'SEN. LEAHY PROBES CIA OPERATIONS'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87M01152R000100010055-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 7, 2009
• Sequence Number: 55
• Publication Date: May 13, 1985
• Content Type: MISC

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STAT
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Office of Current Production and Analytic Support
The Operations Center
News Bulletin
The Washington Post,Page Al
Sen. Leahy
Probes CIA
By Bob Woodward
and Charles R. Babcock
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.),
vice chairman of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, said
yesterday that he has begun an in-
dependent inquiry into a half-dozen
CIA operations, including a counter-
terrorism program in the Middle
East that was canceled after an un-
authorized car-bomb blast killed
more than 80 in March.
Leahy said he wants to know
more about several sensitive oper-
ations and seeks more details on
others about which he feels the
committee wasn't fully informed.
"We're going to review six to
Operations
Independent Inquiry
Opened on Program
To Counter Terrorism
my side to get caught on a Ni
caraguan-mining type problem.",
A CIA operation to plant mines in
harbors in Nicaragua caused con-
troversy last year because several
members of the intelligence over-
sight committees claimed CIA Di-
rector William J. Casey had not told
them enough about the operation.
Leahy said he feels Casey and
other agency officials are willing to
seven operations on our own," he answer the committee's questions
said. about any matter. But he said noth-
Leahy said he did not know of the ing is volunteered if the questions
counter-terrorism plan in Lebanon, ~ are not framed exactly right.
but when asked about it last month, I Leahy said he told other commit-
he made inquiries "and found out" , tee Democrats last week that the
about it on my own." He refused to inquiry is needed because when he
give further details. became vice chairman in January,
By law and by agreement with he found that he did not know suf-
the Reagan administration, the ficient details of some of the CIA's
chairmen and vice chairmen of the most secret and potentially contro-
Senate and House intelligence com- versial operations. He declined to
_
___
,.
identify the other ocerations-
'_
.
tt
f of
are to be
covert CIA activities. An adminis-
tration source insisted that the
committees had been fully in-
formed, both orally and in writing,
of all covert or otherwise sensitive
operations.
The Washington Post, quoting
sources, reported yesterday that
President Reagan approved the
plan late last year directing the
Central Intelligence Agency to train
foreign teams to make preemptive
strikes against terrorists.
The plan was rescinded after
members of the unit hired others to
set off, without CIA, approval, a car
bomb that killed more than 80 peo-
ple in Beirut on March 8, the
sources said. The target, a sus-
pected terrorist leader, escaped
unharmed.
"Things have fallen between the
cracks," Leahy said. "I do not want
a,eany saia ne tom me uemocrats
he is committing his staff to the
inquiry and might ask them also to
provide staff assistance. The com-
mittee assigns staff members to
individual senators.
Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) said yes-
terday that he was not able to at-
tend Leahy's meeting of Democrat-
ic committee members, held last
Thursday. No staff members were
present, Nunn said. He added that
he would have no comment about
Leahy's plan or The Post story.
Leahy said he has good relations
with the 'Senate intelligence com-
mittee chairman, David F. Duren-
berger (R-Minn.), but feels it is nec-
essary to proceed with his own in-
quiry. Another committee source
said, however, that Leahy and Du-
renberger have basic disagree-
ments about the use of staff re-
"Things have fallen
between the cracks.
I do not want
my side
to get caught
on a
Nicaraguan-mining
type problem."
- Sen. Patrick J. Leahy
sources and the direction of the
committee.
Durenberger could not be
reached for comment yesterday.
13 May 1985
Item No. 1
STAT
But he said in a recent interview
that he hopes the committee will
not have to spend much of its time
dealing with controversial CIA op-
erations. He said he wants to shift
the oversight role "from putting out
fire to fire prevention."
Durenberger said that, in the,
past, about 90 percent of the com-
mittee's time has been spent on
intelligence controversies and thati
he hopes to reduce that significant-
IY.
Administration spokesmen con-
tinued to decline to comment on
The Post story.
Secretary of State George P.
Shultz, in Israel yesterday, said of
the story: "I haven't seen The
Washington Post today. I do have a
very strong view about terrorism,
as is well-known. I also have the
view that at this stage, actions will
speak a lot louder than words, so I
don't have anything to say about it."
