Juxtapose two images in your mind’s eye. First, the dirty-faced
young Marine, taking a cigarette break between skirmishes in
Fallujah last week. Second, a CIA bureaucrat, taking tiny sips of
chardonnay in those delicate intervals when he takes time out from
writing his resignation to whine to the Washington Post. There is
no way to reconcile those images. And there is no excuse for what
CIA girlie men are doing.
Porter Goss, new Director of Central Intelligence and most
recently chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, brought a
few of his top Hill staffers with him to Langley. Some of them,
like Goss, are former CIA men themselves. In the brief time they’ve
been there, they have been doing what Goss said he would in his
confirmation hearing. Goss told the Senate that there was too much
bureaucracy in CIA headquarters, and that his management style
would be “tough love,” his language strong and blunt, and that
changes would be made. Now, through the Post, the CIA
bureaucrats are doing everything they can to weaken Goss. And some
of them are resigning.
First was Deputy Director John McLaughlin, who resigned —
according to the Post — because Goss’s top guy and former hill
staffer Patrick Murray was “treating senior officials
disrespectfully and risked widespread resignations.” Next was
Deputy Director of Operations Stephen Kappes, who also resigned
after a confrontation with Murray. The Sunday Post
told us that four more senior undercover
officials may resign as early as today. This is only the latest
round of CIA disloyalty.
FOR MANY MONTHS, the CIA bureaucrats have been conducting a rather
noisy mutiny against the Bush administration. Leak followed leak,
each timed and designed to embarrass the president. Portions of
National Intelligence Estimates were leaked to bolster the idea
that the administration corrupted intelligence reports to justify
the Iraq war. Never mind that NIE’s are some of the most sensitive
documents we ever create. They did their best to leak things
designed to give credence to Amb. Joe Wilson’s attacks on the
President. Wilson went to Niger, drank tea with a few cronies, and
returned to claim that Mr. Bush lied when he said Saddam had tried
to buy yellowcake uranium there.
The leaks and attacks grew to book length when one CIA officer
— Michael Scheuer — anonymously penned Imperial Hubris,
and then published it with permission of CIA bigs. Scheuer’s book
argues that we are losing the war against terrorists and that the
Iraq war is “a sham causing more instability than it prevents.”
In truth, most of these guys should be fired for poor
performance. They didn’t see that the Soviet Empire was about to
fall before it did in 1989 and got pretty much everything that
counted wrong ever since. They didn’t uncover the A.Q. Khan nuclear
proliferation network or foresee 9/11. Then-DCI George Tenet told
the president that the case against Saddam’s WMD programs was a
“slam dunk.” And, thanks mainly to them, we have pretty much no
damned clue about Islamic radicals’ strength in Turkey, what Putin
is going to do in Chechnya, or just how close the mullahs in Tehran
are to having the ability to produce nuclear weapons. All they seem
to do well is fight the Pentagon for control of the intel budget.
Now they’re leaking to the Post that Goss is a terrible
boss, that his aides are “highly partisan,” and that the new crew
is wrecking the agency. Their answer is to this challenge is to
resign. How dare they?
Let’s assume everything these guys are saying is true. That they
are all highly-skilled professionals whose lives have been
dedicated to doing an important job for their country. That they
are the best we have to do this job, and their failures are not
their fault. That Porter Goss and his principal staffers are
arrogant idiots from Congress who not only lack any clue about what
they’re doing, but are abusive and disrespectful to the pros. And
let’s toss in the assumption, as the Post quotes one
former senior CIA official, that “[t]here’s confusion throughout
the ranks and an extraordinary loss of morale and incentive.” So
what should these troubled professionals do?
If they were as professional as they profess, if they were as
dedicated as they declaim, if they were the leaders they would lead
us to believe, they would do a whole bunch of things. But not
resign. That’s the selfish, unprofessional, and — yes —
unpatriotic thing to do. What you do is tough it out, fight for
what’s right, and do everything you can to straighten your boss out
and repair what damage he does while still following orders.
In the hope that some of those who are thinking of resigning may
read this, I want to address you directly. Each of you should ask
yourself the following questions. Do you think your job is
important to the war against terrorists and the nations that
support them? Do you believe you’re good at it, and are making a
significant contribution to the nation’s defense? Do you think
that, by your hard work and experience, you may save one American’s
life or give the president one more option in any decision he has
to make? Do you believe that your subordinates rely on your
leadership and mentoring? If you answered any of those questions
with a “yes,” and you still dare to resign, you should hang your
head in shame for the rest of your born days. It’s all about duty,
honor and country. If you think your personal gripes are more
important, then go ahead and resign. And good riddance to you.
CONGRESS IS RETURNING for its lame duck session. One of the many
things it wants to finish is the intelligence “reform” bill that
would put in place many of the things that the 9-11 Commission
recommended. It would be better if Congress didn’t finish this
now.
That the CIA needs reform, and that the reform will necessitate
the replacement of many career professionals, is all too clear.
Those who led the CIA in its failures need to be replaced, and the
CIA culture changed to deal with the new global threats. But this
needs to be well managed, not done haphazardly leaving key posts
vacant. What “reform” aims to accomplish and how it is managed are
the keys.
Congress is acting too quickly without addressing the primary
question: How should reform be accomplished in order to improve the
product of the CIA and the whole intelligence community? Is the
9/11 Commission’s plan better than Pat Roberts’ plan in that
regard? Does Sen. Susan Collins (RINO-Me.), chairman of the
Government Affairs Committee in the Senate, responsible for the
intel reform bill there, have any clue what she’s doing? (Hint:
no). No one, to my knowledge, has even made the analysis of the
various proposals necessary for that comparison. Why hasn’t there
been, as suggested
here nine months ago, a thorough scrub of the intelligence
community by intel and military RSGs, to determine what must be
done to improve the intelligence product that the president has to
rely on? Just what reforms are necessary to improve that product?
Before that question is answered, all this talk of budget control
and rearranging responsibilities is just so much political stuff
and nonsense.
TAS Contributing Editor Jed Babbin is the author
of Inside the Asylum: Why the U.N. and Old Europe Are Worse
Than You Think (Regnery Publishing).
