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Why Panetta Is the Wrong Man to Lead CIA
It’s a job that demands an intelligence professional, not a career politician and Washington insider.
But during his years in Congress, Panetta never served on the intelligence committee or expressed much interest in matters relating to the intelligence community. As OMB chief, he played a tertiary role in setting the budget for various intel agencies; he received some exposure to high-level intelligence collection (and operations) as Clinton’s chief of staff.
Contrast that to the resume of Admiral Nimitz. When he was tapped to lead the Pacific Fleet, Nimitz had been on active duty for 33 years, with command experience in everything from gunboats, cruisers, and, of course, submarines. He also held a number of key staff assignments. In other words, Nimitz’s entire professional life prepared him for the challenges he faced in December 1941.
In fairness, there is no requirement that Mr. Panetta — or any other CIA director — have prior experience as an intelligence officer. Indeed, most of the agency’s leaders have come from outside the intelligence community. A few have performed admirably, including John McCone who served during the Cuban Missile Crisis. By comparison, some of the directors with a long intel resume have failed badly. So, past experience as a spook isn’t a guarantor of success.
But it certainly doesn’t hurt, given the demands of on-going wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the need for organizational reform at Langley. If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Panetta will inherit an organization that has made substantial contributions to the war on terror. But the agency remains dominated by unelected political elements that recently sought to establish U.S. foreign policy themselves, and fought bitter battles with the Bush administration and the constitutionally elected leaders of our government. So far, these factions have outlasted multiple directors and will gladly take on Leon Panetta, if he (or the Obama administration) challenge their agenda.
And, if that weren’t enough, the next CIA director also faces the daunting task of improving intelligence collection and analytical capabilities against such targets as Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, and China. He must also chart a revised course for the agency, with renewed emphasis on paramilitary operations and human intelligence, all within the confines of the new DNI (Director of National Intelligence) construct.
Simply stated, it’s a job that demands an intelligence professional, not a career politician and Washington insider. So why did Mr. Obama select Panetta to run the CIA? Because the new administration has its own plans for the intelligence community, rolling back many of the measures that were implemented — or enhanced — by the Bush team.
The president-elect has already promised to shut down the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay, ban “coercive” interrogation techniques, and end suspect rendition programs that date back to the Clinton years. Though decidedly controversial, those efforts have also been effective in preventing additional attacks on U.S. soil. Yet Mr. Obama is prepared to cast them aside, with little regard for the impact on national security.
It’s the same type of thinking that resulted in Eric Holder’s nomination as attorney general and Admiral Dennis Blair as the new DNI. Mr. Holder was part of a Clinton Justice Department that erected that infamous “wall” between the FBI and the CIA, preventing the exchange of vital intelligence on suspected terrorists. Blair had a long and distinguished career as a naval officer, but he has no prior intelligence experience, except as a consumer.
These are choices that hardly inspire confidence and could even jeopardize American security. Mr. Obama had — and still has — a chance to find his “Nimitz” for the intelligence community, but so far, he shows little interest in finding the right man (or woman) for the job.
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Nate Hale is the pseudonym for a retired military intelligence officer with combat experience in the Balkans, Haiti, and the Middle East. He blogs at In from the Cold.
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41 Comments
1. marvin brogin:It appears that my fellow lansmen wanted to have Obama for Commander in Chief! Let us then not complain about whom he picks or what he does since surely we all KNEW all this was comming and…we’ve seen NOTHING YET…
Jan 10, 2009 - 4:26 am 2. winemkr:It appears to me that, espeially for us Jews, liberalism is an ‘mental disorder’ !!
God Save Israel and God Help America.
To truly understand why Panetta is not qualified to be the CIA director, go to his website and bowse through his opinion articles dating all the way back to 2001.
The man has no backbone, he is a vacillating pundit with no real solutions.
Reading Panetta today is like listening to Obama on the campaign trail vis a vis Iraq and the surge.
