Abolish the CIA

December 26, 2007Mark Noonan

When the CIA was founded in 1947, a large portion of the initial personnel were recruited from the World War Two-era Office of Strategic Services (OSS). An unfortunate fact of life about the OSS is that it was heavily staffed with communists and fellow travellers. The reason for this? Simple – we were fighting on the side of communist Russia in WWII, and a communist OSS operative would (a) likely never voluntarily surrender to the Nazis and (b) would never turn traitor for the Nazis. Of course, these communists were not at all adverse to working for communist Russia once the United States and Russia came into a post-WWII collision course.

Essentially, CIA was founded with a built in series of moles who were highly placed – and not only able to provide secrets to the communists and deceive American policy-makers, but they were also able to continually recruit and advance like-minded individuals in the CIA over the years. It should be kept in mind that when CIA was founded and the FBI suggested background checks on employees of the new agency, CIA said they would take care of it themselves. As far as I know, there has never been an indepedent audit of CIA personnel – and given the number of moles which have emerged in the CIA over the past 60 years, it seems very likely that a certain percentage of CIA employees continue to give their loyalty to persons, nations and movements other than the United States of America.

Robert Novak notes a growing dismay – partially bi-partisan – over the way the CIA is behaving as a policy-making rather than advisory-and-executive organization on matters of intelligence. The recent NIE on Iraq – while a multi-agency product – is heavily CIA in content and was clearly designed to influence policy rather than offer dispassionate advice. I believe this and other outrages and failures of the CIA is attributable to a continuing fifth collumn (as it were) in the CIA – and it is good to understand that once a spy, always a spy; once a foreign entity recruits you, you can’t un-recruit yourself save by turning yourself in to the authorities, with all its risk of long-term incarceration. It doesn’t matter that the USSR which originally penetrated the CIA is no more – the Republic of Russia retains its spies, who are traitors whether they are working for the USSR or the Republic of Russia. Russian policy vis a vis Iran is to thwart US action against Iran’s nuclear program – and its just too neat a coincidence that just as crunch time is coming on Iran’s nukes, a NIE comes out saying, in effect, “no worries”.

Of course, I could be wrong – the recent NIE could be the absolute truth of the matter. But I don’t know – and I don’t know because there is no reason for anyone to place any reliance on information which comes from – or is influenced by – the CIA. Too many traitors have been proven to be there for us to have anything other but very strong doubts. The only way to break this particular logjam is to just abolish the organization.

It is certain that most of the employees of the CIA are dedicated Americans who want what is best for the nation – and we can re-hire them at a successor agency, but only after an exhaustive background check not just on themselves, but on who hired them and promoted them over the years. America needs a central intelligence agency, but we can’t afford to retain the CIA – better to amalgamate the Defense Intelligence Agency with people from State (for foreign political intelligence) and Treasury (for foreign economic intelligence) into a new intelligence group, with the pick of the litter from the defunt CIA to fill out the organization.

The need for good intelligence for both the Executive and Legislative branch is too important for us to have any doubts – we must be certain that our lawmakers and Administration are working on the best data available, presented without any agenda, and without any leaking to the MSM (no intel agency should ever release any info to the press – such releases of info should only come via the Executive or the relevant intel committees in the House and Senate). Abolish the CIA – start over from scratch; and start to build America the sort of intelligence agency its needed, but sadly lacked, for the past 6 decades.

Retired Spook December 26, 2007 / 10:00 am

Henry Kissinger wrote an interesting oped for the WAPO a couple weeks ago. I saved a copy, but I no longer have the link, and I don’t feel like reregistering with the WAPO under my new email address just to get a link to the article. I appologize in advance for cutting and pasting the whole thing, but it’s pretty short.

December 13, 2007
Pg. 35
Misreading The Iran Report
Why Spying and Policymaking Don’t Mix
By Henry Kissinger

The extraordinary spectacle of the president’s national security adviser obliged to defend the president’s Iran policy against a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) raises two core issues: How are we now to judge the nuclear threat posed by Iran? How are we to judge the intelligence community’s relationship with the White House and the rest of the government?

The “Key Judgments” released by the intelligence community last week begin with a dramatic assertion: “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” This sentence was widely interpreted as a challenge to the Bush administration policy of mobilizing international pressure against alleged Iranian nuclear programs. It was, in fact, qualified by a footnote whose complex phraseology obfuscated that the suspension really applied to only one aspect of the Iranian nuclear weapons program (and not even the most significant one): the construction of warheads. That qualification was not restated in the rest of the document, which continued to refer to the “halt of the weapons program” repeatedly and without qualification.