Shultz, who has made strong pub-
lic statements about taking action
against terrorists, said later that he
has decided, for the time being, not
to comment on the general subject
of terrorism. While Shultz was in
Jerusalem, several terrorist bombs
exploded there and one was de-
fused.
Robert Sims, deputy White
House press secretary, told United
Press International, "We never dis-
cuss intelligence matters." But he
added that The Post story con-
tained "a lot of speculation."
Sources have said Reagan or-
dered that only the chairmen and
vice chairmen of the intelligence
committees be notified of several
covert operations undertaken late
last year, including the antiterrorist
training program in Lebanon.
There is some question whether all
the details filtered down when Du-
renberger and Leahy assumed lead-
ership of the Senate committee in
January.
Staff writer Don Oberdorfer
contributed to this report.
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Office of Current Production and Analytic Support
The Operations Center
News Bulletin
The Washington Post, Page lA
12 May 1985
Item No. 1
Antiterrorist Plan Rescinded After
Unauthorized Bombing
Sources Say Reagan Approved CIA Covert Training and Support of Squads
Set Up to Preempt Strikes at U.S. Facilities in Mideast
By Bob Woodward and Charles R. Babcock
Washington Post Staff Writers
Late last year, President Reagan ap-
proved a covert operation directing the
Central Intelligence Agency to train and
support several counterterrorist units for
strikes against suspected terrorists before
they could attack U.S. facilities in the Mid-
dle East, according to informed sources.
About four months later, members of one
of those units, composed of Lebanese intel-
ligence personnel and other. foreigners, act-
ing without CIA authorization, went out on
a runaway mission and hired others in Leb-
anon to detonate a massive car bomb out-
side the Beirut residence of a militant Shiite
leader believed to be behind terrorist at-
tacks on U.S. installations, the sources said.
More than 80 persons were killed and
200 wounded in the car bombing in a Beirut
suburb on March 8. The suspected terrorist
leader escaped injury.
Faced with an indirect connection to the
car bombing, alarmed CIA and Reagan ad-
ministration officials quickly canceled the
entire covert support operation, the
sources said.
CIA personnel had no contact with those
who actually carried out the car bombing,
they said. According to one source, officials
of the intelligence agency were upset that
one of its most secret and much debated
operations had gone astray.
Administration spokesmen had no com-
ment yesterday.
Several intelligence sources said, the in-
cident revealed the hazards of trying to
fight the "dirty" war of terrorism. Others
questioned whether training and support of
the covert units might have violated the
longstanding prohibition against U.S. in-
volvement in assassinations. One source,
skeptical of the short-lived operation, called
it "an illustration of how some people learn
things the hard way."
Another source said Defense Department
officials refused two years ago to give Leb-
anese units any counterterrorism training
because of fears that "we'd end up with hit
teams over there .... The concern was
that when some have the capability it can
be turned upside down and used offensively.
The concern was that one faction would use
it on the other factions.."
Administration sources said that the con-
gressional oversight committees on intel-
ligence were briefed on the covert support
operation in Lebanon after the president
approved it late last year, although Reagan
specifically directed that only the chairmen
and vice chairmen of the Senate and House
intelligence committees be informed.
Several sources said there is some ques-
tion whether the new chairmen and vice
chairmen. who took over the committees in
both chambers in January received full
briefings on the operation. Administration
sources last week insisted that they had.
Within weeks of the March 8 car bomb-
ing and the cancellation of the covert oper-
ation in Lebanon, both Robert C. McFar-
lane, the president's national security af-
aa,aa auvlaVL, anu %,it% virector William J.
Casey gave speeches saying the adminis-
tration had the capability to preempt ter-
rorist attacks.
Using the same language, both McFar-
lane and Casey said: "We cannot and will not
abstain from forcible action to prevent, pre-
empt or respond to terrorist acts where
conditions merit the use of force. Many
countries, including the United States, have
the specific fbrces and capabilities we need
to carry out operations against terrorist
groups."
