Pentagon investigating top intelligence official

Pentagon press secretary George Little said Tuesday evening that the investigation of Michael Vickers is being conducted by the Pentagon’s inspector general. – File photo by AP

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon says its top intelligence official, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate to be the next CIA director, is under investigation in connection with information he provided to makers of a movie about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.    

Pentagon press secretary George Little said Tuesday evening that the investigation of Michael Vickers is being conducted by the Pentagon’s inspector general.

Vickers is the undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Little said Vickers only provided unclassified information to the makers of the movie ”Zero Dark Thirty,” and that the session was arranged in July 2011 by the Pentagon’s office of public affairs.

Little said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has full confidence in Vickers.

In related news Republican Sen. John McCain watched the movie ”Zero Dark Thirty’ Monday night and said it left him sick, because it’s wrong’, referring to the suggestion in the movie that the CIA’s harsh interrogation techniques led to Osama bin Laden

McCain has said the waterboarding of al Qaeda’s No 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, did not provide information that led to bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. McCain said Tuesday that he was provided a copy of the movie and the filmmakers fell ”hook, line and sinker” for the notion that enhanced interrogation provided the critical information.

The Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, also has said waterboarding of Mohammed did not produce the tip that led to bin Laden.

McCain spent 5 1/2 years enduring brutal treatment by his North Vietnamese captors.

Source: Dawn News