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CIA's top spy to step down amid infighting: Report

Iran Press TV

Sat Jan 24, 2015 7:19PM

The director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service (NCS) is resigning amid reports of infighting over a reorganization of the spy agency.

CIA spokesman Dean Boyd confirmed that the NCS director announced his retirement "after a long and distinguished career at CIA," The Daily Beast reports, citing unnamed sources.

"We thank him for this profound and lasting contributions to both CIA and to our nation's security," Boyd said.

The NCS director's name is officially a secret, although it is reported by some mainstream media sources to be Frank Archibald.

Archibald was the former director of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division and served tours in Pakistan and Africa.

Archibald's resignation comes at a crucial time for the spy agency, the Daily Beast said.

John Brennan, the CIA's director, is considering major changes to the agency's structure, including the possible creation of new intelligence centers and abandoning the organizational divide between spies and analysts.

Critics within the CIA see this as potentially undermining some of the CIA's core capabilities and a threat to the high-degree of independence it has traditionally enjoyed within the intelligence bureaucracy.

The CIA has seen some changes in the senior ranks recently.

The inspector general of the CIA, who had raised some serious concerns about the conduct of the spy agency, is also resigning at the end of January.

David Buckley, who has served as the CIA's internal watchdog for more than four years, investigated a dispute between the agency and Congress over the handling of records of the CIA's torture program.

Last month, the US Senate Intelligence Committee released a drastically redacted summary of its voluminous report on the CIA's torture program during the George W. Bush administration.

According to the Senate report, the CIA misled Congress and the White House about the harsh methods such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, mock executions of inmates at CIA "black sites."

AHT/HRJ