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NousDefionsDoc · 12-10-2004, 13:03

Twelve years of CIA discontent
By Tomas Jones and Marc Erikson
Dec 11, 2004

http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FL11Aa02.html

For a dozen years or more, things have been going from bad to worse at the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Some, of course, may welcome this. They should note the following, however: for better or for worse, the United States - militarily and economically - is the world's most powerful nation.
When its foreign-intelligence service stumbles from intelligence failure to intelligence failure, mis-assessment to mis-assessment, and, finally, a near-collapse of its discipline, integrity and morale, more than just US national security is put at risk. Avoidable, globally destabilizing catastrophic events occur. Unnecessary wars are fought. Were US public and private financial and economic leadership beset by the same degree of incompetence as witnessed at the CIA, the US and large parts of the world economy that depend on it would be in a shambles. (Some, of course, think they are.)

Take heart. US President George W Bush in August appointed Florida Republican Congressman Porter Goss as his new director of central intelligence (DCI). A month later, the US Senate overwhelmingly (77-17) approved the appointment. Goss is supposed to have what it takes to reform and revitalize an agency he once described as "dysfunctional" and which in a congressional report under Goss's signature in his former capacity as House Intelligence Committee leader is characterized as "a stilted bureaucracy incapable of even the slightest bit of success". Goss has also been ordered by Bush to come up with a concrete plan in 90 days for increasing the number of CIA field operatives and analysts by 50% - a large task considering the fact that the Directorate of Operations (DO; clandestine service) alone now has a staff of about 4,500, though only about one-third of those are estimated to be actively deployed as case officers running and recruiting agents.

More stars on the wall
Goss's credentials for the job look impressive. After graduating from Yale University in 1960 with a major in classical Greek, he joined the US Army. After a brief brush with army intelligence, he shifted to the CIA in 1962, serving as a case officer until 1972 when his career in the DO was cut short by illness. He was first elected to Congress (Florida, 14th District) in 1988. From 1997 until 2004, he served as head of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. As a CIA field operative, he reportedly had some involvement with John F Kennedy's Bay of Pigs fiasco. Later he specialized in infiltration and subversion of labor movements in Central America (Mexico, Dominican Republic, Haiti) and Western Europe. Suffice it to say, when it comes to intelligence failures, he probably knows what he's talking about.

In his first months in office, Goss has taken the ax to the DO, the front-line CIA component in global intelligence operations. The deputy director of operations (DDO), Stephen Kappes, in office only for a few months, and his principal assistant, Michael Sulick, have (been) resigned. So, reportedly, have the undercover operations chiefs of the Far East and Europe divisions. Gone as well is interim DCI John McLaughlin. Rumor has it that deputy director of intelligence (DDI; analysis) Jami Miscik won't stay a whole lot longer. This year she told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that she had asked her analysts to "stretch to the maximum the evidence you had" connecting Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden. All in all, about 20 senior CIA officials have left the agency since Goss took over.

What do Goss and his new DDO Jose Rodriguez aim to do to fix the clandestine service? "More stars on the wall," said a DO officer, referring to the stars placed on the wall of the lobby in CIA headquarters at Langley for every CIA officer killed in the line of duty. What must change, according to Goss, is the agency's "culture of risk aversion". He wants the DO to "launch a more aggressive campaign to use undercover officers to penetrate terrorist groups and hostile governments" - a high-risk strategy to increase drastically the number and use of non-official cover (NOC) officers instead of the current practice of deploying the majority of DO officers as diplomats assigned to US embassies with the benefit of diplomatic immunity as they attempt to recruit and gather intelligence from foreigners.

Fatal errors under Tenet
Such stratagems ("strategies" is too big a word) are not necessarily misplaced - though implementation is another, rather more difficult issue. We'll get to the latter. But take, for example, three different and crucial omissions and intelligence operations failures over the past several years that were avoidable, but arguably were at least in part responsible for letting the events of September 11, 2001, come to pass and for the outbreak and surrounding circumstances of the Iraq war 18 months later:

1) At the time of the Afghan mujahideen resistance to the Soviet occupiers in the 1980s, the CIA developed and for several years maintained close collaboration with individuals and organizations including Osama bin Laden and groups that later morphed into al-Qaeda. It should have been a straightforward matter to place agents into these groups that could later have informed on their activities and plans. Neglect and failure of foresight led to a situation in which the US was blind-sided not just to September 11, but to prior attacks on US personnel, installations and assets.

