WP: Goss Plans To Expand CIA Spying And Analysis

[DeepModem Mom]

Goss Plans To Expand CIA Spying And Analysis
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 23, 2005; Page A06


Facing criticism both inside his agency and from Capitol Hill for a lack of vision and leadership, CIA Director Porter J. Goss yesterday outlined his plans for expanding CIA's spying and analytical operations overseas while cutting back on the bureaucracy at headquarters.

In an unusual town hall meeting for his staff, Goss said he is going to send more case officers and analysts abroad and put "a refreshed emphasis on the CIA as a global agency," according to a prepared text of his remarks. That would mean, he said, locating agency personnel not only "in places that need us to be today . . . but where they may need us to be tomorrow."

He said he will expect and encourage "calculated risk taking," a sensitive subject for agency personnel who have been accused of being risk-averse by the independent 9/11 commission and by members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. Saying he expected risky efforts to "go right," he added that he knows "it won't go right all the time. And when it goes wrong, I will support you."

Goss also made clear that sending more people overseas will also mean moving agency officers and analysts out of embassies and under cover, no longer guaranteeing them diplomatic immunity if they are caught spying. "We are definitely going to be using new cover arrangements overseas, because we have to," he said.

Reflecting criticism he made as a House member of the practice of pulling CIA officers out of stations around the world to serve short terms in Iraq, Goss said that "surging CIA officers, instead of having an established presence, an expertise, and developed relationships at hand, is a poor formula."...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/22/AR2005092202207.html

[anotherdrew]

1. what a plan! who would have thought of that...

How many consultants and weeks of meeting did it take to come up with this plan?

[swag]

2. I'm sure you didn't miss yesterday's big WP report diss of Goss

(via warandpiece.com)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/21/AR2005092102013.html

According to sources close to both men, Richer was blunt in his assessment of Goss's tenure and urged Goss, a Republican former congressman from Florida who once chaired the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to communicate a vision for the agency and demonstrate leadership that senior career officials could rally behind.

"Rob laid at his doorstep, in a collegial way, that Goss is out of touch," said one officer whose identity is protected by law. "It fell on deaf ears," the officer said. Richer left the meeting angry and walked out of the Langley headquarters for perhaps the last time, several officers said...

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Re. Richer, the last paragraph of the article --

"Asked during the question period about Richer's retirement, Goss denied that his private talk with the departing veteran was as confrontational as it was described in news stories, according to reports from people who were at the meeting."

[swag]

4. Thank you. The 9/21 article itself says the tone was "collegial"

and the content "fell on deaf ears."

They sipped their teas with pinkies extended.

Goss is sure playing Bush-style ball now.

[applegrove]

5. CIA director wants to expand operations overseas - Forbes

CIA director wants to expand operations overseas
09.23.2005, 12:47 AM

"WASHINGTON (AFX) - CIA director Porter Goss said he intends to rebuild the intelligence agency as a global operation with more spies operating overseas under different kinds of cover in more countries.

Goss said the CIA would not rely solely on its relationships with other foreign intelligence services to gather intelligence.

'Unilateral operations will return to be part of the governing paradigm for the CIA,' he said in a speech to employees at the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia. A copy of the speech was made available to Agence France-Presse.

Goss, a former Florida congressman, outlined his vision for the agency's future a year-to-the day after being confirmed as director amid widespread criticism of US intelligence failures in Iraq and in the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.

....snip"

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/afx/2005/09/22/afx2240418.html

[Nostradamus]

6. Memo to Goss : MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS

Porter Goss is, of course, the man who was having breakfast with Mohammed Atta's boss on the morning of 911, so we know how much credibility this arsewipe has

ZERO

this is not the 20th century anymore as dinosaurs like goss and his ilk are about to find out...

[applegrove]

8. Atta's boss? Buddy - I'm not into Lihop or whatever. Leave that stuff

out - please?

[Frederik]

10. It's true

regardless of what you may or may not be "into". Porter Goss, Bill Graham and John Kyl of the Joint Intelligence Committee were having breakfast with Lt.Col. Mahmood Ahmed (one of several spellings - Mahmud Ahmad etc.), head of Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence Directorate (ISI), which is known to have very close ties to the network of Salafist-Islamist guerrilla groups collectively known in Western media as "al-Qa'ida".

Lt.Col. Ahmed, according to Indian intelligence, ordered ISI agent, key al-Qa'ida terrorist and the man who has later been convicted in Pakistan for the murder of WSJ journalist Daniel Pearl, Omar Saed Sheikh, to wire $100,000 to Muhammed Atta shortly before 9/11.

How 'bout them apples? Strangely, none of this found its way into the 9/11 Commission report. Condi Rice was asked, during the hearings, about Lt.Col. Ahmed's business in Washington on 9/11. She replied that she "couldn't remember". Despite the fact that Ahmed had a meeting with the National Security Council just before 9/11. He also visited the Pentagon and the CIA.

In the White House's transcripts of the hearings, Ahmed's name became "inaudible"...

Porter Goss had also been on a trip to Pakistan just days before Ahmed arrived in Washington. Clearly, they had something urgent to discuss.

[applegrove]

7. The thing that scares me is that in Darfur and the like - when people

bring up the International Criminal Court - your average neocon will say "oh - so you want a trial in Darfur? How are you going to get the intelligence for that if we Americans don't give it to you? How will you prosecute if we say not and step out of the picture?"

It seems intelligence will then be a commodity like any other big business. You play with us or you get nothing. It is like pipelines & oil. USA is already demanding that some pipelines not happen.
That is what worries me.

[ElectroPrincess]

9. Tragic !

Our most sophisticated spy agency will lose it's brain trust when run by a political crony at the top.

I'm sad to think that Our Dear Leaders at the National Level only care about their own political a**es, not about the American People they took an oath to protect under Our Constitution.

Again, just tragic. :cry:

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Is Goss experienced enough to run the CIA?