Vincent Cannistraro was Director of Intelligence Programs for the
United States National Security CouncilThe White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
(NSC) from 1984 to 1987; Special assistant for Intelligence in the
Office of the Secretary of DefenseThe Office of the Secretary of Defense is a headquarters-level staff of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. It is the principal civilian staff element of the Secretary of Defense, and it assists the Secretary in carrying out authority, direction and control of the Department...
until 1988; and Chief of Operations and Analysis at the
Central Intelligence AgencyThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
's (CIA)
Counterterrorist CenterThe U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Counterterrorism Center was established in 1986. It is not to be confused with the National Counterterrorism Center, a separate entity.-Foundation and early years:...
until 1991.
Before 1984, he was an officer with the CIA's Directorate of Operations in the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
,
AfricaAfrica is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
,
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, and
Central AmericaCentral America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
.
Since leaving the CIA in 1991, after 27 years with the agency, Cannistraro has worked as a consultant on
terrorismTerrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
and security issues for a number of corporate and government clients, including
ABC NewsABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
and the
VaticanThe Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
.
Education and awards
Cannistaro has a B.A. and M.A. from
Boston CollegeBoston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. The main campus is bisected by the border between the cities of Boston and Newton. It has 9,200 full-time undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students. Its name reflects its early...
. In 1989, he received the Secretary of Defense's Award for Meritorious Civilian Service. He has also received the CIA Medal for Distinguished Service.
Professional life
While at the CIA, Cannistraro ran the agency's Central American task force that supervised covert action in the region, including the Nicaraguan Contras (both the left wing guerillas in the South and the right wing contras in the North). He moved to the Reagan NSC by the direction of CIA Latin American Chief Duane Clarridge, who supported Col.
Oliver NorthOliver Laurence North is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, political commentator, host of War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News Channel, a military historian, and a New York Times best-selling author....
. The Contra program was transferred in 1984 by President
Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
to the NSC, and Cannistraro was made Director of Intelligence there later that year. As director, he was responsible for monitoring the US intelligence community budget. and coordinating the approval process for
covert actionA covert operation is a military, intelligence or law enforcement operation that is carried clandestinely and, often, outside of official channels. Covert operations aim to fulfill their mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation...
. He also chaired the
AfghanistanAfghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
Working Group at the
White HouseThe White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
.
["About Vincent Cannistraro", Intelligence Brief, Cannistraro's website.]
Later, as Chief of Operations and Analysis at the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, Cannistraro led the agency's "investigation" into the 1988 bombing of
Pan Am Flight 103Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport...
over
LockerbieLockerbie is a town in the Dumfries and Galloway region of south-western Scotland. It lies approximately from Glasgow, and from the English border. It had a population of 4,009 at the 2001 census...
, which resulted in the conviction in 2001 of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a
LibyaLibya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
n intelligence officer. Originally listed as a prosecution witness, Cannistraro was not called to testify at the
Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trialThe Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial began on 3 May 2000, 11 years, 4 months and 13 days after the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988...
.
Cannistraro also linked
IraqIraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
with
Osama bin LadenOsama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
when he alleged that Iraqi intelligence agent
Farouk HijaziFarouk Hijazi is a former Iraqi government official who served the Iraqi government during the rulership of Saddam Hussein. Hijazi served as Hussein's Director of External Operations for the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service for many years before becoming Iraq's ambassador to Turkey.The...
had invited bin Laden to live in Iraq during a December 1998 meeting in
AfghanistanAfghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, though he maintained that bin Laden refused the invitation and did not accept support from Saddam Hussein.
He reported on the forged
NigerNiger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...
"
yellowcakeYellowcake is a kind of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. Yellowcake concentrates are prepared by various extraction and refining methods, depending on the types of ores...
" uranium documents as an attempt by some Bush Administration supporters to link Iraq with nuclear weapons development in order to increase public support for the
Iraq war), and on the related disclosure of the identity of CIA agent
Valerie PlameValerie Elise Plame Wilson , known as Valerie Plame, Valerie E. Wilson, and Valerie Plame Wilson, is a former United States CIA Operations Officer and the author of a memoir detailing her career and the events leading up to her resignation from the CIA.-Early life :Valerie Elise Plame was born on...
.
The front company,
Brewster Jennings & AssociatesBrewster Jennings & Associates was a front company set up in 1994 by the Central Intelligence Agency as a "cover" for its agents. The most famous is Valerie Plame, a "covert employee of the CIA" whose employment status was "classified" and whose then-classified covert identity was published in a...
, apparently also was used by other CIA officers whose work now could be at risk, according to Cannistraro.
Cannistaro runs
IntelligenceBrief, a security and information service for private clients. The Vatican is one such client.
On September 12, 2001, Cannistraro stated that five of the hijackers had entered the United States in Maine from Canada via Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and/or a remote border point near Jackman, Maine, several hundred kilometres southeast of Quebec City. A Canadian Intelligence officer declared that Cannistraro was wrong. "They didn't hijack Canadian planes, they got through airport security in the U.S., not here."