CIA on 'seek-and-destroy' mission
US President George Bush has told the CIA to find and destroy Osama bin laden and his al Qaida terrorist network, it was revealed today.
The American leader has signed an order telling the agency to undertake its most deadly action and given it £700m in funding to carry out the mission, according to reports.
And it has been explicitly told it is to target bin Laden’s communications, security and infrastructure as part of its operation.
A senior official said: ‘‘The gloves are off.
‘‘The President has given the agency the green light to do whatever is necessary. Lethal operations that were unthinkable pre-September 11 are now under way.’’
The operation will include the CIA working with commandos and other military units to act immediately on intelligence uncovered by American spies about enemy targets.
And Mr Bush has told the CIA he will accept failures in the pursuit of public victory - even if the results cause public embarrassment.
‘‘If you are going to push the envelope some things will go wrong, and President Bush sees that and understands risk-taking,’’ a senior official told.
The order by Mr Bush came after the CIA obtained high-quality video of bin Laden last spring but could not act on it.
The video showed bin Laden with his distinctive beard and white robes surrounded by a large entourage at one of his known locations in Afghanistan, say reports.
But because the CIA and the military had no ability to fire a missile while the pictures were being taken, the chance to do away with bin Laden passed.
And in the aftermath of the situation, the CIA has equipped an unmanned plane with missiles which can be fired if it sees a suitable target.
The Predator drone is adapted from the unmanned spy planes used over the skies of Afghanistan, which has high-resolution cameras.
The new version has been given Hellfire anti-tank missiles operated by controllers thousands of miles away with technology specifically designed to attack bin Laden.
A special CIA team has been monitoring bin Laden since 1996, when he declared a jihad, or holy war, on America.
But an anonymous CIA veteran said the spy agency is not fully equipped or trained for a long covert campaign against al Qaida.
It lacks agents in Afghanistan in particular and the Muslim world in general, and has not operated ‘‘lethal covert action’’ since the end of the Cold War.
Even then, the CIA had a long history of bungling its campaigns, including a series of assassination plots against Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and the Iran-Contras scandal of the 1990s when it sold arms secretly to Iran to free hostages, then sent the profits to Contra rebels fighting the elected Nicaraguan Government.
The CIA is banned from assassinating political targets, but US legal experts have concluded a war would allow the killing of enemy leaders as part of the national self-defence effort.
