Leon E. Panetta has been tapped by Barack Obama to head the Central Intelligence Agency. The New York Times:
Mr. Panetta has a reputation in Washington as a competent manager with strong background in budget issues, but has little hands-on intelligence experience. If confirmed by the Senate, he will take control of the agency most directly responsible for hunting senior Al Qaeda leaders around the globe, but one that has been buffeted since the Sept. 11 attacks by leadership changes and morale problems.
Given his background, Mr. Panetta is a somewhat unusual choice to lead the C.I.A., an agency that has been unwelcoming to previous directors perceived as outsiders, such as Stansfield M. Turner and John M. Deutch. But his selection points up the difficulty Mr. Obama had in finding a C.I.A. director with no connection to controversial counterterrorism programs of the Bush era.
In this instance, I’ll say that no experience is best. The Company requires more than a facelift — it needs a top-to-bottom overhaul. I’m not certain Panetta can accomplish as much, but hopefully he’ll at least throw out the torture manual.
[Have you taken The Contrarian Poll? Surely you can spare two minutes.]
Yes. It’s creepy as hell, and highly recommended.
As much as I love the idea of outsiders coming in & shaking things up, I worry that the bureaucracy of the CIA is too strong to let it actually happen. They’re like the old guys on “The Wire” who sit around drinking their coffee until they figure out a plan to throw themselves down the stairs for early retirement.
This goes for government in general—as much as I’m optimistic that Obama can make some major changes to our country in the short term, it’s unlikely that he’ll “change” government as much as some seem to expect.
You can’t take out a garbage dump with hand grenades; you just shuffle the shit around a bit.
Some agencies are more resistant to change than others. I’d concur that CIA is probably the most difficult nut to crack, considering much of what they do is in the dark, and they’ve systematically mislead presidents since the day they got their charter.
I’d go as far as to suggest the entire agency should be shuttered, if only to retire a brand that’s come to imply all that’s wrong about the last 50-plus years of U.S. foreign policy — from flipping Iranian leadership in 1953 through the fundamentalist free market-inspired “regime changes” in Chile and Argentina that led to multiple thousands of “disappearances” and American-overseen torture operations.
Sometimes black SUVs, paramilitary raids and briefcases full of cash just aren’t enough. Sometimes, you need to do the hard work of gathering actual intelligence. Unfortunately, that’s never been CIA’s strong suit, despite having been created to do just that (and only that.) Unfortunately, the Company’s early leadership had hard-ons for political warfare and covert ops, and they left the intelligence for last. More fun to commission sadistic doctors to conduct illegal torture experiments at Montreal universities, in the hopes of finding the most efficient way to wipe clean a person’s entire psyche. Oh, and drink. A lot.
So yeah. Some bureaucracies are resistant to change. But I do think Barack Obama has plenty of opportunities to reform other agencies — in fact, I spent most of the morning at a conference about how to best improve the FCC. I think it can happen (but not in the way Professor Lessig would like.)
Obama also has a rare shot at rehabilitating the nation’s financial apparatus, but since it’s difficult to find a non-Friendmanite in the higher ranks of economic policy, I remain somewhat skeptical. That said, we’re starting to see a lot of “deathbed conversions” since Alan Greenspan admitted to the crumbling of his entire economic/intellectual edifice. Born-again Keynesians are gonna be a dime a dozen by year’s end, mark my words.
But that’s another tale for another time. . .
[...] Yesterday, we were talking about President-Elect Obama’s choice of Leon E. Panetta to head up the Central Intelligence Agency. Since then, there have been several reports on high-level Democrat in-fighting regarding Panetta’s fitness for the post. [...]
“That said, we’re starting to see a lot of “deathbed conversions” since Alan Greenspan admitted to the crumbling of his entire economic/intellectual edifice.”
Good point. A lot of change could be possible if we truly hit rock bottom economically & desperation led to a loosening of protocol for its own sake & progressive alternative ideas were allowed serious discussion at the table.
The real question is: do we really want to hit rock bottom?
[...] previously written about the dificulties Panetta — a former Congressman who didn’t serve on any intelligence [...]
have you read legacy of ashes? i was looking at that at the librarium the other day. sounds like it would be a masterpiece if it was fiction…