It’s frightening to realize that Obama’s thoughts are not his own but those of the CIA nominee.
http://www.panettainstitute.org/commentatires/index.htm
God help us all……
Jan 10, 2009 - 4:31 am 3. Gilligan:Leon Panetta is an excellent choice to head the CIA because his primary mission will be to prevent the CIA from sabotaging an Obama Presidency the way the CIA repeatedly sabotaged the Bush Presidency. That is why it is more important to appoint a political hack with a Rolodex of powerful political allies rather than somebody who knows anything about intelligence gathering. There are other agencies that can gather intelligence. The most important thing that Panetta can do is to prevent the CIA from going all the way to becoming like Pakistan’s ISI.
If the CIA were not so powerful and dangerous it would be better to disband the agency. As the Bush administration discovered to its dismay, the CIA refuses to be reformed and it has plenty of experience in causing regime changes.
If Panetta can sit on the CIA and prevent them from causing too much trouble, he will be a success.
Jan 10, 2009 - 4:43 am 4. Derek:The bush admin demoted and buried the CIA. I really don’t see why we still have to pretend they are at the top of the food chain on this. Panetta is either their to keep the lid on them or to give them more clout. But let’s not walk around and act like the CIA’s been running smoothly and all that is about to change. There are 15 other intelligence agencies in existence.
Jan 10, 2009 - 5:00 am 5. Perry:Between Panetta and Holder, it’s likely that the Bush measures that arguably prevented a terrorist attack since 9/11 will be undone. Panetta in particular is anti-everything-that-protected-us.
I guess we won’t need protection from Muslim terrorists anymore because the new President will be more open to talk to them.
Certainly, George Orwell was a Democrat.
Jan 10, 2009 - 5:00 am 6. Jack Okie:What good are the DCI’s intelligence credentials when the CIA behaves as a law unto itself? If Panetta can muck out those stables, to hell with experience. It’s past time the CIA was squared away.
Jan 10, 2009 - 6:41 am 7. Kalen:The CIA is no longer what it used to be. Neither is the State Department. Both of these entities and other governmental units dealing with international affairs have long since been de-fanged and post-modernized and remain as sad relics of what they once used to be. There’s little chance that they will ever regain their former stature.
Most employees particularly of State and espeically in the 3d world, have little contact with the locals and have little more than basic knowledge of the country they serve in. Careers with the CIA and State, once a “calling”, have long since simply become a “job”. (I believe this is true of the priesthood, too, but that’s another issue).
My point is that it really doesn’t matter who leads the CIA. In fact, it’s preferable that an outsider like Panetta do so because he’ll bring in less “baggage” than someone who’s been with the Agency for decades who has long since formed his opinion about how things should run and be run.
Mr Hale suggests that an insider should head the Agency since we live in troubled times and there’s really no time for on-the-job-training. It’s best that we have an Agency head that has all kinds of “intelligence” experience behind him to effectively lead.
But this is, I believe, a false argument. 9/11 and previous and subsequent terrorist attacks happened despite having “experienced” people at the helm, both at CIA and FBI, at the time.
The attacks happened precisely because the experienced men at the time had the wrong KIND of experience. That is, they barely knew what they were up against or who or what they were dealing with and I believe this generally holds true today.
(A news item in just the last couple of days states that the FBI is going “all out” in hiring “experienced” people to fill its ranks. Most likely, the CIA is doing the same). My comment on this is: Still? They’re still looking for experienced people a decade after 9/11? They should long since have had all the experienced people on the payroll they need………if they were really serious.
And that’s my final point. I don’t think most government entities are really serious about their mission. Not the way they used to be.
Not anymore.
So, Mr. Panetta, welcome to Virginia……you’ll do a fine job, I’m sure, but in the end, you’ll be just another passing face along the Potomac.
James Angleton, where are you when we need you?
