Friday, November 04, 2005

Interesting Questions at American Thinker

All this raises two important questions for George Tenet, who was Director of Central Intelligence during all the time that “Plamegate” was going on:

• Why did the CIA, under your direction, treat the Vice President’s query about Iraqi efforts to purchase yellowcake in Niger so casually?

• When Joe Wilson started blabbing in public about his CIA mission to Niger – and lying about what he reported to the CIA upon his return – why didn’t you say something rather than allow the President’s credibility to be shredded?



(American Thinker today.)

personally, I'd love to hear the answers.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Tenet did make some kind of statement in July that was supposed to counter Wilson.

But I have wondered about a lot of things like this.

For instance, a great deal of classified information gets leaked. Obviously the administration is aware of it after the fact at least..so what do they do? Is there all kinds of behind the scenes snooping going on at the CIA?

Rick Ballard said...

Terrye,

Read this piece over at Captain Ed's for another former insider's viewpoint. After being gutted by Congress in the late '70's the CIA became almost an adjunct of State. Lots of "connected" hires of second raters - just like State. Second raters form factions based upon advancement via affinity groups and those factions understand that measurable results are their bane. They truly and legitimately fear administrations that demand results because they never in their sorry lives have ever accomplished anything measureable. The CIA shrugged off its miserable performance in missing the call on the collapse of the Soviet Union and GHWB didn't call them on it. Clinton and his "mistakes were made" circumlocution were heaven sent for the meritless faction and GWB might not have bothered them had not that pesky OBL fellow not shown up.

It's not that there are no competent people within the CIA for there surely are. It's just that advancement by connection has always played a larger role than it should - just as it does at State. We have plenty of other intelligence agencies that are competent at their work and do an excellent job in filling in the gaps created by the incompetent faction. That said, we will be safer when Goss has finished having the deadwood fired or transferred to Tonga. Until he is done we can anticipate more "black ops" conducted by the incompetents against the administration. The revelation concerning the "secret" detention centers was certainly no accident.