Reforming the Beast

I've banged this drum before too: how the CIA's analytical division has actively worked against the Bush Administration. See here, here and here.

Now, Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, and one of the best intelligence-issue journalists in the media, discusses the institutional lassitude and anti-Bush attitude of the CIA. Click the link above. In addition, check out David Brooks' Saturday editorial in the NY Times.

Naturally, Goss' and Bush's attempts to reform the CIA have brought out the nutters in the media who call the reforms a "purge" and whose parallels invoke Stalin's purge of the NKVD. Jon Henke has the details here.

But as Henke notes, Clinton purged the CIA in 1994 and the Center for Security Policy shows how Clinton called for a reshaping of its analysis from the "Cold War" outlook of the 1980s. The two key differences this time: a Republican President changing an out-of-control and repeatedly DEAD WRONG CIA versus a Democratic President who allowed his own idealism to remain free of ACCURATE CIA doubts (check out the CSP entry and the ultimately correct CIA analysis of Jean-Bertrand Aristide that flew in the face of Clinton's policies).

And see also, Just One Minute's roundup of links on this issue. JOM posts this question, whose answer seems obvious to me: "What, one must wonder, is the real agenda of the people providing the helpful [CIA] leaks to the eager reporter - are they simply trying to light candles of truth and illuminate a Better America, or are they trying toss their rider?"