[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: C.I.A. Churning Continues as 2 Top Officials Resign

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C.I.A. Churning Continues as 2 Top Officials Resign

November 16, 2004
 By DOUGLAS JEHL 



 

WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 - The head of the Central Intelligence
Agency's clandestine service and his deputy both resigned
their posts on Monday, effective immediately, becoming the
most significant casualties of an effort by Porter J. Goss
to overhaul the agency's spying operations. 

The officials, Stephen R. Kappes, the deputy director for
operations, and Michael Sulick, the associate deputy
director, announced their moves at a morning staff meeting
after days of clashes with advisers to Mr. Goss, the new
director of the agency, intelligence officials said. Mr.
Goss said in a written statement that the two men had
"formally advised that they are stepping down.'' 

Mr. Goss has selected a covert officer who runs the
agency's Counterterrorism Center to become the new chief of
the clandestine service, known as the directorate of
operations, the officials said. They declined to name the
officer, a former chief of American espionage operations in
Latin America, because he is still under cover. They said
he had been chosen despite having been removed from the
Latin American post in 1997 after a C.I.A. inspector
general's report criticized him for "a remarkable lack of
judgment.'' At the time, many at the C.I.A. considered his
removal to be unwarranted. 

Mr. Kappes and Mr. Sulick are highly regarded within the
C.I.A. Their departures, which prompted loud protests from
former intelligence officials, suggest that Mr. Goss is
confident of having a mandate from the White House to make
sweeping changes. The resignations of other senior
officials within the operations directorate may follow, the
former officials said. 

In his statement, Mr. Goss promised that "there will no gap
in our operations fighting the global war on terror, nor in
any of our other vital activities.'' 

The officer designated by Mr. Goss to take over the
operations directorate was stripped of his Latin America
post for attempting to intervene on behalf of a boyhood
friend who had been arrested on narcotics charges in the
Dominican Republic. An intelligence official noted that Mr.
Goss had chosen him "in full knowledge'' of that episode,
saying, "The guy served his time in the penalty box, and he
went on to do good things.'' 

Mr. Goss said that the newly designated clandestine
services chief had "a long history of strong performance in
senior management positions, both domestically and abroad,
most recently leading our agency's critical efforts against
the terrorist target.'' 

With tensions between the C.I.A.'s new leadership and
senior career officials still extraordinarily high, senior
members of Congress appeared sharply divided in their view
about whether Mr. Goss was going too far in reshaping the
C.I.A. after a series of intelligence failures on Iraq and
terrorism. 

Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat
on the House intelligence committee, called the moves
unwarranted, and warned that they could well ignite an
"implosion" within the C.I.A. But Senator John McCain,
Republican of Arizona, said he believed that Mr. Goss
should do "whatever is necessary" to clean house at the
agency. 

In an interview, Mr. McCain said he told President Bush
last week that "the C.I.A. was dysfunctional and
unaccountable and that they refused to change." The senator
said he believed the C.I.A. had acted as a "rogue agency"
in recent months by leaking information about the war in
Iraq that was seen as detrimental to Mr. Bush and his
re-election campaign. 

Since before the American invasion in 2003, the White House
has regarded the C.I.A. as too cautious about Mr. Bush's
plan to wage war in Iraq. The tensions between the agency
and the White House grew particularly sharp this summer
after news reports disclosed the existence of a new
National Intelligence Estimate that portrayed a dark future
for Iraq in the coming 18 months. 

But Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Republican on the
Intelligence Committee, said he was concerned about the
impact of the moves by Mr. Goss. 

"There's no question when a new leader comes into an
organization, there are adjustments made, and people
leave," Mr. Hagel said in a telephone interview. But he
added: "We have to be careful here that we don't lose an
entire top tier of senior experienced C.I.A. operatives and
managers. I've got some questions why these people have
left, how many more are going to leave, and whether it's a
personality conflict or a policy conflict. If we find
ourselves without a senior group of C.I.A. hands, that
would certainly not enhance American security and might
undermine our security." 

Mr. Hagel said that he and other members of the Senate
Intelligence Committee would seek answers to those
questions in closed meetings this week. 

Mr. Kappes and Mr. Sulick threatened to resign last week
after clashes with Patrick Murray, a former House
Republican official who is Mr. Goss's chief of staff and
whom they regarded as undermining their authority, former
intelligence officials said. The men agreed to reconsider
their decision over the weekend, intelligence officials
said, but there was no indication that either Mr. Goss or
the White House had tried to persuade them to stay on. 

Even before those clashes, Mr. Goss had begun to sound out
the Counterterrorism Center chief and other candidates to
take over the clandestine service, former intelligence
officials said. 

The departures will leave Jami A. Miscik, the deputy
director for intelligence, and Donald M. Kerr, the deputy
director for science and technology, as the highest-ranking
members still in place from the team of George J. Tenet,
who stepped down as director of central intelligence in
July. 

The C.I.A. said that Mr. Kappes and Mr. Sulick planned to
retire, but would first join the agency's Career Transition
Program. In that program, they will join John E.
McLaughlin, the deputy director of central intelligence,
who announced his resignation on Friday, effective Dec. 2,
and at least four other senior officials who held
high-level posts under Mr. Tenet. A. B. Krongard, the No. 3
official under Mr. Tenet, was dismissed in September by Mr.
Goss. 

As deputy director for operations, Mr. Kappes had been in
charge of the agency's spying and other covert operations
worldwide. He is a former marine who spent more than 20
years at the C.I.A., serving as station chief in Moscow and
a Middle Eastern capital. Before assuming the post in
August, when he succeeded James L. Pavitt, Mr. Kappes was
Mr. Pavitt's principal deputy. 

Mr. Sulick had been associate deputy for
counterintelligence under Mr. Pavitt, and moved up to
become Mr. Kappes's principal deputy. 

In an interview, Ms. Harman, the Congressional Democrat,
said that she believed Mr. Goss had placed too much
authority in a small cadre of former House Republican
aides, including Mr. Murray, whom the new intelligence
chief has installed as senior advisers. "I don't begrudge
him the right to make changes,'' Ms. Harman said. "I don't
begrudge him the right to bring some of his own people to
the agency. What I'm criticizing is that he has an all-new
management team that has a reputation as partisan and
inexperienced, and it is clearly generating an enormous
reaction that is not beneficial to the agency and to the
war on terrorism.'' 

Senator Bob Graham of Florida, a Democrat who is close to
Mr. Goss, said in a separate interview that Mr. Goss was
"driven by the right motivations'' in overhauling the
agency's top management. "There are lots of problems within
the intelligence agencies, and those are not going to be
solved by papering them over and without taking the bold
steps necessary.'' 

But Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the
top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, issued a
statement that called on Mr. Goss to "take immediate steps
to stabilize the situation at the C.I.A.'' 

"There is no doubt that changes needed to take place at the
C.I.A., and people should be held accountable for past
failures,'' Mr. Rockefeller said in the statement.
"However, the departure of highly respected and competent
individuals at such a crucial time is a grave concern.'' He
added: "The C.I.A. workforce must understand where he is
taking the agency and why, and he must provide some
explanation for this rash of departures among senior
officials." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/16/politics/16intel.html?ex=1101622374&ei=1&en=59c2a218bd40bb2d


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