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The only good thing about taking over an organization that's hit rock bottom is that the only direction to go is up. This thought may have crossed CIA Director Porter Goss' mind as he looked back over his first year in office at Langley this past weekend. The plucky Goss is fervently trying to reinvigorate the embattled CIA, stung by monumental intelligence failures in recent years. But in contrast to the public bellyaching of some disgruntled agency employees (complaints shamelessly played out in the press), Goss is making progress. Goss, the former House Intelligence Committee chairman, is in the midst...

The only good thing about taking over an organization that's hit rock bottom is that the only direction to go is up. This thought may have crossed CIA Director Porter Goss' mind as he looked back over his first year in office at Langley this past weekend. The plucky Goss is fervently trying to reinvigorate the embattled CIA, stung by monumental intelligence failures in recent years. But in contrast to the public bellyaching of some disgruntled agency employees (complaints shamelessly played out in the press), Goss is making progress. Goss, the former House Intelligence Committee chairman, is in the midst...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 - A year after taking charge of the Central Intelligence Agency, Porter J. Goss is still struggling to rebuild morale and assert leadership within an institution shaken by recent failures and buffeted by change, current and former intelligence officials and members of Congress say. On Thursday, two days before his one-year anniversary on the job, Mr. Goss met with agency employees and told them that his vision for further changes would involve "breaking some molds" to reassert the C.I.A.'s role as "a global agency." "We are developing new and creative ways to get more and more of...

Porter J. Goss, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, delivered a long-awaited internal report to Congress on Monday night that is said to give a harsh assessment of the agency's performance before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Mr. Goss, who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee before his appointment last year as head of the C.I.A., hand-delivered two copies of the classified report to staff members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. The copies of the report, which is several hundred pages, were placed in committee safes and were not to be opened at least until...

Hold on to your hat. The plot is about to thicken. Behind the scenes, the single most important reason for the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson farce is that CIA Director Porter Goss has finally started to clean house at Langley. Goss's long-overdue shake-up is clearly backed by the White House, the top levels of the Pentagon and State Department, and the new National Director of Intelligence, John Negroponte. Judging by Director Goss's remarks at his Senate confirmation hearings, those whose jobs are most in danger include the CIA "experts" in WMD proliferation – Valerie Plame's outfit – who completely failed to...

...Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), the No. 2 man on both the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, revealed that an elite military-intelligence unit known as Able Danger identified Atta and three other hijackers as likely members of a terror cell in this country as early as 1999. The spies wanted to turn the info over to the FBI in 2000, Weldon said, "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists." He claimed Pentagon lawyers rejected the recommendation because they mistakenly believed that since Atta and the others were in the country legally on visas, they...

President Bush... ordered changes intended to break down old walls between foreign and domestic intelligence activities by creating a new national security division within the Federal Bureau of Investigation that will fall under the overall direction of John D. Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence. The directive by Mr. Bush is aimed at consolidating the power of Mr. Negroponte, whose authority over the F.B.I. had been ambiguous. It also sets in motion a major restructuring designed to dissolve the barriers that have often kept the Central Intelligence Agency and the F.B.I. at arm's length, and elevates intelligence operations to...

Porter Goss seems confident he knows where America's most wanted man is. But the CIA director doesn't really want to talk about it. Or so was the impression he gave during a congressional hearing on Monday. And why shouldn't he feel that way? Osama bin Laden has eluded capture the past four years. It's a frustrating issue for the United States. To get the leader of the terrorist group that struck our homeland is an important pursuit. But it comes with many obstacles, and most are likely political. Goss alluded to this during Monday's hearing. He said trying to get...

The exasperation of Porter Goss, the Director of the US' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with Pakistan's role in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other remnants of the Al Qaeda, is evident from his remarks on bin Laden during an interview with the "Time" magazine which has been carried by it this week. The interview has come in the wake of the arrest of one Hamid Hayat, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, his father and some others by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) earlier this month. They belonged to a 2500-strong Pakistani community living at a place...

He had been director of the Central Intelligence Agency for just seven months when the onetime CIA spy had to cede much of his power to the new director of national intelligence, John Negroponte. But Porter Goss, 66, says he now has more time to run America's largest human intelligence agency. He sat down for his first interview with TIME's Timothy J. Burger. ..... IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAVE A PRETTY GOOD IDEA OF WHERE HE IS. WHERE? I have an excellent idea of where he is. What's the next question?

