Something is very fishy.

We did not need a secret group to try to find, capture, or kill Bin Laden or others high in his organization. The entire CIA and the entire military apparatus of the country was already authorized to do that. Since there are perfectly legal, legitimate organizations who would have been well within their purview to implement plans to get Al Queda leaders, why would we need a secret group for this purpose?

If Cheney had some ideas of his own, he could have implemented them through existing intelligence and military channels to which he would have had access and authority, even to create Top Secret missions for these groups, whether directly or through Bush. Since these groups were essentially available to Cheney for any legal goal, why would he need a separate secret group?

Secret groups would exist to be able to do what CANNOT be done legally. Since going after Al Queda leaders was a legal and public position of the U.S., there would be no reason to have a secret group charged with doing it. The administration even boasted when it got some of these guys, and would have boasted if it had gotten Bin Laden. You don't need a secret organization to do things you intend to boast about. You need a secret organization to do things you want to be able to deny ever having a hand in.

The only other possibility I can thing of for a secret group would be if the purpose were legitimate but the means and methods were not. But this would not seem to be a reasonable explanation in this case. What means for getting a leader of AQ could be illegal, that they weren't *already* doing through existing channels? I mean, they had already authorized illegal wiretapping and torture, they had already approved rendition and secret prisons, all apart from Cheney's secret group. So clearly, no such secret group was needed to accomplish this legitimate goal by questionable means. The secret group, then, must have had some other purpose.

I don't know what Cheney was trying to do with this secret group, but its purported goal of getting Al Queda leaders doesn't make sense to me.