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The C.I.A. Versus Bush
NY Times ^ | Nov. 13, 2004 | DAVID BROOKS

Posted on 11/13/2004 7:05:38 AM PST by FairOpinion

Now that he's been returned to office, President Bush is going to have to differentiate between his opponents and his enemies. His opponents are found in the Democratic Party. His enemies are in certain offices of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Over the past several months, as much of official Washington looked on wide-eyed and agog, many in the C.I.A. bureaucracy have waged an unabashed effort to undermine the current administration.

At the height of the campaign, C.I.A. officials, who are supposed to serve the president and stay out of politics and policy, served up leak after leak to discredit the president's Iraq policy. There were leaks of prewar intelligence estimates, leaks of interagency memos. In mid-September, somebody leaked a C.I.A. report predicting a gloomy or apocalyptic future for the region. Later that month, a senior C.I.A. official, Paul Pillar, reportedly made comments saying he had long felt the decision to go to war would heighten anti-American animosity in the Arab world.

White House officials concluded that they could no longer share important arguments and information with intelligence officials. They had to parse every syllable in internal e-mail. One White House official says it felt as if the C.I.A. had turned over its internal wastebaskets and fed every shred of paper to the press.

The White House-C.I.A. relationship became dysfunctional, and while the blame was certainly not all on one side, Langley was engaged in slow-motion, brazen insubordination, which violated all standards of honorable public service. It was also incredibly stupid, since C.I.A. officials were betting their agency on a Kerry victory.

As the presidential race heated up, the C.I.A. permitted an analyst - who, we now know, is Michael Scheuer - to publish anonymously a book called "Imperial Hubris," which criticized the Iraq war. Here was an official on the president's payroll publicly campaigning against his boss. As Scheuer told The Washington Post this week, "As long as the book was being used to bash the president, they [the C.I.A. honchos] gave me carte blanche to talk to the media."

Nor is this feud over. C.I.A. officials are now busy undermining their new boss, Porter Goss. One senior official called one of Goss's deputies, who worked on Capitol Hill, a "Hill Puke," and said he didn't have to listen to anything the deputy said. Is this any way to run a superpower?

Meanwhile, members of Congress and people around the executive branch are wondering what President Bush is going to do to punish the mutineers. A president simply cannot allow a department or agency to go into campaign season opposition and then pay no price for it. If that happens, employees of every agency will feel free to go off and start their own little media campaigns whenever their hearts desire.

If we lived in a primitive age, the ground at Langley would be laid waste and salted, and there would be heads on spikes. As it is, the answer to the C.I.A. insubordination is not just to move a few boxes on the office flow chart.

The answer is to define carefully what the president expects from the intelligence community: information. Policy making is not the C.I.A.'s concern. It is time to reassert some harsh authority so C.I.A. employees know they must defer to the people who win elections, so they do not feel free at meetings to spout off about their contempt of the White House, so they do not go around to their counterparts from other nations and tell them to ignore American policy.

In short, people in the C.I.A. need to be reminded that the person the president sends to run their agency is going to run their agency, and that if they ever want their information to be trusted, they can't break the law with self-serving leaks of classified data.

This is about more than intelligence. It's about Bush's second term. Is the president going to be able to rely on the institutions of government to execute his policies, or, by his laxity, will he permit the bureaucracy to ignore, evade and subvert the decisions made at the top? If the C.I.A. pays no price for its behavior, no one will pay a price for anything, and everything is permitted. That, Mr. President, is a slam-dunk.

Not that it will do him much good at this point, but I owe John Kerry an apology. I recently mischaracterized some comments he made to Larry King in December 2001. I said he had embraced the decision to use Afghans to hunt down Al Qaeda at Tora Bora. He did not. I regret the error.


TOPICS: Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: cia; davidbrooks; goss; scheuer
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I think a shake up in the CIA is long overdue.

But I hope they will be able to distinguish between the troublemakers, who should go and the good agennts who should stay.

I don't know whether the current consternations, sometimes characterized as "turmoil" is a good thing or a bad thing.

Related article: CIA deputy retires amid internal conflict

1 posted on 11/13/2004 7:05:38 AM PST by FairOpinion
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To: FairOpinion

Now that Bush has won re-election in spite of the best efforts of the scum down in Langley, it's time for payback.

