Abstract

Politicize the CIA? You've Got to Be Kidding!

The article discusses appointments and changes being made to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by President George W. Bush. Bush's new director, former Republican Florida Representative Porter Goss, and his team of enforcers are now rampaging through the corridors of CIA headquarters at Langley. Goss's most pressing task is to exact retribution for the anti-Bush stories emanating from the CIA in the months before the election. Goss and his team have acted swiftly. In early November the CIA's number 2, John McLaughlin, resigned. Of course there is a portentous uproar and wringing of hands as the cry goes up that the abilities of the agency to collect and analyze useful intelligence are being compromised by "unparalleled" political partisanship. Before Goss we had George Tenet, a politically agile former Congressional staffer so eager to please Bush that he uttered the imperishable words "slam dunk" about the supposed ease of making a case for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. There is nothing new about the "political" appointment of Porter Goss.