Seymour Hersh and Cheney's Secret

Another Cheney Hunting Accident

The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh was mocked in March when he referred to Dick Cheney's secret squad of CIA assassins. Now, he talks to The Daily Beast about the next shoe to drop.

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh raised eyebrows back in March when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that Dick Cheney ran a secret hit squad that he kept hidden from Congressional oversight.

"Congress has no oversight of it. It's an executive assassination ring essentially, and it's been going on and on and on," Hersh said at the time. He added: "Under President Bush's authority, they've been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That's been going on, in the name of all of us."

Asked about the officials quoted in the Times' report who claimed that Cheney's assassination ring never became operational, Hersh offered a skeptical response.

"I said what I said, they can always say what they say," Hersh told The Daily Beast. "The last time they said the government doesn't torture; this time it's the government doesn't assassinate."

Beyond his own reporting, Hersh said President Bush's own speeches provided evidence of secret assassinations.

"Go read George Bush's January 2003 State of the Union speech," he said. "He's talking and he says we've captured and detained 3,000 Al Qaeda members and other terrorists—crazy numbers—and said some of them will never bother us any more. And Congress cheers."

Bush's full quote then was:

"All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies."

The Necessity of Accountability: UPDATE

Both of these videos should be watched:

The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh claims the Bush administration had a secret operations unit with authority to take out targets across the globe. Source: CNN

Rachel Maddow: Obama Strikes Back

Jonathan Turley "Obama Should Appoint a Special Prosecutor"

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

UPDATE: Former Cheney Aide Suggests That Hersh’s Account Of ‘Executive Assassination Ring’ Is ‘Certainly True’

'Executive Assassination Ring' Reported Directly to Cheney Office

Via MinnPost

The following is part of a talk delivered by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh at the University of Minnesota. For a full report, go here.

At a “Great Conversations” event at the University of Minnesota

At a “Great Conversations” event at the University of Minnesota last night, legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh may have made a little more news than he intended by talking about new alleged instances of domestic spying by the CIA, and about an ongoing covert military operation that he called an “executive assassination ring.”

The evening of great conversation featuring Walter Mondale and Hersh was moderated by U of M Political Scientist Larry Jacobs and titled “America’s Constitutional Crisis.”

Hersh and Mondale talked about the patterns by which presidents seem to get intoxicated by executive power, frustrated by the limitations on that power from Congress and the public, drawn into improper covert actions that exceed their constitutional powers, in the belief that they can get results and will never be found out.

At the end of one answer by Hersh about how these things tend to happen, Jacobs asked: “And do they continue to happen to this day?”

Replied Hersh:

“Yuh. 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.

"Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...

"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.

"Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.

"It’s complicated because the guys doing it are not murderers, and yet they are committing what we would normally call murder. It’s a very complicated issue. Because they are young men that went into the Special Forces. The Delta Forces you’ve heard about. Navy Seal teams. Highly specialized.

"In many cases, they were the best and the brightest. Really, no exaggerations. Really fine guys that went in to do the kind of necessary jobs that they think you need to do to protect America. And then they find themselves torturing people.

"I’ve had people say to me -- five years ago, I had one say: ‘What do you call it when you interrogate somebody and you leave them bleeding and they don’t get any medical committee and two days later he dies. Is that murder? What happens if I get before a committee?’

"But they’re not gonna get before a committee.”