WASHINGTON — The resignations of two more senior CIA officials Monday fueled debate in the intelligence community over whether the agency was tumbling into turmoil under new Director Porter J. Goss, or was taking painful but necessary steps toward fixing serious problems.
In the latest in a series of high-profile departures, the top two officials in the CIA's clandestine service quit after clashing with one of Goss' senior aides.
Stephen R. Kappes, the deputy director for operations, and his deputy, Michael J. Sulick, each had served in the agency for 23 years. Both are leaving just weeks into Goss' tenure, amid signs of increasing acrimony between the agency's old guard and what critics describe as an often-abrasive new regime.
The departures alarmed agency veterans, who said morale was plummeting under Goss' stewardship and that the agency was increasingly in disarray at a time when it was struggling to stay abreast of terrorist threats and the insurgency in Iraq.
Sen. John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, expressed concern that the drain of talent and ensuing confusion could spin out of control.
"Goss must take immediate steps to stabilize the situation at the CIA," Rockefeller said in a written statement. "There is no doubt that changes needed to take place at the CIA.... However, the departure of highly respected and competent individuals at such a crucial time is a grave concern."
Even some critics of Goss said they were dismayed by the agency's reaction to the arrival of its first new director in more than seven years. They accused senior CIA officials of seeking to undermine Goss and thwart his efforts to reform an agency accused of massive intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks and the war in Iraq.
Sources pointed in particular to damaging information that was leaked to the media about Goss' nominee for executive director of the agency, Michael V. Kostiw. Kostiw withdrew from consideration for the job after the Washington Post reported that he had left the CIA decades earlier after being accused of shoplifting. Kostiw remains a senior advisor to Goss.
Many people in recent years have talked of "how screwed up the CIA is, and somebody goes in to change things and suddenly it's the end of the world," said a longtime Goss associate who had spoken with the director's senior aides in recent weeks.
Kappes and other senior officers "completely cold-shouldered Porter Goss when he came in," said the former government official, who asked not to be identified. Now that President Bush has been reelected and it is clear Goss will not be a lame-duck at the agency, "the entrenched desk jockeys at the CIA -- and the directorate of operations in particular -- are going crazy," the former official said.
Some CIA critics argue that still more departures are necessary to bring to heel an agency that many Republicans accused of seeking to sandbag Bush during the presidential campaign by leaking information that warned of the deteriorating situation in post-war Iraq.
The agency's deputy director, John E. McLaughlin, announced his plans to retire Friday, and the CIA's former executive director, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, was forced out shortly after Goss arrived.
Another senior official, Michael Scheuer -- the former chief of the agency's Osama bin Laden unit who wrote a book critical of the agency's terrorism response -- quit last week; his departure apparently was unrelated to the new regime.
Goss did not address the turmoil at the agency in a written statement Monday, saying only that Kappes and Sulick had "honorably served their nation and this agency with distinction for many years."
Goss said: "There will be no gap in our operations fighting the global war on terror, nor in any of our other vital activities." He also indicated that a new head of the directorate of operations already had been selected. A U.S. intelligence official said Goss had chosen the head of the CIA's counter-terrorism center. The agency asked that the official's name not be published because he remained undercover.
Before arriving at the CIA in September, Goss was critical of the clandestine service, calling it "dysfunctional" and promising to overhaul it by thinning management and bureaucratic ranks at agency headquarters to bolster the number of operatives working overseas.
A former congressional aide familiar with Goss' plans said the CIA director would like to reverse a current ratio in which roughly one-third of those who worked in the clandestine service were overseas, while two-thirds were stationed at the agency's headquarters in Langley, Va.
