LeaksFormer Pentagon No. 2 suspected of being source of Stuxnet leaks

The Justice Department has informed Gen. (Ret.) James E. “Hoss” Cartwright that he is the target of an investigation into the leaking of a secret U.S.-Israeli cyber campaign to slow down Iran nuclear weapons program.

The four-star Marine Corps general served as deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was part of President Obama’s inner circle on many important national security issues before retiring in 2011.

Sources in the Justice Department told the Washington Post that Cartwright is suspected of revealing information about the Stuxnet malware which disabled and damaged about two thousand uranium enrichment centrifuges in Iran’s Natanz centrifuge farm.

The Post reports that Cartwright helped launch the covert cyber campaign, code-named Olympic Games.

The Justice Department launched its investigation into the source of the Stuxnet leak in 2012. The leaks disclosed the details of one of the most secretive and ambitious programs of the U.S. intelligence community.

Cartwright was regarded as the architect of the campaign. A former senior official told the Post last year that Cartwright “was describing the art of the possible, having a view or vision.”

Cartwright was not popular in the Pentagon owing both to policy differences and personal friction. In 2009 he did not hide his opposition to sending thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan, and more recently, already in retirement, he gave public expression to his criticism of the heavy reliance on drones in the fight against terrorists.

He was also not well liked. Within the Pentagon, “he wasn’t seen as a team player,” said a senior military official who worked on the Joint Staff.

Cartwright was close to President Obama on many policy issues, but in 2011 Obama decided not to promote him to chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff because of the general’s increasingly acrimonious relationship with too many of the top brass.