WASHINGTON: A top CIA manager who had been removed from his job last year for abusive management has been named to a senior role in the agency department that conducts US drone strikes.

Jonathan Bank, 47, has been installed as deputy chief for counter-intelligence at the Counter Terrorism Centre, or CTC, which conducts the agency’s operations against Al Qaeda, the self-styled Islamic State and other militant groups. He supervises a team charged with protecting CTC operations by ferreting out spies, double agents, bad tradecraft and other security risks.

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Mr Bank was ousted as the head of the agency’s Iran operations division at headquarters a year ago after an internal investigation found he had created an abusive and hostile work environment that put the crucial office in disarray. Several key employees had requested transfers, according to current and former US officials who refused to be identified.

In a move officials said was without precedent, Mr Bank was sent home from Central Intelligence Agency headquarters near Wash­ington and transferred to a liaison job at the Pentagon. He was barred from CIA management for a year.

But he has emerged after a bureaucratic reorganisation by CIA director John Brennan. As part of the changes, the Counter Terrorism Centre got new leadership. The old chief, Michael D’Andrea was transferred.

Mr Brennan’s reorganisation includes new leadership training, but one of the complaints has long been that senior CIA leaders are not held truly accountable for misconduct.

Mr Bank’s name has been public since 2010, when he had to be evacuated as Pakistan station chief after he was named in a lawsuit accusing him of wrongdoing in connection with US drone strikes. Earlier this month, a Pakistani judge ordered Mr Bank and former CIA general counsel John Rizzo to face murder charges in the country over a drone attack.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2015

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