Ex-CIA Analysts: McLaughlin Being Considered For Top Intel Post

Two recently retired CIA analysts have told the Huffington Post that John McLaughlin, a former deputy CIA director, is being considered by the Obama transition team for the role of Director of National Intelligence.

Former CIA official Margaret Henoch, an early skeptic of debunked Iraq war intelligence provided by the source known as "Curveball," said Obama intelligence transition chief John Brennan is also being considered for the position.

Another agency analyst seconded the impression that McLaughlin is the name du jour in intelligence circles, expressing some reservation about the choice. "The thing about the hopefulness about change was that there really would be change," said the analyst, who requested anonymity due to having retired this year.

"Recycling people through, I just don't love it. So I'm sad to see re-treads, frankly," the analyst said. "Though I see why people want to reach out to experienced hands. Part of it is that they're in a difficult situation. ... The question is how you really reach down into the mid or lower levels, and find some smart people to talk to, and ask: where is the skill, where is the talent? Give me some names that nobody's heard of."

Separately, Henoch said she would rather see Sen. Chuck Hagel in the post.

"I think he's the right kind of person for the job: somebody with the right mix of stature, credibility and experience," Henoch said. "The guy putting order into [the intelligence community] has to be somebody with no further ambitions, since it's a dead end, politically. I would also say it shouldn't be somebody from the military, unless you could somehow convince Colin Powell to take it on," Henoch added.

Powell, who is reputed to not want a day-to-day role in any administration capacity, is nevertheless someone who "has seen personally what happens when you get burned by bad intelligence," Henoch noted.

As for some of those officials rumored to be heading Obama's intelligence transition team -- specifically, former National Counterterrorism Center chief John Brennan and former CIA intelligence-analysis director Jami Miscik -- Henoch was less complimentary.

"Both Brennan and Miscik have horrible baggage. Jami Miscik was running the analytic side when the Curveball analysis was forwarded. I was told by her then-deputy that they never realized there were ever any problems with Curveball, which is completly damning. He ran [the National Counterterrorism Center] for not very long. I'm not sure that two people brought through the ranks by George Tenet have the credibility, knowledge in the business, or the objectivity to put the agency in a good place."

According to reports, Miscik admitted to Senate investigators that she prodded some of her analysts to "stretch to the maximum the evidence you had" when trying to link al-Qaeda to Saddam Hussein back in 2002.

The more recently retired CIA analyst had a more positive view of Miscik, but shared Henoch's disappointment over the raft of familiar names. "[Miscik is] really smart. I personally like her a lot. Obama could do way worse. And it's not that I don't think that people shouldn't get a second chance. I'm a big believer in second chances. But I think what this town needs desperately is massive change."

Henoch put it in similar, if slightly sharper terms. "Obama should take the top off of every single [intelligence] agency there is. Don't let those guys stick around."

Comments

[THE JEDI 69]

Get rid of these people and start with lieberman

[canucklivinginUSA]

Until I see "confirmed by Stephanie Cutter" I wont believe anything

[jcwtts1]

We have to be careful of the retread syndrome. Obama won with a mandate. Use it. It wasn't a domestic mandate only but an intelligence and foreign policy mandate as well. Use it. And we have to get younger. I mean seriously, we have to get younger... dive into the 20 somethings and the 30 somethings with both feet. We need new ways of seeing.

J

[CaptainStormfield]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/interviews/mclaughlin.html

Not much out there about this guy.

[LastLiberalRepublican]

Mr. Walls,

What is the "Director of National Intelligence" role? Never heard of it myself. Have heard of the "Director of Central Intelligence".

[Cinnamonape]

The Director of National Intelligence oversees ALL Intelligence activities in the United States...i­ncluding the CIA, the NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department Intelligence groups, DEA, and counterespionage and counterterrorism activities.

It was a position that resulted from recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission.

Michael McConnell is Director of National Intelligence.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/31/bush-intel-reorganization_n_116164.html

[imusintheevening]

A great new costly and useless bureaucracy brought to us by the smaller Government Party.

[LastLiberalRepublican]

Cinnamonape,

Thanks for the good info, which I either missed or forgot? Migod, how many layers do we really need?!

[ouroborous]

You know, I have one response to the folks who say this is all just "rumors." During the campaign, team Obama was *very* fast, and *very* skilled at responding to all the slurs and fauxtroversies. They showed that they could and would put down a rumor, hard. Yet now all we hear in response to an increasingly freaked out progressive wing, is crickets chirping.

The fact that they're not really doing that for these bad administration choices means one of a few things:

1) They've lost their handle on PR (not a good sign, but not the end of the world)
2) They don't care what progressives think and are talking about (a bad thing when someone stops caring what people think once the election's in the bag, but still better than #3...)
3) They're true (bad beyond belief, because it means that Obama 44 will be in some ways a continuation of Bush 43)

I don't really like any of these options, but of the three only the first option -- that they've lost control of the spin -- is even remotely palatable. The second two choices imply either a massive arrogance and disdain for the very people who put them in office (kind of a giant f--- you to all those kids and adults who campaigned tirelessly for Obama, don'tcha think?), or an outright deceptive message of "change."

I voted for Obama, because McCain was worse. I hope that my twinges of buyer's remorse are mistaken.

[Jahmekyah]

How many "administration choices" have been made...exa­ctly? Where was I?

[SanityForOnce]

1) What makes you think any of these "leaks" are coming from the Obama campaign? I have heard ZERO confirmation of that. There're plenty of rumors being spun out there, but what evidence is there that the transition team is the source?

2) "They don't care about progressives"? Based on what exactly - the selection Rahm Emanuel? Seriously, who has Obama picked so far that is a betrayal to the progressives? Oh, that's right, he hasn't filled any cabinet positions.

3) "They're true". Says who, exactly? You read a few rumors, and you immediately assume that Obama has morphed into George W. Bush.

You need to climb off the ledge and stop obsessing over every rumor and blog you read. Honestly, you're as bad as the people on the right who think Obama is a secret muslim because they were told so in an email. Get a grip already.

[Cinnamonape]

Why would the Obama transition team leak anything about their choices to anyone at, for example, the Wall Street Journal (owned by Murdoch), or to many of the same media sources that spread all the claptrap about Ayers, Rezko, the madrassa, the ridiculous parsing of Michelle's statement about being proud about America, flag pins and the allegiance to the flag, etc.

And recall that these are largely the same folks that were suggesting that Obama was going ro choose Hillary as his Vice President.

[Cinnamonape]

And recall that one of the "sources" for these leaks from the Obama team is none other than Matt Drudge.

Yeah sure! Perfectly credible! LOL!

This seems more like something that the Republicans are contriving to derail the Obama process, introduce dissent, and by creating the "America is a center-right" nation that has to be run (for Democrats) with bipartisanship will get some people to slow down things into the Administration.

Here's what is ironic...a­fter complaining about someone leaking something said b/w Obama and Bush to Drudge...B­ush aides then go to Drudge to "leak" this:

"Senator Obama may not be familiar with a long-standing tradition of presidents holding their private conversations, private," a senior adviser explained to the DRUDGE REPORT."

Thus suggesting that Obama leaked the story to Drudge...a­nd also confirming the conversation. Hmmm!

[justicat]

Miscik is actually not a bad choice here; got purged by Goss and he who must not be named, which is in her favor.

[Jahmekyah]

BELIEVE NOTHING TIL IT IS ANNOUNCED BY THE OBAMA TRANSITION TEAM. There have been so many rumors over the past view days about cabinet and transition team appointments and on almost every occasion uptight liberals have made a big fuss...com­plaining about no change (as Democrats are wont to do) only for the story to be debunked by the Obama transition team. How about you all get off the razors edge and wait a while.

[polaris12]

Good advice. All these stories are being pushed by people who want particular candidates; it's a kind of electioneering. And, each day we are finding that most of these reports are bogus.

[ouroborous]

You're right. It's so silly and uptight of us liberals to hope that the "change" candidate would actually "change" some of the old failed Bush policies and politicians.

How utterly naive we were!

