On Thursday, ex-CIA deputy director Jose
Rodriguez publicly protested that agents had only used water bottles
when waterboarding detainees, not the buckets shown in
Zero Dark Thirty. Disclosures like that must chafe
John Kiriakou,
the ex-agent facing 30 months in prison for passing info to a reporter.
"The contrast points to the real threat to secrecy," namely, the agency
itself, author Ted Gup writes in the
New York Times. "The CIA invokes secrecy to serve its interests, but abandons it to burnish its image and discredit critics."
At some
point, the agency decided leaks were OK, depending on the leaker's rank
and message. Former agents, once paragons of secrecy, now routinely cash
in with book deals, speaking engagements, and jobs as TV pundits and
Hollywood consultants. Take Rodriguez. In 2005, reporters weren't even
allowed to say his name for fear of prosecution. Now, he's an author and
speaker. "The agency has no apparent problem with that; after all, he
is defending not only his own handiwork but also the agency’s," writes
Gup. Click for Gup's
full column.
