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Jon Stewart on Porter Goss and the CIA

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CIA Shakeup

David Kaplan and Kevin Whitelaw have more pieces of the puzzle, and provide some intriguing insights about the odd departure of super-spy Stephen Kappes. This just appeared in Monday's issue of U.S. News & World Report.

Here is the enticing opening to a very interesting article:

To those who worked with him, Stephen Kappes seemed the perfect choice to lead the covert side of the CIA in the midst of the war on terrorism. Appointed in June, Kappes, a former marine, is a veteran CIA case officer who served in dangerous and difficult postings in Moscow and Pakistan. More recently, he reported directly to President Bush as the CIA's point man in secret high-stakes negotiations with Libya that ended the rogue state's weapons-of-mass-destruction programs.

So last week, many CIA insiders were astonished when Kappes became an early casualty under the rule of Porter Goss, the recently appointed director of central intelligence. Goss, himself a former CIA case officer who recently chaired the House Intelligence Committee, came into his job in September with a mandate to reform a troubled agency blamed for a series of grave lapses before the September 11 attacks and the Iraq war.

But while Goss was widely expected to shake the place up, the departure of Kappes and his deputy, Michael Sulick, stunned intelligence veterans in Washington, who saw the pair as the most qualified team to lead the CIA's Directorate of Operations in years. "The planets lined up," says Milt Bearden, a 30-year CIA veteran who ran the agency's arming of Afghan rebels in the Soviet war. "You had the right guys in the right job at the right time." Ironically, the two men shared Goss's critique of the CIA's shortcomings.

Says a former top CIA official who worked with Kappes: "These guys weren't in denial that 9/11 and Iraq were intelligence failures."

Breaking: Porter Goss resigns

updated with video

From CNN:

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Goss: " I believe the agency is on a very even keel, sailing well," I honestly believe that we have improved dramatically."

Here's the AP story.

Did the personnel at the CIA have a smile on their faces today?

(h/t David Edwards)

Porter Goss: Turf War?

Laura Rosen: "The story line until today has been far different: that much of the operative camp of the Agency perceived Goss as a political enforcer, someone who wasn't seen to be looking out for them but for the White House's interests; that Goss was rather passive and out of touch and overly delegated day to day affairs to his staff, "the Gosslings," led by the fiercely partisan Patrick Murray. I don't believe I have ever heard from people in that world a sense that Goss was looking out for them...read on"

Drum: "So what's the deal?--But now, out of the blue, we're supposed to believe that Bush woke up Friday morning and suddenly decided that some previously unreported bureaucratic turf war finally needed to be stopped?"

Larrry Johnson: "A former CIA buddy tells me that Porter's main problem, however, is a key staffer who is linked to both Brent Wilkes and the CIA's Executive Director, Dusty Foggo. My friend also said that it is highly likely that the Goss staffer did participate in the hooker extravaganza. Goss, politician that he is, probably recognized that even though he did not participate in the sexual escapades and poker games, his staffer's participation created a huge problem for him that would be difficult to escape...read on

Andrea Mitchell just reported that the CIA has fired an agent who failed a polygraph and admitted leaking classified information to Dana Priest of the Washington Post...
Priest won a Pulitzer Prize for: "Dana Priest won the beat reporting award for revealing that the CIA was using secret prisons in Eastern Europe to interrogate terrorism suspects."

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Andrea says that it also has been referred to the Justice Dept for possible criminal action.

Mitchell's being told about the firing actually violated Porter Goss's order within the CIA not to leak. Go figure. This definitely will have huge ramifications...

It'll be interesting to see how the media responds if Dana Priest or another journalist (James Risen) is arrested for printing leaked material. Also, I wonder how will CIA employees react if Porter Goss continues giving polygraphs to intimidate them. Glenn Greenwald has more.

Richard Shelby was for lie detector tests until he was asked to take one. Read The National Journal's account of Shelby leaking NSA intercepts to two reporters that triggered a fifteen month investigation right after 9/11.

"A sharp disagreement ensued between the FBI and senior Justice Department officials overseeing the case, according to federal law enforcement officials. The FBI was convinced not only that Shelby leaked the information regarding the intercepts, but also that the senator might have misled the FBI when he was interviewed about his actions, according to sources. They advocated that Shelby be prosecuted."

Read the whole article. Pat Roberts helps ruin the investigation. The one that not many people even knew existed.

Up until this case, Shelby just loved the lie detector test:

"Some of those who have promoted polygraphs in the past have changed their tune when faced with the prospect of taking a lie detector test themselves. In August, several members of the House and Senate intelligence committees refused to submit to polygraphs as part of an FBI investigation of who leaked classified information regarding the September 11 attacks. "I don't know who among us would take a lie detector test," says Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). "They're not even admissible in court." Shelby's reticence was an about-face from his stance two years ago, when he spearheaded the expansion of the Department of Energy's polygraph program as the only effective way of tracking down moles."

If it's just fine for Porter Goss to administer lie detector tests to his employee's for leaking classified information then why not make Shelby take one since he was for them until he got in trouble? What say you Sen. Shelby?

Keller's Thoughts on DC's Leaking

I've been calling and emailing journalists to try and get their reactions about the possible fallout for reporters since Porter Goss has been polygraphing the CIA for leakers. A certain drumbeat is going around that journalists should be questioned and put into jail. A few at the Washington Post have said, " no comment." One reporter from Congressional Quarterly said: "It would not only be a gross abuse of power but a violation of the very first Amendment."

Fishbowl DC has Bill Keller's full email response:

"Whatever the reason, I worry that we're not as worried as we should be. No president likes reporters sniffing after his secrets, but most come to realize that accountability is the price of power in our democracy. Some officials in this administration, and their more vociferous cheerleaders, seem to have a special animus towards reporters doing their jobs. There's sometimes a vindictive tone in way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries and in the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public's business risk being branded traitors. I don't know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values they profess to be promoting abroad....read on"

Murray Waas:

"And did those leaks damage national security? The vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) made exactly that charge tonight in a letter to John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence. What prompted Rockefeller to write Negroponte was a recent op-ed in the New York Times by CIA director Porter Goss complaining that leaks of classified information were the fault of “misguided whistleblowers...read on”