This story was in yesterday's GovExec.com newsletter. It is definitely a story worth following. As we all know, there have been a number of stories and even books written about how the administration cooked the intelligence to go to war. This is just one more page of that story. I find it interesting because quite a few CIA employees have stated the same thing. And, of course, the administration and the CIA officials deny this. Sometimes I feel like this is another "who shot Kennedy?" story. We may never know the whole truth.
CIA operative sues agency
From Global Security Newswire
A fired CIA operative has filed a lawsuit claiming that he was punished after refusing requests by senior agency managers to falsify reporting on prewar Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
In the federal lawsuit filed Friday, the senior operative claims that the CIA punished him by withdrawing a promotion and by launching investigations into whether he had sex with a female intelligence asset and whether he stole money intended to pay human assets, according to the Post.
The investigations 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 blacked out in the lawsuit, the lawsuit said.
The 23-year CIA veteran was fired in August "for unspecified reasons," according to the lawsuit.
The operative was not identified, the Post reported. He has asked that his employment, salary and promotions be restored and that the CIA pay legal fees and compensatory damages.
CIA spokeswoman Anya Guilsher refused to comment on the lawsuit.
"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," she said.