The reality is that the concern about Iranian nuclear weapons has had three components: the production of fissile material, the development of missiles and the building of warheads. Heretofore, production of fissile material has been treated as by far the greatest danger, and the pace of Iranian production of fissile material has accelerated since 2006. So has the development of missiles of increasing range. What appears to have been suspended is the engineering aimed at the production of warheads.

The NIE holds that Iran may be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon by the end of 2009 and, with increasing confidence, more warheads by the period 2010 to 2015. That is virtually the same timeline as was suggested in the 2005 National Intelligence Estimate. The new estimate does not assess how long it would take to build a warhead, though it treats the availability of fissile material as the principal limiting factor. If there is a significant gap between these two processes, it would be important to be told what it is. Nor are we told how close to developing a warhead Tehran was when it suspended its program or how confident the intelligence community is in its ability to learn when work on warheads has resumed. On the latter point, the new estimate expresses only “moderate” confidence that the suspension has not been lifted already.

It is therefore doubtful that the evidence supports the dramatic language of the summary and, even less so, the broad conclusions drawn in much of the public commentary. For the past three years, the international debate has concentrated on the Iranian effort to enrich uranium by centrifuges, some 3,000 of which are now in operation. The administration has asserted that this represents a decisive step toward Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons and has urged a policy of maximum pressure. Every permanent member of the U.N. Security Council has supported the request that Iran suspend its uranium enrichment program; the various countries differ on the urgency with which their recommendations should be pressed and in their willingness to impose penalties.

The NIE then highlights, without altering, the underlying issue: At what point would the nations that have described an Iranian military nuclear program as “unacceptable” agree to act on that conviction? Do they wait until Iran starts producing nuclear warheads? Does our intelligence assume that we will know this threshold? Is there then enough time for meaningful countermeasures? What happens to the growing stock of fissile material that, according to the estimate, will have been accumulated? Do we run the risk of finding ourselves with an adversary that, in the end, agrees to stop further production of fissile material but insists on retaining the existing stockpile as a potential threat?

By stating a conclusion in such categorical terms — considered excessive even by the International Atomic Energy Agency — the Key Judgments blur the line between estimates and conjecture. For example, the document says: “We judge with high confidence that the halt . . . was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work.” It extrapolates from that judgment that Iran “is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005” and that it “may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.”

It is to be hoped that the full estimate provides more comprehensive evidence for these conclusions. A more plausible alternative explanation would assign greater significance to the regional context and American actions. When Iran halted its weapons program and suspended efforts at enriching uranium in February 2003, America had already occupied Afghanistan and was on the verge of invading Iraq, both of which border Iran. The United States justified its Iraq policy by the need to remove weapons of mass destruction from the region. By the fall of 2003, when Iran voluntarily joined the Additional Protocol for Nuclear Non-Proliferation, Saddam Hussein had just been overthrown. Is it unreasonable to assume that the ayatollahs concluded that restraint had become imperative? By the fall of 2005, the American effort in Iraq showed signs of bogging down; the prospects for extending the enterprise into Iran were diminishing. Iranian leaders could have felt free to return to their policy of building up a military nuclear capability — perhaps reinforced by the desire to create a deterrent to American regional aspirations. They might also have concluded, because the secret effort had leaked, that it would be too dangerous to undertake another covert program. Hence the emphasis on renewing the enrichment program in the guise of a civilian energy program. In short, if my analysis is correct, we could be witnessing not a halt of the Iranian weapons program — as the NIE asserts — but a subtle, ultimately more dangerous, version of it that will phase in the warhead when fissile material production has matured.

The NIE does not so much reject this theory; it does not even examine it. It concludes that “Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon.” But a cost-benefit analysis does not exclude a rush to weapons on a systematic basis. It depends on the criteria by which costs and benefits are determined. Similarly, in pursuing the cost-benefit rationale, the estimate concludes that a combination of international scrutiny along with security guarantees might “prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program.” That is a policy, not an intelligence, judgment.

A coherent strategy toward Iran is not a partisan issue, for it will have to be implemented well after the present administration has left office. I have long argued that America owes it to itself to explore fully the possibility of normalizing relations with Iran. We do not need to tranquilize ourselves to the danger in order to pursue a more peaceful world. What is required is a specific vision linking assurances for Iran’s security and respect for its identity with an Iranian foreign policy compatible with the existing order in the Middle East. But it must also generate an analysis of the strategy to be pursued should Iran, in the end, choose ideology over reconciliation.