It could not be learned exactly what ca-
pabilities McFarlane and Casey were talk-
ing about. The CIA has extensive world-
wide counterterrorist training operations
STAT
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fend against and react to terrorist
attacks. McFarlane and Casey have
declined to elaborate. McFarlane's
speech was given here on March 25
and- Casey's in Cambridge, Mass.,
on April 17.
Dozens of bystanders were killed
and wounded in the March 8 car
bombing in a Beirut suburb about
50 yards from the residence of Mo-
hammed Hussein Fadlallah,-leader
of -the Hezballah (Party of God), a
m itant Shiite movement. A num-
ber of Fadlallah's bodyguards re-
portedly were killed in the explo-
sion.
No one publicly has claimed re-
sponsibility for the bombing. Some
Shiites accused the Israelis, who
denied any involvement.
Numerous U.S. intelligence re-
ports have tied Fadlallah directly to
the series of terrorist attacks on
American facilities in Lebanon in
1983 and 1984. According to one
report, Fadlallah participated in an
Oct. 20, 1983, planning meeting of
terrorists in Damascus, Syria, three
days before the suicide bombing of
the Marine headquarters compound
in.Beirut that killed 241 U.S. ser-
vicemen. Intelligence reports also
say that on the night of Oct. 22,
1983, just hours before the bomb-
ing, Fadlallah received and blessed
the man who drove the truck car-
rying the explosives in the suicide
bombing.
: ?Fadlallah's group also was re-
sponsible for the more recent Sept.
20, 1984, bombing of the U.S. Em-
bassy annex in Beirut, according to
intelligence sources. Fadlallah has
denied involvement in these terror-
iSt actions.
:A Lebanese intelligence source
said: "My service did the [March 8]
Fadlallah bombing. I believe it was
done to show we are strong ....
You've got to stop terrorism with
terrorism."
::The Lebanese source said that
the CIA would have nothing to do
with a car bomb because of the dan-
ger to innocent people. But the
source. contended that the CIA
knew it was being planned.
:.U.S. sources emphatically denied
any advance knowledge of the
bombing and said immediate steps
were taken after it occurred to can-
cel the entire covert operation. ; '
The plan to form and train three
teams of Lebanese capable of neu-
tializing or disabling terrorists be-
fore they could make planned at-
acks on American targets was ap-
roved after years of internal debate
and increasingly tough Reagan ad-
ministration rhetoric about how to
respond to the wave of devastating
terrorist attacks abroad.
Preemptive Strikes Difficult
::The covert training and support
program was set up under a pres-
idential "finding" signed by Reagan.
Iii; specified that the teams of for-
eigners were to be used only with
g.eat care and only in situations
where the United States had good
intelligence that a terrorist group
was about to strike. The teams
were supposed to use the minimal
force necessary to stop specific at-
tacks. Several sources said this in-
clGded the authority to kill sus-
pected terrorists if that was the
only alternative.
Conducting preemptive strikes is
very difficult in practice, because
they depend on intelligence infor-
mation that is timely and accurate.
However, sources said the U.S. ca-
pability to collect advance informa-
tion on planned terrorist actions is
improving.
After previous terrorist attacks
on-American facilities in the Middle
Ealt, U.S.. officials learned they had
had some clues, at times significant
ones, before the event. But they
were only discovered afterward,
when analysts sorted through raw
intelligence reports, communica-
tions intercepts and satellite pho-
tography.
Officials said the short-lived co-
vert operation in Lebanon did not
violate the presidential ban on in-
volvement of U.S. personnel, di-
rectly or indirectly, in any type of
assassination planning or operation.
The prohibition dates to 1976, after
congressional investigations uncov-
ered such plots against Cuban Pres-
ident Fidel Castro and other foreign
leaders.
Reagan administration officials
reasoned that killing terrorists was
"preemptive self-defense" rather
than assassination, according to one
source, who said, "Knocking off a
guy who is about to kill you is no
more assassination than a police-
man getting off the first shot at a
man pointing a shotgun at him."
Secretary of State George P.
Shultz and national security affairs
adviser McFarlane were chief pro-
ponents of the covert plan in Leb-
anon, sources said.
