The Growing Politicization of America's Intelligence Services

Now on the fourth day of my book tour for Fair Game and I am delighted because I have been given abundant opportunity to discuss something I feel passionately about: the politicization of our intelligence services. There has been an increasing trend to allow politics to spill over into the world of intelligence and I believe that it degrades the intelligence mission, its product, and is detrimental to our national security. Americans of all political stripes want to know that whatever intelligence lands on the president's desk is devoid of ideological taint and political pressure. As we now know, Vice President Cheney and his then Chief of Staff Scooter Libby made an unprecedented number of visits to CIA Headquarters in the run-up to the Iraq war to meet with analysts. Apparently, the vice president kept asking the same questions until he began to hear the answers he wanted. Although there might not have been overt pressure to slant intelligence toward the administration's stance on Iraq and its perceived WMD threat, the very fact that the vice president had taken time out of his day, come into Headquarters and asked a certain line of questions invisibly and insidiously has the effect of conveying a high level of dissatisfaction with what the CIA has already produced. CIA analysts are not dumb.

So, if I were Queen for a day, here's just a few of the things I might do to help push politics out of the intelligence realm so operations officers and analysts can do their jobs without political interference:

1. Divorce the CIA Director's job from the presidential election cycle. While it is critical that the CIA Director has the ear of the president (which, for example, James Woolsey famously did not and the 1994 incident where a man crashed his plane into the White House was Washington fodder for a joke that said it was just Woolsey trying to get an appointment with the president), he also has to be independent and serve up the facts as the intelligence professionals find them, without feeling he or she needs to "be on the team". I envision something like the way the Federal Reserve Chairman operates; with authority but not beholden to whatever political party controls the White House.

2. Don't allow any Executive Branch members to make trips to CIA Headquarters to meet with officers about specific intelligence issues, as Vice President Cheney and Mr. Libby did during the run up to the war with Iraq. There are established channels and protocols for senior administration officials to ask questions and clarify points about the intelligence they do receive.

3. Put into a place a regulation which says that any military officer designated for the CIA Director's position must resign his commission. This would help to ensure that loyalties are not divided between the intelligence community and the Pentagon.

I wanted to see what General Brent Scowcroft's report from 2002 said about ways to reform the CIA. This is the same General who served as National Security Advisor under the first President Bush AND was derided by the neocons for his "realist" views on the war on Iraq. But I could not. The report has been classified and has not been released by the White House. I think the report went directly into the circular file.

One more thing on a slightly different topic: I understand that there may be a filibuster in Congress on whether to extend or change the current laws in place on the issue of NSA wiretapping US citizens as part of the "war on terror." The administration claims that it needs enhanced abilities to do to this because the laws as currently written are archaic and permission to do wiretaps on targets of interest take too much time in this dangerous world in which we are living. I can tell you that as part of my responsibilities at the CIA, we did indeed sometimes have to ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court for permission to surveil a target. We needed to provide a reason why it was imperative to national security. We almost always received a prompt and positive response from the court to our request. So I believe that the administration's request to expand these powers with the rationale given that the present laws are too clumsy and slow is wrong and demonstrates another attempt at accruing power in the Executive Branch at the expense of our civil liberties.

Comments

[Erdgeist]

Valerie, your suggestions are excellent. Indeed, real vetting should be the rule rather than the exception. I hope you will decide to become a critic of 'incestuous amplification' that starts from the White House in which the CIA is arm twisted into slanting and amplifying intelligence so that it seems to validate whatever agenda the president might have.

[zagyzebra]

I am very grateful to have an insider's POV on our nation's intelligence operations. Thank you for your column, VPW

[INQUIRER]

Outstanding series of posts from you, Mrs. Wilson. Thanks for your input on the FISA reauthorization controversy. As you may know (or not, being so busy with your book tour, which seems to be going very successfully) Senator Dodd has said that he was placing a hold on the bill until the retroactive TelCo immunity provision was stripped out of it, and that if his hold is not honored, he would filibuster the bill. Needless to say, this is almost certainly the first of a very, very long list of retroactive immunity provisions the Bush enablers will be pushing if they succeed this time. The courts have already given a species of retroactive immunity to the White House thugs for what they did to you, maybe the best argument of all against any further such "immunity".

