NEWS
By Greg Miller | September 21, 2009
WASHINGTON - -The CIA is deploying teams of spies, analysts and paramilitary operatives to Afghanistan, part of a broad intelligence "surge" that will make its station there among the largest in the agency's history, U.S. officials say. When complete, the CIA's presence in the country is expected to rival the size of its huge stations in Iraq and Vietnam at the height of those wars. Precise numbers are classified, but one U.S. official said the agency already has nearly 700 employees in Afghanistan.
NEWS
April 5, 2009
TOM WARDELL BRADEN, 92 Commentator, ex-CIA agent Tom Braden, a former CIA operative who became a syndicated newspaper columnist, liberal co-host of the CNN talk show Crossfire and author of Eight Is Enough, a 1975 memoir that inspired a popular television series, died of natural causes Friday at his Denver home, his family said. He was 92. Mr. Braden was the father of eight children whose misadventures provided amusing grist for many of his newspaper columns and led to the ABC comedy-drama Eight Is Enough, which aired from 1977 to 1981 and starred Dick Van Patten.
NEWS
January 7, 2009
Leon E. Panetta has shown himself to be an astute, accomplished and politically adept public servant. But all his management skills and political acumen can't make up for what he lacks as President-elect Barack Obama's nominee to lead the Central Intelligence Agency - real experience in the spy business. The much-maligned agency gets more right than it gets credit for and could use an outsider to assess its problems and challenges in the post-9/11 world. But without a mastery of the basic techniques of intelligence-gathering and an understanding of the conflicts within the bureaucracy, Mr. Panetta would be hard-pressed to inspire its professionals and re-invigorate their pursuit of its mission.
NEWS
By Greg Miller, Christi Parsons and David Wood | January 6, 2009
WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama has selected Leon E. Panetta to serve as the next director of the CIA, apparently concluding that a spy chief who understands politics might be more important than one with deep experience in intelligence matters. The surprise pick of Panetta, a former congressman and Clinton administration official, would give Obama a CIA director with unquestioned loyalty to the White House and an experienced managerial hand to steer the new administration away from intelligence scandals.
NEWS
By New York Times News Service. | December 22, 2007
WASHINGTON -- A review of classified documents by former members of the Sept. 11 commission shows that the panel made repeated and detailed requests to the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of al-Qaida and was told by a top CIA official that the agency had "produced or made available for review" everything that had been requested. The review was conducted earlier this month after the disclosure that in November 2005, the CIA destroyed videotapes documenting the interrogations of two Qaida operatives.
NEWS
By New York Times News Service. | December 20, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The CIA has agreed to make documents related to the destruction of interrogation videotapes available to the House Intelligence Committee and to allow the agency's top lawyer, John A. Rizzo, to testify about the matter, congressional and intelligence officials said yesterday. But it remained unclear whether Jose A. Rodriguez, who as chief of the agency's clandestine service ordered the tapes destroyed in 2005, would testify. Officials said Rodriguez's appearance before the committee might involve complex negotiations over legal immunity as the Justice Department and the CIA are reviewing whether the destruction of the tapes broke any laws.
NEWS
By New York Times News Service | December 10, 2007
WASHINGTON -- At a conference in El Paso, in mid-August, Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, heaped praise on a man whose exploits, he joked, had been the inspiration for the television show 24. From fast cars to fine wines, Reyes said, the appetites of the man, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., are the stuff of legend. Then turning serious, Reyes hailed Rodriguez's three decades of undercover work for the CIA, where he recently stepped down as head of its clandestine service, and called Rodriguez an "American hero."
NEWS
By New York Times News Service. | December 9, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The destruction of hundreds of hours of videotape of interrogations of al-Qaida operatives, including Abu Zubaydah, could complicate the prosecution of Zubaydah and others, and underscores the deep uncertainties that have troubled government officials about the interrogation program. Officials acknowledged on Friday that the destruction of evidence like videotaped interrogations could raise questions about whether the CIA was seeking to hide evidence of coercion. A review of records in military tribunals indicates that five lower-level detainees at Guantanamo were initially charged with offenses based on information that was provided by or related to Zubaydah.
NEWS
By New York Times News Service | December 8, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The CIA faced the threat of obstruction-of-justice investigations yesterday from the Justice Department and congressional committees over the destruction of videotapes of al-Qaida interrogations. The Justice Department said it would review calls for a formal inquiry into the destruction of the tapes, while the House and Senate intelligence committees said they were opening investigations of their own into the episode, which Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, a West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Senate panel, called "extremely disturbing."
NEWS
By Siobhan Gorman | August 22, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The CIA had no documented game plan to fight al-Qaida and failed to marshal its resources fully to counter the threat in the years leading up to the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to an internal CIA report released yesterday. The long-awaited report highlighted a "persistent strain in relations" between the CIA and the National Security Agency that continued into 2001 and had "a negative impact" on the intelligence agencies' collective effort to fight al-Qaida. It assigned primary responsibility for the pre-Sept.