Mary McCarthy CIA Leak Scandal: Give Back the Tainted Pulitzers
By Cliff Kincaid
Apr 23, 2006
http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27265236.shtml
It appears that one of the main sources of Washington Post reporter
Dana Priest’s dubious November 2, 2005, story about CIA “secret
prisons” abroad was CIA officer and former Clinton official Mary O.
McCarthy, whose firing by the agency because of her leaks to Priest
and other journalists has been making headlines.
She had been hired by Rand Beers of the Clinton National Security
Council, who went on to serve as an adviser to the 2004 presidential
campaign of Senator John Kerry. Mary O. McCarthy, identified as a
“U.S. Government/analyst,” is listed in Federal Election Commission
records as a financial contributor to both the Kerry presidential
campaign and the Democratic National Committee in 2004.
It is truly unfortunate for Priest—and the Pulitzer Prize Board that
just gave her a 2006 award for that questionable article—that these
damaging revelations have come out at this time. It is another major
scandal for journalism. On the other hand, those of us who suspected
and warned about a secret CIA war against the Bush Administration have
been vindicated. It turns out that President Bush has been fighting a
faction within the intelligence community that has been working with
the liberal press.
This war continues, with a Sunday CBS News 60 Minutes program about
the former highest ranking CIA officer in Europe, Tyler Drumheller,
who is attacking the White House for its use of intelligence
information before the invasion of Iraq.
While Judith Miller of the New York Times was condemned and ridiculed
by her colleagues—and eventually forced to resign from the paper—for
using Bush Administration officials as sources, the question now
before the house is whether Priest will lose her job because of her
partisan journalism. This will be another test of media credibility.
Accuracy in Media will insist on Priest’s resignation from the paper.
The case against Priest is supported by her public comments about her
“sources” for the story. On November 3, 2005, during an on-line
discussion of her article, Priest was asked specifically about my
charge that her article reflected “the view of a faction in the agency
that opposes this policy and wants to use the Post to convey its view
publicly.” Priest dismissed my column, saying it was laughable and
that most of the CIA people she had met were George W. Bush
supporters. It looks like Priest was trying her best to obscure the
political orientation of her sources. What’s more, her story was
false. There’s no evidence that there are or were any secret CIA
“prisons.”
Here is the complete exchange from the Post on this point:
“Washington, D.C.: Cliff Kincaid writing in ‘Accuracy in Media’ says
that your story on secret prisons yesterday ‘reflects the view of a
faction in the agency (CIA) that opposes this policy and wants to use
The Post to convey its view publicly. Once again, the secret war
against the Bush administration is on display for all to see.’ While I
don’t expect you to reveal your sources to us—although go ahead if you
want to do so—you should at least be able to tell us if there is any
truth to the notion that currently serving CIA officers are trying to
undermine the Bushies. Are they?
“Dana Priest: I’ve always found this view amusing, and rather
convenient for the White House, which likes to point to someone else
when its own policy decisions don’t work out right or fail to achieve
the stated goals (like other administrations, I would add). Most CIA
people I’ve met probably voted for George Bush. And the CIA is
responsible for executing the war on terror and capturing the vast
majority of the terrorist suspects around the world. No one from the
CIA and no one who used to be in the CIA proposed that I write the
article I did. On the contrary.”
If McCarthy was a Priest source, as has been reported, then it is
absolutely clear that Priest deliberately deceived the public about
where she got the story. Talking about CIA officers voting for Bush
was a diversion. She was covering up.
As to the charge that CIA officials “proposed” that she write a
certain article, I never made that charge. It was clear, however, that
CIA employees opposed to Bush were behind the story. To make matters
worse, it appears that the leak was disinformation—an attempt to
discredit U.S. policy through the use of false information.
The European Union’s antiterrorism chief, Gijs de Vries, is the latest
official to say there’s no proof of the “secret prisons.” He says,
“We’ve heard all kinds of allegations. It does not appear to be proven
beyond reasonable doubt.” This followed the findings of a European
human rights investigator, ***** Marty, who said that he was unable to
confirm existence of the “prisons,” as reported by Priest. The CIA
program, if it existed, appears to have involved temporary detention
of suspected terrorists. The Post, in an effort to make America look
bad, made it sound as though the U.S. had established a system of
gulags on foreign soil. It was hogwash.
Yet Priest was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, according to the Pulitzer
Board, for her “persistent, painstaking reports on secret ‘black site’
prisons and other controversial features of the government’s
counterterrorism campaign.” But that is clearly bunk and the Pulitzer
Board did not do its homework. To repeat: there is no proof of any
such prisons, and it looks like Priest was given a bogus “scoop” for
the purpose of undermining the administration’s war on terrorism. The
Post should do the right thing and return her Pulitzer. Former CIA
officer McCarthy and other leakers should be prosecuted for illegally
providing classified information to the media.
But the scandal could get even bigger. What if we also find out that
McCarthy was a key source for New York Times reporter James Risen’s
story about the National Security Agency (NSA) monitoring
international communications between al-Qaeda operatives here and
abroad? Risen’s sources for this story, as detailed in his book,
State of War, were “government officials,” apparently at various
agencies, “who know about the NSA operation…” One aspect of the story
turned out to be true—there was an NSA program to monitor al-Qaeda
operations on U.S. soil—but it was spun by the Times in a dishonest
way as to suggest that ordinary Americans were the targets of a
“domestic spying” program. Bush called it a terrorist surveillance
program, which is more accurate.
Clearly, Risen—and the co-author of his story, Eric Lichtblau—also got
an undeserved Pulitzer. They did their best to paint Bush as a
modern-day Nixon conducting illegal investigations. But according to
the Pulitzer Board, they were honored for their “carefully sourced
stories” on the NSA program. That’s laughable. Regardless of whether
McCarthy was one of Risen’s sources or not, that prize should also be
sent back. They distorted the nature of the program so that its true
purpose was beyond recognition. Their agenda was to undermine the
administration. This wasn’t journalism; it was political propaganda.
It’s a shame and a tragedy when the nation’s two major papers win
Pulitzer Prizes for running stories harming national security that
were clearly based on questionable sources with a partisan political
agenda.
If Dana Priest does not resign on her own, we will demand her
resignation at the Washington Post annual shareholders meeting on May
11.
--
"There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to
whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is
impossible." -- Jack Vance
"Civilizaton is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce
"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net
.
|
