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| Home Front: Politix |
| Hayden nomination signals Pentagon win over CIA |
| 2006-05-08 |
| The pending appointment of General Michael Hayden as director of the Central Intelligence Agency will pave the way for the agency's emasculation and for the Pentagon to assume full authority over paramilitary operations. A senior intelligence community official yesterday said the director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, has indicated "he is willing to give up covert operations to the Pentagon." The source also pointed out that the Pentagon has requested increased budget authority to prepare for the acquisition of the CIA's targeted military operations. The intelligence overhaul of 2004 envisioned that they would remain under the purview of the CIA. The authority to commission and plan these secret military operations has been a point of contention since 2004 when Congress and the White House began reorganizing the intelligence community. The proposed change would give the Pentagon unfettered authority to plan and conduct these operations without consulting an intelligence bureaucracy its civilian leaders have deemed hostile to the president's war policy. Already, General Hayden's appointment has provoked opposition from members of Congress from both parties, including some of the president's allies. In an interview yesterday with The New York Sun, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Peter Hoekstra, a Republican from Michigan, said had he known Porter Goss was leaving his position as head of the CIA, he would have included language in the intelligence reauthorization bill prohibiting an active member of the military from becoming the CIA director. "Putting a military person into this role is just a bad idea," Mr. Hoekstra said. "I think you will have the CIA folks in D.C. and the CIA folks around the world see this as the last straw. I am not sure you will see resignations. But people who have chosen the CIA as a career, I don't think ever envisioned it being run by a general." Mr. Hoekstra also said he thought the fact that Mr. Goss was stepping down at this moment - after firing an analyst accused of leaking to the press, Mary McCarthy - sent the wrong signal to those in the CIA who oppose the president's policies. "Two weeks after Porter takes one of the biggest steps to send a clear signal around the agency on leaks, he loses his job. I don't know how people will read this. "Some people might say insubordination at the CIA is going to be tolerated. This is the last major decision which I thought was crucial to the agency. There had been a lot of people knifing Porter in the back. He was sent in as an agent of change. Some people over there might believe they won." Mr. Hoekstra's predecessor at the House Intelligence Committee, Porter Goss, stepped down from his perch at Langley on Friday amid rumors that his aide and CIA no. 3, Kyle Foggo, was connected to a corruption scandal involving the former California Republican congressman, Randy Cunningham. Over the weekend, however, the CIA denied there was any connection between the Justice Department investigation and Mr. Goss's departure. Mr. Goss's replacement, General Hayden, who currently serves as Mr. Negroponte's deputy for intelligence, is a four star Air Force general and the former chief of the National Security Agency, the government's center for the collection and analysis of signal and technical intelligence. He was in charge of the NSA when the president authorized the tapping of overseas phone numbers found on cell phones captured on suspected Al Qaeda terrorists. Yesterday some lawmakers said his role in overseeing those wiretaps may make his confirmation in the Senate less likely. On Fox News Sunday, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania, said, "There is no doubt there's an enormous threat from terrorism, but the president does not have a blank check. Now, with General Hayden up for confirmation, this will give us an opportunity to try to find out." Mr. Specter's counterpart at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Pat Roberts, a Republican from Kansas would not say on CNN yesterday whether General Hayden had his vote for confirmation. Meanwhile, Senator Chambliss, a Republican of Georgia and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told ABC's "This Week" program, "I too have a little bit of concern, frankly, about military personnel running the CIA." One factor driving that concern is that the Congressional authors of the 2004 intelligence reform fought the Pentagon to keep oversight and authority over covert military operations in the directorate of national intelligence and CIA. But the senior intelligence community official yesterday said he expected almost everything except for the human intelligence collection role of the CIA to be removed from the agency. This source said that Mr. Negroponte "is going to strip analysis, strip out covert operation, science, and technology." The founder of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, Duane