[Mb-civic] Sacked C.I.A. Official Alleges Retaliation for Not Faking WMD Reports on Iraq

[Michael Butler]

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  Sacked C.I.A. Official Alleges Retaliation for
  Not Faking WMD Reports on Iraq
  Agence France Presse

  Thursday 09 December 2004

  Washington - A sacked CIA official is reportedly suing the agency for
allegedly retaliating against him for refusing to falsify his reports on
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to support the White House's pre-war
position.

  Described as a senior CIA official who was sacked in August "for
unspecified reasons," the plaintiff's lawsuit appears to be the first public
instance of a CIA official charging that he was pressured to produce
intelligence to support the US government's pre-war contention that Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction were a grave threat to US and international
security, The Washington Post reported.

  "Their official dogma was contradicted by his reporting and they did not
want to hear it," said Roy Krieger, the officer's attorney.

  CIA spokeswoman Anya Guilsher told the daily she could not comment on the
lawsuit, adding: "The notion that CIA managers order officers to falsify
reports is flat wrong. Our mission is to call it like we see it and report
the facts."

  Krieger wrote a letter requesting a meeting with CIA Director Porter Goss
due to "the serious nature of the allegations in this case, including
deliberately misleading the president on intelligence concerning weapons of
mass destruction," said the daily quoting from the letter.

  The United States overthrew the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in
April 2003, but has found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq since then.
The US government has acknowledged some of its pre-war intelligence may have
been faulty.

  The plaintiff, whose identity is blacked out in the lawsuit as well as any
reference to Iraq, is of Middle Eastern descent, worked 23 years in the
Central Intelligence Agency, much of them in covert operations to collect
intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, said the daily.

  The lawsuit was filed in a US District Court in Washington on Friday and
made public Wednesday after it was screened by a judge, said The Washington
Post which obtained a copy.

  It alleges that the CIA investigated alleged sexual and financial
improprieties by the plaintiff "for the sole purpose of discrediting him and
retaliating against him for questioning the integrity of the WMD reporting
... and for refusing to falsify his intelligence reporting to support the
politically mandated conclusion" of matters that are redacted in the
lawsuit.

  The document states that in 2002 the plaintiff was "thwarted by CIA
superiors" from reporting routine intelligence from a contact of his and
that later he was approached by a senior officer "who insisted that
Plaintiff falsify his reporting."

  When the plaintiff refused, the lawsuit said, the CIA's
Counter-proliferation Division ordered that he "remove himself from any
further 'handling'" of the contact, referred elsewhere in the document as "a
highly respected human asset."

  In 2003, the lawsuit goes on to say, the CIA officer learned of the
investigations against him and that he was refused a promotion "because of
pressure from the DDO (Deputy Director of Operations) James Pavitt."

  In September 2003, the plaintiff was placed on administrative leave
without explanation and in August 2004 he was sacked also "for unspecified
reasons."

  The lawsuit requests that the plaintiff be restored to his former position
in the CIA and received compensatory damages and legal fees.

 

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