By Mort Malkin
A couple of months ago Gadfly offered its insight into why Dick Cheney was flooding the airways with interviews — mostly on Fox Noise (er News). The once (and ever) Vice addressed only two topics: a) enhanced interrogation (otherwise known as torture) and b) warrantless wiretapping (also called spying on you and me). Gadfly assessed the suspect reasons. He was not just presenting a brief to head off a criminal investigation; nor was he was trying to set the historical record straight; and he was certainly not angling for an appointment in the Obama administration. Gadfly concluded that Cheney was diverting attention from his role in the events of 9-11. The essay followed with a very brief listing of the over 200 unlikely to impossible happenings in 2001 as told by the government.
A few weeks after the essay appeared, the “liberal press” told of a super secret executive assassination program that reported only to Dick Cheney. The Pentagon, the Office of the President, and especially the State Department were out of the loop. The Congressional Intelligence Committees were uninformed. The assassination squad had been in operation for a several years, and some “collateral damage” was known. Leon Panetta, Obama’s Director of Central Intelligence, was aghast on hearing about the nefarious program and closed it down in 24 hours. Even he had been kept in the dark for several months after becoming Director of the Agency. Then, in mid-2009, the networks reported the existence of the secret executive assassination program, but even the progressive news heralds supposed that the targets were Al Qaeda leaders. So what’s so bad about going after Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants? Indeed, that’s what the war on terror is all about. Congress would surely have approved, and the CIA would receive accolades for taking the war to the enemy. Yet, everyone was upset. Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, complained about being blacked out. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff, said “We were killing the wrong people in the wrong countries.” Others noted that the program included operations on US soil.
Immediately after the revelation of the secret program, Dick Cheney disappeared from view, and the networks did no follow up. Cheney’s sudden silence seemed to say the executive assassination program was too close to the events of 9-11 for his comfort. The secrecy surrounding the assassination program told us that the Vice was working on the dark side. Gadfly’s distraction hypothesis was gaining ground.
But, who were the targets and why? Further research brought forth connections to the anthrax mailings of October ’001. You may recall that two Democratic Senators and the major networks received the deadly letters. Both Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy had been calling for investigations of the events of 9-11. Leahy, whose office received one of the letters, had long held Cheney’s special enmity. Remember the “Go F*** yourself” spoken by the latter to the former on the floor of the Senate?
It is also known that key microbiologists died suddenly, and not of anthrax.. Benito Que and Don Wiley knew the anthrax strain was from the Army’s own laboratory at Fort Detrick, MD. Did they know too much? In England, the pre-eminent anthrax expert, Dr. David Kelly, had told Tony Blair that Saddam Hussein had no biological WMD, and he was preparing a book on the expanded subject of anthrax for terror. He was in contact with Que and Wiley. His death was called a suicide, but hardly anyone in Britain believed that. Naturally, MI6 seized his computer. Also in England was the Soviet scientist, Vladimir Pasechnik, who defected to the West. He was in touch with the other microbiologists. His sudden death in November ’oo1 brought forth a coincidence theory from Government officials on both sides of the Pond.
After the news of the assassination program faded, Cheney was back on the interview circuit, this time complaining of Attorney General Eric Holder’s plans for investigation of the CIA torture chambers, which he approved. Investigation, he said, would demoralize the Agency and endanger the country — lofty rhetoric.
We still don’t know 9/10s of the truth about what went down in the fall of 2001. It’s the Nine Tenths Rule about anything governmental.. But they’re the authorities. Or is it officials … or should they be public servants?
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