http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4013805.stm
Full Version: The C I A Is In Turmoil
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| QUOTE |
| The widespread reports of turmoil within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) centre on its new director, Porter Goss. An ex-Republican Congressman who was confirmed in the job shortly before the presidential election, Mr Goss has arrived at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia with a very clear agenda. In his view, change is needed after a series of intelligence failures, most recently over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme. But his plans have reportedly met with resistance from long-serving senior officers. Some of them have left the agency and others have threatened to leave. There is no doubt that Mr Goss is a man of strong views. When I interviewed him earlier this year, before he was nominated to run the CIA, he made clear that he thought the Agency had failed in its "core mission". "The core business of intelligence is spying", he told me. "That means close in access to the hard targets. That means a lot of risk. In his view, it needed "clandestine officers who know how to run agents into hard target areas, all of the people skills, all of the tradecraft skills that go into this. "Those are things we sort of let go...we suddenly found ourselves disinvesting - not just not investing - but actually disinvesting in our core collection business [in the 1990s]." He warned that, as well as greater investment, a real shake-up was needed in the clandestine service that recruits spies, and throughout the intelligence community. As he put it, "This is not just [about] individuals or moving chairs. Some really serious changes" were needed. Mr Goss's supporters argue that the current tensions merely arise from the resistance of a large, entrenched bureaucracy to being told it needs to improve its act. Other critics point to Mr Goss's reliance on a small group of aides he has brought with him from Congress who are not making themselves popular. Politicisation? But the real question is whether there is an agenda to do more than reform the CIA internally, and bring it to heel politicially. Some people both inside and outside the CIA fear this may be the case. They worry that Mr Goss will use the battering that the agency took over 9/11 and Iraq to clear the decks. Other observers say charges of politicisation are being used to undermine much-needed reform. What is certain is that US right-wingers have grown increasingly critical of the CIA, and some have accused it of leaking like a sieve in order to undermine the Bush administration. Information has found its way to the press which presented the CIA as being prescient about events like the Iraq insurgency, but finding itself ignored by the administration because the warnings did not fit with their agenda. One columnist has even written that there was almost a sense that the agency was campaigning for John Kerry to win - and that this is unacceptable for a part of the US government which is supposed to stay out of politics and policy-making. Rusty cogs? CIA officer Mike Scheuer became part of the row when his book Imperial Hubris was published anonymously over the summer. The CIA allowed him to conduct media interviews in which he argued the invasion of Iraq had been a "gift" to Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, by confirming the belief in large parts of the Muslim world that the US was an aggressive power. After being gagged by the CIA, he decided to quit last week. But he told me he placed the blame on a long-standing resistance from senior officers in the CIA and around the government to taking risks in going after Osama Bin Laden and not on the new director. Whatever the cause of the current problems, there is a fear that a crisis in the CIA is the last thing needed at the moment. "The agency seems in free-fall in Washington and that is a very, very bad omen in the middle of a war," said Congresswoman Jane Harman, the top Democrat on the House permanent select committee on intelligence, on CBS Television. Some CIA officers have already left, others seem likely to leave in the coming days and weeks, but what kind of agency emerges from the fallout - and whether it will be stronger and more effective - is something no-one yet knows. |
How many does this make now?
