Senators Question FBI Director About Legality Of Assassination
By JOHN DIAMOND
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senators asked FBI Director Louis Freeh
Thursday to consider the legality of assassinating Osama bin Laden
and other suspected terrorist leaders.
Referring to terrorist leaders, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.,
asked Freeh, "What is present law with respect to their
takedown?" Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said, "I would very much
like a legal memorandum from the FBI, stating whether or not the
prohibition against assassination of heads of state applies to
organized crime units, and/or terrorist units."
Freeh said that while the prohibition against killing heads of
state is clear, he was unsure about the legality of assassinating
others and would study the question.
There was no doubt in the Judiciary Committee hearing who the
senators had in mind: bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the Aug.
7 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more
than 250 people, including a dozen Americans.
After the hearing, lawmakers stopped short of advocating an
assassination attempt on the exiled Saudi multimillionaire and
fundamentalist Muslim. But even public discussion of assassination
represents a sharp change on Capitol Hill, where the pressure for
the executive order prohibiting U.S. involvement in assassinations
originated in the 1970s.
"I just want to know what the law is," said Biden.
Feinstein said arrest of terrorists is the best option but said
that other "robust" strategies should be considered.
"We have to think in a different way than we thought before,"
Feinstein said. "It's a very dicey thing to get into a situation
where you're going to have licensed hit squads. At the same time we
need to find ways to be proactive."
"It's a bad idea," Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., vice chairman of
the Senate Intelligence Committee, said of assassination. "We are
the most open society on earth. We are the most forward-deployed on
earth. And as a result of those things our leaders and our citizens
are at risk of retaliation."
Retaliation for the U.S. cruise missile strikes on targets in
Sudan and Afghanistan on Aug. 20 is already in the planning, said
Freeh.
"We can predict with some certainty that we will see a reaction
by bin Laden and his organization," Freeh said. The potential
targets are not limited to embassies overseas. "We've identified
people in the United States or people who have transited the United
States who are associated with him." Bin Laden, Freeh said, poses
"about as serious and imminent a threat as I can imagine."
An executive order approved by President Ford in the mid-1970s
and affirmed by President in 1981, states: "No person employed by
or acting on behalf of the United States government shall engage
in, or conspire to engage in, assassination." Ford issued the
order after extensive hearings that exposed CIA assassination
plots.
The prohibition is not limited to assassination against heads of
state, said Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American
Scientists, a Washington-based watchdog group that follows
intelligence matters.
The legalities of killing a specific person in a military strike
are less clear.
"I don't think the prohibition applies if you're undertaking a
military action," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey, who also testified before the
Judiciary Committee, said, "There's a difference, even though it's
a subtle one, between an air strike going at facilities when you
know an individual might be there, and going after a single
individual."
Still, Woolsey said he opposed a deliberate assassination
campaign.
"First of all it's hard to do. The United States isn't good at
it," said Woolsey, citing bungled plots in the 1960s to kill Cuban
leader Fidel Castro. "It would make it more likely that one or
more groups would come back with an assassination attempt aimed at
the president."
Before the missile strike on targets in Sudan and Afghanistan,
U.S. intelligence was aware that bin Laden planned to be at one of
the Afghan camps that day. Officials now believe bin Laden left the
site before the missiles struck.
For continuous breaking news, see AP Newstream
Associated Press news material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.
|
News