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* The same goes for raw reporting from the field or from liaison intelligence services. I am particularly upset that Israel regularly skirts established procedures and gives raw information to top White House and Pentagon officials before Central Intelligence Agency analysts have time to evaluate it. Quite aside from the fact that by law I am responsible for substantive liaison with foreign services, serious mischief can result when the Central Intelligence Agency is not able to comment on key reports before they are acted upon. Think back to June of 2002, for example, when, on the strength of an Israeli report that the CIA had not had a chance to evaluate properly, you were persuaded to reverse the longstanding American policy of recognizing Yasir Arafat as the duly elected representative of the Palestinian people. Surely, if the crescendo of violence over recent years has proven anything, it is that Arafat simply cannot be left out.
* You need to ensure that the Central Intelligence Agency and other parts of the intelligence community have the opportunity to provide appropriate intelligence input before major decisions are made. Think, for example, of the sudden, arbitrary decision by Ahmad Chalabi, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Ambassador Paul Bremer to disband the Iraqi army. Were my people given the chance, they could have told you that would be a very dumb idea.
* Experience - including mine - has shown that it is counterproductive over the long run for the DCI to have advocated for or become associated with any particular policy. I should have known better than to become so closely associated with the "Tenet Plan" for Israel-Palestine. How, for example, can my analysts retain any credibility for objective assessment of that plan's prospects for success when it bears my name?
The Director of Central Intelligence must not need the job; and he must have the self-confidence and courage to resign when the demands of integrity dictate this as the only honorable course. Should the President refuse to honor the kind of requests I have just illustrated, the DCI should give very serious consideration to resigning.
Directors of Central Intelligence cannot let themselves be used, as the Vice President and Defense Secretary used Tenet, for example. Historically, depending on who was President at the time, several DCIs had the experience of being marginalized by the White House. And some, like William Colby, were fired. But Colby's marginalization and eventual firing came as a result of his standing on principle (and standing up to Henry Kissinger), not for letting himself be used.
It is a myth that the DCI must enjoy a close personal relationship with the President. In fact, doing so is a net minus. The White House is not a fraternity house; mutual respect is far more important than camaraderie. A mature, self-confident President will respect an independent director. The director must avoid being "part of the team" in the way the President's political advisers are part of the team.
Team Work
Overly close identification with "the team" can erode objectivity and cloud intelligence judgments.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, like Vice President Dick Cheney a frequent visitor to CIA headquarters to "help" with analysis on Iraq, told the press that Director Tenet was "so grateful to the President [presumably for not firing him after Sept. 11, 2001] that he would do anything for him."
That attitude is the antithesis of what is needed in a director.
A DCI who has built a relationship of mutual respect with the President does not need to join the briefer who presents the President's Daily Brief. It is far better to encourage those senior analysts to brief, as we did in the past, unencumbered by a boss looking over our shoulder.
And in ordinary circumstances, one session with the President per week should be enough face-time to discuss key substantive issues and, when necessary, Central Intelligence Agency operations.
As a general rule, a DCI should not be drawn from the operational ranks of the agency. Major mistakes made by Allen Dulles, Richard Helms and William Casey provide ample proof that having a spy at the helm is a poor idea. (William Colby, who had an unusually wide grasp of the analytic as well as the operational function of intelligence - and a keen respect for the Constitution - was a notable exception to this guideline.)
A director has to be a wise manager. The director must be able to function effectively while standing astride the structural fault created by the National Security Act of 1947, which allowed for DCI involvement in operational matters in addition to the director's primary role as chief substantive intelligence adviser to the President.
This unenviable, schizophrenic portfolio demands uncommon self-confidence, objectivity, balance, and skill - and, again, integrity.
Among those who failed the test were Dulles, with the Bay of Pigs disaster; Helms, who, while running large-scale operations in Vietnam, knowingly acquiesced in General William Westmoreland's deceptively low estimates of Vietnamese Communist troop strength; and Casey, with his personal involvement in an array of misadventures in Central America and Iran/Contra, his cooking of intelligence to promote and support those escapades, and his unswerving devotion to the idea that the Soviet Union could never change.
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