Porter Goss will seriously damage U.S. intelligence.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Spencer Ackerman



Nov. 16, 2004 | The current war inside the CIA began with a stolen package of bacon. During a 1981 grocery run in Langley, Va., Michael Kostiw decided against paying $2.13 for a few strips of salted, fatty pork. Unfortunately for him, his 10 years of experience as a case officer for the Central Intelligence Agency was poor training for petty thievery, and after he was caught by supermarket employees the CIA placed him on administrative leave. He opted for a quiet retirement from Langley.

But not long ago he was back -- briefly. When Porter Goss, a Republican representative from Florida and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, became director of central intelligence on Sept. 24, he named Kostiw, his chief staffer on terrorism, as his executive director, Langley's third in command. The prospect of Kostiw, a partisan GOP Hill staffer, effectively running day-to-day affairs at the CIA was too much for some of his prospective employees to take, however. Although the agency had prevailed on the local authorities over 20 years ago to wipe Kostiw's police record clean, Walter Pincus, the veteran intelligence reporter for the Washington Post, related the long-forgotten bacon heist on Oct. 3, citing "four sources." As one former intelligence official observes -- not without a hint of admiration -- "that was a vicious leak." And it worked. Within days, a humiliated Kostiw withdrew his name from consideration for the position. Chalk up a scalp for the CIA.

These days, however, most of the scalps belong to longtime intelligence officials. Since his appointment, Goss has given his top aides -- basically, his former staff from the intelligence committee -- the green light to draw up lists of people to fire. The zeal with which Goss' enforcers are exercising their power has led to angry resignations by top CIA veterans like Stephen Kappes, who had taken over as deputy director of operations just this summer, and brought the brutal shakeup onto the front pages. The CIA's case officers and analysts, meanwhile, are extremely distressed by Goss' slashes at the professional staff. "I do nothing but talk to disgruntled and sick people there," says a recently retired senior CIA official.


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