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The CIA's seal features an eagle atop a sixteen-point compass.
"CIA" redirects here. For other uses, see CIA (disambiguation).

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Government, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the Government. A third function of the CIA is to act as the "hidden hand" of the government by engaging in covert operations, some of questionable legality, at the direction of the President. [1] It is this last function that has caused most of the controversies regarding the CIA over the years.

Its headquarters are in the community of Langley in the McLean CDP of Fairfax County, Virginia, a few miles up the Potomac River from downtown Washington, D.C.. The CIA is part of the American Intelligence Community, which is now led by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The roles and functions of the CIA are roughly equivalent to those of the United Kingdom's MI6 and Israel's Mossad.

Organization

History

Original sign with seal from the CIA's first building on E Street in Washington, DC

The Agency, created in 1947 by the National Security Act of 1947 signed by President Harry S. Truman, is a descendant of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) of World War II. The OSS was dissolved in October 1945 but William J. Donovan (aka Wild Bill), the creator of the OSS, submitted a proposal to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 calling for a new organization having direct Presidential supervision, "which will procure intelligence both by overt and covert methods and will at the same time provide intelligence guidance, determine national intelligence objectives, and correlate the intelligence material collected by all government agencies." Despite strong opposition from the military, the State Department, and the FBI, Truman established the Central Intelligence Group in January 1946. Later under the National Security Act of 1947 (which became effective on September 18, 1947) the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency were established. In its creation many disposed Nazi operatives were recruited to become agents, they were offered financial packages and promised to be exempt from trial for their war crimes committed in World War II. This was a result of Operation Paperclip. Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter was appointed as the first Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

In 1949, the Central Intelligence Agency Act (also called "Public Law 110") was passed, permitting the agency to use confidential, fiscal, and administrative procedures and exempting it from many of the usual limitations on the use of federal funds. The act also exempted the CIA from having to disclose its "organization, functions, officials, titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed." It also created a program called "PL-110" to handle defectors and other "essential aliens" outside normal immigration procedures, as well as giving those persons cover stories and economic support. [2] By 1949, the West German intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst, under Reinhard Gehlen, was under the CIA's control.

In 1950, the CIA organized the Pacific Corporation, the first of many CIA private enterprises. Director Hillenkoetter approved Project BLUEBIRD, the CIA's first structured behavioral control program. In 1951, the Columbia Broadcasting System began cooperating with the CIA. President Truman created the Office of Current Intelligence. Project BLUEBIRD was renamed Project ARTICHOKE.

During the first years of its existence, other branches of government did not exercise much control over the Agency. This was often justified by a desire to defeat and match the activities of the KGB across the globe, a task that many believed could only be accomplished through an equally ungentlemanly approach. As a result, few in government inquired too closely into CIA activity. The rapid expansion of the Agency and a developing sense of independence under DCI Allen Dulles added to this trend.

Things came to a head in the early 1970s, around the time of the Watergate affair. One dominant feature of political life during this period were the attempts of Congress to assert its power of oversight over the executive branch of government. Revelations about past CIA activities, such as assassination attempts of foreign leaders and illegal domestic spying, provided the opportunity to carry out this process in the sphere of intelligence operations. Hastening the Agency's fall from grace were the involvement of ex-CIA agents in the Watergate break-in and President Nixon's subsequent attempts to use the CIA to stop the FBI investigation of Watergate. In the famous "smoking gun" tape which led to Nixon's resignation, Nixon ordered his chief of staff Haldeman to tell the CIA that further investigation of Watergate would "open the whole can of worms" about the Bay Of Pigs operation, and therefore that the CIA should tell the FBI to stop investigating Watergate because of "national security."

DCI James R. Schlesinger had commissioned a series of reports on past CIA wrongdoing. These reports, known euphemistically as "the Family Jewels", were kept close to the Agency's chest until an article by Seymour Hersh in the New York Times broke the news that the CIA had been involved in the assassination of foreign leaders and kept files on some seven thousand American citizens involved in the peace movement (Operation CHAOS). Congress investigated the CIA in the Senate through the Church committee, named after Chairman Frank Church (D-Idaho) and in the House through the Pike committee, named after Chairman Otis Pike (D-N.Y.); and these investigations led to further embarrassing disclosures. Around the Christmas of 1974/5, another blow was struck by Congress when they blocked covert intervention in Angola.

The CIA was subsequently prohibited from assassinating foreign leaders. Further, the prohibition against domestic spying, which had always been prohibited by the CIA charter, was again to be enforced, with the FBI having sole responsibility for domestic investigation of US citizens. Repercussions from the Iran-Contra scandal included the creation of the Intelligence Authorization Act in 1991. This defined "covert operations" as secret missions in areas where the U.S. is not involved in open or apparent engagement. This also required a certain chain of authorization, including an official presidential finding report and informing the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which under emergency situations only requires "timely notification".

In 1988, President George H. W. Bush became the first former head of the CIA to be elected President of the United States.

The entrance of the new CIA Headquarters.

Previously, the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) oversaw the Intelligence Community and served as the principal intelligence adviser to the president, in addition to serving as head of the Central Intelligence Agency. The DCI's title is now Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DCIA), and the Director serves as head of the CIA.

Today, the Central Intelligence Agency reports to U.S. Congressional committees but also answers to the President directly. The National Security Advisor is a permanent cabinet member responsible for briefing the President on pertinent information collected from all U.S. intelligence agencies including the National Security Agency, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and others. All 15 agencies of the Intelligence Community are under the Director of National Intelligence.