Here's more on Mike Scheuer:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4012839.stm
| QUOTE |
| The CIA agent who headed the hunt for Osama Bin Laden in the late 1990s has called for a national debate in the US on the cost of support for Israel. Mike Scheuer quit the CIA last week, as did CIA deputy director John McLaughlin, fuelling rumours of serious internal rifts and low morale. In a BBC interview, Mr Scheuer said US policies risked "an extraordinarily long and bloody war" against al-Qaeda. He said he had resigned to speak out over US government security failings. Mr Scheuer, who has written two books anonymously, said he finally decided to leave the CIA after being told to stop publicising his worries about policy failings. He said the CIA's executive director had presented him with ways to stay on during a "very cordial, friendly" talk, but "all of them included not speaking out any more". Blind spot Mr Scheuer, who began tracking Osama Bin Laden in the mid-1990s during the Clinton administration, said the White House had consistently failed to understand the threat from al-Qaeda or to take it seriously, and was still doing so. "I don't think they get it now," he told BBC Security Correspondent Gordon Corera, warning of al-Qaeda's "high degree of professionalism" in seeking out weapons of mass destruction and nuclear material. Al-Qaeda's antagonism to the US was based on "a specific set of US policies that have been in gear for 30 years and have not been reviewed, have not been debated, have not been questioned", he said. Instead, both contenders in the recent US presidential election had told voters that al-Qaeda was opposed to American values on women's rights or the sale of alcohol, warnings that sidestepped many major issues. Al-Qaeda's hostility stemmed from US government's "unqualified support for Israel" and desire "to manipulate the price of oil" in favour of Western consumers, he said. Al-Qaeda also views US-supported Arab regimes like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan as "Muslim tyrannies". Confronting big issues In his view, "there should be a debate over support for Israel", alternative energy and how the US manages its relationship with the Muslim world. He offered no policy blueprint, saying that US citizens might decide to continue to support existing strategy, but would then be able to do so knowing the risks. "The American people would be going into the future knowing that they were faced with an extraordinarily long and bloody war to be fought because of those policies", he said. Mr Scheuer also lambasted US administrations for being soft on terrorism, missing chances to attack Osama Bin Laden, and being over-concerned about public opinion in Europe and the Muslim world. Infighting The 9/11 commission's report had shown that US intelligence services "had presented the government with at least 10 different occasions on which Osama Bin Laden could've been captured or attacked by the US military", he said. "The decisions were not taken on the basis of defending American citizens...(they) were always made on the basis of not offending Muslim opinion, not offending European opinion," he added. The 9/11commission's report published in July criticised the CIA for faulty intelligence and poor co-operation with other government agencies. Many commentators believe its revelations drove CIA director George Tenet to resign in June, ahead of publication. His deputy, Mr McLaughlin, stepped in to run the agency on a temporary basis, until Porter Goss took over the top job two months ago. Now Mr McLaughlin has also gone, amid rumours of bitter divisions about the agency's role and future direction. |
Watch. If this is not soon linked to the neocon purge of the CIA, I'll eat my hat.
'Bina.
But will you eat the entire collection of funky hats?
Here's an interesting twist:
Remember the WMD investigation commitee? The one to investigate the intelligence failures that led to our illigitimate invasion of Iraq? Well, the investigation was postponed until after the election. (This was decided so long ago that we only had 513 dead soldiers at the time, if that tells you anything) Well, it was blamed primarily on the CIA. Now that these guys aren't beholden to their job security any longer, and coupled with the presumed displeasure of the purging of the liberals, I have to wonder what they might have to say now. Of course, the WMD investigation commitee is totally stacked, so I expect them not to even talk to these guys now and for the mainstream press to never ever mention those facts, but who knows. At the very least there should be some new good books coming out from these two.
Oh crap, I forgot this:
the kinda crappy and needin' to be updated POAC page on the WMD intel investigation
Here's an interesting twist:
Remember the WMD investigation commitee? The one to investigate the intelligence failures that led to our illigitimate invasion of Iraq? Well, the investigation was postponed until after the election. (This was decided so long ago that we only had 513 dead soldiers at the time, if that tells you anything) Well, it was blamed primarily on the CIA. Now that these guys aren't beholden to their job security any longer, and coupled with the presumed displeasure of the purging of the liberals, I have to wonder what they might have to say now. Of course, the WMD investigation commitee is totally stacked, so I expect them not to even talk to these guys now and for the mainstream press to never ever mention those facts, but who knows. At the very least there should be some new good books coming out from these two.
