The American Pundit

Apparently its goal was to kill or capture…Al Qaeda leaders. You know, the people responsible for carrying out the 9/11 attacks? Yeah, them.

A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter.

The precise nature of the highly classified effort isn’t clear, and the CIA won’t comment on its substance.

According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting on a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts. The initiative hadn’t become fully operational at the time Mr. Panetta ended it.

In 2001, the CIA also examined the subject of targeted assassinations of al Qaeda leaders, according to three former intelligence officials. It appears that those discussions tapered off within six months. It isn’t clear whether they were an early part of the CIA initiative that Mr. Panetta stopped.

So, Democrats are outraged that the Central Intelligence Agency had a secret plan to kill the world’s most wanted terrorists? A plan that never even became operational by the time it was ended this year?

Just to be clear: Democrats are upset that they were never briefed on an idea that was being tossed around but never became a program when it was discontinued. They are outrageously outraged that the CIA considered killing Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri during the war on terror. Wow.

Via Hot Air.