Many of the post-Watergate restrictions on the CIA were removed after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the U.S. military hub, the Pentagon. Some critics have charged that this violates the requirement in the U.S. Constitution that the federal budget be openly published. However, 52 years earlier, in 1949, Congress and President Harry Truman had approved arrangements that CIA and national intelligence funding could be hidden in the overall U.S federal budget.

CIA seal

The compass, or star, as some call it, has sixteen points. These points represents the CIA's search for intelligence data from all over the world (outside the United States) and bringing it back to headquarters in Virginia for analysis, reporting, and redistribution to policy makers. The compass rests upon a shield which is a symbol for defense.

Structure

The current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency is vacant. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) manages the operations, personnel and budget of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Director is appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.

The current Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency is Vice Admiral Albert M. Calland, III, USN[3]. The DD/CIA assists the Director in his duties as head of the CIA and exercises the powers of the Director when the Director’s position is vacant or in the Director’s absence or disability.

The current Associate Director for Military Support is Major General John T. Brennan, USAF[4]. The AD/MS is the DCIA's principal advisor and representative on military issues. The AD/MS coordinates Intelligence Community efforts to provide Joint Force commanders with timely, accurate intelligence. The AD/MS also supports Department of Defense officials who oversee military intelligence training and the acquisition of intelligence systems and technology. A senior general officer, the AD/MS ensures coordination of Intelligence Community policies, plans and requirements relating to support to military forces in the intelligence budget.

The Executive Director of the Central Intelligence Agency position is currently vacant after Kyle "Dusty" Foggo resigned on May 8, 2006. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency appoints the Executive Director (EXDIR), who is the Agency's Chief Operating Officer. The EXDIR manages the CIA on a daily basis, formulating and implementing policies and programs that affect the corporate interests of the Agency and its personnel on behalf of the D/CIA with input from the four Directorate Heads, now called Directors.

The Directorate of Intelligence[5], the analytical branch of the CIA, is responsible for the production and dissemination of all-source intelligence analysis on key foreign issues. The current Director of Intelligence is John A. Kringen[6].

The National Clandestine Service, a semi-independent service which was formerly the Directorate of Operations, is responsible for the clandestine collection of foreign intelligence and covert action. The current Director of the NCS is Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr.

The Directorate of Science & Technology[7] creates and applies innovative technology in support of the intelligence collection mission. The current Director of Science & Technology is Stephanie L. O’Sullivan.

The Directorate of Support provides the mission critical elements of the Agency's support foundation: people, security, information, property, and financial operations. The current Director of Support is Stephanie Danes Smith[8]. Most of this Directorate is sub-structured into smaller offices based on role and purpose, such as the CIA Office of Security.

The Center for the Study of Intelligence[9] maintains the Agency's historical materials and promotes the study of intelligence as a legitimate and serious discipline. The current Director is Paul Johnson.

The Office of the General Counsel[10]advises the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on all legal matters relating to his role as CIA director and is the principal source of legal counsel for the CIA. The current Acting General Counsel is John A. Rizzo.

The Office of Inspector General promotes efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability in the administration of Agency activities. OIG also seeks to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. The Inspector General is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Inspector General, whose activities are independent of those of any other component in the Agency, reports directly to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. OIG conducts inspections, investigations, and audits at Headquarters and in the field, and oversees the Agency-wide grievance-handling system. The OIG provides a semiannual report to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency which the Director is required by law to submit to the Intelligence Committees of Congress within 30 days. The current Inspector General is John L. Helgerson.

The Office of Public Affairs[11] advises the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on all media, public policy, and employee communications issues relating to his role as CIA director and is the CIA’s principal communications focal point for the media, the general public and Agency employees. The current Director of Public Affairs is Jennifer Millerwise Dyck[12].

Relationship with other agencies

The CIA acts as the primary American provider of central intelligence estimates. It is believed to make use of the surveillance satellites of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the signal interception capabilities of the NSA, including the ECHELON system, the surveillance aircraft of the various branches of the U.S. armed forces and the analysts of the State Department and Department of Energy. At one point, the CIA even operated its own fleet of U-2 surveillance aircraft. The agency has also operated alongside regular military forces, and also employs a group of clandestine officers with paramilitary skills in its Special Activities Division. Micheal Spann, a CIA officer killed in November 2001 during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, was one such individual. The CIA also has strong links with other foreign intelligence agencies such as the UK's MI6 and Canada's CSIS.

Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

The head of the CIA is given the title of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DCIA).

The Central Intelligence Agency was created in 1947 with the signing of the National Security Act by President Harry S Truman. The act also created a Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) to serve as head of the United States intelligence community; act as the principal adviser to the President for intelligence matters related to the national security; and serve as head of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 amended the National Security Act to provide for a Director of National Intelligence who would assume some of the roles formerly fulfilled by the DCI, with a separate Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Porter J. Goss became the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on April 21 2005[13]. He served as Director of Central Intelligence from September 24, 2004 until May 5, 2006. Director Goss previously served as head of the House Intelligence Committee as a representative from Florida. Director Goss is also a former CIA Operations Officer. On May 5, 2006, Porter J. Goss resigned unexpectedly, leaving behind a spy agency still battling to recover from the scars of intelligence failures before the United States' worst terrorist attack and faulty information that formed the U.S. rationale for invading Iraq. It was the latest move in a second-term shake-up of President Bush's team. Making the announcement from the Oval Office, Bush called Goss' tenure one of transition. According to the White House, the two exchanged the following remarks:

