CIA Director Panetta Pulls Plug on al Qaeda Hit Squads

According to the Washington Post, the CIA had been developing a plan to assassinate major al Qaeda figures. The program was eight years old and was "close to becoming operational" according to one source.

CiA officials were proposing to activate a plan to train anti-terrorist assassination teams overseas when agency managers brought the secret program to the attention of CIA director Leon Panetta last month. The plan to kill top al-Qaeda leaders, which had been on the agency's back burner for much of the past eight years, was suddenly thrust into the spotlight because of proposals to initate what one intelligence official called a "somewhat more operational phase." Shortly after learning of the plan, Panetta terminated the program and then went to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers.

The plan, which included plans to contract with private corporations to hunt down and kill al-Qaeda operatives, was cancelled according to one administration official, for reasons of moral objections to the program.

It seems the administration has moral objections to private corporations.