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| Home Front: Politix |
| The Wrong Choice |
| 2009-01-07 |
| More than a few spooks, current and former, are shaking their heads over the appointment of Leon Panetta as the next CIA Director. Mr. Panetta is the consummate Washington insider who is best know as Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff during the Monica Lewinsky episode. Before that, he was Clinton's first Director of the Office of Management and Budget and a Democratic Congressman from California for 16 years, serving primarily on the Budget and Agriculture Committees. In the early days of his political life, Panetta was actually a Republican, working as an aide to California Senator Thomas Kuchel before joining the Nixon Administration. During his first stint in Washington, Panetta served as assistant to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and later ran the Office for Civil Rights. He left the administration--and the GOP--in 1971, accusing the White House of being "soft" on enforcement of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #10 The CIA is not a monolith. It's comprised of three or four 'sections' and a half-dozen separate operating entities. Operations and Analysis have clashed for several decades. NIMA/NISC/NPIC, one of the separate operating entities, feeds data to the Analysis Section, as do several other entities. Analysis has been flooded with Ivy-League graduates, with the mindset that implies. THERE is where a lot of the problems begin. Secondly, HUMINT - human intelligence (spies on the ground) - has lost favor among the Analysts, and that part of the CIA has atrophied to the point of looking like a Holocaust victim. Unfortunately, I don't see that changing, while that group is becoming more and more needed. Panetta is going into CIA as a head-chopper. Expect to see LOTS of "retirements" of older workers in ALL sections of the CIA over the next four years. My faith in Obama's ability to keep the US safe over the next four years is highlighted by the fact that I'm looking for some property so far out in the sticks the Real Estate agent gets lost looking for it. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-01-07 21:23 |
| #9 Personally I would have crossed the aisle on this one and found some tough Republican, some total bastard who doesn't care (like Rumsfield) and have him do a full accounting of what the CIA has done to undermine the Presidency and put some folks on trial for treason. Also hire someone in the second in command position with intelligence experience to run things and sort through intel and take over when the house-cleaning has been completed. Although the CIA favored his party there is no room for that in a secret organization that the nation depends upon. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2009-01-07 11:27 |
| #8 Feistein will be the new Senate intelligence head and has voiced reservations about Panetta's lack of experience. BO seems to be jacking up the bus agian prepatory to stuffing Leon under. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2009-01-07 10:18 |
| #7 #5 I'm more interested in who is appointed to the head of DIA. Keith Alexander would have been a good pick to head up the Silver Bullet. I suspect they'll be looking for another field artillery officer. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-01-07 08:43 |
| #6 Hit that post button within moments of each other on the same thought. Yes, we may be seeing the equivalent of a tectonic shift in the bureaucracy. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-01-07 08:35 |
| #5 I'm more interested in who is appointed to the head of DIA. IIRC during the 9/11 post-mortem the move to put all intel under the CIA was resisted because DoD demanded and got autonomy to support immediate tactical operations. I wonder who's intel people the out-going administration has been relying upon to 'deliver' the goods. Let's see if that's a 'light weight' or not [or a carry over like Gates]. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-01-07 08:30 |
| #4 Rumsfeld saw the inadequacy of the CIA and gathered many activities that could have been assigned to CIA to DoD instead. The CIA involved itself far too heavily in domestic political intrigues. Obama retains former DCI Bob Gates as Secretary of Defence almost immediately. Obama names political operator par excellence to be new DCI under no-name military DNI. Sounds to me like the Operations Directorate is about to make its contribution to deficit reduction. I would not be surprised in '12 to hear Obama trumpet that he has shut Ops down and restored America's reputation. And I'm not at all sure that's a bad thing. The CIA needs a house cleaning and could emerge as a collection, collation and analysis shop with operations under DoD. Everyone would be better off. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2009-01-07 08:29 |
| #3 This lack of intel experience is just the thing BHO wants. When the CIA screws up and misses something due to Panetta's lack of knowledge, BHO can fire Panetta as a sacrificial lamb and draw attention away from his own lack of ability. In an evil way, this is a brilliant appointment on BHO's part. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2009-01-07 08:04 |
| #2 So now that the Lightworker is to be inaugurated, the one thing that can't be allowed is having a part of CIA wage war on him. You don't worry about CIA "waging war" for him? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-01-07 05:32 |
| #1 Appointing Panetta makes perfect sense. For the last eight years the CIA has made war on George Bush. Not just the Plame affair but the various intelligence 'findings' on Iran, the failures in Iraq, etc., all can be explained by understanding that a certain part of CIA has hated Bush (and Republicans) and wanted him out of the White House. Bambi understands that really, really well, because some of his and his party's fellow travellers are the ones in CIA doing it. So now that the Lightworker is to be inaugurated, the one thing that can't be allowed is having a part of CIA wage war on him. Panetta knows squat about intelligence and our enemies. But about office politics and Bambi's enemies? Panetta has no peer. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2009-01-06 18:36 |