Re: Interesting article about the CIA

[David Stein <david.r.stein () gmail com>]

> So I guess my question is: Is this a cry for help from Democratic
> backers in Congress, or is it a shot across the bow?

I think that it's a cry for the press to help them--which they are,
but that isn't going to be nearly enough to save them.  The few
remaining Democrats won't get involved, they have their own problems. 
The top level management at CIA are screwed.  They decided to bet the
farm on Kerry, and their political forecasting was just as good as all
their other recent work.  Now it's payback time for the White House,
and those political boys may not be the sharpest tools in the shed but
they understand getting stabbed in the back and they understand about
getting revenge.

Of course, just like in any big business the worker-bees for the most
part care couldn't care less who sits in the corner offices.  All this
turmoil talk is typical of executives everywhere who think that no
work gets done except for the loyalty and reverence "their" employees
have for them.  Actually I'm sure that senior executives one level
down are already hoping that they'll get to climb another rung up the
greasy pole and get better offices and parking spaces, and people
further down are doing their jobs and complaining about the Redskins
as usual on a Monday morning.

I think it's very funny--a sort of real-life Mafia movie.  The
Director of Operations sent a message to Porter Goss by taking out his
nominee for Executive Director by leaking a 20-year-old shoplifting
incident from his personnel file.  So Goss's enforcer told the
Director of Counter-intelligence (who keeps the files and who probably
leaked the information himself at the DO's request) that if any more
of Goss's nominees woke up with a knife sticking from between their
ribs, he'd hold the Director of CI personally responsible.  This led
the Director of CI to get his family head, the DO, to go in and
confront Goss and threaten to go to the mattresses by orchestrating
mass resignations.  Accounts differ as to who backed down (if anyone)
after that.  I would see the press reporting as a desperate cry for
help from a bunch of self-important bunglers who can't imagine that
CIA could continue without them, and who are beginning to realize that
they overplayed their hand.  Something like the baseball umpires did a
few years ago.  They should have tried kissing Goss' butt and pleading
for mercy, that might just have saved them.

We'll know in a few days if the DO is forced out.  Sure is fun!

David

P.S. A side issue, but the Valerie Plame leak was entirely CIA's
fault--they had no business telling anyone at the White House the name
of an undercover agent.  It is well known that politicians (and their
staffs) will blab anything to anyone, that is why there are supposed
to be professionals running the business and keeping stuff that the
politicos don't absolutely need to know out of their heads.
--
David Stein
david.r.stein () gmail com
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