Officer Alleges CIA
Retaliation
Washington Post
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 9, 2004; Page A02
A senior CIA operative who handled sensitive informants in
Iraq asserts that CIA managers asked him to falsify his reporting
on weapons of mass destruction and retaliated against him after
he refused.
The operative, who remains under cover, asserts in a lawsuit
made public yesterday that a co-worker warned him in 2001 "that
CIA management planned to 'get him' for his role in reporting
intelligence contrary to official CIA dogma."
The subject of that reporting has been blacked out by the CIA,
and the word "Iraq" does not appear in the heavily redacted
version of the legal complaint, but the remaining language and
context make clear that the officer's work related to prewar
intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
In the lawsuit, the officer asserts that CIA managers
retaliated against him for refusing their demands by beginning a
counterintelligence investigation of allegations that he had sex
with a female asset and by initiating an inspector general's
investigation into allegations that he stole money meant to be
used to pay human assets.
Those investigations, the lawsuit asserts, were "initiated 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 lawsuit marks the first public instance in which a CIA
employee has charged directly that agency officials pressured him
to produce intelligence to support the administration's prewar
position that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were a grave and
gathering threat, and to suppress information that ran counter to
that view.
"Their official dogma was contradicted by his reporting and
they did not want to hear it," said Roy Krieger, the officer's
attorney.
Anya Guilsher, a CIA spokeswoman, said the agency could not
comment on the lawsuit but added, "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."
Critics of the Iraq war have asserted the administration
pressured analysts and operators to produce information that
bolstered the administration's case for invading Iraq.
Congressional investigations did not find evidence to support
that charge, but found that the CIA did not have enough spies in
Iraq and that the analysis of the highly circumstantial evidence
was mischaracterized as firmer than it was.
No biological or chemical weapons have been found in Iraq. A
subsequent CIA-led investigation found that Iraq was nowhere near
producing a nuclear weapon, as the administration had
asserted.
The unnamed operative is a 23-year officer of Middle Eastern
descent who spent much of his career on secret and covert
operations to collect intelligence on and interdict weapons of
mass destruction, the lawsuit says.
In 2002, the lawsuit says, the CIA officer "attempted to
report routine intelligence" from a human asset "but was thwarted
by CIA superiors." It goes on to say that he was subsequently
approached by a senior desk officer "who insisted that Plaintiff
falsify his reporting," and that when he refused, the
"management" of the CIA's Counterproliferation Division ordered
that he "remove himself from any further 'handling' " of the
unnamed asset, who is referred elsewhere in the document as "a
highly respected human asset."
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington on
Friday and placed in the public court docket yesterday after a
judge said it could proceed using a pseudonym for the plaintiff,
says his superiors falsely promised him that they would report
his findings to President Bush and falsely claimed that they had
disseminated some of his other reports through normal
channels.
In 2003, the lawsuit says, the CIA officer learned of the
counterintelligence investigation of allegations that he was
having sex with a female asset. Five days later, it says, he was
told that a promotion was being canceled "because of pressure
from the DDO [Deputy Director of Operations] James Pavitt."
Pavitt declined to comment.
In September 2003, the CIA placed the officer on
administrative leave without explanation, the lawsuit says. Eight
months later, it says, the inspector general's office advised him
that he was under investigation for "diverting to his own use
monies provided him for payment to human assets." The document
says the allegations were made by the same managers who had asked
him to falsify reports.
In August 2004, he was terminated "for unspecified reasons,"
the lawsuit says. It requests that his employment, salary and
promotions be restored and that the CIA pay compensatory damages
and legal fees.
In a letter to CIA acting general counsel John Rizzo dated
Dec. 6, Krieger requested a meeting between the officer and CIA
Director Porter J. Goss because of "the serious nature of the
allegations in this case, including deliberately misleading the
President on intelligence concerning weapons of mass
destruction."
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