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Vincent Cannistraro was Director of NSC Intelligence from November 1984 to January 1987 . He was Special Assistant for Intelligence in the office of the Secretary of Defense (January 1987-October 1988). Prior to 1984, he was a CIA officer active in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Central America, where he was a member of the CIA's clandestine service Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).. Cannistraro was head of the Central American Task Force in Washington from 1983 to 1984. He was removed by DCI William Casey because he opposed the paramilitary program. <Ref. President Reagan transferred the contra program from the CIA to the NSC where it was directed by Lt.Col.Oliver North after congressional authorization for the CIA’s Contra program expired in mid 1984.”<Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan opposition, April 14, 1982, the National Security Archive./ref>.

Cannistraro is the former head of Counterterrorism Operations and Analysis at the CIA's Counterterrorism Center; he led the CIA's investigation into the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am 103 by the Libyan government. Cannistraro ran the operation that destroyed the Abu Nidal Organization (ref: Mark Perry, ECLIPSE, published by Morrow in 1992.He left the CIA in 1991, since when he has been a consultant on global security events and intelligence issues for corporate and US government clients. He is often cited by U.S. media on these issues. He wrote two articles for the Mediterranean Quarterly advising the Bush Administration against invading Iraq and exposed the fabrications of a number of sources who claimed an Iraq WMD program.

He has commented on the forged Niger "yellowcake" uranium documents , which attempted to link Iraq with nuclear weapons development, and on the related disclosure of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame. He was a charter signer of a letter to President Bush arguing for the enactment of a ban on torture by American officials. He publishes Intelligence Brief, a global security newsletter.

References

1. “Director of NSC Intelligence from 1984 to 1987, Cannistraro went on to serve as chief of operations for the CIA's Counterterrorism Center and to lead the CIA's investigation into the bombing of Pan Am 103...” -- From a PBS interview that may be read here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/interviews/
2. Ian Masters, "Who Forged the Niger Documents?", AlterNet, April 7, 2005 -- Edited transcript of interview with Cannistraro

External links

• About Vincent Cannistraro, Intelligence Brief -- Biography

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