Porter Goss: a "perfect fit"

[docmercer--banned]

Goss not only presided over a vicious partisan coverup of the Iraq pre-war intelligence fraud—a fraud run out of Cheney's office—through his position as chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Goss's own career as a 1960s-era Central Intelligence Agency Clandestine Service officer is a throwback to the pre-Church Committee, pre-Watergate days, when the intelligence community, under the Allen Dulles/James Angleton legacy, ran amok.

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][size=-1]Sources in the U.S. intelligence community and the Congress identify three reasons that Cheney chose Goss for the DCI post: [/size][/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][size=-1]First, the White House is desperate to "plug the leaks" at the CIA. The Agency has been scapegoated by the White House and its Congressional toadies, like Goss and California Republican Duncan Hunter, for the 9@nd11 attacks and for the failure to find the so-called Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Senior career intelligence officers are furious, according to the sources, at the White House's blame game, and they do not intend to sit by and allow this propaganda scam to go unchallenged. The fact that evidence points to Cheney as the culprit behind the July 2003 leaking of the identity of CIA "non-official cover" officer Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak, only deepens the intelligence community's fury at the Bush White House. And Goss's personal role in attempting to prevent an independent counsel probe into the Plame leak just adds to the volatility of the issue.[/size][/font]
[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][size=-1]The spy community knows that evidence easily accessible in the public domain reveals that the President, the Vice President, and the Attorney General repeatedly ignored CIA and FBI warnings about an imminent terrorist attack on U.S. soil in the Spring-Summer 2001, including the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing item, talking about al-Qaeda hijacking plots and surveillance of targets in Washington and New York. Likewise, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's recent report documented that the majority of intelligence community analysts disputed the Iraq WMD threat; and former DCI George Tenet told an audience at Georgetown University earlier this year that Iraq "never posed an imminent threat" to the United States—and he told Bush and Cheney that on repeated occasions.[/size][/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][size=-1]When the CIA General Counsel rushed through approval of a book, Imperial Hubris, by a senior Agency counterterrorism analyst, writing anonymously, which tore into the Administration's failed Iraq and Afghanistan policies, Cheney and company moved to pre-empt further damaging material from surfacing from the Agency—by naming Goss. Goss's first mission will be to plug the leaks—at least through November.[/size][/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][size=-1]Second, the Bush-Cheney campaign was [/size][/font][font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][size=-1]worried that the President could lose the must-win state of Florida in November, and the Goss nomination was aimed at bolstering enthusiasm among the Cuban-American right-wing community in Miami for a second Bush-Cheney term. Goss is the darling of the southern Florida right wing, and has been, dating back to his CIA days from 1961-71, when he participated in the efforts to assassinate or overthrow Fidel Castro in Havana.[/size][/font]
[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][size=-1]Third, and most important for Cheney, Goss is the personification of the rogue spook, serving at the pleasure of the President, and behind the back of the Congress and the American people. In Cheney's warped mind, Goss is going to turn the clock back to the bad-old-days before Watergate and intelligence oversight.[/size][/font]

 

[docmercer--banned]

More on Goss:

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][size=-1]In 1975, the Church Committee investigating the activities of the U.S. intelligence community issued its final report. Among the revelations contained in the multi-volume document were the first unclassified accounts of the CIA's program to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. "United States government personnel plotted to kill Castro from 1960 to 1965," the report stated. "American underworld figures and Cubans hostile to Castro were used in these plots, and were provided encouragement and material support by the United States."[/size][/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][size=-1]Those anti-Castro operations were run out of a large Miami CIA station, under the code name JM/WAVE. At the height of JM/WAVE, the station employed over 200 CIA officers, and ran a network of over 2,200 Cuban exiles. It maintained an armada of boats, for raids on Cuba, and a small fleet of aircraft for other missions. One sub-feature of the anti-Castro efforts, Operation Mongoose, involved assassination plots against the Cuban leader.[/size][/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][size=-1]Porter Goss was a young CIA officer assigned to JM/WAVE. Goss had, by his own accounts, been recruited to the CIA while in his third year at Yale University. His two years of military service were, in all likelihood, actually CIA assignments. In 1961, Goss was officially brought into the CIA and sent to JM/WAVE. He later would continue to participate in the anti-Castro operations, based out of CIA stations in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. Later, Goss was sent to London and then Paris, where he was involved in the infiltration of labor organizations, until he developed a near-fatal infection and was forced, officially, to retire from the spy world.[/size][/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][size=-1]In his role in JM/WAVE, Goss served with some of the CIA's most hardened Cold Warriors, including Miami Station Chief Theodore G. Shackley, later a central figure in the Iran/Contra debacle; Felix Rodriguez, another leading Iran-Contra player; and Frank Sturgis, later of Watergate break-in infamy.[/size][/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular][size=-1]Indeed, from the Bay of Pigs and the Operation Mongoose Castro assassination plots of the 1960s, to the Watergate Plumbers Unit of the 1970s, to the Iran-Contra narco-financed insurgency of the 1980s, this circle of right-wing CIA operators and closely allied Cuban exiles, has represented an ugly stain on the American political landscape. Is this what Porter Goss brings to the table?[/size][/font]

 

[bblight]

I'm a bit confused here - you're stating all of these historical points about Porter Goss, but I don't see one mention of the hacks that he's getting rid of.

According to your own posts, Bush got into this war because of bad information - much of it coming from the CIA. The same hacks who are bitching and complaining and resigning are the very people who provided the erroneous information to Bush - but you're attacking Porter Goss.

Yo9u can support the hacks that helped cause this mess, or you can support the changes that will take the CIA where it need top go to do a credible intelligence gathering job - but you can't do both.

So which is it - enhanced imformation and a more secure nation; or more of the same old schit?

 

[docmercer--banned]

Bush was told by numerous military personnel not to launch against Iraq with the current situation ... even his old man told him that

Goss is getting rid of those "not loyal to the decisions of this administration" ????

By the way .... Goss is WEAK ON DEFENSE so why did Bush have no problems sticking Goss in this position? Goss wanted to slash human intelligence by 20% in the late 1990's and seems Bush's big theme song on why not to elect Kerry was Kerry was weak on defense???

This administration now values those that can kiss the ass of King George over talent ... the appt of Rice as Sect of State - another one of those that claims to be a follower of the Bible yet believes in a Palestinian state next door to Israel???

This comedy gets better every day ....

 

[bblight]

Doc - I know that you get your information from the New York Times and CNN, but it's slanted against the Bush administration and is grossly incorrect.

Doc, I think you need some Maalox and maybe a laxative - you're getting yourself all wound up over nothing. Let's see how Porter and Condi shape the CIA and State Department, and then talk about it afterward.

It's not like you have any choice in the matter.

If, in 4 years, none of this works out, then the Democrats will sweep themselves back into power and you'll be able to do a lot of gloating. If not, then the Replicans will probably have Condi sitting in the White House, and I'll be sending you a gift of Nexium to your sanitorium.

 

[docmercer--banned]

bblight:

I no more get my info from those 2 sources than you getting your bias info from the Limbaugh Chronicles ....

Funny how "Liberals" are now defined as anyone that states info that goes counter to what Bush wants ... yet if Hannity, Coulter or Limbaugh slam the Dems THAT IS FACT and if anyone does not think so Ashcroft's goons are on the way to pick ya up !

I love it ... come 2005 or 2006 it is gonna be the "Nite of the Living Dead" all over again with the Bushies walking around in a trance muttering to themselves: "could we have been this ignorant to have actually voted for this guy?"

 

[petre]

 

[petre]

 

[petre]