Promoting the worthy

Harpers Magazine informs us that the new station chief of the C.I.A. in Baghdad was formerly deeply involved in the extraordinary rendition program.

Given the desperate situation in Iraq, the CIA's Baghdad station chief needs to be an exceptional manager who can marshal the agency's forces and work closely with the U.S. armed forces. Unfortunately, several sources have informed me, the CIA has nominated a man who is widely criticized within the agency and seen as ill-fitted to the role. Furthermore, the new station chief is said to be closely identified with detainee abuses, especially those involving “extraordinary renditions”—the practice by which terrorist suspects are covertly delivered to foreign intelligence agencies to be interrogated.