And let that be a lesson

Slate has two back-to-back descriptions of articles that pretty much sum up why they should not have canceled the program:

The New York Times leads with word that the CIA hired contractors from Blackwater USA to take part in an assassination program that targeted top al-Qaeda operatives. Blackwater is a private security contractor, now known as Xe Services LLC, that has come under scrutiny for using excessive force against Iraqi civilians. The Washington Post also leads the news in its late edition, and while it gives credit to the NYT for first reporting the story, it takes it a step further by saying that the whole of the assassination program was outsourced to Blackwater in 2004 and the private contractor was given "operational responsibility for targeting terrorist commanders." For its part, the NYT isn't clear as to whether the contractors were going to be used to kill or capture al-Qaida suspects or just for training and surveillance in the larger program. Regardless, the program was canceled before any missions were actually carried out.

The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with, and everyone else fronts, the deadly day in Baghdad, where a series of coordinated attacks killed 95 people and injured more than 500. Most of the dead were casualties of two massive truck bombs that hit the foreign and finance ministries in heavily guarded areas of downtown Baghdad. It was by far the deadliest attack since 30 June, when U.S. troops withdrew from urban areas, and the WSJ says it might have been the deadliest day in Iraq in more than a year. The Iraqi government quickly blamed al-Qaeda in Iraq and followers of former President Saddam Hussein for the attack.