Dirty Wars Page #5

Does the Pentagon

have any comment

on a report in The Nation today?

And my question is-

- Yeah, I guess- I-I-

- The question is-

you keep denying

covert operations.

Isn't this yet more

evidence of one?

Okay.

Despite whatever

conspiratorial theories

that, you know, magazines

or broadcast outlets

may want to cook up,

there's nothing to it.

So, Jeremy, let me ask you,

have we been going into

all of these countries

over the past decade

with drone attacks,

dropping bombs in countries

where we haven't declared war?

The lack of response

from the major media

and the CIA and all

the rest of it

suggests they're dismissing

what you've done.

I receive a call, unprompted,

from a Captain James Kirby,

who is the spokesperson

for Admiral Mike Mullen.

Calls me on my cell phone.

Wouldn't tell me how he

got my cell phone number.

Wouldn't tell me who told

him about the story.

This is hours from publication.

And told me that

if we published this

story in The Nation

that I would be "on thin ice. "

That was a direct quote.

And I said, "Well,

I want to know

"how you heard about this story,

and I want to know how

you got my number. "

And he said, "Let's just say

that I heard about it. "

I wasn't sleeping well,

and insomnia fueled my anxiety.

My computer had been hacked

and part of my

hard drive copied.

It was difficult not to feel a

creeping sense of paranoia.

And then I got another

strange phone call.

I had no idea why he called me

or how he got my number.

I thought it might be a setup.

Every story I worked on

seemed to trace back to JSOC.

And now, out of the blue,

someone from the inside

was reaching out to me.

I had met operators before

in my research on Blackwater

but no one as close to the heart

of JSOC's covert operations.

He sent me photos

of his DoD badges.

But I still couldn't

help wondering,

was I investigating JSOC,

or were they investigating me?

Explain what JSOC is.

[Distorted voice]

What has JSOC been

doing in Yemen?

Targeted killings inside

the borders of Yemen?

Were there ways that

JSOC was being used

that you found objectionable?

Torture?

So you're saying JSOC

is able to hit harder

under President Obama

than they were under

President Bush?

On my last day in Sana'a,

a file had been left

for me at my hotel...

A leaked investigation into

the strike of al-Majalah.

It included a list of the dead.

In Iraq, they had

a deck of cards,

a list of 55 names.

But the cards were not enough.

New lists were needed.

Longer lists.

At the end of each list,

another and another,

an endless list of names.

In al-Majalah, the

list numbered 46.

14 of the names were women.

21 were children.

Who were they trying to kill?

A week after al-Majalah,

there was another strike.

And this time, the

Yemeni government

issued a press release

naming the intended targets,

but none of them

had been killed.

For the first time, I had

names on the kill list

of people who were still alive.

Two of them were

publicly known leaders:

Shihiri and Waheshi.

But the last name

gave me a chill:

Anwar al-Awlaki.

I knew the name,

but I couldn't believe

I was seeing it here

on this list.

Awlaki was an American citizen.

The Christmas Day

bombing attempt

has everybody on alert tonight.

Investigators

connecting the dots,

and a key focus in

the investigation

is a radical Islamic cleric.

That man is Anwar al-Awlaki,

an exiled American who was...

Just as I was investigating

the expanding war in Yemen,

it seemed Awlaki's

name was everywhere.

The War on Terror

suddenly had a new face.

Radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki

may now be as grave a threat

as Osama bin Laden himself.

Awlaki, Holder says,

is a clear and present danger.

He's an extremely dangerous man.

Does the U.S.

have a preference

in terms of al-Awlaki:

Dead, captured, or prosecuted?

Well, we certainly want

to neutralize him,

and we will do whatever we

can in order to do that.

An American was

on the kill list.

It felt to me like we'd

walked off a cliff.

Awlaki had been

sentenced to death

without even being

charged with a crime.

Awlaki's father filed a lawsuit

with the help of the Center

for Constitutional Rights

and the ACLU.

He demanded that the

government provide

whatever evidence they

had against his son.

But the government refused.

They had ordered

the assassination

of a U.S. citizen

but said the evidence

itself was too dangerous

to be made public.

What kind of protections

does this American have

against being assassinated

by his own government?

Yeah, it almost

sounds kind of funny

in an ironic way

when you say that.

You know, you have the right

not to be assassinated.

A bill was introduced

in Congress

to ban the extrajudicial

assassination of Americans,

but only six

congressmen signed on.

And the people who should have

known what was happening,

the members of the

intelligence committees,

couldn't tell me anything.

When there is a lethal operation

and a high-value

person is killed,

the president, of course,

acknowledged that we killed-

- He can't-

- Huh?

SEN. RON WYDEN

SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE

Has there been any legal review

of the potential for

lethal operations

against American citizens?

- Not to our knowledge.

- Is that classified?

It's important for the

American people to know

when the President can

kill an American citizen

and when they can't.

And yet it is almost as if

there are two laws in America,

and the American people

would be extraordinarily

surprised

if they could see the difference

between what they

believe a law says

and how it has actually

been interpreted in secret.

You're not permitted

to disclose that

difference publicly.

That's correct.

I wasn't surprised

when Washington

ignored the killings in Gardez.

But this was an

American citizen.

The country was now

targeting one of its own.

Even John Walker Lindh,

who'd taken up arms

with the Taliban,

was given a trial.

What had Awlaki done?

And why was the U.S. willing

to cross such a dangerous line

to have him killed?

I read everything I

could about Awlaki.

It was obvious that he was an

immensely popular preacher

with a large following

among young

English-speaking Muslims

around the world.

On his blog, he openly praised

some of the attacks

against the U.S.

But this in itself was

clearly not a crime.

I spoke with former CIA

and military officials.

PHIL GIRALDI:

CAREER CIA CASE OFFICER

They argued that

Awlaki's speeches

were inspiring

domestic terrorists.

EMILE NAKHLEH:

CIA POLITICAL ISLAM DMSION

There were a lot of words

COL. PATRICK LANG DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

from both Awlaki and the U.S. Government

but no concrete

piece of evidence

LT. COL. ANTHONY SHAFFER CIA - LEADERSHIP

TARGETING CELL that he was an operational figure

LT. COL. ANTHONY SHAFFER CIA

- LEADERSHIP TARGETING CELL in any attacks.

I remembered seeing him on

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes