President Barack Obama’s CIA director,
Leon Panetta, needed only one month to establish
that he lacks the courage, contrariness, judgment,
and political and intellectual independence
to reform the Central Intelligence Agency.
It certainly appears that Obama’s admonition
to look forward and not look behind, if applied
to CIA, means that his administration is not
interested in examining the errors and corruption
of the past in order to reform the intelligence
community in the future.
Even before receiving confirmation from the
Senate intelligence committee, Panetta used
his hearings to indicate that he was more than
willing to do the company’s bidding. In
telling the intelligence committee that he was
a “creature of Congress,” Panetta
reminded us of two other “creatures”
of Congress who poorly managed the affairs of
the CIA—former representative Porter Goss
(R-FL), who politicized the institution, and
intelligence staffer George Tenet, who told
the president in 2002 that it would be a “slam
dunk” to provide the White House with
intelligence to justify going to war against
Iraq.
The CIA’s politicization of intelligence
has been authoritatively established, but Panetta
signed on to the canard that CIA analysis was
no different than the intelligence produced
by other intelligence services around the world.
Panetta thus ignored the Senate’s own
investigation of CIA intelligence on Iraq that
documented the misuse of intelligence in a report
released in June 2008. Panetta’s second
shortcoming was guaranteeing to the Senate intelligence
committee that he would make no leadership changes
at the CIA, even though he was taking charge
of a political culture that has been dominated
by the cover-up of key intelligence failures.
As a result, Panetta has left in place the
deputy director of the CIA, Stephen Kappes,
who was a leading figure in the operations directorate
when the program of extraordinary renditions
went into full swing; the introduction of the
use of torture and abuse even before a memorandum
from the Department of Justice sanctioned such
measures; and the establishment of the secret
prisons or “black sites” that the
CIA used to conduct so-called “enhanced
interrogation techniques.”
If President Obama and Leon Panetta were serious
about stopping torture and abuse as well as
extraordinary renditions that led to torture
and abuse in third world countries, then why
would they not adjust the chain of command to
remove those high-ranking individuals responsible
for these measures.
Most recently, Panetta announced that former
senator Warren Rudman (R-NH) would be the director’s
special adviser on the Senate intelligence committee’s
special inquiry of past practices in terrorist
detention and interrogation. Panetta has established
his own review group within the Agency but has
prominently placed current members of the National
Clandestine Service (NCS) in the group.
The NCS has been a major player in the culture
of cover-up at the CIA, including the destruction
of the 92 torture tapes that is currently being
investigated by the FBI. Members of NCS would
have a great interest in making sure that the
Senate committee did not receive the worst of
the evidence in this investigation. By placing
Rudman as an intermediary between the review
group and the Senate intelligence committee,
Panetta has ensured himself that the most damaging
information will never see the light of day.
Rudman was the most active member of the Senate
intelligence committee in trying to block CIA
officials from testifying against the nomination
of Robert Gates as CIA director in 1991.
Senator Rudman actually branded those few individuals
willing to come forward as “McCarthyites”
in an effort to marginalize their testimony
and to make sure additional witnesses would
not testify or submit written affidavits against
Bob Gates. Panetta announced that Rudman has
a “strong, bipartisan reputation”
and naturally the press echoed that Rudman has
a “strong, bipartisan reputation.”
There is ample evidence of Rudman’s strong,
even bellicose, partisan politicking over the
years.
Panetta current has an opportunity to clarify
whether he will use his stewardship as CIA director
to reform the institution or to aid and abet
the culture of cover-up. The inspector general
of the CIA, John Helgerson, has just retired,
and Panetta will play a major role in nominating
the next inspector general, a position that
requires Senate confirmation. Hopefully Panetta
will nominate a lawyer with outstanding credentials
who will prove to be a junkyard dog in ferreting
out wrong doing at the CIA.
Recent evidence points to the greater possibility
that Panetta will appoint a company man who
will limit the investigation of possible crimes
that were committed in the pursuit of torture
and abuse, renditions policy, and the secret
prisons. If so, we will lose one more opportunity
to correct the errors of the past decade, and
to place the CIA on the path to reform.
Melvin A. Goodman,a regular contributor
to The Public Record, is senior fellow at the
Center for International Policy and adjunct
professor of government at Johns Hopkins University.
He spent more than 42 years in the U.S. Army,
the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department
of Defense. His most recent book is “Failure
of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the
CIA.”
Copyright 2009 The Public
Record
