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Jewish World Review Sept. 30, 2005 / 26 Elul, 5765 Goss is shoveling as fast as he can — but it may not be enough By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The fifth of the labors of Hercules was to clean out, in a single day, the
stables of King Augeas, who owned thousands of cattle, horses and sheep.
I imagine there are days in which CIA Director J. Porter Goss thinks his
task is comparable.
Goss has just completed a year in office, and is receiving very different
reviews.
"Morale has declined for months as CIA chief Porter Goss has purged senior
managers and critics have assailed the agency for fumbling intelligence on
al Qaida and unconventional weapons in Iraq," wrote Mark Hosenball in the
Oct. 3rd issue of Newsweek.
Goss "is still struggling to rebuild morale and assert leadership," agreed
Douglas Jehl of the New York Times in a story Sept. 23rd.
But Peter Brookes of the Heritage Foundation thinks Goss "has made
significant advances on several fronts, but especially in the Directorate of
Analysis, where morale and product quality have skyrocketed."
Jehl and Hosenball based their negative reviews chiefly on the bellyaching
of Robert Richer, briefly the number two man in the CIA's Operations
directorate, who resigned a few weeks ago.
Richer told senators he had lost confidence in Goss. Brooks, himself a
former CIA officer, thinks it more likely Goss had lost confidence in
Richer.
"As mainstream media paint it, the clandestine service has suffered a mass
exodus of senior officers since Goss' arrival," Brooks said. "In fact, the
departure of senior spooks has been quite limited — and junior officers
have been clamoring for more change."
Morale does stink among those who have gotten the axe, or fear the headsman
is lurking in the hallway outside their offices.
But the stable has to be cleaned out. In August, Goss delivered to Capitol
Hill a report by the CIA's inspector general on the agency's performance
prior to 9/11. The report is classified, but those who have seen it say it
is harshly critical of senior officials, especially in the Operations
directorate were Richer served.
"According to the leaks, the report says there were systemic problems at the
CIA before the attacks and that there was no strategic plan in place to deal
with al Qaida," said Forbes magazine.
The IG report has posed a problem for Democrats, and for journalists like
Hosenball and Jehl. They want to slam the Bush administration for keeping
it secret. But if it were made public, the reputations of their favorite
leakers would suffer.
Not only did the CIA miss the warning signs of 9/11, it (apparently) was
badly mistaken about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, and didn't have a
clue about the Iraqi dictator's plans for protracted guerrilla war.
"The root cause of the intelligence community's failures during the past few
years is that the people in charge were incompetent," said Herbert Meyer,
who was an assistant to legendary CIA Director William Casey.
Dysfunction in the CIA isn't new. During the Cold War, the principal target
was the Soviet Union. Yet the CIA badly underestimated the size of the
Soviets' nuclear arsenal, and grotesquely overestimated the strength of its
economy.
But dysfunction accelerated during the 1990s, when budget cuts and legal
constraints imposed by the Clinton administration hampered collection of
human intelligence.
When Robert Baer was the CIA station chief in Tajikstan in 1994, he asked
Langley to send him some Dari and Pashtun speakers so he could debrief
refugees streaming across the border from Afghanistan.
Baer was told no Dari or Pashtun linguists were available, but headquarters
would send out a four person briefing team to explain the agency's new
policy on sexual harassment.
Goss, an officer in the Operations directorate back in the days when
gathering intelligence was considered more important than delivering
lectures on sexual harassment, is doing what he can to get the agency back
on track. He's cutting spending on expensive satellites to free up money
for more human spies. And he's kicking operations officers out of desks in
Langley and putting them back into the field.
Goss is shoveling as fast as he can. But it may not be enough. Hercules
cleaned the Augean stables by diverting two rivers through them. I think a
big change needs to be made in where and how the CIA recruits its personnel.
But I'll have to wait for another column to explain why. I've run out of
space.
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© 2005, Jack Kelly |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
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