What's Wrong with the CIA? (October Imprimis)

Imprimis, Hillsdale College ^ | October 2003 | Herbert E. Meyer

[independentmind]

Dragging it out is the icing on the cake, but it also stops getting anything about why Mr. Wilson was selected to go gather intel.

True. Personally, I am curious as to what energy company Ms. Plame-Wilson used as a cover.

[Toskrin]

Excellent article. I don't think the problem with the CIA is sabotage by Democratic administrations (though they haven't helped). Instead, it's an inherent problem with those who become higher-level government employees. Middle and upper level government pay has just not kept pace with the private sector. Only the lower level jobs have. In years past, bright people would go to work for the government because it was decent pay. Well, it's not decent pay anymore. To fix the problem, the government has to increase greatly the pay scale of higher level employees, while leaving the lower levels alone.

I'm sure there are many bright, analytical Freepers out there who would not mind working for the CIA. But would you give up your current private-sector analysis job to make one fourth as much?

[Bernard Marx]

To those who can remember the 70s the reason for the obvious failure of the CIA in relation to the war on terror seems clear: the Church Committee.

The very liberal Idaho Democrat and his liberal cronies, in the guise of "reforming" the CIA from perceived excesses, essentially did away with human intelligence resources. We simply don't have anything near enough trained people on the ground who can infiltrate Bin Laden's or Saddam Hussein's organizations. That's why there's suddenly a mad scramble to find agents who can speak the local languages while depending on hired "interpreters" of questionable loyalty.

Maybe "technical means" like communications intercepts and satellite imagery were enough during the Cold War (I personally doubt even that premise). But in our war on the ghost-like world of terror where there are no massed troops and battles are fought in mosques or American flight schools, there's a screaming need for trained, dedicated, patriotic human agents. I agree with other posters who say the current state of America and American education isn't likely to produce many such people.

[nathanbedford]

Thank you very much for posting an important article.

I agree with those who have previously posted, who mainly agree with the author, and see the left, especially the Church Committee and the gang around the Sandinistas to be responsible for the culture which has led us to the place where we have an agency which cannot connect the dots or will not connect any dots which might further Bush's policies. I would cite the Wilson/Niger fiacso as the perfect example of a culture actively campaigning against the President's policies.

But now let me reverse course and say that the even greater fiasco of CIA and the whole of the intellegence community assuring Bush/Clinton/Bush that Saddam was in possesion of WMDs was far more egregious than the failure to predict 9/11, if, as now seems likely, no mass murder weapons will be found. The failure here was not a failure of a left wing culture working against a republican world view. If anything, the mistake was a right of center mistake which simply blew it. Since I am unaware of any leak from the agency discrediting reports of WMDs before the invasion, I have to conclude that the leftist culture in the agency honestly believed the weapons were there or someone would have leaked to abort the invasion. It is simply too Machiavellian to believe that the Wilsons in the agency sat on their knowledge that WMDs did not exist, so that Bush would be embarrassed. So I conclude everybody was fooled. Everybody believed.

Therefore, the intelligence problems we face are not just leftist cultural problems but organizational, and conventional. These are problems of professionalism and they are profound. I believe it is a failing that Bush has not set out to reform the agency top to bottom in the wake of this fiasco.

Another very interesting question is why has Bush forfeited these golden opportunities, post 9/11 and again post invasion, not only to reform the CIA but to launder it of its Leftists. If the culture can survive these twin calamities without a purge it will become well neigh impregnable.

I would appreciate the thoughts of those who have thoughtfully posted here.

[ExpandNATO]

Reminds me of the controversy that swirled around Frank Carlucci when he was nominated for Secretary of Defence during the last year of Reagan's administration.

Carlucci had been in intelligence for a while and he was attacked for "destroying the collegial culture" by:

Insisting that merit pay go only to analysts that got their predictions right.

Insisting that analyst assigned to a country must be one at least of the following: fluent in the language of the country, know its history or culture. In other words have some knowledge of how the foreign country actually behaved (history and culture) or how its people think (language and culture).

[swarthyguy]

Refusal to ID the Saudis as perpetrators of the Attacks on America.

So we have a war on a tactic, not a nationstate.

The Saudi Coverup continues.

[eleni121]

For instance, the incumbent Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, is a Clinton administration holdover.

This is the crux of the problem. He cannot separate his job from his inferior politics. He is not the man for the moment

NEEDS TO GO LIKE YESTERDAY! WHAT ON EARTH IS HE STILL DOING IN THAT POSITION?

[Tailgunner Joe]

Fire Tenet!

[Maria S]

"Another very interesting question is why has Bush forfeited these golden opportunities, post 9/11 and again post invasion, not only to reform the CIA but to launder it of its Leftists."

Aren't these career people who can't exactly be fired?

[StriperSniper]

Could it be that President Bush's confidence comes from the fact that he to has an "OSS within the CIA"?

GWB has said that he runs things more like RWR than GHWB.

[leadpenny]

Great comments. Proves once again to me that if I want answers, I need look no further than FreeRepublic.

Bookmarked for future reference.

[leadpenny]

Added for reference:

Steyn on Wilson: CIA spay games

[Pilsner]

I posted this comment on another thread, but it fits here to:

In the late 1980s I interned in Washington DC for an organization headed by a retired three star general who had been both director of the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and Deputy Director of the CIA. He did not get those jobs by being chatty about about his work, especially with interns. The only comment I recall him making about the intelligence business was in response to someone asking him why it appeared that the CIA was dragging its feet in implementing President Reagan's policy to aid the Afghans against the Soviets. He said basically the following:

"You have got to understand that the CIA is run by liberals. All this Hollywood stuff about conservative crazies there is just (expelitive deleted). The intelligence services in this country were started by FDR liberals in the '40s, taken over by Kennedy liberals in the '60s and retaken by Carter liberals after the Church hearings in the '70s."

[VOA]

As geniuses like Albert Einstein and Jonas Salk remind us, in science there
is no substitute for sheer intellectual firepower – in other words, for brains.

It's probably apochryphal (sp?), but I've heard that Einstein said something like:
"You can't expect the people who caused the problem to be the ones to fix it."

[cookcounty]

Placeholder.

[StriperSniper]

Could it be that President Bush's confidence comes from the fact that he to has an "OSS within the CIA"?

Hmmmm....Check this out:

Enter Parrish, whose charge is to turn vague, uncertain intelligence into coherent, useful warnings for police, emergency workers and corporate security officials.

He now has about 60 intelligence analysts working for him - a tiny shop compared with operations at the CIA and FBI. His group also must find a role distinct from the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the new operation designed to share information between the FBI, CIA and other agencies on terrorist plots.

All that would seem to leave little room for Parrish's operation, which is part of the larger Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Office at Homeland Security.

Article thread: U.S. Uncovers Plans for More Attacks

Source article: AP: U.S. Uncovers Plans for More Attacks

[steve8714]

Also most of the bureaucracy, perhaps outside of Defense.
Too many six-figure do-nothings, too many attorneys.

[First_Salute]

bttt