White House orders CIA to eliminate 'disloyal' officers

dr. what · Post by **dr. what** » 2004-11-14 12:18pm

linky

WASHINGTON -- 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."

One of the first casualties appears to be Stephen R. Kappes, deputy director of clandestine services, the CIA's most powerful division. The Washington Post reported yesterday that Kappes had tendered his resignation after a confrontation with Goss' chief of staff, Patrick Murray, but at the behest of the White House had agreed to delay his decision till tomorrow.

But the former senior CIA official said that the White House "doesn't want Steve Kappes to reconsider his resignation. That might be the spin they put on it, but they want him out." He said the job had already been offered to the former chief of the European Division who retired after a spat with then-CIA Director George Tenet.

Another recently retired top CIA official said he was unsure Kappes had "officially resigned, but I do know he was unhappy."

Without confirming or denying that the job offer had been made, a CIA spokesman asked Newsday to withhold naming the former officer because of his undercover role over the years. He said he had no comment about Goss' personnel plans, but he added that changes at the top are not unusual when new directors come in.

On Friday John E. McLaughlin, a 32-year veteran of the intelligence division who served as acting CIA director before Goss took over, announced that he was retiring. The spokesman said that the retirement had been planned and was unrelated to the Kappes resignation or to other morale problems inside the CIA.

It could not be learned yesterday if the White House had identified Kappes, a respected operations officer, as one of the officials "disloyal" to Bush.

"The president understands and appreciates the sacrifices made by the members of the intelligence community in the war against terrorism," said a White House official of the report that he was purging the CIA of "disloyal" officials. " . . . The suggestion [that he ordered a purge] is inaccurate."

But another former CIA official who retains good contacts within the agency said that Goss and his top aides, who served on his staff when Goss was chairman of the House intelligence committee, believe the agency had relied too much over the years on liaison work with foreign intelligence agencies and had not done enough to develop its own intelligence collection system.

"Goss is not a believer in liaison work," said this retired official. But, he said, the CIA's "best intelligence really comes from liaison work. The CIA is simply not going to develop the assets [agents and case officers] that would meet the intelligence requirements."

Tensions between the White House and the CIA have been the talk of the town for at least a year, especially as leaks about the mishandling of the Iraq war have dominated front pages.

Some of the most damaging leaks came from Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit, who wrote a book anonymously called "Imperial Hubris" that criticized what he said was the administration's lack of resolve in tracking down the al-Qaida chieftain and the reallocation of intelligence and military manpower from the war on terrorism to the war in Iraq. Scheuer announced Thursday that he was resigning from the agency.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2004-11-14 12:56pm

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."

What's next a gulag in alaska?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-11-14 12:58pm

Wheres Pluralisim, one of America's ideals to allow dissenting opinions?

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2004-11-14 12:59pm

dr. what wrote:linky

WASHINGTON -- 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.

Minus the disloyality part I'm always in favor of throwing folks in jail who leak CLASSIFIED information to the public

Every time I hear CNN quoting some classified CIA report I sure as hell wish I could put the leaker in jail for twenty to life

Falkenhayn · Post by **Falkenhayn** » 2004-11-14 01:05pm

Ace Pace wrote:Wheres Pluralisim, one of America's ideals to allow dissenting opinions?

Dissenting opinion against someone with absolute power over your organization? Good luck.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-11-14 01:09pm

Falkenhayn wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:Wheres Pluralisim, one of America's ideals to allow dissenting opinions?
Dissenting opinion against someone with absolute power over your organization? Good luck.

So now Liberal Democrats have to shut up because they work in the goverment?

Falkenhayn · Post by **Falkenhayn** » 2004-11-14 01:45pm

Ace Pace wrote:
Falkenhayn wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:Wheres Pluralisim, one of America's ideals to allow dissenting opinions?
Dissenting opinion against someone with absolute power over your organization? Good luck.
So now Liberal Democrats have to shut up because they work in the goverment?

Define "Work for the government."

Of course not. But they serve at the pleasure of the president, and with his intentions now in the open, if they wish to continue doing what it is they are doing, as in leaking documentation on pre war miscalculations and shady business dealings, they will sure as hell have to be more careful about it.

In there zeal, however, it appears that they have stuck their heads in the noose.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2004-11-14 01:52pm

Faram wrote:
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."
What's next a gulag in alaska?

