It was the CIA that failed to infiltrate Osama bin LadenÂ’s terror network, failed to recognize early enough the dangers posed by al-Qaida and failed to anticipate the Sept. 11 attacks. There is also the still-open question of the agencyÂ’s prewar intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the most embarrassing and damaging intelligence foul-up since the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961. ThatÂ’s a lot of failure for an agency whose sole raison dÂ’etat I think they meant raison d'etre - reason to be is to provide critical intelligence on which to base complicated policy decisions.
Hayden is currently the principal deputy director of national intelligence and is by all accounts extraordinarily qualified by experience, temperament and strategic acumen for the top CIA spot. Unfortunately, the coming congressional debate on his nomination will likely focus on issues like the warrantless wiretaps he initiated at the National Security Agency on telephone calls by known al-Qaida operatives to and from people in this country. He will also be quizzed about corruption in military intelligence contracting, whether a military officer should run the nationÂ’s 60-year-old civilian spy service and (despite Defense Secretary Donald RumsfeldÂ’s recent denial) the obvious turf battle between the CIA and the Pentagon. Important questions all, but not the most important questions. What about the Kennedy's driving record, eh?
The CIA’s problems run much deeper. What needs to be faced — and fixed — is the fact that the once-storied spy shop appears to have become just another government wasteland whose career inhabitants are more adept at waging bureaucratic war than fighting the war on terror abroad. This was nowhere better illustrated than in the firing of one of the agency’s top executives who was accused of leaking classified information to the media. That executive had extensive ties to Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign and was a contributor to Democratic candidates. These folks should be devoting themselves entirely to fixing current problems like the lack of Arabic-language experts in the agency and determining why the agency failed to recognize how truly serious a threat the jihadists of militant Islam were becoming during the Clinton years. And the Carter years.
National Intelligence Director John Negroponte reportedly wants to strip the CIA of some of its analytical functions and return it to its core mission of gathering raw and human intelligence. It will be Hayden’s job to reform and rejuvenate the dispirited remnants of a storied agency by reminding its people that doing so — and doing it well — is the key to their helping ensure this nation’s future well-being.