Famous journalist Seymour Hersh has alleged that former Vice-President Dick Cheney was in charge of a ‘secret assassination wing’ that would enter a country and execute people on a list – bypassing local government and US CIA operatives.
While of course Cheney has denied any involvement, former aide John Hannah said during an interview that the account is ‘certainly true’. Hannah agreed that troops in the field are given the authority to capture or kill certain individuals.
Q: Is there a list of suspected terrorists out there who can be assassinated?
HANNAH: There’s clearly a group of people that go through a very extremely well-vetted process, interagency process…that have committed acts of war against the United States, who are at war with the United States or are suspected of planning operations of war against the United States, who authority is given to our troops in the field in certain war theaters to capture or kill those individuals. That is certainly true.
Source: thinkprogress.org
In an interview on CNN’s The Situation Room, Hersh said the group — called the Joint Special Operations Command — reported to Vice President Dick Cheney and was delegated authority to assassinate individuals based on their own intelligence.
“The idea that we have a unit that goes around and without reporting to Congress — Congress knows very little about this group, can’t get hearings, can’t get even classified hearings on it…goes around and has authority from the president to go into a country without telling the CIA station chief or the ambassador and whack someone, I am sorry Wolf, yes I have a problem with that,” Hersh said in the interview with Wolf Blitzer.
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