ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
The dismissal of Mary O. McCarthy from the CIA raises questions about morale and ethics at the agency. McCarthy was fired, accused of leaking information about the so-called extraordinary renditions of terror suspects to secret prisons overseas. The Washington Post reporter she leaked that to just won a Pulitzer Prize for a story she wrote about that practice. McCarthy had worked on the National Security Council staff in the Clinton White House. She made campaign contributions to the Kerry campaign and the Democratic Party. Melissa Boyle Mahle is a former CIA field officer, she left the agency in 2002. Welcome to the program.
Ms. MELISSA BOYLE MAHLE: (Former CIA field officer; author, Denial and Deception: An Insider's View of the CIA from Iran-Contra to 9/11): Thank you.
SIEGEL: Every current or ex-CIA employee I've heard quoted about this says whatever else is true, it was wrong of Mary McCarthy to leak such classified information. Is that a genuine wall-to-wall sentiment, or is it the politically correct thing to say after such an event?
Ms. MAHLE: No, that's really how officers feel that work in the clandestine world. Leaks are something that are totally against our ethics, and I don't think you'll find any officer that's going to defend that. There's no such thing as a good leak. They're all bad, because they do damage.
SIEGEL: Let's say, and I don't know what Mary McCarthy's motive was here, necessarily, but let's say that you were aware of a program that you regarded as simply wrong and possibly illegal, and one way that you might remedy that situation was to make it public. What would you do?
Ms. MAHLE: First of all, there are channels of dissent that are built into the organization out at the CIA, and you would be expected to work through those channels. You know, what we're seeing in today's period is really, though, something that's extraordinary, and this is a symptom of a growing dysfunctionality, because these channels of dissent are being shut down, and so officers are more limited in their ability to stand up and say this is wrong, I don't agree, there's some fraud, there's some, you know, mismanagement, or there's something illegal going on. Ms. McCarthy worked in the office of the Inspector General. This is the go-to office if you have a problem, if you think that there's something, that there's some illegality or something that's going on that's not going to be accepted or that's wrong. She, in this office, decided to go outside the system, and that's extraordinary.
SIEGEL: One can read many references nowadays to a crisis of morale at the CIA, discontent with director Porter Goss, many high-level departures. Do you read Mary McCarthy's behavior as a symptom of such a crisis of morale?
Ms. MAHLE: I think there is a very serious crisis at the CIA, and it's not new. It's been brewing for a number of years. And, yes, this is symptomatic. What we see recently is, are officers, they're leaving the clandestine services and the CIA in general and going elsewhere because they have a number of grievances that they don't feel are being sufficiently addressed. So you see this hemorrhage of very good people. Then you also see, you know, poor performance, let's be honest. The CIA has had some really awful failures recently. And now leaks. And this is not our first leak. During the run-up to the Iraq war, we saw an awful lot of leaks. But they didn't come from within the CIA. They came from circles around the CIA, and that's what makes this very different.
SIEGEL: But when you say that there's no such thing as a good leak, there are some well-connected journalists and authors who write about the Central Intelligence Agency, and they quote people. They get information. Obviously, there are people inside the CIA who say more than their superiors would like them to.
Ms. MAHLE: That may very well be true. You know, I wrote a book as well, and, but I made sure that every single word was pre-authorized for release. Because leaks are damaging, and when somebody decides to leak classified information, there are repercussions to that, sometimes very serious repercussions. The costs for operations, or just ability of officers to work overseas with confidence with foreign liaison services or just with agents, those are very high costs when you start shutting those down. And people who leak don't know the full parameters of the cost when they do so.
SIEGEL: That's Melissa Boyle Mahle, who's the author of the book, Denial and Deception: An Insider's View of the CIA from Iran Contra to 9/11. Melissa Mahle, thank you very much for talking with us.
Ms. MAHLE: Thank you.
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