Emasculate the CIA
Now George, Rummy and Dick can make up all the intelligence they please:
The pending appointment of General Michael Hayden as director of the Central Intelligence Agency will pave the way for the agency's emasculation and for the Pentagon to assume full authority over paramilitary operations.
A senior intelligence community official yesterday said the director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, has indicated "he is willing to give up covert operations to the Pentagon."
The source also pointed out that the Pentagon has requested increased budget authority to prepare for the acquisition of the CIA's targeted military operations. The intelligence overhaul of 2004 envisioned that they would remain under the purview of the CIA.
The authority to commission and plan these secret military operations has been a point of contention since 2004 when Congress and the White House began reorganizing the intelligence community.
The proposed change would give the Pentagon unfettered authority to plan and conduct these operations without consulting an intelligence bureaucracy its civilian leaders have deemed hostile to the president's war policy.
posted by walldon | 4:30 PM
1 Comments:
Hmm. It seems to me there is a logical gap between (making up) intelligence and the CIA handing over covert or paramilitary operations to the Pentagon.
I am certain that non-military intelligence gathering and interpretaion is a good idea (and it also needs to be non-partisan)-- that is not to say that the Pentagon should not maintain its own intelligence capabilities as well. But there should be a separate and independent arm.
My 60s mentality, dim as it was, is not entirely happy with the CIA's history of covert operations anyway, and I do wonder if that oughtn't to be farmed out to the Pentagon. (I can see gray areas in the spy-v.-spy arena.) If covert action should be done at all, that is.
The problem of Negroponte's position and his lack of credibilty and independence is a clear concern, as is the choice of Hayden for numerous other reasons.
Are there some dots I should be connecting somehow?
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