The intelligence community has a major role in helping to design such a vision. But it must recognize that the more it ventures into policy conjecture, the less authoritative its judgments become. There was some merit in the way President Richard Nixon conducted National Security Council discussions at the beginning of his first term. He invited the CIA director to brief on the capabilities and intentions of the countries under discussion but required him to leave the room during policy deliberations. Because so many decisions require an intelligence input, this procedure proved unworkable.

I have often defended the dedicated members of the intelligence community. This is why I am extremely concerned about the tendency of the intelligence community to turn itself into a kind of check on, instead of a part of, the executive branch. When intelligence personnel expect their work to become the subject of public debate, they are tempted into the roles of surrogate policymakers and advocates. Thus the deputy director for intelligence estimates explained the release of the NIE as follows: Publication was chosen because the estimate conflicted with public statements by top U.S. officials about Iran, and “we felt it was important to release this information to ensure that an accurate presentation is available.” That may explain releasing the facts but not the sources and methods that have been flooding the media. The paradoxical result of the trend toward public advocacy is to draw intelligence personnel more deeply than ever into the public maelstrom.

The executive branch and the intelligence community have gone through a rough period. The White House has been accused of politicizing intelligence; the intelligence community has been charged with promoting institutional policy biases. The Key Judgments document accelerates that controversy, dismaying friends and confusing adversaries.

Intelligence personnel need to return to their traditional anonymity. Policymakers and Congress should once again assume responsibility for their judgments without involving intelligence in their public justifications. To define the proper balance between the user and producer of intelligence is a task that cannot be accomplished at the end of an administration. It is, however, one of the most urgent challenges a newly elected president will face.
liberalT December 26, 2007 / 11:51 am

hmm – the same agency that the right was praising as saving us from disaster when they gave you the answers that you wanted to hear huh..

Sure – the CIA like every government agency could use an overhaul. However, I also know that once the new intelligence agency isn’t reporting what you want to hear you will want to abolish it as well. Its not the CIA’s fault the world isn’t how you want it to be. You would just be shooting the messenger…
Web Smith December 26, 2007 / 12:03 pm

This sounds like a rumor that the administration would start in order to control the intelligence coming out of the CIA. When your existaence is threatened, you are inlined to interpret the data a little differently.

Do you really think that the CIA are the only ones lying to you and telling you what they want you to know in order to control public opinion?

This story may make you pay more attention to the prisons being built around the country by the Secret Service supposedly to support the front lines of the War on Terror where ever they might be.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071224/ap_on_go_ot/hoover_mass_arrests
Brian Gregory December 26, 2007 / 1:21 pm

Maybe this is a better idea?

Abolish the Department of Homeland Security. Restructure the CIA to include NSA and DIA. We don’t have the money for all four.

This is not to say the we don’t need all four. I simply think that consolidation saves money and allows for more sharing of resources and intel.

Take it from me. I work for DoD.
Sam December 26, 2007 / 1:40 pm

who cares, all that matters is that iran is getting what it wants under the nose of the United States…..one for the good guys.
NeoClown December 26, 2007 / 1:49 pm

Mark,
I’ve been saying we need to abolish the CIA since shock and awe. Welcome to the winning team. George Tennant needs to return his medal of freedom and apologize to the American people for the Iraq debacle.
steveGA December 26, 2007 / 2:13 pm

I agree, we should abolish the CIA and hunt down those traitors. Lets start with all former heads of the CIA, including the President’s father, George HW Bush. We should take them to Guantanamo and torture, oops, I mean practice enhanced interrogation on them until they talk. A little waterboarding never hurt anybody, right?
plainjane December 26, 2007 / 2:28 pm

Robert Novak notes a growing dismay – partially bi-partisan – over the way the CIA is behaving December 26th, 2007 at 09:34am Mark Noonan

Let see we need to discredit the NIE report, can someone get me that God damn lap dog of ours, Bob Novak on the phone?

Sorry Mark at 29% approval no one is buying the neocon cry of wolf anymore. 1/20/09
phnx December 26, 2007 / 2:44 pm

Thanks Spook.

