Bush claims constitutional right to assassinate US citizens

[If this won't bring US citizens out into the streets in massive numbers,
I'm not entirely clear what would. I suspect in a hundred years or so this
arrogation of power -- which has already been used in Yemen to assassinate
a US citizen, Kamal Derwish -- will mark some new era of American
authoritarianism, at the very least.]

CIA can kill citizens who aid al-Qaida

Bush doesn't exempt Americans

By John J. Lumpkin
Associated Press
Dec. 4, 2002

WASHINGTON - American citizens working for al-Qaida overseas can legally
be targeted and killed by the CIA under President Bush's rules for the war
on terrorism, U.S. officials say.

The authority to kill U.S. citizens is granted under a secret finding
signed by the president after the Sept. 11 attacks that directs the CIA to
covertly attack al-Qaida anywhere in the world. The authority makes no
exception for Americans, so permission to strike them is understood rather
than specifically described, officials said.

These officials said the authority will be used only when other options
are unavailable. Militarylike strikes will take place only when law
enforcement and internal security efforts by allied foreign countries
fail, the officials said.

Capturing and questioning al-Qaida operatives is preferable, even more so
if an operative is a U.S. citizen, the officials said, speaking on
condition of anonymity. Any decision to strike an American would be made
at the highest levels, perhaps by the president.

U.S. officials say few Americans are working with al-Qaida, but no
specific estimates are available.

The CIA has killed one American under this authority, although U.S.
officials maintain he wasn't the target.

On Nov. 3, a CIA-operated Predator drone fired a missile that killed a
carload of suspected al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. The target of the
attack, a Yemeni named Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, was the top al-Qaida
operative in that country. Efforts by Yemeni authorities to detain him had
previously failed.

But the CIA didn't know a U.S. citizen, Yemeni-American Kamal Derwish, was
in the car. He died along with Harethi and four other Yemenis.

The Bush administration said the killing of an American in this fashion
was legal.

"I can assure you that no constitutional questions are raised here.  There
are authorities that the president can give to officials," Condoleezza
Rice, Bush's national security adviser, said after the attack. "He's well
within the balance of accepted practice and the letter of his
constitutional authority."

American authorities have alleged that Derwish was the leader of an
al-Qaida cell in suburban Buffalo, N.Y. Officials say most of the members
of the cell were arrested and charged with supporting terrorists, but
Derwish was not accused of any crime in American courts.

The administration defined Derwish as an enemy combatant, the equivalent
of a U.S. citizen who fights alongside the enemy on a battlefield,
officials said. Under this legal definition, experts say, his
constitutional rights are nullified and he can be killed outright.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, supported this policy. "A U.S. citizen terrorist will kill you
just like somebody from another country."

The government has done little publicly to justify Derwish's killing.
Officials have privately suggested his association with Harethi was reason
enough.

Other Americans have been similarly classed since Sept. 11, including Jose
Padilla, accused of plotting to use a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the
United States, and Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was found fighting alongside the
Taliban in Afghanistan. Both are in military custody.

However, a third American, John Walker Lindh, was turned over to the
civilian courts after being found serving as a foot soldier with the
Taliban. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to
supplying services to the Taliban and carrying explosives in commission of
a felony.

Although officials believe only a small number of U.S. citizens went
through Osama bin Laden's camps, Americans have been associated with all
levels of al-Qaida.

This includes high-level operative Wadih El Hage, a Lebanese-American who
was convicted in connection with the 1998 bombings of two U.S.  embassies
in Africa. A former U.S. Army soldier, Ali Mohamed, worked as a trainer
and target scout for bin Laden before he was captured and convicted.

Previously, the government's authority to kill a citizen outside the
judicial process has been generally restricted to when the American is
directly threatening the lives of other Americans or their allies.

Earlier presidential authorizations of lethal covert action, in Latin
America and elsewhere, have also tacitly allowed the killing of Americans
fighting on the other side, former senior intelligence officials said.

But the officials knew of no instances where U.S. citizens were targeted.

Experts on the Constitution and the international laws of war said the
Bush administration's definitions create problems.

Unlike the enemy in previous wars, al-Qaida members don't wear uniforms or
serve in a foreign nation's army. Nor do they take to traditional
battlefields, except in Afghanistan. But the Bush administration and
al-Qaida together have defined the entire world as a battlefield, meaning
the attack on Harethi and Derwish was tantamount to an airstrike in a
combat zone.

"That is the most vulnerable aspect of the theory," said Scott Silliman,
director of Duke University's Center on Law, Ethics and National
Security. "Could you put a Hellfire missile into a car in Washington,
D.C., under the same theory? The answer is yes, you could."

Human rights groups were divided on the legality of the attack on
Harethi. Amnesty International suggested it was an extrajudicial killing,
outlawed by international treaty, while Human Rights Watch officials said
they believed it was a legitimate wartime action.