The CIA's Existential Crisis

Immediately after Porter Goss resigned on Friday, many in Washington were wondering if ongoing revelations and questions about Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo--and Foggo's history with Goss, Brent Wilkes and Duke Cunningham--was the impetus for Goss officially-unexplained departure. At most, Foggo-related matters merely sped up the inevitable; while more shoes are likely to drop in that realm (stay tuned), Goss' departure is best understood as the inevitable result of the combination of poor intelligence reform and poor staffing choices (by the White House, and by Goss). The real question for the next act:  How much longer will the CIA exist?

Let's rewind to the days before the "reform" scheme that's given us our current intelligence community was unveiled. Amongst intelligence community career professionals, rough consensus held that the smartest reform package would be one that created an Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI); gave it unfettered budget and appointment authority; gave it the CIA's analytic Directorate of Intelligence (DI), since DI analysts prepare, among other things, the President's Daily Brief (which the DNI now gives); and would take the high-tech strategic agencies (National Security Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaisance Office ) out of the Department of Defense (DoD) and put them under ODNI's control as well. In this iteration, a highly mission-oriented CIA would do nothing but espionage and other covert operations; the Pentagon would keep the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the armed services would retain their individual intelligence elements.

What we got, courtesy the Congressional grinder, was far from this vision. The Defense Department still controls the high-tech strategic agencies (and woe to those who point out the wisdom of moving any of them out from under DoD's control). Far from sticking to the battlefield, the Pentagon's Intelligence Undersecretariat under Stephen Cambone has moved rapidly to expand into more strategic-type human intelligence (HUMINT) (including, disturbingly, on the home front), despite a long history of Defense types not doing so well in that area. In Porter Goss, CIA got a White House toady accessorized by political cronies from central casting, all distinguished by their alacrity in purging the Agency's ranks of those whose talent and institutional knowledge outweighed their perceived deference to presidential prerogative.* And in town where budget and staff matters, ODNI got little of both--and a head who was far from the top choice, and not an intelligence specialist.

Thus, what Congress effectively engineered is a situation in which the Pentagon has had great latitude to expand its intelligence portfolio--which it has, arguably becoming the dominant pole in the intelligence community. The only way the ODNI can hope to have anything resembling actual intelligence czar authority is by first establishing itself as the other pole--civilian intelligence--opposite the Pentagon.

ODNI is on the verge of achieving that critical step. The only real question now is whether or not Hayden (provided he gets confirmed) will be cast as either the new, tight linchpin between CIA and ODNI--or as the figure tasked with the Agency's total dismemberment (hints here). Since last year some in the intelligence community have been regarding the latter as an eventual certainty. "I think that the Agency is eventually going to be broken up," one of our sources told us, summing up a common sentiment. "DI goes to ODNI. The National Clandestine Service, backed up by support and technical elements, goes too, and ends up reporting directly to the Deputy DNI for Collection. Whatever's left gets scattered to the wind, and CIA Headquarters becomes a GSA [General Services Administration] leased building or something."

In other words, whether CIA becomes an ODNI "vassal agency" under Hayden, or CIA gets broken up with the DI and/or NCS boxes-on-the-organization chart moving from CIA to ODNI, we're looking at the very real possibility of the Director of National Intelligence being, albeit indirectly, Director of the CIA as well--the two functions that everyone agreed needed to be severed in the name of post-9/11 "reform".

*"A lot of people talk about Goss the way they talk about Stansfield Turner," one old hand told us last week, "but I think the better comparison is something from the other side during the Cold War in the 70s, when Moscow decided the Cuban intelligence service wasn't sufficiently 'on-side,' and sent a team of 'advisors' who effectively took over and purged the place."

--Jason Vest

Comments

[AST]

The only way to really reform anything has to involve firing people and hiring or promoting others. I never did see how rearranging organization charts was really going to help them connect the dots, when part of the problem is that they don't want the president's policies to succeed.

If all the leaking going on, and people like Joe Wilson and Ray McGovern are any indication of the attitudes prevailing in the Agency, I'd prefer that it be dissolved and replaced with a careful screening of anybody being retained. I keep hearing about these "professionals" at the CIA and their experience, but do professionals leak classified information to the media or refuse to accept the policies of the elected leaders? How can Bush trust such people to give him real intelligence?

moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:
28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

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1 ¶ And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods.
2 And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward.
3 Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.
4 I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.
5 So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord?
6 And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty.
7 Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.
8 And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
9 And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.
10 He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
11 If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
12 And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?
13 No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
14 And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him.
15 And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.
16 The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.
17 And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.
18 Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.
19 ¶ There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:
20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:
28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

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[clueless]

But isn't the net-net-net effect of all this, after simply transfering all of the CIA to ONDI.....just a re-naming of the CIA to ONDI and changing top management?

I mean, shuffle a deck of cards all day long if you want.....but the net-net-net effect of all that shuffling - still the same deck of cards. Maybe the order of cards has changed...but that's all - still the same 52 cards.