WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- A veteran CIA terror hunter has quit the agency, saying it gagged him for fear his exposure of intelligence failures would embarrass other U.S. agencies.
Michael Scheuer, a 22-year CIA veteran who headed its operations against terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, told United Press International that he was barred from publishing a critique he wrote in May "documenting management and leadership failures" in U.S. efforts to disrupt al-Qaida and capture or kill its leader, Bin Laden, before Sept. 11.
The CIA's then-number three senior official, Executive Director A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard "told me it would embarrass other agencies and might cause them to withdraw their support to our operations against al-Qaida," said Scheuer.
Effectively, Scheuer said, the other agencies were threatening to "take their toys out of the sandbox."
Critics say Scheuer's account -- not denied by CIA officials -- demonstrates the persistence of turf wars and bureaucratic friction in the nation's intelligence community, and the degree to which U.S. counter-terrorism is handicapped by the absence of a single leader for its sprawling and fractious collection of 15 spy agencies.
"If people can still choose whether or not to fight the war on terror," Scheuer said, "it shows that there have been no effective changes (in intelligence leadership) since Sept. 11."
