CIA Pakistan station chief unveiled in drone feud

[Magda Hassan]

I don't know why the Guardian doesn't say the name. It seems to be Craig Osth and he also seems to get around quite a bit.

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[TD]CIA, DEA, Operated Without Oversight in Brazil

by Carlos Castiho

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[TD](IPS) RIO DE JANEIRO -- The military aide to Brazilian President FernandoHenrique Cardoso admitted that the government didnot have complete control over U.S. intelligence agents operatingin Brazil.The military aide, General Alberto Cardoso, said the lack ofcontrol was only transitory. But he failed to explain just whythe CIA and DEA agents enjoyed such freedom of action here.
Nor did the general explain how the government planned toresolve the problem.
The actions of U.S. agents in Brazil hit the headlines after alocal magazine, 'Carta Capital,' reported early this month thatthe CIA had bugged President Cardoso's private telephones twoyears ago.
According to the weekly, Cardoso's phones were bugged in searchof inside information regarding the negotiations on theinstallation of a sophisticated air surveillance system aimed atdetecting drug trafficking operations in Brazil's Amazon region.
The project, known by its acronym SIVAM, sparked heated debatedue to allegations of corruption among high-level militaryofficers and government officials, denounced by executives of theU.S. company Raytheon, interested in holding onto a deal worth anestimated one billion dollars.


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[TD] The connections between the CIA, DEA, the military and drugtraffickers returned to the Brazilian political agenda after thediscovery, in the last week of April, that Brazilian air forceofficers were involved in shipping cocaine to Europe in militaryairplanes.One of the main suspects in that case is Lieutenant-ColonelPaulo Sergio Oliveira, one of the officers in charge of airsurveillance over the Amazon basin, where SIVAM operates.
Oliveira and three other officers were identified after asuitcase carrying 33 kilos of Colombian cocaine was found April 19on a Hercules air force plane, shortly before it was to take offto Las Palmas, on Spain's Canary islands.
The entire operation, that culminated in the interception ofthe drugs, was coordinated by U.S. agents -- which annoyed Brazil'smilitary brass and gave rise to friction with the U.S. Embassy,according to the local press.
U.S. adviser Craig Peters Osth was identified by the magazine'Carta Capital' as the head of the CIA in Brazil.
The Hercules airplane incident remains shrouded in mystery,despite parallel probes launched by the military and parliament.
Although the president's aide-de-camp denied that the DEA andCIA had listened in on Cardoso's phone conversations, heacknowledged that U.S. agents enjoyed ''too much freedom'' to moveabout and operate in Brazil.
The general said the Brazilian government had more control overCIA agents than those working for the DEA.
According to Deputy Jose Genoino of the opposition leftistWorkers Party, the DEA has at least 12 agents working secretly inBrazil.
Foreign Minister Luis Felipe Lampreia and Justice MinisterRenan Calheiros will be summoned before parliament this month toaccount for the latest episode in the complex saga involvingbusiness, narco-trafficking, espionage and corruption.


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http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9905a/cop...iadea.html