Here's hopin Bush sends in the liberal exterminators and disinfects the entire joint from top to bottom.

A restructured CIA after a thorough house cleaning will be highly effective and trust worthy.

As it is structured right now, there are too many pockets of poison stemming from 8 years of the Clintonistas.


2 posted on 11/13/2004 7:09:03 AM PST by Buckeye Battle Cry (The Measure of a Man is the Willingness to Accept Responsibility for Consequences of his Acts.)
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To: FairOpinion

The disgrantled government workers CIA agents shouldn't have "messed with a Texan".....I hope Bush goes after and clean up that department...way over due...and I hear it has started this morning when one of them has "resigned".....clean house....they have been out of control for too long...and it's time!


3 posted on 11/13/2004 7:10:22 AM PST by IndianPrincessOK (Native American pleading for Truth!)
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To: FairOpinion

Based on what I know (my Dad lived it) if you get an a**hole with a grudge who thinks he knows everything as a new boss (especially a 'Chief of Staff'??, anyone with retirement ready is going to leave.

What is it with American managment? A manager gains the most when he/she LISTENS to people with experience.

At this point, even given that the story originated in the NYTimes, I side with those that are leaving.


4 posted on 11/13/2004 7:11:15 AM PST by txzman (Jer 23:29)
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To: FairOpinion

This is really disturbing stuff. To think that these vandals actually run the foreign intelligence of the United States is frightening. If they would campaign against their own president, what is to keep them from leading him into disasterous foreign situation in order to destroy him.

Take a hint, Mr. President. Hit first!


5 posted on 11/13/2004 7:14:15 AM PST by Juan Medén
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To: FairOpinion

It's daggerous for our nation to have a politicized CIA!!!!

I hope Bush "cleans house" but good. Im sure there are many dead end jobs in which to move the disgruntled non-fireable careerists who have forgotten their mission to serve the President, not to advance alternative policies thru leaks to the New York Times.

Bush has been far too much of a "nice guy" with this agency, which has served him - and the rest of us- badly. since well before 9-11.


6 posted on 11/13/2004 7:15:03 AM PST by silverleaf (Fasten your seat belts- it's going to be a BUMPY ride.)
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To: FairOpinion

Of course you know this "Hubris" guy is gonna be on every major Old Media show bashing Bush and giving Osama more credit than the terrorist deserves. The libs will just love this.

Hey, I hear Sheurer is going to be on 60 minutes. Rather and c B.S. never learn.

The C.I.A. has no business being political. A major shake-up needs to be done A.S.A.P., otherwise we Americans are in greater danger from analysts and agents who want to bring down the Commander in Chief. The C.I.A. appears to be chock full of ideological weaklings and leftist girliemen who believe appeasement is the answer to Islamofascism.


7 posted on 11/13/2004 7:15:08 AM PST by demnomo
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To: FairOpinion
>His enemies are in certain offices of the Central Intelligence Agency

I didn't believe
this story when talking heads
started using it.

Now, seeing it in
the New York Times, we can all
be sure it's claptrap.

8 posted on 11/13/2004 7:15:25 AM PST by theFIRMbss
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To: txzman

The same "experience" that gave the President the WMD info.


9 posted on 11/13/2004 7:16:33 AM PST by embedded_rebel
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To: FairOpinion

Funny, the NYT spouting off about what W should do, after spending the last 18 months as the press organ of the democrats. Any advice that rag gives is to be considered toxic at best. I wouldn't wrap fish with that toilet paper...


10 posted on 11/13/2004 7:16:56 AM PST by Time is now (We'll live to see it......it's beginning now...)
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To: txzman

That is why I said I don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

If they are cleaning out the anti-Bush holdover, who really aren't professionals, because professionals wouldn't engage in breeching security for politics, that's good.

But if they are coming in being brash and disrespectful of professional agents, who worked there for many years and know reality, and who are true professionals, then it's bad, because the good people are leaving and the bad ones are staying.

I can't tell from either the editorial, or from the other articles on the subject.