Jan 10, 2009 - 7:21 am 8. wGraves:I can’t help but compare the appointment of Mr. Panetta as CIA director to the tenure of Les Aspin as SECDEF. In each case, the President made a clear choice in favor of political vs. operational expertise. That is the President’s right and the results will remain his responsibility. Early in his tenure, Aspin was called upon to deal with gays in the military and female military service. Despite his political savvy, his boss was damaged by some of his decisions in these arenas. However, his biggest difficulty came when he ignored the advice of commanders on the ground in favor of the politically expedient course of action in Somalia. He subsequently left the Pentagon in favor of Dr. Perry, who was a professional, very experienced in military policy.
So Mr. Obama probably anticipates the political problems at CIA will be more important than the operational ones. I hope that he is right. He’ll also need someone he can trust on the operational side to keep us all safe. I hope that he realizes that.
Jan 10, 2009 - 9:10 am 9. The Historian:OBAMA’S CIA: TERRORISTS DELIGHT?
The appointment of Penetta is causing great concern within the intelligence community.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/is-bush-departure-good-news-for.html
Jan 10, 2009 - 9:23 am 10. Fat Man:I wish I could care who ran the CIA, but I can’t, because I think the agency is in terminal bureaucratic decline. One of George W. Bush’s worst mistakes was not firing the top 10 people at the CIA and the FBI on the morning of 9/12/2001.
The Director of the CIA, has for better or worse, lost his pride of place in the Intelligence hierarchy. Now that the CIA is no longer useful to the Donkey Party as a stick with which to beat the President, perhaps they can get around to replacing it something that works, if only a little bit.
Jan 10, 2009 - 9:45 am 11. Tom Holsinger:Because intelligence professionals protected us from 9/11!
Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11
Jan 10, 2009 - 10:30 am 12. Libertyship46:The proposed appointment of Panetta as CIA Director only proves one horrific point: Obama really blieves that the war on terrorism is not a war at all, but simply a law enforcement matter. It seems clear now that Obama wants to turn the clock back to September 10, 2001, when there was no “war” on terror and that the only federal agency needed to hunt down international terrorists was the FBI. This is why Obama wants to do away with all of the programs and measures that were implemented by the Bush administration. Whether you agree or disagree with how Bush ran the CIA, the bottom line is that for over seven years now we have not had a terrorist attack on US soil. Clearly, Bush did something right at the CIA. With Panetta heading the CIA and Holder as Attorney General, that wall will once again be erected between the CIA and the FBI and we will, within a year, have another major attack take place in this country. Think I’m an alarmist? Just ask Michael Sheuer, the man who ran the Bin Laden unit at the CIA what he thinks about the Panetta appointment. I heard an interview he had recently and he predicted that if a lightweight like Panetta is installed as Director at the CIA, we will have another terrorist attack made on US soil within a year. If we revert back to the way things were on September 10, 2001, just remember that was less than nine months after Bush came into office, when we were living under the same rules and regulations Obama wants to bring back. God help us all!
Jan 10, 2009 - 12:57 pm 13. Texas Fossil:Panetta, talk about sleeping with the enemy.
From:
http://www.plnewsforum.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/46002
Leon Panetta, president-elect Barack Obama’s choice for future chief of the CIA, previously strongy sympathized with the “Institute for Policy Studies” (IPS), a Washington based leftist think tank known for its bitter opposition to the intelligence community, notably the CIA. As a member of Congress Panetta supported the IPS’s “Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy Line” in 1983. He was also one of the congressmen who bienially commissioned IPS to produce an “alternative” budget that dramatically cut defense spending. He did so together with, among others, fellow democrat John Conyers, known for his close links to the World Peace Council (WPC), an organization financed and led by the former International Department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (ID-CPSU).
From:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Institute_for_Policy_Studies
“Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) was founded by Richard Barnet and Marcus Raskin in 1963. Most of the money they used came from the Samuel Rubin Foundation.”
—
“According to Dr. Rael Jean Isaac, Rubin was a Comintern member and a Communist agent. The founders dedicated themselves to helping Communist revolutionaries. Both men hated the United States and openly supported the Communist cause during the Vietnam War.”
Jan 10, 2009 - 12:57 pm 14. Mike K.:Can someone put together factual reasons “why” this man is not qualified or was bad for the position.
