ABSTRACT
The US is also reported to have employed a targeting policy in Iraq following its 2003 invasion. These geopolitical and ideological factors may therefore be thought to have conspired to encourage a perceptible US discomfort with covert operations. The Phoenix Program was largely organized and directed, particularly in its initial early stages, by US advisers. The Berlin bombing also instigated the strengthening of the US government's institutional resources for combating terrorism. The deep US ambivalence concerning targeting can plausibly be attributed to its long-standing discomfort with covert operations in general and with the central intelligence agency (CIA) regrettable history of undertaking manifestly illegal special operations that result in indefensible action and adverse publicity. In the latter part of 1960, the CIA had begun to plot against Patrice Lumumba, President of the newly independent Congo. Probably the most notorious CIA assassination attempts were directed against Cuban President Fidel Castro.
