Petraeus Move to CIA Completes Cheney’s Dream, Consolidates Intelligence Within Pentagon

[Better Believe It]

Petraeus to CIA Completes Cheney’s Dream, Consolidates Intelligence Within Pentagon
By: Jim White
April 28, 2011

Today is the day that my worst fears will be realized, and the propaganda machine that has been mercilessly promoting the career of David Petraeus will achieve his nomination to be Director of Central Intelligence.

Aside from the horrible nature of this move in putting a blatantly political operator into a highly visible position from which he can consolidate his credentials for an eventual presidential campaign (see Spencer Ackerman for a very different take on this aspect), this move can be seen as finally completing Dick Cheney’s dream of moving virtually all intelligence functions into the Pentagon. Back when Michael Hayden was nominated to head CIA, the ongoing Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)-CIA turf war was noted:

"What worries some experts, however, is a shift in the balance of power within the US intelligence infrastructure as the CIA is weakened and the Pentagon expands its role. For one thing, the Pentagon’s intelligence activities largely escape congressional scrutiny. ”Rumsfeld and Cambone claim that everything they do is a military operation,” says Richard Clarke, the former head of counterterrorism at the National Security Council, ” that therefore nothing that they do should have oversight by the House and Senate intelligence committees. But they are doing things that are clearly intelligence.”

In today’s New York Times article about Petraeus’ nomination, we see that the blurring of the lines between intelligence and military functions already is almost complete.

http://my.firedoglake.com/jimwhite/2011/04/28/petraeus-to-cia-completes-cheneys-dream-consolidates-intelligence-within-pentagon/


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Obama’s Pentagon and C.I.A. Picks Show Shift in How U.S. Fights
By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
April 28, 2011

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s decision to send an intelligence chief to the Pentagon and a four-star general to the Central Intelligence Agency is the latest evidence of a significant shift over the past decade in how the United States fights its battles — the blurring of lines between soldiers and spies in secret American missions abroad.

As C.I.A. director, Mr. Panetta hastened the transformation of the spy agency into a paramilitary organization, overseeing a sharp escalation of the C.I.A.’s bombing campaign in Pakistan using armed drone aircraft, and an increase in the number of secret bases and covert operatives in remote parts of Afghanistan.

General Petraeus, meanwhile, has aggressively pushed the military deeper into the C.I.A.’s turf, using Special Operations troops and private security contractors to conduct secret intelligence missions. As commander of the United States Central Command in September 2009, he also signed a classified order authorizing American Special Operations troops to collect intelligence in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran and other places outside of traditional war zones.

The result is that American military and intelligence operatives are at times virtually indistinguishable from each other as they carry out classified operations in the Middle East and Central Asia. Some members of Congress have complained that this new way of war allows for scant debate about the scope and scale of military operations. In fact, the American spy and military agencies operate in such secrecy now that it is often hard to come by specific information about the American role in major missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Libya and Yemen.

Read the full article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/us/28military.html?_r=1


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A more militarized CIA for a more militarized America
April 28, 2011

The first four Directors of the CIA (from 1947-1953) were military officers, but since then, there has been a tradition (generally though imperfectly observed) of keeping the agency under civilian rather than military leadership. That's why George Bush's 2006 nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden to the CIA provoked so many objections from Democrats (and even some Republicans).

The Hayden nomination triggered this comment from the current Democratic Chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein: "You can't have the military control most of the major aspects of intelligence. The CIA is a civilian agency and is meant to be a civilian agency." The then-top Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman, said "she hears concerns from civilian CIA professionals about whether the Defense Department is taking over intelligence operations" and "shares those concerns." On Meet the Press, Nancy Pelosi cited tensions between the DoD and the CIA and said: "I don't see how you have a four-star general heading up the CIA." Then-Sen. Joe Biden worried that the CIA, with a General in charge, will "just be gobbled up by the Defense Department." Even the current GOP Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Pete Hoekstra, voiced the same concern about Hayden: "We should not have a military person leading a civilian agency at this time."

Of course, like so many Democratic objections to Bush policies, that was then and this is now. Yesterday, President Obama announced -- to very little controversy -- that he was nominating Gen. David Petraeus to become the next CIA Director. The Petraeus nomination raises all the same concerns as the Hayden nomination did, but even more so: Hayden, after all, had spent his career in military intelligence and Washington bureaucratic circles and thus was a more natural fit for the agency; by contrast, Petraues is a pure military officer and, most of all, a war fighting commander with little background in intelligence. But in the world of the Obama administration, Petraeus' militarized, warrior orientation is considered an asset for running the CIA, not a liability.

The nomination of Petraeus doesn't change much; it merely reflects how Washington is run. That George Bush's favorite war-commanding General -- who advocated for and oversaw the Surge in Iraq -- is also Barack Obama's favorite war-commanding General, and that Obama is now appointing him to run a nominally civilian agency that has been converted into an "increasingly militarized" arm of the American war-fighting state, says all one needs to know about the fully bipartisan militarization of American policy. There's little functional difference between running America's multiple wars as a General and running them as CIA Director because American institutions in the National Security State are all devoted to the same overarching cause: Endless War.

Read the full article at:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html

[Ignis]

1. "Of course, like so many Democratic objections to Bush policies, that was then and this is now."

You said it, Mr. Greenwald.

:kick:

[BlueIris]

5. +1. nt

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Cal33]

3. Maybe your fears could be delayed, for a while at least, since

the new Secretary of Defense is a recognized Democrat.

[Exilednight]

4. Why does Obama keep appointing Republican types like

Petraeus to elite positions like head of the CIA?

[Cal33]

6. He is probably too firm a believer in bi-partisanship, and will not

give it up. He does not see that a true bi-partisanship with the Neocons
is an impossibility -- as many of us do.

Somebody wrote once that all you have to do is to read Obama's second book,
"The Audacity of Hope." He is carrying out his political philosophy exactly
as spelled out there. It's for all to see.