Washington Post June 16, 2010 Pg. B3
Federal Diary
Former CIA Agent Suing Agency Over Lead Poisoning
By Joe Davidson
When Franklin A. Richards, a CIA agent, readily accepted assignment to Iraq, he knew he might have to take a bullet — some lead — for his
country.
And he says he took plenty, but not because he was shot.
Richards, a firearms expert, was sent to Iraq in August 2003 to provide weapons training. He wasn't hit by a bullet during the three weeks he was there, but according to a lawsuit he has filed, he was seriously wounded by lead poisoning.
Now he can no longer work as an agent, or at much of anything else, he says. The former agent is suing the CIA because of a long list of
ailments that he alleges grew from being ordered to labor in a toxic workplace that even the Army had placed off-limits.
Phi Beta Iota: Obama has betrayed both the public and the government civil servants and uniformed personnel. He is nothing more than a continuation of “business as usual” under Bush-Cheney, and Leon Panetta is obviously nothing more than a placeholder who liked being played for a fool. This case officer (evidently The Washington Post no longer employs editors or fact checkers–in the foreign intelligence world agents commit treason, case officers handle them) deserves better. He should make this a class action lawsuit for $100 million, and seek $10 million for himself and his lawyer. CIA is covering up so many high crimes and misdemeanors, it is hard to get a grip on all of them, but the worse high crime has been CIA mismanagement of the clandestine, analytic, administrative, and so-called scientific and technical services. From the Afghan Eight to the Iraq Thousand, CIA is so morally bankrupt that plowing salt into the ground at Langley would be an upgrade.
See Also:
Journal: CIA’s Poor Tradecraft AND Poor Management
Journal: CIA as Poster Child For Dull US Intelligence
Journal: OUT OF CONTROL–The Demise of Responsible Government “Intelligence” I
Journal: Suicide Bomber–CIA Cluster a Gift from God
Journal: CIA Opens Climate Center–the Reductionism and Irrelevance Continues within a “Dumb Nation”
Journal: CIA Blows–Blackwater, $5M Bar Bill, and Reprise of Rendition Atrocities