That's stupid, your quote is from someone describing the situation as he sees it from the outside. As far as the article describes, the only ones who have to worry about their jobs are those who leaked classified information to the media. If it happened to be liberal Democrats who did the leaking, then they will be fired for that, but not because of their political views. If in 2008 some CIA Republicans are leaking information to undermine a Democratic president, then they should be fired as well.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2004-11-14 01:54pm

I am once again disgusted and horrified by the actions of the 'president'. Thank you, 51% of America for putting us through another four years of hell.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2004-11-14 01:58pm

Wicked Pilot wrote:That's stupid, your quote is from someone describing the situation as he sees it from the outside. As far as the article describes, the only ones who have to worry about their jobs are those who leaked classified information to the media. If it happened to be liberal Democrats who did the leaking, then they will be fired for that, but not because of their political views. If in 2008 some CIA Republicans are leaking information to undermine a Democratic president, then they should be fired as well.

Hopefully that was a misquote from the withe house, but it would not supprice me if they wish to fire all liberal democrats.

I agrre in that anyone getting caught leaking information deserve to be fired.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2004-11-14 02:00pm

Oh my ever-non-exisiting-god... they're eliminating agents who DON'T LIKE BUSH?!

This administration has gone completely tits-up insane. They were at least maintaning some semblance of reality back when they were wanting four more years... no such restriction anymore.

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2004-11-14 02:05pm

For some reason, I wouldn't be surprised if Bush administration would find in 2008 some way cancel presidental elections and keep Bush for a "undefined time" (read:until he dies).

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2004-11-14 02:06pm

Faram wrote:Hopefully that was a misquote from the White House, but it would not suprise me if they wish to fire all liberal Democrats.

The quote did not come from the White House at all. It came from a retired CIA director, who can only really speculate as to the motives of the president.

I agree in that anyone getting caught leaking information deserves to be fired.

I imagine most people do also, but I wouldn't be suprised if leakers of 'supportive' information fail to get noticed.

Post by **fgalkin** » 2004-11-14 02:24pm

The word "purge" always brings back bad memories of Comrade Stalin.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2004-11-14 02:39pm

Wicked Pilot wrote:
I agree in that anyone getting caught leaking information deserves to be fired.
I imagine most people do also, but I wouldn't be suprised if leakers of 'supportive' information fail to get noticed.

Which brings up the point that not all classified information is something that one should be in uproar about. Just because it's classified doesn't mean the American public shouldn't know about it, or that it is always the difference between some CIA agent living or dying.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-11-14 03:31pm

From the NYT no less

The C.I.A. Versus Bush
By DAVID BROOKS

Published: November 13, 2004

Now that he's been returned to office, President Bush is going to have to differentiate between his opponents and his enemies. His opponents are found in the Democratic Party. His enemies are in certain offices of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Over the past several months, as much of official Washington looked on wide-eyed and agog, many in the C.I.A. bureaucracy have waged an unabashed effort to undermine the current administration.

At the height of the campaign, C.I.A. officials, who are supposed to serve the president and stay out of politics and policy, served up leak after leak to discredit the president's Iraq policy. There were leaks of prewar intelligence estimates, leaks of interagency memos. In mid-September, somebody leaked a C.I.A. report predicting a gloomy or apocalyptic future for the region. Later that month, a senior C.I.A. official, Paul Pillar, reportedly made comments saying he had long felt the decision to go to war would heighten anti-American animosity in the Arab world.

White House officials concluded that they could no longer share important arguments and information with intelligence officials. They had to parse every syllable in internal e-mail. One White House official says it felt as if the C.I.A. had turned over its internal wastebaskets and fed every shred of paper to the press.

The White House-C.I.A. relationship became dysfunctional, and while the blame was certainly not all on one side, Langley was engaged in slow-motion, brazen insubordination, which violated all standards of honorable public service. It was also incredibly stupid, since C.I.A. officials were betting their agency on a Kerry victory.

As the presidential race heated up, the C.I.A. permitted an analyst - who, we now know, is Michael Scheuer - to publish anonymously a book called "Imperial Hubris," which criticized the Iraq war. Here was an official on the president's payroll publicly campaigning against his boss. As Scheuer told The Washington Post this week, "As long as the book was being used to bash the president, they [the C.I.A. honchos] gave me carte blanche to talk to the media."

Nor is this feud over. C.I.A. officials are now busy undermining their new boss, Porter Goss. One senior official called one of Goss's deputies, who worked on Capitol Hill, a "Hill Puke," and said he didn't have to listen to anything the deputy said. Is this any way to run a superpower?

Meanwhile, members of Congress and people around the executive branch are wondering what President Bush is going to do to punish the mutineers. A president simply cannot allow a department or agency to go into campaign season opposition and then pay no price for it. If that happens, employees of every agency will feel free to go off and start their own little media campaigns whenever their hearts desire.

If we lived in a primitive age, the ground at Langley would be laid waste and salted, and there would be heads on spikes. As it is, the answer to the C.I.A. insubordination is not just to move a few boxes on the office flow chart.

