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| Justice, CIA clash over probe of interrogator IDs |
| 2010-03-15 |
| Bill Gertz The CIA and Justice Department are fighting over a secret investigation into a controversial program by legal supporters of Islamist terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay that involved photographing CIA interrogators and showing the pictures to prisoners, an effort CIA officials say threatens the officers' lives. The dispute prompted a meeting Tuesday at CIA headquarters between U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald and senior CIA counterintelligence officials. It is the latest battle between the agency and the department over detainees and interrogations of terrorists. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. angered many CIA officials and Republicans in Congress by reopening an investigation last August into whether CIA interrogators acted illegally in questioning senior al Qaeda detainees. According to U.S. officials familiar with the issue, the current dispute involves Justice Department officials who support an effort led by the American Civil Liberties Union to provide legal aid to military lawyers for the Guantanamo inmates. CIA counterintelligence officials oppose the effort and say giving terrorists photographs of interrogators has exposed CIA personnel and their families to possible terrorist attacks. As part of the disagreement, a senior Justice Department national security official removed himself from the counterintelligence probe last week after opposing CIA security worries. Donald Vieira, a former Democratic counsel on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who in September became chief of staff at the Justice Department's National Security Division, recused himself from the counterintelligence investigation into the recent discovery of photographs of CIA interrogators in the possession of defense lawyers at the prison in Cuba. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 Things may have change following 9/11, but priot to that I cannot recall a time when Justice or the FBI sat in the same corner as the Army or Intelligence Services. They have always had a seperate agenda. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-03-15 16:21 |
| #2 Spying is just so, ya know, uncool these days, um, unless it's the left doing it to their perceived enemies. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2010-03-15 16:17 |
| #1 A terrible climate for our spooks to operate in. Who's side is the Justice Department on in WOT? |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-03-15 16:01 |