How good is the CIA at its job? Here are the failures: blundered the Bay of Pigs;sponsored revolutions that went wrong in Angola, Panama, Nicaragua, Cuba, and half a dozen other countries. It maintains secret torture prisons that have made the world alternate between anger at us and laughter at our stupidity. Failed to ward off an attack on the USS Cole and twice on the World Trade Center. Provided phony intelligence on weapons of mass destruction and led us into war with Iraq.
Finally, covert operations are unconstitutional and can't be justified by pragmatic considerations that, in case, go awry. Some things can't be fixed. The CIA sat on a wall and had a great fall. All Bush's men will never put it right again.
www.watchingpolitics.com
Several people have said I exaggerate the defects of the CIA. The errors the CIA commits are given publicity but the good work is oft interred with its bones. I accept this criticism as valid. The question still is whether the serious failures of the CIA outweigh the good work. I think so. Moreover, I stated that clandestine operations are unconstitutional. I do not put this view forward dogmatically but I incline to it on the basis of my 50 years study of the law, the last 40 of which has been spent partly in teaching the Constitution.