This morning, Walter Pincus of the
Washington Post reports that the CIA is about to be put out of the spy business, that is, stripped of it's legendary role as master of the Shadow World.
Republicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence want to strip from the CIA its primary role as manager of overseas collection of human intelligence, suggesting that Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte take over that responsibility.
The problem is, the CIA, which has been running spies since 1947, has dropped the eyeball, in the navel-gazing way of all bureaucracies, that is, "focusing . . . on its own structure and operations" instead of, you know, spying on real enemies.
So the "Great Game" is over, right? Not so much. The Senate Intelligence Committee is still playing games - after all, 9/11 changed everything, right?
The Republicans, led by Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.), the panel chairman, urged Negroponte "to directly manage and oversee the conduct of HUMINT operations across the intelligence community," saying the need is "imperative" because the Pentagon and the FBI are placing "greater emphasis" on spying.
So our own White House representative of the Legions of Nosferatu is to be given the key to the HUMINT bloodbank.
Not only that, our own Pentagonal Captain of Cluelessness, Stephen A. Cambone, is already at work digging up bodies to flesh out the new arrangement.
While the CIA is waiting for DNI approval of its plan for coordinating intelligence activities overseas, the Pentagon has created a Defense Humint Management Office to coordinate increased spying activities by the Defense Intelligence Agency's human intelligence section, as well as clandestine operations by the separate services, area commanders and counterintelligence arms. One role for this office, which will be run under the supervision of Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone, will be to "deconflict" intelligence operations, meaning to ensure that activities by various Pentagon groups do not overlap or interfere with each other, a Pentagon official said.
We wouldn' want any "conflicting information" to leak out or bubble up, now would we?
Americans, not to worry, right, because it's illegal and just plain wrong for the government to spy on Americans here in the "Homeland Secure" right? Weeelll . . .
Another proposal reflected increased Pentagon interest in intelligence operations in the United States involving American citizens. The proposal included in the bill would give a "limited" exemption to defense intelligence personnel, allowing them to recruit sources and collect personal information on U.S. citizens clandestinely, without disclosing they worked for the government, when "significant" foreign intelligence is being sought. They would have to coordinate such collection with the FBI.
Still and all, we are a democracy, right - nothing to worry about, 'cause we got the Congress - with guys like John Warner and John McCain - on our side . . .
A similar exemption was sought last year and dropped from the bill because of opposition in the Senate Armed Services Committee, said a senior congressional staff member. This year the committee said, "Current counterterrorism and other foreign intelligence operations highlight the need for greater latitude to assess potential intelligence sources, both overseas and within the United States." The panel noted the limited exemption is similar to that enjoyed by the CIA "when assessing and recruiting sources."
The committee said it "will closely monitor the DoD's [Defense Department's] use of the authorities provided."
Whew! that's good, right? Now we can rest assured that "freedom reigns" in the Good Ol' USofA!
OK. What's really happening here? IMHO, Cheney and Rumfeld have now "won" the intelligence war - a skirmish of which we have witnessed just yesterday, as our military minders moved to contain blowback from the battle to obliterate CIA operations like those run by Valerie Plame Wilson.
I guess we might as well face the fact that, as far as BushCo is concerned, were all AWOL now!