Beijing Feb.20 -- The United States and Japan has listed in an unprecedented joint statement that Taiwan is their common security concern, and easing tensions in the Taiwan Strait was among their "common strategic objectives." Senior officials of the two countries also talked about China's military investment in the past years, urging China "to improve transparency of its military affairs". Earlier, CIA director Goss said that China's growing defense buildup might "tilt the balance of the Taiwan Strait" and threaten U.S. troops in the Asian region. Chinese Government and people resolutely opposes the United States and Japan in issuing...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 - New intelligence information strongly suggests that Al Qaeda has considered infiltrating the United States through the Mexican border, top government officials told Congress on Wednesday. In a wide-ranging assessment of threats to American security, including those posed by Iran and North Korea, the officials also said intelligence indicated that terrorist organizations remained intent on obtaining and using devastating weapons against the United States. "It may only be a matter of time before Al Qaeda or another group attempts to use chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons," Porter J. Goss, the new director of central intelligence, told...

Watersheds We live in a time of democratic revolution. Has there ever been a more dramatic moment than this one? The Middle East is boiling, as the failed tyrants scramble to come to terms with the political tsunami unleashed on Afghanistan and Iraq. The power of democratic revolution can be seen in every country in the region. Even the Saudi royal family has had to stage a farcical "election." But this first halting step has fooled no one. Only males could vote, no political parties were permitted, and only the Wahhabi establishment was permitted to organize. The results will not...

The Bush administration has been carrying out secret reconnaissance missions to learn about nuclear, chemical and missile sites in Iran in preparation for possible airstrikes there, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday. The effort has been under way at least since last summer, Hersh said on CNN's "Late Edition." In an interview on the same program, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett said the story was "riddled with inaccuracies." "I don't believe that some of the conclusions he's drawing are based on fact," Bartlett said. He said his information on Iran came from "inside" sources who divulged it in the hope...

WASHINGTON - The CIA has told Henry Kissinger to kiss off, saying his services as an informal adviser to Director Porter Goss are no longer needed. The pink slip came in the form of a terse communiqué from Goss to Kissinger - the vaunted diplomat and counselor to Presidents - and other members of an intelligence advisory board that meets several times a year, Newsweek magazine reported yesterday. The council of wise men recently sacked by the new CIA honcho includes 9/11 Commissioner and ex-Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), who heads New School University in New York; former Sen. Sam Nunn...

Looks like Porter Goss is not twiddling his thumbs. Hopefully, many good patriots will step up and serve their country. If I were younger, I would. God Bless all who serve. CIA Employment Site Maybe Uncle Sam wants you?

NEW YORK - The top analyst at the CIA is resigning next year, joining more than a dozen agency officials who have stepped down since Porter Goss became the Director of Central Intelligence, NBC News has learned....

c By DOUGLAS JEHL ASHINGTON, Dec. 28 - The head of the Central Intelligence Agency's analytical branch is being forced to step down, former intelligence officials say, opening a major new chapter in a shakeup under Porter J. Goss, the agency's chief. The official, Jami Miscik, the agency's deputy director for intelligence, told her subordinates on Tuesday afternoon of her plan to step down on Feb. 4. A former intelligence official said that Ms. Miscik was told before Christmas that Mr. Goss wanted to make a change and that "the decision to depart was not hers." Ms. Miscik has headed...

Twelve years of CIA discontent By Tomas Jones and Marc Erikson For a dozen years or more, things have been going from bad to worse at the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Some, of course, may welcome this. They should note the following, however: for better or for worse, the United States - militarily and economically - is the world's most powerful nation. When its foreign-intelligence service stumbles from intelligence failure to intelligence failure, mis-assessment to mis-assessment, and, finally, a near-collapse of its discipline, integrity and morale, more than just US national security is put at risk. Avoidable, globally destabilizing...

One former CIA official told NEWSWEEK that [Porter Goss' aide]Murray leaned on him more than once to declassify information so he could use it to "embarrass the Democrats." Murray was irritated when the agency declined.

