The CIA fired a top intelligence analyst who admitted leaking classified information that led to a Pulitzer Prize-winning story about a network of secret CIA prisons, government officials say.
The officer, was said to be senior analyst Mary McCarthy. On Friday evening at home, her husband would not confirm her firing.
Almost immediately, the firing turned political. Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts, a Republican, praised the agency for identifying a source of the leaks and encouraged vigorous investigation of other open cases. ``Those guilty of improperly disclosing classified information should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,'' Roberts said.
Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat, called on US President George W. Bush to hold accountable those in his administration who leaked information about the Iraq intelligence in the run-up to the war and outed undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. ``Apparently, President Bush doesn't believe what's good for the CIA is good for the White House,'' Menendez said.
In McCarthy's final position at the CIA, she was assigned to its Office of Inspector General, looking into allegations the CIA was involved in torture at Iraqi prisons, according to a former colleague who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is under investigation.
Without identifying McCarthy by name, CIA Director Porter Goss announced the firing in a brief message to agency employees circulated on Thursday. Such dismissals are highly unusual.
Agency spokesman Paul Gimigliano confirmed an officer had been fired for having unauthorized contacts with the media and disclosing classified information to reporters, including details about intelligence operations.
``The officer has acknowledged unauthorized discussions with the media and the unauthorized sharing of classified information,'' Gimigliano said. ``That is a violation of the secrecy agreement that everyone signs as a condition of employment with the CIA.''
Citing the Privacy Act, the CIA would not disclose any details about the officer's identity, assignments or what she might have told the news media. A law enforcement official confirmed there was a criminal leaks investigation under way, but it did not involve the fired CIA officer.
The official said the CIA officer had provided information that contributed to a Washington Post story last year disclosing secret US prisons in Eastern Europe. The law enforcement official spoke only on condition of anonymity.
The Post's Dana Priest won a Pulitzer Prize this week for her reporting on a covert prison system set up by the CIA after Sept. 11, 2001, that at various times included sites in eight countries.
The story caused an international uproar, and government officials have said it did significant damage to relationships between the US and allied intelligence agencies.
Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. said on the newspaper's Web site: ``We don't know the details of why [the CIA employee] was fired, so I can't comment on that. But as a general principle, obviously I am opposed to criminalizing the dissemination of government information to the press.''
It was unclear if Priest or any other reporters who spoke to McCarthy would be brought into an investigation.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS