The CIA is broke -- don't fix it -- throw it out and start all over

By Aussiegirl

Jack Kelly writes an important article today, echoing themes first adumbrated here on UT back in October in a post entitled:Plamegate -- where is the crime?" and other articles since. It's ironic that the same CIA that was a bugaboo to the left in the 60's and 70's is now the instrument of their machinations against a president and his administration and policies. This agency appears to be completely out of control. It is even doubtful if the president can manage to get it under control at this late date.

Jack Kelly: Ciao, CIA

But if the CIA hasn't been very good at ferreting out the secrets of our enemies, or keeping our own, it has shown a talent for playing politics.

"The CIA's war against the Bush administration is one of the great untold stories of the past three years," wrote lawyer and Web logger John Hinderaker in The Weekly Standard.

The CIA has used its budget to fund criticism of the Bush administration by former Democratic officeholders, and permitted a serving analyst, Michael Scheuer, to publish and promote a book bashing the president.

The principal CIA weapon has been the leak. Reporters for ABC, The New York Times and The Washington Post didn't have to do even the minimal legwork Mr. Laurin did to out the CIA's clandestine "rendition" program. It was handed to them by "current and former intelligence officials."

"So the CIA established policies that it knew would be controversial and would damage American interests if revealed, and then leaked the existence of those policies to The Washington Post for the purpose of damaging the Bush administration," Mr. Hinderaker wrote.

A rogue CIA that subverts American democracy has long been a staple of moonbat mythology. How ironic that the rogues in the CIA should turn out to be leftists who harm America to benefit Democrats.

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA operative in the Middle East, sees little hope the agency can be reformed:

The CIA's "muscle-bound bureaucratization, combined with the failure of the press to accurately represent to the public the Agency's actual problems ... holds out little hope that we will see the innovation needed to combat bin-Ladenism," he wrote last year.

"For almost a decade now the CIA put a low priority on recruiting human sources abroad," agreed Robert Baer, another former CIA Middle East operative and author of "See No Evil." "The CIA was more concerned about being politically correct."

"The problem with the CIA is that the senior executives responsible for production of intelligence just aren't good enough," said Herbert Meyer, assistant to legendary CIA Director William Casey.