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SAMIR VINCENT WAS VISITING BAGHDAD when Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. He had not lived in his native Iraq for some three decades, having left in 1958 for the United States and a track-and-field career that would later land him in the Boston College Athletic Hall of Fame. Maybe Vincent's presence in Iraq was simply bad timing.Although Americans were not exactly hostages in the tense days after the invasion, they were not free to leave Iraq. So when Vincent, a naturalized citizen, and Illinois businessman Michael Saba managed to escape by taking a taxicab...

Since new CIA Director Porter Goss blocked the October Surprise agency left-wingers had prepared against Bush (discussed in “Porter At The Pass” last week), they desperately rigged another one, working with Mohammad ElBaradei at the UN. What nobody is focusing on in Al Qaqaagate is that the CIA is behind it. The anti-Bush lefties are now known as the “Rogue Weasels” at Langley, and they are frantic to do whatever they can to elect Kerry. They cooked up this entire phony “tons of missing explosives” scandal, sweet-talked the head of the UN’s nuclear inspection agency, ElBaradei, to carry their water...

Porter Goss' initial moves as CIA director appear to herald a post-election purge at the already troubled spy agency, according to current and former top U.S. intelligence officials. Goss, a former Republican congressman, has put at least four former Capitol Hill Republican staffers into top positions in his CIA office and has given them broad authority to make personnel and restructuring decisions, the current and former intelligence officials said. One of the aides, whose identity Knight Ridder is not disclosing because he served under cover, has been "going around telling people they are to fire 80 to 90 people" in...

Fri Sep 24, 9:41 AM ET President Bush (news - web sites) watches as his Chief of Staff Andrew Card, right, swears in Porter Goss, center, to head the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites), Friday, Sept. 24, 2004, in the Oval Office of the White House. Goss' wife Mariel stands at his side. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

This morning President Bush had Porter Goss in the Oval Office to be sworn in as the new CIA Director, he then met with some school children who raise money and toys for the school children of Beslan, Russia. He then went to Wisconsin for two campaign rallies as well as a stop at a local Deli.ENJOY YOUR VISIT TO SANITY ISLAND!

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U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 108th Congress - 2nd Session as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate Vote Summary Question: On the Nomination (Confirmation Porter J. Goss, of Florida, To Be Director of Central Intelligence )

The Senate has confirmed Porter Goss as CIA Director.

US President George W Bush is to give the CIA director new powers, including some control over other intelligence agencies, the White House says. Mr Bush is expected to sign executive orders on Friday, and will also launch a national counter-terrorism centre. Spokesman Scott McClellan said the CIA chief will have temporary authority to act as national intelligence director. The announcement follows calls for an intelligence overhaul after inquiries into the 11 September 2001 attacks. But correspondents note there is also a political angle to the timing of the executive orders, which do not need Congressional approval to be implemented....

Those who consider Rep. Porter Goss too "old school" to run the CIA miss the point entirely. What the agency has needed for some time is a more old-fashioned approach to spying when cloak-and-dagger meant just that and not an exercise in technological analysis.     It is true the Florida Republican's extensive experience dates back to the days when the Cold War was waged primarily by the "company's" elite covert-operations division. He has conceded his personal skills as an agent in clandestine services are probably not suited for today's intelligence-gathering needs. A working knowledge of Eastern languages, for instance, isn't terribly...

The ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday warned fellow Democrats that blocking the nomination of Rep. Porter J. Goss, Florida Republican, as CIA director is "the wrong fight" for an election season.     "I think that to get stuck in a fight about Porter Goss after tough questions have been asked of Porter Goss is not where we ought to be this fall," Rep. Jane Harman of California told NBC's "Meet the Press."     Mrs. Harman was asked about the politicalization of the nomination by guest host Andrea Mitchell in response to a New York Times story...

Democrat Warns That Blocking Goss' CIA Nomination Is 'Wrong Fight' in Election YearWASHINGTON Aug. 15, 2004 — The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee warned fellow Democrats in the Senate on Sunday against trying to block the nomination of Rep. Porter Goss as CIA director, saying that would be picking the wrong fight in this election year. Democrats should ask tough questions of Goss, R-Fla., at Senate confirmation hearings next month, but "my view is this is the wrong fight," Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "To get stuck in a fight about Porter Goss...

