CIA Resignations and Intelligence Reform

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. How will the resignations reshape the CIA? What direction is the battle to reorganize the U.S. intelligence community heading? Is the CIA as "dysfunctional" as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) stated?

Former CIA analyst Mel Goodman discusses the recent resignations within the agency and intelligence reform.

The transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

_____________

Mel Goodman: There certainly is a great deal to talk about this afternoon. The appointment of Porter Goss was a controversial one and for good reason. He is off to a very bad start with both personnel and policy. Perhaps I can clear up some of the confusion today.

_______________________

New York, N.Y.: What policy mistakes is Goss making?

Mel Goodman: Goss has made two major policy mistakes: he does not understand the importance of foreign intelligence liaison, especially against terrorist targets...and he doesn't understand the constraints or limitations on covert action.

_______________________

New York, N.Y.: Were there any legal barriers preventing full CIA cooperation with the FBI on counterterror investigations prior to 9/11?

Mel Goodman: There were no real legal barriers preventing CIA and FBI cooperation. The barriers were bureaucratic and parochial, and too many officials at NSA, FBI, and CIA failed to share what needed to be shared. A real failure!!

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: I honestly fear for the future of the intelligence community and the national security of this nation when I see the politization by the White House on intelligence matters; the depolitization by the White House (wanting CIA operatives fired) when the CIA doesn't agree; the appointment of a politician (yes he is a former CIA officer but he is now more politician) to head the Agency; and the move of HPSCI staffers to the Agency they spent their Congressional career attacking. Congress need not spend any more time on the intelligence overhaul legislation. They need to spend more time on what the White House is doing (more harm than good) to the intelligence community.

Mel Goodman: I totally agree. Bush has politicized the entire intelligence community....and George Tenet's willingness to go along with the politicization of intelligence on WMD (remember the "slam dunk") was a low point in the history of CIA. That will be Tenet's epitaph....and it will be the CIA's as well if CIA senior officials are unwilling to tell truth to power.

_______________________

Falls Church, Va.: Isn't this turnover what Goss, President Bush and other Capitol Hill leaders wanted when they said the CIA need to shake things up?
This "low morale" story tends to circulate whenever there's turnover or new management. The same thing happened under former Director John Deutch, didn't it?
Isn't some of this linked to a resistance to change within the bureaucracy?

Mel Goodman: Turner and Deutch angered the directorate of operations when they introduced needed changes into the directorate's activities. But Goss appears bent to assert his will through a palace guard and gatekeeper from the Hill staff...and not for reasons of substantive reform. This is a very bad mix and will lead to faulty collection and mediocre analysis. This is a very bad point of departure for the Goss stewardship.

_______________________

Boston, Mass.: Some very knowledgable, experienced people left CIA in the past week. Unlike a sports franchise, when a general manager may choose to "get worse" before he "gets better" our intelligence agencies have no such luxury. At what point does organizational renewal become a brain drain? Have you seen the warning signs of the latter yet?

Mel Goodman: I agree with the thrust of your remarks. One of the keys to success at CIA is the need for institutional memory. The agency has lost ten senior officials in the past several months. Some need to go, particularly Tenet, McGlaughlin, and Moscowitz...but there is no certainty that better people will be found to take their places. The CIA needs to reform itself, but Goss is taking the wrong approach and was never known as a reformer during his chairmanship of the House intelligence committee. That is why the 9/11 commission called the House intelligence committee "dysfunctional."

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Mel, I'm a former CIA analyst myself, and I would argue that Porter has gotten off to a good start. The Agency's chief problem is cultural; it rewards the wrong behaviors (e.g., don't make waves, CYA). Purging the uppermost ranks, who, afterall, are chiefly responsibile for the sad shape the Agency finds itself in, is both logical and in the best national security interests of the American people.

Mel Goodman: I partially agree. The CIA has created its own problems over the past twenty years, first politicizing intelligence under Casey and Gates...and then spinning intelligence on the WMD issue under Tenet, McGlaughlin, and Alan Foley. The job of the agency is telling truth to power, and these individuals did not have the courage to do so. But Goss appears less interested in telling truth to power, then in protecting the Bush administration. Time will tell.

_______________________

Virginia: How do you characterize Sen. McCain's comments on ABC yesterday -- that the reorganization in the "dysfunctional" CIA is badly needed and these resignations are the turmoil that comes from cleaning the agency up?

