Why was Anwar al-Awlaki executed by drone, without due process?

[leveymg]

44. You wanna know the real reason?

Last edited Mon Mar 11, 2013, 10:14 AM - Edit history (3)

A policy change that added his name to the kill list. For a long time, there was as much reason to keep Mr. al-Awlaki alive as to kill him, as he was one of the most useful AQ assets the U.S. had. I didn't say that, Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA Bin Laden Issues Unit, otherwise known as Alec Station, said that al-Awlaki was a US "agent". See below.* But, something happened in late 2009 that tipped the balance against al-Awlaki, sealing his fate. Here's what did it.

What changed? A Presidential policy memo. The term used was a "security review" following the so-called Underwear Bomb Plot. See, http://travel.state.gov/law/legal/testimony/testimony_4635.html

And, that goes back to two proximate terrorist attacks that involved persons who had contact with al-Awlaki, or those who appeared to be immediately around him. The Fort Hood shooting was a mass murder that took place on November 5, 2009, and then there was the highly untidy, nearly botched Underwear Bomber incident at Xmas 2009, which blew the lid off the operation, and seemed to really shake things up. That was followed for emphasis by the attempted car bombing of Times Square on May 1, 2010.

But, it was the Christmas Plot over Detroit that appears to have led to the White House decision to refocus counter-terrorism operations away from the use of agents provocateur and the attendant limitation of damage strategy (dud bombs) toward outright targeted killing of al-Alwaki. An article in today's NYT confirms that the President stepped in to change policy after the operation was blown after other passengers noticed the bomb-wearer, a Nigerian student, was assisted through Airport Security in Amsterdam by a well-dressed man with an American accent. The fact that he was allowed on the plane, even though his name appeared in a terrorist look-out book, and was able to partially detonate the liquid explosives in his seat as the airliner approached Detroit was too much. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/world/middleeast/anwar-al-awlaki-a-us-citizen-in-americas-cross-hairs.html?google_editors_picks=true&_r=0

Aware that Mr. Obama, shaken by the underwear bombing attempt, was closely following the hunt, agencies competed to get new scraps about Mr. Awlaki into the president’s daily intelligence briefing, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst said.

There was even a subsequent limited public acknowledgement that the Underwear Bomber was issued and allowed to maintain his visa even though his name appeared on the terrorist look-out book, because the AQ network in Yemen around al-Awlaki was the real target of US intelligence. Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy all but acknowledged that in testimony before the Senate Committee in early January 2010. http://www.state.gov/m/rls/remarks/2010/135865.htm

There have been numerous cases where our unilateral and uncoordinated revocation would have disrupted important investigations that were underway by one of our national security partners. They had the individual under investigation and our revocation action would have disclosed the U.S. Government's interest in the individual and ended our colleagues' ability to quietly pursue the case and identify terrorists' plans and co-conspirators.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1705667530?bctid=63664173001

There was an even more explicit admission of how US Counterterrorism allows intending terrorists into the U.S.. In testimony to a Congressional Committee on January 20, 2010, a ranking US intelligence official acknowledged that practice: http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/terrorism-watch-lists-dont-necessarily-bar-entry-officials-say/

In an unusual and startling admission, Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, disclosed the practice during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday.

"I will tell you, that when people come to the country and they are on the watch list, it is because we have generally made the choice that we want them here in the country for some reason or another," Leiter said.

On Thursday, a U.S. intelligence official confirmed that people who are on three of four federal terrorist watch lists are sometimes allowed into the country.

"In certain situations it's to our advantage to be able to track individuals who might be on a terrorist watch list because you can learn something from their activities and their contacts," the official said.

The three watch lists include the TIDE database, which has about 550,000 names; the FBI's terrorist watch list, which has about 400,000 names; and another list of about 14,000 people who are flagged for secondary screening at the nation's airports.

"This would not include individuals who are on the no-fly list," the official added.

It was not clear how many people on watch lists have been allowed into the country. But the revelation could prompt a blowback in Congress, where lawmakers have been pressing to expand watch lists.

Quite extraordinarily, that explosion of candor about previous US counterterrorism policies and practices coincided with the decision to kill the US citizen now reclassified as a "senior operational figure" within AQ was even leaked into the major media later that month in reports naming al-Alwaki:

CIA may target first U.S. citizen
By Greg Miller, Chicago Tribune
Stars and Stripes online edition, Sunday, January 31, 2010

WASHINGTON — The CIA sequence for a Predator strike ends with a missile but begins with a memo. Usually no more than two or three pages long, it bears the name of a suspected terrorist, the latest intelligence on his activities, and a case for why he should be added to a list of people the agency is trying to kill.

The list typically contains about two dozen names, a number that expands each time a new memo is signed by CIA executives on the seventh floor at agency headquarters, and contracts as targets thousands of miles away, in places including Pakistan and Yemen, seem to spontaneously explode.

No U.S. citizen has ever been on the CIA's target list, which mainly names al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, according to current and former U.S. officials. But that is expected to change as CIA analysts compile a case against a Muslim cleric who was born in New Mexico but now resides in Yemen.

Anwar al-Awlaki poses a dilemma for U.S. counter-terrorism officials. He is a U.S. citizen and until recently was mainly known as a preacher espousing radical Islamic views. But al-Awlaki's connections to November's shootings at Fort Hood and the failed Christmas Day airline plot have helped convince CIA analysts that his role has changed.

"Over the past several years, Awlaki has gone from propagandist to recruiter to operational player," said a U.S. counter-terrorism official.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/news/cia-may-target-first-u-s-citizen-1.98535

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* al-Awlaki appears to be a classic double-agent or agent provocateur. He's been at the center of too many of these incidents for too long -- al-Alwaki was the chaperone for the Flt. 77 hijackers for many months after the CIA CounterTerrorism Center (CTC) followed them from an AQ planning summit in Malaysia and "lost track" of them after they entered the US in January 2000. He then took care of the pair, and al-Hazmi followed him from San Diego to Northern Virginia along with another principal 9/11 hijackers -- yet the Feds let al-Awlaki go after 9/11 and again, a second time, after he was arrested upon returning to the US a couple years after 9/11. That's called, Catch and Release.

He was also in contact with the Shoe Bomber, the Ft. Hood killer, and the Underwear Bomber, and was also linked to the attempted bombing of Times Square and the toner cartrage plot to bring down FedEx cargo planes.

The only question is how witting his role was as the spider at the center of the CIA (and/or) DIA and FBI CT web(s). Mike Scheuer, the head of the CIA CTC Bin Laden Unit that Tenet replaced in 1999 with his own guys, Cofer Black and Rich Blee (who ordered the FBI liaison officer at CTC to withhold a warning cable that the Flt. 77 hijackers had entered the US), has said so himself. See, below.

We've had too many chances to capture or kill him since, for there to not be a good reason why we seemingly failed to do so for so long.