Stephen Kappes and the Spy Wars

And what has the CIA got right in the last 50 years.

The Victories of the CIA
New York Times ^ | February 2, 2004 | William Safire
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1071814/posts

A Secret Life (book review)
The Center for the Study of Intelligence ^ | Thomas M. Troy, Jr.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1293640/posts

Too name two.

The thing is when the CIA is successful nobody knows it. It's only when they screw up that we find out.

"He was a spy. They aren't supposed to ring alarms the public can hear. It is Clinton and Bush who have to sign off on killing Osama. People told them. They didn't do enough.

Kappes ran a KGB Colonel with expertise in the language of Ethiopia. The Russian's name was Alexander Zaporozhsky.

AZ reportedly gave us the names of 20 Russians spies in the US and Hanssen."

There are many avenues that this person could have quietly sounded the alarm. There are continual closed door 'intel' sessions with the congress, and if this guy wanted he could have rang the President.

This is a one-sided account and hence suspect. I have been close to several political transitions, and only one of them was done well. Does the agency need massive clearance or selective pruning? Who should go and who should stay? How are ongoing operations to be protected against disruption? Do you have replacements lined up and ready to go to work? What explanations will you offer for resignations and firings? What about political fallout? It all depends on the particulars of the situation, which are hard to judge from the outside and hard to get right if you are in charge.

Nevertheless, we know that the CIA is packed with liberals, often ineffective or wrong, and anti-Bush to the point of disloyalty, so Goss and his people need to make major changes in personnel and policies that go against the agency's sclerotic institutional culture. Are the correct people being dumped? There is no way for us to tell, but I am suspect of the praise being heaped on those who resigned. More than once I have heard people whom I knew to be dolts and rotters publicly praised in the papers as they quit in a huff or were fired, the purpose of the praise being to weaken the resolve of the incoming administration.

My concern is that Goss and his people have not shown canniness in easing their adversaries out without provoking them. As Churchill once said, sometimes in politics it is best to call "Here, kitty, kitty" while reaching for a rock. The fallout from these stories may have the effect intended by the CIA sources and their media allies: make Goss and his people less willing to make necessary changes in personnel and operations. I hope that is not the case, for whatever the merits of the departed CIA officials, their loss is insignificant against the handicap that the country would suffer in having a gelding for a CIA director.

Jeez, since the friggin' CIA is your Benet Noir and you are such an expert, how about some ideas on reforming what is generally considered a failing and politicized agency?
IMO, this is preferable to constantly attacking reform and reformers.
Most agree that the CIA is not doing the job! Hell, even Saddam's and the French intelligence services made the CIA look like Alter boys.

The word is altar, not alter.

Alter is what you do to your clothes when they don't fit.

I don't think the CIA failed. I think the politicians failed to listen. They call the shots; the CIA only provides the intelligence. And provide it on Osama they did.

In 1999, the CIA wote an open-source description of the psychology of terrorists. They even predicted Al Qaeda might fly planes into the Pentagon, etc.

The politicians did nothing, even when OBL attacked our soldiers and embassies. The CIA told them where his bases were. The military could have attacked these bases and killed Osama and his minions before they all ran off.

Even after 9-11, the government pretended we needed to "make sure" it was Bin Laden. I will let you in on a little secret: everyone knew it was Bin Laden but dithered around pretending to "make sure" because the MILITARY wasn't ready to attack Afghanistan right away.
These people should have plans for Martian invasions, but there was no plan for attacking Afghanistan even tho' Bin Laden had been killing Americans from Afghanistan.

There was no politican courage to go after Bin Laden even after he had killed Americans and people who worked for us MANY times.

They are getting ready of the "I told you so" guys at the CIA. They are claiming these folks are "liberal leakers" but in fact that is a BIG LIE. They are the people who have been telling them the truth. All the people in the Directorate of Operations.

The next time is going to be catastrophic, and all our spies just quit. They won't work for Goss' minions and then get blamed when Al Qaeda does something even more catastrophic.

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