SpyTalk

 

The novel's unforgettable depiction of the murder on the beach came back to me today with an ABC News report that the CIA's station chief in Algiers is being investigated by the Justice Department for allegedly drugging and raping two Muslim women. 

 

He was identified as Andrew Warren, 41 -- a Muslim convert, according to ABC -- who was ordered home by the American ambassador, David Pearce, in October "after the women came forward with their rape allegations in September."

 

If the allegations are true - the government's not saying much - I can imagine a trial in which Warren is convicted as much for a callous indifference to the Muslim women as for rape, much like Camus' antihero, Meursault.

 

None of which, of course, would excuse the particulars of the present case, in which the CIA's man in Islamic Algiers, a roiling pot of terrorist activity, is said to have videotaped himself partying with the women on separate occasions, doping their drinks with a knockout drug, and then helping himself to their bodies.

"It's really stupid if true," said a veteran senior CIA operations official, a former station chief himself, who never talks for the record. "I think the whole place lacks real leadership and they are not going to get any soon."

The CIA bristles at such talk, of course.

 

The first question on the minds of some ex-CIA people I was talking to about it was: How did the spy agency handle the allegations?

 

One, who had served under a "hard drinking, hard partying" CIA station chief in Baghdad, caustically called the alleged behavior of Warren "unsurprising."

 

"It will be interesting to see how the CIA responds to DOJ's investigation, i.e. whether it disciplines the employee," said this person. "My guess is they'll promote him."

 

Pretty bitter stuff. Yet:

 

In 1997, Jose Rodriguez, the CIA's Latin American operations chief, was investigated by the Justice Department after he allegedly interceded in the drug-related arrest of "an associate," according to news reports.

 

No charges were brought, and Rodriguez was later promoted to run CIA clandestine operations.

In 2005 he destroyed CIA interrogation videotapes, according to news accounts, over the objections of CIA leadership

 

No charges were lodged against Rodriguez, now retired, in that incident, either. But House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan is reviewing a number of CIA practices under the Bush administration. 

 

A number of former CIA employees say over-the-top drinking at the Baghdad station was ignored, if not sanctioned, by CIA managers in the years following the 2003 invasion.

 

"When I arrived, there was an out-of-control party atmosphere," said a former spy, in an account backed up by handful of other ex-CIA employees, both male and female, none of whom are authorized to speak about the situation.

 

"It was worse than I expected," one said.

 

This person recalled walking into the Baghdad station's bar one night in 2005 and finding male colleagues drinking shots off the naked chest of a woman splayed out on the bar.

 

Eventually the station chief was replaced, and his successor calmed things down.

 

But not entirely, five other former CIA operatives have told me: very heavy drinking was a way of life in Baghdad station.

 

But was there any harm in that? Did it affect operations?

 

It dragged down the morale of CIA agents dedicated to saving GIs' lives, defeating the Sunni insurgency and winning the war, said one.

 

"It set the tone," said this source, for "the 80 per cent of the employees who were there for just one reason, and a bad one: to get their ticket punched."

 

As for Algiers and the alleged rape victims' complaints against Andrew Warren, one former employee offered a withering comment.

 

"If they could sit on it, they probably did."

 

Another former operative pointed out that, according to the L.A. times, Warren served at his post in Algeria until "late last year."

 

Yet, according to a chronology of details published so far, Justice Department agents searched his Algeria residence in Oct. 2008.

 

"It's hard to believe the Agency didn't know what was going on by the time DOJ searched his house, or even before that," this person said.

 

"Maybe 'late last year' means October.  But it wouldn't surprise me if the CIA knew and did nothing about it until it became public."

 

To such insinuations, the CIA's top spokesman, Mark Mansfield, said, "I can assure you that the Agency would take seriously, and follow up on, any allegations of impropriety." 

 

In addition, in recent days CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano has complained here about what he called a journalistic "cottage industry" to portray the agency in negative terms.