are Christopher Bond (R-MO), Richard Burr (R-NC), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Tom Coburn (R-OK), John Cornyn (R-TX), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), John Kyl (R-AZ), and Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

Newsweek first reported that Holder may appoint a special prosecutor to look at the torture practices carried out during the Bush administration. That news came shortly after congressional Democrats revealed the existence of a secret CIA hit squad that the agency kept from Congress, perhaps in contravention of the law.

And of course we've seen the results of Obama's refusal to rein in Eric Holder's investigation after the warning delivered in that Newsweek piece: a full-out war against the President's domestic agenda by both the GOP and most of the Village.

The pieces are falling into place now. The CIA/Blackwater/Cheney/Iraq/Torture threads of the Bush-era narrative are all coming together now. The price of going down this road is going to be very steep for the President.

That is, if Eric Holder's investigation is able to put the threads together. The jury is still out on this one, but the warnings have been loud and clear for Obama to kill the entire inquiry. Every time those warnings are ignored, the crusade against the President's agenda grows stronger and more intense.

Another warning has now been delivered, this time by the GOP itself. We'll see what Obama does.