Does President Trump Have A Problem With The CIA?

U.S. President Donald Trump stands with the new CIA Director Gina Haspel during her swearing-in ceremony at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, U.S. May 21, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Vernon Loeb, The Atlantic: How Not to Smooth Things Over With the CIA

The president’s strained relationship with the intelligence community goes back to his visit to Langley just a day after his inauguration.

On President Donald Trump’s first full day in office, he crossed the Potomac to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where he attempted to assure the intelligence professionals gathered there that nobody—nobody—cared about the agency more than he did. Of course, the people who work at the CIA are paid to see through such deception—which, in this case, may not have been terribly hard, given that Trump had just days earlier compared them to Nazis.

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WNU Editor: This blog has been critical of the CIA and the U.S. intelligence community since the beginning. From over-stating the Russian threat to underestimating the threat from China. From the politicization of the agency under Former CIA Director John Brennan to the many leaks to the media under President Trump .... there has been a problem with the community. But in the past year there has been a huge change in the agency. Personnel have left. Leaks are few and far between. New leadership from CIA Director Gina Haspel on down have changed the community, and the impression that I am getting from what I am reading is that the community is focused on fulfilling President Trump's policy objectives and not the other way around. I know this could all change in a heartbeat, but the strains that existed between CIA that President Trump inherited from President Obama have definitely been toned down.

An Excerpt From the Book 'Spooked: How The CIA Manipulates The Media And Hoodwinks Hollywood'

The lobby of CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia, on August 14, 2008. REUTERS/LARRY DOWNING

Nicholas Schou, Newsweek: Outing The CIA's "Undertaker"

The following is an excerpt of Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (Hotbooks/Skyhorse), which will be published on June 28, 2016.

Remote even by the standards of Pakistan’s tribal areas, the Shawal Valley is surrounded by steep mountains that descend into thick forests interspersed with boulder-strewn alpine rivers. The valley is one of the final redoubts of Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters who fled Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion. Numerous Pakistani military offensives have so far failed to dislodge the militants, although their ranks have been depleted by hundreds of American drone strikes.

In the weeks leading up to an operation in the Shawal Valley on January 2015, CIA-operated drones filmed four men coming and going from a building, who appeared to of military service age. Anonymous U.S. officials later told The New York Times that the agency had analyzed so-called “pattern of life” evidence to determine that the compound was being used by militants. The CIA said it had also intercepted cellphone calls and had obtained other intelligence indicating the four men were “Al-Qaeda operatives and possibly members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.”

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WNU Editor: I suspect that there are some active (and retired) CIA officers who are not happy with this book .... and a few reporters (many that I use for this blog) who are equally feeling uncomfortable.

A Discussin With All 12 Living CIA Directors

48 Hours CBS: The Spymasters -- CIA In The Crosshairs

"48 Hours" Presents: How far should the CIA go to keep America safe? All 12 living CIA directors share their passionate disagreements about the agency's past, its current mission, and its future.

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WNU Editor: A long video .... but for those who follow the CIA .... a must see.

An Argument For CIA Covert Aid

The CIA’s Wrong: Arming Rebels Works -- Christopher Dickey, Daily Beast

President Obama has weighed the options and concluded America does more harm than good when it sets out to topple regimes. OK. But don’t pretend that’s the CIA’s fault.

PARIS, France—What could be more cynical than a covert operation? Sure, there’s always a lot of talk about fighting for freedom, defeating tyranny. What was it Ronald Reagan called the Contras and the Afghan mujahedin? “They are the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers.”

Actually some of the Contras whom I knew were the moral equivalent of pathological killers. They were so out of control that the CIA, which had armed them and trained them, finally had two of their commanders hunted down and executed.

As I say, covert ops: cynical business.

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Previous Post: Does CIA Covert Aid Ever Work?

My Comment: A must read.

Does CIA Covert Aid Ever Work?