I wonder if you have ever found yourself in the same room with Karl Rove since what he did to you. I would think such a situation would have offered many temptations.

[BabyBoomer]

As one who has lived through the terror of the Cuban missile crisis, I'm scared out of my mind. Is it me, or has all value for human life just gone out the window. I'm pained every day thinking about the innocent Iraqi people who have been living through this nightmare because of our leaders. To think that America is allowing this charade to unfold again against Iran is disgusting.

TO THE NEOCONS...­..HAVE YOU NO DECENCY!!!! TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE....­WAKE UP, WAKE UP, WAKE UP!

Valerie, the boomers watched our courageous heros get assassinated one by one; JFK, Bobby, Martin Luther King, who stood for what's good in America. The true believers in democracy have been fighting the good fight for a long time and yet somehow I'm losing hope.

These people are now not only very powerful, but extraordinarily wealthy as well. Don't like the Blackwater thing going on in this country either. Do you?

[StuporMundi]

"Queen for a Day." Heh -- a little joke for us old folks. Seriously, though, I've been impressed by your well written and lucid comments over the past few days. After the book tour gets you back into fighting shape, I think you need to go find some domestic enemy of the constitution and run against him for high office.

[PNG]

Those are some solid points. The division between the Executive Branch and the C.I.A. should be as such that total neutrality would exist. Without that separation, the information gathered and is assessed becomes compromised from a validity standpoint because now bias has been fused with fact. The process becomes politicized, therefore polluted and skewered.

Having top military brass relieved of their commission is also a correct move, for if thats not done, the neutrality needed for that individual no longer is inherent: they merely become a subordinate still in compliance under the U.C.M.J. Still subordinate under a military guideline that would supersede any of the governance of the CIA to perform its mission and maintain neutrality.

Excellent Points.

[The Collinbrandt]

We unfortunatly, live in a society that values money and family backgroud (power) as more important than patriotizm or common human decency. In this mid-west neck of the woods the media has portrayed Mexicans as being the cause of all the problems in the United States. CNN and FOX constantly lambast anyone who does not hate immigrants except, I have noticed both cnn and Lou Dobbs gives George Bush a pass on the border situation. Mr. Dobbs blames governers, mayors etc but, Mr. Dobbs won't bring himself to say anything bad about George Bush. How much money are these people getting paid to hate the poor immigrants and let the rich politicians off the hook?

[milo9]

Lou Dobbs does say bad things about Bush, you are badly mistaken on that count.

[scottymac11]

Yes Ms. Plame Wilson. I believe those warrants for wiretaps can be obtained from FISA after the fact also. The important issue is that court would have a record of who is being wiretapped. That seems to be the big issue with them.

[unfoxworthy]

I actually have to agree with the administration on this one.

We NEED to be using "enhanced means of spying". (Do you really think that this administration has any chance at intelligence gathering the normal way?)

I'm certain that Bush uses his enhanced means of spying...j­ust like he uses his enhanced means of communication.

[Pippen]

I hate to be the doom sayer here but I'm in a raw mood. First, Valerie your on fire and need to get a foot in the door of national security executive position before we turn into Nazi Germany. The bad news is this country has seen it's last free election if we ever had one since the countries inception. With peak oil driving world order into an imperialist direction the push to launch war against oil holding nations is beyond the average citizen's capacity to comprehend. The mega large entities both in country and abroad are moving in the same direction. This dragon cannot be stopped only steered. When this beast is unleashed, your civil liberties will be so far down the list of priorities for everyone's survival, we'll all be torn between watching the horror on television unfold and wanting to have a job to feed our families.

