Later presidents renewed the ban

Later presidents renewed the ban.There has always been debate, however, as to how water-tight the ban really is. An executive order does not have the same legal standing as a law passed by Congress. Nor is it obvious how far America’s spies are at liberty still to help engineer a murder of a foreign leader, for instance by assisting would-be assassins from indigenous dissident groups to commit the act so long as they leave no American fingerprints. The other possible loophole ­ the one apparently chosen by this White House ­ is to allow the killing of a leader “in self-defence”.Few people would mourn the death of President Saddam. But other unintended consequences might flow from an extended CIA operation in Iraq. The catalogue of the CIA catastrophes around the world ­ albeit some of them catastrophes with the benefit of hindsight ­ is, after all, depressingly thick.

Previous CIA plotsIRAN The 1951 nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company by Iran’s Prime Minister at the time, Mohammed Mossadegh, brought him into conflict with the Shah of Iran when Britain boycotted Iranian oil in protest. The US and Britain orchestrated a coup by encouraging Iranians working for the CIA to turn the Islamic community against the nationalist Mossadegh. In August 1953, the Shah signed a CIA-penned royal decree replacing Mossadegh with General Fazlollah Zahedi, who was handpicked by America and Britain.CHILE The CIA began undermining the coalition government of the socialist President Salvador Allende even before he was elected in 1970, amid fears of the impact of his election on US-owned mining firms. President Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent him taking office but the first attempted coup failed.

The CIA did not give up, having been told to “make the economy scream”. The US approved $1m in covert aid to political parties and private organisations three weeks before Allende’s overthrow in 1973 by General Augusto Pinochet. For years, Washington denied its role in the coup.CUBA Two years after the overthrow of the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959 by Fidel Castro, the US launched its disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, which sent 1,300 CIA-trained Cuban exiles to the island. Their defeat after three days of battles was a huge embarrassment for President John F Kennedy Various madcap assassination schemes followed. President Castro has survived 40 years of sanctions, which the US is refusing to lift.CONGO Patrice Lumumba, who led his country to independence from Belgium and became its first elected Prime Minister in 1960, was assassinated in a CIA-backed operation with the help of Belgian intelligence – and UN connivance — four months after he took office. He was abducted by Congolese rebels and killed in the province of Katanga, which declared independence after Lumumba’s election. The order for his assassination came from President Eisenhower.

Belgium has apologised for its role in his killing.INDONESIA President Suharto came to power in a CIA-backed coup in 1966 that ousted Sukarno, the father of the current President, Megawati Sukarnoputri. The coup followed an abortive putsch in 1965, engineered by America and Britain, and blamed on Indonesia’s Communist Party. Hundreds of thousands of Communist sympathisers were massacred by the army.Historians have said America passed on the names of Communists to the army. The new president offered lucrative concessions to Western firms.. Israeli police said at least 19 people were killed and more than 40 wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up on a crowded city bus in Jerusalem during this morning’s rush hour Many on the bus were schoolchildren. Many on the bus were schoolchildren.
The blast tore through the bus, peeling off its roof and sides, as it waited at traffic lights near a busy junction. “There was a huge explosion, smoke and pieces of the bus and body parts were flying everywhere.