[Porter Goss] brought with him from Congress four partisan staff members of the Intelligence Committee who have not adjusted from their old role as political advocates and critics. Instead, they are grabbing authority wherever they can and making decisions that should be left to the existing chain of command. In only a few weeks, they have exhibited an arrogance that may have served them well on Capitol Hill but is inappropriate – and counterproductive – within the agency.

The following is posted on Drudge right now: Names of people being vetted by the White House for the new position of Director of National Intelligence: DCI Porter Goss Gov Tom Kean General Michael Hayden John Lehman Sen. Joe Lieberman Rep Pete Hoekstra Rep Jane Harman...

To those who worked with him, Stephen Kappes seemed the perfect choice to lead the covert side of the CIA in the midst of the war on terrorism. Appointed in June, Kappes, a former marine, is a veteran CIA case officer who served in dangerous and difficult postings in Moscow and Pakistan. More recently, he reported directly to President Bush as the CIA's point man in secret high-stakes negotiations with Libya that ended the rogue state's weapons-of-mass-destruction programs.

The new national counterterrorism center established by President Bush under an executive order is to begin operations in early December, at about the same time that Congress may be debating whether to approve a law that would create a different version of the same agency. The center would be the "primary organization in the United States government for analyzing and integrating" all intelligence "pertaining to terrorism and counterterrorism, excepting purely domestic counterterrorism information." The center's director is to supervise correlation of the terrorism intelligence and produce reports to be sent to the president and other senior officials. It would operate...

WASHINGTON - When former CIA (news - web sites) Director George Tenet said his farewells at a two-hour ceremony this summer, a deputy noted that 40 percent of the agency's staff had worked for just one chief. AP Photo It was a symbol of Tenet's endurance, seven years on the job, the second longest tenure of a director. It also was a mark of agency's growth during a hiring spree that began in 1998 and accelerated after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. With Tenet's successor, former Rep. Porter Goss (news, bio, voting record), in charge and making changes, one...

WASHINGTON -- When former CIA Director George Tenet said his farewells at a two-hour ceremony this summer, a deputy noted that 40 percent of the agency's staff had worked for just one chief. It was a symbol of Tenet's endurance, seven years on the job, the second longest tenure of a director. It also was a mark of agency's growth during a hiring spree that began in 1998 and accelerated after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. With Tenet's successor, former Rep. Porter Goss, in charge and making changes, one of the longer periods of leadership stability in the CIA's...

Two chiefs of overseas divisions at the CIA are leaving the spy agency, which has been in turmoil since new director Porter Goss took over, a federal official confirmed Wednesday. The chiefs of the Europe and Far East divisions – two critical regions of the world for the spy agency – are retiring, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The departing CIA officials' names were not released because they work undercover. The two officials were in the highest level of clandestine service, the directorate of operations, The New York Times reported on its Web site Wednesday...

ON FRIDAY, November 5, 2004, Patrick Murray had a blunt warning for a top career official in the CIA's clandestine service: No more leaks. Murray, who has a reputation as a no-nonsense manager, had come to the agency from Capitol Hill as a top aide to Porter Goss, the former chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence who took over as CIA director in late September. For months leading up to the election, elements within the CIA had leaked information damaging to the reelection prospects of George W. Bush. Some of the leaks were authorized, some were not. Michael...

Porter's HouseFrom the November 29, 2004 issue: CIA Director Porter Goss takes charge. by Stephen F. Hayes 11/29/2004, Volume 010, Issue 11 ON FRIDAY, November 5, 2004, Patrick Murray had a blunt warning for a top career official in the CIA's clandestine service: No more leaks. Murray, who has a reputation as a no-nonsense manager, had come to the agency from Capitol Hill as a top aide to Porter Goss, the former chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence who took over as CIA director in late September. For months leading up to the election, elements within the CIA...

An old CIA hand, still with the agency, recently told NewsMax to read an article by Stephen Hayes for the Weekly Standard. Story Continues Below This story, our friend said, explains what is going on at the CIA. The agency's new director, Porter Goss, has stirred up a hornets' nest - make that a vipers' nest - at the nation's chief intelligence agency. For starters he has dared to take steps to plug the flood of leaks gushing out of the company's headquarters in Langley, Va. We figured Goss must have been doing something good when the main recipients of...

