--John Maguire, one of two men who oversaw the CIA’s Iraq Operations Group, was frustrated by what Suskind describes as the “tendency of the White House to ignore advice it didn’t want to hear – advice that contradicted its willed certainty, political judgments, or rigid message strategies.”
Isikoff and Corn discuss and quote Maguire extensively in their book on Plame. Maguire succeeded Bob Baer at Baer's position in Middle East operations and was active in a covert operation against Saddam Hussein, codenamed DB/Anabasis. He one of Chalabi's opponents in CIA, and also butted heads with the Amman CIA station chief over a covert operation in Iraq, with Parisian CIA station chief Bill Murray over WMD issues, and with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bremer, Rice, Feith, and Luti over various issues. He had a perception that other CIA station chiefs were refusing to cooperate with his covert operations, and is described as swearing at them and demanding their firing. Interestingly, he was also the CIA control officer for Sarkis Soghanalian. After leaving the Agency, he went into consulting on oil, airplane service, and Internet sales.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
In 2003, White House officials leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame after her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, spoke out against the Bush administration.
The incident and its message for democracy will be the subject of a talk Wilson will deliver when he visits East Carolina University Tuesday. He will present his lecture, “Speaking Truth to Power,” at 2 p.m. in the Hendrix Auditorium at the Mendenhall Student Center. The event is free and open to the public.
http://www.reflector.com/news/community/ecu-notes-former-us-ambassador-joseph-wilson-to-speak-530529.html
{NC Ping, please, MitchellC, and thank you.}