Closing a Peephole Into Iran: ex-CIA official speaks

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27 March
Closing a Peephole Into Iran
A spy ring infiltrating militant and intelligence networks based in South America was shut down after Sept. 11, a former CIA official says.

By Greg Miller, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON — In its scramble to marshal resources for gathering intelligence on Al Qaeda and Iraq, the CIA shut down a spy ring it was operating in South America that was providing a rare glimpse of the activities of Iranian militants and intelligence networks, according to a former agency official involved in the operation.

The program, which had taken five years to assemble, penetrated Iranian intelligence operations in South America and succeeded to the point that several of the CIA's informants were taken to Iran for religious training, the former official said.

But the operation was dismantled by CIA officials who were skeptical of its value, the former official said, and who were under growing pressure to redeploy agency funds and personnel from South America and other regions seen as less crucial than the nation's expanding war fronts.

Iran's intelligence service has been active in South America for decades, officials said. The decision to pull the plug on the CIA-run program came in 2002, after President Bush had declared Iran part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea, but before the administration made confronting Iran over its nuclear program and its support for terrorist activities a top priority.

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