Both Talking Points Memo and Raw Story are raising the possibility that Cheney’s assassination squad operated on U.S. soil. Both news sites are basing their speculation on a statement in the Washington Post that the program “imposed no geographical limitations on the [CIA’s] actions”.
I have no idea whether or not TPM and Raw Story are right.
On March 10th, Pulitzer prize winning reporter Seymour Hersh said:
After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet. That does happen.
Hersh made that comment right before he described the government’s foreign assassination program.
It is not clear yet whether or not the assassination squad operated on U.S. soil, as well as abroad.
However, as I have previously shown, both Congress and the public were previously briefed on the foreign assassinations, and the U.S. has – in fact – carried out such assassinations. So the “newly-disclosed”, secret program could not have just been foreign murders, because it was not secret.
Everyone must demand to know whether the program included domestic assassinations. As Cenk Uygur notes, journalists have a duty to demand Cheney’s hit list.
If those who know – Panetta, Congress members Anna Eshoo, Alcee Hastings, Rush Holt, Janice Schakowsky, Mike Thompson, John Tierney, etc. – refuse to answer, then people can find out (and practice a little real journalism) by asking the following:
Did the secret program include assassinations on U.S. soil? If you don’t specifically and unambiguously deny it, I will take that as confirmation that it did.
Source: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/07/did-cheneys-assassination-squad-operate.html
