NYT: After a Year Leading C.I.A., Goss Is Struggling, Some Say

[DeepModem Mom]

After a Year Leading C.I.A., Goss Is Struggling, Some Say
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: September 23, 2005

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 - A year after taking charge of the Central Intelligence Agency, Porter J. Goss is still struggling to rebuild morale and assert leadership within an institution shaken by recent failures and buffeted by change, current and former intelligence officials and members of Congress say.

On Thursday, two days before his one-year anniversary on the job, Mr. Goss met with agency employees and told them that his vision for further changes would involve "breaking some molds" to reassert the C.I.A.'s role as "a global agency."

"We are developing new and creative ways to get more and more of our officers out of Washington," Mr. Goss said, according to a transcript provided by the C.I.A., which did not allow reporters at the event. "We do not serve our policy makers if we are not in the places that they need us to be today, and are not reporting from places they don't expect us to be - but where they may need us to be tomorrow."

The C.I.A. and its human spying operations are expected to benefit from changes in next year's intelligence budget, under classified plans being drawn up by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, including a version approved by the Senate panel Thursday. Congressional officials said Thursday that John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, had signaled for the first time that the Bush administration would support big cuts in a multibillion-dollar satellite program in part to free up money for more human spying.

Current and former intelligence officials say considerable turmoil remains within the agency, particularly within the directorate of operations, which is responsible for human spying around the world. The directorate's No. 2 official, Robert Richer, has become the most recent high-ranking official to announce his departure, and he has told officials at the White House and in the C.I.A. that he had lost confidence in Mr. Goss....

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/23/politics/23intel.html

[Hissyspit]

1. "New and creative way to get our officers out of Washington..."

Yeah, get rid of the sincere, legitimate intell people (and, yes, I use that concept loosely with regards to the CIA) and keep the ass-kissing ideologues here to trash the place.