- Before Pray-sident Bush was re-elected by a landslide
of overwhelming popular support (thus giving him a mandate to continue
robbing us of our civil liberties, transferring our tax dollars to his
rich sponsors, and acting as chief recruiter for Osama bin Laden), he selected
Porter Goss, a former Republican Congressman from Florida, to head the
CIA.
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- Goss replaced George Tenet, who resigned after having
spent several years ignoring bin Laden and then taking the fall for the
missing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
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- Predictably for a Bush-ite, Goss has "united not
divided" the CIA by taking actions that provoked a war of words, fought
in the national media, between factions within the spy agency. The opening
salvoes were from current and former CIA agents chafing under Goss's immediate
steps to fashion the agency into another partisan Republican weapon for
use against any liberal citizens or politicians who show any sign of Un-American
disagreement with the Thief-in-Chief.
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- In what the future will undoubtedly know as the "Rove
Response," the administration again unleashed the dogs of slime to
immediately label those calling for reform as incompetent, cowardly traitors.
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- While the immediate genesis of the latest exchanges is
the conduct of Goss, the underlying tension goes back to the first days
of the Bush administration, when it became clear that the administration
regarded the CIA as a political organization, there to manipulate its findings
for the purpose of justifying Bush's already-formulated foreign policy
agenda.
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- Thus, for example, George Tenet's famous "slam dunk"
assurance that Saddam (He Tried To Kill My Daddy) Hussein definitely possessed
WMDs.
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- It is undeniable that the CIA, and the American intelligence
community in general, has serious problems. The 9/11 Commission, after
all, was in charge of examining how America could have been blindsided
by the genius terrorists of Al Qaeda. (Who could have imagined that they
would use hijacked airplanes as weaponsóbesides a few low-level
terrorism analysts, that is.)
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- But the Bush administration has consistently made the
intelligence community a political football, and proved its unwillingness
to conduct serious reform. It would rather treat what is arguably the most
important defense against further terrorism like one more cadre in a reactionary
army.
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- Take Goss' attitude towards the expertise of past CIA
staffers. In the last month, four separate ex-deputy directors of operations
have contacted Goss to offer what counsel they can regarding the reorganization
and agency assessment that he will be undertaking.
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- The four have considerable experience in what could go
wrong. After the Watergate and Iran-contra scandals, there were reform
efforts that caused considerable tension within the organization and, obviously,
did not solve the agency's problems in a meaningful way.
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- Despite the clear attempt of these four men - men removed
from the Agency with no personal agenda, and who served under both Democratic
and Republican presidents - Goss refused to meet with any of them.
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- More troubling, Goss has made a clear statement of his
intention to treat the CIA as a partisan organization. In an internal memo
leaked to the press, he baldly announced that "I also intend to clarify
beyond doubt the rules of the road. We support the administration and its
policies in our work. As agency employees we do not identify with, support
or champion opposition to the administration or its policies."
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- Forgive my naivete, but I always thought that the CIA
was meant to conduct intelligence operations to protect the United States,
not support a particular administration.
-
- Goss' "Our Pray-sidentóRight or Wrong, Especially
When Wrong" memo breaks new ground in Republican hypocrisy, considering
the buffeting the CIA has received from Bush's cronies over the last four
years. It only intensified as it became undeniable that There Were No WMD's
In Iraq. (Say it again!)
-
- First Bush demanded that the CIA spew out his party line
that Iraq was on the verge of sparking mushroom clouds over America. Then
Karl Rove's militias started slandering the CIA in the press for disloyalty,
i.e. not providing the appropriate propaganda - excuse me, I mean impartial
facts and analysis - for Colin Powell to bring to the UN.
-
- Yet as Americans began to notice a lack of headlines
trumpeting weapons of mass destruction uncovered by our troops, "anonymous
sources" started dropping little tidbits into Rupert Murdoch-owned
papers. They discussed how terribly worrying it was that the CIA gave Bush
bad information, and how that was why we hadn't found anything yet. (Bush
somehow restrained himself from making that particular dig in his video
shown in March at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association
dinner.)
-
- More recently, after reports were published on "progress"
in Iraq that wasn't filtered through rose-colored glasses, grumbles of
disloyalty began to echo from the White House. So which spin is true: Is
the CIA disloyal to Bush, or are they responsible for all of Bushís
lies - I mean, well-intentioned misstatements - about what we would find
in Iraq?
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- Or, perhaps, is the CIA just the latest whipping boy
of a regime grimly determined to carry out their own far-right priorities,
no matter what the facts are? Goss himself has demonstrated impressive
hypocrisy in his own remarks about the CIA. Despite whining about leaks
unfavorable to the Republican party line, Goss was utterly dismissive of
the ongoing investigation into who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, an
undercover CIA agent who had the temerity to be married to former Ambassador
Joseph Wilson.
-
- You will recall that, after Bush inserted the "Iraq's
buying yellowcake from Niger, let's go invade" line in his State of
the Union speech, Wilson had the temerity to announce publicly that he,
along with several other investigators, had told Bush months before that
speech that no such transaction existed. Plame's exposure as an agent was
a clear and deliberate retaliation for Wilson's speaking out. It put her
and everyone she worked with as an agent in danger. Yet Goss poo-poohed
the smear as "wild allegations," and told a newspaper reporter
that if he had a "blue dress and some DNA," that would be a real
matter for the government to investigate.
-
- So Goss' first steps as Director seem to be purging anyone
from the ranks who does not agree with his well-reasoned assessment that
the CIA should be more concerned with proving that Democratic politicians
have extramarital sex than with protecting the United States from further
terrorist horrors. Scores of career intelligence officers have been fired,
and more are being driven to resign.
-
- In their places, Goss is importing political hacks from
his days in the House of Representatives. With our new "win the hearts
and minds of Islam by raiding mosques" campaign in Iraq, Osama will
have a very difficult time sneaking some of those 100 missing suitcase
nukes from the old Soviet Union past the CIA now.
-
- There seems little question that the CIA needs reform,
from the top downward, if only because of its miserable record in dealing
with terrorism. But replacing officers with decades of experience with
partisan agents whose only expertise is in savaging Democrats is throwing
our first line of defense out of the frying pan and into the fire.
-
- A rich boy who dodged service in Vietnam by having his
Congressman Daddy wangle a cushy stateside national guard slot won re-election
by casting a man who volunteered to serve in combat, doing so heroically,
as a coward and a liar. Osama must think Americans are stupid. Let's not
prove him right, again, by turning the CIA into another unit in Rove's
Legion of Liars.
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- http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/dara/Bush_shapes_CIA_in_his_own_image_1124.htm
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