Central Intelligence Agency:
Porter Goss, the former Florida Congressman recently appointed Director of Central Intelligence, has caused a huge stir in Washington by beginning a massive makeover of the CIA.
1) The CIA's entrenched bureaucracy has consistently resisted change, despite widespread belief that its failures contributed to the 9/11 attacks and to creation of misleading information about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.
2) Moreover, it is obvious that senior CIA officials have been leaking information calculated to undermine Bush and his top officials, and now Goss's attempts at housecleaning. Many senior agency officials were covertly but effectively campaigning for Sen. John Kerry (D.) during the recent presidential campaign.
2) For example, Paul Pillar, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, told journalists this fall during a private dinner of secret, unheeded warnings to Bush about going to war. The briefing was off-the-record, meaning that Pillar was essentially seeking anonymity while attacking the President from the platform of an executive agency.
3) Another noteworthy incident concerns the anonymously published attack on Iraq War policy by former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer. Scheuer was still on the CIA payroll when the agency vetted the book and allowed it to be published. The Washington Post quoted Scheuer on November 9 as saying CIA officials nixed his media appearances in July only after they realized that he was really criticizing them and not Bush. As long as he was criticizing Bush, he said, top CIA officials gave him "carte blanche" to speak to the media.
4) The entrenched intelligence community is complaining bitterly of Goss and his top aide, Patrick Murray, whom they characterize as a tactless ideologue playing the bull in the china shop. At least five top CIA officials have resigned in the past month, and their complaints have naturally made their way directly to the newspapers.
5) In spite of their efforts to keep the story on television and in the newspapers, President Bush is standing by Goss. In addition, maverick Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) complains of the CIA as "dysfunctional" and a "rogue organization." The reaction from the CIA's old boys confirms the truth behind McCain's harsh adjectives.
Intelligence Reform:
The intelligence reform bill's failure in the November lame duck session has generated much buzz in the press, but in fact it is a relatively minor matter. A bill will be forthcoming to put into law the 9/11 Commission's anti-terrorism recommendations, either this month or after the swearing-in of the new Congress.
1) Some commentators insist that the episode represents a serious failure for Bush and a major loss of political capital that puts the country at risk of a terror attack. Others complain that House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R.) showed through his actions that he will only act on legislation that is supported by "a majority of the majority." The latter claim may be valid, but the 9/11 bill will not have such immediate consequences that a month's delay will seriously jeopardize national security. The 9/11 Commission itself requested a three-month delay in producing its report, and no one at the time thought it would endanger the nation.
2) Bush, while en route to an economic summit in Chile, telephoned House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis.) and asked him to yield on the bill's contents in the House-Senate conference committee by dropping his provision forbidding driver's licenses to illegal aliens. They agreed on a compromise that would allow Sensenbrenner to insert other immigration and law enforcement provisions. That deal was rebuffed by a bipartisan group of senators including Susan Collins (R.-Maine) and Joe Lieberman (D.-Conn.).
3) Sensenbrenner insists that the Senate's bill contained no adequate law enforcement or immigration enforcement provisions to thwart terrorism, and that his ideas made the bill more, not less, faithful to the ideas the commission set forth. He wanted provisions that would allow immigration agents to enter workplaces to enforce immigration laws, expedite removal of certain illegal aliens, increase standards for foreign identification papers, and reform of asylum laws, among others. Senators rejected these provisions.
