WaPo: CIA Plans Cutbacks, Limits on Contractor Staffing

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061001180_pf.html

CIA Plans Cutbacks, Limits on Contractor Staffing

By Walter Pincus and Stephen Barr
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, June 11, 2007; A02

Acting under pressure from Congress, the CIA has decided to trim its contractor staffing by 10 percent. It is the agency's first effort since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to curb what critics have decried as the growing privatization of U.S. intelligence work, a circumstance that has sharply boosted some personnel costs.

Contractors currently make up about one-third of the CIA workforce, but CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has said that their work has not been efficiently managed. Associate Deputy Director Michael Morell said in an interview that he does not think the CIA has become a revolving door, but "Director Hayden has said we don't want to become the farm team for contractors."

Morell said reviews are underway "to identify which of our jobs here at CIA should be done by staff and which of our jobs should be done by contractors or a 'mix' of contractors and staff." Effective June 1, the agency also began to bar contracting firms from hiring former CIA employees and then offering the employees' services to the CIA within the first year and a half of their retirement from the agency -- a practice known as "bidding back."

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[jwirr]

1. I like the cutbacks on contractors. If we do not do this we will be

subsidizing private armies for corps and not even know it. Privatization for the military and police and many other services is just plain ridiculous.

[OzarkDem]

2. Very good news

Appears as though the CIA is trying to re-establish their autonomy. We don't need private contractors gathering intel and conducting black ops to support Bush's agenda.