Wednesday, October 19, 2005

 

Goss deglossed

From Dafna Linzer in The Washington Post: A year later, [after his appointment as Director of the CIA, Porter] Goss is at loggerheads with the clandestine service he sought to embrace. At least a dozen senior officials - several of whom were promoted under Goss - have resigned, retired early or requested reassignment. The directorate's second-in-command walked out of Langley last month and then told senators in a closed-door hearing that he had lost confidence in Goss's leadership. Before actually having to manage the Agency, Goss was much smarter: In a letter to the agency in May 2004, Goss and several congressional colleagues focused particular wrath on the clandestine service and human intelligence. "After years of trying to convince, suggest, urge, entice, cajole, and pressure CIA to make wide-reaching changes to the way it conducts its HUMINT mission," the CIA "continues down a road leading over a proverbial cliff. The damage to the HUMINT mission through its misallocation and redirection of resources, poor prioritization of objectives, micromanagement of field operations, and a continued political aversion to operational risk is, in the Committee's judgment, significant and could likely be long-lasting." He seems to have gotten distracted with his hobbies: A work trip to picturesque Slovenia had similar consequences. The trip raised eyebrows, from the spy division to the legal department, officials said, because Goss, an avid organic farmer, arranged for one meeting to take place at a local organic farm. And he has discovering that directorin' is hard work: In March, Goss complained during a speech that his job was overwhelming and that he was surprised by the number of hours it demanded. "The White House wasn't amused by that," one intelligence community official said. Guess they had a patent on that alibi. Via Truthout
Comments:
Beat me to it, Charles!

I particularly loved this passage:

A work trip to picturesque Slovenia had similar consequences. The trip raised eyebrows, from the spy division to the legal department, officials said, because Goss, an avid organic farmer, arranged for one meeting to take place at a local organic farm.

You know, if Bush had appointed him to be the head of the USDA instead of the CIA, Goss might actually be a force for good!

But of course corporate agriculture and organic agriculture are at cross purposes, so no way would that ever happen.
 
It is well established that Goss has intimate knowledge of fertilizer, since it comes out of his mouth routinely.
 
Goss was just Harriet Miers redux. Snipped from an old TV show:

RAY McGOVERN: I would say that Bill Colby was the exception to the rule. With respect to Porter Goss, he's got a record. Sen. Roberts eluded to his co-chairmanship of the joint committee that was the first to investigate 9/11. At the end of that committee, their final report left out all the information having to do with what the president of the United States was told prior to 9/11. The White House forbade that from being in the final report. Eleanor Hill, the executive director of that committee remonstrated loudly.

Porter Goss gave in to the White House, and so that report was ipso facto, incomplete, because it contained lots of stuff, but nothing on what the president was told before 9/11. That's proof positive to me that you've got a partisan person here who will do the bidding of the White House. And that's precisely why he's been nominated and nominated now because the controversy will now be centered on the failure of intelligence, Iraq, 9/11, failure of intelligence and no attention being given to the failure of the president.


We all recall Bush in the campaigns, when they trotted out the meme that he would "surround himself with qualified people" because he himself was such a dull blade.

From Goss himself, in August 2004, I'm sure you'll remember:

...I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified...

He was right about that.

And since there are some people of conscience in the CIA who will not play along with the "failure of intelligence" myth, the White House will see that the CIA is basically destroyed.

They will serve Bush only, or nobody at all.
 
Great post, Shrimplate.
 
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