Intel Dump

I don't really have too much to offer on the sudden resignation of Porter Goss, that other more experienced kremlinologists haven't already said. I do find it disingenuous that much of the media coverage has simply parroted the official line that it was the result of a power struggle between Goss and DNI John "Death Squad" Negroponte, who were after all, frat brothers at Yale. (Seems like pretty much everybody at that level of government was, no?) If it was a power struggle, it wouldn't have happened so suddenly, as Laura Rozen points out:

The main question is why Goss's departure suddenly became a matter of the deepest urgency yesterday.

Think back to yesterday morning. The top news after the Patrick Kennedy crash was that Bush's poll numbers were at an all time low, and that he was starting to see a real erosion of support from conservatives. Gas prices and immigration and Iraq. So Bush gets briefed by his staff that day, and decides: hey, let's fire Porter Goss. He's killing morale at the Agency. He's just seen as far too political. And John Negroponte is threatening to quit if he stays. He's given me an absolute ultimatum. Let's get this out today.

Come on. That's just not how this White House has responded to these sorts of tensions in the past. They never move fast. They withstand criticism of appointments for months. They resist criticisms of unpopular agency heads for weeks (Michael "heckuva job" Brown), months (Snow), years (Rumsfeld). Think how much speculation there was in the press before Card's and McClellan's announced retirements, and how warm and friendly were those departures. It's hard not to believe that something moved very quickly on the radar this week that prompted an unusually quick decision. One that took a lot of people who would normally have been advised by surprise. (It's my understanding that the heads of Congressional intel committees were not informed in advance).

Is it that Goss and his #3 tool, Dusty Foggo, are inextricably caught up in the Dukestir/Hookergate scandal that's gathering steam right now? Most assuredly; there's just no other explanation as to why the departure hadn't been as carefully groomed as most of the other ones. Basically Goss is leaving to spend more time with Claude Allen's kids. Or something. (Perhaps the network steno pool can clue us in sometime -- and if you're tired of being labelled as such, then quit being so damned eager to mindlessly transcribe every lie that tumbles out of the pieholes of these people.)

Nor should the hasty appointment of Gen. Hayden be seen as anything but a desperate political ass-covering measure. They replaced one family fixer with another, that's all. The main difference here is that with Hayden's appointment, the administration is now overtly desirous of military control of what is supposed to be a civilian post.

And as Billmon sagely intuits, that road leads straight to Rummy's attempts to consolidate decision-making power within the Pentagon and the WHIG. There's no need to read tea leaves here; they are making it abundantly clear that they do not wish to discuss or debate any policy decisions, but rather merely want a reliable rubber stamp. The CIA was simply too problematic last time around. It is not enough to give them vague information from which they can cherry-pick; they now want to simply cut out all those pesky middlemen with their inconvenient facts.

Which is just the thing to make us all safer, seeing as how they've done so well with their strategies and predictions up to now. Really, let's just get rid of the fluffers of Congress and have done with it already, since these guys are so much smarter than any of their critics and detractors. All this messy debatin' n' fact-checkin' is just gettin' in the way of Serious Thinkamatin'.

I'd say it would take years for the agency to recover, but my suspicion is that it will never recover, as its missions and resources continue to flow towards the Pentagon, like stars being sucked down a black hole. Rather than being a hatchet man, like Schlesinger, or a caretaker, like Carter's CIA director, Stansfield Turner, Goss's successor may be more in the nature of an undertaker, charged with the continued, gradual dismantling of the agency -- taking the C out of CIA.

And that may be the bigger story here. What's been happening over the past decade -- or longer, according to Andrew Bacevich -- has been a relentless expansion in the authority and functions of the military services, and of their civilian overlords in the Secretary of Defense's office, at the expense of the CIA, the State Department, the NSC and the other bits of alphabet in the national security soup.

Keep in mind that "expansion in military services" does not necessarily translate into merely more soldiers and more generals. What it has already translated into is private military contracting, subbing out the wet work to the ex-ops at Blackwater and CACI. It's a sweet racket for all involved; the private corporations are not subject to the same accountability standards as the actual military hierarchy (such as they are), plus it provides more of the usual opportunities for graft and the distributing of thick envelopes, which is really all the defense contractor class is about. Just ask Brent Wilkes or Mitchell Wade, or any of their go-to guys n' gals representing them in the halls of Congress.

From the very day Porter Goss' name was announced as DCI, I knew what the choice really entailed. Here was someone eminently unqualified for the job; after all, it was he (and Bob Graham) who had a nice breakfast with one General Mahmoud Ahmad, head of the Pakistani ISI intel service, on the morning of 9/11/01. Turns out the good general had wired $100K to one Mohammed Atta. Perhaps you've heard of him.

But then, perhaps I had simply misunderestimated Goss' capabilities, because my assumption was that he was supposed to function as an actual DCI. But what he was really appointed for was to smooth out all the rough edges that had existed under Slam Dunk Tenet, noted winner of the coveted Medal O' Freedomocracy™. And in that capacity, Goss has done exactly what they wanted him to -- he purged all the naysayers and closet Democrats, all the troublesome folk that relied on their silly facts and empirical knowledge. Goss did everything he could to make goddamned sure that poor ol' Cheney would never again have to waddle over to Langley and scream a blue streak at the people who weren't cherry-picking well enough for his liking.

And Hayden will continue that process, as well as giving Rumsfeld -- truly the Grampa Simpson of the federal government -- even more power which he has no idea what to do with. Meanwhile, Iraq continues its death spiral apace, and partition -- formerly an absolute no-no -- is looking more and more like the only viable (which it won't be, not at all) alternative for these fuck-ups.


This is what you wanted, Bush/Cheney/Rummy fans. This is what you get.