"Gulag" leaker fired by CIA

Captain Ed points to a breaking story about the CIA's termination of one of their own for leaking information about the secret prisons to the WaPo's Dana Priest.

The change in leadership is becoming obvious. Recall this same outfit previously allowed an agent, Michael Scheurer, to anonymously write a book critical of adminstration policies before the 2004 elections. Ironically, Scheurer was one of the founders of the CIA's rendition program, of which these secret prisons are basically an offshoot.

Here are a few questions swirling around in my head. One, how much pressure was put on Ms. Priest to give this guy/gal up, and if so, what did she get or not get? And two, are there any connections to the WaPo's recent administration-friendly columns about Plamegate?

All in all it's not surprising the admninistration went after this one hard. They've been extremely careful with operational security of those secret prisons, namely because they hold people like KSM and Binalshibh. They haven't allowed KSM to testify in person against terrorists like Moussaoui and Padilla for fear such a move could perhaps give away his whereabouts.

HAIR OF THE DOG 4/21/06

The WaPo weighed in on the firing, which was revealed as Mary McCarthy, a long time and fairly heavyweight employee in DC. The article suggests the investigation does not exclude reporters as well:

The CIA's statement did not name the reporters it believes were involved, but several intelligence officials said The Post's Dana Priest was among them. This week, Priest won the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting for articles about the agency, including one that revealed the existence of secret, CIA-run prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

The fact they gave Priest the Pulitzer for a story that ended up getting her source fired epitomizes the current low-level war going on between left and right in this country.

The CIA says 'more to come'--indeed, and from many angles. The left will surely counter with the hypocrisy card (Bush can leak for politics--Plame, but others can't) along with the obligatory Nazi references to Porter Goss. It's also interesting that Ms. McCarthy's name shows up in the 9/11 Commission Report mentioned alongside such luminaries as Richard Clarke and Sandy "sticky fingers" Berger.

ALL THE NEWS.. 4/22/06

The New York Times launched their port side shields today with a piece entitled, "Colleagues Say C.I.A. Analyst Played by Rules":

"We're talking about a person with great integrity who played by the book and, as far as I know, never deviated from the rules," said Steven Simon, a security council aide in the Clinton administration who worked closely with Ms. McCarthy.

Notice where this guy worked. The Times goes on:

Ms. McCarthy, who began attending law school at night several years ago and was preparing to retire from the C.I.A., may have felt she had no alternative but to go to the press.

After all, Bush is Hitler, right? The Times then had the pomposity to quote Larry Johnson, who's been retired from the CIA for a number of years, on what might have happened:

"It looks to me like Mary is being used as a sacrificial lamb."

Well, he did know both Plame and McCarthy. Wonder if Mary knew Val?

Everything seems to be adding up (which means it probably isn't). McCarthy might have been part of the anti-Bush cabal along with the VIPS people and others at State. She had a history with Rand Beers, who himself left the Bush administration, supposedly due to differences of opinion of how to handle the WoT.

But catch this. McCarthy left the CIA in 2001 and dropped into a think tank after Bush arrived, only to return to the CIA's IG office in 2004, just in time to leak the prison story. The comment above says she "might have felt she had no choice" but to leak. Strange for someone who just returned to the agency a year or so earlier. Wonder who hired her back? Perhaps knowing that would crystalize why she felt she had no choice. Maybe Mary was a sacrificial lamb after all.

ONE MORE THOUGHT BEFORE BED 4/22/06

Gotta get up early, but had a wild thought. On the same day McCarthy was fired, the New York Times put up this column entitled, "No Proof of Secret C.I.A. Prisons, European Antiterror Chief Says":

The European Union's antiterrorism chief told a hearing on Thursday that he had not been able to prove that secret C.I.A. prisons existed in Europe.

"We've heard all kinds of allegations," the official, Gijs de Vries, said before a committee of the European Parliament. "It does not appear to be proven beyond reasonable doubt."

So the EU says there might not even be any secret prisons, while McCarthy is fired for leaking such to the press. Keep in mind she returned to the agency in 2004. Is it possible she was brought in to do just that--to leak to the press about secret rendition prison sites, places we're keeping the AQ big boys, while in reality the real prisons are half a world away? The EU guys might be telling the truth, and if so maybe the CIA felt it was time to fire McCarthy and get the secret prisons in Eastern Europe story back out there.

A long shot yes. But we can say one thing with absolute certainty--nothing is as it seems in the Global War on Terror. And I'm quite sure that's by design.

4/23/06

As to the above, Wretchard said the same thing but painted a much better picture:

We are in a Wilderness of Mirrors indeed. ... in Washington politics, like the gravitational field of a massive Black Hole, distorts everything. In regions sufficiently close to the political event horizon truth and facts simply cease to exist.

[Blogger errors are bugging me today. Post went away for awhile, trying to get it back.]

WHAT THE OTHER SIDE IS SAYING 4/23/06

It's interesting to observe how the lefty blogosphere is handling the CIA firing story. Most aren't doing much, and those who are have generally keyed on comments made by VIPS member Larry Johnson. Allow me to summarize Mr. Johnson's story, since it's just too good to pass up.

He begins by trashing McCarthy, admitting that she was his ex-boss and basically the reason he left the agency in the late 80s. According to him her lousy management skills were too much for him, so he quit.

After cleverly removing the 'she's a buddy' line of thought, he proceeds to defend her by giving us random scuttlebutt about her role in CIA, which he appears to know very little about. He opines she was probably scapegoated because she couldn't possibly have access to the information without being an agent, but then says she might have indeed had access through the IG's office, since surely someone was running an investigation on the secret prison operation.

Assuming the latter to be true, he breezed right past the ethical problems of a CIA officer violating their contract and security clearance by leaking--anything. Whether it's right or wrong, his failure to even comment on that should tell us something about his mindset.

He ends by dropping Scooter Libby's name before calling her a 'hero', that is, if she actually did it. After all, in his opinion the American people have a right to know--apparently everything, more specifically everything Bush and Cheney are doing.

If that's all the left side has for rebuttal on this story they're in a world of hurt. Here's something else comical. A poster over at Daily Kos thinks the NY Times is shilling for Bush. It's amazing to think anybody could seriously believe that.