CIA's New Director

This post will be addressing an article on 11/16 on CNN.com entitled "Goss continues effort to reshape CIA" 11/16 and a related article on 11/18 on CNN.com entitled "Officials: CIA memo not an order to 'back Bush'" 11/18. The first article deals with the shakeup in the CIA by the newly appointed and confirmed director, Porter Goss. Before Bush handpicked him for director of the CIA, Goss was the chairmen of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Two top CIA officials have already resigned because of "personality and policy disputes" with the staff that Goss brought with him from Congress. Ranking Democrat of the the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, California Rep. Jane Harman called the staff Goss brought with him to the CIA a "highly partisan, inexperienced staff" and said "both sides of the aisle in our committee were happy to see them go." Sen. John McCain called the CIA a "a dysfunctional agency, and in some ways a rogue agency" that need to be reformed. But also said that Porter Goss "is on the right track." Senator Bill Frist dismissed concerns about upheaval in the CIA by saying that some turnover is to be expected with new leadership.

The second article deals with a headline in the New York Times that stated "Chief of CIA tells his staff to Back Bush." Apparently Goss sent a memo to his staff regarding in his words the "rules of the road." He wrote, "We support the administration, and its policies, in our work as agency employees," he said. "We do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies. We provide the intelligence as we see it -- and let the facts alone speak to the policy-maker." A spokesman for the CIA said the memo was a "a statement about the nonpartisan nature of what this agency does." A White House spokesman also chimed in that the memo was "misconstrued and that "The role of the CIA is intelligence gathering, intelligence analysis and intelligence dissemination. It is to provide policy-makers with the best possible intelligence. It's not to set policy." He also added that, "the role of policy-makers is not to get involved with the CIA, either." Not everyone is dismissing this memo as the media making something out of nothing. Cal. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a key Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said the contents of the memo "need to be explored" and the memo was not "even-handed." She added that the intelligence community "should not support or oppose an administration." Some Democrats are worried about whether or not Goss will run the agency in a nonpartisan manner and Feinstein worries that Goss, at the urging of the White House, will get rid of people who are deemed liberal or disloyal to the president. Feinstein thinks a "politically motivated purge" of the CIA would be detrimental to the intelligence committee.

According to Weingast and Morand, an incentive-based system involving appropriations, oversight committees, and confirmations will keep agencies in line and not an autonomous or a rogue agency. So I did some research on US.gov to see who Goss, the senior democrat of the CIA, is accountable to.

On CIA.gov in the Frequently asked question I found out how the CIA explains how it is accountable.

"Who oversees the CIA? Does it act on its own initiative?

Both the Congress and the Executive Branch oversee the Central Intelligence Agency’s activities. In addition, the CIA is responsible to the American people through their elected representatives, and, like other government agencies, acts in accordance with US laws and executive orders. In the Executive Branch, the National Security Council—including the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense—provides guidance and direction for national foreign intelligence and counterintelligence activities. In Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as other committees, closely monitor the Agency’s reporting and programs. The CIA is not a policy-making organization; it advises policymakers on matters of foreign intelligence, and it conducts covert actions only at the direction of the President."

Let's take a look at Congress: In the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence where Goss used to serve as chairman, there are 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats with the chairman being Republican Rep. Hoekstra who scored a 10 on the ADA ratings. (The ADA ratings rate politicians on a scale of 0-100 with 0 being a perfect Republican and 100 being a perfect Deomocrat.) In the Senate Intelligence Committee, there are 9 Republicans and 8 Democrats with the chairman being Republican Senator Pat Roberts who scored a 0 on the ADA Ratings. In the Executive Branch, Goss is accountable to President Bush, the man who appointed him, and the rest of the people on Bush's team.

Goss is therefore accountable to a groups that are dominated by Republicans while he himself is a former Republican Congressman that was rated as being a perfect Republican by the ADA. This is not to say that Goss will automatically politicize the CIA and make it a pawn of the Republican Party, but it may have a little Republican lean to it due to the circumstances. This lean might materialize in just the fact that news from the CIA may be presented in a way that either makes the administration look good or atleast doesn't make the administration look bad.