Clarridge yesterday said he also predicted his old place of employment would be significantly diminished. "The CIA as an institution will become the directorate of operations with some ancillary components," he said. "In the end, what you've got, where you're headed, even though these people may not understand it yet, is a directorate of operations writ large, a la M16." In his one and a half year tenure as the director of the CIA, Mr. Goss attempted to reform an agency whose former members have aggressively attacked the president's decision to go to war in Iraq. One of his first acts as director was to remind gathered employees at headquarters that the information they trafficked was secret and that they worked for the president. Under his tenure, one director, two deputy directors and 13 department heads and station chiefs left the agency's directorate of operations. Last month, a CIA analyst, Mary McCarthy, stepped down from her job allegedly for discussing classified information with Washington Post reporter Dana Priest. Mr. Goss himself testified before Congress earlier this year that he looked forward to when the Justice Department began interviewing reporters about their sources on the NSA wire tapping story, broken by the New York Times in December. The former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle, said he does not expect the next CIA director to have better luck with leakers. "The crackdown on leaking will make people more careful," he said, adding that leakers at the CIA will just get information out through former CIA officers who are cleared to get the information. "Until they get serious about leaks, which is to put people on polygraphs after every major leak, it is going to go on. Remember, this is an institution that is steeped in covert operations and misinformation. We train people to lie and we are shocked when they lie." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #18 A conspiracy in every corner. Give me a f*cking break. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-05-08 23:32 |
| #17 Confirmation may be fun tho -- quoting the General, just waiting to see and hear Senators' responses to comments like this GEN. HAYDEN: "I don't think domestic spying makes it. One end of any call targeted under this program is always outside the United States. I've flown a lot in this country, and I've taken literally hundreds of domestic flights. I have never boarded a domestic flight in the United States of America and landed in Waziristan. In the same way - and I'm speaking illustratively here now, this is just an example - if NSA had intercepted al Qaeda Ops Chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Karachi talking to Mohamed Atta in Laurel, Maryland, in say, July of 2001 - if NSA had done that, and the results had been made public, I'm convinced that the crawler on all the 7 by 24 news networks would not have been 'NSA domestic spying.'" (General Michael Hayden, Remarks, Washington, DC, 1/23/06) |
| Posted by: Sherry 2006-05-08 16:22 |
| #16 I'd like to believe it is more of a win for those who can keep a secret over those who leak like a $4 canoe. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2006-05-08 16:08 |
| #15 Danielle, they're talking about Hookergate: Alarms were set off at the advisory board by a widening FBI sex and cronyism investigation that's targeted Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No.3 official at the CIA, and also touched on Goss himself. The 16-member bipartisan board, now headed by former Goldman Sachs executive Stephen Friedman, has the mandate to conduct periodic assessments on "the quality, quantity and adequacy of intelligence collection." The board, which includes longtime Bush confidant and former Commerce Secretary Don Evans, joined in the growing chorus inside and outside the CIA calling for Goss' ouster, persuading Bush to act, sources said. The result was the awkward Oval Office announcement Friday at which neither Goss nor Bush gave a specific reason for Goss' return to Florida. Goss told CNN yesterday his resignation was "just one of those mysteries." White House spokeswoman Dana Perrino said a "collective agreement" led to the decision to find a new CIA director, but "reports that the President had lost confidence in Porter Goss are categorically untrue." Bush was expected to name a new spy chief, possibly as early as tomorrow, with Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, Negroponte's top deputy, and White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend heading up a short list. But the spillover from the continuing FBI investigation, coupled with a parallel probe by the CIA's inspector general, could impact on what were already expected to be difficult Senate confirmation hearings for the new director. The investigations have focused on the Watergate poker parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, a high-school buddy of Foggo's, that were attended by disgraced former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham and other lawmakers. Foggo has claimed he went to the parties "just for poker" amid allegations that Wilkes, a top GOP fund-raiser and a member of the $100,000 "Pioneers" of Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, provided prostitutes, limos and hotel suites to Cunningham. Cunningham is serving an eight-year sentence after pleading to taking $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to cronies. Wilkes hosted regular parties for 15 years at the Watergate and Westin Grand Hotels for lawmakers and lobbyists. Intelligence sources said Goss has denied attending the parties as CIA director, but that left open whether he may have attended as a Republican congressman from Florida who was head of the House Intelligence Committee. |
