- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday that a good start to changing
the government in Iraq would be to kill President Saddam Hussein. But the
United States is not supposed to be in the assassination business.
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- CIA plots to eliminate Cuba's Fidel Castro with poisoned
cigars, an infected diving suit and exploding clam shells proved so embarrassing
that an executive order from President Gerald Ford, subsequently reinforced
by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, barred the United States from engaging
in assassinations.
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- Rumsfeld, asked on the CBS program "Face the Nation"
on Sunday if killing Saddam was a good start to changing the regime, replied:
"That's true, it would be."
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- So why doesn't last week's direct attack on the Iraqi
leadership with laser-guided missiles and bunker-busting bombs qualify
as an assassination attempt?
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- "In military conflict, command and control are legitimate
targets," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer explained. U.S. officials
described the Iraqi leadership as "targets of opportunity." President
Bush called them "targets of military importance."
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- U.S. government lawyers determined that the attack on
the compound where Saddam -- and perhaps his sons Uday and Qusay -- were
believed to be was legal since the United States was at war with Iraq and
it was deemed a command-and-control facility.
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- "The head of the chain of command in time of war
would be considered a legitimate military target," said Warren Bass,
a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It would be
like trying to kill Tojo or Hitler in the middle of World War II."
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- UNCLEAR IF SADDAM ALIVE
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- No U.S. official has said for certain if Saddam is alive,
dead or injured. Bush said he was losing control of Iraq.
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- But Saddam wouldn't be the first to survive U.S. termination
with extreme prejudice.
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- Osama bin laden apparently escaped the ferocious U.S.-led
bombing of Afghanistan. In fact, the al Qaeda leader blamed for the Sept.
11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, boasted about his survival
on an audiotape.
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- Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi survived a bomb dropped
on his tent in the Libyan desert. Mohamed Farah Aideed eluded the CIA in
Somalia. Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba escaped several CIA plots.
Castro is still president of Cuba.
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- Bin Laden was personally targeted as long ago as 1998
when President Bill Clinton secretly authorized the CIA to use lethal force
against him and his aides. After Sept. 11, 2001, Bush declared the Saudi-born
exile wanted "dead or alive."
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- The United States has subsequently targeted individual
al Qaeda operatives and in November used a Hellfire missile launched by
a drone aircraft to kill one of the organization's leaders in Yemen. In
Bush's words, "He's no longer a problem."
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- Washington has designated al Qaeda operatives "enemy
combatants" under international law and says strikes against them
are military actions rather than assassination attempts.
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- Bush ordered the pre-emptive strike on the top Iraqi
leadership after the opportunity suddenly presented itself.
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- CIA Director George Tenet and Rumsfeld requested an urgent
meeting with Bush on Wednesday afternoon when intelligence materialized
about their whereabouts.
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- "They briefed the president and the war council
on the updated information they had and the actionable items that were
required," a senior administration official said. "The president
at this stage has already signed off on a broad strategy and mission."
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- The war plan was quickly revised when Bush took one last
look at the updated intelligence. "Let's go," he said.
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- Fleischer told reporters the executive order banning
the U.S.-backed assassination of foreign leaders was still in effect.
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- In 1981, Reagan strengthened a policy laid down five
years earlier by Ford, issuing Executive Order 12333 which states, "No
person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States government
shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination."
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- An executive order does not have the force of law and
can be changed by the president at any time. Because they are sometimes
classified, the public may not know when they are issued.
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