Shultz Urged Response
"State and the White House
pushed this," one source said. Ac-
cording to this source, the final de-
cision to approve the plan late last.
fall was made because of "Shultz's
assertiveness and [Defense Secre-
tary Caspar W.] Weinberger's re-
luctance to use force convention-
ally, and McFarlane's anger with
terrorism."
Sources said that McFarlane was
instrumental in developing a con-.
sensus from the disparate views of
senior administration officials.
Shultz repeatedly has urged a
strong response to terrorism, which
he has called "barbarism that
threatens the very foundations of
civilized life." On the other hand,
Weinberger has voiced reluctance
to use military force without full
public support.
Sources said that some senior
intelligence officials opposed involv-
ing the intelligence agencies in
what one official called "the ulti-
mate covert action: an undercover
hit squad." The revelations of pre-
vious assassination plots and the
more recent public and congres-
sional criticism of the CIA's involve-
ment in a covert war against the
leftist Sandinista government in
Nicaragua made the CIA reluctant
to undertake new operations, ac-
cording to the sources.
The covert option was selected,
the sources said,. as a preferable
alternative to the use of military
force such as the guns of the bat-
tleship New Jersey or air strikes,
which could kill or injure innocent
civilians close to a terrorist camp.
The sources also said that train-
ing and supporting a covert team
would avoid the possibility of live
television coverage of U.S. military
action and the visible use of Amer-
ican force in the Middle East, which
previously' had increased anti-
American sentiment and more acts
of terrorism. Compared with the
alternatives, the sources said, a
small team also would be the most
cost-effective.
Two weeks after the unautho-
rized March 8 Beirut car bombing
aimed at Fadlallah, McFarlane gave
his speech that seemed to confirm
the existence of some type of new
counterterrorist capability. McFar-
lane said that in making a decision
to react, "we need not insist on ab-
solute evidence that the targets
were used solely to support terror-
ism."
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In his speech, "Terrorism and the
Future of Free Society," McFarlane
said he was outlining the "operating
principles" of a presidential direc-
tive on terrorism. "Whenever we
obtain evidence that an act of ter-
rorism is about to be mounted
against us, we have a responsibility
to take measures to protect our
citizens, property and interests,"
McFarlane said.
"Use of force in self-defense is
legitimate under international law,"
he said. "It is explicitly sanctioned
under Article 51 of the United Na-
tions charter."
Sources said this speech and one
given by Shultz on Dec. 9 in New
York, "The Ethics of Power," were
intended to express the rationale
for administration policy.
Addressing an audience at Yeshi-
va University, Shultz said: "The
Talmud upholds the universal law of
elf-defense, saying, 'If one comes to
kill you, make haste and kill him
first.' Clearly, as long as threats
exist, law-abiding nations have the
right and indeed the duty to protect
themselves."
According to the sources, Reagan
approved the covert "finding" au-
thorizing CIA training and support
for antiterrorist units in Lebanon
just before Shultz gave the speech
last December.
Mock-Up of Embassy Seen
Two sources said that the Sept.
20 terrorist bombing of the U.S.
Embassy annex in Beirut last year
helped persuade 'officials that they
had to develop some means of pre-
empting planned terrorist attacks.
After the fact, officials learned that
U.S. intelligence agencies had over-
head satellite photographs of what
is thought to be the van used in the
suicide bombing.
Those photos showed the vehicle
outside a mock-up of the embassy
annex that the terrorists were us-
ing for a practice run, sources said.
Although the connection was estab-
lished after the fact, the sources
said that, in the future, this kind of
intelligence might be part of the
basis for a preemptive attack.
One source argued that the de-
cision to use a covert team
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...... ASSOCIATED PRESS
Apartment house in Beirut suburb after March 8 car-bombing in runaway mission. Blast killed more than 80 persons.
amounted to recreating for the CIA
a role it played in its early years,
before the Watergate scandal and
subsequent congressional investi-
gations of the agency dampened its
ardor for clandestine operations.
Accordingly, this source said,
Reagan's decision to authorize the
covert team was "the final curtain
on the legacy of both Vietnam and
Watergate." Of all the Reagan ad-
ministratiQn's decisions on national
security, this source said, "It was
the most tricky, the most contro-
versial and sensitive .... [It] took
the most goading to get change."
