 EFL
The rare firing last week of a CIA officer accused of leaking information to the news media stems both from the sensitivity of the subjects she allegedly discussed and the Bush administration's forceful efforts to block national security disclosures that have proved embarrassing or caused operational problems, according to current and former intelligence officials.
| This sort of firing should be less rare, at least until everyone at DoD and CIA understand again what it means to sign a security agreement. |
The use of polygraphs to force out the CIA officer, a historian and Africa specialist named Mary McCarthy who lately has been working for the agency's internal inspector, comes amid long-standing administration suspicions that employees of the spy agency have not sufficiently toed the policy line set by the White House on matters such as the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq.
| After all, why should they listen to the White House? They're the professionals, dammit ... |
A majority of CIA officers would probably "find the action taken [against McCarthy] correct," said a former senior intelligence official who said he had discussed the matter with former colleagues in the past day. "A small number might support her, but the ethic of the business is not to" leak, and instead to express one's dissenting views through internal grievance channels.
Nothing to see here. We don't have a lot of moles there. Just the ones in high places.
| He's correct, though; there are indeed channels to express your discontent with a given situation, and it doesn't appear, so far, that Ms. McCarthy availed herself of any of those. |
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