C.I.A. Study of Covert Aid Fueled Skepticism About Helping Syrian Rebels -- New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency has run guns to insurgencies across the world during its 67-year history — from Angola to Nicaragua to Cuba. The continuing C.I.A. effort to train Syrian rebels is just the latest example of an American president becoming enticed by the prospect of using the spy agency to covertly arm and train rebel groups.

An internal C.I.A. study has found that it rarely works.

The still-classified review, one of several C.I.A. studies commissioned in 2012 and 2013 in the midst of the Obama administration’s protracted debate about whether to wade into the Syrian civil war, concluded that many past attempts by the agency to arm foreign forces covertly had a minimal impact on the long-term outcome of a conflict. They were even less effective, the report found, when the militias fought without any direct American support on the ground.

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My Comment: After being involved in countess wars. Spending untold amounts of money. Making foreign policy decisions based on CIA covert aid. Untold lives lost. They are now coming out and saying that this rarely works?!?!?!?!

A Look At The CIA's Covert War

Photo: In Yemen, August 2013 saw four strikes in three days, leaving fifteen dead

'Back In The Business Of Killing' -- Deutsche Welle

Ever since September 11, the US - with the help of the CIA - has been carrying out a secret war that defies imagination, says New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti. And it's not just Washington giving the green light.

The campaign against America's enemies is silent and precise. Commanders fight without troops. They operate from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia - their "troops" in front of computer screens in Nevada or New Mexico. Their weapons are unmanned drones.

"The CIA, over the last 12 years, has very much been back in the business of killing," said Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Mazzetti in an interview with DW. "Since the September 11 attacks, the CIA has gradually transformed into very much of a paramilitary organization."

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WNU Editor: A book review of New York Time's Mark Mazzetti's latest release "The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth".

Is Now The Time To Shift The CIA Away From Drone Strikes?

C.I.A. to Focus More on Spying, a Difficult Shift -- New York Times

WASHINGTON — For more than seven years, Mike — a lean, chain-smoking officer at the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters in Virginia — has managed the agency’s deadly campaign of armed drone strikes. As the head of the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center, Mike wielded tremendous power in hundreds of decisions over who lived and died in far-off lands.

But under a new plan outlined by the Obama administration on Thursday, the Counterterrorism Center over time would cease to be the hub of America’s targeted killing operations in Pakistan, Yemen and other places where presidents might choose to wage war in the future. Already, the C.I.A.’s director, John O. Brennan, has passed over Mike, an undercover officer whose full name is being withheld, for a promotion to run the agency’s clandestine service.

It is a sign that Mr. Brennan is trying to shift the C.I.A.’s focus back toward traditional spying and strategic analysis, but that is not an easy task.

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Update: Obama to bring US drone programme out from 'legal shadows' of the CIA -- The Guardian

My Comment: The CIA became responsible for drone strikes because they became very good at it .... and they had the legal right to conduct this type of warfare that the Pentagon does not have. Is now the right time to make this shift .... I am not sure. I will defer to President Obama because he has intel that I do not have .... but if he is wrong .... he better be ready to suffer the consequences because Al Qaeda has proven in the past to be a very deadly organization .... and (hint hint) some of their key leaders are still around.

Should The CIA Be Responsible For Targeted Killings?

 

Should CIA Be Targeting Terrorists? -- Michael Hayden, CNN Contributor 

(CNN) -- On a hot summer day in early August, 2008, the secure Red Switch phone in my office at CIA was lighting up with calls from National Security Adviser Steve Hadley.

The Russian Army had invaded the Republic of Georgia in the Caucasus mountain region.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was frantic about his country's safety and desperate for information on Russian forces and Russia's intent.

I promised Steve some answers, hung up the phone and walked to my outer office to direct my executive assistants to "get our Georgia people up here right away." As they busily dialed phones and typed e-mails, I remember turning to my chief of staff and only half jokingly asking him, "We've got Georgia people, right?"

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My Comment: The above video is a must see.

Should President Obama Take The Drones Away From The CIA

Clip The Agency's Wings -- Micah Zenko, Foreign Policy

Why Obama needs to take the drones away from the CIA.

