[More on CIA Torture as Approved by the US President and his Administration]
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.”
source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2036182,00.html 14feb2006
WASHINGTON — The head of the CIA's counter-terrorism center was forced to step down Monday over concerns that he was not aggressive enough in leading the agency's pursuit of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, current and former intelligence officials said.
The sudden departure of Robert Grenier, who had held the position for about a year, was described by intelligence officials as part of an effort to reinvigorate counter-terrorism operations that have had mixed results during his tenure.
In the latest example of the difficulties the agency has encountered, the CIA carried out a missile strike that killed suspected Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan last month but missed its main target. The terrorist network's No. 2 leader, Ayman Zawahiri, and Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden have taunted the United States with messages promising future attacks.
Grenier, who held a series of high-level assignments overseas during his career in the CIA's clandestine service, acknowledged in an e-mail to colleagues and subordinates Monday that he had been asked to leave his post, officials said.
"He basically said, 'I've been asked to move on,' " said one intelligence source who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly address the issue. "This is a good officer. But it was felt by the head of the clandestine service that there were better choices at this time."
The head of the clandestine service, who remains undercover and thus publicly unidentified at the CIA, had preceded Grenier in the job and had become increasingly frustrated with his successor's cautious approach, the officials said. The clandestine service chief holds one of the top posts in the CIA and oversees the counter-terrorism center.
The CIA's counter-terrorism center, known as the CTC, has surrendered much of its authority and prestige over the last year to a new multi-agency counter-terrorism center created as part of an overhaul of the U.S. intelligence community.
But the CIA's center is still one of the largest and most crucial programs in the nation's counter-terrorism arsenal. The CTC mushroomed in size from a few hundred employees to more than 1,000 after the Sept. 11 attacks, and remains in charge of coordinating covert operations against Al Qaeda and other terrorist targets.
Current and former intelligence officials cited "cumulative" dissatisfaction with the way Grenier approached the job, but insisted that his departure was not connected to any specific failure, including the missile attack that missed Zawahiri.
Nor did Grenier step down over friction with CIA Director Porter J. Goss and his staff — a factor that contributed to a series of high-level departures from the CIA in late 2004 and early last year, the officials said.
A CIA spokesman said the agency would not discuss internal personnel matters. It was not clear whether Grenier would leave the agency or accept another assignment. No replacement had been selected as of late Monday, the officials said.
One former senior U.S. intelligence official involved in counter-terrorism operations said there had been frustration with the pace of operations launched by the CTC, as well as with coordination with other agencies.
"How far had they come in the past 12 to 18 months in terms of sources of information or individuals who had been captured?" asked the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I think part of it also reflects the bureaucratic squabbling that goes on across departments and agencies and whether the CIA's efforts were as aggressive as some other departments, notably the Department of Defense."
Grenier spent much of his career overseas as a case officer in the CIA's directorate of operations. Former colleagues said he was the CIA's station chief in Islamabad when the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, and that he had previously spent extensive tours in the Middle East.
One former senior CIA official said that it might have been difficult for Grenier to escape his predecessor's shadow.
"There's a saying we have," the former official said. "The two worst officers are always your successor and your predecessor."
source: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-cia7feb07,0,2164246,print.story?coll=la-news-a_section 14feb2006
The CIA's top counterterrorism officer was relieved of his position yesterday after months of turmoil atop the agency's clandestine service, according to three knowledgeable officials.
Robert Grenier, who spent most of his career undercover overseas, took charge of the Counterterrorism Center about a year ago after a series of senior jobs at the center of the Bush administration's national security agenda.
When al Qaeda struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, Grenier was station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan. Among the agency's most experienced officers in southwest Asia, Grenier helped plan the covert campaign that preceded the U.S. military ouster of al Qaeda and its Taliban allies from Afghanistan.
By the summer of 2002, with President Bush heading toward war in Iraq, then-Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet recalled Grenier to headquarters and promoted him to chief of a newly created Iraq Issues Group. His staff ballooned as the administration planned and launched the invasion in March 2003.
Grenier's predecessor at the Counterterrorism Center, who remains undercover, moved on to become chief of the National Clandestine Service, the successor to the CIA's directorate of operations. Sources said the two men differ sharply in style.
Grenier, 51, is said by associates to be a polished and smooth-talking man with museum-quality mementos of his service overseas. His boss at the clandestine service, the nation's senior human intelligence officer, was said to regard him as insufficiently forceful in the battle with al Qaeda.
"The word on Bob was that he was a good officer, but not the one for the job and not quite as aggressive as he might have been," one official said.
Colleagues in the clandestine service, sources said, had been aware of the poor working relationship between the two men for some time and said Grenier's predecessor had been trying to force him out for months. Grenier's resignation was first reported on the Los Angeles Times Web site, which said he had sent an e-mail to colleagues acknowledging he had been asked to leave.
"The director of NCS," one official said, "decided there was somebody better, perhaps to better match his management vision, so [Grenier] is moving on."
The official said there was no specific operational problem. Another official said the failed attempt last month on the life of Ayman Zawahiri, al Qaeda's number two leader, had not played a role in pushing Grenier out.
Reached at home late last night, Grenier declined to comment.
The CIA's Counterterrorism Center, like the agency itself, has been shoved from its preeminent position in a turbulent reorganization of the intelligence community.
Immediately after Sept. 11, the center's chief was tough-talking Cofer Black, who told Bush it was time to "take the gloves off" against terrorism and promised "heads on spikes." Some of the center's responsibilities have since shifted to a new interagency counterpart that reports to Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte.
There were rumors last September, when Robert Richer, the number two in the clandestine service, abruptly resigned, that Grenier was considering leaving with him. But the CIA denied the rumors at the time and said Grenier was very happy in his job.
Several candidates are under consideration for Grenier's job, according to one knowledgeable official. Grenier, another official said, will be offered a job elsewhere in the CIA.
Grenier's departure comes at a time when the agency is bleeding top talent, robbing the CIA of institutional memory and damaging morale among case officers and analysts. Since Porter J. Goss became director in September 2004, well over a dozen senior officials -- several of whom were promoted under Goss -- have resigned, have retired early or have requested reassignment. Grenier was the third person to be head of counterterrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Like Grenier, most of those leaving the agency had spent their career in the clandestine service and had years of experience in the Middle East and, more specifically, with al Qaeda. Charlie Siddel, the station chief in Amman, Jordan, took early retirement late last year when he was recalled to headquarters. In the fall, the head of the European division, whose undercover role included overseeing the hunt for al Qaeda on the continent, also left.
Last month, John Russack, the program manager for information-sharing in the office of the director of national intelligence, was forced out after less than a year on the job. Russack, who had run the Energy Department's intelligence shop before moving to the DNI's office, apparently left after personality clashes with other top officials.
In the early days of war with al Qaeda, Grenier emphasized the need to convince Afghans that the United States had no desire for permanent bases in Afghanistan and wished only to help drive Arab outsiders from the country. Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda's Saudi-born leader, had built a state within a state, recruiting and training operatives from around the Arab and Islamic worlds.
Staff writer Peter Baker and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/07/AR2006020700016_pf.html 14feb2006
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