Rice Implicated in Omar Kidnapping

Not only Condi.

Title 50, Chapter 15, Subchapter III, § 413b. of the United States Code requires that the president personally authorize all covert actions.

Not that this administration has always been good about following the law. But it is highly likely that all the proper procedures were followed in this case (or else the CIA wouldn't have conducted the operation.)

Robert Lady, the former CIA chief in Milan, has gone into hiding. He is the subject of an extradition order from Italian authorities for the role he played in the kidnapping of radical Muslim cleric Abu Omar in Milan. Washington is seeking to derail the trial -- perhaps because Condoleezza Rice may have given the operation the green light. ...

(A)ccording to recent findings brought to light by American journalist Matthew Cole, writing in the March issue of GQ, it's not just the agents involved in the abduction who need to be protected. Those truly responsible are to be found in the higher echelons of the US administration, according to Cole, who claims that current US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice personally approved the operation when she served as President George W. Bush's National Security Advisor. She apparently OKed Abu Omar's abduction and then, according to Cole's report, "fretted" during her meeting with the CIA over how she would inform Bush about the operation.

No official denial has been issued over Cole's allegations -- perhaps in part because there is much to suggest they are true: All truly sensitive CIA operations conducted in the context of the "war on terror" had to be approved by the White House. ...

Lady has a lot at stake in this case. If the Italian constitutional court doesn't put a halt on the trial, the state prosecutor could confiscate Lady's beloved farm. "I'll probably be convicted. But I won't go to trial, and I'll never see Italy again," he lamented to journalist Cole. But other plausible scenarios remain, too: Perhaps the former CIA agent will testify after all. He is said to be bitter about the lack of support he has received from the CIA. The only ones protected by Washington these days are the ones who give orders, and not people like him, who do the dirty work, he is said to have complained.

Indeed, Robert Lady's comments to Cole seem as threatening as they do disillusioned, and they were likely meant to sound that way. "No one's called me for support," he said. "No one has helped. I keep thinking, Fuck it, I've got nothing to lose."