I was a high schooler at the time and would like to know more about this guy and his successes or failures. Thanks.
Jan 10, 2009 - 1:26 pm 15. JackT:Panetta will do just fine. You don’t need spy training to run that place. Hell, anybody with half a brain could do it.
Jan 10, 2009 - 2:54 pm 16. Tom Holsinger:Mike K.,
You could try the Wikepedia entry on Panetta:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Panetta
Basically he started out as a moderate Republican lawyer, served in the Nixon administration, left and became a Democrat in disagreement over Nixon’s civil rights policy, then ran for Congress from the Monterey area of California where he had grown up.
In Congress he did very well on budget issues and became director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton administration. He was then appointed as Clinton’s White House Chief of Staff. He left at the end of Clinton’s first term. He returned to California and was active in higher education and oceangraphic issues.
Panetta’s career track resembles those of Caspar Weinberger and Richard Cheney, though they became Secretaries of Defense rather than CIA Director. All three have shown great ability as senior federal managers. Panetta also has a reputation for fairness (essential as a successful White House Chief of Staff, and Panetta was sucessful), integrity and independence.
Basically Panetta was one of the Obama administration’s obvious choices for a major cabinet appointment. It happens to be CIA.
While opinions vary as to why it’s CIA, and mine is that it is to keep the CIA from being a political problem, it is bloody obvious that Panetta’s nomination as CIA Director shows that the Obama administration takes the CIA seriously, and has appointed a suitably seriou, effective, senior political heavyweight to lead the CIA.
Jan 10, 2009 - 3:31 pm 17. David:I’m really afraid Libertyship is right. I hope all the CIA bashers have noticed that there haven’t been any bombings in the US the past seven years, unlike so many other countries. That’s not a coincidence and not because the jihadis decided Americans aren’t so bad after all. The intelligence community has been remarkably successful in detecting and preventing attacks, and Obama seems determined to change that.
Jan 10, 2009 - 4:05 pm 18. Lloyd Daub:From reading John B. Lundstrom’s “Black Shoe Carrier Admiral” is seems pretty clear that there simply was no other flag officer except Chester Nimitz to choose for the job. The Navy had been on a war footing in the Atlantic and it was already clear that most of the possible replacements for Admiral Kimmel were in bigger jobs already or proven incapable of it. The younger admirals were just that– younger, and unproven.
President-elect Obama has many many more choices, of proven quality, to pick from. Instead, he picked just another Clintonista. Or maybe that explains it all right there.
Jan 10, 2009 - 4:12 pm 19. narciso:It’s ridiculous to even consider Leon Panetta for a microsecond for this position, when the much more experienced John Brennan was available, but
Jan 10, 2009 - 7:02 pm 20. Mike T:the nutroots vetoed him. so they had to bring him in the back way as White House advisor to counterterrorism; where he’ll watch as everything that was kept America safe for the last 7 1/2 years is either dismantled or the participants actually prosecuted. This will be accomplished in part through the work of Dawn Johnson at the OLC, who will illegalize all such operations retroactively. Of course, this will demoralize the men of the Agency, as Turner’s ‘Halloween massacre’ and Deutch’s “Torricelli rules’ did in the 70s and 80s. It will also risk yet another devastating AQ strike, to prove some ersatz point about leftist morality. We will have to wait out another four or maybe even eight years, for another administration, to salvage what has
been mended.
After seeing this comment reproduced in various forms in other posts about the CIA, one thing is abundantly clear: PajamasMedia needs to start deleting commenters whose comments don’t show that they have even read the Wikipedia articles about what the CIA does and what the other federal intelligence agencies do.
If you seriously believe that any other agency can just pick up from where they have left off or easily absorb their considerable human intelligence assets, you obviously have no clue what the rest of the federal intelligence agencies do.
Furthermore, I have even seen comments saying “give their domestic functions to the FBI” and similar drivel. Such comments are rich, since, for example, the CIA doesn’t actually have any domestic functions because federal law prohibits that jurisdiction. The FBI has already been doing their “domestic work” and failing worse than they are internationally.
