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| Goss still having problems at CIA |
| 2005-09-23 |
| A year after taking charge of the Central Intelligence Agency, Porter J. Goss is still struggling to rebuild morale and assert leadership within an institution shaken by recent failures and buffeted by change, current and former intelligence officials and members of Congress say. On Thursday, two days before his one-year anniversary on the job, Mr. Goss met with agency employees and told them that his vision for further changes would involve "breaking some molds" to reassert the C.I.A.'s role as "a global agency." "We are developing new and creative ways to get more and more of our officers out of Washington," Mr. Goss said, according to a transcript provided by the C.I.A., which did not allow reporters at the event. "We do not serve our policy makers if we are not in the places that they need us to be today, and are not reporting from places they don't expect us to be - but where they may need us to be tomorrow." The C.I.A. and its human spying operations are expected to benefit from changes in next year's intelligence budget, under classified plans being drawn up by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, including a version approved by the Senate panel Thursday. Congressional officials said Thursday that John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, had signaled for the first time that the Bush administration would support big cuts in a multibillion-dollar satellite program in part to free up money for more human spying. Current and former intelligence officials say considerable turmoil remains within the agency, particularly within the directorate of operations, which is responsible for human spying around the world. The directorate's No. 2 official, Robert Richer, has become the most recent high-ranking official to announce his departure, and he has told officials at the White House and in the C.I.A. that he had lost confidence in Mr. Goss. Mr. Goss's task was bound to be complicated, partly because the agency was reduced in power and stature by the reorganization of intelligence after its failures on terrorism and Iraq. In an interview, Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said she believed that Mr. Goss was doing better than early on, when the No. 1 and No. 2 officials within the operations directorate quit after clashes with members of Mr. Goss's personal staff. "Anyone who came in when he did would have had a steep hill to climb, in part because change can be difficult," Ms. Harman said. But she also said that the departures of Mr. Richer and others were "very worrisome" because they amounted to a loss of "hundreds of years of experience and leadership." In a separate interview, Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan and the committee's chairman, sought to minimize the significance of any upheaval. "I don't take the turmoil as unexpected," Mr. Hoekstra said. "For people who created the culture at the C.I.A. that gave us the information about Al Qaeda, who gave us the information about Iraq, the kinds of changes that Porter is making may be uncomfortable, and they may be making the right decision: they're leaving." Mr. Richer, a former head of the agency's Near East Division, announced his decision to step down earlier this month, after fewer than nine months as the No. 2 official within the clandestine service. Since last November, when Stephen R. Kappes and Michael Sulick stepped down from the top two operations posts in the disputes with Mr. Goss's aides, the directorate has been headed by a veteran officer who remains undercover and whose principal expertise has involved work in Latin America. While no plan has been announced, Mr. Goss is expected to assume the role within the government of a national human intelligence manager, with the power to coordinate spying operations carried out by the C.I.A. and other agencies. Among Mr. Goss's priorities have been to open new C.I.A. stations and bases and to reopen some of the estimated 20 stations and bases overseas that were closed by budget cuts in the late 1990's. Mr. Goss said in his speech Thursday that he had accomplished some of these goals, but he offered no specifics. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #8 "Anyone who came in when he did would have had a steep hill to climb, in part because change can be difficult," Ms. Harman said. But she also said that the departures of Mr. Richer and others were "very worrisome" because they amounted to a loss of "hundreds of years of experience and leadership." That "leadership and experience" was also one of the major reasons for the failures of the last 20 years, lady. If it had been better, most of the failures wouldn't have happened. The ones we hear about are only the tip of the iceberg. The CIA has been only marginally effective at ANYTHING since the mid-1980's. There have been far too many 'surprises', and far too few successes. Fire 'em faster, run 'em out quicker, and replace them with people who understand their future depends on them being right at least as often as they're wrong. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2005-09-23 23:16 |
| #7 Agreed on the importance of the mission, OS. FIA has had some major problems, tho .... |
| Posted by: lotp 2005-09-23 16:18 |
| #6 I read somewhere with the NRO helped with Katrina and is helping with Rita. Before and after diffs of high res photos. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-09-23 15:43 |
| #5 big cuts in a multibillion-dollar satellite program in part to free up money for more human spying. Penny wise, pound foolish. These national systems will be needed for China, Korea and any other place where access is difficult and we are forced to rely on national technical means. We need to do both. |
| Posted by: Oldspook 2005-09-23 15:17 |
| #4 "...big cuts in a multibillion-dollar satellite program..." They should be under the perview of the NRO to begin with. The NRO is co-owned by USAF and the CIA. The program in question is probably the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA). |
| Posted by: lotp 2005-09-23 10:21 |
| #3 Fire 'em faster. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-09-23 10:18 |
| #2 Shoulda done a Beria moment as soon as he walked in, pour encourager les autres!. |
| Posted by: Whealet Fleling9790 2005-09-23 08:58 |
| #1 "...big cuts in a multibillion-dollar satellite program..." They should be under the perview of the NRO to begin with. |
| Posted by: raptor 2005-09-23 08:14 |