Bush: This morning, Director Porter Goss offered his resignation as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I've accepted it. During the course of his tenure, I've established a very close, personal relationship with Porter, which is very important for the director of the CIA. He's spent a lot of time here in the Oval Office. He's told me — he's given me his candid advice. I appreciate his integrity. I appreciate the honor that he brought to the job.
Porter's tenure at the CIA was one of transition. He's helped this agency become integrated into the intelligence community, and that was a tough job. He's led ably. He's got a five-year plan to increase the number of analysts and operatives, which is going to help make this country a safer place and help us win the war on terror. He's instilled a sense of professionalism. He honors the proud history of the CIA, an organization that is known for its secrecy and accountability. I am confident that his successor will continue the reforms that he's put in place, and as a result, this country will be more secure.
We've got to win the war on terror, and the Central Intelligence Agency is a vital part of that war. So I want to thank you for your service.
Goss: Mr. President, thank you very much. It has been a very distinct honor and privilege to serve you, and, of course, the people of the country, and the employees of the Central Intelligence Agency. I can tell you the trust and confidence you've placed in me and given me the latitude to work is something I could never have imagined and I am most grateful for it.
I would like to report back to you that I believe the agency is on a very even keel, sailing well. I honestly believe that we have improved dramatically your goals for our nation's intelligence capabilities, which are, in fact, the things that I think are keeping us very safe. And I honestly would report to you, sir, that we are safer for your efforts, your leadership and for the men and women in the community that are working so hard and doing so well. Thank you for the support, the encouragement and the understanding of how tough the work is and how important it is.
Bush: God bless.

The Video

Historical operations

See also Category:CIA operations

North America

In the 1950's and 60's, the CIA ran a mind-control research program code-named Project MKULTRA.

Eastern Europe

In its earliest years the CIA and its predecessor, the OSS, attempted to rollback communism in eastern Europe by supporting local anti-communist groups; none of these attempts met with much success. Attempts to instigate revolutions in the Ukraine and Belarus by infiltrating anti-Communist spies and saboteurs met with total failure. In Poland the CIA spent several years sending money and equipment to an organization invented and run by Polish intelligence. It was more successful in its efforts to limit Communist influence in France and Italy, notably in the 1948 Italian election. After WWII, the CIA was instrumental in setting up the Gladio network, a secret government network of organizations in Italy and in other parts of Western Europe. In the 1960s-1980s, Gladio operatives, were involved in a series of "false flag" terrorist actions in Italy that were blamed on the "Red Brigades" and other Left groups in an attempt to discredit the Italian Left — called the strategy of tension). [1]

It has now been firmly established (see references below) that the OSS actively recruited and protected many high ranking Nazi officers immediately following World War II, a policy that was carried on by the CIA[14]. These included, the CIA now admits, the notorious "butcher of Lyon" Klaus Barbie, Hitler's Chief of Soviet Intelligence General Reinhard Gehlen, and numerous less-renowned Gestapo officers. General Gehlen, due to his extensive (if dubious) intelligence assets within the Soviet Union, was allowed to keep his spy-network intact after the war in the service of the United States. The Gehlen organization soon became one of America's chief sources of Intelligence on the Soviet Union during the cold war, and formed the basis for what would later become the German intelligence agency the BND.

Developing World

With Europe stabilizing along the line of the Iron Curtain, the CIA then moved in the 1950s to try to limit the spread of Soviet influence elsewhere around the globe, especially in the Third World. With the encouragement of DCI Allen Dulles, clandestine operations quickly came to dominate the organization. Initially they proved very successful: in Iran in 1953 the CIA successfully overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh government after it attempted to retain more of the country's oil revenues and remove perceived communist influence from the strong Iranian Communist Party (see Operation Ajax). In Guatemala in 1954 (see Operation PBSUCCESS), CIA operations, with relatively little funding, orchestrated the overthrow of these democratically elected governments and replaced them with non-democratic and pro-American dictatorships. However, the instability created in Guatemala resulted in a 30-year civil war which caused over 100,000 fatalities; and in Iran, the Shah's dictatorship, which aggressively eliminated all political opposition.[15].

Indonesia

In 1958, a CIA-backed coup attempt was made on Indonesia's President Sukarno, while other elements of the U.S. government backed Sukarno.[citation needed] The operation failed when a CIA operative was captured after his plane was shot down, and was found to have on his possession his actual identification as a CIA agent. [citation needed]

In 1965 Sukarno was ousted in a coup d'état led by Suharto. As many as 5,000 names of communists and leftists were furnished to the Indonesian army by the CIA, and the Americans later checked off the names of those who had been killed or captured."[2] One of those Kadane interviewed was Robert J Martens, a political officer in the US embassy in Jakarta. "It was a big help to the army", he said. "They probably killed a lot of people and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that's not all bad."[3] In little more than a month, an estimated 500,000 executions took place, often directed at Indonesia's Chinese minority. In a 1968 report, the CIA estimated there had been 250,000 deaths, and called the carnage "one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century."[4]

The CIA secretly supplied Suharto's troops with a field communications network. Flown in at night by US Air Force planes from the Philippines, this was state-of-the-art equipment, whose frequencies were known to the CIA and the National Security Agency. Not only did this technology allow Suharto's generals to coordinate the killings more efficiently, it also meant that the highest echelons of the US administration could listen in. Suharto was able to seal off large areas of the country.[5]

Cuba

The limitations of large scale covert action became readily apparent during the CIA organized Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba in 1961. The failure embarrassed the CIA and the United States on the world stage, as Cuban leader Fidel Castro used the botched invasion to consolidate power and strengthen ties with the Soviet Union. However, the CIA attempted unsuccessfully several times to assassinate the Cuban head of state as part of its Operation Mongoose.

