CIA promotes top paramilitary officer to lead spying branch
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Version 0 of 1. The CIA’s top paramilitary officer was named head of the agency’s spying branch on Thursday, a move that may signal a broader organizational shake-up by Director John Brennan in the coming months. The new head of the National Clandestine Service, as the spying directorate is known, served on an internal panel set up by Brennan last year to evaluate sweeping changes he has proposed that would blur, if not eliminate, long-standing boundaries between analysts and operatives. The former head of the Clandestine Service announced his retirement abruptly this month largely because of his concerns about Brennan’s overhaul, current and former U.S. officials said. The CIA did not reveal the identity of its new espionage chief, saying that he remains undercover. But the officer’s first name and middle initial — Greg V. — have appeared in numerous books cleared by agency censors, including the memoir of former CIA director George J. Tenet. In a statement, the CIA described the new director as “one of the CIA’s most gifted and versatile leaders,” a person who “has developed a remarkable range of expertise throughout his career and a keen understanding of what it takes to run effective operations, even in the most difficult conditions.” The operative is best known for his repeated tours in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and his involvement in an episode at the outset of the war in which he and Hamid Karzai, who later became president of Afghanistan, narrowly escaped an accidental U.S. bombing of their location. In many accounts, Greg was credited with saving Karzai by diving on him to shield the Pashtun leader from the blast of a GPS-guided 2,000-pound bomb that killed three Americans. “Greg had immediately thrown himself on top of the insurgent leader when the initial blast hit,” Robert Grenier, the CIA’s top officer in Pakistan in 2001, wrote in a recent memoir. Others have offered different versions of that event. Gary Schroen, who was among the first CIA operatives to be sent into Afghanistan after 9/11, said the force of the explosion launched Greg “into Karzai, tumbling the two like rag dolls across the room.” Either way, the event cemented a relationship between the CIA officer and the Afghan leader that the United States relied on over the next decade. Greg served as the agency’s station chief in Kabul twice and most recently held a position as chief of the CIA’s special-activities division, its paramilitary branch. A former U.S. Marine known for his bushy mustache and lean physique, Greg was described by former colleagues as a popular figure at CIA headquarters, a veteran in his early 50s known more for strong leadership than innovative thinking. He is “naturally charismatic,” giving Brennan an important ally in pushing through overhauls that have drawn criticism from many in the agency’s upper ranks, said a former colleague. “He would be the obvious and consensus choice,” said former CIA director Michael V. Hayden, who would not discuss the identity of the promoted officer but said he has a “deep background. High regard. Very experienced, down to earth.” Brennan’s plans envision a reorganization that would be among the most ambitious in CIA history, aimed largely at replicating the structure of the Counterterrorism Center and other similar entities in which analysts and operatives work side by side. Proponents say the arrangement enables analysts to have a deeper understanding of adversaries including al-Qaeda and proliferation networks. But critics warn that doing away with separate directorates for analysts and operatives will make it harder to cultivate their specialized skills, and possibly erode analysts’ ability to remain independent and objective. Greg was among several influential members of a panel that weighed Brennan’s proposals and submitted recommendations to him in recent weeks. U.S. officials said the director has not made any final decisions on the matter. |