What is going on with the U.S. intelligence community right now? Jane's Intelligence Digest is reporting today that the CIA is facing a major purge as Goss supervises the neo-con gutting of the Agencies upper echelons. Jane's reports:
"Landmark bipartisan legislation providing a blueprint for far-reaching reforms in the US intelligence establishment - which embraces at least 15 separate agencies - foundered in Congress on 20 November, in large part because the Department of Defence under Secretary Donald Rumsfeld opposes it. The bill would have forced the Pentagon, a long-time rival of the CIA that controls 80 per cent of the US$40 billion intelligence budget, to yield much of its authority."
It very much looks like an attempt to save the Pentagon's massive intelligence budget for Bush-loyalist Rumsfield as well as give control of the CIA's paramilitaries over to the Defence Department.
"The White House is making moves to transfer the CIA paramilitary operations to the US Army's Special Forces, as recommended by the 9/11 Commission. Some erosion of the CIA's sphere of influence is already under way. Recent legislation gives the US Army's Special Operations Command up to $25 million a year to spend on buying support from foreign warlords or military forces in the war on terrorism. That activity has traditionally been part of the CIA's preserve."
Meanwhile, two of the CIA's top undercover agents have quit, citing differences with management. The BBC reports:
"The departures are the latest in a string of resignations following a shake-up in the agency's operations.The chief of the clandestine unit, Stephen Kappes, and his deputy, Michael Sulick, stepped down last week...two officials could not be named, as they were working undercover, but..a former intelligence official [described] them as two "very senior guys". "
The two were heads of clandestine operations of Europe and the Far East, respectively, and thier loss at a time when both the Ukraine and North Korea are "items of interest" cannot be a trivial matter.
Maybe Bush and Co. are a little premature putting their intelligence trust in the Pentagon, after revelations earlier this week that a senior analyst is a paedophile. The local police in Texas where he was arrested attempting to meet a 14-year-old for sex (who turned out to be a detective working a sting)had to inform the FBI due to his very high security clearance. Before an intelligence organisation gives someone a high clearance, isn't this the kind of thing they are supposed to know? After all, received wisdom is that such perversions make agents very easy to recruit for a foreign power by blackmail. If they can't keep tabs on their own people, what chance of keeping tabs on Al-Quaida?
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