Editor's Note: Like the Times' leader it cites, Le Monde looks to the administration's new appointees to reconstruct the intelligence capabilities their predecessors have demolished. As Truthout has reported elsewhere, there seems to be little in the background of either Robert Gates or Michael McConnell - especially in the light of the track record of the administration that appointed them - to justify such optimism. ljt

    CIA Fiasco
    Le Monde | Editorial

    Saturday 06 January 2007

    The resignation of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, is the latest phase in the interminable crisis of American intelligence services. That crisis goes back to their inability to prevent the September 11, 2001, attacks, in spite of intelligence - badly fragmented and poorly understood - that could have foiled the plot. Afterwards, there were the weapons of mass destruction missteps, amplified by administration pressure to justify the war. And, finally, an unfinished and controversial makeover of the intelligence community and its sixteen agencies.

    The position Mr. Negroponte will have occupied less than 20 months was reluctantly created by the White House in the beginning of 2005, under pressure from Congress and the September 11 Commission. It was a matter of forcing sixteen bureaucracies undermined by rivalries - and enjoying a budget of over $40 billion - to work together. Obviously, Mr. Negroponte, in spite of his authority and his great understanding of how the administrative machine works, did not succeed.

    The disarray of American intelligence is particularly clear at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Seven months ago, its director, Porter Goss, was dismissed and replaced by US Air Force General Michael Hayden. Porter had provoked an agents' revolt and the departure of the most-experienced agents. The latter refused to bear the responsibility for the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and for the establishment of secret prisons. James Pavitt, former deputy director for operations, cannot remember having ever seen such "animosity" between the CIA and the government.

    Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are the agency's historic adversaries. Under Mr. Rumsfeld's impetus, the Army strengthened its intelligence services, trampling the civilians' flower beds and using its Special Forces to conduct clandestine espionage operations around the world. After September 11, the Pentagon even endowed itself with its own analytical service, the Bureau of Special Plans, which was extremely useful in justifying the war in Iraq before BSP was disbanded.

    Robert Gates's arrival as the head of the Defense Department, and the appointment of one of his intimates, Michael McConnell, to the post of National Intelligence Director, ought to improve the situation. But much time has been lost by the White House. Mr. Negroponte himself estimated that it would take years to reconstruct the intelligence services' operational capacities, and notably the CIA's. As the New York Times wrote on January 5th, "This administration's record of failures in Iraq is matched only by its failures on intelligence."