CIA's terror blunders

[unhappycamper]

CIA's terror blunders
Toronto Star
Aug 27, 2007 04:30 AM


Since 9/11, Canadian and American intelligence services have been busy swapping information on terror suspects. Just ask Maher Arar, the Ottawa computer engineer who was arrested by the Americans and deported to be tortured in his native Syria after the Mounties wrongly characterized him as an Islamic radical with ties to Al Qaeda.

When the embarrassing truth came out in Justice Dennis O'Connor's probe, Arar was vindicated and Ottawa paid him $10.5 million in compensation. Even so, Canadian officials scrambled to shield the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency by blacking out sections of O'Connor's report that identified the CIA as an actor in the sordid drama.

Bad instinct, that. As a damning report on the CIA that was released last week makes clear, Ottawa was covering up for an ineptly managed agency that bungled its own surveillance of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The report confirms that Canadian officials had reason to be cautious, even skeptical, rather than complicit, in passing the CIA information about Arar or anyone else.

CIA Inspector General John Helgerson oversaw the report, prepared two years ago, but a summary was released only last week. The CIA wanted it kept under wraps. In the same way, Ottawa had to be forced by a Federal Court order to reveal bits of the O'Connor report that Ottawa tried to black out to protect the CIA and other actors.

The CIA document flays the agency's leadership and credibility.

It should be required reading for Canadian officials who deal with any foreign intelligence service.


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[lynnertic]

1. It should be required reading for every American Citizen.

If only we knew what the report was named and where to find it. But the Toronto Star doesn't think we need to know that.

[peacetalksforall]

2. First thought. This article produced to benefit the WH. They even

have the Canadian government and press helping them smear the CIA. Their campaign to blame everything on the CIA is amazing and far spread. Over time, the WH couldn't get the CIA to 'say' EVERYTHING they wanted them to say and they had certain voices coming from the CIA contradicting claims of persuasion of the lying kind. Ironically, all the while they have the CIA working for them in rendition, torture, training, and setting up battles??????

Tell us again how superior we are to other countries in the world?

Is the U.S. going to pick up the bill for the lawsuit win? Or did they already do that?