Cover Stories: Everything you know about the CIA's clandestine work is wrong

The Weekly Standard ^ | 10/27/03 | Reuel Marc Gerecht

[Timesink]

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[jwalburg]

What a tremendous waste of resources is the CIA, if this article is accurate.

[okie01]

"The head of the Non-Proliferation Center ought to be fired for such sloppiness."

Whether to save them the trouble or not is unknown, but Alan Foley, Plame's boss, announced his resignation August 29.

For some reason, The Mainstream Media attaches no importance to this development and has given it no play...

[Travis McGee]

Good spook story.

[secretagent]

The intelligence committees might also want to find out how many non-Muslims in the CIA can speak Arabic.

Are we talking in the ones or twos here?

[redhead]

bump for later

[the crow]

bump for later

[Dolphy]

Whether to save them the trouble or not is unknown, but Alan Foley, Plame's boss, announced his resignation August 29

I didn't know that. It was a resignation, not retirement?

[John H K]

What a tremendous waste of resources is the CIA, if this article is accurate.

No, it matches what I've read about the CIA in other sources, including Jim Dunnigan at strategypage.com.

"Spot the CIA agent" is a running joke in foreign countries. Pretty much everyone knows who the CIA agents are in a given embassy. One reason is the State Department finds espionage distasteful...Dunnigan claims (not sure about the accuracy of this) that the CIA "State Department" passports are slightly different from real State Department passports because of the State Department.

[gaijin]

marking.

[hobson]

bumpmark

[shhrubbery!]

It is important to note that if Plame was ever a NOC, her associations overseas were jeopardized long ago by the Agency's decision to allow her to come "inside"--that is, become a headquarters-based officer (even one with a poorly "backstopped" business cover like Plame's Boston front company, Brewster-Jennings & Associates)

[okie01]

"It was a resignation, not retirement?"

As I recall, the phraseology was "resignation" -- to pursue other interests, spend more time with his family, etc., etc.

Purportedly, it was also "unexpected"...

[okie01]

Did a little digging. And, yes, the proper term is "resignation".

Head of CIA Weapons Analysis Program Leaving

[okie01]

Background on the Plame Game ping.

[OneTimeLurker]

marking

[eno_]

What a tremendous waste of resources is the CIA, if this article is accurate.

As with all government waste:

Multiply your worst fears by three, and you are halfway there.

[nathanbedford]

Prewar intelligence on Iraq has rightly become a contentious issue. It is obvious now that the Operations Directorate failed to collect high-quality human intelligence against the Iraqi regime's weapons of mass destruction programs. According to congressional and CIA sources, however, there has so far been no comprehensive review of CIA intelligence-collection activities against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Congressmen on the intelligence oversight committees ought to begin one.

I am simply baffled by the universal indifference in Washington to this colossal intelligence failure to accurately estimate the state of Saddam's weapons programs. This, following the failure to mount an effective intelligence effort in the Counterterrorism Center in the decade between the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 up to the fall of Bagdad 10 years later is inexplicable, especially when this time span witnessed the worst foreign attack ever on American soil (excluding the War of 1812 and War Between The States, Panch Villa's raid, and Pearl Harbor).

The war on terrorism is ultimately going to be won on intelligence or not at all. Why does anyone of good faith in Washington waste 5 minutes on Wilson's wife when the whole of the intelligence establishment must be reformed? In a city notorious for its pogroms, Washington is uncharastically passive.

I seems the left is cynically content to overlook the intelligence failures so they can pretend the absence of WMDs is a political or moral failure by Bush. The Republicans seem content to let sleeping dogs lie. Unless something is happening under deep cover, perhaps masterminded by Bush Sr., this is an appaling lapse on both sides of the aisle.

[RippleFire]

bump