Mel Goodman: I testified to the Senate intelligence committee in 1991 (against the nomination of Robert Gates) and urged the reform of the CIA. Things have continued to deteriorate in the past 13 years....and there is great need for intelligence reform and the need for genuine strategic analysis from CIA. But Goss never made a case for reform during his tenure as House intelligence chairman, and never tried to understand the flaws of the CIA that led to the 9/11 nightmare and the politicized intelligence on Iraq. Goss is in the long line of DCIs with an operational background who misunderstands the need for strategic analysis and has an exaggerated view of covert action and CIA espionage.

_______________________

Los Angeles, Calif.: From a former CIA case officer recently resigned --

A cleaning of house of the CIA is definately needed in my opinion, but what effect will these leadership changes have on our monmentum in the global war on terror?

Mel Goodman: Fortunate the campaign against terror is being waged by people in the field and analysts at their desks who will remain above the "food fight" that we are witnessing at CIA. But if the credibility and legitimacy of the CIA is further weakened, then it will become difficult for CIA intelligence to assist policymakers in a meaningful fashion. The senior level officials of the CIA (Pavitt, Tenet, McGlaughlin, Moscowitz, etc.) have compromised the CIA's integrity and it is good to move them along. But Goss's limited background and the use of a staff system from the Hill does not augur well for genuine reform.

_______________________

New York, N.Y.: Is it common for top CIA officials to resign when a new CIA director is appointed and/or when it is the start of a new presidential term? Or are these resignations an anomaly, unique to the Bush administration?

Mel Goodman: Resignations of this type are unprecedented at the CIA, and there will be very negatives consequences for the entire directorate if Goss goes through with his plan to make the major appointments in the directorate of operations (including overseas station chiefs) from his office and not through the office of the director of operations. This is a serious attempt to politicize the work of the directorate and could lead to extremely risky operations that weaken the national security of the United States. Again, remember the damage of the Casey-Gates era in the 1980s, when operations compromised intelligence and faulty operations in Central America and the Middle East compromised US security.

_______________________

Flint, Mich.: How credible is Michael Scheuer? He said the CIA was happy and encouraged him when he was criticizing the White House but they tried to silence him when he criticized the CIA itself? (I read this somewhere -- online of course)

Mel Goodman: I've read Scheuer's Imperial Hubris and I don't find him credible. He was probably the wrong person to head the bin Laden station (the Alex station) and it was probably wrong to place an analytical person in an operational slot. Scheuer displays an obsessive approach toward the problem of Islamic fundamentalism...and his recommendatins in his book would place US interests in real jeopardy throughout the Islamic world. He appears to know a great deal about al Qaeda, but he appears to know very little about the limitations of military power in dealing with insurgencies.

_______________________

Outside the beltway: Innocent question: How can an ex-CIA officer like Goss not understand the agency works, as you're suggesting? Was he not deeply involved in the bureaucracy when he was in and thus doesn't really know what he's fighting?

Mel Goodman: Goss was a middle level agency operative in Europe thirty years ago. The world has changed significantly since the end of the Cold War, but there is no indication that Goss perceived these changes and moved to change the intelligence community as a result during his stewardship of the House intelligence committee. His views on foreign intelligence liaison and covert action are right out of the Cold War, and simply too unsophisticated for the convoluted and complex age that we current occupy.

_______________________

Chantilly, Va.: If Goss shouldn't have used Hill staffers he knew to populate the DCI's office, who should he have chosen?

Mel Goodman: Goss should have moved quietly and carefully in the first several months; he should have talked to people inside and outside the directorate of operations. Then he should have made the most important changes in a context of his own examination. Instead, he appeared to arrive on a white horse with a mission. It is not totally clear to me what that mission is, except for asserting his own control. The fact that he refused to speak to any senior level officers or retired senior officers...and sidetracked everyone to his staffers....suggests that he was not prepared to listen and assess. And if he were really taking a new approach to the CIA, then why does he continue to cover-up the 9/11 accountability report that has been sitting in the agency's seventh floor for nearly five months. A cover-up of accountability does not point to a genuine interest in reform. His unwillingness to examine the outing of Valerie Plame, during his House chairmanship, similarly did not suggest a genuine interest in dealing with key problems for the CIA and the intelligence community.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: I hear a lot of grousing on the media circuit that Goss is on some kind of vendetta to go after CIA executives who questioned both wars: the one on terrorism, the other on Iraq. Is there any proof of this? People who get fired for poor performance often seek to cast themselves in the guise of innocent bystander and their boss as a megalomaniac.

