Covert Ops Versus Intelligence
dbec...@my-dejanews.com
man responsible for leaving the anti-saddam faction twisting in the wind in
the failed 1996 attempt to over throw the Iraqi dictator. I recall he was
not acceptable to the senate as CIA director but has continued to serve as a
NSA to the Clinton administration. What do you know about this fellow and
his rise to a position that influences policy? Can you fill us in? Thanks D.
Beck
In article <36178B0E...@igc.org>,
rmcg...@igc.org wrote:
> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
> --------------ABCE462202C0413E0605ADAF
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> --------------ABCE462202C0413E0605ADAF
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; name="Percent"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> Content-Disposition: inline; filename="Percent"
>
> 10/4/98
>
> CIA Personnel -- Covert Action Or Intelligence?
>
> A day or so ago I posted an item re CIA current recruiting needs,
> efforts, and job performance. The below contains additional relevant
> information on this apparently insoluble problem -- trying to convert
> from a covert operations agency into an intelligence agency. The CIA now
> focuses, or should focus, on weapons of mass destruction, drug trafficking
> and international terrorism. But Congress presses the CIA to mount another
> huge covert action in Iraq (following the dismal failure of a similar effort
> a couple of years ago); e.g., "Bill Tries To Shift U.S. Policy On Iraq:
> Clinton Opposes Equipping Rebels." Washington Post 10/1/1998 Page A30.
>
> CIA bounces between those contradictory requirements. The Agency's first
> 50 years of bad intelligence should prove that covert action destroys
> intelligence. But this is a lesson that our lawmakers refuse to learn. It is
> little wonder that the CIA encounters antipathy and indifference among
> qualified candidates. Will the United States ever separate covert action
> from intelligence -- or will we continue to play this tragic game in the
> next millennium?
>
> Ralph McGehee
> CIABASE
>
> The below are a few extracts from CIABASE re this problem:
>
> Recruitment 1998. CIA desperately needs more computer scientists. A
> frightful shortage of talented and well-trained people plagues the CIA.
> CIA now in the middle of its most intensive recruiting effort, in a decade. It
> is looking for different sorts of officers than 15 years ago. CIA now seeks
> computer scientists, engineers and fluent speakers of Chinese and Arabic.
> CIA landed only 14% of computer specialists, 62% of engineers, and 84% of
> linguists it sought last year. Recruiters seeking African-Americans and
> Hispanics. CIA expected to penetrate terrorist cells and drug cartels.
> High-tech talent essential to better equip field spies. CIA starting
> salaries $32,507 and 49,831 are competitive. Recruits get a three-day
> polygraph test. CIA targeting colleges in the South and West -- Ivy League
> schools not productive of recruits. U.S. News & World Report 6/15/98 32.
>
> CIA is just no good at what it is supposed to be doing, per a former
> CIA officer. Promotion-hungry operatives collect pointless intelligence
> from worthless agents -- reform may prove impossible. Nearly three quarters
> of the case officers from 1985 junior-class have quit. There is a severe
> discrepancy between reputations of most senior officers and their talents.
> Author who worked in the Directorate of Operations (DO) Near East Division
> claims the DO evolved into a sorry blend of Monty Python and big brother.
> (continued)
>
> CIA lies to itself as it lies to outsiders. By 1985, most agents were
> mediocre at best, hired because case officers needed high recruitment numbers
> to get promoted. Discusses cold recruitment's of Soviets during the Cold War.
> In 50s and 60s CIA leaders were devoted to covert action. By 1977, tug-of-war
> between covert action and espionage was over. In the late 60s and early 70s
> recruiting agents became case officers' imperative. Vietnam war's corrosive
> effect: a surplus of easily recruited "sources"; poor intel quality control;
> and falling admission standards. (continued)
>
> Southeast Asia became a liar's paradise, where aggressive, self-promoting
> officers quickly got ahead. Easy recruitment's in the Third World of "access
> agents," to Soviet targets. By 1993, the DO used "asset validation system,"
> to prevent the recruitment of double agents and Cold War leftovers. This
> increased deceits. "Agent scrubbing" has not affected the game. Problems in
> the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) discussed. Reforming CIA is a Herculean
> task -- how does one reform an institution in which the leading ten percent
> are the institution's least qualified officials? Jack Downing, the new DO
> is a "consensus candidate, entirely acceptable to the DO dons..." "Can't
> Anybody Here Play This Game?" Atlantic Monthly 2/98 45-61
>
> CIA has begun internal investigation into why large numbers of its
> younger clandestine operatives and intel analysts are quitting. The Inspector
> General (IG) is conducting the investigation "There is a crisis in morale out
> there....a vacuum of leadership, mission and objectives," per Vincent
> Cannistero, former CIA officer. Today officers often deal in anti-drug
> activities with criminal elements. There is anger over the leadership of
> DCI Deutch. Many CIA employees hired in early 80s, when DCI Casey increased
> personnel by 30 percent, now are in their forties, and have mortgages and
> children in or about to go to college. Thirty-year-olds do not see a career
> for themselves. Washington Post 11/26/96 A2
>
> Phil Giraldi, who spent 16 years in the Clandestine Service, starting
> as a field officer in Rome and ending as Chief of Base in Spain in 1992,
> says most of the younger officers I knew have resigned -- these were the
> best and the brightest. Eighty or ninety percent of the people I knew,
> halfway through their careers, have packed it in. The new Chief of the
> Directorate of Intelligence (DI), John Gannon, discusses the deficiencies
> of his personnel. New York Times Magazine 12/10/95 passim.
