Posted on 05/14/2004 12:10:15 AM PDT by kingu
NEW YORK (AP) A former CIA director said Wednesday that he would resign if he were in current Director George Tenet's place because of political pressure on the intelligence agency.
''I think the biggest problem of intelligence today is political direction from the White House, and I don't know what I would do if I were George Tenet other than resign,'' said Stansfield Turner, director of the CIA from 1977 to 1981 in the Carter administration.
Turner spoke on a panel about the CIA at the Council on Foreign Relations, along with former directors William Webster, who headed the agency from 1987 to 1991, and James Woolsey, who ran it from 1993 to 1995.
Woolsey said political pressure was not the main problem facing the agency and instead suggested the creation of a new position, an overall head of intelligence, to coordinate information from the CIA, FBI and other federal agencies.
''The intelligence community has grown very rapidly in the last 50 years,'' Woolsey said. ''I think we could use an overall chairman.''
The CIA director currently has that title but ''does not have the authority to go along with the responsibility,'' he said.
Tenet and the CIA have come under criticism for flawed prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs, the existence of which was a leading argument for war.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Does he perhaps have Shillery's FBI files in his desk drawer or something? He's got a huge pile of intelligence failures on his desk, and yet it seems like he's got a bucket of Clinton's teflon paint that he dips into from time to time.
Of course, if I'm just being a braindead idiot, I could well use the enlightenment.
Stansfield Turner had the chance to resign himself when he gutted the CIA under Carter and started the problems we are dealing with now.
The absolute worst DCI - all time. (Any former spooks - feel free to chime in)
I met Turner. Nice guy but terrible CIA director. If you have any doubt, just remember the Carter years. Inept foreign policy and a military that was near broke thanks to them.
Turner is probably the worst of all time, but gets a run for his money from John Deutch, who is more immediately responsible for gutting the intel agencies. Turner, like his boss and hero Carter, has never stopped showing up as a designated pundit on talk shows, although he is deeply despised by CIA veterans.
Not a former spook, but you're dead on target.
Tenet hasn't done a BAD job, but what is needed is a DCI willing to tell certain folks in Congress where they can go.
Where is a Bill Casey when you NEED him?
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