CIA official 'sacked over WMD'

2004-12-09 16:20

Washington - A sacked CIA official is suing the agency for allegedly retaliating against him for refusing to falsify his reports on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to support the White House's pre-war position, The Washington Post said on Thursday.

Described as a senior CIA official who was sacked in August "for unspecified reasons," the plaintiff's lawsuit appears to be the first public instance of a CIA official charging that he was pressured to produce intelligence to support the US government's pre-war contention that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were a grave threat to US and international security.

"Their official dogma was contradicted by his reporting and they did not want to hear it," said Roy Krieger, the officer's attorney.

CIA spokesperson 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 from the letter.

The US overthrew the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, but has found no WMDs in Iraq.

The US government has acnowledged some of its pre-war intelligence may have been faulty.

The plaintiff, whose identity is blacked out in the lawsuit as well as any reference to Iraq, is of Middle Eastern descent, worked 23 years in the CIA, much of them in covert operations to collect intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, said the daily.

The lawsuit alleges that the CIA investigated alleged sexual and financial improprieties by the plaintiff "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 are redacted in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit requests that the plaintiff be restored to his former position in the CIA and received compensatory damages and legal fees.

- AFP