in washington, jobe warrick, who covers national intelligence for the "national post."this program kept secret for eight years. what have you found out? >> we're finally starting to understand why congress got so excited when they found out about this program two months ago. it wasn't just that the program was kept secret for all this time. it turns out it involved black water which is of course the security contractor that has got such a bad reputation for excessive use of form allegedly and the death of civilians in iraq. this is a troubling combination and congress is very intent to look into this very deeply now. >> and what were, as much as you know, i guess as much as we know, what was the mission here? who specifically or, you know, again, as much as you know, were they trying to assassinate? >> the whole idea wallace to try to take out the top al qaeda figures. osama bin laden and his deputies. and this could be a number of ways they could do it. they had plans over eight years for going after him. this one phase, they decided, let's outsource it, let's use blac