Posted on 02/08/2006 4:07:01 PM PST by new yorker 77
The CIA's Counterterrorist Center chief Robert Grenier has been forced to resign after clashing with his boss who thought he lacked aggression in tracking down terrorist suspects, CIA officials told US newspapers.
The Central Intelligence Agency refused to comment on the reports.
Grenier, who took over the top job at the agency's counter-terrorism center a year ago, had to step down after months of tension with his superior, The Washington Post reported Tuesday, quoting three unidentified CIA officials.
The head of the CIA's covert intelligence operations, with whom Grenier had trouble getting along, thought his underling was not aggressive enough in pursuing suspected members of Al-Qaeda, The Post said.
The Los Angeles Times also on Tuesday quoted CIA officials, who asked not to be identified, as saying Grenier had been reproached for his lack of drive.
Grenier's resignation followed the CIA's bombing in January of a Pakistani village where it suspected Al-Qaeda's number two leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was hiding. The attack killed 18 civilians and four Al-Qaeda operatives.
At 51, Grenier spent most of his career at the CIA abroad. At the time of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States, he was stationed in Islamabad, where he helped prepare the US-led military attack on the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
The CIA's Counterterrorism Center, which runs field operations against terrorist suspects and provides analyses to the US government, has been largely sidelined since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security three years ago.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
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Why are we reading this in the French Press?
Beats me.
I smell another Bush bashing book on the way in the near future..
Clinton holdover?
It amazes me how so many Americans have forgotten 9/11. You'd think it was just another tragedy.
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