Sometimes reading the beltway crowd after a major event such as the resignation of a senior administration official is a bit like watching adolescents play the game Clue. Each of them has their own peculiar take on the matter, usually based on what their own carefully watered and fertilized sources are spinning to them. Eventually (weeks, months, years?) we will get the real story, or some semblance of it, but until then, all we have is the spin.
So, for what it’s worth, here’s WaPo reporter and pundit extraordinaire David Ignatius’ studied opinion on what was behind the sudden the Goss decapitation:
Goss and his aides were feuding with the agency’s staff and with officials of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the new bureaucratic canopy that overlays the CIA and 14 other intelligence agencies. One of Goss’s senior aides was facing potential legal troubles in a bribery investigation; another he had brought over from Capitol Hill was scrambling to submit his resume to investment banks and other potential employers. Against this background, a White House emboldened by new chief of staff Josh Bolten decided it was time for “executive action,” the euphemism the CIA once used for taking someone out. […]
Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who favored replacing Goss, similarly spoke of “transition and reform.” That’s a gentle way of describing the past year of reorganization, which intelligence veterans say has been closer to chaos and disintegration. The CIA has been hit hardest by the bureaucratic shuffle, with Goss struggling to fend off poaching from Negroponte and his ever-expanding staff.
Goss is said to have clashed with Negroponte and his deputy, retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden. He tried to block what he saw as a DNI effort to raid more analysts from the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center and steer them to the DNI’s National Counterterrorism Center.
Clever David. Executive action? This administration doesn’t work that efficiently in my opinion, but who knows, maybe Bolten and Negroponte are in cahoots together. Certainly Negroponte, the genesis of death squads around the world, is known for having a very dark reputation. That Negroponte may have been trying to suborn Goss’ position as part of a scheme to extend his own power and influence over intelligence matters is entirely possible. Still, why would Bush go along with axing the guy who was doing just what he had been asked to do: purge the CIA of anyone willing to tell unpleasant news to Cheney and Co? And why move so suddenly, without having a replacement already in the wings ready to go, his or her name having already been floated by various cable news gasbags and GOP friendly columnists?
Of course, Ignatius also goes on to pin Goss’ downfall on his poor management style:
What may have hurt Goss most inside the White House was sharp criticism from a hush-hush group known as the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. This blue-ribbon group is headed by Stephen Friedman, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs and former White House economic adviser. Because its members include many prominent business executives, the board could offer a nonpartisan, CEO’s view of how Goss was running the agency. I’m told some of the board’s judgments on Goss and his management team were devastating.
Goss got off to a shaky start because he was seen as a man on a political mission. CIA officers regard themselves as professionals, doing a dangerous job for the country. They know they work for civilian bosses. But like military officers, they want to be treated with respect. Though Goss long ago served as a CIA case officer, he arrived from Capitol Hill with a phalanx of conservative aides, soon dubbed the “Gosslings,” who viewed the agency as a liberal, leak-prone opponent of conservative causes. That image is mostly nonsense — many of the people forced out by the Gosslings were ex-military officers who would be tempted to shoot Democrats on sight, and most veterans cheered Goss’s effort to stop press leaks. Goss’s attacks on senior officers were reckless, and they peeled away a generation of senior CIA managers. Sadly, the Bush White House mostly applauded his jihad on what they viewed as CIA naysayers.
Sorry, but I don’t buy the Goss-as-lousy-CEO baloney. Certainly Goss’ reign at CIA has been beyond heavy handed, but that would seem to be a plus as far as the neocons were concerned. They wanted CIA taken down a peg or two, and Goss’ efforts to purge anti-Bush sentiment in the ranks was not something for which he can be blamed. There is no doubt that in this instance he was merely carrying out the President’s wishes. Nor do I buy the idea that Goss is being canned for having disrupted and demoralized the Agency. I suspect that George Bush could give a rat’s ass about dissension and low morale among the rank and file.
No, I suspect (as I’m sure you do also) there is something more to this story. Sudden, out of the blue resignations don’t just happen in any administration. George Tenet was spinning in the winds for weeks before the hammer came down on his career at CIA. Absent a genuine scandal or some underlying and serious policy disagreement with the President, you don’t just see any top aide, and certainly not the Director of CIA, tendering his resignation without any hint of it previously reaching the Press. The coup by Negroponte and Bolten suggested by Ignatius may have been in the works for all I know, but I doubt they would have jumped this precipitously without something more.
All the speculation on our side of the blogosphere suggests that Goss may have been deeply entangled in Hookergate, and maybe he was. But I have to wonder if something else may have caused him to abandon ship at this particular moment in time. I have to wonder if what Goss knows about Bush’s plans for Iran might be behind all this. Perhaps Goss didn’t want to be the scapegoat for the inevitable fallout that will come after we attack Iran. We know Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld freely blamed CIA and George Tenet for Iraq’s failures. What would stop them from blaming Goss for the inevitable clusterfuck that would result from any attack on Iran, whether by nuclear or conventional means?
I could be all wrong, of course, regarding Goss’ motives for leaving. Indeed, I hope I am, and that Goss’ sudden departure is simply another sorry episode in our continuing saga of Republican greed and corruption during the reign of King George. I’d love for it to be something as mundane as all that, or as the result of administration infighting, as Ignatius suggests. But I fear the possibility of something much worse.