Oh crap, I forgot this:
the kinda crappy and needin' to be updated POAC page on the WMD intel investigation
I'm reading Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies right now, and it sounds to me like the CIA is being made a scapegoat. (Well, duh--I've long suspected as much anyhow.) George Tenet, according to Clarke, WAS doing his job correctly on 9-11. And so were a lot of agents, both then and in the lead-up to the day. But as we all know, Dubya was ignoring them like THEY were the little kids and HE was the expert. Uh, George--it's more like the other way around. The real expert never throws a tantrum on a day of national emergency, to the tune of these actual Bushwords: "NO! I don't care what the international lawyers say, we're gonna kick some ass." (That was his response to, of all people, RUMMY, who had the audacity to say that international law forbade use of force as retribution, permitting it only to prevent future attacks.)
So it looks more and more to me like 9-11 was purposefully allowed to happen, and the CIA was ignored, but now it's being made the fall guy and heads are rolling in an effort to mold the institution to neo-con purposes, rather than to improve the way it does its job. Faulty intelligence, faulty intelligence, sqawk, tweedle, Polly wanna cracker! Sound familiar?
'Bina.
So it looks more and more to me like 9-11 was purposefully allowed to happen, and the CIA was ignored, but now it's being made the fall guy and heads are rolling in an effort to mold the institution to neo-con purposes, rather than to improve the way it does its job. Faulty intelligence, faulty intelligence, sqawk, tweedle, Polly wanna cracker! Sound familiar?
'Bina.
| QUOTE (BinaBecker @ Tuesday, 16 November 2004, 10:01 am) |
| I'm reading Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies right now, and it sounds to me like the CIA is being made a scapegoat. (Well, duh--I've long suspected as much anyhow.) George Tenet, according to Clarke, WAS doing his job correctly on 9-11. And so were a lot of agents, both then and in the lead-up to the day. But as we all know, Dubya was ignoring them like THEY were the little kids and HE was the expert. Uh, George--it's more like the other way around. The real expert never throws a tantrum on a day of national emergency, to the tune of these actual Bushwords: "NO! I don't care what the international lawyers say, we're gonna kick some ass." (That was his response to, of all people, RUMMY, who had the audacity to say that international law forbade use of force as retribution, permitting it only to prevent future attacks.) So it looks more and more to me like 9-11 was purposefully allowed to happen, and the CIA was ignored, but now it's being made the fall guy and heads are rolling in an effort to mold the institution to neo-con purposes, rather than to improve the way it does its job. Faulty intelligence, faulty intelligence, sqawk, tweedle, Polly wanna cracker! Sound familiar? 'Bina. |
Yup, Shrub needed a reason to start a war....
'Doc
I suspect it was Cheney who was pushing all the buttons personally, Bush wouldnt be clever enough to organise anything!
| QUOTE (Pinko_Commie @ Tuesday, 16 November 2004, 10:28 am) |
| I suspect it was Cheney who was pushing all the buttons personally, Bush wouldnt be clever enough to organise anything! |
Oh yeah, but Cheney needed Shrub to stay in office, and this was the tool.
'Doc
| QUOTE (Pinko_Commie @ Tuesday, 16 November 2004, 1:28 pm) |
| I suspect it was Cheney who was pushing all the buttons personally, Bush wouldnt be clever enough to organise anything! |
Funny you should say that. Richard Clarke practically comes out with it, saying that in some circles, Cheney was considered THE president where national security was concerned. And clearly HE fluffed it, too. He is far more of a right-wing ideologue than he lets on, more than anything else, in fact.
'Bina.
Only a SLIGHT exaggeration. Actually, they prefer to fake the messenger's suicide.
'Bina.
| QUOTE (BinaBecker @ Tuesday, 16 November 2004, 2:26 pm) |
| Funny you should say that. Richard Clarke practically comes out with it, saying that in some circles, Cheney was considered THE president where national security was concerned. And clearly HE fluffed it, too. He is far more of a right-wing ideologue than he lets on, more than anything else, in fact. 'Bina. |
Why do you think that Cheney has control of the "football", they probably gave Shrub a toy one to play with....