WHEN a new CEO takes over a failing company, it's not at all uncommon to fire (or force out) a couple of senior people. After all, senior management is responsible for an organization's poor performance, so why keep the deadwood around? Sure, lopping off heads can be a risky strategy. But it certainly makes the rest of the employees stand up and take notice. And it sends a clear message: "Things are going to change. Get with the program — or get out." [snip]* Accountability: The CIA is responsible for some of this nation's most significant intelligence lapses —...

The CIA and its coterie of leak-recipient journalists have seriously damaged the public’s understanding of the terror dangers we face. Now that the public’s attention finally has turned to the threat of Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities, it is vital that everyone understand how a clever misdirection of focus has seriously understated the ability of the mullahs to produce atomic weapons. Since Porter Goss embarked on the much-needed shake-up of the CIA, we’ve been treated to agency leaks to the legacy media from the proverbial “unnamed sources” in an attempt to persuade the American people that Goss will single handedly render...

WASHINGTON -- A Democratic senator warned CIA director Porter Goss yesterday that his efforts to make major changes could have ''a significant and negative effect on the agency." In a letter to Goss, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of Calif., also said she feared the ''politicization of our intelligence services" because of an e-mail Goss sent this week to agency employees telling them to focus on serving the Bush administration. Goss took office in September and named some of his former congressional staff members to high-level positions at the agency. Several senior CIA officials have resigned in recent weeks, an apparent...

Posted November 16, 2004 An internal war at the CIA By Faye Bowers | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON - A public war between a president and his intelligence arm is never good news. But with the war against the insurgency in Iraq at a critical juncture, and Osama bin Laden making his ominous presence known, it is perhaps the worst of times for the Bush administration and its spies to be at odds. Still, government officials and outside experts say, the long-simmering tensions between the White House and CIA are erupting into an unseemly period of...

JOSEPH PERKINS    THE UNION-TRIBUNEReining in the CIA November 19, 2004 My cousin spent more than two decades working for the CIA. I cannot recall even one occasion when he disclosed anything having to do with his work for the spy agency. That's because he took his secrecy oath seriously. Nowadays, the culture is quite different at Langley. If inquiring minds want to find out what's going on inside the CIA, they need only consult the front page of The Washington Post or The New York Times. They need only visit the bookstore. That's because the CIA has become politicized....

Democrat warns on CIA changes Senator criticizes Goss note to staff By Associated Press | November 19, 2004 WASHINGTON -- A Democratic senator warned CIA director Porter Goss yesterday that his efforts to make major changes could have ''a significant and negative effect on the agency." In a letter to Goss, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of Calif., also said she feared the ''politicization of our intelligence services" because of an e-mail Goss sent this week to agency employees telling them to focus on serving the Bush administration. Goss took office in September and named some of his former congressional staff...

CIA Director Porter J. Goss is moving ahead with a shake-up at the agency, aimed at changing an outdated and risk-averse spying bureaucracy, according to U.S. intelligence officials. "In the days and weeks ahead of us," Mr. Goss said in an internal message to CIA employees, "I will announce a series of changes — some involving procedures, organization, senior personnel, and areas of focus for our action." The memo on Monday stated that Mr. Goss was asked by President Bush to address the problems with U.S. intelligence that were revealed by the September 11 attacks and the failures related to...

WASHINGTON - A Democratic senator warned CIA Director Porter Goss Thursday that his efforts to make major changes could have "a significant and negative effect on the agency." In a letter to Goss, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., also said she feared the "politicization of our intelligence services" because of an e-mail Goss sent this week to agency employees telling them to serve the Bush administration. Goss, former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, took office in September and named some of his former congressional staffers to high-level positions at the agency. Several senior CIA officials have resigned in recent weeks,...

WASHINGTON — In the wake of high-level departures in the CIA's clandestine service, intelligence officials are bracing for an even more aggressive overhaul of the agency's analytic ranks by Director Porter J. Goss. Current and former intelligence officials said Goss planned to replace the head of the CIA's analytic branch, Jami A. Miscik, with a veteran analyst who already runs one of the agency's major offices. Miscik heads the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, the division that drew much of the blame for erroneous assessments of weapons programs in prewar Iraq. Goss also is said to be planning to replace other...

