The American Spectator

p> LIP GOSS br> Re: Jed Babbin’s How Dare They? : /p>

Amen to Mr. Babbin’s heartening summary of the President’s campaign to subdue and nationalize the rogue organization the CIA has become.

This is a crucial task, and the outcome is by no means certain. The Agency’s failures in its nominal mission are legion and well-known, but it is formidably competent at self-preservation and in advancing its institutional interests.

CIA is a brand, and like the vintners of Bordeaux, somehow always gets the consumer to buy next year’s product no matter how lousy last year’s really was. Note how everybody swallows the so-called Dalfour report whole, in between choruses of complaint about the credibility of the Agency that employs Mr. Dalfour.

p>Mr. Goss has been sent on a dangerous mission against a wily and resourceful foe. He’ll have to take Draconian steps to win. He can win, but he’ll need the unwavering support of us all, starting with President Bush. That support must included a relentless and skeptical audit of all Mr. Goss does, because he’s the very one the Agency insurgents will try hardest to play. If Goss succeeds, he’ll have earned our deepest gratitude. If, in addition to succeeding, he survives, maybe he’ll agree to be seconded out to the next Secretary of State and engineer the draining of that swamp, too. br> — Paul Kotik br> Plantation, Florida /p>

Jed Babbin is mistaken in his piece entitled “How Dare They?” There is a very good excuse for what the men of the CIA are doing; it is called fear. And what they are doing, leaving, was largely unavoidable.