Posted on 06/17/2006 7:30:56 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
Excellent post.
Sorry, I know what I am talking about.
The problem with your analysis is that you start from the premise that when Bush Senior was president the CIA was filled with superb professionals and that they became "conniving hacks" during Clinton's administration. It shows a complete lack of understanding of the dynamics of the CIA and their performance, and how long it takes to develop a cadre of professional Case Officers. Clinton essentially decimated the CIA during most of his presidency. His first DCI was Woolsey, who he only met once during Woolsey's entire tenure. Deutsch was sent in to cut the Agency down to size and did so through cutbacks and an attempt, through his XO Nora Slatten to place minorities and women in positions of power regardless of their capabilities. The hacks you are referring to were the people Clinton put into place who had no clue about the complexities of running agent operations. It wasn't until our Embassies in Africa were blown up that Clinton had a mini wake up call and started rebuilding the CIA. It was too little, too late. The idea that everyone in the CIA was a Clintonista is absurd. Furthermore, a Case Office is ultimately responsible for the security of his Agents and can't get them to provide that which they don't know. The assumption that every, or even most, agents in Iran could have provided substantive information on the nuclear issue is a huge leap. Your assessment makes a lot of assumptions which ignore the realities of agent handling and agent communications. While I don't have a lot of respect for Baer (he was a risk seeker, not a risk taker) he is not lying about what happened to the Iranian assetts in 1989. The wrap up of the Iranian assetts in 1989 was the result of lousy tradecraft by the CIA and can't be blamed on Bush senior. This does not mean that some agents were not wrapped up when Perle says they were. The two are not mutually exclusive. We may not like what happened to the CIA during the Clinton presidency, but like it or not the CIA serves at the direction and pleasure of the president and as bad as that can be, it is certainly better than the alternative of a spy agency doing whatever it wants.
Thank you so much for all your hard work and this important ping! I did not know this and am SO grateful for brilliant FReepers such as yourself to "arm" me with the facts! You would think they would get tired of the rank dishonesty, but apparently not.
Thanks again!
Unfortunately too many FReepers, unlike President Bush, cannot face even the possibility that Goss was the wrong man for the job.
Yes the CIA has too many anti-Bushites but putting a heavy-handed amateur in charge is not the answer.
More here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1650835/posts
I wouldn't put the Impeached Rapist in charge of my daughter's lemonade stand. Especially if she were anywhere in the area.
Thanks for the ping!
Thanks for the work and posting this.
Now this has been posted on FR again. When the left wing mediots try to blame this on GBI, you/we can send this to their editors/publishers and ask them if they are trying to be new Dan Rathers.
"Uh, Goss is long gone, a victim of bureaucratic infighting with the NID, and a stab in the back from Bush, if you believe sources in DC."
Thanks, I never heard this last.
"In any event, this guy may well be a great spy, and he may be personally responsible for turning Libya as the article says. No mention of the Iraq War's implied threat in Qadaffi's decision, but, hey, they're Brits and what can you do, they're like CNN all the time, and that's in the conservative papers. It may be good news that he is back at CIA, but the point is, you have to read this stuff critically, and when you see Goss forced out and articles like this lauding the old hands at the CIA, and calling Goss "amateur hour" you can read into it "agenda" and then try to decipher what the agenda is. Lefties at CIA are back in charge and feeding the MSM what they want to print. I'll reserve my judgment on this guy."
While I am far from knowledgeable about it, I believe Goss was a good guy doing a badly needed cleanup in an agency that has been severely compromised for decades.
It is good to see someone who apparently knows more than myself seeing things the same way.
By the way, what do you think of a pet idea of mine? that this new guy's background (Hayden), being in "national technical means" is not, in itself, a good sign for the CIA, whose great weakness for decades has been a lack of affective HUMINT.
Re post 12: Wow, good post. This is what I come to FR for.
A former Marine might like the idea of taking orders from someone who earned the rank of General rather than other folks he has had to work for in the CIA.
Support your comment a little more perhaps.
Excuse the above support comment..I should read further!!
Could not agree more. What Kappes will demand from CIA personnel is professonalism and accountability.
Ok, think about your comment a little. One has to assume that all these Iranian assetts had been put in place over many years, most likely beginning before, during, and after the hostage taking in the late 70's. If in fact all the agents were given the same foreign address with which to communicate then it shows the grossest possible incompetence by the CIA. A fundamental and particularly basic tenet of running agents is that you NEVER give more than one agent the same communications link. If one gets wrapped up, then all your agents are toast. This is something you'd be taught your first weeks of training and it would be pounded into you from then on. Compartmentalization of agents is the foundation of good agent operations. So, if in fact all the agents were given the same address then it wouldn't have required an increase in activity to find them all. Find one, you have them all. If that's what happened then no is to blame for the wrap up except mind numbing incompetence by CIA officers.
On January 21, 1979, the former Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, arrived in Paris from Tehran. He held some talks with the opposition leader Khomeini and told him Carter's opinions of the recent events. As the news agencies reported, when Clark left Khomeini, he said, "I have a great hope that this revolution will bring social justice to Iranian people." 28
An interview with the Sudanese leader, Sadeq Al-Mehdi, in Al-Mostaqbal magazine, convinces us that the American administration used him as a mediator in the hostage crisis by visiting Khomeini. He added that this was not the first time he mediated between the American administration and Khomeini.29
Former Iranian Foreign Minister, Ibrahim Yazdi, said in a conversation with the Iranian newspaper, Iyianadjan, which Reuter broadcasted on August 7, 1979, that Carter warned Khomeini to be careful, if Bakhtiar did not support the Revolution. This warning was in a letter which two French presidential envoys carried to Khomeini in exile on Neauphle Le Chateau in France. What is important here is the letter and the warning which Carter gave to Khomeni.
NBC news reported that Sheikh Al-Islam Reza Al-Shirazy, one of the religious figures in Iran, had secret medical treatment for four months in Minnesota. The network reported that Al-Shirazy was wounded in an assassination attempt in July 1979. A speaker of the State Department said that there is no relation between Al-Shirazy and the Revolutionary Council in Iran, but he is a friend of Khomeini. However, the network did not report whether Shirazy left the U.S. at that time.30 Why was the U.S. so loyal to Khomeini while he held some American hostages? And how did the Americans know the names of the Revolutionary Council while we know the names were secret?
http://www.angelfire.com/mi/shebaab/iran1.html
If we go back to Bush Sr. we have to go back to Carter and Clark?
Thanks for setting the record straight Southack. I've been interested in the CIA since deutsch downloaded all that sensitive, top secret, information from Hqs CIA to his home computer. I've always wondered why he did that, Was it information dealing with the nuclear/encryption information "sold" by klinton to the chinese, the BalKan fiasco? What?
"Ambassado to the Inuit Nation?" Probably the one in Canada, she wouldn't last long in Alaska, we're Republicans up there, by nature. We're independent people.
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