Smith, R. Jeffrey, and Michael Fletcher. "Bush Says Detainees Will Be Tried: He Confirms Existence of CIA Prisons." Washington Post, 7 Sep. 2006, A1. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
Smith, R. Jeffrey, and Michael Fletcher. "Bush Says Detainees Will Be Tried: He Confirms Existence of CIA Prisons." Washington Post, 7 Sep. 2006, A1. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
On 6 September 2006, President Bush "announced the transfer of the last 14 suspected terrorists held by the CIA at secret foreign prisons to the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said he wants to try them before U.S. military panels under proposed new rules he ... sent to Congress. Bush's statement ... represented the first time he has confirmed the existence of the CIA program under which Khalid Sheik Mohammed ... and others have been secretly held and subjected to irregular interrogation methods."
Dana Priest, "Officials Relieved Secret Is Shared," Washington Post, 7 Sep. 2006, A17, adds that, at the CIA, the president's announcement brought a "feeling of relief" to "the very people carrying out the program."
[CIA/00s/06/Gen; Terrorism/06/Gen]
Smith,
R. Jeffrey, and Michael Isikoff. "Seven Years and 10 Deaths Later,
a Spy Arrest Is Made." Washington Post National Weekly Edition,
28 Feb.-6 Mar. 1994, 33.
[SpyCases/U.S./Ames]
Smith, R. Jeffrey, and Dafna Linzer. "Dismissed CIA Officer Denies Leak Role: Official Says Agency Is Not Asserting She Told of Secret Prisons." Washington Post, 25 Apr. 2006, A1. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
"Nowhere in the CIA statement last week" was fired CIA official Mary O. McCarthy "accused of leaking information" on the existence of secret CIA-run prisons in Eastern Europe for suspected terrorists, "although some news accounts suggested that the CIA had made that claim. Though McCarthy acknowledged having contact with reporters, a senior intelligence official confirmed [on 24 April 2006] that she is not believed to have played a central role in The Post's reporting on the secret prisons."
[CIA/00s/06/Firing]
Smith,
R. Jeffrey, and Thomas W. Lippman. "Join the FBI, See the World."
Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 26 Aug.-1 Sep. 1996, 32.
The FBI plans to double its presence overseas over the next four years. The plan is to increase from 23 to 46 the number of foreign cities where the FBI maintains a permanent office. FBI special agents would increase from 70 to 129 and support personnel from 54 to 79. Despite several unresolved issues, among them a protocol between the FBI and CIA to avoid conflict over foreign operations, the plan generally has the support of Congress.
[FBI][c]
Smith, R. Jeffrey,
and David B. Ottaway. "Anti-Saddam Operation Cost CIA $100 Million."
Washington Post, 15 Sep. 1996, A1, A29-30. "The CIA's Most Wanted
Man: The Agency Has Spent $100 million Trying to Catch Saddam Hussein, but
Has Little to Show for the Effort." Washington Post National Weekly
Edition, 23-29 Sep. 1996, 14-15.
The CIA covert operation in northern Iraq began with a presidential finding signed by President George Bush in May 1991. The operation consisted essentially of "giving covert financial aid and encouragement to anyone who stood a reasonable chance of success" in toppling Saddam Hussein. President Bill Clinton's "appointees at the CIA and National Security Council ... concluded that it did not amount to much" and "proposed to cut spending for the program." The funding for the anti-Hussein effort was restored in the face of criticism from some members of Congress.
[CA/Iraq; CIA/90s/95-96]
Smith, R. Jeffrey,
and Walter Pincus. "Director of the Central Intelligence Budget."
Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 18-24 Dec. 1995, 29.
Deutch took over as DCI in May 1995, and has "sought to consolidate the management of an unruly intelligence community." He "is spending less time running the CIA than his predecessors" and more time working on community-wide budgetary issues. He has also "placed new emphasis on intelligence support to U.S. military operations."
[CIA/DCIs/Deutch][c]
Smith,
R. Jeffrey, and Walter Pincus. "Expert Panel Wants Intelligence Director
to Hold More Power." Washington Post, 1 Mar. 1996, A15.
"An expert advisory commission appointed by Congress and President Clinton has recommended that ... a new deputy director of central intelligence should be named by the president to run the CIA for a term of at least six years....
"But the commission ... rejected a series of other proposals for radical change by various intelligence experts inside and outside the government, ideas such as the closure or merger of various spy agencies, the transfer of all intelligence-gathering authority to a single czar, and the shift of certain civilian spy functions to the military or vice versa....
"Although the civilian work force at the National Security Agency, the CIA, and the Defense Intelligence Agency was shrunk by 12 percent from 1990 to 1996, the commission found that payrolls at these agencies increased by 26 percent. The result is that payroll costs have not only crowded out investment in new technologies, but also constrained the hiring of new employees needed to face new intelligence challenges.
"The solution, according to the commission, is to reduce civilian employment levels by more than 10 percent below those reductions now mandated by Congress....
"To meet the growing threat of worldwide criminal activity -- including terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and sale of weapons of mass destruction or their parts -- the panel suggested creation of a high-level policy group run out of the White House, called the Global Crime Committee. It would be chaired by the president's national security adviser and would include the attorney general, the secretaries of state and defense, and director of central intelligence."
[Reform/90s/CommissionReport]
Smith, R. Jeffrey,
and Walter Pincus. "Lake Makes Overt Sales Pitch for CIA Directorship."
Washington Post, 2 Feb. 1997, A, 1 A10, A11. "Campaigning for
Spymaster." Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 10 Feb.
1997, 29.
Lake has been making contacts with active and retired CIA officers, including nearly every former DCI, in a "carefully orchestrated campaign to transform potential skeptics around Washington into believers that Lake is the right man for the job."
[CIA/90s/Lake][c]
Smith, R. Jeffrey, and Walter Pincus. "Tenet Leaves Legacy of Big Successes, but Also Big Failures: Director's Record Has Been Mixed." Washington Post, 4 Jun. 2004, A12. [http://www. washingtonpost.com]
"Tenet is credited with sounding the alarm about the most critical threat to U.S. security in the post-Cold War era: Osama bin Laden and his adherents and allies. But he was unable to convince others in the administration of its urgency, and he was unable -- in time to catch the terrorists -- to forge links between intelligence agencies that would have put critical information in investigators' hands."
[CIA/DCIs/Tenet/04]
Smith, R. Jeffrey, and Curt Suplee. "'Psychic Arms Race' Had Several Funding Channels." Washington Post, 30 Nov. 1995, A1, A13.
[GenPostwar/Issues/Psychic]
Smith, R. Jeffrey,
and Roberto Suro. "Waiting to Close the Trap: For More Than a Year,
FBI Agents Patiently Built Their Case Against a CIA Officer." Washington
Post National Weekly Edition, 2-8 Dec. 1996, 8-9.
This article details the FBI's investigation that led to Nicholson's arrest. Among other matters, it notes that in early 1996 the investigators sent "national security letters" to Nicholson's financial institutions, requesting a record of his transactions. These requests "can be made even without a court-ordered warrant" and prohibit the institutions from telling the person involved that they have received such a request.
[SpyCases/U.S./Nicholson][c]
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