The CIA became heavily embroiled in the controversy over who assassinated President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. First, the New Orleans prosecutor tried to prosecute businessman Clay Shaw who had engaged in non-paid CIA data collection assignments overseas as being involved in the Kennedy assassination. Shaw denied any such connection with the CIA or the murder, and was acquited. Later it was discovered that Shaw was connected to the CIA and his status after years of non-paid work is still not publicly available. [16]

In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations believed there was some link between Lee Oswald and certain bizarre right-wing fanatics who purportedly worked with the CIA on its anti-Castro projects in New Orleans and were linked to organized crime figures. The HSCA identified David Ferrie as a possible link because of his associaton with Oswald that may have taken the form of a personal friendship. Ferrie himself was associated with organized crime figures and anti-Castro groups. Oswald's uncle was involved in organized crime in New Orleans [17]

Documents obtained and disclosed by the Assassination Records Review Board indicate that the CIA concealed documents for over 30 years regarding its knowledge that someone was impersonating Lee Oswald and tried to contact a "hit man" in Mexico City at the Cuban Consulate less than two months before Kennedy was assassinated. PBS's news show, Frontline, stated that this information that was already known by the CIA, was found out by Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover within hours after Kennedy was assassinated and "electrified" top Washington insiders. [[18]]

CIA operations after Cuba

CIA operations became less ambitious after the Bay of Pigs, and shifted to being closely linked to aiding the U.S. military operation in Vietnam. Between 1962 and 1975, the CIA organized a Laotian group known as the Secret Army and ran a fleet of aircraft known as Air America to take part in the Secret War in Laos, part of the Vietnam War.

Chile

After the election of Socialist President Salvador Allende in 1970 the CIA covertly worked to prevent him from taking office through bribery of Chilean officials, which failed. Afterwards, an attempted coup was plotted by the CIA with anti-Allende factions, but it eventually was forced to abort the project. (See Project FUBELT}

Three years later, Allende was overthrown by military leader Augusto Pinochet. Allegations have been made that the CIA was behind the coup, although none have been completely confirmed or contradicted. The Church Committee, which investigated U.S. involvement in Chile during this period, stated that "There is no hard evidence of direct U.S. assistance to the coup, despite frequent allegations of such aid.[19]" In 2000 the CIA also denied that it assisted the coup.

The Church Report also showed that the CIA played a prominent role in Chile after the 1973 coup: The goal of covert action immediately following the coup was to assist the Junta in gaining a more positive image, both at home and abroad, and to maintain access to the command levels of the Chilean government. Another goal, achieved in part through work done at the opposition research organization before the coup, was to help the new government organize and implement new policies. Project files record that. CIA collaborators were involved in preparing an initial overall economic plan which has served as the basis for the Junta's most important economic decisions.

Nicaragua

In the early 1980s, after the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua, the CIA funded and armed the Contras, forces opposed to the leftist and Marxist Sandinista junta. Congress passed the Boland Amendment which forbade any U.S. funding of the Contras. The Reagan administration violated the Boland Amendment by using profits from the sale of arms to Iran to fund the Contras. Part of the CIA campaign to overthrow the Nicaragua government included mining Nicaragua's harbors, resulting in the sinking of a merchant ship. This resulted in a World Court decision in the case Nicaragua v. United States ordering the United States to pay Nicaragua reparations, although the U.S. ignored the verdict of the World Court.

Controversies

In 1952 the CIA had founded the Robertson Panel to recommend what ought to be done about UFOs or alien contact after Washington, D.C. was involved in a major UFO sighting. It recommended that UFO-spotting organisations (such as Mufon) should be infiltrated and that prominent figures from them be publicly denounced and ridiculed[citation needed].

Defectors such as former agent Philip Agee, who later worked with the Soviet KGB and the Cuban intelligence service, have alleged that such CIA covert action is extraordinarily widespread, extending to propaganda campaigns within countries allied to the United States. The agency has also been accused of participation in the illegal drug trade, notably in Laos, Afghanistan, Nicaragua and Los Angeles (see "Drug Trafficking" section, below; "Whiteout" by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair). It is known to have attempted assassinations of foreign leaders, most notably Fidel Castro, though since 1976 a Presidential order has banned such "executive actions," except during wartime.

In 1996, the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a congressional report estimating that the clandestine service part of the intelligence community "easily" breaks "extremely serious laws" in countries around the world, 100,000 times every year. [20]

In a briefing held September 15 2001, George Tenet presented the Worldwide Attack Matrix: A "top-secret" document describing covert CIA anti-terror operations in eighty countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The actions, underway or being recommended, would range from "routine propaganda to lethal covert action in preparation for military attacks." The plans, if carried out, "would give the CIA the broadest and most lethal authority in its history." [21]

On November 5 2002, newspapers reported that Al-Qaeda operatives in a car travelling through Yemen had been killed by a missile launched from a CIA-controlled Predator drone (a medium-altitude, remote-controlled aircraft). On May 15, 2005, it was reported [22] that another of these drones had been used to assassinate Al-Qaeda figure Haitham al-Yemeni inside Pakistan.

In June 2005, two events occurred that may shape future CIA operations.

Arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents were issued in Italy. The agents are alleged to have taken a suspected Egyptian terrorist from Milan on 17 February 2003 for extraordinary rendition to Egypt, where according to relatives of the cleric, he was tortured. The removal of the terrorist wasn't unusual except that the Italian government has denied having approved the rendition. Similar operations of this sort have occurred worldwide since 9/11, the vast majority with at least tacit approval by the national government. Additionally, it allegedly disrupted Italian attempts to penetrate the terrorist's Al Qaeda network [23]. The New York Times reported soon after that it is highly unlikely that the CIA agents involved would be extradited, despite the US-Italy bilateral treaty regarding extraditions for crimes that carry a penalty of more than a year in prison. The agents involved in the operation are also reported to have booked lavish hotels during the operation and taken taxpayer-funded vacations after it was complete. [24]

Soon after, President Bush appointed the CIA to be in charge of all human intelligence and manned spying operations. This was the apparent culmination of a years old turf war regarding influence, philosophy and budget between the Defense Intelligence Agency of The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency. The Pentagon, through the DIA, wanted to take control of the CIA's paramilitary operations and many of its human assets. The CIA, which has for years held that human intelligence is the core of the agency, successfully argued that the CIA's decades long experience with human resources and civilian oversight made it the ideal choice. Thus, the CIA was given charge of all US human intelligence, but as a compromise, the Pentagon was authorized to include increased paramilitary capabilities in future budget requests.

Despite reforms which have led back to what the CIA considers its traditional principal capacities, the CIA Director position has lost influence in the White House. For years, the Director of the CIA met regularly with the President to issue daily reports on ongoing operations. After the creation of the post of the National Intelligence Director, currently occupied by John Negroponte, that practice has been discontinued in favor of the National Intelligence Director, with oversight of all intelligence, including DIA operations outside of CIA jurisdiction, giving the report. Former CIA Director Porter Goss, himself a former CIA officer, denies this has had a diminishing effect on morale, in favor of promoting his singular mission to reform the CIA into the lean and agile counter-terrorism focused force he believes it should be.

On December 6 2005, German Khalid El-Masri filed a lawsuit against former CIA Director George Tenet, claiming that he was transported from Macedonia to a prison in Afghanistan and held captive there by the CIA for 5 months on a case of mistaken identity. Two months after his true identity had been found out, he had been taken to Albania and released without funds or an official excuse.

Support for foreign dictators

The activities of the CIA have caused considerable political controversy both in the United States and in other countries, often nominally friendly to the United States, where the agency has operated (or been alleged to). Particularly during the Cold War, the CIA supported a long list of dictators, including Chile's infamous Augusto Pinochet, a number of dictatorships in Central America, the Shah of Iran, and the despots in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Indonesia, who have been friendly to perceived U.S. geopolitical interests (namely anti-Communism, providing access to oil companies and other multi-national corporations and implementing a liberal economic system), sometimes over democratically-elected governments.

Often cited as one of the American intelligence community's biggest blunders is the CIA involvement in equipping and training Mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan in response to the Soviet invasion of the country. The Mujahedeen trained by the CIA later formed Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist organization. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the National Security Advisor under President Carter, has discussed U.S. involvement in Afghanistan in several publications.

Later, the CIA facilitated the so-called Reagan Doctrine, channelling weapons and other support to Jonas Savimbi's UNITA rebel movement in Angola (in addition to the Mujahedeen and the Contras) in response to Cuban military support for the MPLA, thus turning an otherwise low-profile African civil war into one of the larger battlegrounds of the Cold War.

Highly-illegal activities

The Intelligence Community in the 21st Century, Staff Study, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress: [25]

"Most of the operations of the CS [Clandestine Service] are, by all accounts, the

most tricky, politically sensitive, and troublesome of those in the

IC [Intelligence Community] and frequently require the DCI's [Director of Central Intelligence's] close personal attention. The [Clandestine Service] is the only part of the [Intelligence Community], indeed of the government, where hundreds of employees on a daily basis are directed to break extremely serious laws in countries around the world in the face of frequently sophisticated efforts by foreign governments to catch them. A safe estimate is that several hundred times every day (easily 100,000 times a year) DO [Directorate of Operations] officers engage in highly illegal activities (according to foreign law) that not only risk political embarrassment to the U.S. but also endanger the freedom if not lives of the participating foreign nationals and, more than occasionally, of the clandestine officer himself. In other words, a typical 28 year old, GS-11 case officer has numerous opportunities every week, by poor tradecraft or inattention, to embarrass his country and President and to get agents imprisoned or executed. Considering these facts and recent history, which has shown that the DCI, whether he wants to or not, is held accountable for overseeing the CS, the DCI must work closely with the Director of the CS and hold him fully and directly responsible to him."

Criticism for ineffectiveness

The agency has also been criticized for ineffectiveness as an intelligence gathering agency. These criticisms included allowing a double agent, Aldrich Ames, to gain high position within the organization, and for focusing on finding informants with information of dubious value rather than on processing the vast amount of open source intelligence. In addition, the CIA has come under particular criticism for failing to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union and India's nuclear tests or to forestall the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Conversely, proponents of the CIA respond by stating that only the failures become known to the public, whereas the successes cannot be known until decades have passed. Immediate release of successful operations would reveal operational methods to foreign intelligence, which could affect future and/or ongoing missions. Some successes for the CIA include the U-2 and SR-71 programs, anti-Soviet operations in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s (though with the serious downsides noted earlier, the ultimate worth of these operations is open to considerable debate), and perhaps others which may not come to light for some time.