Among the 9/11 Commission's 41 recommendations was that "lead responsibility for directing and executing paramilitary operations, whether clandestine or covert, should shift to the Defense Department" to avoid the "creation of redundant, overlapping capabilities and authorities in such sensitive work." President Bush directed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss to review "to what extent implementation of the recommendation is in the interest of the United States." Goss -- himself a CIA operative in the 1960s -- told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: "[Rumsfeld] feels that he has capabilities that are important, and I agree. And I feel I have capabilities that are important, and he agrees. There's not a lot of disagreement on this."

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My Comment: There is a lot of meat in this analysis. As to what is my take .... I do not see President Obama giving all the authority of drone strikes to the Pentagon. The CIA has been very good at it's job (at least that is what they tell us) .... and if that is true .... President Obama may decide to not fix something that some of his closest advisers may believe is not broken.

How The CIA Transformed Into A Para-Military Organization

Cowboys and Eggheads -- Bill Kellerr, New York Times

My Times colleague Mark Mazzetti has a new book out that is getting a lot of attention, including some cinematic excerpts published in The Times, here and here. “The Way of the Knife” recounts the recent transformation of the Central Intelligence Agency from a traditional spying shop into more of a man-hunting paramilitary — custodian of lethal drones, sponsor of dark ops, employer of secret armies and shady contractors.

As an assassination bureau, the C.I.A. has had some spectacular successes. (The Navy Seal raid that killed Osama bin Laden was led by the C.I.A.) It has also come in for some fierce criticism from those who are uncomfortable with assassination in general, with the eerily impersonal methods of remote killing, with the civilian casualties, or with the timid oversight of an agency licensed to kill. And of course the demand for operational intelligence to aid these manhunts drove the C.I.A. into the practice of torture and rendition.

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My Comment: The CIA stepped into this role of special operations because no one else was suited to do the job. There are also legal ramifications and guidelines that do not permit the military to do what the CIA now does .... unless the law is changed which I doubt that the White House and Congress will be willing to do. As to intelligence gathering and analysis .... this is now being conducted other agencies .... NSA, Defense Intelligence Agency, etc..

Is The CIA Headed In The Wrong Direction?

CIA Headed In The Wrong General Direction -- Roy A. Harrell Jr.

Agency should not be paramilitary force.

More than 50 years ago, my resignation from the Central Intelligence Agency was effectuated. The Company, as it had always been known, had become a bit too militarized and was not what some of its founders such as Allan Dulles envisioned.

Intelligence was collected but rarely analyzed coherently so as to contribute to enlightened policies. Much of what was collected by the Company lay unused, some of us feeling it is too expensive to collect this data, not to mention the risk involved.

Moreover the trend was in the direction of militarization, a task that could be more expertly done by the Department of Defense.

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My Comment: I know that the U.S. military has the means to do the job that the CIA is doing right now (i..e having a paramilitary force that can quickly execute certain operations) .... but aside from certain legal reasons on why the CIA is doing this work, I believe that the Oval Office and those who run the CIA like the ability (and option) to use the CIA in executing covert military operations and/or drone strikes against targets like Al Qaeda leaders. Is this the proper job for the CIA .... I do not know .... but they are doing the job and their masters (the politicians) appear to be happy with their performance.

Why President Obama Should Not Appoint A General To Run The CIA

Why Generals Shouldn't Run The CIA -- Amy B. Zegart, Foreign Policy

As the Petraeus scandal unfolded, we got a crash course on the Tampa social scene, General Allen's superhuman ability to write 20,000 to 30,000 pages of "potentially inappropriate" e-mails, and the romantic attraction of the six-minute mile. What we did not get was a serious discussion of whether it was a good idea to let a warrior-general run the CIA in the first place.

The real Petraeus story is about much more than a seedy tabloid sex scandal. It's about what he did on the job — his brief tenure at Langley and the militarization of intelligence it represents.

