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The CIA vs. Its Inspector General

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By Bonnie Goldstein
Posted Friday, Aug. 24, 2007, at 12:14 PM ET

Following the release of a 9/11 report by a joint inquiry of the House and Senate intelligence committees, the Central Intelligence Agency was asked to perform an internal review to see whether any CIA employees might be "deserving of awards for outstanding service" or, conversely, to determine whether any might be held accountable for failures prior to the attacks. The agency's inspector general, John Helgerson, completed his investigation in 2005 and provided the congressional intelligence committees with a classified report. There it sat until Aug. 21 of this year, when, under mandate by domestic security legislation passed last month, CIA Director Mike Hayden reluctantly released a 19-page executive summary of the IG report.

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In a statement to his employees (below), Director Hayden states that this "much plowed ground" would be better left alone. The country and the CIA should "keep our focus on the present and the future" instead of being "captive" to the past. Calling the report distracting to "officers serving their country on the frontlines of a global conflict," Hayden disavows the process by which the report was created ("one group of agency officers … examines and judges the actions of another group of agency officers"), which, he says, undermines the validity of its "focus, methodology, and conclusions," and disagrees with its recommendation "to consider disciplinary action against a handful of individuals at different levels of command." Hayden also argued that preventing 9/11 was a tough job: "The enemy is adaptive, resilient, and determined to strike us." The CIA, despite "shortcomings in its counter-terror programs before 9/11," did the best it could: "There are limits to what intelligence can accomplish, and there can be no guarantee of perfect security."

The executive summary (see the following five pages) paints a big red concentric circle onto the back of Hayden's predecessor, George Tenet. The IG repeatedly recommends establishing an "Accountability Board" to review, among other areas, the performance of the former director of central intelligence "for failing to act personally to resolve the differences between CIA and NSA in an effective and timely matter" (Page 6). It notes that Tenet signed a 1998 document declaring, "We are at war" with al-Qaida (Page 4) but argues, "he did not use his senior position and unique authorities … to elevate the relative standing of counterterrorism" (Page 5). Nor, did Tenet, despite recognizing the need for an "integrated interagency plan," take responsibility that "such strategic plan was ever created."

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By Bonnie Goldstein
Posted Friday, Aug. 24, 2007, at 12:14 PM ET

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Bonnie Goldstein is a former special investigator to the U.S. Senate and investigative producer for ABC News.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

I love the earth shattering irony that happens right before our eyes every day. Let's talk perspective here. For the first 40 or 50 years the CIA spends most of its time and money trying to disrupt, subvert or commandeer the governments of the Middle East.

Then, by the time there is enough sentiment, technology and radical network to pose an actual threat, the CIA which was initially established just to protect us from such an event turns out to be some of the worst stereotypical, pass-the-buck, labor-fakeing public employees on the dole.

And just as typically we finally get around to finding out about it five or six years later.

You can't blame the Republicans for that. And you can't blame the Democrats either. It's our government and we can only blame ourselves.

--Homer

(To reply, click here.)

I'm struck here by the lip-service paid to the idea of accountability without any real commitment to it. We can set up a panel or a commission or a get a National Intelligence Estimate, but we don't need to actually follow any of their recommendations. It seems like the main thrust of the report was to say that George Tenet was an ineffectual manager (not that he was incompetent or malicious), and that he and others should be held to account for their failures. Instead, Tenet gets the Medal of Freedom. WTF?

Hayden gives several reasons for not wanting to release the report: It will distract officers on the ground; It will be a waste of time; It will have a "chilling" effect on how the Inspector General works.

If any of these things are true, we've got bigger problems. CIA operatives certainly aren't concerned about an internal review about a DCI that's not even there anymore, it took Hayden's crew less than 30 days and all they had to do was declassify a 13-page document; and is he implying that the IG won't do any investigating anymore because the public might here about it? Dear God!

They obviously just didn't want to embarrass the CIA or the President. While I understand the impulse, too bad, the American Public deserves to know whether our Government officials are doing their jobs and whether they're being held to account if they're not.

--scottyhope

(To reply, click here.)

(8/30)

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