Drug trafficking

CIA and Contras

Main article: CIA and Contra's cocaine trafficking in the US

Allegations have repeatedly been made that the CIA has been involved in drug trafficking to fund illegal operations. For example, In 1996, journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of exposes for the San Jose Mercury News, entitled "Dark Alliance", in which he alleged the use of CIA aircraft, which had ferried arms to the Contras, to ship cocaine to the United States during the return flights.

Webb also alleged that Central American narcotics traffickers could import cocaine to U.S. cities in the 1980s without the interference of normal law enforcement agencies. He claimed that this led, in part, to the crack cocaine epidemic, especially in poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles, and that the CIA intervened to prevent the prosecution of drug dealers who were helping to fund the Contras. Faced with Congressional and other media criticism (especially the Los Angeles Times), the San Jose Mercury News retracted Webb's conclusions and Webb was prevented from conducting any more investigative reporting. Webb was transferred to cover non-controversial suburban stories, and he resigned.

After the Gary Webb report in the Mercury News, the CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz was assigned to investigate these allegations. In 1998 the new CIA director, George Tenet declared that he was releasing the report. [6]

The report and Hitz testimony showed there the "CIA did not 'expeditiously' cut off relations with alleged drug traffickers" and "the CIA was aware of allegations that 'dozens of people and a number of companies connected in some fashion to the contra program' were involved in drug trafficking" [6] [7]

Hitz also said that under an agreement in 1982 between Ronald Reagan's Attorney General William French Smith and the CIA, agency officers were not required to report allegations of drug trafficking involving non-employees, which was defined as meaning paid and non-paid "assets [meaning agents], pilots who ferried supplies to the contras, as well as contra officials and others. [7] [8]

This agreement, which had not previously been revealed, came at a time when there were allegations that the CIA was using drug dealers in its controversial covert operation to bring down the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.[7] Only after Congressional funds were restored in 1986 was the agreement modified to require the CIA to stop paying agents whom it believed were involved in the drug trade.[6]

Kerry Committee report

Main article: Kerry Committee report

In 1998 Represenative Maxine Waters testified to Congress:

Senator Kerry and his Senate investigation found drug traffickers had used the Contra war and tie to the Contra leadership to help this deadly trade. Among their devastating findings, the Kerry committee investigators found that major drug lords used the Contra supply networks and the traffickers provided support for Contras in return. The CIA of course, created, trained, supported, and directed the Contras and were involved in every level of their war. [9]

The Kerry Committee report found that the U.S. State Department had paid drug traffickers. Some of these payments were after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges or while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies.[10] The report declared, "It is clear that individuals who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking...and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers." [6]

Drugs in Asia

It has also been alleged that the CIA was involved in the opium/heroin trade in Asia, which was the focus of Alfred W. McCoy's book, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, an earlier edition of which had already been subjected to an attempted CIA suppression. [11] [12][13] The CIA's operation, Air America, has also been accused of transporting drugs.

Assassinations

The CIA has been linked to several assassination attempts on foreign leaders, including former leader of Panama Omar Torrijos[citation needed] and the President of Cuba, Fidel Castro. (See Church Committee).

On January 13, 2006, the CIA launched an airstrike on Damadola, a Pakistani village near the Afghan border, where they believed Ayman al-Zawahiri was located. The airstrike killed eight men, five women and five children but al-Zawahiri was not among them.[7] The Pakistani government issued a strong protest against the US attack, considered a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty.[citation needed] However, several legal experts argue that this cannot be considered an assassination attempt as al-Zawahiri is named as terrorist and an enemy combatant by the United States, and therefore this targeted killing is not covered under Executive Order 12333, which banned assassinations.[14] [15][16] [17] [18]

CIA operations in Iraq

According to certain authors[26] [27] [28] [29] the CIA appears to have supported the 1963 military coup in Iraq and the subsequent Saddam Hussein-led government up until the point of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Support from the U.S. was predicated on the notion that Iraq was a key buffer state in relations with the Soviet Union. There are court records [30] indicating that the CIA gave military and monetary assistance to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. The CIA were also involved in the failed 1996 coup against Saddam Hussein (see Iyad Allawi).

In 2002 an unnamed source, quoted in the Washington Post, says that the CIA was authorized to undertake a covert operation, if necessary with help of the Special Forces, that could serve as a preparation for a full-scale military attack of Iraq. [31]

The unreliability of U.S. intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been a focus of intense scrutiny in the U.S. In 2004, the continuing armed resistance against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the widely perceived need for systematic review of the respective roles of the CIA, FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency are prominent themes. On July 9 2004 the Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq of the Senate Intelligence Committee stated that the CIA described the danger presented by weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in an unreasonable way, largely unsupported by the available intelligence. [32]

Secret CIA prisons

A story by reporter Dana Priest published in The Washington Post of November 2 2005, reported: "The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important alleged al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement."[33] However, a Council of Europe investigation has found no evidence that such prisons exist. [34]

The report contends that the CIA has a worldwide covert prison system with facilities in Asia, Eastern Europe, and in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. The system is central to the agency's anti-terror role, and according to the report has been kept secret from government officials, including the Congressional committees that oversee the CIA, through the agency's own efforts as well as cooperation with foreign intelligence services.

Priest's story continues:

"The existence and locations of the facilities – referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents – are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country... The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents."