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My Comment: I have always been of the opinion that the reason why President Obama's chose General Peraeus to run the CIA was because he wanted a military orientation to the CIA. therefore .... my prediction for Petraeus' replacement will be someone like Petraues, but without the personal and emotional baggage.

Will President Obama Rethink The CIA?

President Barack Obama delivers remarks during a memorial service at the CIA in Langley, Va., Feb. 5, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Time To Rethink The CIA? -- Walter Pincus

President Obama should pause before choosing a successor to CIA Director David H. Petraeus and rethink the role of the nation’s primary intelligence agency. Its main focus for the past decade has been fighting terrorists and insurgents.

The first question to ask: Has the CIA become too much of a paramilitary organization? The second: Should this be the time to put the agency’s main emphasis on being the premier producer and analyst of intelligence for policymakers, using both open and clandestine sources?

That doesn’t mean losing its counterterrorism role. Terrorists remain a threat, but the rest of the world is changing so fast that the president and policymakers down the line need the best information available.

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My Comment: I suspect that such a debate probably happens every year .... wars and conflicts are always shifting. But will President Obama now take the opportunity to rethink the CIA .... I doubt it for the simple reason that the CIA as an institution is now exactly where he wants it.

Attorney General Eric Holder Two-Year Investigation On CIA Misdeeds Come Up Short -- A Commentary

Attorney General Eric Holder Wasted A Two-Year Investigation On CIA Misdeeds That Never Happened -- New York Daily News editorial

A special prosecutor has dashed the fondest hopes of opponents of the war on terror by concluding that the CIA's program of so-called enhanced interrogations of Al Qaeda operatives after 9/11 was not shot through with criminality after all.

Investigator John Durham's finding confirms that Attorney General Eric Holder sent him on a wrongheaded mission in ordering a "preliminary review" of whether agents violated the law.

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My Comment: No numbers published on how much this investigation cost .... my guess is that it is probably in the millions.

How Prepared Is The CIA And Pentagon For The Next Crisis?

Will The CIA And Pentagon Be Ready For The Next Crisis? -- Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post

As Leon Panetta and David Petraeus move into their new jobs at the Pentagon and the CIA, they should use the occasion to fundamentally reorient U.S. intelligence and national security planning.

Consider the intelligence community. We spend around $80 billion on intelligence every year — more than the rest of the world put together — and yet we seem perpetually unprepared for global events. The CIA did not imagine the fall of the Soviet Union, the revolutions of Eastern Europe, the breakup of Yugoslavia, Sept. 11, Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, the global financial crisis and, most recently, the Arab Spring.

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My Comment: Governments have a long history of never being ready for the next crisis .... and I do not believe that this track record is going to change in the foreseeable future. What governments can do .... and I agree with Fareed Zakaria on this point .... is that governments should have their fiscal house in order, as well as some resources and monies "socked away" that can be used when a crisis does occur. But telling government to save money and put some aside instead of spending it .... LOL .... that is never going to happen .... especially with the current batch in Washington.

Has Morale Returned To The CIA?

Leon Panetta Gets The CIA Back On Its Feet -- David Ignatius, Washington Post

CIA Director Leon Panetta has a new trophy in his seventh-floor office at Langley: It's the fuse from a Chinese-made rocket that he helped disable (with a CIA technician hovering close by) during a visit to an agency paramilitary training base.

That's a good metaphor for Panetta himself as he completes 14 months as CIA director. He has defused a number of bombs that threatened to blow up what was left of the agency's credibility, and in the process he has focused the CIA on getting the job done.

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My Comment: My opinions on this matter are still mixed. While the CIA may now have more authority on going after Al Qaeda and other extremists, the worry of legal responsibility and accountability of past operations and methods still hangs over the many heads of its personnel.

Who Will Want To Work For The CIA After Today? -- A Commentary

Attorney General Eric Holder. AP

Prosecuting the CIA -- Wall Street Journal

Eric Holder unleashes a special counsel on U.S. war fighters.

