The CIA 1--Bush 0

By Aussiegirl

This only verifies my own initial reaction to this inexplicable "firing" of Goss. It seems that he tried to do the job he was hired to do, to stop the leaks that were damaging the White House and to rein in the CIA ongoing coup, and he got publicly fired and slapped for his efforts by the very president he was attempting to defend. Why is Bush continually caving in to his enemies, and publicly shaming his supporters? Sadly, another area where Bush's administration has been one of an inexplicable failure to act. There is some hidden agenda here that is very murky. Let's hope some former senior CIA experts can shed some light on what seems to be a completely illogical series of events. Stephen Hayes writes a very good column, well worth a careful read.

PREVIEW: The CIA 1--Bush 0

PORTER GOSS'S TENURE as director of central intelligence began with a public spat between the new reform-minded CIA leadership and an intransigent bureaucracy. Now, 18 months later, it is ending in a cloud of confusion. Goss is gone and so are his agents of change. Two of the CIA officials at the heart of that opening battle--Mary Margaret Graham and Stephen Kappes--have been promoted. And the old guard is happy.

"The move was seen as a direct repudiation of Goss's leadership and as an olive branch to CIA veterans disaffected by his 18-month tenure," wrote Peter Baker and Charles Babington in the Washington Post. Yet Goss had taken to the CIA the high expectations of many top Washington policymakers who work on intelligence issues.

"Porter Goss's confirmation . . . represents perhaps the most important changing of the guard for our intelligence community since 1947," the year the CIA was created, said Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who chairs the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, on the day Goss was confirmed. "He will be the first director of central intelligence in a new, and hopefully better, intelligence community."

And now he's gone. So what happened?