WASHINGTON — The CIA has ignored its core mission of spying, has refused to take corrective action and is heading "over a proverbial cliff" after years of poor planning and mismanagement, the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee has concluded in the latest congressional broadside aimed at America's premier intelligence agency.
A report that accompanies the committee's proposed intelligence authorization bill, which was approved by the full House in a 360-61 vote Wednesday night, paints a devastating picture of the CIA division that sends clandestine agents overseas, recruits foreign spies, steals secrets and provides covert commandos for the war on terrorism.
In a strongly worded response to the committee's chairman, Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), outgoing CIA Director George J. Tenet staunchly defended the agency's performance. He denounced some of the committee's criticism as "ill informed" and "frankly absurd."
Recent investigations into the CIA's failures on Sept. 11 and in prewar reports on Iraq chiefly have blamed agency analysts, who assess classified information from satellite photos, stolen documents and other intelligence. However, the House committee warned in its majority report that the CIA's problems were broader and in some respects had worsened in recent years.
A Senate report expected next month also was expected to strongly criticize the agency as well as address allegations of links between prewar Iraq and Al Qaeda.
"All is not well in the world of clandestine human intelligence collection," House Intelligence Committee Republicans said in the majority report accompanying the funding measure. "For too long, the CIA has been ignoring its core mission activities. There is a dysfunctional denial of any need for corrective action."
The CIA "continues down a road leading over a proverbial cliff," the committee warned. "The damage to the [human intelligence] mission through its misallocation and redirection of resources, poor prioritization of objectives, micromanagement of field operations, and a continued political aversion to operational risk is, in the committee's judgment, significant and could be long lasting."
The committee's harsh language, representing the position of the House, is notable because CIA officials and the Bush administration previously have blamed problems at the spy service on budget and staffing cuts imposed by the Clinton administration after the Cold War. President Bush has given no indication that he is dissatisfied with the CIA's performance.
