CIA to Purge Officers 'Disloyal to Bush'

CIA plans to purge its agency
Sources say White House has ordered new chief to eliminate officers who were disloyal to Bush


BY KNUT ROYCE
WASHINGTON BUREAU

November 14, 2004


WASHINGTON -- The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

One of the first casualties appears to be Stephen R. Kappes, deputy director of clandestine services, the CIA's most powerful division. The Washington Post reported yesterday that Kappes had tendered his resignation after a confrontation with Goss' chief of staff, Patrick Murray, but at the behest of the White House had agreed to delay his decision till tomorrow.

But the former senior CIA official said that the White House "doesn't want Steve Kappes to reconsider his resignation. That might be the spin they put on it, but they want him out." He said the job had already been offered to the former chief of the European Division who retired after a spat with then-CIA Director George Tenet.

Another recently retired top CIA official said he was unsure Kappes had "officially resigned, but I do know he was unhappy."

Without confirming or denying that the job offer had been made, a CIA spokesman asked Newsday to withhold naming the former officer because of his undercover role over the years. He said he had no comment about Goss' personnel plans, but he added that changes at the top are not unusual when new directors come in.

On Friday John E. McLaughlin, a 32-year veteran of the intelligence division who served as acting CIA director before Goss took over, announced that he was retiring. The spokesman said that the retirement had been planned and was unrelated to the Kappes resignation or to other morale problems inside the CIA.

It could not be learned yesterday if the White House had identified Kappes, a respected operations officer, as one of the officials "disloyal" to Bush.

"The president understands and appreciates the sacrifices made by the members of the intelligence community in the war against terrorism," said a White House official of the report that he was purging the CIA of "disloyal" officials. " . . . The suggestion [that he ordered a purge] is inaccurate."

But another former CIA official who retains good contacts within the agency said that Goss and his top aides, who served on his staff when Goss was chairman of the House intelligence committee, believe the agency had relied too much over the years on liaison work with foreign intelligence agencies and had not done enough to develop its own intelligence collection system.

"Goss is not a believer in liaison work," said this retired official. But, he said, the CIA's "best intelligence really comes from liaison work. The CIA is simply not going to develop the assets [agents and case officers] that would meet the intelligence requirements."

Tensions between the White House and the CIA have been the talk of the town for at least a year, especially as leaks about the mishandling of the Iraq war have dominated front pages.

Some of the most damaging leaks came from Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit, who wrote a book anonymously called "Imperial Hubris" that criticized what he said was the administration's lack of resolve in tracking down the al-Qaida chieftain and the reallocation of intelligence and military manpower from the war on terrorism to the war in Iraq. Scheuer announced Thursday that he was resigning from the agency.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uscia1114,0,707331.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

------------------

This is just what we need, an "intelligence" agency full of Republican yes men and the consideration of this sort of patronage as acceptable.

 

Doublespeak for "daring to provide comprehensive intelligence reports instead of only what this cabal wants to hear in keeping with its ideological agenda".

Gotta maintain that escape route of plausible deniability by not allowing all the facts to be told up front. Then when it all goes sour they can once again say they simply weren't told and blame it on "intelligence failures".

If the fraud were any more transparent they'd have to make a game show of it.

 

Soon it will be considered a crime, or maybe even terrorism, to speak out against Bush.

Any leader who want's to only surround himself with 'yes' men is not a good leader. Too bad the majority of the voting public didn't recognize it this past election. How bad does it need to get before we stop putting up with the bullshit?

 

I'm afraid things are never going to change.

 

Thoughtcrime.

 

Oh things will change alright,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,for the worse.This is just a beginning.Be afraid,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,very afraid.I know I am.These clowns are doing all but the goosestep.

 

And 911 was their necessary reichstag fire to kick off the tyrannical lock down on all dissent within the warmaking core. Expect the propaganda to go into overdrive.

Fox is about to cash in on the ratings bonanza!

 

I can hardly wait(said with sarcasm).sigh

 

You people should read into stuff. Bush is not getting rid of them personally.

Also, they are not being removed for being "disloyal to Bush" either. They are being removed because they have violated CIA policy by playing politics with national security.

 

This is like Stalin reincarnated.

 

Holy cow. Playing politics with national security. We'd have to remove the entire Bush administration.

BTW, what happened to all of those terror warnings scaring the public? They all ended right after the election.

 

"Too bad the majority of the voting public didn't recognize it this past election."

Well, I don't believe that Bush legitimately won this past election any more fairly than he did in 2000. The vast majority of voters ARE pretty savvy (not savvy enough of course). The main problem is those who DON'T get active politically. There were hundreds of thousands of protesters at Bush "inauguration" 2 months ago. The corporate media barely touched on the topic of any protests taking place at all, let alone the record-breaking numbers who attended.

It's the media, stupid!
www.fair.org

 

i can't believe he wasn't publically outraged when ashcroft leaked to the media about bin Laden being the top suspect in the attacks. also with the leaking of the name of the cia officer. i'm telling you, a lot of people are going to hell for allowing him to be president. of course, this is a free country, at least for him.

 

Stop global terrorism.

Disband the CIA.