After a series of intelligence crises, the CIA has never needed a steady, capable hand more than it does now. Instead, Porter Goss’ “leadership” is causing a mass hemorrhaging. The problem got worse this morning.
The two top officials running the CIA’s clandestine service resigned this morning, following a series of clashes with director Porter J. Goss’s chief of staff.
Stephen R. Kappes, the deputy director of operations, and his deputy, Michael Sulick, announced their resignations at a senior staff meeting, according to former CIA officials…. Both men are highly regarded by their clandestine service colleagues, said 10 former CIA officials who have worked with them.
This follows reports from the weekend that the CIA is literally “in turmoil.”
The deputy director of the CIA resigned yesterday after a series of confrontations over the past week between senior operations officials and CIA Director Porter J. Goss’s new chief of staff that have left the agency in turmoil, according to several current and former CIA officials.
John E. McLaughlin, a 32-year CIA veteran who was acting director for two months this summer until Goss took over, resigned after warning Goss that his top aide, former Capitol Hill staff member Patrick Murray, was treating senior officials disrespectfully and risked widespread resignations, the officials said.
It’s reached the point in which agency officials say internal discontent has reached an unprecedented level, leading to “an atmosphere of ill will and apprehension could distract the agency from its work in the fight against terrorism.”
And what’s behind this train wreck? It’s Bush’s America so the answer should be obvious: partisan politics.
It seems incomprehensible, but Goss is actually under pressure to make the CIA more loyal to Bush.
The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.
“The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House,” said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. “Goss was given instructions … to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president’s agenda.”
The Bush White House is more than just wrong; it’s scary. It’s never been more important for the president to get credible, reliable intelligence from the CIA, so what does Bush do? He finds a loyal GOP partisan to take over the agency and “purge” it of “liberal Democrats.” The result is a mob family-like atmosphere that is driving the most experienced and knowledgeable intelligence officials into early retirement — during a war.
This is going to get worse before it gets better.