[Jahmekyah]

"Utterly naive" is exactly what i was going for (and I notice there was no refutation of the "uptight liberal" label) Please, if you will, advise me of the Staff or Cabinet positions that have so far been announced? Or Bush policies that have been embraced? Whats that? Nothing you say. EXACTLY. Only ONE staff position has been made, Rahm Emmanuel. ONE. Everything else you are all complaining about has come from frustrated and greedy journalists who are getting nothing from Obama and want badlly to write a story. Furthermore, the complaint that there are too many "clinonites" in the transition team...umm­m...whats wrong with that? Clinton was the last democratic president, you want people in your transition team who have experience working in an administration, you also want to learn from Clintons early mistakes (which was, lets hear it, hiring transition people that had NO WASHINGTON EXPERIENCE). Right now Obama is being as shrewd and pragmatic as any president in recent history. Atleast wait until an ACTUAL cabinet position is made before criticizing. Thats all I'm saying

[sonoffestus]

Everybody has to relax. Ultimately, none of us will like every decision that is made by our President Elect, but I believe much better decisions will be made, than the ones made over the last 8 years. My hope is for a new era of "pragmatic politics". One where policies are developed and implimented based upon what is the best solution for our country. Let's give the man a chance and a little room.

Right now, I'm hoping he finds a hypo-allergenic mutt for his daughters. If he goes with a pure breed , that's alright too.

[PT6]

We need a CLEAN SLATE! Too much has happened, especially with IRAQ!

Police Departments move people around to prevent collusion and corruption despite loss of expertise, and this needs to be Obama's approach with the CIA!

Any connection to the Bush Administration would be a "BLACK EYE" to Obama!

There are enough qualified people in the CIA to help any new comers adjust!

[ElBruce]

The problem right now is that unless you dust off a retread from the Clinton administration, anybody who has any current experience is compromised by the actions of Bush/Cheney.

Find anybody at any level who has had experience less than eight years old, and at some point, they've signed off on pipelining cherry-picked unverified intelligence to the Office of the Vice President. Find somebody who's experience is more than eight years old, and they're not up on current intel. Find somebody with no experience, and you get somebody with no experience.

I'm thinking that of those three options, the last is the least worst. Obama's going to have to rebuild our intelligence agencies pretty much from scratch, so he might as well start at square one.

[joebaggadonuts]

Why not Valerie Plame-Wilson? Or her husband? They know who to blame for this fiasco, and they know how to get rid of them. I thought we were going to have change. Yes we can???

[Madmac]

Valerie Plame-Wilson would be THE PERFECT CHOICE. Intelligence, Integrity, and Class

[rollingdivision]

Some of may be pleased as punch that John Brennan is leading the transition on intelligence matters and is a leading candidate for Director of Intelligence. I am not pleased. I think the reasons should be clear to anyone who actually cares about civil liberties. The original FISA law was just at the border of being needed and too far reaching. So the original FISA bill was bad enough. Then the new unquestionably too far reaching bill was passed in congress and Brennan was fine with the new farther reaching FISA bill. Brennan was fine with taking a very questionable law and making it worse.

[bosshogg]

aren't y'all tired of rumors

[ElBruce]

I'm finding it interesting how none of these rumors are being sourced to anyone within Obama's transition team. Basically it's all people who don't know what's going on telling other people who don't know what's going on, telling us.

So yeah, right now even the articles being presented as news items don't amount to anything more than miscellaneous people on the internets speculating, and are about as useful. We'd do about as well just throwing out names here in this comments section.

[7crows]

If there is no substantial news just make some up and discuss/dissect it ad nauseum. :) Same reason we can't get rid of Palin me thinks.

[bluerabbit47]

Palin? Hey! Everybody loves a bit of levity.

[hlhicks]

I'm frankly getting a little tired of the constant kvetching about Obama's potential appointments. I know many feel like they are part of his administration but he is the Commander in Chief and should be given the same respect that his predecessors received. And these anonymous sources speaking to the press need to shut up and talk directly to the campaign rather than spinning to the press.

[rollingdivision]

Let's treat him with all the respect Bush received starting on day one of his presidency.

[ouroborous]

He is not my Commander in Chief; I am not in the military.

You're right that we should source articles carefully. But if the rumors are correct, if Obama is really going to keep some of the worst offenders from Bush 43 around, then that is something worth "kvetching" about. It means, simply put, that the message of "change" was a lie.

I hope I'm wrong. Time will tell.

[AcitizenNJ]

Henoch put it in similar, if slightly sharper terms. "Obama should take the top off of every single [intelligence] agency there is. Don't let those guys stick around."

My view exactly, to get the house in order Obama has to get new faces in place that loyality to the country not friends. I also feel that's wishful thinking.