US Secret Service Embattled

The abrupt resignation (ouster?) of Porter Goss as director of the Central Intelligence Agency lays bare the rocky state of America’s most prestigious secret service amid critical missions on three fronts, Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on al Qaeda.

The White House quickly denied US media reports that the CIA chief, entrusted 20 months ago with reforming the agency after the twin intelligence failures of 9/11 and Iraq, had been forced to quit. At a hastily called press conference Friday, President George W. praised Goss for his “help to make this country a safe place and help us win the war on terror.” But he inserted a barb: "Porter's tenure at the CIA was one of transition."

Indeed, DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources note the CIA is on its uppers in three vital spheres:

1.US forces are not getting to grips with either of the two segments of the Iraqi guerrilla insurgency: the mostly secular Baathists and the extremist Islamist Iraqi groups and al Qaeda. The continuous upsurge of violence in Iraq means the CIA has failed by and large to penetrate the most dangerous insurgent groups.

2. While the Taliban-al Qaeda rebellion rages in Afghanistan, Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s Iraq wing - far from being crushed - has in the last six months opened up new terror fronts in Sinai, Egypt, Palestinian territories and Algeria.

3. On Iran, the CIA comes up short on two interconnected issues: derailing Iran’s nuclear program with the help of local surrogates which, given the millions of expatriate Iranian exiles who detest the clerical regime, should pose fewer difficulties than penetrating al Qaeda. Secondly, American operatives should have been able to head off the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and intelligence agents who have permeated every corner of Iraqi politics and whose influence in Baghdad often prevails over the word from Washington - despite the presence of 135,000 US troops.

The CIA, like any service of its ilk, cannot handle its missions without superb counter-intelligence and clandestine services and the taking of operational risks.

When he took command of the agency from George Tenet in September 2004, Porter Goss started out by trying to steer the secret agency in the right direction for overcoming these grave shortcomings. His attempts to reform and shake up key personnel were quickly challenged by the upper and professional echelons, which meted out the treatment traditionally reserved for “outsiders.”

Goss spent 10 youthful years up until 1971 as a CIA spy. From 1989 up until his appointment as 19th director of the intelligence agency, he served on the House Intelligence Committee. No part of this record qualified him as an insider in CIA terms. He was dismissed as a Bush political appointee and his efforts to make changes met the sort of resistance the spy service’s core personnel have put up successfully for decades.

An obvious analogy is the case of Goss’s predecessor, President Bill Clinton’s nominee John Deutsch. Taking office in May 1995, he believed like Goss that if he brought in his own people – who came to be dubbed “Deutschland” - he would be able to fend off the internal pressures and intrigues besetting any external new broom.

However, the career echelon cold-shouldered him (some of them because he was a Jew) and after 19 months he threw in the sponge.

From the 2005 appointment of John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence - the post of czar of all US spy agencies created after the Sept. 11 al Qaeda attacks – the new CIA director’s days were numbered. Traditionally the agency chief is first among his peers in the other American undercover services. Although the two had been friends, Negroponte’s appointment upset that internal balance and further weakened Goss in his struggle with the agency veterans. When the inevitable clash occurred, the president favored the czar.

The CIA chief’s departure will not make life easier for Negroponte but rather put him and indirectly the president on the spot. The intelligence overseer ranks in CIA terms as an outsider even more than Goss. A career diplomat, he comes from the posts of ambassador to the UN, followed by the embassy in Baghdad. He will come up against the same difficulty as the departing director when he sets about implementing the necessary overhaul to adapt the agency to post-Sept. 11 challenges.

The Director of National Intelligence may try inserting as a cushion his principal deputy, Air Force General Michael Hayden 61, in the top CIA slot, hoping that as an accredited member of the rarefied spook community he gets better treatment than Goss. Hayden was director of the National Security Agency in 2001 and in charge of the controversial wiretapping program of conversations with suspected overseas terrorists without a warrant. But it is by no means certain that Negroponte’s remedy is the cure.