11 posted on 11/13/2004 7:16:57 AM PST by FairOpinion (Thank you Swifties, POWs & Vets. We couldn't have done it without you.)
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To: txzman

Don't forget -- the ones who are confronted will never go sweetly (does YOUR teenager?). Good riddance to the bad rubbish, I say.


12 posted on 11/13/2004 7:17:59 AM PST by bboop
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To: FairOpinion

From the article: "His opponents are found in the Democratic Party. His enemies are in certain offices of the Central Intelligence Agency."
======
Sorry but I think the Slimes has it backwards. While the CIA needs a complete make-over, along with other 3-letter agencies, GWBs and America's internal enemies most certainly LIE WITHIN THE DEMOCRAT PARTY and all the other Marxists that would convert America into a socialist swamp, and trash the Constitution.

Get it straight for once, Slimes!!!!


13 posted on 11/13/2004 7:19:04 AM PST by EagleUSA
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To: demnomo
These are the same cilil servants who failed to see the crumbling of the Eastern Bloc as well as the attack upon our shores.

In the words of Oliver Cromwell, "You have sat here too long for the good you do. In the name of God, go!"

14 posted on 11/13/2004 7:20:56 AM PST by Sociopathocracy
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To: Time is now
Ditto. Out with the New Joke Times. Those guys are not getting off the hook by pointing to their partners in crime. It would serve the rats good if the CIA back lashed on them like the rest of the US.
15 posted on 11/13/2004 7:22:15 AM PST by Earthdweller (US descendant of French Protestants)
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To: EagleUSA

About the author of the editorial:

"David Brooks is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly, and the "Machine Age" columnist for the New York Times Magazine. He is also a regular commentator on National Public Radio, CNN's Late Edition and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He is the author of "Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There" published by Simon & Schuster.

Mr. Brooks joined The Weekly Standard at its inception in September 1995, having worked at the Wall Street Journal for the previous nine years. His last post at the Journal was as op-ed editor. Prior to that, he was posted in Brussels, covering Russia, the Middle East, South Africa, and European affairs. His first post at the Journal was as editor of the book review section, and he filled in for five months as the Journal's movie critic."

===

There really were many instances, when the CIA was obviously working against Bush, with all their statements and actions. Remember, the CIA was the one who picked Joe Wilson to check out the uranium story in Niger.

What I don't know is whether Goss is cleaning out those guys, who need to go, or whether useful agents feel slighted and are leaving.


16 posted on 11/13/2004 7:22:40 AM PST by FairOpinion (Thank you Swifties, POWs & Vets. We couldn't have done it without you.)
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To: FairOpinion

If people within the CIA aren't loyal to the President then we have a big problem. Geez-o-whiz people, this is not Kiddie City. There are people out there plotting to kill mass numbers of Americans right now and some of you - those supposed to protect our country - were trying to unseat the man in charge of this nation? Would they prefer Clinton? What the heck is going on? Anyone using a position within the CIA for cheap political purposes needs to spend time in a federal penitentiary.


17 posted on 11/13/2004 7:22:49 AM PST by Norman Bates (Game over. Bush wins.)
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To: FairOpinion

I heard on the radio this morning that Scheuer is resigning.


18 posted on 11/13/2004 7:25:56 AM PST by rushmom
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To: txzman
I don't. Those who leave, leave. If they're good guys, they wouldn't be leaving while this country is at war. Simple as that.

There's been something rotten at Langley for a long time. Time to clean up both the CIA and State.

State can be handled by some reassignments to some of the more God forsaken places on this earth, since most of them don't have the pride to quit.

19 posted on 11/13/2004 7:26:15 AM PST by McGavin999 (George Soros just learned a very expensive lesson-America can't be bought.)
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To: FairOpinion

There really were many instances, when the CIA was obviously working against Bush....
======
Well knowing Washington, where politics are more important than performance, the CIA was covering more butts than they were finding answers for Bush to base a war on. And as I noted, the CIA needs a "makeover" BAD. What GWBs first term faced, was the result of DECADES OF "HANDS OFF" POLITICS IN WASHINGTON...we paid dearly for it.


20 posted on 11/13/2004 7:26:54 AM PST by EagleUSA
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