If we don't do something now to replace big oil from inside our government, we're going to watch world war three right after American Idol.

National Security ? The borders are wide open just as the neocons want them to be and they'll remain that way regardless of who's in office. CIA ? They are useless unless someone of authority emerges with the truth. Who's gonna do that ? Look what happened to you and your wealthy and powerful. These creatures of the neocon have no souls and only one intent, and everyone else is just collateral damage.

There should be a war on terror, but until the American people get the glazed look off their face, they'll never really know where the "terror" is....beca­use it damn well isn't just overseas.

[TJTelecaster]

Maybe Intelligence isn't exactly the right word anymore Valerie..

See what I mean..?

[jerzeyjoe]

I would also add that, in order to ensure the purity of our intelligence from political pressure and spin, no more neo-con think tank hacks should be allowed anywhere near the process. No more David Frums. Nobody from the AEI or the Project For A New American Century, or AIPAC. No Doug Feiths, no Frank Gaffneys, no Dan Pipes. Nobody from any sham group with "Freedom" in its title. No Podhoretz, no Krystal. Rick Santorum now runs the latest neo-con sham group, and the Philadelphia Inquirer is rewarding him with a regular column.

Does anyone remember that the Iraqi National Congress was just a sophisticated PR front created by a PR firm in London? Not an independent group of expatriates like it was presented.

I would argue that the cast of hacks from the neo-con infrastructure did more to orchestrate the manipulation of intelligence and dissemination of disinformation than any other entity.

[TomR]

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[Drury] accuses [Strauss] of teaching that perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical because they need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what's good for them. For Drury, Strauss was nothing less than a Jewish Nazi whose pretense of American patriotism and piety hid a cynical and extremist antidemocratic ideology.

Strauss put forward a belief in a totalitarian system run by a sophist elite who saw their mission as absolute rulers. This elite would rule over the populace through deception and consolidate their position of power by disseminating myths designed to keep the general population in blissful ignorance and docile servitude. Strauss thus believed in a hierarchical social structure that sees society divided into two classes: the elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow...S­trauss is unconcerned with the moral character of these leaders; rather, he believed that those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right, the right of the superior to rule over the inferior.

Deception for Strauss is not just an unavoidable bi-product of politics but a central and necessary part of it, a condition of perpetual deception between the rulers and the ruled being the sine qua non of a stable society. Strauss suggests that noble lies therefore have a key role to play in uniting and guiding the mass of the population. The elite, in other words, need to proliferate certain myths in order to give people meaning and purpose and to ensure stability in society, on the basis that a populace dedicated to the relentless examination of what Nietzsche called deadly truths can never be conducive to social cohesion and a stable social order.

As another Strauss analyst summarizes, he advocates a society in which the people are told what they need to know and no more and he puts forward certain key myths that he claims all governments need to exert control.

http://www.getunderground.com/underground/features/article.cfm?Article_ID=2120
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- Tom

[Wilburrr]

I am certainly going to enjoy reading your book. I will do it at home, aloud, so NSA operatives can hear it, too.

Politics has crept into the Department of Justice and into scientific research during this administration. I certainly hope that our next president, if we have one, will work to restore sanity to our government.

I am very grateful to you, your husband, and your (pl) efforts working for this country.

[GalHart]

Very glad to see that you understand the dangers inherent in the NSA wiretapping legislation under current review in Congress, as well as the administration's agenda here. It is heartening to know that an intelligence professional sees how dangerous and fatal this agenda truly is to our civil liberties.

[Cosmic Logic]

Valerie, you and Joe are good examples of how we can counter the current ideolgy that is warping our political decisions. We need both of you to continue speaking, as you did today on Hardball. I've ordered your book and look forward to learning more of your perspective of your personal journey. Can you believe we are about to make an even bigger mistake by militarily taking on Iran? I called the Iraq war decision, and I am even more certain Bush & Cheney will preemptively bomb Iran. What do your gut instincts tell you?