'Doc
'Bina.
| QUOTE (BinaBecker @ Tuesday, 16 November 2004, 10:01 am) |
| I'm reading Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies right now, and it sounds to me like the CIA is being made a scapegoat. (Well, duh--I've long suspected as much anyhow.) George Tenet, according to Clarke, WAS doing his job correctly on 9-11. And so were a lot of agents, both then and in the lead-up to the day. But as we all know, Dubya was ignoring them like THEY were the little kids and HE was the expert. Uh, George--it's more like the other way around. The real expert never throws a tantrum on a day of national emergency, to the tune of these actual Bushwords: "NO! I don't care what the international lawyers say, we're gonna kick some ass." (That was his response to, of all people, RUMMY, who had the audacity to say that international law forbade use of force as retribution, permitting it only to prevent future attacks.) So it looks more and more to me like 9-11 was purposefully allowed to happen, and the CIA was ignored, but now it's being made the fall guy and heads are rolling in an effort to mold the institution to neo-con purposes, rather than to improve the way it does its job. Faulty intelligence, faulty intelligence, sqawk, tweedle, Polly wanna cracker! Sound familiar? |
What's interesting about this is how the mendacity of these NeoCon bastards, coupled with the Bush inner circle of war profiteers, managed to corrupt everyone who came within their power orbit. Before Bush, both George Tenet and Colin Powell were highly respected public servants, not only here but abroad. Powell was easily the world community's most trusted and admired Bush cabinet member. Tenet had served President Clinton well, and both were honest and dedicated.
After repeated warnings of an impending terrorist attack by the CIA that were deliberately ignored by Bush, Tenet and Powell dutifully followed the party line and were railroaded by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the NeoCons to manufacture "intelligence" to justify an Iraq invasion. Against his better professional instincts Tenet caved to the war consensus to the point of making that unbelievable "slam dunk" statement to Bush about the reliability of his faulty intelligence. Despite his misgivings when he told Bush the famous Pottery Barn rule as a metaphor for Iraq, "if you break it you own it," Powell took the warmongers' dog and pony show to the UN, replete with fake graphics and alarmist rhetoric. Powell delivered it unflinchingly as a stony-faced Tenet sat behind him, in the best historical tradition of every pretext for war ever devised by a despotic regime, and of the "democracy" that produced the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
So now, both Powell and Tenet before him have resigned in quiet disgrace, their public reputations tarnished forever. Tenet was only months away from becoming the longest serving CIA Director in the agency's history before he was shoved aside as the fall guy for all the failings of the miserable bastards running the show. Powell, likewise disgraced himself, and never did the honorable thing, which was to resign in protest over Bush's venal policies. He could never bring himself to be disloyal in a time of war.
In the end, they were both corrupted by the Bush regime, as others before them had been (Christie Whitman of EPA), but could never muster the patriotic courage to defy the policies of their government. Good riddance.
Shrub doesn't want anyone around that is professional he just wants yes man that will cover his dumb ass.....
'Doc
'Doc
| QUOTE (Dr. Left @ Thursday, 18 November 2004, 5:56 am) |
| Shrub doesn't want anyone around that is professional he just wants yes man that will cover his dumb ass..... 'Doc |
yes, thank you. the CIA is now under control of the Bush Crime Family
| QUOTE (FogerRox @ Thursday, 18 November 2004, 7:19 am) | ||
yes, thank you. the CIA is now under control of the Bush Crime Family |
Yup you have it, not to mention the Repugs have changed the Congressional Rules so that Delay can stay in office even though he has been indicted....
I hate repugs I really do....
'Doc
Umm the indictment hasnt come down yet right?
| QUOTE (FogerRox @ Thursday, 18 November 2004, 11:28 am) |
| Umm the indictment hasnt come down yet right? |
True, but we know this bastard is guilty and we know that the inditement will be coming down. I don't think the bastard can stop this one. I think this is a frieght time that is about to squash this scumbag....at least I hope...
'Doc
'Bina.
| QUOTE (BinaBecker @ Monday, 22 November 2004, 11:15 am) |
| 'Bina. |
Great , love it Bina....
'Doc
'Bina.
| QUOTE (BinaBecker @ Monday, 22 November 2004, 8:38 pm) |
| 'Bina. |
Oh yeah, that says it all....
