CIA's Rogue, But Not the Way the Old Libs Feared

When I was in high school in the '70s, the news was filled with reports about the CIA and rogue missions. This was mostly an orchestrated effort (we can say that with more confidence post-Rathergate/Mapesgate) by big media and Senate libs to weaken the agency's ability to fight the spread of communism in the Western hemisphere.

Today, however, the term applies to an agency grown hidebound and reactionary. Robert Novak reports an extraordinary effort by CIA agent Paul R. Pillar (and he's listed in the Federal Staff Directory, as Novak points out) to undermine the Bush administration on Iraq.

"A few hours after George W. Bush dismissed a pessimistic CIA report on Iraq as 'just guessing,' the analyst who identified himself as its author told a private dinner last week of secret, unheeded warnings years ago about going to war in Iraq. This exchange leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the president of the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency are at war with each other.

"Paul R. Pillar, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, sat down Tuesday night in a large West Coast city with a select group of private citizens. He was not talking off the cuff. Relying on a multi-paged, single-spaced memorandum, Pillar said he and his colleagues concluded early in the Bush administration that military intervention in Iraq would intensify anti-American hostility throughout Islam. This was not from a CIA retiree but an active senior official. (Pillar, no covert operative, is listed openly in the Federal Staff Directory.)

"For President Bush to publicly write off a CIA paper as just guessing is without precedent. For the agency to go semi-public is not only unprecedented but shocking. George Tenet's retirement as director of Central Intelligence removed the buffer between president and agency. As the new DCI, Porter Goss inherits an extraordinarily sensitive situation."

Hindrocket at Power Line says that Pillar is their old friend and Power Line blogger Deacon's old roommate, but he observes:

"[I] don't see what possible justification there could be for leaking the report after the fact--except, of course, that it was another blow in the CIA's war against the Bush administration. No wonder Bush takes information he receives from the Agency with a dose of skepticism.

Intelligence agents are becoming known less for their ability to serve a sitting administration (and far less for their knowledge of other parts of the world) than for their reactionary impulse to protect their own fiefdoms at the expense of American security. Do they have any sense of honor? Certainly Pillar seems to have lost any inhibitions or sense of professionalism.

We've read about how the KGB blackmailed top Kremlin officials and called many of the shots in Soviet policy, both foreign and domestic. Not to exaggerate, but are we reaching a stage in American statecraft in which the permanent bureaucracy, long a bane to every administration, will attempt to undermine U.S. foreign policy during a time of war -- all in the name of petty turf fights?

This imbroglio is further proof of the innovative approach the Bush team has taken to many bureaucratic problems. Step on the toes of career agents, and they kick back, even if their target is the President himself. Don Rumsfeld is despised by many survivors in the Pentagon precisely because he dared to modernize their decrepit old Cold War strategies. Powell seems (unfortunately) much more in step with career fogies at State.

This round, it's up to Porter Goss, and the President's men, to drag the CIA into the 21st century whether they like it or not. Having blown most of their predictions during the Cold War and failed utterly in the run-up to 9/11, CIA types could at least put the well-being of their country first. Anyone have a big broom?