The ending of an official ban on the covert assassination of foreigners by US agents is now being considered by President George W. Bush and his advisers. The ban, introduced in the wake of disquiet about killings carried out by agents or their proxies abroad, has stood for 25 years.
The ending of the ban, which is being openly mooted, has met with little public opposition. It would open the door for the killing of suspects abroad without attempts to bring them to the US for trial.
The move, which chimes with the tone of Bush's weekend pronouncements on putting the US on a war footing, is among the measures being discussed which would signal a change in the ethics of US foreign policy.
The other loosening of ethical restraints being suggested is the use of informants and agents who have committed human rights abuses and who are currently officially barred from employment by the US intelligence agencies. Congressional leaders are suggesting that the CIA should be put on a war footing.
"We have got to be a hell of a lot more aggressive," the vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, Richard Shelby, said on Sunday. He advocated the possible easing of existing curbs governing the conduct of US intelligence personnel abroad. This would, in effect, mean that Washington would feel justified in carrying out killings on foreign territories of those suspected of being involved in last Tuesday's attacks.
There would appear to be great public support for the move. A poll conducted at the weekend by CBS and the New York Times found that 65 percent of the US public favored a policy enabling the assassination of foreigners who carry out terrorist acts against Americans. That attitude was also expressed by the political commentator Lance Morrow in a special edition of Time magazine, brought out in the wake of the attacks.
"Let America explore the rich reciprocal qualities of the fatwa," he wrote. "What's needed is a sort of unified, unifying Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury."
Policies allowing for plots to kill foreign heads of state and the use of human rights abusers as agents were brought into disrepute in the 1970s, when the US was implicated in a number of foreign assassinations. Revelations of bungled plans to kill Fidel Castro, authorized by President Kennedy, also led to a change in the official policy. The CIA is still officially banned from any attempt to assassinate a foreign leader. Now these restraints appear likely to be removed.
The language used by Bush at Camp David over the weekend appeared to indicate that he was prepared to lift many of the current restrictions. "Those who make war against the United States have chosen their own destruction," he said. "We will smoke them out of their holes. We'll get them running and we'll bring them to justice."
His father, George Bush, the former president and a former director of the CIA under President Gerald Ford, also urged a removal of restraints, suggesting that the government should "free the intelligence system from some of its constraints."
Only a few voices in the political arena have been raised to urge caution on the removal of ethical restraints. The Republican whip, Tom DeLay, said the country had to be "very clear-headed" before changing its policies on assassination.
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