The answer is to define carefully what the president expects from the intelligence community: information. Policy making is not the C.I.A.'s concern. It is time to reassert some harsh authority so C.I.A. employees know they must defer to the people who win elections, so they do not feel free at meetings to spout off about their contempt of the White House, so they do not go around to their counterparts from other nations and tell them to ignore American policy.

In short, people in the C.I.A. need to be reminded that the person the president sends to run their agency is going to run their agency, and that if they ever want their information to be trusted, they can't break the law with self-serving leaks of classified data.

This is about more than intelligence. It's about Bush's second term. Is the president going to be able to rely on the institutions of government to execute his policies, or, by his laxity, will he permit the bureaucracy to ignore, evade and subvert the decisions made at the top? If the C.I.A. pays no price for its behavior, no one will pay a price for anything, and everything is permitted. That, Mr. President, is a slam-dunk.

Not that it will do him much good at this point, but I owe John Kerry an apology. I recently mischaracterized some comments he made to Larry King in December 2001. I said he had embraced the decision to use Afghans to hunt down Al Qaeda at Tora Bora. He did not. I regret the error.

******************

And it's from the New York Times, so no screaming Elfie, about how it's
the moonies

Post by **Beowulf** » 2004-11-14 03:44pm

People who leak classified info should be spending time turning big rocks into little rocks.

HyperionX · Post by **HyperionX** » 2004-11-14 04:28pm

MKSheppard wrote:From the NYT no less

The C.I.A. Versus Bush
By DAVID BROOKS

*snip*

And it's from the New York Times, so no screaming Elfie, about how it's
the moonies

Dude it's from David Brooks you freaking idiot! You know, one of the conservative commentators, as in the NYT is not a straight party line newspaper as exists on the other side.

And the whole justification about the "purge" is utter bullshit. The Iraq war is a fucking disaster, and so was the intelligence. If that is not cause to create an uproar over the presidency, nothing is.

And WTF is this "f the C.I.A. pays no price for its behavior, no one will pay a price for anything, and everything is permitted" pure bullshit?! NO ONE UNDER THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS EVER PAYED A PRICE. Everybody got away with fucking everything from congress down to people within the administration such as Rumsfield and Wolfewitz. Now we expect that the CIA is the blame for the Presidency's utterly pathetic lack of responsibility? I think the Bush administration should look in the mirror once in the while.

Classified information my ass. None of this stuff has ever harmed or endangered America, and I suspect that the Bush administration is merely dubbing everything that makes them look bad as "classified."

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2004-11-14 04:47pm

Lord Revan wrote:For some reason, I wouldn't be surprised if Bush administration would find in 2008 some way cancel presidental elections and keep Bush for a "undefined time" (read:until he dies).

All he has to do is declare Martial Law, he's set for as long as he sees fit.

When I was young and stupid, I actually proposed that Reagan should do it in '88.
That was shortly after his re-election in '84; by '86-'88 I was horrified at the Reagan administration's actions.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2004-11-14 05:01pm

HyperionX wrote:NO ONE UNDER THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS EVER PAYED A PRICE.

Well, people are going to start paying now. It's just not the people who should.

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2004-11-14 05:07pm

Im guessing I should put my plans to join the cia on the back burner?

egyptfrk · Post by **egyptfrk** » 2004-11-14 06:20pm

Yeah, I agree if you are leaking classified information you should be fired. However, if its just generally known that you are of the opposing party of the President but you did nothing against him then I'd say you were unjustly fired.

Well now that dubya is no longer worried about getting re-elected, he is going to do pretty much whatever he wants. So now its time to start taking out the dissenters.

And its only just beginning...

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-11-14 07:23pm

The spin they will put on this will approach 8000 RPM. The language is that of images of households 'disappearing' into Siberia and those agents not 'With the party' meeting unpleasant yet unverifiable ends in the snow. While I doubt it's that bad, it sort of casts things in the light where the Right Media Machine will have to respond.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-11-14 07:51pm

SirNitram wrote:The spin they will put on this will approach 8000 RPM. The language is that of images of households 'disappearing' into Siberia and those agents not 'With the party' meeting unpleasant yet unverifiable ends in the snow. While I doubt it's that bad, it sort of casts things in the light where the Right Media Machine will have to respond.

Depends on whether the left is sucker enough to fall for that language.

dr. what · Post by **dr. what** » 2004-11-14 07:53pm

Now--was that a straight word for word quote from the White House? If so, then whoever said that deserves to get their nuts roasted. However, if it was, er, 'artistic embellishment' on the part of this unnamed source, then that source is being an idiot and has an axe to grind.

Time will tell I suppose. Keep close watch on those agents 'purged' --their stories (now that they have nothing to lose) might be fun to hear.

Hmmmm....I wonder how many agents are calling publishers now with ideas for 'tell all' books?

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