| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| Personnel matters: Ex-spy hunter drops intelligence post bid |
| 2006-03-31 |
| Counterintelligence posts remain unfilled. EFL, rearranged for sense. Former CIA spy hunter Paul Redmond, who helped catch notorious Moscow mole Aldrich Ames, has withdrawn from consideration to become the Bush administration's top counterspy, U.S. intelligence officials say. Mr. Redmond had been selected to be national counterintelligence executive, but backed out after the FBI held up his formal appointment by conducting a lengthy background investigation. Why? Are they unsure who he is? Honestly! In addition to uncovering Ames in 1993, Mr. Redmond conducted the damage assessment into the case of FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen, who spied for Moscow for 16 years before his 2001 arrest. The national counterintelligence post and the deputy position in what is called NCIX remain vacant following the resignations of Michelle Van Cleave in January and Ken deGraffenreid a month earlier. Counterspy posts at the CIA and FBI also remain vacant or held by acting officials at a time when foreign spying continues to plague the administration. I would call that unwise, but I'm just a little Midwestern housewife. The office was recently placed under DNI John D. Negroponte as part of intelligence reform efforts, setting off a dispute over the role of counterintelligence. However, intelligence officials under Mr. Negroponte, including DNI Mission Manager for Collection Mary Margaret Graham, are opposing the new policy and instead favor making counterintelligence a passive support function for U.S. spying. In related news, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told a congressional committee earlier this week that Chinese spying is a "major threat" to the United States. A Pentagon report on the Iraq war made public March 24 highlighted Russian spying against the U.S. military and its military facility in Doha, Qatar. The report said documents obtained in Iraq showed that Russian intelligence passed U.S. war plans and other operational military data to Saddam Hussein's forces before the war. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #2 by "mole", are you excluding Clintonistas? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-03-31 18:50 |
| #1 This is one of many stories which make me think US intelligence has one or more moles working within it to screw up our efforts to gather intelligence and protect ourselves from the terrorists. This pattern of punishing the innocent and rewarding the guilty has to stop. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2006-03-31 17:54 |