Our leftist friends have either chosen not to read Dr. Kissinger’s Op Ed or have chosen to ignore the analysis of the most brilliant mind the US has ever had in international diplomacy, opting instead for the typical BDS rant.
JHL December 26, 2007 / 2:45 pm

Right plainjane. When the news is bad for the administration lets get rid of the messenger. That will change reality. Might explain why the VP ran his own intellegence operation and filtered the results before they reached the decidenator. Who never bothered to question anything. Unless of course, the information was contrary to his pre-concieved notions. Then he questioned the veracity of what he was being told.
29%? I congradulate you on your generosity!
BTW. Ever notice the combination of words in the reCaptcah? Very telling. Stop spam. Read books. What the heck does that mean??
JHL December 26, 2007 / 3:06 pm

phnx:
Leftist friends? Seems Henry is a leftist himself, employing detente and all in regards to Vietnam.
Read away my enlightened right wing syncopant!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger
phil December 26, 2007 / 3:20 pm

Nice post mark, but might I suggest one simple edit? Instead of suggesting that we need “good” intelligence for the executive branch, I would instead suggest that, when it comes to the Bush White House, ANY intelligence will do. Given the fact that Bush presides over the most intellectually and morally handicapped presidential administration sine the days of US Grant perhaps we can add some intelligence for the foul bastards to our list of holiday wishes. Just a thought.
Rana Quijotesca December 26, 2007 / 3:32 pm

Wouldn’t the inclusion of new facts alter policy? Isn’t the inclusion of new facts, based on observation, what the CIA is about?
phnx December 26, 2007 / 3:53 pm

JHL,

Wikipedia??

Bwwahahahahaha!!!
JHL December 26, 2007 / 3:53 pm

The entire puropse of the CIA or any other intellegence gathering entity is suppose to aid our country. It should not become a focal point of an administration that reviles in what that agency says. But they do it because the CIA doesn’t say what Cheney et al wants to hear. George Tenent indeed!
What needs to be gotten rid of is the authoritarian mindset of those few whom are (currently) in power. With their signing statements, ideology about torture, creation of the concept of the “unilatteral exexcutive” (thanks to John Woo and David Addington.) not to mention the religious convictions of the christianists.
Kahn December 26, 2007 / 3:56 pm

phil,

I wonder how he managed to disarm North Korea, Libya, and Iran?

As to the CIA. The FBI has had spies, so has DIA, the State Department, and the Navy. I used to periodically work in the room where that bastard Walker worked.

The CIA is one agency. But it is in no way the only intelligence agency.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Secretary of Defense, through the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA)

Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency (AF ISR or AIA)

Army Military Intelligence

Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)

Marine Corps Intelligence Activity

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)

National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)

National Security Agency (NSA)

Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)

United States Department of Energy
– Office of Intelligence

United States Department of Homeland Security
– Coast Guard Intelligence

United States Department of Justice
– Federal Bureau of Investigation
– Directorate of Intelligence (FBI DI)
– Drug Enforcement Administration Office of National Security Intelligence (DEA)

United States Department of State
– Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)

United States Department of the Treasury
– Office of Intelligence and Analysis

And ATF, INS, and more.

_____________________________________

Whose responsibility was it to know if Sadaam Husein was working on nukes? The CIA’s? What about customs, DOE, & DIA?

Why did our troops have to wear that crazy NBC protection gear? Whose responsibility was it to know if Iraq had deployed chemical weapons? CIA, DIA, the various military intelligence agencies?

Actually I don’t think primary responsibility for either was CIA’s. But it’s arguable. The problem is that there are so many fuzzy lines and so many ways they can point fingers at each other that no-one is responsible.
JHL December 26, 2007 / 3:58 pm

phnx on crack:
(Or Hello I’m a Mac. And I’m a P.C.)

“LIES LIES. IT”S ALL LIES I TELL YOU!!!!
“IS YOU IS OR IS YOU AIN”T MY CONSTITUANCY???”
phnx December 26, 2007 / 4:15 pm

JHL

Time to take your meds and return to your padded cell.
Magnum Serpentine December 26, 2007 / 4:19 pm

Interesting.

When the CIA walked lock-step with george, no Republican said a thing about it. But when the CIA exposed george as a liar over Iran then wham Republicans want to abolish it.

Magnum Serpentine

Remember to vote Independent in 2008.
Ricorun December 26, 2007 / 4:37 pm

It seems to me that Kissinger has a point when he said: “Similarly, in pursuing the cost-benefit rationale, the estimate concludes that a combination of international scrutiny along with security guarantees might “prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program.” That is a policy, not an intelligence, judgment.

