CIA insider offered spy agency's No. 2 post (Steve Kappes)

CNN Politics ^ | May 9, 2006 | David Ensor

[LucyJo]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Steve Kappes, a recently retired CIA insider, has been offered the No. 2 slot at the spy agency, sources told CNN, to reassure the CIA operations community about Gen. Michael Hayden's appointment as director as well as ease concerns about that nominee's military ties.

The decision to tap Kappes is also seen as a move aimed at members of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee who have raised doubts about Hayden.

Kappes was a civilian operations officer who reportedly was forced out of the CIA by Porter Goss' associates after Goss became director in 2004.

Intelligence analysts and former intelligence officials said that Kappes' selection is a repudiation of Goss, who abruptly announced his resignation Friday after reported disagreements with National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

[LucyJo]

"We see Harry Reid more than HASTERT. We see Pelosi more than HASTERT."
~~~~~~~~

MSM always goes to the Dem "leadership" for expert opinion, doncha know?

[Prost1]

The point is LEADERSHIP means making one's VIEWPOINT known.

I remember how the Rep minority leader under TOM FOLLEY was seldom seen or heard. Yet we see Pelosi all the time and now they tout her as the 1st WOMAN SPEAKER!

Hell, that is more important that Hillary being a candidate or the wife of an "ex"-rapist!

[LucyJo]

We used to laugh at the MSM reporters because of the voice inflection change when interviewing Dems as opposed to Republicans. To the Dems they were usually respectful to the point of deference - addressing them by their titles to establish their authority as experts, etc. Not so for the Republicans.

Half the time when a Republican was interviewed we'd only see the video of it on the nightly news with the reporter telling the audience what was said...or their version of what was said to leave a negative impression.

When they do that with Dems it's to put a better spin on it for them. lol.

[virginiaspook]

He is definitely known as a hothead. I'm not sure that's really an ideal personality type for that kind of position which is by nature very political. Anyone know how he and Pavitt got along?

Hmmm.

[Cap Huff]

Pavitt. I did a search on his name and found this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3775423.stm

Almost like deja vu. CIA Director abruptly resigns and number 2 resigns in the wake.

I thought I was getting a handle on what is going on, but the Kappes re-hire, as well as the Foggo scandal have muddied the waters even more.

[shield]

Here's what MacRanger is saying about Kappas this AM...he's a dem and one of the prime leakers during the 2004 election cycle.

But what about Kappes? Was he a former rat who is now coming back on board? In a word - yes. According to this by Roger Simon, back in 2004, Kappes was one of the primo leakers during the 2004 election. ...snip... If so you can bet that Kappes will be read the riot act by Negroponte, who is pushing for the authority to rip retired spooks of their pensions will no doubt let him know - one leak and your ass is grass....snip... I have to admit I find this intriguing, but don't get Rep. Curt Weldon started. In his book Countdown to Terror He has nothing good to say about "that lying bastard".

[LucyJo]

Thanks for info on Pavitt "retirement", Cap.

Shield, that is a super find! It pretty much confirms my gut instinct with facts. Thanks much!

Hope he's right about Negroponte letting the leakers know their "a$$ is grass" with the first leak!

Thought this background article included in Mac's info deserved special attention here too:

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/11/22/171906.shtml

[Paul Ross]

Kappes refused to reassign Sulick and told Goss that he would resign if Sulick were removed from his post. Goss told Kappes to resign, and Kappes told Goss he intended to take the matter to the White House.

This gross insubordination by Kappes was just the tip of the iceberg. This was one seriously rotten apple. And, why am I not surprised, a Panda-Hugger. His reappointment is a complete disaster, and shows that Michael Hayden is not serious about getting the Intel, and keeping the CIA out of domestic political sabotage on behalf of the liberals. He is a creature of Negroponte. Another Panda Hugger. Connect The Dots.

Here is the latest updated article on the issue by Kenneth Timmerman:

Stephen Kappes: The Wrong Man at CIA

by Kenneth R. Timmerman
HUMAN EVENTS, May 31, 2006

Before Gen. Michael Hayden settles in as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Congress needs to ask hard questions of the man he has said he wants to appoint as deputy director of the CIA: former operations chief Stephen R. Kappes.

Kappes is a former Marine who elicits strong praise from former operations officers such as Gary Berntsen, who worked under him for two years.

Hayden also heaped praise on Kappes. "When I did the Rolodex check around the community about Steve … they’re almost universally positive," he told senators during his May 18 confirmation hearing. "This is a guy who knows the business."

But to many intelligence insiders, the Kappes nomination sends a clear message that the Bush has abandoned its efforts to reform a dysfunctional agency. And that is the most troubling part of this appointment.

"The CIA has been at war with the Bush administration since the beginning," says Richard Perle, the former chair of the Defense Policy board. "What is astounding is the CIA campaign to discredit this administration."

Just two months after Porter Goss took over as CIA Director in 2004, he ordered Kappes to fire his deputy, Michael Sulick, for gross insubordination. Kappes refused, and offered his resignation instead -- telling colleagues that Goss would never dare to accept it. He did.

To some intelligence insiders, that made Kappes a hero.

Sulick and others referred to Goss’s aides dismissively as "the Goslings" and refused to take orders from them, claiming they were "political hacks" because they had worked for Goss in Congress. Many in the media jumped in, accusing Goss and his staff of conducting a "witch hunt" for firing Sulick.

