CIA chief sacked for opposing torture

[Guest guest]

By Sarah Baxter and Michael Smith

February 12, 2006

From The Sunday Times

 

Washington - The CIA's top counter-terrorism official was fired last

week because he opposed detaining Al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons

abroad, sending them to other countries for interrogation and using

forms of torture such as " water boarding " , intelligence sources have

claimed.

 

Robert Grenier, head of the CIA counter-terrorism centre, was relieved

of his post after a year in the job. One intelligence official said he

was " not quite as aggressive as he might have been " in pursuing

Al-Qaeda leaders and networks.

 

Vincent Cannistraro, a former head of counter-terrorism at the agency,

said: " It is not that Grenier wasn't aggressive enough, it is that he

wasn't 'with the programme'. He expressed misgivings about the secret

prisons in Europe and the rendition of terrorists. "

 

Grenier also opposed " excessive " interrogation, such as strapping

suspects to boards and dunking them in water, according to

Cannistraro.

 

Porter Goss, who was appointed head of the CIA in August 2004 with a

mission to " clean house " , has been angered by a series of leaks from

CIA insiders, including revelations about " black sites " in Europe

where top Al-Qaeda detainees were said to have been held.

 

In last Friday's New York Times, Goss wrote that leakers within the

CIA were damaging the agency's ability to fight terrorism and causing

foreign intelligence organisations to lose confidence. " Too many of my

counterparts from other countries have told me, 'You Americans can't

keep a secret'. "

 

Goss is believed to have blamed Grenier for allowing leaks to occur on

his watch.

 

Since the appointment of Goss, the CIA has lost almost all its

high-level directors amid considerable turmoil.

 

AB " Buzzy " Krongard, a former executive director of the CIA who

resigned shortly after Goss's arrival, said the leaks were unlikely to

stop soon, despite proposals to subject officers to more lie detector

tests.

 

Krongard said it was up to President George Bush to stop the rot. " The

agency has only one client: the president of the United States, " he

said. " The reorganisation is the way this president wanted it. If he

is unwilling to reform it, the agency will go on as it is. "

 

" History will judge how good an idea it was to destroy the teams and

the programmes that were in place. "

 

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