Stephanopoulos Urged Foreign Assassination
But when senior Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos publicly argued for the same kind of assassination policy in 1997, the press voiced no objection at all.
Fresh from his influential White House post, Stephanopoulos devoted an entire column in Newsweek to the topic of whether the U.S. should take out Saddam Hussein.
His headlined? "Why We Should Kill Saddam."
"Assassination may be Clinton's best option," the future "This Week" host urged. "If we can kill Saddam, we should."
Though Iraq war critics now argue that by 1997, the Iraqi dictator was "in a box" and posed no threat whatsoever to the U.S., Stephanopoulos contended that Saddam deserved swift and lethal justice.
Okay, we knew that it was Clinton's policy to promote regime change in Iraq. He just never acted on that policy.
"We've exhausted other efforts to stop him, and killing him certainly seems more proportionate to his crimes and discriminate in its effect than massive bombing raids that will inevitably kill innocent civilians," the diminutive former aide contended.
Stephanopoulos even offered a way to get around the presidential ban on foreign assassinations:
"If Clinton decides we can and should assassinate Saddam, he could call in national-security adviser Sandy Berger and sign a secret National Security Decision Directive authorizing it."
The Stephanopoulos plan: "First, we could offer to provide money and materiel to Iraqi exiles willing to lead an effort to overthrow Saddam. . . . The second option is a targeted airstrike against the homes or bunkers where Saddam is most likely to be hiding."
The one-time top Clinton aide said that, far from violating international principles, assassinating Saddam would be the moral thing to do, arguing, "What's unlawful - and unpopular with the allies - is not necessarily immoral."
Stephanopoulos also noted that killing Saddam could pay big political dividends at home, saying the mission would make Clinton "a huge winner if it succeeded."
So let me get this straight. Pat Robertson (private Citizen not in the Government) says "If Chavez expects us to assassinate him, we should" and is RAILED for one sentence, but George Stephanopoulos (Advisor to the President) writes a paper detailing possible ways to actually carry out the goal of assassination against a foreign leader, and the Media is SILENT. WOW doesn't this REAK of Hypocrisy.