Jan 10, 2009 - 7:08 pm 21. Mike T:The FBI is actually in far worse shape than the CIA. All of their major federal contracts to update their infrastructure have been colossal failures. In addition to that, they have some of the worst bureaucratic squabbling in the federal government, with serious rivalries between different FBI field offices. The cherry on the top is the ruthless way that they have treated whistleblowers, such as the agents who came out with evidence that they had some of the pieces of the 9-11 plot, but could not get management to take them seriously.
If there is any major federal agency that needs to be put out of its misery by being split up into several new, smaller, less bureaucratic agencies, it’s the FBI. At least TSA has the excuse that they are a young agency with serious issues recruiting talent.
Jan 10, 2009 - 7:17 pm 22. Tom Holsinger:The major difference between the CIA and FBI here is that the CIA has proven itself to be disobedient and mutinous, as well as incompetent. The FBI is plain incompetent.
Panetta has, among other things, shown himself to be a ruthless hatchetman when the need arises. As Michael Ledeen put it, Panetta smiles when he puts the knife in. IMO this is the major reason for his appointment. The CIA will not be allowed to do to the Obama administration what it did to the Bush administration.
Jan 10, 2009 - 8:19 pm 23. BillGee:Maybe we can get the real scoop from JTUP.
Jan 10, 2009 - 8:27 pm 24. Ken Hahn:What is needed at the CIA is someone, experienced or not, who wants to rebuild it into an intelligence agency. It has become a bureaucratic political machine, dedicated to the promotion of the multicultural world view. Obama will not have the problem of leaks and rumors that plagued Bush. He fits the “professional” image of a leader. He will, however, get the same politically motivated information that has served us so poorly since the end of the cold war. The CIA needs a hatchet man, or failing that, an undertaker. We need to reform the CIA or kill it and replace it with an agency working for this country. Panetta won’t be any help since he shares the rose colored glasses worn by career bureaucrats. The field officers might be very good but we’ll never know. The leadership is purely political.
Jan 10, 2009 - 9:24 pm 25. William:Here is a guy who was Clinton’s chief of staff but didn’t know his boss was carrying on an affair with a young unmarried staffer in the Oval Office for months. Who were the other candidates, Mr. MaGoo and Inspector Cleuseau?
Jan 11, 2009 - 7:20 am 26. Trent Telenko:People who claim that Panetta don’t have any intelligence experience are not serious.
He does.
Panetta has the best kind of intelligence experience. He has been the highest of the high of intelligence consumers. Both as White House chief of staff and as Congressional Office Management & Budget director.
Note that as OMB director, Panetta had all the tickets–which very few people do–to know about _ALL_ the secret programs of _ALL The Intelligence Agencies_.
So Panetta consumed information from all the secret programs that as OMB director he funded. Thus he knows the money in versus the useful intelligence out equation better than 99.9% of all the people in the American Federal Government.
Now add to that the fact that Panetta was one of the Clinton Administration’s hatchet men. That makes Panetta a political heavyweight of the highest caliber.
If you think that the CIA is capable of providing good, reliable, intelligence in time of war, you assign a political heavyweight to see that the job is done.
If you think the CIA is incapable of providing good reliable intelligence to the rest of government in the time of war, you assign a political heavyweight there for damage control.
The key thing is that Pres-Elect Obama is taking the CIA _SERIOUSLY_ in terms of the man he wants in charge.
The last time we saw a political heavyweight of Panetta’s caliber assigned as DCI was when Bill Casey was placed there by Pres. Reagan.
To understand what that means, you have to know that Panetta’s basic tactic as a Clinton’s Chief of Staff was to provoke pigheaded people into being pigheaded, and then sack them for pigheadedness.
As Obama’s outside DCI, Panetta’s White House constituency of one would rather see him break up CIA via some silent throat slitting of pigheaded senior CIA officials, than save them from their pigheadedness.
