18 November 2004	Thursday	05 Shawwal 1425

WASHINGTON, Nov 17: CIA Director Porter Goss has reminded agency employees that they are not to "identify with, support or champion opposition" to the US administration in the latest salvo of a struggle for political control of the intelligence agency.

"We support the administration and its policies in our work," Goss said in the memo e-mailed to employees on late Monday. "As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies. We provide the intelligence as we see it, and let the facts alone speak to the policymaker."

Goss' memo, apparently aimed in part at stanching intelligence leaks that embarrassed President George W. Bush during the election campaign, was itself leaked to the Washington Post and the New York Times.

The passage from Goss's two page memo was read by a US intelligence official who said the director had been quoted out of context in a newspaper account that construed it as telling workers at the CIA to back administration policies.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan also denied that Goss was seeking to politicize the agency, and said Bush had "great confidence" in the director's commitment to reform.

"The bottom line is for us to provide intelligence on a topic, we do so without shading or shaping the information in any way," the US intelligence official said. "We are not a policy organization. We inform policymakers, and avoid political involvement. CIA is a non-partisan agency, and we call it like we see it."

The memo also reminded CIA employees of their "oath of secrecy" and that communication with the media was through CIA's public affairs office while any contacts with Congress should be through its office of congressional affairs.

It followed the resignations of the two top officials of the agency's clandestine service after a confrontation with Goss' chief of staff that reportedly stemmed from a threat to hold the agency's counter-intelligence chief responsible for news leaks about personnel.

Goss, who assumed office two months ago, has been given a mandate to reform the agency in the wake of intelligence failures on Iraq and the September 11 attacks on the United States.

But the memo suggests he is first trying to stamp out signs of political opposition within the agency, which for seven years was led by George Tenet, a Clinton administration appointee who stayed on through most of Bush's first term.

Intelligence leaks that undercut Bush's positions on Iraq during the elections angered administration officials and fuelled suspicion among conservatives that "rogue" elements in the CIA had sided with the Democrats. -AFP