Mel Goodman: There is no question that Goss is obsessed with leaks from the CIA, but it will be difficult for him to make necessary changes at the agency if the leaks continue. I'm not sure that there is evidence that the senior people in the "purge" were really critical of the Bush policy toward Iraq. The fact of the matter is that the CIA willingly politicized the intelligence on Iraq (see the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002 and the Powell speech to the UN in February 2003. I believe that we are seeing a bureaucratic confrontation that is about power and control and not about substance and politics. And the notion that the CIA had launched a war against the Bush administration (see David Brooks in yesterday's NYTimes) is simply fatuous and uninformed. The CIA did the bidding of the White House, but I'm not sure that Goss is trying to put a stop to politicization of this type.

_______________________

Nashville, Tenn.: John McCain has said that there are "good and decent people" at the agency but as my boss at G.E. use to say, "We don't reward people for their efforts, we reward them for their results." Since 1953, the agency's record has been at best mixed RE: "All the Shah's Men" through promoting bin Laden in Afghanistan. Most recently, it has been an unmitigated disaster leading up to and throughout the duraton of the war in Iraq. What can you say on its behalf against abolishing it completely? Thank you.

Mel Goodman: It is easy to make a case for CIA's important work in the field of intelligence (e.g., Soviet weapons developments, the Sino-Soviet split, Vietnam, the Middle East, etc. etc.) and there will always be a need for an intelligence agency OUTSIDE the policy process as HSTruman wanted it. But over the past 20 years, there has been a real dumbing down at the CIA, with little attention given to long-term and strategic intelligence and too much attention given to "wireservice" type information that can be found in any major newspaper. Moreover, for the past twenty years, the CIA (unlike the military) has refused to examine its mistakes (e.g., the collapse of the Soviet Union, 9/11, Iraq and WMD) and has put to much bureaucratic energy into self-aggrandizing defenses of its worst work.

_______________________

New York, N.Y.: It's pretty clear that a lot of CIA personnel are more intereested in promoting the Democrats' party line than in "speaking truth to power" (whatever the heck that means). It's time to get rid of all of these political operators and put in people whose first priority is to protect the country, rather than leak information in order to damage Republicans.

Mel Goodman: If you don't know what speaking truth to power means, then permits I can't help. I'm talking about having the guts to tell senior policymakers that military force in Vietnam would not work (as the CIA did in the 1960s) and never telling the White House that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear capability when there was no evidence of Iraq doing so. You can't talk about Democratic or Republican intelligence. If intelligence isn't bipartisan, then you don't have intelligence.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Is the current situation at the CIA comparable to the period when Stansfield Turner ran the CIA? There were many unhappy people who left the CIA in the late 1970s, too. I recall that some conservatives criticized Mr. Turner for damaging the clandestine service then, too.

Mel Goodman: Totally different situation. Turner was told by the White House that it would be necessary to slightly reduce the directorate of operations in the wake of the Vietnam War, which made a great deal of sense to many of us at the CIA at that time. But the directorate turned against Turner and retired agency officers went to the Hill and the media with the phony charge that Turner was wrecking the agency. It was unfair. There might be some of that today, given the paranoia at the CIA about any newcomer, particularly one with his own retinue (which Turner unwise did as well). But it appears that the criticism of Goss is far more justified then the criticism of Turner in the 1970s.

_______________________

Inside the beltway: If Goss' experience is behind the times, why do you think he was choosen for the job and what do you expect he will accomplish?

Mel Goodman: Goss was a very partisan appointment and I believe he was chosen for partisan reasons. In fact, when the Bush administration first put out the name for reaction, there was so much negative reaction, that it pulled the name back. But failing to find an adequate successor to Tenet, it returned to Goss because it knew the Hill would never refuse to confirm one of its own and that the Democrats would be gunshy about stopping a nomination in the national security field in the wake of 9/11. The weakness of McGlaughlin made it imperative to place a permanent director, but if you want someone badly enough then you get someone bad enough.

_______________________

Portland, Ore.: Is it fair to say the CIA did a pretty good job over the last 10 years in keeping terrorists from obtaining nukes and using them against the US?

If so, isn't the appointment of career politicians at the CIA and the resulting resignation of professionals going to hurt the ability of the CIA to keep terrorists from getting and using nuclear weapons agains the US?

Mel Goodman: The inability of terrorists to get their hands on nuclear weapons has more to do with the caution of nuclear weapons states and far less to do with the capability and acumen of the CIA. But the loss of institutional memory at the CIA, an institution that has too few experienced people to begin with, will hurt the CIA over the near term. Also, the demoralization of the DO is not good for the general health of the CIA.

