CIA ousts al-Qa'eda hunter 'for lack of aggression'

Telegraph | News | CIA ousts al-Qa'eda hunter 'for lack of aggression'

CIA ousts al-Qa'eda hunter 'for lack of aggression'
By Alec Russell in Washington
(Filed: 08/02/2006)

The man at the head of America's efforts to hunt down terrorists has been forced to resign amid concern that he was too cautious in pursuing al-Qa'eda leaders.


Robert Grenier, the head of the CIA's counter-terrorism centre, is the latest in a series of senior officials to resign from the agency over the past year.

Intelligence officials told the Los Angeles Times that the head of the CIA's clandestine service had become increasingly frustrated by Mr Grenier's approach, which he thought too tentative.

However, they insisted that his resignation was not connected with the failure of last month's attempt to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al-Qa'eda, in a missile strike against a remote Pakistani village.

Mr Grenier has been a key figure in America's fight against terrorism since the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.

He was the station chief in Islamabad at that time and played a major role in co-ordinating the subsequent campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

He was also pivotal in the countdown to the war against Iraq. In the summer of 2002 he was brought back to the CIA's headquarters and put in charge of a newly-created and euphemistically named Iraq Issues Group.

He was appointed to his new post about a year ago at a time of considerable turmoil at the CIA following the appointment of a new director, Porter Goss.

"The word on Bob was that he was a good officer but not the one for the job and not quite as aggressive as he might have been," a CIA official told the Washington Post.