CIA analyst responsible for Rendition travesty promoted

The Patriot Act and other reactions after 9/11 sucks the life out of liberty

CIA officers make grave mistakes, get promoted

AP: Since 9/11, many whose errors left people wrongly imprisoned or dead have received only minor admonishments or no punishment at all

By ADAM GOLDMAN, MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON — In December 2003, security forces boarded a bus in Macedonia and snatched a German citizen named Khaled el-Masri. For the next five months, el-Masri was a ghost. Only a select group of CIA officers knew he had been whisked to a secret prison for interrogation in Afghanistan.

But he was the wrong guy.

A hard-charging CIA analyst had pushed the agency into one of the biggest diplomatic embarrassments of the U.S. war on terrorism. Yet despite recommendations by an internal review, the analyst was never punished. In fact, she has risen to one of the premier jobs in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, helping lead President Barack Obama's efforts to disrupt al-Qaida.