The BBC has followed up on these reports and states that there is credible evidence of covert prisons. [35]

Trent Lott also appears to have confirmed their existence. [36]

On November 8 2005 U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert called for a joint leak probe by the Senate and House intelligence committees into the disclosure of these alleged secret CIA facilities in a letter. In their letter (If the Post story is correct) "such an egregious disclosure could have long-term and far-reaching damaging and dangerous consequences, and will imperil our efforts to protect the American people and our homeland from terrorist attacks."[37]

The letter went on to ask: "What is the actual and potential damage done to the national security of the United States and our partners in the global war on terror?"

Republican Senator Lindsey O. Graham accused the Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of shifting the focus of investigations from why these prisons exist to how information of them was leaked to the public.

Spain is investigating allegations that the CIA used Palma airport for unauthorised prisoner transfers [38].

On April 21, 2006, CIA Office of the Inspector General Employee Mary O. McCarthy was fired after failing a polygraph examination and revealing that she was Dana Priet's source for the prison story.

Torture

Declassified CIA manuals

1984

Main Article: Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare

In 1984, a CIA manual for training the Nicaraguan contras in psychological operations was discovered, entitled "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla War".[39]

The manual recommended “selective use of violence for propagandistic effects” and to “neutralize” (i.e., kill) government officials. Nicaraguan Contras were taught to lead:

demonstrators into clashes with the authorities, to provoke riots or shootings, which lead to the killing of one or more persons, who will be seen as the martyrs; this situation should be taken advantage of immediately against the Government to create even bigger conflicts.

The manual also recommended:

selective use of armed force for PSYOP [psychological operations] effect.... Carefully selected, planned targets — judges, police officials, tax collectors, etc. — may be removed for PSYOP effect in a UWOA [unconventional warfare operations area], but extensive precautions must insure that the people “concur” in such an act by thorough explanatory canvassing among the affected populace before and after conduct of the mission.[40]

1997

Main Article: Torture manuals

On January 24, 1997, two new manuals were declassified in response to a FOIA request filed by the Baltimore Sun in 1994. The first manual, "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation," dated July 1963, is the source of much of the material in the second manual. The second manual, "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual--1983," was used in at least seven U.S. training courses conducted in Latin American countries, including Honduras, between 1982 and 1987.

Both manuals deal exclusively with interrogation.[41] [42]

Both manuals have an entire chapter devoted to "coercive techniques." These manuals recommend arresting suspects early in the morning by surprise, blindfolding them, and stripping them naked. Suspects should be held incommunicado and should be deprived of any kind of normal routine in eating and sleeping. Interrogation rooms should be windowless, soundproof, dark and without toilets.

The manuals advise that coercive techniques can backfire and that the threat of pain is often more effective than pain itself. The manuals describe coercive techniques to be used "to induce psychological regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to resist." These techniques include prolonged constraint, prolonged exertion, extremes of heat, cold, or moisture, deprivation of food or sleep, disrupting routines, solitary confinement, threats of pain, deprivation of sensory stimuli, hypnosis, and use of drugs or placebos. [43] [44]

Iraq War

In December 2005, ABC News reported that former agents claimed the CIA used waterboarding, along with five other "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", against suspected members of al Qaeda held in the secret prisons. [45] [46]. Waterboarding is widely regarded as a form of torture, though there are reports that President Bush signed a secret "finding" that it is not, authorizing its use.

After a media and public outcry in Europe concerning headlines about "secret CIA prisons" in Poland and other US allies, the EU through its Committee on Legal Affairs investigated whether any of its members, especially Poland, the Czech Republic or Romania had any of these "secret CIA prisons." After an investigation by the EU Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, the EU determined that it could not find any of these prisons. In fact, they could not prove if they had ever existed at all. To quote the report, "At this stage of the investigations, there is no formal, irrefutable evidence of the existence of secret CIA detention centres in Romania, Poland or any other country. Nevertheless, there are many indications from various sources which must be considered reliable, justifying the continuation of the analytical and investigative work." [47]

On 13 December, 2005 Dick Marty, investigating illegal CIA activity in Europe on behalf of the Council of Europe, reported evidence that "individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards". Marty at a news conference said he believed that the United States had moved its illegally detained from Europe to North Africa in early November as a reaction to the Washington Post report. Marty's investigation has found that no evidence exists establishing the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe, but said there are enough "indications" to justify continuing the investigation. The report added, however, that it was "highly unlikely" that European governments were unaware of the American program of renditions. Marty's interim report, which was based largely on a compendium of press clippings, has been described by the British Government as "clouded in myth" and "as full of holes as Swiss cheese," and has been harshly criticised by the governments of various EU member states.[48]

Other

Other Government Agency, or OGA, is the standard military and governmental euphemism for the CIA. It is used when the CIA's presence is an open secret, but cannot be officially confirmed.[49] [50] Other colloquial names for the CIA are The Agency and The Company.

A pejorative term for people who work for the CIA or other intelligence agencies is often "spook";

the phrase "Virginia farmboys" is also occasionally used in reference to the Langley, VA headquarters. (incorrect)

"Virginia Farmboy's" come's from CIA training Facillity Camp Peary aka "The Farm"

One of the CIA's publications, the CIA World Factbook, is unclassified and is indeed made freely available without copyright restrictions because it is a work of the United States federal government.

The CIA publishes an in-house professional journal known as Studies in Intelligence. Unclassified articles are made available on a limited basis through Internet and other publishing mechanisms. A recent compilation of unclassified and declassified articles from the Journal was made available through the Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis. A further annotated collection of articles was published through Yale University Press under the title Inside CIA's Private World.

