Panetta as CIA Director

[jkm_101_fso]

Ignatius on Panetta, Blair.

A Surprise For Langley

By David Ignatius

On its face, it's a puzzling choice: Barack Obama selects as his spy chief a former congressman with no firsthand experience as an intelligence professional. Is Obama dissing the CIA? Is he further politicizing this badly bruised agency? What signal is he sending by picking Leon Panetta as CIA director?

Here's the message, according to Obama's advisers: Panetta is a Washington heavyweight with the political clout to protect the agency and help it rebuild after a traumatic eight years under George Bush, when it became a kind of national pincushion.

"Leon is not going to preside over the demise of the CIA," explains one member of the Obama transition team. "The CIA needs to have someone who can represent them well."

This argument for Panetta makes sense. Ideally, the next CIA director would have been an experienced professional -- someone like Steve Kappes, the veteran case officer who now serves as deputy director. But the reality is that the professionals now lack the political muscle to fend off the agency's critics and second-guessers. That's the heart of the problem: The agency needs to rebuild political support before it can be depoliticized.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...010602826.html

[1258dave]

As a general response ..... we tend to forget how messy "winning" can be.
I'm not sure that Geo Washington would have been looking for a manager - he was looking for folks who wanted to win.

Year of the Hangman: George Washington's Campaign Against the Iroquois
http://www.amazon.com/Year-Hangman-W.../dp/1594160139

[bourbon]

Opinions from the former-Agency crowd:

Panetta Is Not Uncured Italian Bacon, by Philip Giraldi. The American Conservative Blog, January 6th, 2009.

Leon Panetta: An Intel Outsider the CIA Needs, By Robert Baer. Time.com, Jan. 06, 2009

Leon Panetta? Say It Ain't So, By Mike Baker. Foxnews.com, January 07, 2009.

Right man for the job, By Melvin A. Goodman. The Baltimore Sun, January 7, 2009.

00-Huh? Former intel officials react to Panetta CIA pick, by Laura Rozen. Foreign Policy Blog: The Cable, 01/05/2009.

[John T. Fishel]

to be the best possible spin on the subject. Even if it is correct and more than spin, the appointment puts the CIA in a politically stronger position than the DNI - the opposite of what Congress intended with its reorganization of the intel community.

I am not saying that Congress was either right or wrong in what it did - if I had been King, I would have done something different - but Congress had both the authority and the power to change the structure of the intel community in the way it did. This move negates that action - whether as some fear Mr Panetta's job is to dismantle the CIA or, as Ignatius and others suggest, to protect it. My understanding of the intel reforms enacted is that they were to centralize authority for analysis and judgement in the DNI and relegate the CIA to (1) the primary HUMINT collector with some covert action responsibilities and (2) make it one among several all source analytical agencies.

Cheers

JohnT

[jmm99]

You certainly covered the political spectrum. Shows that former agency people are far from being a monolith. Thank you.

[bourbon]

More former-Agency opinion:

Sam Faddis -
CIA Man: Spies' Reaction to Panetta 'Overwhelmingly Negative', By Jeff Stein. CQ Politics: Spytalk, January 7, 2009.

Michael Scheuer and Ray McGovern -
Obama's Picks for Top Intel Jobs Stir Mixed Reactions, PBS Newshour, January 6, 2009.

Gary Berntsen Thinks CIA Needs 'Leadership Not Management', Fox News, January 07, 2009.

Dell Dailey (not former-agency) -
Counterterrorism Chief Praises Panetta, Aviationweek.com, Jan 7, 2009.

Obama Team Debating Whether Kappes Will Join Panetta and Blair for PEBO Intel Announcement, ABC News, January 08, 2009.

[jmm99]

Of the named people, I get 3-1 (majority more or less pro) and 1-3 (majority more or less con), in the two sets of links. Another wait and see for post-20 Jan.