The CIA is Broken
Written by Mike on September 15th, 2008Michael Ledeen, writing for NRO describes what many of us already know, but are too uncomfortable to say: The CIA is a joke. It is but a pale reflection of what it was intended to be.
Ledeen recommends anyone with an interest in the CIA read Ishmael Jones’ book, The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture as a case study in why the CIA is a dismal failure and should be shutdown.
The saddest of the sad stories is the one about 9/11. Jones tells us that the mandarins, reasonably enough, expected to be purged. Deep down, they knew they had earned the bureaucratic equivalent of a firing squad. But it didn’t happen. Some day we’ll perhaps be able to explain this colossal failure by George W. Bush, but the facts are hardly in dispute. Jones coldly writes the bottom line: “By March of 2002, the bureaucracy was certain that no heads would roll. It figured that its methods — avoidance of risk, creation of management layers — had been vindicated.” And it was right. Bush gave some glorious medal to George Tenet, who more properly should have been ridden out of town on a rail.
Read the rest of the article if you can stomach the messy details. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 100 times, the Bush administration has been a disaster for this country in more ways than one, but their failure to deal with the CIA is going to have long-term consequences.
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Jones’s book is a devastating indictment of the CIA’s dysfunctional culture and intelligence failures. Much like Tim Weiner’s “Legacy of Ashes,” “The Human Factor” exposes how deeply broken the Agency is. I strongly recommend the book. And just to show you how powerful the book is: the Agency redacted the entire text when Jones (an alias) sought normal-protocol CIA redaction. Instead, Jones went to Encounter Books and had it published. And now, he’s facing possible legal action from the Agency.
Fundamentally, the CIA cannot be repaired, mended, or fixed. That would be a waste of more time (”another 5 years”), more resources, more lives, and continued insecurity that our intelligence failures pose. As Jones argues in his last chapter, we should break intelligence collection into its constituent parts (to handle diplomatic, military, and internal FBI matters). A return to the OSS (the CIA’s parent organization) could be the answer.
But to chalk up the Agency’s failures (or outside powers’ inability to reform the Agency) to the Bush Administration is deeply unfair and disingenuous. The Agency has been dysfunctional since its founding in 1947 and has been unable to develop the human intelligence capabilities that make for good intelligence (The examples are endless: the surprise Chinese invasion of Korea in 1950, the disastrous Bay of Pigs, the surprise Iranian Revolution, faulty intelligence as a grounds for the Iraq War, ad infinitum). Thus, the Agency’s dysfunctionality is greater and more enduring than any presidential administration.
As Jones argues, though, President Bush’s appointment of Director Porter Goss was a very positive step. But like all of his predecessors, Goss was worn down by the Agency’s culture and bureaucracy. As everyone knows, the Agency is extremely well-regarded for its bureaucratic pull and institutional prowess (two unmatched skills it does have). It pulls the levers on Congress–not the other way around. And what when someone stands up to the Agency? The Agency has the power to destroy them. Make no mistake: the intelligence leaks of the past 8 years have not been accidental. Collectively, they constitute a rebuke of an administration that has declared that the “emperor has no clothes” and has understandably lost all faith in the CIA’s capabilities. That’s not to say that there aren’t many very qualified and dedicated analysts and agents (there are, and they deserve an agency that values them, their lives, and their abilities). But the Agency’s culture makes impossible any enduring successes. And as Jones writes, ultimately, the CIA is a “cancerous,” “Soviet-style bureaucracy with its own agenda: to consume federal funds, to expand within the United States, to feign activity, and to enrich current and former employees [read: managers and leaders].”
Reform of our intelligence agencies is one of the most pressing issues that we face. To develop an able and effective intelligence organization–grounded in human intelligence capabilities, benefiting from signals intelligence and technological advancements (but not totally dependent upon them–as we are now), and utilizing the lessons learned and cultural values of the very functional, very effective US Armed Forces. But getting the Agency under control will be a very difficult, and (unfortunately) maybe impossible, task for us all to confront.
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“But to chalk up the Agency’s failures (or outside powers’ inability to reform the Agency) to the Bush Administration is deeply unfair and disingenuous.”
I realize that the Bush administration has very little to do with the CIA being a dysfunctional organization. I think Tenet should have been replaced immediately back in 2001 (before 9/11 even) but that isn’t my chief problem with the way the administration has handled the CIA.
I think President Bush is at fault here mainly because it hasn’t been a secret that the CIA is a total mess for the last eight years and yet nothing has been done to correct the problem which will be inherited by the next administration. That is an utter failure of leadership any way you slice it. Not having an effective intelligence agency is a travesty (in wartime no less) and not doing anything about it for eight years only compounds the problem.
If Porter Goss was the best they could do then I don’t think they were trying too hard. I loved it when Goss was put in charge, but he lasted barely a year and half. After that I don’t think Bush has done much to attempt to reform the CIA. Besides waiting until the end of 2004 to do something that should have been done in 2001 does not strike me as taking the problem seriously.
I’ll give you one example, Michael Sulick, Stephen Kappes and Mary Margret Graham are all back working for the CIA or DNI despite being forced out and/or disciplined under Porter Goss. That’s not change IMO.
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I am no Bush apologist, but I really do not think he could do anything. For that matter I a do not think anyone can do anything about any bureaucratic agency. Bureaucracy is like a 500 lb marshmallow, yeah its soft on the outside and you can push it in a little but it sure as hell ain’t going nowhere.
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You could start by firing people when they make horrible mistakes instead of rewarding them.
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“Bureaucracy is like a 500 lb marshmallow, yeah its soft on the outside and you can push it in a little but it sure as hell ain’t going nowhere.”
You can dowse it in gasoline and burn it up . . . just saying.
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Then you can get a 500 lb chocolate bar, two really big graham crackers, and have a CIA Marshmellow S’more!
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Holy crap I want a 500 lb s’more right now…
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The CIA was never set up to operate as a non-compartmentalized entity and as such has been engineered to “behave as required”. It is to our benefit that the CIA is in fact loaded with very intelligent and GOOD people who are on the defacto front-line of guardianship through complex stuggles of cognitive dissonance. I look forward to POSITIVE outcomes from this talent pool. The best laid plans of mice & men…