In Can The CIA Conduct Tomorrow's Espionage, I referred to a liberal centrist blog callled The Genoan Sailor. He was beginning to examine issues around U.S. intelligence, and asking some good questions. He's back with more thoughts on U.S. intelligence, and once again he thoughtfully explores key issues about coordination, open source intelligence, etc. See the comments section here for some responses.
TGS remains critical of the Bush administration, but it's driven by serious intent and good questions. Kudos.
Meanwhile, Parapundit offers a fine summation of CIA veteran Howard Hart's presentation. Hart was a highly decorated figure who retired as the equivalent of a 3-star general, and TGS and I both referred to his Miller Center talk in our previous posts. No blog summary will adequately convey things like his descriptions of his attempt to personally recruit a Islamic terrorist to spy on his colleagues, or his assessment of the infamous book by ex-CIA member Michael "Anonymous" Scheuer. Still, if your time or bandwidth doesn't allow you to watch the video link I offered, Parapundit is a good alternative.
Two statements from early on in Genoan Sailor's post which I find problematic at best.
With the end of the Cold War, there was arguably little need to employ the agency, and total intelligence funding appears to have broadly declined under Clinton. A more accurate assessment would be that the Clinton administration's stance towards the US role in the world actively mitigated against the agency's use overseas.
Aside from Ames I'm struggling to think of a CIA scandal from that time relative in intensity to Plame
Equating the two is .... just wrong. Ames did significant damage to a network of agents which was built up over decades and he did it during a tense time when those agents were of great importance to avoiding nuclear war while opposing the Soviet Union. Publishing the name of a no-long-active case worker who was known around town on the political cocktail circuit is a trivial matter in comparison.
I'll comment on the rest of the article if I can find time to finish it later tonight or early tomorrow. But so far, I'm rather less than impressed ....
Just to make the point re: Ames clearer, the Inspector General noted
Soviet operations--the effort to achieve human penetrations of the USSR for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information--was the highest priority mission of the clandestine service of CIA in 1985-86
THAT is what the Ames scandal was about. There is absolutely NOTHING about Plame being identified that can even be measured on the same scale of effects.
Just to make the point re: Ames clearer, the Inspector General noted
Soviet operations--the effort to achieve human penetrations of the USSR for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information--was the highest priority mission of the clandestine service of CIA in 1985-86 ... loss of most of our assets in this crucial area of operations
THAT is what the Ames scandal was about. There is absolutely NOTHING about Plame being identified that can even be measured on the same scale of effects.
testing - what's up with this thread? left comments a couple of times, believe I saw 8 comments at one time, but said 0, now comments say 3, but there are zero.
Left this very snarky comment re: intelligence - did it get deleted?
JC, you left that comment on another thread ("Can The CIA Conduct Tomorrow's Espionage"). Not sure what you intended to accomplish, other than providing a classic example of partisanship over serious examination of important national security issues. But then, you're a Democrat... (we can be snarky too).
Robin, keep in mind TGS is a beginner in this field. The points you make are well taken and need to be made, but I'm cutting him slack on that account and hoping he keeps at it.
A couple quick comments before the conversation goes any further:
I knew in writing the post that a Clinton-Bush comparison would raise some hackles, and I tried to indicate it was a weak comparison. Plame/Ames are admittedly very different - I included it only as both cases prompted public criticism of the CIA's management. Minor, superficially similar circumstances to float an analogy.
The overall thrust of the Clinton comparison (forgive the pun) was to show that under him, it might have been understandable to underuse the CIA. Post-9/11, I think we have indicators that the agency is still underused (take Hart's testimony as evidence if you don't like Plame). I'm wondering why that is. Robin's mention of the Cold War only feeds my opinion that if there is a need to use the agency (to penetrate KGB or al Qaeda), use it. If not, why not?
A final aside on my liberalism: I bash Bush a lot on my site as I think a lot of the criticism from the left is misdirected, and I try to do it a little more "responsibly." I've actually grown (and self-identify) as a centrist in recent years. The tomatoes come from both sides.
Huh - weird. Meant to post that here, since "intelligence" was the point of this thread.
The moment's gone now. :(
Thanks for the clarifications, Kevin.
Intel is a neat field, and definitely critical to the current war. You may find lots of interesting stuff in our Intelligence/Spycraft Topic Archive; we hope it serves as good fodder for thought, and look forward to future exchanges of questions, observations & ideas.
Finally, we're always happy to have another centrist around in the blogosphere. I won't make the mistake of referring to you as 'liberal' again; please accept my apologies.
No apologies necessary, though thanks.
Spent most of my college years trying to convince people I didn't do drugs despite a ponytail. Now it's the L word. Who the hell can I sleep with to get rid of that? Mary Matalin is spoken for, I hear...
Hmm, who to sleep with to get rid of that label... here you go, happy hunting. But you won't lose the label until you come back and tell us all about it. >;->
Post-9/11, I think we have indicators that the agency is still underused (take Hart's testimony as evidence if you don't like Plame). I'm wondering why that is.
It may be because the agency has been so badly gutted that it not only cannot perform well, using it would be worse than not using it. ???