Speaking of deja vu ...

Companies that have employees who blow the whistle on unethical, immoral and/or illegal behavior often label those employees as "disgruntled." If you're a "go along, get along" kind of person who turns a blind eye to the unethical, immoral and/or illegal behavior, you usually get rewarded with the "team player" label. "He's a team player!" is analogous to "He's a Goodfella!"

One of the Central Intelligence Agency's more infamous critics and "disgruntled employees" is Ralph McGehee, a 25-year-veteran of the spook shop's Directorate of Operations, its clandestine services branch. His book, "Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA," didn't earn him many friends in the upper echelons at Langley.

My opinion is that one can't spend 25 years in the CIA without being a "team player" for at least 24 of those years unless, of course, your name is Aldrich Ames, at which point you're still a team player but for a different team. Twenty-five years gets one a federal retirement check and a few benefits I would imagine.

I've had online discussions with the outspoken and vociferous but patriotic Mr. McGehee in the past and disagree with him on many levels, but some folk -- particularly those in the Clinton administration -- should have listened to him in 1997 when he tried to warn of the terrorism threat from Islamist extremists and holy warriors from Afghanistan who had a bone to pick with the U.S. I don't know where Mr. McGehee is now. He's been off the usenet for awhile. I'm going to re-publish his entire usenet post from Sept. 30, 1997 in alt.politics.org.cia here as I believe it deserves more than just a link. The CIA may not like Mr. McGehee, they may not even like how he looks or even the way he says it, but -- for the sake of the country -- it should have listened to what he had to say back then:

Rubber Stamp Intelligence

The CIA's discussion of its new direction "CIA Turns to Boutique Operations, Covert Action Against Terrorism," [Washington Post 9/14/97], confirms my fears for the future of the Agency. DCI George Tenet in describing these "new" types of operations, signaled that covert action remains a primary activity, but with a different twist. Instead of paramilitary, overthrow and a variety of other covert actions, it now aims it major efforts at disrupting terrorist plans -- stopping narcotics shipments or fouling up financial transactions of missile makers with its Boutique Operations -- essentially economic warfare.

Tenet, a strong supporter of the Directorate of Operations (DO), also said the CIA will continue to use the same basic tools that it accessed throughout the Cold War: an array of spy satellites for imagery and eavesdropping intelligence, and a team of operations specialists who run actions directed against foreign governments.

Nowhere in the barrage of press releases during it 50th birthday bash, did Tenet or others discuss or plan for building an analytical capability to support its Boutique operations. The only acknowledgment that Tenet plans to address this deficiency was his statement that he will send some people for language training. All the focus, yet again, and forever, remains on covert operations.

To conduct sophisticated operations against the variety of targets presented by terrorism, narcotics, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and counterintelligence, you need the highest degree of analytical talent. You also need the best in file systems and record keeping -- another area of incalculable Agency deficiency. The current State Department publication on terrorism, notes that there are many small, loosely or non-connected terrorist groups and that these present a major problem today. How does the CIA plan to identify and act against these groups if they are unaware of them and their plans?

The multi-nation anti-terrorist organizations liaize, to greater or lesser degrees, among themselves. But many services have rudimentary file and record systems. At the rural, local levels, exist many uncollated details and identities that never reach the West. To find this information, the CIA or other services, must send trained analysts to these areas to conduct file searches and analysis.

Virtually nowhere in the 50th birthday announcements did Tenet discuss plans to improve its near complete inability at Intelligence -- supposedly its reason for existence.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence decried the inability of CIA analysts and directed it correct this problem. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said the "Intelligence Community has very limited analytical capabilities to meet the myriad challenges, especially strategic and predictive; and, lacks the analytical depth, breath, and expertise to monitor political, military, and economic developments." The IC must improve training and [personnel selection] and "is awash in unexploited open source information"!

Even a CIA study details the intelligence community's lack of analytical ability, "...it is time to stop pretending that the current structure can work....we will need to refocus on the analytic process and establish a structure that actually facilitates analysis rather than impedes it...."

Why does DCI Tenet and the CIA ignore these major challenges? Another CIA study says, "....if the intelligence service is dominated by a group of powerful decision makers, it will become a prisoner of these decision makers....the intelligence service will be no more than a rubber stamp of these preconceptions....nowhere is there a stronger `commitment to a policy or outlook' than by a service that is actively supporting a political faction, movement, or government with funds, advice, equipment, paramilitary resources and propaganda."

There it is -- the CIA is controlled by the Directorate of Operations. Its intelligence is a "rubber stamp" for its operations. Tenet is young, has no independent source of support, has no real intelligence experience, and is a firm believer in the Operations Directorate. Even if he wanted to reform the CIA, he would be powerless to do so.

We do not have an intelligence service and we will not have one for the foreseeable future. We also do not have an effective counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, counter-proliferation, and counter-intelligence organization and will not have one for the foreseeable future.

Ralph McGehee
CIABASE

Addenda:

Counter-terrorism -- A good Place to start.

Western policymakers who follow up results of the July 30 Group of Sevenanti-terrorism conference in Paris would do well to initiate a global, coordinated effort to identify and locate many thousands of veterans of the U.S.-backed, 1979-1989 Muslim holy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

At the end of 1979, shortly after the Soviet army rolled into the Muslim state of Afghanistan, President Carter and decided on a working alliance with political Islam.

Secret directives, later amplified and expanded by the Reagan and Bush administrations and a U.S. Congress, covered the recruiting, training and arming of one of the largest mercenary armies in American military history.

The bulk of the recruits, including many Arab-Americans and some Muslim Afro-Americans, were devout if not fanatical Muslims.

Anti-terrorist planners will want to check out the list of Afghan war alumni now involved in guerrilla warfare and terrorism in the Philippines, Egypt, Algeria, Israeli-occupied territory, Yemen, war-shattered Afghanistan's own tribal conflicts and elsewhere.

The Afghan war veterans and younger men trained by them are now deployed in the Arabian Peninsula, Muslim regions of China (mainly Xinjiang, which also supplied recruits for the anti-Soviet war), Kashmir and even India's Punjab region, as well as the United States.

There are an estimated 5,000 trained Saudis, 3,000 Yemenis, 2,800 Algerians, 2,000 Egyptians and perhaps 2,000 Palestinians, Jordanians, Lebanese, Iranians and others.

[International Herald Tribune, 30 June 1996]