C.I.A. Fires Senior
Officer Over Leaks
By DAVID JOHNSTON and
SCOTT SHANE, NYTimes on the Web, April 22, 2006
WASHINGTON, April 21 — The
Central Intelligence Agency has dismissed a senior career officer for disclosing
classified information to reporters, including material for Pulitzer
Prize-winning articles in The Washington Post about the agency's secret overseas
prisons for terror suspects, intelligence officials said Friday.
The C.I.A. would not identify the officer, but several government officials said
it was Mary O. McCarthy, a veteran intelligence analyst who until 2001 was
senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council,
where she served under President Bill Clinton and into the Bush administration.
At the time of her dismissal, Ms. McCarthy was working in the agency's inspector
general's office, after a stint at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, an organization in Washington that examines global security issues.
The dismissal of Ms. McCarthy provided fresh evidence of the Bush
administration's determined efforts to stanch leaks of classified information.
The Justice Department has separately opened preliminary investigations into the
disclosure of information to The Post, for its articles about secret prisons, as
well as to The New York Times, for articles last fall that disclosed the
existence of a program of domestic eavesdropping without warrants supervised by
the National Security Agency. Those articles were also recognized this
week with a Pulitzer Prize.
Several former veteran C.I.A. officials said the dismissal of an agency employee
over a leak was rare and perhaps unprecedented. One official recalled the
firing of a small number of agency contractors, including retirees, for leaking
several years ago.
The dismissal was announced Thursday at the C.I.A. in an e-mail message sent by
Porter J. Goss, the agency's director, who has made the effort to stop
unauthorized disclosure of secrets a priority. News of the dismissal was
first reported Friday by MSNBC.
Ms. McCarthy's departure followed an internal investigation by the C.I.A.'s
Security Center, as part of an intensified effort that began in January to
scrutinize employees who had access to particularly classified information.
She was given a polygraph examination, confronted about answers given to the
polygraph examiner and confessed, the government officials said. On
Thursday, she was stripped of her security clearance and escorted out of C.I.A.
headquarters. Ms. McCarthy did not reply Friday evening to messages left
by e-mail and telephone.
"A C.I.A. officer has been fired for unauthorized contact with the media and for
the unauthorized disclosure of classified information," said a C.I.A. spokesman,
Paul Gimigliano. "This is a violation of the secrecy agreement that is the
condition of employment with C.I.A. The officer has acknowledged the
contact and the disclosures."
Mr. Gimigliano said the Privacy Act prohibited him from identifying the
employee.
Intelligence officials speaking on the condition of anonymity said that the
dismissal resulted from "a pattern of conduct" and not from a single leak, but
that the case involved in part information about secret C.I.A. detention centers
that was given to The Washington Post.
Ms. McCarthy's departure was another unsettling jolt for the C.I.A., battered in
recent years over faulty prewar intelligence in Iraq, waves of senior echelon
departures after the appointment of Mr. Goss as director and the diminished
standing of the agency under the reorganization of the country's intelligence
agencies.
The C.I.A.'s inquiry focused in part on identifying Ms. McCarthy's role in
supplying information for a Nov. 2, 2005, article in The Post by Dana Priest, a
national security reporter. The article reported that the intelligence
agency was sending terror suspects to clandestine detention centers in several
countries, including sites in Eastern Europe.
Leonard Downie Jr., The Post's executive editor, said on its Web site that he
could not comment on the firing because he did not know the details. "As a
general principle," he said, "obviously I am opposed to criminalizing the
dissemination of government information to the press."
Eric C. Grant, a spokesman for the newspaper, would not address whether any
C.I.A. employee was a source for the secret prison articles, but said, "No Post
reporter has been subpoenaed or talked to investigators in connection with this
matter."
The disclosures about the prisons provoked an outcry among European allies and
set off protests among Democrats in Congress. The leak prompted the C.I.A.
to send a criminal referral to the Justice Department. Lawyers at the Justice
Department were notified of Ms. McCarthy's dismissal, but no new referral was
issued, law enforcement officials said. They said that they would review
the case, but that her termination could mean she would be spared criminal
prosecution.
In January, current and former government officials said, Mr. Goss ordered
polygraphs for intelligence officers who knew about certain "compartmented"
programs, including the secret detention centers for terrorist suspects.
Polygraphs are routinely given to agency employees at least every five years,
but special polygraphs can be ordered when a security breach is suspected.
The results of such exams are regarded as important indicators of deception
among some intelligence officials. But they are not admissible as evidence
in court — and the C.I.A.'s reliance on the polygraph in Ms. McCarthy's case
could make it more difficult for the government to prosecute her.
"This was a very aggressive internal investigation," said one former C.I.A.
officer with more than 20 years' experience. "Goss was determined to find
the source of the secret-jails story."
With the encouragement of the White House and some Republicans in Congress, Mr.
Goss has repeatedly spoken out against leaks, saying foreign intelligence
officials had asked him whether his agency was incapable of keeping secrets.
In February, Mr. Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee that "the damage
has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission." He
said it was his hope "that we will witness a grand jury investigation with
reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information."
"I believe the safety of this nation and the people of this country deserves
nothing less," he said.
Ms. McCarthy has been a well-known figure in intelligence circles. She
began her career at the agency as an analyst and then was a manager in the
intelligence directorate, working at the African and Latin America desks,
according to a biography by the strategic studies center. With an advanced
degree from the University of Minnesota, she has taught, written a book on the
Gold Coast and was director of the social science data archive at Yale
University.
Public records show that Ms. McCarthy contributed $2,000 in 2004 to the
presidential campaign of John Kerry, the Democratic nominee.
Republican lawmakers praised the C.I.A. effort. Senator Pat Roberts of
Kansas, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, "I
am pleased that the Central Intelligence Agency has identified the source of
certain unauthorized disclosures, and I hope that the agency, and the community
as a whole, will continue to vigorously investigate other outstanding leak
cases."
Several former intelligence officials — who were granted anonymity after
requesting it for what they said were obvious reasons under the circumstances —
were divided over the likely effect of the dismissal on morale. One
veteran said the firing would not be well-received coming so soon after the
disclosure of grand jury testimony by Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief
of staff that President Bush in 2003 approved the leak of portions of a secret
national intelligence estimate on Iraqi weapons.
"It's a terrible situation when the president approves the leak of a highly
classified N.I.E., and people at the agency see management as so disastrous that
they feel compelled to talk to the press," said one former C.I.A. officer with
extensive overseas experience.
But another official, whose experience was at headquarters, said most employees
would approve Mr. Goss's action. "I think for the vast majority of people
this will be good for morale," the official said. "People didn't like some
of their colleagues deciding for themselves what secrets should be in The
Washington Post or The New York Times."
Paul R. Pillar, who was the agency's senior analyst for the Middle East until he
retired late last year, said: "Classified information is classified
information. It's not to be leaked. It's not to be divulged."
He has recently criticized the Bush administration's handling of prewar
intelligence about Saddam Hussein's unconventional weapons programs.
Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting for this article.
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