In the post-September 11 world of the CIA, numerous agents who made critical mistakes or violated the law have received little in the way of punishment. Indeed, some have been promoted despite their reckless decision-making.

 

An investigation by the Associated Press uncovered multiple examples of the CIA not holding its agents accountable for actions that left innocent people imprisoned or dead. The news service found the spy agency’s disciplinary system can take years to make decisions, doles out reprimands inconsistently and shows favoritism.

 

In one notorious case, a German citizen named Khaled el-Masri was seized in Macedonia and thrown into a prison in Afghanistan for five months, all because a CIA analyst insisted he was a terrorist. The analyst turned out to have fingered the wrong person, and not only wasn’t punished by her superiors for the mistake, but has since won promotions and she now runs the CIA's Global Jihad unit tasked with hunting down al-Qaeda members.

 

In another case, the CIA’s inspector general accused CIA officials of allowing a prisoner to freeze to death in Afghanistan. According to the AP, “The man running the prison has completed assignments in Afghanistan, Bahrain and Pakistan, where he was deputy chief of tribal operations, while his boss has become chief of the Near East Division, overseeing operations in the Middle East.”

 

“When people are disciplined, the punishment seems to roll downhill, sparing senior managers involved in mishandled operations,” wrote the AP.

 

Former U.S. Senator Christopher Bond of Missouri, once the ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, says the situation is unacceptable. “Someone who made a huge error ought not to be working at the agency,” he told the AP. “We’ve seen instance after instance where there hasn’t been accountability.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

At CIA, Mistakes by Officers Are Often Overlooked (by Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press)

Other Governments Investigating Bush-Era Torture; Obama Administration Silent (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)