WASHINGTON: CIA employees were sitting at their computers on Friday afternoon when they saw a message advising them to toggle to the agency’s in-house television channel. On their screens they saw CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly announcing his resignation. In at least one office at the agency, and I suspect many more, there were quiet cheers. The Goss years have not been happy ones at the CIA.
Goss was dumped by a president who doesn’t like to fire anyone. That was a sign of how badly off track things had gotten at the CIA. Goss and his aides were feuding with the agency’s staff and with officials of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the new bureaucratic canopy that overlays the CIA and 14 other intelligence agencies. One of Goss’s senior aides was facing potential legal troubles in a bribery investigation; another he had brought over from Capitol Hill was scrambling to submit his resume to investment banks and other potential employers. Against this background, a White House emboldened by new chief of staff Josh Bolten decided it was time for ‘executive action’, the euphemism the CIA once used for taking someone out.
President Bush’s tepid comments in accepting Goss’s resignation suggested that he had finally lost confidence in the ability of the Republican former congressman to make intelligence reforms work. “Porter’s tenure at the CIA was one of transition,” Bush said. He noted that Goss’s effort to integrate the agency into the larger intelligence community had been a ‘tough job’.
Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who favoured replacing Goss, similarly spoke of ‘transition and reform’. That’s a gentle way of describing the past year of reorganisation, which intelligence veterans say has been closer to chaos and disintegration. The CIA has been hit hardest by the bureaucratic shuffle, with Goss struggling to fend off poaching from Negroponte and his ever-expanding staff.
Goss is said to have clashed with Negroponte and his deputy, retired Air Force General Michael Hayden. He tried to block what he saw as a DNI effort to raid more analysts from the CIA’s Counterterrorist Centre and steer them to the DNI’s National Counterterrorism Centre.
What may have hurt Goss most inside the White House was sharp criticism from a hush-hush group known as the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. This blue-ribbon group is headed by Stephen Friedman, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs and former White House economic adviser. Because its members include many prominent business executives, the board could offer a non-partisan, CEO’s view of how Goss was running the agency. I’m told some of the board’s judgments on Goss and his management team were devastating.
Goss got off to a shaky start because he was seen as a man on a political mission. CIA officers regard themselves as professionals, doing a dangerous job for the country. They know they work for civilian bosses. But like military officers, they want to be treated with respect. Though Goss long ago served as a CIA case officer, he arrived from Capitol Hill with a phalanx of conservative aides, soon dubbed the ‘Gosslings’, who viewed the agency as a liberal, leak-prone opponent of conservative causes.—Dawn/The Washington Post News Service
