A CIA analyst who wrote a book that criticized the U.S. war on terror has resigned from the spy agency after it effectively banned him from publicly discussing his views, his publicist said on Thursday.

Michael Scheuer, whose book "Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror" was signed as "anonymous" and published this summer, will resign effective Friday after 22 years at the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites).

In a statement, Scheuer said the CIA had not forced him to resign, "but I have concluded that there has not been adequate national debate over the nature of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and the forces he leads and inspires, and the nature and dimensions of intelligence reform needed to address that threat."

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Scheuer's statement said senior leadership had allowed the intelligence officers working against al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to be made scapegoats for pre-Sept. 11 failures.

Scheuer was chief of the CIA Counterterrorist Center's unit which focused on bin Laden from 1996 to 1999 and remained a CIA analyst after that.

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