|
CIA shake-up too much like a political purge
What's happening at the CIA under new Director Porter Goss is both necessary and deeply troubling. The shake-up at the nation's pre-eminent spy shop had to happen, given its obvious intelligence failures involving weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the threat of al-Qaida before 9/11. But a shake-up is one thing. A political purge is something else. What's happening at the CIA has an unfortunate whiff of the latter.
| What was happening at the CIA before Goss' arrival had an unfortunate whiff of the intel agency being involved in politix. The Agency is an instrument of policy. It's not allowed to have an opinion. It's required to support Bush's policies, just as it would have been required to support President Kerry's policies. Anyone that can't bring themselves to do that has to hit the road. If they can't do it voluntarily, they have to be shown the door. |
It's too soon to know whether the agency will be better in the long run for Goss' heavy-handed housecleaning. But one thing is clear: The CIA shouldn't play politics. Period. That goes for Goss and CIA professionals.
| Getting things a little backwards there are Newsday, aren't we? From my standpoint, it looks like Goss is putting things back on track... |
Neither should actively support or oppose any partisan agenda. Clear-eyed, tough-minded realism should be demanded from the nation's intelligence agencies. Let's hope that's what emerges once the dust settles at Langley.
| That's basically what I just said. Newsday appears to be assuming it won't. |
The agency has been hemorrhaging top-level officials since Goss took the helm a few weeks ago. The No. 2 official, John McLaughlin, retired. The deputy director for operations and his top deputy also walked out the door. And speculation is rampant that officials in the Directorate of Intelligence, the branch responsible for analysis, are in Goss' crosshairs. High-level comings and goings are not bad or unexpected with a new director. That's especially true when an organization hasn't performed well. But the question of partisanship arose the day Goss was named director of central intelligence by President George W. Bush.
| It's a question that I think was raised for partisan reasons... |
It's unusual for an elected official to be tapped for the post, which is better left outside the political arena.
| Bush the Elder did a creditable job when he was DCIA... |
Goss was not only a member of Congress; he was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which produced a report scathingly critical of the CIA. When he took top committee staffers with him to the agency, concern that the place was being politicized mushroomed.
| Goss is also an ex-CIA man, who knows where the bodies are buried. He's a lot harder to BS than an ex-governor of Kansas or a professor at Princeton. |
Intimations of inappropriate political motives have run both ways. The CIA has taken heat for failures before 9/11 and for former Director George Tenet's infamous assurance that the evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was "a slam dunk." In that atmosphere of recrimination, there were CIA leaks to the media during the presidential campaign indicating there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida and that prospects for success in Iraq are slim, at best.
| CIA should not leak. When was the last time there was a leak from NSA, DIA, or NRO? |
Those leaks, which may have been retaliatory, had to sting. And Bush is notoriously intolerant of dissent and disloyalty.
| Since we're at war, I can't fault him on that. Can you? |
A Goss e-mail fanned the flames. According to news accounts he laid down "the rules of the road," saying "we support the administration and its policies in our work as agency employees."
| ... since the Agency is an instrument of policy. |
Support is fine if it means giving the president what he needs to make policy decisions. But the memo could, and, in some quarters, has been read as an order to toe the Bush political line. Both sides need to take a deep breath. Agency professionals shouldn't overreact to change. And Goss should communicate his plans more clearly. Above all else, it would be inexcusable if the appearance of a political purge proves, in fact, to be a political purge.
Posted by: Fred 2004-11-21 |