"All things on balance, I am also optimistic that this may be another good Bush appointment."
Let us hope so. The good general probably got the credentials for doing a good job. For all we know he may be a good administrator as well.
Just a few extra thoughts If I may. With the expanded role SOCOM is to play. With Hayden in the CIA we are not going to be hearing about the CIA complaining the military is assuming some roles that where more in line with what the CIA may have provided in the past. I really think GWB has a lot of deep thinkers with high degree of expertise carefully considering all angles as how best we can integrate all our Intellegience groups both civilian as well as military, and the FBI into a cohesive operation that will at all levels be able to combat all types of terrorist groups, both sectarian as well as state controlled, and in between.
We need team players at all levels within our Intel orgs. The old crap about turf wars has to stop. It has for so long damage our ability to utilize our intel orgs to their full potential.
They must of course stay within the bounds of their charters but, have the ability and williness to act very quickly in unisons when any threat to this country is detected.
Lastly. As you well know, the CIA has a long history of links with the former KGB etc.. What better way to start further cleaning shop then to put in a red blooded American patriot as Director of the CIA. I'll leave that to your imagination.

"All I have heard since Woolsey is that the CIA is on autopilot. No matter wh the head is, he has no power or authority. They do their own thing."
That is why GWB wants the good general to assume the Directorship. Time to really clean house. And take the autopilot control out of the agency. We may in the next few months hear a lot of firings and bitching. Time to clean up once and for all. If we lose experienced people. So be it. Of course that is easy for me to say. But what alternatives exist? GWB seems quite serious in changing the CIA into a organization any POTUS can really depend on.

Military intelligence is important. So is a separate agency like the CIA.

I agree that it would not be a good idea to roll all of the CIA's missions into other organizations. The successes of the CIA and Spec Ops in Afghanistan lead me to think that they have some very capable operations personnel. I would hope that they are also improving their intelligence gathering ability. The upper layers of the organization that process and analyze intelligence is where I think most of the problems lie. Sometimes a reorganization is a good tool to week out under-performers and that may be where Hayden's experience could be particularly useful.

Most interesting is DEBKA's ignorance of the terms used in the US government. "Secret Service" is not the ususal US term for the CIA. The Secret Service is a Treasury Department agency that guards the money and the president (in some order of priority.) "Secret Service" is a Europeanism; not wrong to use the term, but not very good journalism when referring to the US. DEBKA's reliability is somewhere between the Star and the Weekly World News.

"Sometimes a reorganization is a good tool to week out under-performers and that may be where Hayden's experience could be particularly useful."
Surely this is why the POTUS is adamant in putting a guy like Hayden in the Directorship. As for CIA field ops. They place their lives on the line. I don't think the plan is to neuter them, but to simply as you indicated improve their methods of analysis and internal operations AND adminstration. As one freeper mentioned, Woosey has been quoted as saying the CIA has been on autopilot for to long.
Time to get off autopilot. The CIA needs a capable pilot in the cockpit. One that does not think twice about pulling the frigen rivots out of the wings, and going into a split S on a moments notice, at low altitudes.
And Hayden just may be the pilot they need to keep them from crashing.

I am sure you are right on the money. And GHB probably knows some folks that have been embedded a long time that may need to be examined a bit closer. I for one tend to forget somethimes institutions like this often have people long entrenched, that simply are not under the spot light, but can have profound effects on how things are ran. For that matter it is no different then the business community,local, state government. Hopefully more bad apples will be routed out without significantly effecting the over all operations.

"I agree that it would not be a good idea to roll all of the CIA's missions into other organizations."

Yes.

"The successes of the CIA and Spec Ops in Afghanistan lead me to think that they have some very capable operations personnel."

I also attach tremendous importance to the Afghanistan operation. though there have been so negative indicators about the CIA, this operation makes it clear that a number of good people have managed to survive inside the agency. In addition to good operations people, there must be good people on the intelligence side as well for something like that to work.

As to the rest of your comments: hopefully you are correct. Just at the moment, it seems far from certain that this guy will even become the new head of the CIA.

"Most interesting is DEBKA's ignorance of the terms used in the US government. "Secret Service" is not the ususal US term for the CIA. The Secret Service is a Treasury Department agency that guards the money and the president (in some order of priority.) "Secret Service" is a Europeanism; not wrong to use the term, but not very good journalism when referring to the US. DEBKA's reliability is somewhere between the Star and the Weekly World News."

Your point is well taken and has been made by two other people on this thread as well. While they should do better in this regard, I do not agree with your valuation of Debka. I have found them to provide very good information most of the time, as far as I can tell---often the best information that I can find.

I am just a working stiff like everyone else and spend limited time gathering information about these things. I'm not claiming that there may not be better sources of information, but personally I haven't found them.

First of all, Debka Files is an Israeli site, which explains at least in part why they know less about the United States that we do. Second of all, I suspect it is a pretty small organization. That said, I repeat once again that your point is well taken and this is a mistake they should not of made.

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