Dana Priest - "Black Sites"

"Black Sites"

Titled "CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons," the article, published by The Washington Post above the fold on November 2, 2005, asserts the existence of clandestine, extraterritorial, CIA interrogation sites. This article triggered a worldwide debate on these "black sites." The article updated revelations first revealed a year earlier in an article co-written with investigative reporter Joe Stephens. Priest's article states that in addition to the 750 Guantanamo Bay detainees in military custody, the CIA held approximately 30 senior members of the al Qaeda and Taliban leadership and approximately 100 foot soldiers in their own facilities around the world. She wrote that several former Soviet Bloc countries had allowed the CIA to run interrogation facilities on their territory. On April 21, 2006, The New York Times claimed that a European Union investigation, under the direction of Swiss senator Dick Marty, has not proved the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe. However, Dick Marty's report, published in June 2006, showed that 14 European countries had participated in the CIA's extraordinary renditions, using various airports and military bases (i.e. Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Lajes Field in the Azores, etc.). US President George W. Bush later acknowledged the existence of secret prisons operated by the CIA during a speech on September 6, 2006.

Speaking about the methods she used to develop the story, Priest said that President Bush, former vice president Cheney and other National Security Council members personally tried to persuade the Post not to publish the story in a White House meeting, but that executive edtitor Leonard Downie made the decision to proceed. In an interview, Priest confirmed that the CIA had referred her story to the Justice Department, and that various Congressmembers have called for an inquiry, to determine whether she or her sources had broken any laws. The Washington Post reported on April 21, 2006, that a CIA employee, Mary O. McCarthy, was fired for allegedly leaking classified information to Priest and other journalists. The allegation has been disputed by McCarthy and then by The Washington Post.

In an extended interview with Frontline, Priest responded to criticism that her Post reporting could have damaged national security by saying, "There's no floodgate of information out there in the realm of intelligence; there just isn't. That defies looking at the newspapers every day. People who say that, they're just taking the word of the government. I think we did do a very responsible job at what we did. We tried to figure out a way to get as much as information to the public as we could without damaging national security." Replying to a follow-up question about the possibility of damaging U.S. interests by publicizing or alluding to various intelligence capabilities, sources and methods, Priest said, "Does that make sense to you? Letting the bad guys know that we can eavesdrop on them, they don't know that? I think one of the revealing facts about the NSA case, if you take the government on the face value, is the extent to which they are underestimating the enemy, which is not a good thing if you want to defeat the enemy."