But every director of central intelligence has brought his closest aides with him from earlier jobs. This was true with Bill Casey in the 1980s, and with George Tenet in the 1990s. And it will undoubtedly be true of Hayden as well.

What Sulick and a coterie of like-minded officials at the CIA didn’t like about Goss was his mission. Goss had been appointed by the President -- or so he thought -- to "clean house" at the agency, firing officers who were incompetent, risk-averse, or so beholden to a partisan agenda that they could not loyally serve the President, as they took an oath to do. To enforce those orders, Goss brought professional staff from the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee, who knew the community inside and out, including where the bodies were buried. Dangerous, indeed.

Rep. Curt Weldon (R.-Pa.) believes Kappes was a disaster as head of the CIA's directorate of operations, and called him "the ringleader of an internal CIA rebellion" against Goss. "He was one of many in the CIA resistant to needed reforms."

House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R.-Mich.) said Kappes was guilty of "gross insubordination" for his behavior at the agency under Goss and complained that the administration never consulted Congress before choosing him. "You would think that on the No. 2 person they might have just said, 'Hey, what do you think of this guy,' but they never did," he told the Washington Times.

The real challenge facing the CIA today is how to reconstitute its shattered human intelligence capabilities, as Hayden acknowledged during his confirmation hearing.

That will require recruiting a new generation of operations officers who are "risk-takers versus being risk-averse," says Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R.-Ga.). Congress should holding hearings on Mr. Kappes -- even if current law does not require the CIA deputy director to be confirmed by the Senate -- to determine into which category he falls.

The first person the SSIC should ask to testify is Weldon.

In Countdown to Terror, Weldon says Kappes point-blank refused repeated pleas -- backed by then-CIA Director George Tenet -- to travel to Paris to meet with a potential Iranian source who claimed to have intelligence on Iran’s nuclear programs and on Iran's ties to Osama Bin Laden.

Weldon encouraged Kappes to investigate the credentials of his source, but got nowhere. "Finally, Kappes threatened me too. He warned me to stop working with [the source]… Fortunately, Kappes has now resigned from the CIA."

Those are chilling words, especially now that CIA has been given authority over all U.S. human intelligence operations. Under the new rules, CIA can essentially veto any source they find challenging, inconvenient, or worse, embarrassing.

Here are just a few of the issues Congress needs to explore:

• Did Kappes encourage former Paris chief of station Bill Murray to compromise the identity of Weldon's Iranian source in Paris? Weldon had gone to great lengths to protect his source's identity, only to have his name appear in a left-wing publication that interviewed Murray. A Kappes protégé, Murray said he was "outraged" that Weldon had attacked the CIA, and called his information "garbage." Outing Weldon’s source put the man’s life at risk.

• Was Kappes involved in the decision not to act on information provided by an Iranian defector in late July 2001 during debriefings in Baku, Azerbaijan, that could have helped to prevent the September 11 attacks? The defector not only gave the method of the attack -- hijacked civilian airliners. He identified the perpetrators (al Qaeda operatives trained in Iran and gave the exact date, which the CIA's man in Baku mistranslated as September 10.

• What role did Kappes play in the compromise of the CIA's last network of sources in Iran? According to my information Stephen Richer, who was in charge of Middle East operations and who followed Kappes out the door in 2004, doubled the reporting requirements of the network in order to advance his own evaluation. But Richer neglected to double the channels used to communicate with the Iranians. As a result, Iranian intelligence discovered the network of agents and shut them down.

If this administration is going to rebuild our nation's ailing ship of spies, they are going to have to do more than just rearrange the deck chairs.

---

[Paul Ross]

If so you can bet that Kappes will be read the riot act by Negroponte>

I'll take that bet, AGAINST.

He would not be being hired back after his gross insubordination, dereliction of duty, violation of oathes, breach of confidence, and sabotage of intel source security, and willful malfeasance...unless he was being given a pat on the back, and a "well done."

Contrary to you, I would indeed "get Curt Weldon started". He knows this bastard personally. It is time the Congress really took the White House to the WoodShed. The Executive Branch is screwing the pooch.

By sucking all the Intel talent out of the House with Porter Goss...then firing him...the White House has attacked the integrity of Congressional oversight and its ability to do so...and the real patriots trying to clean house.

The "Adults" clearly aren't in charge.

[Marine_Uncle]

"If this administration is going to rebuild our nation's ailing ship of spies, they are going to have to do more than just rearrange the deck chairs."
Couldn't agree more. One cannot help but wonder if Hayden is under great pressures to appear fair, team player, uniter, and in so doing is attempting to sooth disenters with a longer term goal of retuning the agency. We don't know what Kappes was told to go along with. For all we know some deals went down to defuse ill feelings within the organization. But time shall tell.
Then again it may not. Not until we see some further fiascos in the future.

[Paul Ross]

Reagan always understood that Personnel is policy.

W/Negroponte/Hadley, by rehiring Kappes, is rewarding willful malfeasance, gross insubordination, incompetence, disloyalty, and traitorous conduct...

And simultaneously, by firing Porter Goss, they are PUNISHING diligence, competence, loyalty, honorable conduct, patriotism, and fidelity...and CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT.

What does this all say about National Security as a true priority in this Administration?