_______________________

Panama City, Fla.: Is this controversy at the CIA due to the incompetence of Goss' former Intelligence Committee staff members? If Goss wanted changes, why didn't he just ask for their resignations when he came to the CIA?

Mel Goodman: I believe that the staffers from the Hill were far to junior and insufficiently substantive to contribute to the success of Porter Goss initially. But it was Goss's decision to use these individuals as a barrier from the senior level officers at the CIA. And it was Goss who said that he would not act in a partisan fashion at the CIA, after conceding that he was too partisan in his conduct of running the intelligence committee. There is much blame to spread around, but certainly Goss must take the major share of blame for his inept handling of his honeymoon period at the CIA. A little politesse would have gone a long way at a time of real insecurity at the CIA.

_______________________

Lyme, Conn.: To me, a fault of the current Administration is they neglected to consider analysis that contradicted the policies which they had already decided to adopt. By now seeking the resignations of people within the CIA who question their policies, what dangers are there towards compromising independent analysis? Is there now a fear that the analysis must agree with already drawn conclusions and, if so, doesn't this hurt the very nature of why we need independent analysis?

Mel Goodman: I totally agree. The major problem at the CIA, which the agency refuses to concede, is the politicization of intelligence on Iraq and then the absurd defense that George Tenet and Stu Cohen (the chairman of the phony October 2002 estimate) made to the media and to an academic audience at Georgetown University, where Tenet is not professor of international diplomacy (please!!!). We need some integrity in the process and you don't need to apply additional funds or additional reform measures to introduce integrity. We are back to telling truth to power.

_______________________

Bethesda, Md.: If the CIA needs a "shake up" according to the Bush administration and Goss is doing it, why is this happening over 3 years after 9/11? If things were so bad at CIA why did Bush stand beside Tenet until Tenet himself decided to leave? It appears to me that Bush has no clue as to what's happening at CIA and appointed Goss only after Tenet removed himself and is letting him have the run of the place. My question is: What is the Bush Administration's plan? I'm afraid the answer in "none".

Mel Goodman: You are right on. Tenet should have been fired or forced to resign after 9/11. The joint inquiry of the House and Senate in December 2002 made it clear that Tenet did not provide strategic leadership to the intelligence community and the CIA, and that the analytical work of the CIA was flawed, not politicized, simply flawed. Bush has never shown any interest in reform of the CIA...and never displayed any interest in the way White House officials leaked the name of a CIA operative to Robert Novak. The appointment of Goss was a cynical one because Goss similarly never displayed any interest in intelligence reform, particularly the militarization of the intelligence community over the past ten years, beginning with Robert Gates brief tenure in 1991-1992.

_______________________

Indianapolis, Ind.: I don't understand what is going on at the CIA. did they blunder and hedge their opinions in favor of the White House's wishes (because they were being pressured by the administration)? Or did they simply give the administration bad data and bad advice--which is it?

Mel Goodman: It is a combination of the two. The CIA used very bad assumptions for formulating their intelligence questions and used very bad judgment in spinning the worst of the intelligence they received. There is no question that a major study is needed in the way intelligence was tailored by WINPAC and the National Intelligence Council....and if heads roll in those two offices then we will know that Goss indeed interested in changing things. In the meantime, we can be assured that the individuals responsible for the worst of the intelligence probably received cash awards and career promotions, which was the pattern in the 1980s when intelligence on the Soviet Union was politicized by many.

_______________________

Houston, Tex.: Dear Mr. Goodman, Thank you for your work and your intellectual honesty. I still recall and appreciate your testimony before the Senate Congressional committee that included, I think, Senator Bill Bradley and concerned the politicization of intelligence and how counter productive that was in helping this country acknowledge the true state of affairs in the Soviet Union at the time. I recall thinking back then...thank goodness that we do have people working in our government agencies who rise above petty ideological politics. Question: Aren't we back to the same sorry state of affairs right now...where ideology and politics trump common sense, reality and fairmindedness? Do you think that the Director of the CIA should report to the president or to congress? Please feel free to prune this back if you wish to use the question. Thanks

Mel Goodman: Thanks for your kind words. This is worse than the politicization of the 1980s because intelligence was used to go to war. In fact, the war authorization was based on phony intelligence, which probably violated the separation of powers of the constitution and certain made the checks and balances of our system somewhat irrelevant. I believe that the DCI must report to both the White House and the Congress, but if we place the national intelligence director or czar in the executive branch (as the 9/11 commission unwisely suggests) then we will increase (and not decrease) the chances for politicization.

