by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
P<\/span>orter Goss has just resigned his post as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. His executive director, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, is apparently under investigation. Goss’ designated successor, Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, faces a tough confirmation fight.<\/p>\n What is going on at our premier intelligence agency?<\/p>\n The Goss appointment, back in September 2004, was yet another political effort to deal with serial leaking of CIA classified information. Many agency analysts, both employed and retired, have been in veritable revolt against the general strategy of the war against terror \u2014 in particular, the effort to depose Saddam Hussein and birth a democracy in his place.<\/p>\n Somewhat quiet during the once-popular, three-week victory over Saddam, CIA hands increasingly have been loudly assuring us that they were not responsible for someone else’s messy three-year reconstruction in Iraq.<\/p>\n Paul Pillar, a national intelligence officer at the CIA from 2000 to 2005, publicly insisted that counter-terrorism should not be a matter of war. Indeed, he wrote prolifically in the middle of the ongoing Iraq war that it was all a colossal mistake.<\/p>\n Retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who endlessly trumpets his former service, recently shouted down Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a public forum and has insisted that American foreign policy is captive to Israel.<\/p>\n Another former analyst, Michael Scheuer, wrote a scathing critique of the war against terror. Writing under the pseudonym Anonymous, Scheuer, while still employed at the agency, also voiced the similar refrain that Israel is the cause of many of our troubles in the Middle East.<\/p>\n Recently fired CIA analyst Mary McCarthy leaked classified information about purported agency detention centers to Dana Priest of The Washington Post, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the story.<\/p>\n The list of often-praised leakers and loud former- and present-CIA wartime-critics goes on.<\/p>\n D<\/span>uring the Cold War, suspicious liberals would often try to curb such CIA freelancing. They’d allege that its cowboy operatives made up their own rules, from Iran to Guatemala \u2014 or that after retirement they tended to rejoin the political ranks of the hard right.<\/p>\n Back then, the CIA’s retort was that such insiders knew the real stakes involved in fighting global communism. Some of these misguided operatives supposedly followed a higher calling and felt that the ends \u2014 our survival \u2014 often justified the means, of either breaking the law or becoming loud public hardliners.<\/p>\n Yet now liberals are sympathetic to this new generation of similarly self-appointed CIA lawbreakers and partisans. But intelligence analysts should never undermine the policy of their elected governments, either through unlawful leaks or posing as in-the-know loud public critics privy to classified information.<\/p>\n Instead CIA officers should do what they were hired to do before appointing themselves partisans \u2014 especially since their record at intelligence gathering and analysis has been pretty awful for a long time.<\/p>\n The United States, thanks in large part to a clueless CIA, has been unable to anticipate everything from the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and the fall of the Shah in Iran in 1979 to, more recently, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Then, of course, there was the failure in advance of September 11. In the last few years, the U.S. got wrong Saddam’s WMD capability, while underestimating the extent of the WMD arsenal in Mohammar Gadhafi’s Libya.<\/p>\n So Gen. Hayden will have his hands full justifying an intelligence agency that is ever more political and ever less competent.<\/p>\n Remember that we already have intelligence agencies galore in the State Department and the individual branches of the military. We are also unsure whether a CIA simply replicates much of the also costly FBI, National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency.<\/p>\n So, if appointed CIA director, Gen. Hayden’s task should be either to merge the agency with another intelligence bureau or radically downsize it.<\/p>\n The problem is not just that the CIA consumes too much money, has too many employees and gathers too much superfluous intelligence while missing the landmark events of the age. Or that too many analysts can’t do their own assigned disinterested jobs. Or even that both Democrats and Republicans periodically try to rein the CIA in with their own political appointees when they suspect it has become openly hostile and insubordinate.<\/p>\n No, the deeper worry is that there has grown up at the CIA an entrenched enclave and an arrogant “we know best” attitude in which self-appointed moralists are often convinced that they can make up their own rules and code of conduct. Gen. Hayden will have to end that culture \u2014 or end the agency as we know it.<\/p>\n \u00a92006 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Confirmation is the least of problems for a new CIA director. by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Porter Goss has just resigned his post as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. His executive director, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, is apparently under investigation. Goss’ designated successor, Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, faces a tough confirmation fight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[774],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-12i","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3472,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/three-letter-menace\/","url_meta":{"origin":3986,"position":0},"title":"Three-Letter Menace","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Christopher Hitchens\u00a0has a good piece\u00a0on the bad CIA (\"worse than useless\"). Surely our various intelligence organizations are practicing a sort of subversion, whether due to a condescending animus toward George Bush, or to a more generic arrogance that their genius is not appreciated and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2007"","block_context":{"text":"December 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/december-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9769,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/its-no-revelation-that-intelligence-agencies-are-politicized\/","url_meta":{"origin":3986,"position":1},"title":"It\u2019s No Revelation That Intelligence Agencies Are Politicized","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 19, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Trump is acknowledging a fact that recent history has repeatedly demonstrated. Furor has arisen over President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s charges that our intelligence agencies are politicized. Spare us the outrage. For decades, directors of intelligence agencies have often quite inappropriately massaged their assessments to fit\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Trump"","block_context":{"text":"Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11400,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/demonization-of-nunes-is-a-window-into-our-times\/","url_meta":{"origin":3986,"position":2},"title":"Demonization of Nunes Is a Window Into Our Times","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Much of what we now know about the unethical and often illegal behavior of the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, and Department of Justice emerged due to the efforts of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Its chairman during its stunning disclosures has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "CIA"","block_context":{"text":"CIA","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/cia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4194,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/terrorists-and-tyrants\/","url_meta":{"origin":3986,"position":3},"title":"Terrorists and Tyrants","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 28, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Rethinking why we are at war in the Middle East by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services As American casualties mount in Iraq, politicians at home now fight over who said what and when about weapons of mass destruction and the need for going to war. One of the most\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "November 2005"","block_context":{"text":"November 2005","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2005\/november-2005\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12112,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/former-intelligence-chiefs-fit-perfectly-into-media-advocacy-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":3986,"position":4},"title":"Former intelligence chiefs fit perfectly into media advocacy culture","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 20, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Fox News Former FBI Director\u00a0James Comey\u00a0and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have lots of things in common. One,\u00a0they ran the nation\u2019s key intelligence and investigatory agencies under former\u00a0President Barack Obama. They were deeply involved\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3629,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/your-war-not-mine\/","url_meta":{"origin":3986,"position":5},"title":"Your War, Not Mine","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services \"This war is lost,\" Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid recently proclaimed. That pessimism about Iraq is now widely shared by his Democratic colleagues. But many of these converted doves aren't being quite honest about why they've radically changed their views of the war.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "May 2007"","block_context":{"text":"May 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/may-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3986"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3987,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions\/3987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}