04:12 pm
A Few Additional Thoughts on the Panetta Pick
In my last post, I asked whether the mandarins at Langley would listen to an outsider. It therefore might be useful to remember the last time someone from the real world tried to run the place: Porter Goss.
Let’s not mince words: Goss was a complete disaster. Despite his many years in Congress (or perhaps because of them), he couldn’t manage his way out of a paper bag. His purge of senior and mid-level officials helped gut the CIA of many of its most talented officers. He hired cronies to staff key posts, leading to several scandals (see Foggo, Dusty).
In addition, Goss apparently was under orders to get rid of officers perceived as openly sympathetic to the Kerry campaign. The end result was a significant decline in the CIA’s capability.
So this is not the best analogy. Unlike Goss, Panetta is neither inexperienced in the ways of a large bureaucratic organization nor a total idiot political hack. Nonetheless, he would be wise to look carefully at the experience of Goss — as well as others, like Stansfield Turner — who were given a mandate to fix the agency only to crash and burn.
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