An Ivy League degree and years of service as a trained and experienced field operative make for a solid foundation as a CIA chief, particularly when you need someone to shake things up and build the solid organization that is right for the times. That's why Dwight Eisenhower appointed Princeton graduate and former Office of Strategic Services agent Allan Dulles to head the agency in 1951. Dulles turned the CIA into the Cold War's premier intelligence agency, giving equal weight to collection, analysis, and convert operations. He held the job until 1961 when President Kennedy fired him after a CIA-backed...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Former Vice President Al Gore charged Thursday that President Bush's nomination of Republican Rep. Porter Goss to lead the CIA continues the president's pattern of using the Sept. 11 tragedy for political benefit. Gore, in a speech to the Music Row Democrats, said that with the selection of Goss, an eight-term congressman from Florida, Bush "just thumbed his nose" at the bipartisan commission established to investigate the attacks. Gore said the commission recommended a change in the structure of intelligence-gathering and the creation of a new position to coordinate intelligence. Gore called a Goss, chairman of the...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Former Vice President Al Gore charged Thursday that President Bush's nomination of Republican Rep. Porter Goss to lead the CIA continues the president's pattern of using the Sept. 11 tragedy for political benefit. Gore, in a speech to the Music Row Democrats, said that with the selection of Goss, an eight-term congressman from Florida, Bush "just thumbed his nose" at the bipartisan commission established to investigate the attacks. Gore said the commission recommended a change in the structure of intelligence-gathering and the creation of a new position to coordinate intelligence. Gore called a Goss, chairman of the...

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Porter J. Goss, center, at an intelligence panel hearing Wednesday. WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 - A dozen Senate Democrats suggested Wednesday that they would not oppose President Bush's nomination of Representative Porter J. Goss as director of central intelligence, but they vowed to use his confirmation hearings to amplify their concerns over fatal intelligence failures under this administration. Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he expected to open the confirmation hearings the first week of September. He also predicted that Mr. Goss, a Florida...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 - A dozen Senate Democrats suggested Wednesday that they would not oppose President Bush's nomination of Representative Porter J. Goss as director of central intelligence, but they vowed to use his confirmation hearings to amplify their concerns over fatal intelligence failures under this administration. Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he expected to open the confirmation hearings the first week of September. He also predicted that Mr. Goss, a Florida Republican, would be confirmed. In interviews, none of the Senate Democrats disputed that prediction. In fact,...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - President Bush on Tuesday nominated Representative Porter J. Goss, the longtime chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to head the Central Intelligence Agency at a moment of heated debate about both the agency's shortcomings and how to execute the broadest overhaul of American intelligence operations in more than half a century. Within hours of Mr. Bush's announcement, the nomination appeared to be headed for an election-year battle on Capitol Hill. Mr. Bush praised Mr. Goss, a Florida Republican who spent a decade as a C.I.A. case officer during the height of the cold war in the...

PELOSI VS. PELOSIHouse Minority Leader Pelosi Breaks Her Pledge To Support Porter Goss For CIA Director_______________________________________________PROMISE MADE …In June, Pelosi Pledged Her Support For Goss If He Was Nominated Because Of His Independence.  “If Goss is nominated for the post, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said that she would support him. Pelosi worked closely with Goss during the congressional investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks. Whoever replaces Tenet needs to be independent of political pressure, Pelosi said. Goss, who worked for the CIA before becoming a congressman in 1988, has shown that ability as chairman of the House...

Yes, John Kerry is the chief flip-flopper, but he's not the Democrats' only one. As we noted this morning, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent her attack dog Robert Menendez onto the airwaves just minutes after it was reported President Bush would nominate Rep. Porter Goss to head the CIA. CNN quoted the San Francisco Democrat today in saying she didn't support the nomination: "But I will say what I said before is that there shouldn't - a person should not be the director of central intelligence who's acted in a very political way when we're dealing with the safety...