From both sides of the political spectrum, too...

Quote Originally Posted by bourbon View Post
The publisher, Encounter Books, is the publishing arm of a center-right not profit foundation. Founded by Peter Collier and associated with his pal David Horowitz...
While affiliation with Horowitz is always suspect, the content rather than the association should be the determinant. This is an issue that should never be approached in a partisan manner. Unfortunately, too many cannot rise to the level required to do that.

I'd also point out that partisanship cuts both ways; legitimate criticism can be negated by claiming partisanship and illegitimate criticism can be elevated by the same thing. What's required is to simply filter the information provided and apply logic instead of bias to the issue.
The cover jacket praise also is a redflag with blurbs from uber-neocon wonk and McCain adviser Max Boot, and Lindsay Moran a DO veteran of all of one tour in Macedonia, and author of possibly one of the worst spy memoir ever published. Lindsay Moran was the best person formerly of the agency that they could get to vouch for it? Really? What about even the critics like Gerecht, McGovern or Robert Steele?
Critics from within have to walk a tight rope; Langley is mildly accepting of some things, reacts with some fury at others. Consider that Jones is essentially saying the same things Gerecht has said, just doing it more fully and with more force. The majority of former Officers will support the Agency even when they know its ills.
I don't know what a "deep cover officer" is. And I am certain hat whatever they are, CIA does not have them.
Are you really? Interesting. It may or may not but what it does have is a jargon -- and that jargon is (1) Directorate dependent; (2) Time of most service dependent, the old and new differ; (3) Geographical area of service dependent.
They do however have officers under Non Official Cover.
An official term given recent popularity but little used by many...
...only to avoid taking such a posture towards Gary Bernsten or Bob Baer who undoubtedly profited from their books and are harder and cooler than they.
Do you know that for certain or are those your presumptions?
Jones' reform to “transfer overseas human intelligence collection efforts to the US military” is misguided and would be fulfillment of the Rumsfeld era's naked assault on CIA.
Not really. Not really misguided that is. The history goes back a whole lot further than Pipes, Neocons and even Rumsfeld. The fact is that that US Army MI and US Navy ONI worked pretty well on the humint effort worldwide prior to, during and immediately after WW II (while the OSS contribution was spotty, some areas poor, some were fair, none were stellar, regardless of Dulles myths). The issue of who should do that humint surfaced with the creation of the CIA in 1947, literally before Pipes was born. It has waxed and waned as a topic ever since; generally when an Agency failure makes the news, DoD makes a play. That predates neocons and Rumsfeld by many years. Korea in 1950 comes to mind. So does the ascent of Castro in Cuba -- and the debacle with the Shah in 1979...

The real problems with national level Humint did not arise until Nixon had Schlesinger start the dismantling of the DO in 1973, the Rockefeller Commission and the Church Committee did their thing and James Earl Carter and Stansfield Turner completed the massacre. The Agency has never fully recovered. Efforts to ramp up DIA to cover the shortfall were probably necessary.

In short, Jones has some good points. He has some bad points. Accept the good and discard the bad -- and as the disagreement between you and I over the humint mission show, what's good and what's bad can be in the eye of the viewer.

The problem is that the IC is in disarray right now and this is not a good time for that to be the case. Congress means well but reform efforts will become a partisan political football and little will be done. While I strongly disagreed with the establishment of the DNI, his existence is a fact so we can only hope that the incumbent and his successors fix the problem.

As Tom and John said, a fix is needed -- that's one thing we can probably all agree upon.