>
> Anthony Lake and Mission Impossible. CIA needs reform and rejuvenation
> because of a decade of spy scandals, blown ops, mediocre reporting,
> discrimination suits and other embarrassments. CIA facing charges of
> supporting human rights abusers now in Honduras. Young and mid-career spies
> leaving in record numbers and CIA is having trouble meeting its recruiting
> quotas. There is no Soviet threat. There are three major problems in CIA's
> Directorate of Operations (DO). First its long-standing policy of promoting
> case offices -- based on how many agents they recruit, not according to the
> quality of their intelligence. There are many cheap recruitment's about 75%,
> some even fraudulent. CIA also recruited huge numbers of spies who really work
> for the other side. Second problem is quality of CIA's spies -- few with a
> foreign language. Top people prefer investment banking, the State Department
> or journalism. In Iraq, CIA routinely deployed officers unschooled in the
> region's cultures, and history, to run and debrief its Iraqi agents with
> predictable results. There was a parade of other botched ops in Paris, Rome,
> Athens, Istanbul and Helsinki. About half of complaints from departing
> officers are about bad management. Outlook -- Washington Post 12/8/96 C1,2
>
> JEREMIAH REPORT:
>
> U.S. intel "needs to be scrubbed" from the top down, from its spies to
> its analysts to its "bureaucratic barons." The debacle revealed chronic
> failures of imagination and personnel, flaws in information-gathering
> and analysis, and faulty leadership and training. CIA had no spies worthy
> of the name in India. Its ability to pry information out of people is weak
> worldwide. The nation's spy satellites produce far too much information for
> intelligence analysts. In India, satellites and analysts alike failed to
> focus on the nuclear test site, despite clear clues that a nuclear test was
> coming. "Senior intelligence officials" discounted those clues and did not
> order their underlings to examine them. U.S. policy-makers and intelligence
> officials had an "underlying mind-set" that India would not test its nuclear
> weapons. "You need to have a contrarian view." CIA needs many more analysts
> with better training and sharper skills. It must be "much more aggressive in
> thinking through how the other guy thought..." Admiral Jeremiah, recommended
> the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) make changes to improve the ways
> CIA and the Intelligence Community IC] gather information, analyze that
> information, manage their employees and train new people.
> New York Times 6/3/98
>
> --------------ABCE462202C0413E0605ADAF--
>
>
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum
dbec...@my-dejanews.com
named Mr. Lake as the the man responsible for leaving the Iraqi anti-saddam
forces twisting in the wind during the failed 1996 coup attempt. I've read
very little about Mr. Lake, only that he is/was a NSA and a failed nominee
for Director of the CIA. What influence does this man have on the Clinton
administration's foreign policy and what does he do to/for us these days?
Good information in your posts, thanks. D.Beck
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Kirby Urner
Maybe a moratorium on new recruitment would be the right
move, if the CIA is trully interested in developing
intelligence capabilities. That'd send the right signal
to USA civilian colleges and universities: your product
is unacceptable and quasi-useless to those with a need for
serious-minded intelligence (same message the war colleges
have been getting). But I doubt the CIA is trully interested,
given the make-up of the NSC these days.
How about the CIA hosts an ActiveWorld, complete with
recruiters or philosophical counselors or whatever they've
got for avatars these days. That'd maybe net some of those
more computer-savvy players they're not getting from MIT.
But even the website isn't getting the attention it deserves,
with World Factbook entries gathering dust, telling us stuff
about Indonesia that just ain't so anymore.
Kirby
4D Solutions
Druid days
<<with World Factbook entries gathering dust>>
Oh that book is a joke of disinformation if not outright lies.
***************************
Câinii latrã, caravana trece.
Make A Site! http://members.aol.com/druiddays/makeasite.html
Make a newsgroup! http://members.aol.com/druiddays/news.html
The Story of Puppy http://members.aol.com/ownerodogs/index.htm
Kirby Urner
>
><<with World Factbook entries gathering dust>>
>
> Oh that book is a joke of disinformation if not outright lies.
>
Just outright out of date too. Suharto (however you spell it)
is not the president of Indonesia.
Kirby
Donald L Ferry
But a lot of Swine who profited during his days are still around.
When we defeated Hitler we rounded up those swine or British agents
assinated them = well except for da ones we hired to work for us!!!