Sycophant Spies
AT LEAST now it's in the open. According to an astounding internal memo slipped to the press last week, Porter J. Goss, the new head of the CIA, expects his spies to "support the administration."
From time to time over the years, critics have accused the CIA of "politicizing" intelligence. The memo the CIA director sent to the agency's employees leaves no doubt. It tells the spies to get on the team, get with the program. The document left the impression that in the second Bush administration, the White House will run the CIA.
This marks the first time -- as far as the public knows at least -- that a CIA director, in writing, has ordered the agency's spies and analysts to back the president. Why does it matter? Because a president, in theory, relies on the CIA to present facts neutrally, honestly and objectively so that he can base his policies on accurate information. The CIA's analysts are not supposed to be cheerleaders.
Yet the Goss memo, leaked to the New York Times last week, tells the CIA's employees that their job is to "support the administration and its policies in our work," adding: "As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies."
The memo contained a disclaimer that paid lip service to the agency's core responsibility: "We provide the intelligence as we see it -- and let the facts alone speak to the policymaker." But the other language about supporting the White House can hardly be misunderstood by the troops at the CIA's Langley, Va., headquarters.
Worse, the directive comes at a time when the CIA is experiencing a meltdown that has led to the retirement of John E. McLaughlin, the deputy director, and the resignations Monday of the deputy and associate directors for operations of the CIA's powerful clandestine arm. Other senior managers are said to be considering leaving.
The tension at headquarters has focused an unwelcome spotlight on an already beleaguered agency. On one front, members of Congress blasted the CIA for its notorious prewar estimate that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and was developing nuclear weapons. The CIA's national intelligence estimate of October 2002 had provided support for President Bush and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice to warn of a "mushroom cloud," apparently just over the horizon unless the U.S. intervened.
