Bloodletting at the CIA

Promises of nonpartisanship were lies and there will be no more telling the public the truth about anything else


Michael Scheuer is the senior intelligence analyst who created and advised a secret CIA unit for tracking and eliminating bin Laden since 1996. He wrote the book Imperial Hubris under the pseudonym "Anonymous".

Newly minted DCI Porter Goss, now ratified by the election result, has revealed his tool set for disciplining his CIA subordinates. Contrary to promises of non-partisanship sworn before Chairman Pat Roberts and the rest of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Goss has staffed up his office with Republican hatchetmen. And the first to pay the price will be those agency employees who spoke in public about the disasters befalling this country due to manipulation of intelligence, like Michael Scheuer who is already out.

"There will be no more 'Imperial Hubris' books," said an intelligence official quoted in the article linked above. "The word is out: The place is under lockdown."

The bloodletting since last weekend has included two senior spook managers.

Call the latest shakeup "perception management", where Bush will now "hear even fewer contradictions to his judgments".

See also this story and these comments by former intelligence officer and agency critic, Mel Goodman.