NEW YORK, April 29 (UPI) -- Britt Snider, the former CIA inspector general who was to head a joint congressional investigation into intelligence failures in connection with the Sept. 11 terror attacks, has resigned unexpectedly.
A spokesman for Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee, said Monday: "Sen. Graham regards (Snider's leaving) as an internal personnel matter and is not commenting." But intelligence sources cited sharp differences with committee members and staffers as the reason for Snider's departure on Friday.
Attempts to locate Snider through the CIA were unsuccessful. His deputy, Rick Cinquegrana, has been named acting director for the probe which is continuing, according to congressional staffers.
Several former CIA officials said that committee vice-chairman Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who had originally told United Press International that he backed Snider's appointment, had become critical of Snider's work for the committee.
However, Shelby's office also referred to Snider's resignation as "an internal personnel matter" and refused to comment.
Snider was picked in February to head the $28 million investigation. Intelligence sources said there had been disagreements with key staffers of both the Senate and the congressional committees over the choice of staff.
Several former CIA officials argued that Snider had been the wrong choice to head the investigation because he would have had to scrutinize the CIA, which he had only recently left.
"In Snider, you were asking a man to investigate a record that he was part of and helped to create," said a former CIA official who spoke to UPI on condition of anonymity.
A former CIA chief of counter-terrorism, Vince Cannistraro, said: "Many doubted the integrity of any probe headed by Snider. They saw him as merely a stalking horse for (CIA Director) George Tenet."
Snider served under Tenet at the Senate Intelligence committee at the end of the 1980s where he was Tenet's "special adviser," according to former CIA officials. He also served with Tenet at the agency, heading the investigation into former CIA Director John Deutch, who was stripped of his security clearances for mishandling sensitive documents, these officials said.
Snider resigned the same day that the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination of John Helgerson as Snider's successor in the post of CIA inspector general, the agency official responsible for internal investigations.
