The CIA, a Bush Family Fiefdom

[Fridays Child]

The CIA, a Bush Family Fiefdom

Since the 9/11 terror attacks, the U.S. government has tried both structural and personnel changes to fix the nation’s intelligence services – including now the ouster of CIA Director Porter Goss – but the remedies have failed because they’ve missed the core problem.

What’s wrong with the U.S. intelligence community is that over the past three decades its ethos of telling truth to power has been corrupted by politics to such a degree that George W. Bush now sees the Central Intelligence Agency as virtually his family’s fiefdom, with the Langley, Virginia, headquarters even named for his father, George H.W. Bush, a former CIA director.

So, when analysts at the CIA were viewed as undercutting George W. Bush’s case for war with Iraq, the White House launched a counter-attack against these intelligence professionals for perceived disloyalty.

During the buildup to the Iraq War, Vice President Dick Cheney personally went to CIA headquarters to bang heads with intelligence analysts who doubted White House claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. While some analysts resisted, many mid-level bureaucrats acquiesced to Cheney.

More at http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/050906.html

[Missy M]

1. This country has to rid itself of all the neoconservatives....

and war hawks (old and new) running the show. One way is taking the Bush family out of the political arena. I am now being convinced the Goss resignation is because of his diminishing role in the CIA and the CIA becoming a branch of the National Director of Intelligence, Negroponte, not the "Hookergate" scandal. How did the CIA headquarters come to be name after GHW Bush when he was only director for one year? The Bush family is pure evil.

[leveymg]

2. Rob't Parry's take on Hookergate - it has to do w/Neocons vs Negroponte

This is an interesting angle that needs to be considered. Is the Hookergate scandal and Goss' sudden departure part of a power struggle between Negroponte, who's trying to consolidate all intel power in his own hands , versus the neocons (personified in Rumsfeld, according to Steven Clemons) who are hotter to trot off to war against Iran than is Negroponte?

Prostitute Probe

Goss ran into more controversy when his hand-picked executive director, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, became embroiled in the investigation of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-California, who was sentenced in March to more than eight years in prison for accepting $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors. Foggo was a longtime friend of Brent Wilkes, a contractor mentioned in the Cunningham indictment. Foggo also attended poker games that Wilkes organized at the Watergate and the Westin Grand hotels in Washington. According to press reports, federal investigators are looking into allegations that the bribery by the military contractors may have included payments for limousines, poker parties and prostitutes.

Between the disarray from CIA departures and the hint of scandal around Foggo, Goss saw his political stock decline. Negroponte also reportedly felt that Goss was not adapting well to his new subordinate position as just one of many intelligence directors. Meanwhile, Negroponte faced opposition himself from aggressive neoconservatives who objected to his more tempered assessment of the threat from Iran’s nuclear program and his hiring of some intelligence analysts who had objected to Bush’s Iraq WMD claims. Frank J. Gaffney Jr. an original signer of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, called for Negroponte’s firing because of his Iran assessment and his “abysmal personnel decisions.” In an article for Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times, Gaffney attacked Negroponte for giving top analytical jobs to Thomas Fingar, who had served as assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, and Kenneth Brill, who was U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which debunked some of the U.S. and British claims about Iraq seeking enriched uranium from Africa. The State Department’s Office of Intelligence and Research led the dissent against the Iraq WMD case, especially over what turned out to be false claims that Iraq was developing a nuclear bomb. Gaffney specifically faulted Fingar for his testimony against neoconservative favorite John Bolton to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

“Given this background, is it any wonder that Messrs. Negroponte, Fingar and Brill … gave us the spectacle of absurdly declaring the Iranian regime to be years away from having nuclear weapons?” wrote Gaffney, who was a senior Pentagon official during the Reagan administration. Gaffney accused Negroponte of giving promotions to “government officials in sensitive positions who actively subvert the President’s policies,” an apparent reference to Fingar and Brill.

Iran Cold Water

In an interview with NBC News on April 20, Negroponte had cited Iran’s limited progress in refining uranium and their use of a cascade of only 164 centrifuges.
“According to the experts that I consult, achieving — getting 164 centrifuges to work is still a long way from having the capacity to manufacture sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon,” Negroponte said. “Our assessment is that the prospects of an Iranian weapon are still a number of years off, and probably into the next decade.” Expressing a similar view about Iran in a speech at the National Press Club, Negroponte said, “I think it’s important that this issue be kept in perspective.” In effect, the DNI was splashing cold water on the more fevered assessment of Iran’s nuclear intentions favored by the neoconservatives around Bush. Still, Negroponte appears to have come out on top in this latest power struggle. On May 5, Bush announced Goss’s abrupt resignation, and on May 8, Bush named Negroponte’s current deputy, Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, to become CIA chief. While Negroponte’s bureaucratic victory may represent a defeat for the neoconservatives, it’s not likely to solve the larger problem of a politicized intelligence community. Though considered more professional than Goss, Negroponte and Hayden still have shown themselves to be loyal to Bush’s edicts. Negroponte sold Bush’s Iraq WMD case at the United Nations and sat behind Secretary of State Colin Powell during his infamous presentation to the Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003. While running the National Security Agency, Hayden implemented Bush’s warrantless wiretaps of Americans. Yet, until the larger question of politicization is addressed – until Bush’s sense of entitlement over the intelligence community is ended – the problem of the U.S. government’s misuse of intelligence is likely to continue.