US intelligence rattled once more

ISN: Accounts differ as to whether the CIA’s top counter-terrorism official, Robert Grenier, was fired or resigned his post for opposing certain interrogation techniques used by the agency,in the latest US intelligence shake up amid continuing controversy regarding the Bush administration’s questionable wire-tapping practices.

Grenier leaves behind a vacancy at the top spot of the CIA counter-terrorism center, though some suggest he might remain in US intelligence in a different capacity.

“He’s not necessarily leaving intelligence work,” a source familiar with the agency’s counter-terrorism program told ISN Security Watch.

The former head will likely find a new role not involving counter-terror considering Grenier’s opposition to the CIA’s alleged secret prisons in Europe for al-Qaida suspects.

“It is not that Grenier wasn’t aggressive enough, it is that he wasn’t with the program. He expressed misgivings about the secret prisons in Europe and the rendition of terrorists,” said Vincent Cannistraro, former head of counter-terrorism at the CIA, the Times of London reported.

Grenier was said to also be opposed to certain techniques like holding suspects under water and other physical abuses.

Steven C. Welsh, a research analyst for the Center for Defense Information (CDI), said the criticism of the Bush administration’s failure to heed warnings ahead of the 11 September terror attacks prompted the CIA to dial up its intensity in the field, translating into a more aggressive style of information gathering.

That aggression has drawn the ire of human rights advocates and raised questions about the quality of information being obtained from suspects under duress and the legality of its procurement.

“We’ve obviously avoided another September 11 […] but it doesn’t necessary translate to a blank check when it comes to legality,” Welsh told ISN Security Watch.

The CDI analyst also noted that prisoners in physical pain say anything to make their torture end.

“The conventional wisdom among experts has been torture produced bad information,” he said.

Grenier’s departure is the latest upheaval in American intelligence since Peter Goss was appointed head of the CIA some 18 months ago.

Since Goss’s arrival, the CIA chief has cleaned house at a number of top spots at the agency and stressed the need to reduce intelligence leaks, which in recent months have been plentiful, even prompting concerns from other countries about the CIA’s ability to safeguard its secrets and those of US allied nations.

In an editorial, former Russian Lieutenant General Gennady Yevstafyev express his concerns with what he characterized as instability in US counter-terrorism division and how it might affect relations with its Russian counterpart agency, with which the CIA works.

“Grenier is the third head of the center to resign and such instability cannot benefit the common cause […] we hope that regular changes in this part of the US intelligence community will not provoke an exodus of professionals and terrorism experts,” wrote Yevstafyev, a retired officer of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.

He went on to convey what Yevstafyev said were Russian intelligence’s “mixed feelings over the possibility that Grenier was laid off for not being ‘aggressive enough or forward leaning enough’”.

“We advocate an active joint struggle against international terrorism. But we cannot accept the creation of ‘secret prisons’ in some countries, including Western Europe, the use of illegal methods of surveillance, and repeated bombing of innocent peasants in the northwestern border province of Pakistan,” he wrote, referring to the recent US aerial bombing of a Pakistani village in an effort to wipe out a number of al-Qaida leaders, a failed attack that killed several innocent people including women and children.

Goss has also expressed concerns about the CIA’s relations with its foreign counterparts and the agency’s recent leaks, like the alleged secret prisons.

“Too many of my counterparts from other countries have told me, ‘You Americans can't keep a secret’,” Goss wrote in a New York Times article last week.

The CIA chief is said to have blamed Grenier for the leaks, which lead to his dismissal or firing.

Meanwhile, US intelligence woes continue to afflict the National Security Agency (NSA), which is embroiled in a controversy regarding its surveillance tactics.

In December, it was first reported that the Bush administration was permitting security agents to eavesdrop on terror suspects inside the US without a warrant for a wiretap following the 11 September 2001 terror attacks.

Typically, the NSA only listened in on phone calls and monitored emails at foreign embassies before the attacks.

Some NSA officials have questioned whether the agency’s practices were violating US constitutional rights to privacy, as have lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

This week, the attorneys for terror suspect Adham Amin Hassoun asked the presiding federal judge in their defendant’s case to demand the government provide “any and all electronic intercepts” by the NSA that were not court-approved beforehand.

“Disclosure is necessary so that the defense can assist the court in making an accurate determination of the legality of the surveillance,” according to Hassoun’s motion.

Hassoun is accused alongside Jose Padilla, another noted terror suspect in the US, of belonging to a terror cell that provided financial and other means of support for Islamic militant groups.

Prosecutors said there were thousands of conversations taped that involved both Padilla and Hassoun and that it would take some time to determine which were authorized and which were not.

Carmen Gentile is an ISN Security Watch Senior Correspondent located in Rio de Janeiro. He has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan and Bolivia for Security Watch and Haiti, Venezuela and elsewhere for United Press International, The Washington Times and others.