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Big Shakeup as C.I.A. Director Resigns
(THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, May 5, 2006)
CIA Director Porter Goss resigned unexpectedly Friday, nudged from the helm of a spy agency still reeling from intelligence failures before America's worst terrorist attack and faulty information that formed the U.S. rationale for invading Iraq. . . . The decision was the latest in a series of moves by President Bush to shake up his team and reinvigorate his second term. A successor to Goss could come as early as Monday, a senior administration official said. . . . When Bush nominated Goss in August 2004, in the midst of the president's re-election campaign, he said he would rely on the advice of the CIA officer-turned-politician on the sensitive issue of intelligence reform. . . . "He knows the CIA inside and out," Bush said at the time. "He's the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment in our nation's history." . . . Goss, a former congressman from Florida, head of the House Intelligence Committee and CIA agent, had been at the helm of the agency only since September 2004. . . . Goss came under fire almost immediately, in part because he brought with him several top aides from Congress, who were considered highly political for the CIA. . . . He had particularly poor relations with segments of the agency's powerful clandestine service. In a bleak assessment, California Rep. Jane Harman, the Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, recently said, "The CIA is in a free fall," noting that employees with a combined 300 years of experience have left or been pushed out. . . . Under Goss and the sweeping intelligence overhaul Congress approved in December 2004, the CIA lost considerable clout among U.S. spy agencies. . . . Just two weeks ago, Goss announced the firing of a top intelligence analyst in connection with a Pulitzer Prize-winning story about a network of CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. Such dismissals are highly unusual. . . . Negroponte, with the backing of the White House, raised with Goss the prospect that he should leave, and the two talked about that possibility, a senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide a fuller account of what happened.

posted by LoZo 1:22 PM