| Posted by: Steve 2006-05-08 14:36 |
| #14 It looks like Mr. Gross was the nice guy, trying to more or less gently lead the CIA into its new path. Now that he has cleared out the worst of the deadwood (25% of the staff of 100,000!), and the CIA has demonstrated *conclusively* that it doesn't have a strong desire to change, General Hayden is going to pull a Rumsfeld on them. May his outcome be as successful as his current boss's. And may he find as much joy in the process as Secretary Rumsfeld is clearly finding in his own, despite the frequent slings and arrows. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-05-08 13:19 |
| #13 Negroponte, as acreer diplomat, worries me a lot more with the burgeoning bureaucrcy building at National Intelligence. Seems like General Hayden is more than capable of getting CIA into shape, with a broader knowledge and scope of experience, including a masters in recent American history, necessary to integrate everything but there is always the anti-military crowd leary leaking paranoia of a coup. I heard a Time reporter, Mike Allen, say on FOX that the CIA has some scandals involving limos, hookers, and poker...what's the DC scoop on this? I think many people are getting nervous with all the new intelligence being dug up in the investigations sweeping the world but the sunlight is just what we need to kill mildew. |
| Posted by: Danielle 2006-05-08 12:32 |
| #12 "But the senior intelligence community official yesterday said he expected almost everything except for the human intelligence collection role of the CIA to be removed from the agency" Actually this is exactly what needs to happen. We have an overall "INT" cheif- the DNI. We have an agency for SIGINT. We have one for IMINT. And we have "supporting" agencies that supply resources to those agencies (like satellites, etc) We need one whose sole focus is HUMINT. I say strip parts of the CIA to form other focused agencies: A HUMINT agency - classic spy agency - develop human intelligence networks, interrogations of "resources" obtained by Ops, infiltrate our enemies, gather info from embassy postings, maintain experts of foreign language and culture to teach people in Ops and Analysis, etc. No "direct action" stuff (leave that for Ops). Just develop Kim Philbys for OUR side. A Technology intelligence agency, tasked by the other agencies to "subcontract" tech innovation they need. For the James Bond fans its "Q" branch. An Ops Agency - staffed with resources from DoD as needed, but taking current CIA Ops and making it into its own agency - and set on equal footing, cross connected with DoD's SOCOM, running join missions as needed. Capturing enemies clandestinely ("snatch" missions), eliminating enemies covertly (assasains), etc. This is where the real "James Bond" (Mike Spann) types live. This leaves one area that needs to be pulled out of all the agencies (excepting inital very narrow focus technical analysis in each agency according to its mission): Analysis. This is the biggest failure of CIA (and the US Intel sysems) - Analysis. They've apparently had data all along, but have not had all sources (DIA, NSA) available to put together the whole puzzle (nor have they shared vital data with those agencies), and they've been influenced by other parts of the CIA to bend their analysis to fit preconceptions and politics of the CIA. So the last but most important pull from CIA's core (and some from DIA and NSA, etc): a top level independant intelligence agency that is concerned with one thing, and one thing alone: Analysis. From ALL the other agencies. All sources. No BS, No SPin, NO LEAKS. Provide solid analysis to all the other agencies. Too many stakes in the ground for this to happen, too many congresscritters bought and paid for. But it would be very nice to at least split HUMINT and analysis off. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2006-05-08 11:51 |
| #11 On top of it all, the confirmation hearings should make for great theater. And Hayden is apparently an accomplished performer. If some of the donks or donk wannabes (SPECTRE) want to go after the domestic eavesdropping, I'm sure Bush's attitude is bring it on. The American people understand what it is all about and they support it. Great way to start the campaign season. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-05-08 11:49 |