But when the operation went
astray after the Lebanese went
ahead with an unapproved car-
bombing, officials involved in the
plan felt they had no alternative to
canceling U.S. support for the an-
titerrorist squads.
One official who favored creation
of the units said: "If you take ter-
rorism seriously, as we must,
you've got to realize that it could
get worse .... If we had informa-
tion on some terrorists involved in
nuclear detonation practice, you've
got to act. No choice. That is the
type of issue we are going to have
to face, and we better be ready."
Staff researcher Barbara Feinman
contributed to this report.
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Office of Current Production and Analytic Suppor
The Operations Center
News Bulletin : The FBIS News Wire Service, No 049 15 May 1985
Item No 2
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News Bulletin: The Wall Street Journal, Page 30
Politicizing Intelligence
We note some considerable irony in.
two stories now running in Washing-
ton: The FBI has rounded up five In-
than Sikhs and charged them with
plotting to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi
when he visits the U.S. next month.
And congressional committees want
to investigate whether the CIA, as
part of a counterterrorist program,
once provided training for Lebanese
who later took responsibility for a car
bomb that killed 80 people.
The irony revolves around the is-
sue of whether, in the violent world
we live in today, you can combat ter-
rorism at all, with methods civil or
uncivil. Let's take the alleged plot to
kill Rajiv Gandhi. He is prime minis-
ter of the world's most populous de-
mocracy, a nation that shows some
signs, under his leadership, of greater
warmth toward the U.S. and free-
market capitalism after a long period
of coolness bordering on hostility. His
Russian neighbors have become in-
creasingly nervous about his leanings;
Pravda was practically hysterical in
blaming all things Western and capi-
talist for the Bhopal disaster. India it-
self has suddenly experienced an out-
break of terrorist bombings. Mr. Gan-
dhi of course inherited large problems
with the Sikhs, but you can easily
enough speculate that someone expe-
rienced in the fine art of destabiliza-
tion has started to water and fertilize
these discontents. The FBI arrests
might be the tip of a very nasty-look-
ing iceberg.
President Reagan, vigorously sec-
onded by his secretary of state and
every other top national security offi-
cial, has asked all security agencies to
mount whatever efforts they can to
combat terrorism. That is hardly sur-
prising. Pope John Paul II was shot,
Indira -Gandhi killed, Margaret
Thatcher barely escaped a bomb, to
name some of the more prominent
targets. U.S. diplomats are in con-
stant danger. Terrorists periodically
blow up NATO's supply pipelines in
Europe to prove that even military
targets aren't secure.
There is and has been a pattern to
all this. A Bulgarian government em-
ployee will go on trial in Rome this
month for allegedly directing the at-
tempt on the pope. The trigger man in
this attempt, Ali Agca, was trained in
a PLO terrorist camp. The PLO now
operates in Nicaragua, helping train
Western Hemisphere terrorists. Ter-
rorism experts keep uncovering new
links between the world's leading and
most vicious terrorist organizations.
There's usually some Soviet connec-
tion in the background.
15 May 1985
It seems obvious to us that good in-
telligence is vital to U.S. security and
to U.S. efforts to preserve something
approaching political stability in the
democratic world. Yet the U.S.
agency primarily responsible for that
task, the CIA, remains under political
attack in its own headquarters city.
Matters have improved some. At
least Congress finally stopped the left-
wing Covert Action Information Bulle-
tin from blowing the cover of CIA
agents. But a sensible and low-key lit-
tle CIA effort to mine Nicaragua's
Corinto harbor, so as to deny Commu-
nist bloc weapons to the Nicaraguan
Sandinistas, was exposed and killed
with much political breast-beating last
year. Then the "training manual"
scandal was unearthed just before last
November's presidential election, to
prove that CIA support for Nicara-
gua's anti-communists was "im-
moral."
