In the final decade before the new millennium, the overall CIA budget plummeted, training bases closed, and the number of recruits for the clandestine service steadily dropped. The agency is still recovering from that decade of decline, said reporter Rowan Scarborough at the Heritage Foundation recently. Since then, the organization’s ability to effectively collect intelligence has been hampered, Scarborough said.
However, since new members became agents during the Clinton years, the organization developed a political bias, not to mention a widespread resort to leaking inaccurate information and the use of “smear” tactics against public figures.
Scarborough, a journalist who reports on national security issues for the Washington Examiner, is the author of the new book Sabotage: America’s Enemies Within the CIA. The work presents a number of examples of recent CIA mishaps, culminating in the leak of information to the press that spurred the Valerie Plame investigation and conviction of Louis Libby.
A “smear,” Scarborough described, is the leakage of unsubstantiated charges that degrade a person’s standing. Though leaks may be good for a reporter or for the education of the people, inaccurate or unnecessary leaks of information may degrade public persons, and even have an adverse effect on a major policy issue.
For example, Vice-President Dick Cheney visited the agency often in the wake of 9/11, to gather valuable information and oversee the intelligence-gathering policies. News sources soon reported that Cheney went to the CIA to “browbeat” them in order to get the information he “really wanted” to hear.
All of these accusations were completely false, however. A Senate bipartisan report concluded that Robert Joseph, the Arms Control officer, never even talked about his information with the CIA. “This, to me, is how you sabotage people,” Scarborough asserted.
An even more damaging leak occurred, however, and on national television. Tyler Drumhelder appeared on “60 Minutes,” representing the CIA. Drumhelder announced that before the Iraq War, the U.S. had a cabinet-level defector who passed the information that Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. Actually, the defector had confirmed that Saddam did possess weapons of mass destruction. This was a smear that, if it elicited enough public outcry, could very well have led to the impeachment of a President.
Scarborough also remarked that the CIA is the only organization he knows of with an alumni agency that publicly frames Bush as a war criminal. The organization has accomplished some positive goals in the past, such as the creation of the Office of Target Surveillance and Survey, but the facts do not lie. Numerous smears and bad leaks have marred the achievement of the CIA.
As to the current concerns about the agency, a recent investigation into certain clandestine services overseas found a situation considered “appalling.” Untested agents, some of whom could not effectively intermingle for an extended period of time into their respective foreign environments, made up much of the force overseas. Such a policy, combined with a growing mistrust by foreign countries of American intelligence, has spelled a recession in American gathering of information overseas. “Iranians don’t trust the CIA,” Scarborough stated, eliciting spontaneous applause from certain members of his audience at the Heritage Foundation. “That is why we know so little [about Iran].” If the CIA has developed a reputation for bad leaks and a volatile foreign policy, how can they be trusted when seeking vital information from foreign sources?
Matt Hadro was an intern this summer at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
