" bradblog has the video of the final bill maher episode - and richard clarke is on the show. at the start of the second part, clarke says that hooker-gate has everything: hookers, watergate hotel, the CIA, the KGB, congressmen on the take, and it's all true.Ken Silverstein has a post outlining why Goss failed at the CIA
did we know that the KGB was involved? or is that new news? does it have anything to do with this?"
During the same period, (Nine-Fingers) Bassett is said to have sent a prank letter to a friend at the CIA who was then stationed in Vienna. I've heard various accounts of precisely what he wrote, but multiple former intelligence sources said that the letter contained exaggerated talk about sexual relationships. Two of the sources said that the letter was intercepted in Vienna by the KGB, which, believing it had Bassett in a compromised position, subsequently made a blackmail recruitment pitch to him. Bassett properly reported the contact to his superiors, they said, but was again reprimanded for sending the letter in the first place. “Bassett was a cowboy who violated procedures, but he had a lot of influence with Porter,” said one person. “Dusty would never have gotten the [executive director] job if he hadn't been good friends with Bassett.”i'm not at all convinced that is an accurate telling of the story - but it perhaps advances it a little - and hopefully will flush out some more details.
In other news, Ken has this groundbreaking news:
The agency has become a place where providing answers desired by the Bush Administration takes priority over honest analysis, to the point that employees are assiduously avoiding politically sensitive assignments. For example, the CIA has a system of bidding for chief of station posts. I was told by a well-placed source that during a recent round of bidding several dozen people applied to be station chief in cozy Dublin, while not a single candidate stepped forward for the job in Islamabad—one of the most storied posts in the CIA's history and currently one of the most important.Porter Goss and George Bush haven't just trashed the CIA - they've trashed intelligence.
2 comments:
"The agency has become a place where providing answers desired by the Bush Administration takes priority over honest analysis..."
I've been reading up on a lot of stuff in print lately re:Iran, China, Russia, QDR '06, etc. I've a bit of a preference for stuff printed in the UK, more than anything, because it tends towards more thorough reporting of straight facts with no agenda.
I haven't read a single report of any kind over the last few weeks that didn't note that intelligence decisions aren't being made based on fact so much as desirability or expediency.
The cost of 'convenience' is going to be high if these sons of bitches get their next war. Iranian forces can't last long against a full-bore American onslaught, but they aren't the demoralized, ill-trained bunch sapped by a decade's sanctions that we saw in Iraq. If this strike goes, losses in Iraq will be nothing compared to what we'll see.
jeebus don. i'm just horrified at the thought.
i dont doubt that desirability trumps everything. the point of that part of my post was that they have fukked everything so badly/effectively that they couldnt even stop a war even if they wanted to - or even if it was in their interest. there's simply nobody that wants to be on the ground there. they have systemically fuckked it so there isnt even the chance that they'll learn anything to save (even) american lives.
i'm sure that you are right that the iranians will lose in the conventional sense - but the americans dont even care enough to have someone there who might be able to understand the breaking/tipping points - which seems to mean wall-2-wall kill-everyone damn-the-torpedoes and damn-the-consequences.
horrifying
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