Obama wants _SILENCE_ out of the CIA so he can do his domestic spending programs.
Silence is defined here as keeping national security/foreign policy off the front pages.
Panetta’s appointment out of the box as Obama’s DCI is a message to the CIA bureaucracy that they either deliver silence or Panetta will slit the throats of senior CIA empty suits.
This makes House and Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats nervous over the fact Panetta knows where their bodies are buried (cough >China< cough) from the Clinton era and could use that, plus Presidential sponsorship, to remove a great deal of their political patronage and information trading powers.
It couldn’t happen to a better agency or a nicer Congressional Committee.
Jan 11, 2009 - 11:43 am 27. narciso:Trent, the only experience in intelligence matters, Panetta has was presiding over cuts in intelligence, recommending against the surge, in the Iraq Study Group, opposing aggressive interrogation for the likes of KSM and Zubeydah, he may have been aware of the rendition effort, but he subsequently denies it. You think he’s going to fire all the dead weight, which write these tendentious NIE, no he’s going to fire all the proactive people, those who took a chance during the last seven years, to keep this country safe. It’s a continuation of the Colby like efforts Hayden has taken to incorporate the critics of Goss’s reforms. It’s a ridiculous premise, which ought
Jan 11, 2009 - 6:15 pm 28. Tom Holsinger:to hold no water at all.
narcisco,
It’s not ideolgical to fire CIA personnel who cause headlines as long as they all go.
Jan 11, 2009 - 8:02 pm 29. Trent Telenko:Narcisco,
What part of “The Cold War was over” don’t you understand?
Panetta as chief of OMB was doing his job.
Neither the CIA nor the NSA could justify their spy machines for tracking a Soviet Army who’s armored vehicle park was split up into the territories of a dozen states nor a Soviet Navy sub fleet that was sinking at its piers from neglect.
The two biggest self-inflicted wounds to US intelligence at that time (1990’s) came from Jamie Gorelik (sp?) separating foreign NSA intercepts from domestic surveillance of terrorists and the loud mouth Senator from New Jersey (blanking on his name) who passed a law saying the CIA could not use criminals or human rights violators as intelligence sources.
The latter had to do with Democratic Party internal politics Clinton could not be bothered with and the former had everything to do with China providing campaign contributions to Democratic interests.
You will note that Panetta resigned as Clinton chief of staff for reasons that did not have anything to do with his health or his family. Whatever was said at the time.
That means Panetta would not be party with what was going on, but he didn’t leak about it either.
A man who is ethics, loyal and can keep secrets is exactly the man a President wants at CIA.
Jan 11, 2009 - 8:26 pm 30. narciso:Please, Trent, don’t be silly, part of a chief of staff’s job was to anticipate future trends, If he had those vaunted clearances you say he has he might have noticed the news coming out of the interrogation of Ramzi Yousef, pal Akbar Murad; or the attempted attack on the Eiffel Tower, or any of a dozen other events left out of the December 1998 PDB. What Clinton had no say over legal doctrine that formalized an already counter productive relationship between the CIA and the FBI. Or the Torricelli rules, crafted to impress Bianca Jagger, proferred by Deutsch. Please,Trent, a little perspective.
Jan 12, 2009 - 7:43 am 31. TexEd:As a Clinton loyalist, Panetta is the perfect crook to run the CIA. Imagine the info his agents can dig up on everyone who might be a threat to Hillary and even to Bill. Panetta’s foreign operatives will identify campaign donors and Iraqi oil voucher-loke revenue opportunities for the Clintons and their friends.
Jan 12, 2009 - 9:18 am 32. Tom Holsinger:Hillie at State makes sense; Emanuel can fire her at her first, seconf or third screw up in ‘09. Panetta’s screw ups will be much more covert.
narcisco,
You also assume that the CIA is at least marginally effective. Given what it did to President Bush, no future President, and this includes Barack Obama, will trust it until it is thoroughly under control. IMO it never will be, nor will it ever be marginally effective at producing useable intelligence, but Panetta’s appointment is clear evidence that Obama won’t let the CIA do to him what it did to Bush.