So I guess by definition one could say that the NIE was “politicized”. However, it’s another step to conclude that it was perpetrated by an anti-Bush cabal in order to make Bush look bad. There is a number of points of evidence to suggest there may be something more to it than that — not the least of which is the fact that both Bush and Cheney have publically indicated they’re fine with the NIE. Maybe you could explain away Bush. But Cheney too? Thus, it seems more consistent to suggest that to the extent that the NIE was politicized, the Bush administration was more likely complicit in it than sabotaged by it.
JHL December 26, 2007 / 5:49 pm

Enough said about Henry, intellegance, the CIA and GWB.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9901E0DA143DF935A2575BC0A9649C8B63
Uncommon December 26, 2007 / 6:13 pm

I have one question for all of you Iran fear-fanatics – Who controls Iran’s military? If you say the President of Iran then you are WRONG! Ahmadinejad is crazy, he is eccentric, and he is obsessed over the desruction of Isreal- AND HE HAS NO POWER. Iran as a whole and especially the military is controlled by the Shah not Ahmadinejad. People’s fears about Iran’s nuclear ambitions are based on the fact that their President is a nut. No country in their right mind is going to launch a nuke at another country knowing that doing so would amount to them being wiped off the face of the Earth. “BUt they ar’ them darn neo islamo jihadist facists over dar and they don’t just car if they die” would say the people who know nothing of Iran. I don’t want them to have nukes – I don’t want anyone to have nukes. But to be assnine and hypocritical and wave Anti-Nuclear Proliferation around (being the we are the largest violators of said treaty) and say Iran CAN’T have nuclear power/weapons is bullshit. Then to use FEAR on top of the bullshit and say our lives are at risk if they have a nuke is just downright criminal. And my point is…

The CIA said something you didn’t like Mark and now you want it abolished. Had they said Iran is without a doubt creating nuclear weapons you would have been ecstatic because you could now feel justified in killing more innocent people. Iran is not, has never been, and will never be a threat to us. I would be more worried about China and their economic stranglehold on us then a third world country half a world away. Are they sponsoring fighters in Iraq that are killing our soldiers- possibly. If Russia invaded Mexico would we be sponsoring fighters their for the purpose of killing Russians – DEFINITELY. Will they wipe Israel off the map given the chance – probably not but I don’t think we really care seeing as our closest allies in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Lebanon, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt, and others) are members of the Arab League who essentially want the country of Israel dismantled anyways. Oh and India is also an observing member of the Arab League. Anyways, your wanting to abolish the CIA is based on the fact that we can’t bomb Iran right now – something that should be a mute issue but we have to keep the FEAR running in this country so keep up the good work.
JHL December 26, 2007 / 6:22 pm

Mark is a loon in the same sense as the charcacter Christopher Lloyd played in Roger Rabbit.
Only “the dip” won’t erase Marks mentality.
What to do. What to do…
phnx December 26, 2007 / 6:58 pm

Uncommon,

I am not so sure that the CIA should be abolished, but Kissinger does raise some important questions.

You apparently haven’t read B4N or this site for long. If you had, you would know that almost everyone here is aware that Ahamadinejad is controlled by the Mullah’s who are really in control.

The fallacy in your post is contained in the statement: “No country in their right mind is going to launch a nuke at another country knowing that doing so would amount to them being wiped off the face of the Earth.” The operative words being: “in their right mind”.

A country has no mind, but its leader’s do. Ahamadinejad is the spokesperson for the Mullahs who happen to subscribe to the Islamic eschatological belief in the hidden Mahdi who according to the Shiite sect has disappeared and will return at the end of time to lead an era of Islamic justice on earth. Ahamadinejad and the religious leaders of Iran beleive they have been assigned to pave the way for the reappearance of the Imam.

According to the most recent Iranian interpretation of the legend, before the Imam’s appearance, the people will be reprimanded for their acts of disobedience by a fire that will appear in the sky and a redness that will cover the sky. It will swallow up both Baghdad and Kufa. People’s blood will cover their destroyed houses. Death will occur amid their people and a fear will come over the people of Iraq from which they will have no rest–a reason for the Iran’s nuclear programme to blow in jets of fire and plumes of smoke.

so excuse me if I don’t share your confidence in the sanity of the Iranian leadership.