'Doc
| QUOTE |
| Two more senior officials of the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine service are stepping down, intelligence officials said Wednesday, in the latest sign of upheaval in the agency under its new chief, Porter J. Goss. As the chiefs of the Europe and Far East divisions, the two officials have headed spying operations in some of the most important regions of the world and were among a group known as the barons in the highest level of clandestine service, the Directorate of Operations. The directorate has been the main target of an overhaul effort by Mr. Goss and his staff. Its chief, Stephen R. Kappes, and his deputy resigned this month after a dispute with the new management team. An intelligence official said that the two division chiefs were retiring from the agency and that there would be no public announcement. Neither could be named, the official said, because they are working under cover. A former intelligence official described the two as "very senior guys" who were stepping down because they did not feel comfortable with new management. In a memorandum to agency employees last week, Mr. Goss warned that more personnel changes were coming as part of what he described as an effort to rebuild the ability of the agency to perform its core mission of stealing secrets. Last week, President Bush directed Mr. Goss to draw up detailed plans in 90 days for a major overhaul of the agency, to address shortcomings that have become evident with intelligence failures related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and prewar assessments of Iraq. The directive included a call for 50 percent increases in crucial operations and analytical personnel, a goal that the agency had already set in a five-year strategic plan drafted in December under George J. Tenet, the previous director of central intelligence. Many of the agency's top officials, including John E. McLaughlin, the deputy director, and A. B. Krongard, the No. 3 official, have stepped down or announced plans to do so since Mr. Goss took office in September. The upheaval has been most extensive in the operations directorate, made up of spies and spymasters who have made careers out of stealing secrets. The clandestine service is a proud closed fraternity and one that sees itself as fiercely loyal and not risk-averse. It is also a group that has recoiled in recent weeks at the criticisms leveled at the agency, including comments this month from Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who accused the agency of acting "almost as a rogue" institution. Mr. Goss is a former spy and a member of the clandestine service who worked in Latin America in the 60's. More recently, he was a Republican congressman and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and he has made plain his view that the current crop of case officers is not bold enough. What is playing out in the agency headquarters is no less than a clash of cultures on a scale not seen there. since the Carter administration, when Stansfield Turner, a retired admiral, took a half-dozen Navy officers with him to the agency in 1977. Under Mr. Goss, it is a cadre of former House Republican aides, not Navy officers, who dominate the new management team. This month, they have toppled Mr. Kappes and his deputy, Michael Sulick, in a way that former intelligence officials say has shown little regard for the tradition-bound clandestine service which has always prized rank, experience and lines of authority. "The C.I.A. is a line organization like the military," said Christopher Mellon, a former intelligence official at the Defense Department and the Senate Intelligence Committee. "When staff guys insert themselves, that causes confusion and discontent." Under Mr. Goss, the extent of the rebellion in the ranks is not clear. Much of the anger has been focused on a former Congressional aide, Patrick Murray, the chief of staff, who is said to have raised the hackles of some station chiefs around the world. The atmosphere has so deteriorated in the agency that some career officers have begun using derogatory nicknames for Mr. Murray and his colleagues, former intelligence officials said. A backdrop to the tensions have been accusations from some Republicans that the agency sought over the summer to undermine Mr. Bush's re-election. Mr. McCain, in suggesting that the agency had been disloyal, has singled out the disclosure of intelligence reports about Iraq whose conclusions were at odds with administration assertions about the war. In a rare public rebuttal, John E. McLaughlin, a career C.I.A. official who is stepping down as the agency's No. 2 official after less than two months as Mr. Goss's deputy, wrote in an op-ed article on Tuesday in The Washington Post that the accusation was unjustified. "C.I.A. officers are career professionals who work for the president," Mr. McLaughlin wrote. "They see this as a solemn duty, regardless of which party holds the White House. Has everyone ruled out the possibility that the intelligence community during this period was simply doing its job - calling things as it saw them - and that people with a wide array of motives found it advantageous to put out this material when the C.I.A.'s views seemed at odds with the administration's?" Still, the memorandum that Mr. Goss issued last week advised