[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: New C.I.A. Chief Tells Workers to Back Administration Policies

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New C.I.A. Chief Tells Workers to Back Administration Policies

November 17, 2004
 By DOUGLAS JEHL 



 

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 - Porter J. Goss, the new intelligence
chief, has told Central Intelligence Agency employees that
their job is to "support the administration and its
policies in our work,'' a copy of an internal memorandum
shows. 

"As agency employees we do not identify with, support or
champion opposition to the administration or its policies,"
Mr. Goss said in the memorandum, which was circulated late
on Monday. He said in the document that he was seeking "to
clarify beyond doubt the rules of the road." 

While his words could be construed as urging analysts to
conform with administration policies, Mr. Goss also wrote,
"We provide the intelligence as we see it - and let the
facts alone speak to the policymaker.'' 

The memorandum suggested an effort by Mr. Goss to spell out
his thinking as he embarked on what he made clear would be
a major overhaul at the agency, with further changes to
come. The changes to date, including the ouster of the
agency's clandestine service chief, have left current and
former intelligence officials angry and unnerved. Some have
been outspoken, including those who said Tuesday that they
regarded Mr. Goss's warning as part of an effort to
suppress dissent within the organization. 

In recent weeks, White House officials have complained that
some C.I.A. officials have sought to undermine President
Bush and his policies. 

At a minimum, Mr. Goss's memorandum appeared to be a swipe
against an agency decision under George J. Tenet, his
predecessor as director of central intelligence, to permit
a senior analyst at the agency, Michael Scheuer, to write a
book and grant interviews that were critical of the Bush
administration's policies on terrorism. 

One former intelligence official said he saw nothing
inappropriate in Mr. Goss's warning, noting that the C.I.A.
had long tried to distance itself and its employees from
policy matters. 

"Mike exploited a seam in the rules and inappropriately
used it to express his own policy views,'' the official
said of Mr. Scheuer. "That did serious damage to the
agency, because many people, including some in the White
House, thought that he was being urged by the agency to
take on the president. I know that was not the case.'' 

But a second former intelligence official said he was
concerned that the memorandum and the changes represented
an effort by Mr. Goss to stifle independence. 

"If Goss is asking people to color their views and be a
team player, that's not what people at C.I.A. signed up
for,'' said the former intelligence official. The official
and others interviewed in recent days spoke on condition
that they not be named, saying they did not want to inflame
tensions at the agency. 

Some of the contents of Mr. Goss's memorandum were first
reported by The Washington Post. A complete copy of the
document was obtained on Tuesday by The New York Times. 

Tensions between the agency's new leadership team, which
took over in late September, and senior career officials
are more intense than at any time since the late 1970's.
The most significant changes so far have been the
resignations on Monday of Stephen R. Kappes, the deputy
director of operations, and his deputy, Michael Sulick, but
Mr. Goss told agency employees in the memorandum that he
planned further changes "in the days and weeks ahead of
us'' that would involve "procedures, organization, senior
personnel and areas of focus for our action.'' 

"I am committed to sharing these changes with you as they
occur,'' Mr. Goss said in the memorandum. "I do understand
it is easy to be distracted by both the nature and the pace
of change. I am confident, however, that you will remain
deeply committed to our mission.'' 

Mr. Goss's memorandum included a reminder that C.I.A.
employees should "scrupulously honor our secrecy oath'' by
allowing the agency's public affairs office and its
Congressional relations branch to take the lead in all
contacts with the media and with Congress. "We remain a
secret organization,'' he said. 

Among the moves that Mr. Goss said he was weighing was the
selection of a candidate to become the agency's No. 2
official, the deputy director of central intelligence. The
name being mentioned most often within the C.I.A. as a
candidate, intelligence officials said, is Lt. Gen. Michael
V. Hayden of the Air Force, the director of the National
Security Agency, which is responsible for intercepting
electronic communications worldwide. The naming of a deputy
director would be made by the White House, in a nomination
subject to Senate confirmation. 

In interviews this week, members of Congress as well as
current and former intelligence officials said one reason
the overhaul under way had left them unnerved was that Mr.
Goss had not made clear what kind of agency he intended to
put in place. But Mr. Goss's memorandum did little to spell
out that vision, and it did not make clear why the focus of
overhaul efforts to date appeared to be on the operations
directorate, which carries out spying and other covert
missions around the world. 

"It's just very hard to divine what's going on over
there,'' said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, who
said he and other members of the Senate intelligence
committee would be seeking answers at closed sessions this
week. "But on issue after issue, there's a real question
about whether the country and the Congress are going to get
an unvarnished picture of our intelligence situation at a
critical time.'' 

Mr. Goss said in the memorandum that he recognized that
intelligence officers were operating in an atmosphere of
extraordinary pressures, after a series of reports critical
of intelligence agencies' performance in the months leading
up to the Sept. 11 attacks and the war in Iraq. 

"The I.C. and its people have been relentlessly scrutinized
and criticized,'' he said, using an abbreviation for
intelligence community. "Intelligence-related issues have
become the fodder of partisan food fights and turf-power
skirmishes. All the while, the demand for our services and
products against a ruthless and unconventional enemy has
expanded geometrically and we are expected to deliver -
instantly. We have reason to be proud of our achievements
and we need to be smarter about how we do our work in this
operational climate.'' 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/politics/17intel.html?ex=1101704076&ei=1&en=4813885b18add3b2


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