- WASHINGTON -- CIA Director Porter Goss resigned suddenly Friday, but gave
no reason for quitting the spy agency.
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- The CIA has been trying to recover from
a stream of departures of senior officers over Goss' leadership style,
low morale and fallout from intelligence failures over Iraq and the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks.
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- His departure after less than two years
threatened to prolong the turmoil roiling the CIA as it helps lead U.S.
efforts to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan, capture Osama bin Laden and
crush al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations.
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- Goss sat next to President Bush as Bush
announced the resignation in the Oval Office. Director of National Security
John Negroponte, Goss' immediate superior, was also present. Neither the
White House nor the CIA gave a reason for Goss' resignation.
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- "He's led ably," said Bush,
describing Goss' tenure as "one of transition."
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- Bush praised Goss for helping "make
this country a safer place" by overseeing a plan to hire more CIA
analysts and field officers and guiding the agency through an overhaul
of the U.S. intelligence community.
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- Goss said he believed that the CIA "is
on a very even keel, sailing well. I honestly believe that we have improved
dramatically your goals for our nation's intelligence capabilities."
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- Goss is a former Republican congressman
who was a covert CIA officer from 1962 until 1971. He later made millions
in the property business.
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- Some CIA employees welcomed Goss' announcement,
said several U.S. intelligence officers and knowledgeable U.S. officials,
all of whom declined to be identified because they weren't authorized to
speak publicly. They said that the employees see it as a chance for Bush
to tap someone with stronger leadership abilities who could replace former
Republican congressional staffers whom Goss brought in as senior managers.
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- Goss was embroiled in controversy almost
from the day he took over as CIA director in October 2004 because he appointed
Republican congressional staffers to senior management posts in place of
long-serving officers.
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- CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said Goss'
resignation wasn't linked to the friendship between CIA Executive Director
Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the agency's third-highest official, and
businessman Brent Wilkes, who was convicted of bribing former Rep. Randy
"Duke" Cunningham, a California Republican.
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- The FBI is investigating whether Wilkes
provided prostitutes, limousines and hotel rooms to Cunningham, who's serving
a more than eight-year prison term.
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- Foggo has acknowledged attending "occasional
card games" organized by Wilkes, but denied any further involvement,
according to a CIA statement.
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- Goss' appointments of Republican congressional
staffers damaged morale at an agency that already was hurt by charges that
it might have been able to foil the Sept. 11 attacks and over its erroneous
assessments that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had chemical, biological
and nuclear weapons programs.
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- The resignations and retirements of veteran
CIA officials turned into a flood, according to current and former CIA
officials and members of Congress.
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- Rep. Jane Harman of California, the senior
Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, recently said that the CIA
was in "freefall" after losing veteran officers with a combined
experience of 300 years.
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- "There was a lot of discontent,"
said one U.S. official. "Morale was dangerously low."
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- A White House official who asked not
to be further identified said Bush could nominate a replacement for Goss
as early as Monday. One possible choice was said to be Frances Fragos Townsend,
the director of the National Homeland Security Council.
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- "Whomever the president selects
must be able to gain the respect of intelligence professionals," said
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"I hope he will name an experienced and knowledgeable intelligence
professional, someone who is a skilled manager in very difficult circumstances."
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- After delivering his resignation to the
president, Goss announced it over the CIA's internal television system
and said there had been "great strides" in analytical, intelligence-gathering
and technological capabilities.
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- Acting on a recommendation of the independent
Sept. 11 commission, Bush had reduced the CIA director's power by creating
Negroponte's post and transferring to him what had been Goss' job of managing
the 16 agencies of the U.S. intelligence community. Negroponte also took
over other duties that had belonged to the CIA director, including Bush's
morning intelligence briefing.
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- Two U.S. intelligence officials said
Goss had complained privately for months about becoming subordinate to
Negroponte. They said they believed that one reason Goss resigned was because
of recent decisions by Negroponte that reduced the CIA's role in terrorism
analysis and the supervision of relations with foreign services on which
the CIA relies - critics say far too heavily - for intelligence.
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- Goss also had expressed frustration over
tensions between his professional intelligence officers and his political
superiors, particularly concerning CIA analyses on Iraq, said two other
U.S. intelligence officers.
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- "We have been unable to tell the
president, the vice president, the secretary of defense and others what
they seem to want to hear, which is a more optimistic assessment of political
progress in Iraq" and an upbeat estimate of "the inroads we're
making against the Sunni insurgency and the Shiite militias," said
one of the officials.
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- http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/14512916.htm
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