Director Of Censored Intelligence [View All]

[robertpaulsen]

Director Of Censored Intelligence
John Prados
October 12, 2005

Two recent developments at the CIA make it clear that America’s premier intelligence-gathering agency is a mess. The first, CIA director Porter Goss' refusal to implement the disciplinary recommendations contained in the agency's inspector general 9/11 performance review, will no doubt attract far more attention.

But the second development is equally significant. That is the release, with no public fanfare at all, of a version of the CIA's internal inquiry into prewar Iraq intelligence. Conducted by a panel under former CIA Deputy Director Richard Kerr, the Iraq inquiry was supposed to get to the bottom of the hype on the now-notorious claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Both of these events says a great deal about political power, self-censorship and the Bush administration's determined effort to evade accountability for either the 9/11 attacks or its premeditated war against Iraq.

Inspector Generally Ignored

Way back in December 2002, the joint congressional committee investigating 9/11 requested that the CIA's inspector general make his own review and look into the specific roles of individuals, thus going beyond the congressional inquiry's institutional focus. The 9/11 Commission adopted the same focus and made the same request. The House and Senate intelligence committees also petitioned for the report to be released. The CIA inspector general, John L. Helgerson, subsequently spent 17 months exploring every nook and cranny of the agency’s performance prior to 9/11, completing the report in June 2004. The study fell into the pile in the interregnum between the resignation of George J. Tenet and appointment of Porter J. Goss as agency director in late September.

How did Goss handle the Helgerson report? As chairman of the House intelligence committee, Porter Goss had been among those requesting the study. As CIA director, however, Goss displayed much less interest in it, treating at it as a draft document, refusing to forward the report to the committees. All this after Goss swore under oath his commitment to accountability, openness to congressional oversight, and assertion that "I will be a working stiff taking directions." The House committee, at least, sent the CIA a letter demanding the document be provided to Congress. At the time, Goss was criticized for an action that kept a negative report from the public just before the 2004 election, but he argued the individuals named in the report had not had the opportunity to respond to it, and Goss held it back from the committee.

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