Norway security chief quits in PAK agents row

[Devil Soul]

Norway security chief quits in Pakistan agents row
By Reuters
Published: January 19, 2012
OSLO: Norway’s internal security chief resigned late on Wednesday after revealing confidential information that the country had intelligence agents in Pakistan, government officials said.
Janne Kristiansen, already under fire for missing signs that a far-right extremist was preparing attacks that killed 77 people in July, said the small Nordic nation had operatives in Pakistan during a parliamentary hearing earlier on Wednesday.
Kristiansen, the head of the agency in charge of Norway’s internal security (PST), did not say why the agents were there.
But Norway, a close ally of the United States, has hundreds of troops in the Nato-led operation in Pakistan’s neighbour Afghanistan.
“PST head Janne Kristiansen has informed the justice minister that she will resign her position,” the justice ministry said in a statement.
“The reason is the possible breach of confidentiality through the disclosure of classified information.”
According to a transcript of the parliamentary hearing, Kristiansen made the comments in reply to questions on whether Norway should have contacts with Pakistani intelligence. She said the intelligence agency operated by the Norwegian armed forces, the E service, already worked in Pakistan.
“The E service has its representatives in these countries, so we cooperate via the E service about this country,” she said.
The Norwegian daily VG said on its website that this exchange about Pakistan was the reason why the security chief resigned.
A government source confirmed to Reuters that the VG news report was correct.
Prior to today’s events, Kristiansen had already attracted controversy for alleging that her agency could not have done more to prevent the attacks by Islamophobe Anders Behring Breivik, who committed the worst attacks in the Nordic country since World War Two.
“Not even Stasi-Germany would have managed to isolate and catch this person,” she told state broadcaster NRK three days after Breivik’s double attack.
“You would almost have had to have a chip inside the head of every single Norwegian, to capture all thoughts.”

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[kink]

Although she resigned because she blurted out things she should not have, she was already under pressure to quit because of failure to prevent 22 July terrorist attack by Anders Behring Breivik. Here is analysis from a Norwegian newspaper translated using Google Translate:

No responsible leader of a police organization in a western country can remain in position after the terrorist attacks that we had in Norway 22 last July. This applies even if they should have said and done everything right before, during and after the attack. Janne Kristiansen has obviously knew this and always thought about the what time she should choose. She could have chosen to go after the parliamentary hearing in the fall, as her protector, Storberget made. Probably she had planned to wait for the report of 22 July Commission, which will surely include criticism of both her and PST.

In many ways it's an admirable strategy, she has chosen. She wanted to be captain who joins the ship down. The problem has been that the last journey has been marked by so many clumsy formulations that accident either had to come sooner than later. The sensational handling of Akhtar Chaudhry (SV) questions about contacts with Pakistan, was so clumsy that it was a half days without either she or her superiors knew what was happening. Not even the media got it back in the first place.

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