Sometimes I HATE when I'm right.

Damn.
According to the New Yorker:

"The President has signed a series of findings and executive

orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special

Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected

terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East

and South Asia.



The President’s decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations

off the books—free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A.

Under current law, all C.I.A. covert activities overseas must be

authorized by a Presidential finding and reported to the Senate

and House intelligence committees. (The laws were enacted after

a series of scandals in the nineteen-seventies involving C.I.A.

domestic spying and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders.)

'The Pentagon doesn’t feel obligated to report any of this to

Congress,' the former high-level intelligence official said.

'They don’t even call it "covert ops"—it’s too close to the C.I.A.

phrase. In their view, it’s "black reconnaissance." They’re not

even going to tell the cincs'—the regional American military

commanders-in-chief. (The Defense Department and the White House

did not respond to requests for comment on this story.)

In my interviews, I was repeatedly told that the next strategic

target was Iran. 'Everyone is saying, "You can’t be serious about

targeting Iran. Look at Iraq," the former intelligence official

told me.' But they say, 'We’ve got some lessons learned—not

militarily, but how we did it politically. We’re not going to rely

on agency pissants.’ No loose ends, and that’s why the C.I.A. is out of

there.'"



The link to the full article can be found here: 

http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact