CIA Kerfuffle Continues
By streiff Posted in User Blogs — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Promoted from the diaries . . .
The dynamic duo of Walter Pincus and Dana Priest run a follow up to yesterday's splash with a page A6 story entitled Goss Reportedly Rebuffed Senior Officials at CIA: Four Fear New Chief Is Isolating Himself.
They are afraid Goss is becoming isolated. How very sweet and very, very special.
Far from yesterday's "yo mama" tone, today's reeks of "make it stop."
The story reveals that Goss (gasp!) has his own agenda, he (shock!) brought in his own senior management team to implement it and (horror!) he rebuffed a bunch of very nice guys who are just trying to help him out.
The four former deputy directors of operations who have tried to offer Goss advice are Thomas Twetten, Jack Downing, Richard F. Stoltz and the recently retired James L. Pavitt.
They "wanted to save him from going through" what two other directors, Stansfield Turner and John M. Deutch, had experienced when they tried to make personnel changes quickly, one former senior official aware of their efforts said.
It's hard to imagine a more condescending action. It is equally hard to imagine the sheer effrontery on the part of relatively minor officials who expect to tell their boss two or three levels up how to conduct business.
The centerpiece of this kefuffle involved the director of the clandestine services' deputy, Michael Sulick, engaging in a shouting match with Goss' chief of staff, Patrick Murray. When Murray demanded Sulick's boss, Stephen Kappes, fire Sulick Kappes threaten to resign.
According to the story fronted by the Post yesterday, a chastened, and gutless, Goss and White House were so terrified that a single CIA manager might quit:
Goss and other White House officials appealed to Kappes to delay his decision until Monday.
I expressed my doubts on this bit of twaddle yesterday and seem to be vindicated. Today we learn:
Goss and the White House asked Kappes to delay his decision until tomorrow, but they are actively considering his replacement, several current and former CIA officials said.
Kappes, whose accomplishments include persuading Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi to renounce weapons of mass destruction this year, began removing personal photos from his office walls yesterday, associates said.
A handful of other senior undercover operations officers have talked seriously about resigning, as soon as tomorrow.
Looks like they crossed the wrong man.
The Post identifies a potential replacements and lays the predicate to mau-mau one of them, probably the most likely candidate, in the future:
Although Kappes has not left his job, several people have been approached or screened as his replacement. One is the director of the counterterrorism center; the other is the station chief in London. Both are undercover and may not be identified by name.
Another candidate, according to current and former CIA officials, is Richard P. Lawless Jr., a former CIA operations officer who is deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific affairs, according to a CIA official who asked not to be identified. Lawless served in the agency from 1972 to 1987, when he left after running afoul of senior DO officers while carrying out secret missions for then-CIA Director William J. Casey.
It is long overdue for the Administration to gain positive control of the CIA. Like Rumsfeld struggle with the prima donnas at Defense it won't be pretty.
It looks like Goss is taking David Brooks to heart when he says:
Meanwhile, members of Congress and people around the executive branch are wondering what President Bush is going to do to punish the mutineers. A president simply cannot allow a department or agency to go into campaign season opposition and then pay no price for it. If that happens, employees of every agency will feel free to go off and start their own little media campaigns whenever their hearts desire.
If we lived in a primitive age, the ground at Langley would be laid waste and salted, and there would be heads on spikes.
Maybe I'll drive by Langley Monday and have a look.
It's well past time to purge the CIA of political operatives. To function properly, it has to be non-partisan. More power to Goss...may he have the gumption to carry it through to completion
The Bush-Cheney Administration tries to appoint to the most important positions people who understand and take their responsibilities seriously. (See Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice, among others.)
The operations they head must do their jobs in the best way they can (e.g., obviously no "subversive" campaigning) or consequences follow.
The CIA is long-overdue for a shakeup, and it can't wait for the War on Terror to end. That folks are complaining and resigning is, likely, a good long-term thing (even though it surely has short-term costs).
The world may fly off its axis, however, if I offer unconditioned agreement with a post by Streiff. Thus, though it's a nit, I am compelled to note that this sentiment is mistaken:
It is ... hard to imagine the sheer effrontery on the part of relatively minor officials who expect to tell their boss two or three levels up how to conduct business.
These current and former deputy directors aren't "relatively minor" in an organization as large as the CIA. In addition, it's relatively common for lower-ranking professionals to kibbutz with higher-ranking professionals regarding the business of an organization to whcih they all belong. After all, the whole point of being a "professional" is that you are expected to self-manage to a significant degree; it'd be worse for these folks to fail to offer advice. If their advice is rejected, however, they should swiftly step into line and execute according to their bosses plan.
(IOW, the top-down factory/Wal-Mart/etc. model is seldom the most effective in such an environment.)
In defense of my statement I would just say that the head of the clandestine service is three echelons removed from the head of the CIA which is not, itself, a large organization, nor when weighed against the Defense Department's intelligence assets (NSA, NRO, DIA, and NGA), the largest intelligence asset.
In addition, it's relatively common for lower-ranking professionals to kibbutz with higher-ranking professionals regarding the business of an organization to which they all belong. After all, the whole point of being a "professional" is that you are expected to self-manage to a significant degree; it'd be worse for these folks to fail to offer advice. If their advice is rejected, however, they should swiftly step into line and execute according to their bosses plan.
I am in complete agreement.
During my Army career I had a lot of knockdown-drag-outs with my bosses and with my subordinates. But when the smoke cleared we all knew the resulting orders were going to be well, faithfully, and loyally executed. And such encounters were never perceived as disloyal.
My statement re/the CIA (and also State and to a certain extent Defense) is that when their boss makes a decision significant numbers of senior civil service people feel free to continue their fight on the pages of the WaPo and NYT.
of this occasion I vow to say only nice things about moderate Republicans, in general, and Richard Lugar, in particular, for a week.
Drudge links to a story where the CIA boss was ordered to get rid of all agents disloyal to Bush...