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The CIA Joins the Hot War
[jackdied]
Nov 15 2004, 21:56 EST [updated Nov 15 2004, 22:05 EST]
The CIA and the State Department have been waging a cold war against the President for decades. I have high hopes that this time real reform will happen, but this isn't the first time we've seen rattling sabers. Last April Newt took State to the woodshed in a speech and I didn't think much of it:
    No one reforms State, it is one of those institutions that was set up at some time in the past and doesn't change for Congress, the President, or anyone. Dunno if there is much you can do about it. They pretend to carry out the administrations's policy, the administration will pretend to take their advice. Status quo.
National Review was more bullish at the time with two articles saying bascially "Its On!" The first said Newt had named names and thrown down the gauntlet, the second focuses on Powell as ineffective, willfully insubordinate, and in a permanent state of grace with all the world's governments and media. Now that the focus in on the CIA with a new chief who is willing to shake things up there is a real chance for reform.

That is all I intended to write, but then I started reading through news.google searches. I mistakenly characterized the current situation as reform of a beligerent agency, the kind of shakeup everyone said they wanted after 9/11. Heck, even John McCain is on board.

But out there in the fever swamps the CIA thing is being reported as a coup. The Washington Post Dispatch is comparing it to Nixon firing the AG appointed to prosecute him.

    a modern day version of the Watergate era “Saturday Night Massacre” in 1973. The 1973 massacre took place at the Justice Department while the 2004 version played out a few days ago at the CIA.
In high humor the folks at AntiWar.com are calling it a Soviet purge.
    The news that Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, is leaving the agency – forced out by an administration that confuses fealty to the imperial presidency with loyalty to the country – signals the systematic dismantling of the country's last and best defense against a burgeoning threat to our national security.
Maybe it hadn't occured to them that reform is neccessary because of and not despite the fact that agents of the CIA are writing psuedo-anonymous books trashing US foreign policy. I didn't bother reading the BBC or NPR articles. It isn't all bad press, The East Valley Tribute has an op-ed Overdue shakeup at CIA which reads like the title.

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