What I said was that the CIA didn't know the Soviet bloc was about to collapse - clearly that's something one would think the CIA should know about. That doesn't have anything to do with your perceptions about the Soviet Union being a flower throwing peace loving nation. Just because someone mentions the Soviet Union that doesn't mean your usual rants are relevant. Does your rant deny that the CIA bumbled in this case? No. Does it deny that a shakeup might have been called for? No. Hence its just you throwing out your 60's fallback positions when they don't have anything to do with the conversation. Lol, there's a big difference between 1980 and a decade later. More importantly, again - does this impact my statement that the CIA bumbled? No. So is it relevant? No. What? This sentence doesn't even make any sense. Bush's administration started the reorganization of the military - closing bases, mothballing units, reducing the size of the military - that IS the peace dividend, stupid.
CIA Director Goss Suddenly Quits, Dana Priest Comments Published: May 05, 2006 2:00 PM ET NEW YORK CIA Director Porter Goss, who had taken a strong stand against leaks to the press, suddenly resigned this afternoon, with the announcement coming from the White House shortly before 2 p.m. Goss had served only 17 months in the job and no successor was named. President Bush gave no reason for his departure. Asked on MSNBC why Goss really quit, The Washington Post's Dana Priest said, "You're going to have to wait for the morning paper for that. But I'll tell you, the agency is not on an even keel," as Goss claimed today. "His tenure has been very rough. He has not mended fences....Staffers he brought over with him [from Congress] created ill will with senior operatives who ended up resigning," she added. "It's still very much an agency adrift. Goss did not really fight hard to keep the agency anywhere near what it used to be....Some people have said it is a shadow of its former self....They tried cosmetic changes, but really people there kept asking, what's his plan, what is the strategy, questons that have persisted to this day." Just two weeks ago, Goss announced the firing of a top intelligence analyst, allegedly in connection with Priest's Pulitzer Prize-winning story about a network of CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. Although the Associated Press suggested this was only "the latest move in a second-term shake-up of President Bush's team," Goss's name has surfaced lately in rumors related to indicted former Rep. Randy Cunningham. Some cable news commentators, following the announcement, suggested it could be tied, even if loosely, to the bribery scandal involving Cunningham and others. Others said the move had been in the works, if quietly, for weeks. "He has led ably," Bush said from the Oval Office. "He has a five-year plan to increase the analysts and operatives." Bush said that Goss has "helped make this country a safer place and helped win the war on terrorism." Said Goss: "I would like to report to you that the agency (CIA) is back on a very even keel and sailing well." Fox News' Chris Wallace said he had checked with the White House and was assured this was nothing more than a shakeup move. Al Franken on Air America quipped, "He quit to spend more time spying on his family." CNN's national correspondent John Roberts observed, "But this idea that he would suddenly leave, and particularly without there not being another candidate to take over from Goss, is quite startling. "What's all swirling around the CIA with the Duke Cunningham case goes to a fellow named Brent Wilkes, who was an unindicted co-conspirator in that -- that Cunningham case. There is a fellow who has pled guilty in that case by the name of Mitchell Wade who contends -- and this is only a contention, allegations again -- that Wilkes had been procuring prostitutes and limousines for Duke Cunningham and had also been hosting poker parties at a couple of hotels in Washington, one of them being the Watergate.... "Now, Wilkes has denied any involvement in this prostitution idea, but we do know that he did have some poker parties and that a very senior official at the CIA had been a guest at a few of those poker parties, a fellow by the name of Dusty Foggo, who is actually the number three at the CIA. There is an inspector general's investigation at the CIA going on over Foggo's appearance at those poker parties. And the CIA, I should say, has also come out to say that at no time did CIA director Porter Goss ever appear at one of those poker parties. "So, this is reaching into the highest levels of the CIA." http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002463645
i should clarify that what i'm objecting to is the presentation of speculation as fact, something we all do too often, and something that continues to devalue political and other discourse. i'm not commenting on the veracity of said speculation.
more speculation, from Time Ever since John Negroponte was appointed Director of National Intelligence a year ago and given the task of coordinating the nation’s myriad spy agencies, he has been diluting the power and prestige of the best known of them all, the Central Intelligence Agency. From day one, he supplanted the CIA Director as the President’s principal intelligence adviser, in charge of George W. Bush’s daily briefing. Other changes followed, all originating in the law that created the DNI — and all traumatic for CIA fans. But now, in a little noticed move, Negroponte is signaling that he is moving still more responsibility from the CIA to his own office, including control over the analysis of terrorist groups and threats…. “It’s a huge thing going on. It’s a huge drama and nobody’s picking up on it,” the former CIA official said of the DNI’s realignment of CIA responsibilities. “CIA feels quite friendless right now. We’re seeing more pieces of it just keep being moved to the door.” A senior U.S. official sympathetic to the CIA warns that “if the DNI’s not careful, the Agency and what it does will be different, and maybe that’s what everybody wants. That’s OK, but maybe the Agency won’t be able to do what everybody wants.”
and more: Some Pentagon officials said they had meetings scheduled with Goss Friday afternoon and event they didn’t know about his plans to leave the agency. But one senior Democratic aide on the Senate Intelligence Committee told FOX News that “there were rumblings” about his departure. Committee staffers were told that the director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, was “not happy” with Goss. Negroponte was named to his position in April of 2005 and took over some of Goss’ duties, such as briefing the president every morning; Goss also no longer sat atop the 16 intelligence agencies. courtesy of Fox, and earlier reported by MSNBC. wouldn't it be interesting if he returned to florida and ran for Bill Nelson's Senate seat?
DANG!! There goes my chance at buying a piece of Ann Coulter's sweet, boney azz...psshhh, "coke-free". Always something, huh?
The mainstream media except for the Washington Post is sitting on the Hookergate stories - some leftist bias there. Meanwhile there's another pathetic kennedy on his way to AA who's tearing up the headlines. Goss himself has been a major participant in the emasculation of the CIA. His removal would make sense if he was a holdover from a prior era like Tenet. But if he was part of the problem, then it makes little sense to suddenly fire him with nobody ready to take control. That hooker won't blow. yeah, plenty of coke and whores there.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/05/reports_cia_dir.html [Tim] Russert added these details to the news: • National Intelligence Director John Negroponte initiated conversations with Goss "several weeks ago" that led to today's resignation, Russert said. • The administration's thinking, Russert said his sources have told him, is that Goss had put the CIA through a necessary transformation and that it was time to hand off control to a new director who will be free to implement the changes without the baggage of having bruised many egos. • It will be Negroponte who will make recommendations to President Bush on a successor.
More details, er, speculation... Why wouldn't he fire a guy caught up in a scandal? To speculate, perhaps Foggo knows more about Goss than Goss wants us to know.
I think it's speculative; several weeks ago they made plans to ditch him once hookergate went public? if so then where's the successor and where's the rationale from Bush in his statement? He gave none.
Negroponte, the old death squad coordinator from the dirty war in Honduras, an old Bush I Contra hand. Is it possible that even Porter Goss was not subservient enough to the Bush cabal?
Hmmm, strange that you were such a big supporter of Odom the other day, and that he has almost the exact same background as Negroponte.