The CIA deserves what will happen to it.
And the Obama administration will continue the Bush administration policy of shifting as much as possible of the CIA’s nominal intelligence functions to other groups in the intelligence community.
Jan 12, 2009 - 10:42 am 33. Tom Holsinger:TexEd,
Reconsider your statement that Panetta is a Clinton loyalist in light of his resignation as Clinton’s White House chief of staff. Ask why he resigned.
Jan 12, 2009 - 10:44 am 34. narciso:So if the CIA is irrevocably broken, tear it down and build another; maybe along the lines of the fictional “Foreign Intelligence Service” in Charles McCarry’s novels, which operated through corporate fronts, without diplomatic cover. I can’t say I’m terribly impressed with the DNI considering their disastrous national intelligence
estimate on Iran, among many other snafus.
The CIA challenged Bush, because he challenged their view of eternal predominantly Arab Sunni oligarchies in perpetuity. the kind like Egypt
Jan 12, 2009 - 6:48 pm 35. Tom Holsinger:that gave birth to Atta, and Zawahiri, Seif Al Adel, the various Al Masri’s including the plotter of the transatlantic plot. Or Jordan with Zarquawi, or ultimately Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabi Ilkwan center of the universe. McCarry was very prescient about that, with the Arab prince of Hagreb, and his followers in the Eye of Gaza (which could either be AQ or Hamas
narcisco,
Tell us more about building another CIA. Tell us how that won’t cause headlines about national security. Tell us that President Obama just loves headlines about national security, because he wants to focus public attention on national security instead of domestic issues.
Panetta’s No. 1 job is to keep the CIA out of the headlines. And, as even Michael Ledeen noted, he’s perfect for that.
Jan 13, 2009 - 10:39 am 36. Trent Telenko:Narciso,
The traditional way the US Federal government has done in dysfunctional bureaucracies is to create new bureaucracies to do the mission that the dysfunctional bureaucracy used to do, while slowly starving the dysfunctional bureaucracy of funds and political clout.
The CIA’s rebellion under Bush has marked it for replacement by the Defense Department in the roles of HUMINT and intelligence analysis.
Jan 13, 2009 - 11:17 am 37. narciso:Seriously, what happened to you guys at Winds; the CIA doesn’t have a track record back home, but the people working in Baghdad, Kabul, Mogadishu, et al are first rate, working under extraordinary conditions. Yet this incoming crew did everything to stigmatize and criminalize these valuable operations. You know what the Iran NIE shows about the DNI, and Gates wasn’t particularly interested in what Rumsfeld wrought through the SSU, and CITA. Would it be too hard to ask for someone who hadn’t tried to hamstring the field men, at every step of the way.
Jan 13, 2009 - 7:59 pm 38. deguello:Panetta is EXACTLY the right guy for CIA chief. The last thing you want is competence.Let the Obama freak show stew in its own ignorance and stupidity;when another 9/11 happens,maybe the idiots who voted for Obama,and live in blue target cities, will begin experiencing the consequences of Obama style change.
Jan 14, 2009 - 8:06 am 39. narciso:That’s a ridiculous notion to entertain, specially considering his understanding of the ‘negative rights’ like speech, assembly, right
Jan 14, 2009 - 8:47 am 40. spike:to bear arms, that interfere with any government project. The current incumbent generally left us alone, we shopped supported the economy, many griped and cursed at the little incoveniences.
The next will not allow you to become ‘unengaged’
as Michelle herself said, and ‘dissent will be no longer patriotic’
welcome to change….hope we survive
Jan 15, 2009 - 6:16 am 41. Hold Obama Responsible For Dismantling American Intelligence « Start Thinking Right:[...] Holder engage in pardoning terrorists, but he “was part of a Clinton Justice Department that erected that infamous “wall” between the FBI and the CIA, preventing the exchange of vital intelligence on suspected terrorists.”
Feb 14, 2009 - 9:01 am