his employees that the agency's job was to "support the administration and its policies" and to do nothing to associate themselves with opposition to the administration. People close to Mr. Goss and Mr. Murray, 40, say the two believe that major shakeups are needed. "What's going on at the agency now is very clearly a group of deskbound bureaucrats who don't want the system to change," said Gardiner Peckham, a longtime friend of Mr. Murray and, like him, a former Republican Congressional official. "Basically, they're looking at a president, a director and his chief of staff who are change agents. There are some who would like to stand in the way and prevent that change from taking place, and they shouldn't win." Mr. Turner, as intelligence chief under President Jimmy Carter, had an agenda that was the opposite in many ways from Mr. Goss's. He sought to shrink the clandestine service and rein it in, in reaction to the abuses of the 60's and 70's. Mr. Goss wants to make it bigger and bolder, in response to failures in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks and in prewar intelligence on Iraq. In a telephone interview, Mr. Turner said he recognized the challenge that Mr. Goss was facing. "Criticize the D.O., and you're in trouble," Mr. Turner said, using an abbreviation for the operations directorate. "Try to modify the way that operation works, and if you're an outsider, you're in trouble." Mr. Goss and his team, including Mr. Murray, have never made a secret of their view that the clandestine service was in need of major change. A report by the House Intelligence Committee issued in June, when Mr. Goss was its chairman and Mr. Murray its staff director, portrayed the operations directorate in scathing terms, disparaging what it called "a continued political aversion to operations risk" and calling for "immediate and far-reaching changes." "The nimble, flexible, core-mission oriented enterprise the D.O. once was, is becoming just a fleeting memory," the report said. "With each passing day, it becomes harder to resurrect." The report so infuriated the agency that Mr. Tenet, who was still director of central intelligence, shot off an angry letter to Mr. Goss. To replace Mr. Kappes, Mr. Goss has appointed a career covert officer whose name has not been announced because he is undercover but who has been most recently director of the Counterterrorism Center at the agency. An agency spokesman declined to comment on the internal dispute. |
That's because they're hoping we won't notice the creeping FASCISM. And the blatant BushCo toadying that's what's really expected.
'Bina.
And here are some tidbits from Steven Aftergood's Secrecy News:
| QUOTE |
| THE COLLAPSE OF INTELLIGENCE REFORM Psychoanalysis, wrote Viennese polemicist Karl Kraus, is itself the mental illness that it proposes to cure. Similarly, "intelligence reform" has now come to embody many of the defects that it was presumably intended to rectify, including irreconcilable priorities, lack of accountability, and contempt for democratic decisionmaking. Neither the unanimous recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission nor the subsequent months of public deliberation were sufficient to dislodge the intelligence bureaucracy and it congressional allies from their entrenched positions. Yet the failure by Congress to approve an intelligence reform bill also comes as a relief, because the final version of the bill contained numerous unexamined and objectionable provisions that were inconsistent with the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Among others, the bill endorsed the false claim that disclosure of the intelligence budget total is inconsistent with national security, a claim that is refuted annually by the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands and other countries, all of which routinely publish their intelligence expenditures. With the collapse of congressional deliberation, the White House has stepped in energetically to fill the void, proposing a massive expansion of CIA personnel. "I direct you to implement within the CIA measures to... increase, as soon as feasible, the number of fully qualified, all-source analysts by 50 percent... [and to] increase, as soon as feasible, the number of fully qualified officers in the Directorate of Operations by 50 percent," President Bush wrote in a November 23 memorandum to the Director of Central Intelligence: http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2004/11/wh112304dci.html A second memorandum instructs the Attorney General to strengthen the investigative capabilities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation: http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2004/11/wh112304ag.html A third White House memorandum calls for an interagency review of whether lead responsibility for conducting covert paramilitary operations should shift from the Central Intelligence Agency to the Defense Department: http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2004/11/wh112304dos.html |
This does NOT smell good.
'Bina.
| QUOTE (BinaBecker @ Thursday, 25 November 2004, 7:43 pm) | ||
And here are some tidbits from Steven Aftergood's Secrecy News:
This does NOT smell good. 'Bina. |
Of course it doesn't it's the Bush admnistration...
'Doc
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