It appears to me that CIA is not a completely homogenous organization. There is CIA, and then there is CIA.
Yes, if you have burrowed into the Mena Arkansas lore, and into the funding of the Contras, Clinton’s role in laundering the money and running protection over the traffic, if you remember the LA sheriffs who worked for CIA running cocaine into LA...
I remember a case in Venezuela of a general who went on trial there for trafficking. His defense, he had permission to run a load with US DEA agents into Florida as part of an investigation. The problem was, it turned out he and DEA went on to run many loads into Florida... and no one was ever arrested as part of the “investigation”. Sound something like Fast and Furious?
Speaking of which, it seems those arms shipments went to a specific Cartel, who was aiding us with information on their rivals. And in return for this cooperation, we not only armed them but allowed their shipments to go through unmolested.
What I’ve seen is that often as not an investigation is cover for a criminal operation. Sometimes the investigators are in on it, sometimes they are not, but their information helps the perps to clean up loose ends.
I remember in Mexico DEA witnessed an ambush in which their Mexican soldiers were wiped out by another unit led by a Mexican general. They tried reporting it up the chain of command and were told by their bosses and by US State Department to shut up. So they went to the newspapers, were fired, and the whole thing just went down the memory hole anyway.
I read of an operation that used drug buys in the Bekaa Valley as cover for CIA operating there... after accumulating quantities of the drug, they made a deal with DEA to smuggle it into the US as part of DEA’s investigations... and then the whole thing took on a life of its own and became an end in itself.
I think the more someone digs into this the more bizarro-world stuff you will find.
This is why I believe we should have a much more minimal “national security interest” clause for the CIA. I believe there is a responsibility of OUR government as determined by the founders to tell the American people a lot more, and to have the “in our national security interests” defined far more precisely. The way it now stands, we arm drug kingpins and terrorists (cough osama bin laden cough), and trade them access to a blind American populace for prizes not even in our interest.