Seeking Spies
Why the CIA is having such a hard time keeping its best
If the D.O. can somehow manage to stanch the flow of experienced case officers, bring in more fresh blood, and begin to meet the 50 percent expansion target, it will be an achievement of real significance. But in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, still more tough new challenges have been placed before the CIA. The agency has been directed to take the lead in all human intelligence-gathering efforts throughout the sprawling U.S. intelligence community. This means not just managing and coordinating the activities of spies from other agencies but establishing and enforcing common standards for training and tradecraft to help operatives avoid reliance on shaky sources, as the Defense Intelligence Agency did with the Iraqi exile code-named "Curveball," who delivered a lot of bogus information about Saddam Hussein's supposed stores of banned weapons. The agency is also responsible now for developing new capabilities for overt and covert intelligence action overseas and for developing more-advanced and innovative technologies to help America's spies collect intelligence on terrorists and rogue states.
Drawing lines. This, obviously, is much easier said than done. If clear, simple lines could be drawn between the CIA's domain of foreign intelligence, the FBI's domain of domestic intelligence, and the military's traditional domain of tactical battlefield intelligence, things might not be so difficult. In an effort to begin enforcing its new mandate to lead and coordinate all human intelligence gathering, the CIA signed memoranda of understanding with the FBI and the Pentagon last year that outlined procedures for informing one another of the activities each is undertaking. Under the agreement, the Pentagon informs the CIA of its military-related collection, but there are still reports of friction in the field. In a new book, Transforming U.S. Intelligence, John MacGaffin, the CIA's former associate deputy director of operations, warns that "if the DOD continues on this path, we could soon have two entities--CIA and DOD--conducting the same intelligence-collection activities in the same space, without a clear, authoritative controlling mechanism." A Pentagon source says that in recent months, however, the two agencies have made significant progress in defining which activities are military and which are the CIA's domain.
The CIA has made strides in increasing its covert-action capabilities, but there are still significant challenges in what are arguably the most difficult jobs in this difficult profession. The covert-action arm of the agency, called the Special Activities Division, has been expanding. Some of the recruits have military experience. But in the view of an official who has worked in both the agency and the military, the division still lacks sufficient ability to plan and execute military-style operations, even though it has the legal mandate to conduct covert action.
Transformation is painful for any institution. But the malaise in the D.O.--Goss recently referred to it as just one among "four equal tribes"--is pervasive. If the controversies about interrogation tactics and secret prisons blow up, and if congressional committees begin turning the place inside out as they did back in the 1970s, even some D.O. veterans critical of the current regime say the consequences could be tragic. "We are still not getting it right," one former senior official says, "but there is no alternative."
advertisement
