Posted on 05/06/2006 11:47:14 AM PDT by Pikamax
The Fix-It Man Leaves, but The Agency's Cracks Remain
By Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, May 6, 2006; Page A01
Porter J. Goss was brought into the CIA to quell what the White House viewed as a partisan insurgency against the administration and to re-energize a spy service that failed to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks or accurately assess Iraq's weapons capability.
But as he walked out the glass doors of Langley headquarters yesterday, Goss left behind an agency that current and former intelligence officials say is weaker operationally, with a workforce demoralized by an exodus of senior officers and by uncertainty over its role in fighting terrorism and other intelligence priorities, said current and former intelligence officials.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
yeah right.
I want to know why Dana Priest isn't a resident at ADX Florence yet.
Although work may remain, I believe he has cleaned out the worst elements and set the CIA up for success under the new chief.
Good service to his country. All the best to Goss & family in the future.
WASHINGTON - CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly resigned yesterday amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.
1. Clinton appointees to CIA good, do only good things.
2. Bush appointees to CIA bad, do only bad things.
And who's alleging?
I'll bet Dana knows every crack at the agency, too......
I agree with you. Sometimes the person who cleans up the mess, and the person who rebuilds the structure have to be 2 different people.
And I have a hard time believing, considering their geographic locale, that only 15% of their employees are libs. You are exposed to a constant drumbeat of lefty politics in that area from myriad sources.
Fine by me.
Anonymouser says, "I was there and I never saw him."
There, now we have two equally veracious sources at odds with his attendance.
If they can have anonymous sources, so can I.
What a snide, nasty, snarky, backstabbing piece of fiction this is.
Was Goss forced out because he embarrassed the Saudis?
Lovely chart there...
I'd like to send the person responsible a gift.
Dana Priest is the reporter who has broken anti-administration stories by CIA employees who have demonstrated connections to left wing, Democrat, antiwar elements. Now she presents a story, almost entirely with anonymous sources, which is merely conclusionary to the effect that the CIA is not anti-administration, but is fully competent, only demoralized by a partisan witch hunt conducted by Porter Goss at the instigation of the administration.
We could leave the matter there and we would be a fully justified in doing so as would the our contempt for the process, the editorial process, which is evident at the Washington Post. But let's turn the matter over in the matter of a George Smiley novel and see if there is any possibility that Ms. Priest is not merely flacking a political agenda but has something to say. Consider the following hypothesis: There is a war, but it is a war between the CIA and the neocons who have come to dominate the foreign policy of the present administration and who have led us into the war in Iraq.
Seen through this prism, the struggle is not between the CIA, representing left-wing antiwar Democrats who seek to recover political power by betraying our military secrets, and a beleaguered Bush administration heroically trying to conduct a war against terrorism while being undermined by a fifth column at home. Rather, the struggle is between CIA professionals, 75% of whom are Republicans, who are fighting to maintain the integrity of the intelligence process against a coterie of neoconservatives who have taken hostage the foreign policy apparatus of United States.
So far all the weight of the evidence supports the conclusion that a virtual fifth column is operating within the CIA which is willing to trade our secrets for power in an effort to undermine the Bush administration. The politics of Dana Priest, the politics of her husband, the politics of Murray, the politics of her husband, the politics of Valerie Plame and the politics of her husband, Joe Wilson, and so on, all lead to the conclusion that there is a real left wing fifth column consisting, not of professionals who were 75% Republicans, but of left wing ideologues.
It seems to me there is really only one way to come to the opposing conclusion and that is if one accepts the hypothesis of professors Mearsheimer and Walt whose essay, THE ISRAELI LOBBY, appeared in the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS in March. Their thesis is that the Israeli lobby, working through neoconservatives who have found places in the present administration, have committed the United States to the war in Iraq not in the interest of the United States but in the interests of Israel. Mearsheimer and Walt were viciously attacked and even accused of being anti-Semites. Be that as it may, they are clearly opposed to the war in Iraq as being self-defeating in the war against terrorism. But let us accept their thesis. Is it possible that the CIA sees itself as fighting for the country and freeing it from the baleful influence of the Israeli lobby which has taken over the administration? These professors have even flatly accused Scooter Libby, whom they identified as a neoconservative and a card-carrying member of the Israeli lobby, of attempting to shape CIA intelligence on the existence of WMD's. This raises the issue, who is responsible for the faulty intelligence relating to the existence of WMD's in Iraq? Was it the CIA who got it wrong, or was it the neoconservatives who bullied the CIA and distorted the analysis? At the rate were going, this question will soon assume the proportions of the question which dominated the 1950s: Who lost China?
Once one begins to wade into these murky waters swirling around the Israeli lobby, the Alan Dershowitzs of the world will stir up more muck with allegations of anti-Semitism and it is almost impossible to come to an understanding of the motivations of the CIA and the administration.
Meanwhile, as the fellow said, we only got one president at a time and only one man is constitutionally and legally entitled to run the CIA.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.