The U.S. intelligence budget, which includes the budget for the CIA, is a well kept government secret, but it was made public for a couple of years in the late 1990s. In 1998 it was $26.7 billion [51] [52].

On January 25, 1993, Mir Amir Kansi murdered 2 people and injured 3 others in their cars in front of CIA headquarters in Langley. Kansi was later captured and was executed by the Commonwealth of Virginia in 2002.

Further reading

  • Christopher Andrew, For the President's Eyes Only (HarperCollins, 1996) ISBN 0006380719
  • Robert Baer, See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism (Three Rivers Press, 2003) ISBN 140004684X
  • Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude (Crown, 2003) ISBN 1400050219
  • Antonio J. Mendez, Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA (William Morrow and Company, Inc, 1999) ISBN 0060957913
  • Milton Bearden and James Risen, The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown With the KGB, (Random House, 2003) ISBN 067946309
  • William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Common Courage Press, 2003) ISBN 1567512526 [53]
  • Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival (Henry Holt & Co., 2003) ISBN 0805076883, also Deterring Democracy, also 9/11
  • Cockburn, Alexander (October 1999). Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press. Verso. 1859842585. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  • Loch K. Johnson, America's Secret Power: The CIA in a Democratic Society (Oxford University Press, 1991)
  • Ronald Kessler, Inside the CIA (1992, Pocket Books reissue 1994) ISBN 067173458X
  • McCoy, Alfred W. (May 1, 2003). The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. Lawrence Hill Books. 1556524838. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: year (link) CIA involement with the drug trade since World War 2 to present day.
  • Robert Littell, The Company (Overlook Press, 2002) ISBN 1585671975
  • Lindsay Moran, Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy (Berkley Books, 2005) ISBN 0425205622
  • L. Fletcher Prouty, Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World, Prentice Hall; (April 1973), ISBN 0137981732
  • Scott, Peter Dale (April 1998). Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America. University of California Press. 0520214498. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: year (link) CIA involvement in the drug trade during the US backed Contra war with Nicaragua.
  • Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New Press, 1999) ISBN 1565846648 (aka, Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War 1999 Granta [UK edition])
  • W. Thomas Smith, Jr., Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency (Facts on File, 2003) ISBN 0816046670
  • Webb, Gary (May 1999). Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press. 1888363932. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  • Bob Woodward, Veil, (Pocket Books, 1988) ISBN 0-671-66159-0
  • H. Bradford Westerfield, ed., Inside CIA's Private World: Declassified Articles from the Agency's Internal Journal, 1955-1992 (Yale University Press, 1997) ISBN 0300072643

See also

CIA insiders and "whistleblowers"

Other Countries

Main article: List of intelligence agencies

Australia

New Zealand

Canada

Mexico

Russia

Israel

India

Indonesia

United Kingdom

Philippines

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Central Intelligence Agency.

Official websites and documents

Other

Notes

  1. ^ Charles Richards and Simon Jones (November 16th, 1990). "Skeletons start emerging from Europe's closet". The Independent: p. 11. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  2. ^ Pilger, John (2002). The New Rulers of the World. Verso. pp. p. 31-32. ISBN 185984412X. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); External link in |title= (help) (Link is excerpts of book); Kadane, Kathy (May 20, 1990). "Ex-agents say CIA compiled death lists for Indonesians". San Francisco Examiner.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: year (link) ; The same article appeared in the Washington Post May 21, 1990, South Carolina Herald-Journal on May 19, 1990, and the Boston Globe on May 23, 1990.
  3. ^ Pilger p. 32
  4. ^ Kadane, Kathy; see above. Time magazine hailed Suharto's "New Order" as "the West's best news for years in Asia." Time. July 15, 1966. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)CS1 maint: year (link),
  5. ^ Pilger p. 32
  6. ^ a b c d Cockburn, Alexander (October 1, 1999). Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press. Verso. ISBN 1859842585. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); horizontal tab character in |id= at position 5 (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  7. ^ a b c d Pincus, Walter (1998). "Inspector: CIA Kept Ties With Alleged Traffickers". The Washington Post: p. A12. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help) Cite error: The named reference "WP" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference test was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ "Congressional Record (07 May 1998) [Page: H2970]" (HTML). 1998. Retrieved April 22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ Peter Kornbluh (January/February 1997). "Anatomy of a Story, Crack the Contras and the CIA: The Storm Over Dark Alliance" (HTML). Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved April 22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |year= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: year (link) Hosted on National Security Archives
  11. ^ McCoy, Alfred W. (May 1, 2003). The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. Lawrence Hill Books. ISBN 1556524838. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  12. ^ "The CIA's Drug-Trafficking Activities" (HTML). Retrieved April 22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Library Journal book review" (HTML). Library Journal. Retrieved April 22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ Hess, Pamela (2006). [www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021107-042725-6586r "Experts: Yemen strike not assassination"]. UPI. {{cite journal}}: Check |url= value (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  15. ^ Elizabeth B. Bazan (January 4, 2002). "Assassination Ban and E.O. 12333:A Brief Summary" (HTML). CRS Report for Congress. Retrieved April 26. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  16. ^ Tom O'Connor, Mark Stevens (November 2005). "The Handlign of Illegal Enemy Combatants" (HTML). Retrieved April 26. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  17. ^ "Memorandum on Executive Order 12333 and Assassination" (PDF). Retrieved April 26. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  18. ^ Jeffrey Addicott (November 7, 2002). "The Yemen Attack: Illegal Assassination or Lawful Killing?". HTML. Retrieved April 26. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
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