Reuters: CIA faces spy shortages as staffers go private

[JaneGat]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
By David Morgan Sat Oct 1, 3:09 AM ET

"As CIA Director Porter Goss tries to rebuild the agency's global operations, he faces a shortage of experienced spies created by a post-September 11 stampede to the private sector, current and former intelligence officials say.

Goss, who a year ago inherited a CIA wracked by criticism of intelligence failures over Iraq and the September 11, 2001, attacks, has come under fire from critics about the publicized departures of several high-level clandestine officers.

Reform advocates see the loss of senior officials as a natural consequence of changes intended to root out an old guard blamed for lapses that prompted Congress to put the CIA under a new director of national intelligence, John Negroponte.

"The CIA and the intelligence community failed this country pretty badly. That's why there's new leadership at the CIA. Change is not easy," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051001/pl_nm/security_cia_dc;_ylt=ApLC156anmffTXEsXVxe8F.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-

The repuke model is forming with the privatization of one of our most important and sensitive agencies. What's next (or so far unreported)?-- agents outsourced from foreign countries? It's such a bad idea, how can they resist? :banghead:

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. How much better would the CIA have operated if Cheney wasn't there

banging on the table tops? Anyone?

[ticapnews]

2. Would you want to work at the CIA

knowing that at any time "senior administration officials" might ruin your life and compromise your intelligence assets by outing you for political purposes?

[MADem]

4. To say nothing of the fact that if you are an analyst, a specialty type,

...you could be told one day to clear out your cubby to make way for a political appointee, with no notice, no explanation. And there you are, stuffed in a workspace full of equally disgruntled cohorts, filing shit, instead of analyzing it, and counting the days, nay, the HOURS, until you qualify for your pension.

[slay]

3. Private spies.. they're watching you

Private spieeeeees.. they're watching you watching you watching you.. :evilgrin:

[grytpype]

5. "the CIA failed" --- BULLSHIT!

They put the PDB that said Bin Laden was about to attack right in Bush's hands, and he did nothing!

Tenet went into the daily briefing with Bush day after day warning him about the impending attack and Bush did NOTHING!

This is Bush's failure 100%!

[JaneGat]

6. Second that.

This whole thing has been a manipulation. I refuse to believe that this crap can't be stopped.

[TahitiNut]

7. Agreed.

It's a HUGE blame-shifting -- evasion of responsibility.

[StrafingMoose]

8. Privatizing & outsourcing = 'free hands' for dirty activities

Like sponsoring people with "unsavory backgrounds" for example.

This article is a red herring, they don't 'lack' agents IMO, they just shift the activities somewhere else where Congress can't audit.

[applegrove]

9. Diminishing every government department they can.

[applegrove]

10. America was the last country in the world to be affected by terrorism.

By twenty years at least.

[krkaufman]

11. And how much more frightening...?

... is a CIA behind the additional veil of corporate privacy? And as unaccountable as the private mercs in Iraq?

[teryang]

12. Fasism is about rendering the formal government impotent...

...while making unnaccountable party operatives paramount.

A series of so called reforms such as Homeland Security, Intelligence Reform, the new "lite military," and the Patriot Act have succeeded in trashing the government that served us quite well since the great depression.

[gulfcoastliberal]

13. "Spies Like Us"

Where are Dan Akroyd and Chevy Chase when ya need em?

[wellstone_democrat]

14. The view from a sister agency

also involved in "secret" operations related to Nat Sec...I know two people one a relatively new acquaintance, the other one of my oldest friends. "Change?" The change driving people out at all levels is the politicization of the federal agencies during the Bush* administration. Both people were far more "Republican" in sympathy and voting practices than I but both have become much *more* anti-Bush* than I in the past three years in particular. They hate him and hate what he has done to (and I quote): "good honest career people in the CIA at all levels"

One just retired, the other is "hanging on hoping I can get out early"
Everyone hates Goss who is (and again I quote): "a dangerous hack" they want intelligence to fit the policy and when it blows up in their faces, they want a scapegoat. That is the word from inside which is finally getting reported outside in articles like this one above.