CIA assessing its powers to kill drug smugglers abroad: report

WASHINGTON — The CIA is assessing its authority to kill drug smugglers who bring deadly fentanyl and other narcotics into the United States as the Trump administration grapples with the opioid epidemic.

The review — which does not indicate that President Trump has ordered the CIA to kill drug smugglers — is designed to “help the agency understand what kinds of activities it could legally undertake and what the potential risks would be across the suite of options,” CNN reported Monday, citing an anonymous official and three people briefed on the matter.

The assessment comes just weeks after the Trump administration formally listed eight Latin American cartels — including six from Mexico — as Foreign Terrorist Organizations in February for their involvement in drug and human trafficking.

That designation opened a trove of new options the White House can use to target the cartels, granting the administration access to “enhanced counterterrorism authorities” — including the ability for Trump to launch covert operations.

The CIA declined to comment for this story.

Talk of taking lethal action against drug cartels has heated up among Republicans in recent weeks after Trump declared, “It’s time for America to wage war on the cartels” in his State of the Union-like address on March 4.

Last week, Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) left two top military commanders stunned when he asked why the US is not “just killing” Chinese drug traffickers bringing fentanyl precursors into the Western Hemisphere.

“In your professional military opinion — put aside everything, policy — as an admiral, if we just started killing these people that are killing Americans (through drug overdoses) — 250,000, 300,000 Americans; about the amount of people that died in World War II — why aren’t we just killing these people?”

The answer was simple: the US has not given the military authority to open fire on drug smugglers. But authorities can be changed — and other agencies, such as the CIA, may not be bound by the same confinements.

The CIA is already flying drones over Mexico at Mexico City’s approval, spying on cartel operations deep into the country. Additionally, there are roughly 4,000 troops deployed along the southern border — an increase of about 1,500 since Trump took office in January.

While the CIA drones’ authorities stop at surveillance, the increased attention to countering cartels may indicate the administration is considering taking things in a bloodier direction, the Atlantic Council said in a March 5 report.

“The rapid speed and scale of these apparent foreign counteroffensive preparations, arguably not seen since the early stages of the War on Terror, may indicate that the United States is on the verge of direct military action, either unilaterally or with the Mexican military, against cartels on Mexican soil,”

Tasking the military with targeting narcoterrorists may require formal congressional approval through an Authorization for Use of Military Force, which would allow the administration to deploy military assets under Title 10 of the US Code.

But Trump could usurp Congress and opt for the advantage of surprise by ordering the CIA to conduct covert actions against the cartels, using his powers under Title 50, according to the Atlantic Council.

“In this scenario, Trump would issue a presidential finding that authorizes the CIA to conduct covert actions against the cartels,” the report said. “From there, CIA paramilitary officers or special forces units, typically under Joint Special Operations Command, would be used to carry out the secret operations.

“Trump has historically favored covert operations in counterterrorism efforts against al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), making this a more likely scenario,” it added.