Posted on 08/18/2009 6:39:09 AM PDT by milwguy
Three former CIA directors have privately told their successor he had his facts wrong when he revealed an illegal assassination program, reports Joseph Finder, and his spies will suffer for it.
according to a half-dozen sources, including several very senior, recently retired CIA officials, clandestine-service officers, and Cabinet-level officials from the Bush administration, the real story is at once more innocent—Panetta was mistaken; no law was broken—and far more troubling: an inexperienced CIA director, unfamiliar with how his vast, complicated agency works, unable to trust senior officials within his own agency, and desperate to keep his hands clean, screwed up.
The Daily Beast has learned that shortly after his electrifying June 24 disclosure, Panetta spoke personally with each of his three predecessors—George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden—and only then realized the mistake he’d made about the program. An innocent mistake, but the consequences of his gaffe, which he’s unable to admit without damaging his own reputation further, will likely subject U.S. intelligence capabilities to unnecessary and intrusive oversight for years to come.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
When the chickens come home to roost and Americans are laying dead on the streets of a city near you, remember this is the 'change' you voted for.
Panetta will do more damage to the CIA and our national security than even was done during the Clinton years. Mark my words.
I prefer the path where we put all congresscritters and government employees under oath for all public statements, so we can through their tails in jail when they lie....
hh
I don’t think we even know what damage was done by Deutsch, and Sandy Berger too. And others in the Clinton “High Crimes amd Misdemeanors” regime.
Maybe historians 100 years from now will uncover that mess.
bump for later
Obama Administration: Security thru Absurdity
Yep.
Panetta needs an assistant.
Maybe O will appoint Valery Plame to the position.
That's in big part the legacy of the Frank Church Committee and former spy chief Stansfield Turner's disastrous tenure as CIA director. In his "Halloween Massacre," Turner eliminated some 800 human intelligence operatives, placing emphasis on "technical" intelligence (satellites, etc.) rather than gritty sharp-end-of-the-stick human intelligence work. The Agency became politicized and even Porter Goss, who tried hard to restore it to its pre-Church role, was sacrificed to the Political Beasts by George W. Bush.
It's not innocent when you shoot off your mouth before you have the facts. Panetta has been a bureaucrat long enough to know better.
Ping to an important article.
Panetta is a fool.
Have you read the Bourne books or seen the movies????
#1 - in the books the agency of record is the State Department's "Consular Operations" branch - not the CIA. So any reputation gained through the movies is ill-gotten.
#2 - the books and the movies speak over and over to a corrupt bloated bureaucracy that is concerned more with politics than it is with results. Anyone looking at the CIA through 'Bourne-colored' glasses should see the agency as ineffective, overly-bureaucratic, and politicized to the point of ineptitude (perhaps a correct view). Remember - Bourne is at odds with the agency - not their poster boy.
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