MEMORANDUM
TO: Porter Goss, U.S. Director of Central Intelligence
FROM: Robert Baer
RE: Getting the CIA Back in the Game
It's been a rough three years, Mr. Director. The agency missed the boat
on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD), it miscalculated the armed
resistance inside the country, and some say it bears primary responsibility
for leading the United States into an unnecessary and costly war. Much of the
criticism is overblown, and much overlooks the equally grave failures of other
sectors of the government. Still, the CIA is clearly broken, and you have a
chance to fix it.
Avoid two traps at the outset: Don't waste your time thinking that the
recent, and much ballyhooed, intelligence reform bill is going to put things
right. As you must know already, a top-level reshuffling of the intelligence
community won't do anything to improve the CIA's performance. And
don't spend too much time fighting battles over your new management team.
Most of them will have moved to other jobs before they learn the nuts and bolts
of intelligence gathering.
Reform is needed across the board, but the Directorate of Operations (DO) should be your first target. Its mission -- recruiting and running foreign spies -- should be the agency's core function. Give the DO the tools it needs, and intelligence analysis will take care of itself. Not to be too blunt about it, but if the DO had a source close to Osama bin Laden, 9/11 would not have happened. Here are my suggestions:
(0)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE