- Details
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Category: Individuals and groups
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Created: Thursday, 16 June 2011 03:41
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Published: Thursday, 16 June 2011 03:27
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Written by James Risen, The New York Times
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Hits: 1725
WASHINGTON A former senior C.I.A. official says that officials in the Bush White House sought damaging personal information on a prominent American critic of the Iraq war in order to discredit him.
Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war.
{josquote}It is not clear whether the White House received any damaging material about Professor Cole or whether the C.I.A. or other intelligence agencies ever provided any information or spied on him.{/josquote}
In an interview, Mr. Carle said his supervisor at the National Intelligence Council told him in 2005 that White House officials wanted to get Professor Cole, and made clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to collect information about him, an effort Mr. Carle rebuffed. Months later, Mr. Carle said, he confronted a C.I.A. official after learning of another attempt to collect information about Professor Cole. Mr. Carle said he contended at the time that such actions would have been unlawful.
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