The latest Washington Post disclo-
sure, on Sunday's front page, said that
the CIA, under orders from President
Reagan, late last year tried to mount
a counterterrorist operation in Leba-
non in cooperation with Lebanese se-
curity agents. The effort was in re-
sponse to the terrorist bombing in Oc-
tober 1983 that killed 241 American
servicemen and a similar attack last
September on the U.S. Embassy in
Beirut. The Post claimed that one of
the units the CIA helped train was re-
ponsible for a car bomb attempt di-
rected at Hussein Fadlallah, believed
to be the leader of the Shiite fanatics
responsible for the attacks on Ameri-
cans. He escaped, but the bomb killed
80 people and wounded some 200 oth-
ers. The Post said the CIA had op-
posed car bombing because of danger
to bystanders and had severed its con-
nections with - the bombers four
months before the attempt on Fadlal-
lah. The CIA said it never conducted
training "related to" the car bombing
event.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, implying that
Republicans aren't to be trusted,
wants a separate inquiry by Senate in-
telligence committee Democrats into
CIA doings. But Sen. Sam Nunn, an-
other Democrat member, seems to
have quietly disassociated himself
from that effort. We sense that more
and more politicians are becoming
nervous over the constant political
thrashings about real and imagined
CIA misdeeds. Not everyone you meet
in the intelligence business will be a
saint, but we need all the intelligence
we can get when no leader of a demo-
cratic country or institution is se-
cure.
STAT
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 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/08: CIA-RDP87MO1152R000100010055-5
Office of Current Production and Analytic Support
The Operations Center
News Bulletin THE WASHINGTON POST, PAGE A35
Countering
Terrorism Could Cost Innocent Lives;
Z!l 14
Hill Is Told
The Reagan administration's
counterterrorism programs may
lead to the killing of innocent by-
standers on occasion during oper-
ations responding to terrorist acts,
two top administration officials said
yesterday.
Fred C. Ikle, undersecretary of
defense for policy, and Robert B.
Oakley, director of the State De-
partment's office for counterterror-
ism, told a Senate hearing that ad-
ministration policy-makers try to
minimize the risks to bystanders as
they weigh how to attack growing
worldwide terrorism.
Sen. Thomas F. Eagleton (D-
Mo.) raised the issue in pressing
Ikle for an explanation of whether
the administration condoned a car
bombing in Beirut in March that
killed more than 80 people and that,
according to a Washington Post re-
port, was the work of a group hired
by Lebanese working with the CIA,
Eagleton said he could not under-
stand Reagan's policy because at
different times, Secretary of State
George P. Shultz has said innocent
lives would be lost in responding to
terrorists, while Reagan and Vice
President Bush have said they did
not want to endanger innocent
lives.-
"Can you help me on this?" Eagle-
ton asked Ikle. "Can you help the
country?" Referring to the "boo-boo
in Beirut," Eagleton said he wanted
to speak odt about the use of U.S.
antiterrorist proxies before he was
'silenced" by knowledge of classi-
fied material from a CIA briefing on
the subject scheduled later in the
day at the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence.
Ikle said he knew nothing of the,
Beirut bombing. He added, "There
is a potential for the loss of innocent
life in Philadelphia or Beirut," an
apparent reference to the Philadel-
phia police shootout with the mil-
itant MOVE group.
Oakley said later that "it is com-
pletely misleading and unfair to im-
ply the action in Beirut was the re-
sponsibility of the U.S. government.
There's just no justification for
that." But he also said "there are
going to be times when innocent life
is going to be taken."
Sen. Jeremiah Denton (R4Ala.), a
former Navy admiral and Vietnam
prisoner of war who chaired the
joint hearing of the Senate judiciary
subcommittee on terrorism and the
Foreign Relations Committee, not-
ed that the rules of warfare do not
consider it a crime to kill civilians in
pursuit of military targets.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.)
broke in to say that while the rules
of war are clear, "we're deciding
now whether counterterrorism in-
cidents rise to'the level of warfare
or whether we treat them as police
actions."
"... We are trying to find out,
have. we already made a judgment?
Have we elevated counterterrorism
to a state of war? ... "
STAT
STAT
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 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/12/08: CIA-RDP87MO1152R000100010055-5
Office of Current Production and Analytic Support
The Operations Center
News Bulletin
16 May 1985
Item No. 3
STAT
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