'It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department." –Attorney General Eric Holder, April 2009

"Justice Department Names Prosecutor to Reopen CIA Abuse Cases" –Wall Street Journal, yesterday

Mr. Holder had it right the first time. His about-face yesterday, compounded by his release of a 2004 internal CIA report on that agency's handling of terrorists, opens a political war that President Obama, the CIA and above all the country will live to regret.

This is a trap the Administration set for itself. Mr. Obama and his team have attempted to appease their political left by publicly denouncing the Bush Administration's national security policies, even as they claimed to want to forget the past. Their disparagement has only fed the liberal demand for Bush prosecutions and increased the pressure on Mr. Holder to appoint a prosecutor.

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My Comment: I started a commentary on this last night .... having a good idea on what was going to happen today .... and after writing a long dissertation on why this CIA witch hunt was wrong .... I gave up.

One can argue on the legal aspects of the cases that the Special Prosecutor is going to investigate. The breaking of rules and regulations. The immorality of it all .... but I realized last night that it is not going to make one iota of difference.

Many in the White House have been gunning against the CIA for a long time .... Attorney General Holder being on of them. If it was not this case .... it would be another .... and trust me, the CIA is filled with cases and operations that can be scrutinized for breaking not only U.S. law but also the laws of other nations. This blog has chronicled numerous cases and operations that the CIA has conducted in just the past year .... and I say to myself .... "Is this legal?"

The continuous drone missile strikes and assassination attempts on Taliban/Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan. The raid on a Syrian Al Qaeda safe house on the Iraq border last fall that killed numerous Syrian civilians. Iraqi and Afghan ops that can fill a computer hard drive. The CIA is an organization with thousands of men and women .... and their one mission is to protect you and I .... and they do their best .... and their best usually results in someone suffering somewhere.

But this world is about to be turned upside down.

After today .... no one is now safe in the CIA and in the other U.S. Intelligence Agencies. Hundreds of people are now going to be subpoenaed by this Special Prosecutor .... and thousands more will always be wondering if they will be subpoenaed next.

This fear and worry will now grip most of the U.S. Intelligence community. The focus will no longer be to target Al Qaeda and their allies .... the focus will now shift to protecting "one's butt".

In such an atmosphere .... who will want to work for such an organization. To know that what is permitted and santioned by the political masters of today .... may put you in jail a few years later.

The politicization of intelligence has now begun .... and my guess is that the results are going to be messy and deeply divisive for the U.S. of A.

Hayden Says Congress Damages CIA

From The Washington Times:

When CIA officers went to work at the Langley headquarters last Tuesday, the first item in the daily press summary prepared by their public affairs office took their breath away.

"Democrats: CIA Out to Get Us" was the way Politico headlined a piece on recent Capitol Hill events. For an agency that had been criticized from the right for a supposed organized campaign to undermine President Bush in the 2004 election and criticized again in 2007 for a national intelligence estimate that was purportedly written and timed to undercut the administration's Iran policy, the accusation must have seemed like comic relief.

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My Comment: Hayden sums up the morale situation in the CIA to a tee.

Intelligence Under Siege -- A Commentary

From The Washington Times:

America's spy agencies are being undermined.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's war with the CIA could not come at a worse time for America's beleaguered intelligence agencies. When the United States needs its intelligence arms the most - to combat terrorism, track Iran's nuclear-weapons program and fend off foreign espionage - they are under assault from many quarters.

The release of the "torture memos" was a major blow to intelligence-community morale, and on April 16, President Obama attempted to mitigate the damage by sending the CIA what its critics have disparaged as "the love letter." Mr. Obama praised the professionalism of the agency and noted that "this is a time for reflection, not retribution ... at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."

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What Releasing the CIA Memos is Really About -- A Commentary

From The American Thinker:

It's realistic, not cynical, to assume political entities generally act out of their own self-interests. And political self-interests are what the CIA memos are really about.

The oldest declassified CIA memo is from 2002, the youngest from 2005. So one question is about timing. Why now? Another is about content. What do they offer that's new?

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