Posted on 04/22/2006 12:27:36 PM PDT by demlosers
WASHINGTON, April 22 — In 1998, when President Bill Clinton ordered military strikes against a suspected chemical weapons factory in Sudan, Mary O. McCarthy, a senior intelligence officer assigned to the White House, warned the president that the plan relied on inconclusive intelligence, two former government officials said.
Ms. McCarthy's reservations did not stop the attack on the factory, which was carried out in retaliation for Al Qaeda's bombing of two American embassies in East Africa. But they illustrated her willingness to challenge intelligence data and methods endorsed by her bosses at the Central Intelligence Agency.
On Thursday, the C.I.A. fired Ms. McCarthy, 61, accusing her of leaking information to reporters about overseas prisons operated by the agency in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks. But despite Ms. McCarthy's independent streak, some colleagues who worked with her at the White House and other offices during her intelligence career say they cannot imagine Ms. McCarthy as a leaker of classified information.
As a senior National Security Council aide for intelligence from 1996 to 2001, she was responsible for guarding some of the nations most sensitive secrets.
"We're talking about a person with great integrity who played by the book and, as far as I know, never deviated from the rules," said Steven Simon, a National Security Council aide in the Clinton administration who worked closely with Ms. McCarthy.
Others said it was possible that Ms. McCarthy, who began attending law school at night several years ago, made a campaign contribution to Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 and had announced her intention to retire from C.I.A., had grown increasingly disenchanted with the often harsh and extra-legal methods adopted by the Bush administration for handling Al Qaeda prisoners and felt she had no alternative except go to the press.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Given her time in the Clinton White House it would suggest she is a true believer willing to do anything for "the cause". So was Mary part of Clinton directed dirty trick? Or was she a self motivated fanatic?
Remember, there were some real damaging leaks from CIA going all the way back to 2003. Did the CIA merely put out a number of different stories and look for which one leaked out? Then once they isolated the leak, have they simply been building their case until they reached a point they could drop the hammer?
There is still a lot of this story to come out. It may just be that this is a rope a dope in a rope a dope. Get the usual suspects to ride to Mary's rescue only to drop the other shoe and hammer them even farther into the mud?
I got the beer, who got the chips? This is going to be so much FUN!
Everything you said was true... except this.
Admittedly, just a few hints. But ...
1. The shareholders meeting was a disaster for them. Many shareholders withholding their votes for directors, etc. Pinch must be reeling. He just must.
2. NYT has shown signs recently that they're reading these blogs. And within the past few weeks they've actually responded on at least 2 occasions to what's been unfolding on these blogs. I've never seen that before.
I predict that by late summer the Times will be in full-scale damage control. This article is one of many examples where I think the leaders of this rag have just taken a complete leave of their senses. The paper has been gradually imploding; the slide, I'm telling you, is accelerating.
And she's singing like a canary for the Feds now ...
...er, Fitzmas...
HAAAA! Excellent. Fixitmus! I LIKE it!
Colleagues Say C.I.A. Analyst Played by Rules
By DAVID S. CLOUD“It looks to me like Mary is being used as a sacrificial lamb,” said Larry Johnson, a former C.I.A. officer who worked for Ms. McCarthy in the agency’s Latin America section.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/washington/23mccarthy.html?pagewante d=print
Larry Johnson is the crackpot who works with anti-Semite Ray McGovern to try to get CIA officials to leak vital secrets to hurt our national defense.
He’s a great character witness here.
I wonder if Mary McCarthy might not be closer to him than we know.
More on our friend, Larry Johnson, here:
Only Leak To Help Our Enemies | Sweetness & Light
http://www.sweetness-light.com/archive/more-hypocrisy-on-parade/
A Call to Patriotic Whistleblowing
September 9, 2004 . Washington, DCIt is time for unauthorized truth-telling.
