By Derrick Broze
A new report has revealed that for years top officials with the Central Intelligence Agency have intentionally deceived some of their employees by circulating memos with false information, a practice known as “eyewash.”
Interviews of current and ex-CIA officials conducted by theWashington Post detail how the tactic is an important but apparently infrequent security tool that helps protect important secrets by inserting fake communications into routine cable traffic. The actual, accurate information is then communicated on separate channels.
Senate investigators uncovered apparent cases of eyewashing as part of a multi-year probe of the CIA’s interrogation program, according to officials who said that the Senate Intelligence Committee found glaring inconsistencies in CIA communications about classified operations, including drone strikes.At least two eyewashing cases are cited in the classified version of the committee’s final report, according to officials who have reviewed the document. In one instance, leaders at CIA headquarters sent a cable to the agency’s station in Pakistan saying operators there were not authorized to pursue a potentially lethal operation against the alleged al-Qaeda operative known as Abu Zubaida. But a second set of instructions sent to a smaller circle of recipients told them to disregard the other message and that the mission could proceed.
The Post says that references to eyewash date back to the 19th century in books on spying, as well as more recent Hollywood movies such as Argo. One official who has seen the Senate report said, “The people in the outer levels who didn’t have insider access were being lied to. They were being intentionally deceived.”
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