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Ex-CIA agent says sacked for not faking Iraq WMD reports
50 minutes ago U.S. National - AFP 12/9/04
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A sacked CIA (news - web sites) official has sued, alleging he was fired for refusing to fake reports supporting the White House position that Iraq (news - web sites) had weapons of mass destruction, local media said.
AFP/Getty Images/File Photo
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Described as a senior CIA official who was sacked in August "for unspecified reasons," the lawsuit appeared to be the first public instance of a CIA agent charging he was pressured to concoct intelligence on Iraq.
The suit claims the unidentified ex agent was urged to produce reports in line with President George W Bush's contention that Iraq had illegal chemical or biological weapons, which threatened US and international security.
"Their official dogma was contradicted by his reporting and they did not want to hear it," attorney Roy Krieger told The Washington Post of his client.
CIA spokeswoman Anya Guilsher told the daily she could not comment on the lawsuit, adding: "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."
Krieger wrote a letter requesting a meeting with CIA Director Porter Goss due to "the serious nature of the allegations in this case, including deliberately misleading the president on intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction," said the daily quoting the letter.
The United States overthrew the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in April 2003, but has found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq since then. The US government has acknowledged some of its pre-war intelligence may have been faulty.
The plaintiff, whose identity is blacked out in the version of the lawsuit seen by the Post, along with any reference to Iraq, is of Middle Eastern descent, worked 23 years in the CIA, much of them in covert operations collecting intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, said the daily.
The lawsuit was filed in a US District Court in Washington on Friday and made public Wednesday after it was screened by a judge, said the Post which obtained a copy.
It alleges that the CIA investigated alleged sexual and financial improprieties by the agent "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 were blacked out, according to the Washington daily.
The document states that in 2002 the plaintiff was "thwarted by CIA superiors" from reporting routine intelligence from a contact of his and that later he was approached by a senior officer "who insisted that plaintiff falsify his reporting."
When the plaintiff refused, the lawsuit said, the CIA's Counterproliferation Division ordered that he "remove himself from any further 'handling'" of the contact, referred elsewhere in the document as "a highly respected human asset."
The former agent's lawyer said the allegations were not true, and that his client had not been formally charged for any of them before being fired three months ago.
Krieger, who represents CIA personnel, told CNN television that such accusations were common practice at the agency.
"In the past seven or eight years I've represented probably in excess of 100 employees of the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) and in our experience when (someone) at the agency gets into disfavor or gets himself in a position of opposition to the agency, one of two things -- sometimes both of them -- happen.
"Either he's subjected to a counterintelligence investigation based upon trumped-up allegations or he's referred to the office of Inspector General for investigation of his travel expenses, his finances and, in this case, payments made to an asset," Kreiger said.
In 2003, the lawsuit goes on to say, the CIA officer learned of the investigations against him and that he was refused a promotion "because of pressure from the DDO (Deputy Director of Operations) James Pavitt," according to the Post.
In September 2003, the plaintiff was placed on administrative leave without explanation and in August 2004 he was sacked also "for unspecified reasons," the Post said.
The lawsuit requests that the plaintiff be restored to his former position in the CIA and receives compensatory damages and legal fees.
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