Operation Pliers, also known as Operación Tenaza or Operation Pincers is the name of an alleged U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to incite insurrection following the 2 December 2007 referendum on constitutional changes in Venezuela. The Venezuelan government published details of the alleged plans shortly before election day, and threatened to cut off oil supplies to the U.S. if there was violence after the referendum.[1] The US rejected the document as a fake[2] and called the allegations ridiculous.[3]
The alleged plan was reported by the Venezuelan state news agency Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias in late November 2007, shortly before voting day.[4] The plan was said to be elaborated in a document alleged to be an internal memo from the US Embassy in Caracas uncovered by Venezuelan counter-intelligence.[5] The document purports to be a communication from a CIA officer named Michael Middleton Steere, employed at the US embassy in Caracas, to CIA Director General Michael Hayden in Washington, D.C.. The document, dated November 20, details measures taken and planned to destabilize Venezuela during and after the referendum.[6]
The U.S. responded by calling the allegations "ridiculous"[3] and the document "a fake".[2] Independent analysts doubted the authenticity of the document, declaring that the lack of an original document in English is "quite suspect," and noting that "the timing of its release is strange."[2]