_______________________

Far from Washington, D.C.: You said,

"But over the past 20 years, there has been a real dumbing down at the CIA, with little attention given to long-term and strategic intelligence and too much attention given to "wireservice" type information that can be found in any major newspaper."

When I got to the CIA in 1972, one of the first revelations was that the intelligence not coming from reconnaissance satellites and signals intelligence was basically what you saw in the newspapers. "Current Intelligence" continued its climb thereafter, and I'm not really surprised that, after a thirty-year slide, the CIA is where it is.

Mel Goodman: I agree. Current intelligence has driven out the need for scholarly, long-term, strategic analysis. The directorate of intelligence has a short-term focus and very little leadership at the top. The President's Daily Brief is a very politicized product that hesitates to give senior policymakers that bad news that intelligence occassionally must do. It has been a very serious decline...and it will be very difficult to remedy.

_______________________

Tampa, Fla.: You previously stated you disagree some of Michael Scheuer's views on bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Mr. Schuer seems to disagree with Richard Clark. Do Messrs. Clarke, Schuer and yourself agree on any major points? And what do you think of Mr. Clarke's views on bin Laden and Al Qaeda?

Mel Goodman: I am sure that the three of us agree that the war against Iraq was a major diversion from the use of force in Afghanistan against al Qaeda and that the war in Iraq led to three self-fulfilling prophecies regarding Iraq as the center of the war against terrorism, the ability of terrorists to obtain WMD from Iraq, and the links between Sunnis and al Qaeda forces.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: If what's behind these resignations is more substantive than just personality clashes, what is it? Could you summarize the conflict? Thanks.

Mel Goodman: There are several substantive issues at play here. First, the DCI must be independent and nonpartisan. Goss is neither. The DCI must have an awareness of the importance of foreign intelligence liaison in operations and collection against terrorism. Goss doesn't. And the DCI must understand the limits and constrains on covert action. Again, Goss hasn't displayed this knowledge over the past half-dozen years.

_______________________

Planet Earth: Why doesn't the CIA cross-train it's own officers to be the DCI and offer them as candidates for the President to consider?

Mel Goodman: The CIA doesn't produce the kind of independent figure that can stand up to senior policymakers and be willing to resign on issues of principle.

_______________________

New City, N.Y.: Mr. Goodman, who should we be rooting for in this fight? By "we", I mean all members of the public who know that speaking truth to power is a great professional calling as well as a cornerstone of a real foreign policy. Is this a fight between just the latest of many waves of political hacks from the White House and the usual Agency bureaucratic deadwood?

Mel Goodman: I'm afraid that there is somewhat of a Hobson's choice in all of this because the Bush administration has been trying to politicize the intelligence community for the past four years....and the CIA has been significantly weakened over the past twenty years. We have to hope for independent analysis and tough-minded analysts who are willing to provide trenchant observations to policymakers at various levels of decisionmaking.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: How politicized is the CIA? Not knowing a lot about it, it seemed to me that the agency was sort of above politics. Is there a Democratic general approach to clandestine operations and a Republican one? How do they differ? Thanks.

Mel Goodman: The CIA has been bipartisan in failing to stand up to Reagan on the Soviet Union, to the Clinton administration on the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the need for NMD, and to the Bush administration on Iraq. Not a pretty picture.

_______________________

Monterey, Calif.: Mr. Goodman,

Can you give us any names or numbers to back up the assertion that a "purge" is being conducted at the CIA? One or two top officials have resigned, but is there any real fire behind this smoke? Are you aware of more cases than those few mentioned to date in the press?

Mel Goodman: We have seen the departure of the director of central intelligence, the deputy director of central intelligency, the executive director of the CIA, the deputy executive director of the CIA, the chief lawyer at the CIA, the director of the congressional liaison, the chief of public affairs, etc. etc. etc. Now all point to purge per se, but all point to a loss of institutional memory and an agency that is in serious disarray. Add that to Colin Powell's resignation today and you get a picture of a national security decisionmaking and intelligence community that needs some stability and coherence.

_______________________

Arlington, Va.: How does this bout of CIA departures differ from Clinton's purge of the CIA in the 1990's?

Mel Goodman: No comparison. Carter and Clinton felt that there was time to reduce the size of the CIA after the end of the Vietnam War and the Cold War respectively. Politicization was not central to these decisions...and there has been great exaggeration of the downsizing in the 80s and 90s.

_______________________

Mel Goodman: Believe we are out of time. Thank you for your excellent questions and comments. Hope that we can get back to these issues at some point. Mel Goodman

_______________________