2) At the time of the Iran-Iraq War, also in the 1980s, the US had a working relationship with Saddam Hussein and his military. Again, agents and informants could/should have been put in place to spy on and possibly "take out" Saddam, avoiding both the Gulf and Iraq wars, but minimally to develop accurate information on Saddam's weapons programs.

3) In the 1990s, as the now-notorious oil-for-food scam evolved, it should have been an easy task to gather accurate and timely intelligence on details of the fraudulent aspects of the scheme, giving the US a stronger hand during prewar negotiations at the United Nations. As it was, pertinent documents were only discovered in Baghdad after the US invasion.

Many, though by no means all, of these types of operations and analysis failures can be laid at the doorstep of the man who, after his June resignation from the position of DCI, has raked in well in excess of US$500,000 for closed-door speaking engagements and, of course, has spoken about what went right (or unavoidably wrong) on his nine-year watch at the head or as deputy director of the "Pizza" company. George Tenet in numerous ways - his affable manner aside - exemplifies the bureaucratization, ossification, risk aversion, and lack of imagination and analytical acumen that now characterize most sections of the CIA. Forty percent of the agency's employees never had another big boss.

Tenet, now 51, was educated at Georgetown University and the Columbia University School of International Affairs. After serving for three years as legislative assistant to Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz, he joined the staff of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1985 and subsequently held any number of jobs of the "assistant to ...", "special assistant to ...", "director for ...", "senior director for ..." variety in the national-security bureaucracy. In 1992, he was a member of incoming president Bill Clinton's national-security transition team. In July 1995, he became deputy director of central intelligence (DDCI); in July 1997 DCI - largely by default: Clinton's then National Security Council head Tony Lake, slated to become DCI, was sure to be rejected by the Senate and his nomination was withdrawn. Tenet's career as a consummate inside-the-Beltway operator, certainly not the spate of intelligence failures on his watch, explain why he became the second-longest-serving DCI in the CIA's 57-year history.

What went wrong at the CIA under Tenet didn't start with him. Nor do we blame him for intelligence failures as such. Spying and covert operations are a risky business. "Sh-- happens" is the short phrase for it. But what happened under Tenet is that practices and attitudes that lead to intelligence failures became institutionalized and ultimately made such failures the rule and no longer the exception.