Citizens cannot make informed choices if they do not have the facts–for example, the facts that have been wrongly concealed about the ongoing war in Iraq: the real reasons behind it, the prospective costs in blood and treasure, and the setback it has dealt to efforts to stem terrorism. Administration deception and cover-up on these vital matters has so far been all too successful in misleading the public. Also See:
TruthTellingProject.org Many Americans are too young to remember Vietnam. Then, as now, senior government officials did not tell the American people the truth. Now, as then, insiders who know better have kept their silence, as the country was misled into the most serious foreign policy disaster since Vietnam.
Some of you have documentation of wrongly concealed facts and analyses that–if brought to light–would impact heavily on public debate regarding crucial matters of national security, both foreign and domestic. We urge you to provide that information now, both to Congress and, through the media, to the public.
Thanks to our First Amendment, there is in America no broad Officials Secrets Act, nor even a statutory basis for the classification system. Only very rarely would it be appropriate to reveal information of the three types whose disclosure has been expressly criminalized by Congress: communications intelligence, nuclear data, and the identity of US intelligence operatives. However, this administration has stretched existing criminal laws to cover other disclosures in ways never contemplated by Congress.
There is a growing network of support for whistleblowers. In particular, for anyone who wishes to know the legal implications of disclosures they may be contemplating, the ACLU stands ready to provide pro bono legal counsel, with lawyer-client privilege. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) will offer advice on whistleblowing, dissemination and relations with the media.
Needless to say, any unauthorized disclosure that exposes your superiors to embarrassment entails personal risk. Should you be identified as the source, the price could be considerable, including loss of career and possibly even prosecution. Some of us know from experience how difficult it is to countenance such costs. But continued silence brings an even more terrible cost, as our leaders persist in a disastrous course and young Americans come home in coffins or with missing limbs.
This is precisely what happened at this comparable stage in the Vietnam War. Some of us live with profound regret that we did not at that point expose the administration’s dishonesty and perhaps prevent the needless slaughter of 50,000 more American troops and some 2 to 3 million Vietnamese over the next ten years. We know how misplaced loyalty to bosses, agencies, and careers can obscure the higher allegiance all government officials owe the Constitution, the sovereign public, and the young men and women put in harm’s way. We urge you to act on those higher loyalties.
A hundred forty thousand young Americans are risking their lives every day in Iraq for dubious purpose. Our country has urgent need of comparable moral courage from its public officials. Truth-telling is a patriotic and effective way to serve the nation. The time for speaking out is now.
SIGNATORIES
Edward Costello, Former Special Agent (Counterintelligence), Federal Bureau of Investigation
Sibel Edmonds, Former Language Specialist, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Daniel Ellsberg, Former official, U.S. Departments of Defense and State
John D. Heinberg, Former Economist, Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor
Larry C. Johnson, Former Deputy Director for Anti-Terrorism Assistance, Transportation Security, and Special Operations, Department of
State, Office of the Coordinator for Counter TerrorismJohn Brady Kiesling, Former Political Counselor, U.S. Embassy, Athens, Department of State
David MacMichael, Former Senior Estimates Officer, National Intelligence Council, Central Intelligence Agency
Ray McGovern, Former Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency
Philip G. Vargas, Ph.D., J.D., Dir. Privacy & Confidentiality Study, Commission on Federal Paperwork (Author/Director: “The Vargas
Report on Government Secrecy”–CENSORED)Ann Wright, Retired U.S. Army Reserve Colonel and U.S. Foreign Service Officer
Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatowski, recently retired from service in the Pentagon’s Office of Near East planning
snicker...
The MSM is happy with any report that trashes President Bush and his adminstration. They could care less whether or not the country is damaged.
On the other hand, baldfaced truth is to be ignored by MSM midgets when it benefits the President.
Berger should be serving hard time in solitary confinement for life.
Making a very public example of her probably played a VERY small, if any part in her treatmant...HER treatmant of USA SECRETS is what led to her treatment!
My, my, Karen Kwiatowski is a busy little bee.
Punch her name up on google and see.
I agree!!!
Bombshell Accusation: Rice Leaked Classified Defense Info
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.