One night during the past campaign I made a speech at an annual county GOP meeting in Pennsylvania... There were a thousand people milling about, making quite a din. They were all standing and talking and eating chicken fingers from hors d'oeuvres tables dotted around the room. There were no chairs. Normally when I speak it's to people in chairs in a hall. I was introduced at a little podium and began to speak and the people in the back continued their racket. I made some jokes to get them laughing and draw them in to my remarks, but the...

After President Bush nominated him to be director of central intelligence, Rep. Porter Goss walked across the Capitol to meet with a senator he hardly knew and who had criticized him: John McCain. There he received advice confirming his determination to take a course that soon became the talk of Washington. McCain told Goss the Central Intelligence Agency is "a dysfunctional organization. It has to be cleaned out." That is, the CIA does not perform its missions. McCain told Goss that as DCI, he must get rid of the old boys and bring in a new team at Langley. Moreover,...

More backstabbing at the CIA as the new director Porter J. Goss seeks to shake up the ossified institution: The New York Times today in a page one story reports that a leaked memo from Goss to CIA employees tells them to "support the administration and its policies in our work." The Times and Bush administration critics expressed surprise that CIA employees were expected to follow and carry out the policies of the elected President. The Times suggested the memo could be "construed as urging analysts to conform with administration policies." But Goss emphatically stated in his memo: "As agency...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- CIA officials angrily insisted Wednesday that a memo from intelligence chief Porter Goss did not order his staff to "back Bush," as a newspaper headline put it Wednesday. According to an official in possession of the memo, Goss told his staff: "I also intend to clarify beyond doubt the rules of the road. We support the administration, and its policies in our work as agency employees. We do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies. We provide the intelligence as we see it -- and let the facts alone speak to...

With the nominations of Condoleezza Rice at State, Porter Goss at CIA, Donald Rumsfeld (or an equally tough replacement) at Defense and Stephen Hadley at NSC, the president has created an all-Patton foreign and defense team. Moreover, he has a team that understands that among the necessary targets of their firepower must be, not only our foreign enemies, but also the slouching, sly, insubordinate bureaucrats under their chain of command.

from drudge Devoleping...

...Duncan Hunter, ...the House Armed Services Chairman, is refusing to join the Beltway stampede to pass, in a few short weeks, the most extensive changes in U.S. intelligence in 50 years. ...The Senate and House each passed bills in the heat (and panic) of the election campaign.... Mr. Hunter specifically objects to a provision that would take budget authority away from the Secretary of Defense over the intelligence agencies under his control. This is a narrow but important issue. It would potentially undercut the military's ability to obtain and act on intelligence in real time.... There are other problems with...

Juxtapose two images in your mind's eye. First, the dirty-faced young Marine, taking a cigarette break between skirmishes in Fallujah last week. Second, a CIA bureaucrat, taking tiny sips of chardonnay in those delicate intervals when he takes time out from writing his resignation to whine to the Washington Post. There is no way to reconcile those images. And there is no excuse for what CIA girlie men are doing. Porter Goss, new Director of Central Intelligence and most recently chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, brought a few of his top Hill staffers with him to Langley. Some of...

Juxtapose two images in your mind's eye. First, the dirty-faced young Marine, taking a cigarette break between skirmishes in Fallujah last week. Second, a CIA bureaucrat, taking tiny sips of chardonnay in those delicate intervals when he takes time out from writing his resignation to whine to the Washington Post. There is no way to reconcile those images. And there is no excuse for what CIA girlie men are doing.

The nation's new spy chief's management style is alienating some career intelligence officers, and the tensions threaten to impede rebuilding the nation's spying capabilities, current and former intelligence officials say. Two months after taking over the Central Intelligence Agency, Porter Goss, a former Republican congressman, is perceived as a distant figure who has given wide latitude in running the agency to several aides he brought from Capitol Hill. These aides, led by Goss chief of staff Patrick Murray, have clashed with senior and mid-level managers whose support has long been considered vital for a director to gain control of the...

WASHINGTON -- Intelligence agencies came under sharp attack yesterday from lawmakers, as did Congress, where a bill to put in place recommendations from the Sept. 11 commission has stalled heading into this week's postelection session. [snip]Disarray in the government's intelligence operations is most evident at the CIA less than two months after a new director, former Representative Porter Goss, was sworn in. Goss, a Florida Republican, was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. ''The agency seems in free fall in Washington, and that is a very, very bad omen in the middle of a war," Harman said on the CBS...