New York Times: CIA Hired Blackwater Contractors

by Taylor Marsh

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. [...] 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. - C.I.A. Sought Blackwater’s Help in Plan to Kill Jihadists

On August 18th the Daily Beast published a wild, stem winding piece by Joseph Finder. I read it, found it less like reporting, more like one of Finder’s novels, and started asking around. But talk about words coming back to haunt. From Finder:

But once Panetta had spoken with Tenet, Goss, and Hayden, he learned that this secret “program” wasn’t much more than a PowerPoint presentation and a task force assigned to think it through.

The CIA hired outside contractors from the same organization implicated in murder. Thank God Panetta was “alarmed.”

Jeff Stein reported on the CIA’s reaction to Finder’s article when it came out. CIA spokesman George Little was clear.

“This story rests on the mistaken premise that Director Panetta told the Congress the CIA had broken the law,” Little told SpyTalk.

“He did not. It’s also wrong to suggest that the Director said the Agency had misled the Congress. He did no such thing. He decided that the time had come to brief Congress on a counterterrorism effort that was, in fact, much more than a PowerPoint presentation.”

The Washington Post reports one “former official” saying: “We never actually did anything,” said the former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program remains highly classified. “It never became a covert action.”

Maybe not, but the Times makes clear it was indeed much more than a PowerPoint presentation, though no doubt that notion certainly entertained Mr. Finder as it went dancing across his head. Maybe it will make it into his next book.