12-10-2004, 13:03	#14
NousDefionsDoc Quiet Professional Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: LA Posts: 1,653	Twelve years of CIA discontent By Tomas Jones and Marc Erikson Dec 11, 2004 http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FL11Aa02.html For a dozen years or more, things have been going from bad to worse at the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Some, of course, may welcome this. They should note the following, however: for better or for worse, the United States - militarily and economically - is the world's most powerful nation. When its foreign-intelligence service stumbles from intelligence failure to intelligence failure, mis-assessment to mis-assessment, and, finally, a near-collapse of its discipline, integrity and morale, more than just US national security is put at risk. Avoidable, globally destabilizing catastrophic events occur. Unnecessary wars are fought. Were US public and private financial and economic leadership beset by the same degree of incompetence as witnessed at the CIA, the US and large parts of the world economy that depend on it would be in a shambles. (Some, of course, think they are.) Take heart. US President George W Bush in August appointed Florida Republican Congressman Porter Goss as his new director of central intelligence (DCI). A month later, the US Senate overwhelmingly (77-17) approved the appointment. Goss is supposed to have what it takes to reform and revitalize an agency he once described as "dysfunctional" and which in a congressional report under Goss's signature in his former capacity as House Intelligence Committee leader is characterized as "a stilted bureaucracy incapable of even the slightest bit of success". Goss has also been ordered by Bush to come up with a concrete plan in 90 days for increasing the number of CIA field operatives and analysts by 50% - a large task considering the fact that the Directorate of Operations (DO; clandestine service) alone now has a staff of about 4,500, though only about one-third of those are estimated to be actively deployed as case officers running and recruiting agents. More stars on the wall Goss's credentials for the job look impressive. After graduating from Yale University in 1960 with a major in classical Greek, he joined the US Army. After a brief brush with army intelligence, he shifted to the CIA in 1962, serving as a case officer until 1972 when his career in the DO was cut short by illness. He was first elected to Congress (Florida, 14th District) in 1988. From 1997 until 2004, he served as head of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. As a CIA field operative, he reportedly had some involvement with John F Kennedy's Bay of Pigs fiasco. Later he specialized in infiltration and subversion of labor movements in Central America (Mexico, Dominican Republic, Haiti) and Western Europe. Suffice it to say, when it comes to intelligence failures, he probably knows what he's talking about. In his first months in office, Goss has taken the ax to the DO, the front-line CIA component in global intelligence operations. The deputy director of operations (DDO), Stephen Kappes, in office only for a few months, and his principal assistant, Michael Sulick, have (been) resigned. So, reportedly, have the undercover operations chiefs of the Far East and Europe divisions. Gone as well is interim DCI John McLaughlin. Rumor has it that deputy director of intelligence (DDI; analysis) Jami Miscik won't stay a whole lot longer. This year she told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that she had asked her analysts to "stretch to the maximum the evidence you had" connecting Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden. All in all, about 20 senior CIA officials have left the agency since Goss took over. What do Goss and his new DDO Jose Rodriguez aim to do to fix the clandestine service? "More stars on the wall," said a DO officer, referring to the stars placed on the wall of the lobby in CIA headquarters at Langley for every CIA officer killed in the line of duty. What must change, according to Goss, is the agency's "culture of risk aversion". He wants the DO to "launch a more aggressive campaign to use undercover officers to penetrate terrorist groups and hostile governments" - a high-risk strategy to increase drastically the number and use of non-official cover (NOC) officers instead of the current practice of deploying the majority of DO officers as diplomats assigned to US embassies with the benefit of diplomatic immunity as they attempt to recruit and gather intelligence from foreigners. Fatal errors under Tenet Such stratagems ("strategies" is too big a word) are not necessarily misplaced - though implementation is another, rather more difficult issue. We'll get to the latter. But take, for example, three different and crucial omissions and intelligence operations failures over the past several years that were avoidable, but arguably were at least in part responsible for letting the events of September 11, 2001, come to pass and for the outbreak and surrounding circumstances of the Iraq war 18 months later: 1) At the time of the Afghan mujahideen resistance to the Soviet occupiers in the 1980s, the CIA developed and for several years maintained close collaboration with individuals and organizations including Osama bin Laden and groups that later morphed into al-Qaeda. It should have been a straightforward matter to place agents into these groups that could later have informed on their activities and plans. Neglect and failure of foresight led to a situation in which the US was blind-sided not just to September 11, but to prior attacks on US personnel, installations and assets. 2) At the time of the Iran-Iraq War, also in the 1980s, the US had a working relationship with Saddam Hussein and his military. Again, agents and informants could/should have been put in place to spy on and possibly "take out" Saddam, avoiding both the Gulf and Iraq wars, but minimally to develop accurate information on Saddam's weapons programs. 3) In the 1990s, as the now-notorious oil-for-food scam evolved, it should have been an easy task to gather accurate and timely intelligence on details of the fraudulent aspects of the scheme, giving the US a stronger hand during prewar negotiations at the United Nations. As it was, pertinent documents were only discovered in Baghdad after the US invasion. Many, though by no means all, of these types of operations and analysis failures can be laid at the doorstep of the man who, after his June resignation from the position of DCI, has raked in well in excess of US$500,000 for closed-door speaking engagements and, of course, has spoken about what went right (or unavoidably wrong) on his nine-year watch at the head or as deputy director of the "Pizza" company. George Tenet in numerous ways - his affable manner aside - exemplifies the bureaucratization, ossification, risk aversion, and lack of imagination and analytical acumen that now characterize most sections of the CIA. Forty percent of the agency's employees never had another big boss. Tenet, now 51, was educated at Georgetown University and the Columbia University School of International Affairs. After serving for three years as legislative assistant to Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz, he joined the staff of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1985 and subsequently held any number of jobs of the "assistant to ...", "special assistant to ...", "director for ...", "senior director for ..." variety in the national-security bureaucracy. In 1992, he was a member of incoming president Bill Clinton's national-security transition team. In July 1995, he became deputy director of central intelligence (DDCI); in July 1997 DCI - largely by default: Clinton's then National Security Council head Tony Lake, slated to become DCI, was sure to be rejected by the Senate and his nomination was withdrawn. Tenet's career as a consummate inside-the-Beltway operator, certainly not the spate of intelligence failures on his watch, explain why he became the second-longest-serving DCI in the CIA's 57-year history. What went wrong at the CIA under Tenet didn't start with him. Nor do we blame him for intelligence failures as such. Spying and covert operations are a risky business. "Sh-- happens" is the short phrase for it. But what happened under Tenet is that practices and attitudes that lead to intelligence failures became institutionalized and ultimately made such failures the rule and no longer the exception. __________________ Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home. He knows only The Cause. Still want to quit?
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