| #10 Good. The CIA needs gutted and rebuilt. Paramilitary is the basis of its founding along with forgien intel gathering. Make the damn thing work like it was supposed to. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2006-05-08 11:21 |
| #9 Hayden is the p[erfect guy for the job. Knows the business. Been there long enough to see the decline in operations and analysis at CIA. Drove out all the "politicians" from NSA making it pure intel agency with no spin. Modernized NSA and brought its ops into the post cold-war world. Reorganized and streamlined the agency to be more flexible and responsive to "customer" needs. Everything that needs to be done at CIA. Hoekstra is full of shit. If he had been in the IC for the past 25+ years (and military before that) he woudl know better. He just wants to score political points, like all the other grandstanders. Hayden should eventually become DNI. DCI shoudl be his next position onthe way thre. And he can put this whole anti-military thing to rest by "retiring" into the reserves while heading CIA. Aside from that, who do you think is the biggest consumer of CIA intel? Probably the DoD. The war on terror requires restructuring and re-org of all the failed intelligence structure. Its setup for Cold War. Goss cleaned out the dead wood. Hayden can make the agency work like its supposed to. Screw the political opposition - put the right man for the job in there. And one other thing -why not just kick Arlen Specter out of the Republican party? He wants to grill Hayden over the NSA program as part of the hearings, he has allowed repeated obstruction of judges, he voted against ANWR, he votes for pork, against making tax cuts permanent. Throw him over the side of the boat - he's acting like a democrat, lets go ahead and make him be honest about it. I am sick of these RINOs. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2006-05-08 11:09 |
| #8 Amusingly, Michael Schuerer's complaint about Hayden was exactly that which you've attributed to the CIA (too much SIGINT/ELINT, not enough HUMINT). |
| Posted by: Spomogum Fleper7978 2006-05-08 10:44 |
| #7 I don't remember people complaining when ADMIRAL Stansfield Turner (Jimmy Carter's Annapolis roommate,IIRC)was head of the CIA (1977-1981). Of course, I would expect that Lt. Gen. Hayden will be much more effective as head of CIA than Adm. Turner. Especially since Jimmeh was the one who appointed him. He also was head of the CIA when the Ayatollah took over the embassy. |
| Posted by: Rambler 2006-05-08 09:40 |
| #6 Funny, no one complained about Bush the Elder being head of the CIA. He was ex-military. Civilians seem to have the idea of the Militay as being a bunch of blood-thirsty shoot first and ask questions later types. Gathering intelligence in the Military is serious business. I think General Hayden will do a good job. I do believe the CIA is now incapable of doing quality covert operations and the military is well suited for the job. Where did all (or most) of the early CIA personnel come from? The military. It was only when they were replaced over the years that the Cia became a Political Beaurocracy. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2006-05-08 09:38 |
| #5 He needs to re-write the CIA as a paramilitary organization, not as an administrative bureaucracy. From the time of Philby, the CIA physically did less and less and surveilled and observed more, and from further away. But being aware of something and influencing something are two very different things. For almost three decades, the CIA probably had fewer than two dozen James Bond-style operatives, doing all the heavy lifting. With the advent of the WoT, we discover we need as many operatives as we can get, many of whom as skilled as Green Berets. And perhaps as numerous. I suspect the culling of the deadwood headcount may have concluded, freeing up resources for the new blood that hopefully General Hayden will recruit. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-05-08 09:03 |
| #4 CIA, FBI, etc. Let's face it, the military is the only serious one in the bunch. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-05-08 08:13 |
| #3 ...pave the way for the agency's emasculation and for the Pentagon to assume full authority over paramilitary operations. With a rusty spoon, one hopes. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2006-05-08 08:03 |
| #2 a directorate of operations writ large, a la M16. That's not a lot of firepower, even for a covert agency. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-05-08 07:43 |
| #1 Yesterday on Fox News Sunday Peter Hoekstra said this about Gen. Hayden, ""Bottom line, I do believe he's the wrong person, the wrong place, at the wrong time. We should not have a military person leading a civilian agency at this time." Funny, bottom line, I believe something very similar about Hoekstra. He's the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. We do not need a touchy-feely fool as the Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. |
| Posted by: Omese Angatch9205 2006-05-08 03:36 |