Gary Berntsen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gary Berntsen is a decorated former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) career officer who served in the Directorate of Operations between October 1982 and June 2005. During his time at the CIA, he was awarded the Distinguished Intelligence Medal and the Intelligence Star.

In December 2001, he was the CIA field commander for the agency's Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora. In his 2005 book, Jawbreaker, he alleges that Osama bin Laden could have been captured at Tora Bora if the US military (specifically CENTCOM) had devoted more resources to the operation.

In July 2005, Berntsen took the CIA to court alleging that they were violating his First Amendment rights and the Administrative Procedure Act by taking longer than the allowed 30 days to approve his Jawbreaker manuscript for publication. This delay caused him to miss the June 17 deadline for handing over the manuscript to his publisher and caused the book to miss its original October publication date.

Gary is also set to release his first piece of fiction on August 12th, 2008. The book is titled "The Walk-In" and tells the story of an American CIA case officer dealing with an Iranian defector from the Al Quds force. The defector claims that a catastrophic attack is imminent and the American case officer must decide what to believe.

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

 This biography of a person who has held a non-elected position in the Government of the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.