CIA head mistaken to forbid opposition

Through Murky Waters

Intelligence work is necessarily unsavory at times, but that unsavory nature should never transform into a lack of ethics in the Central Intelligence Agency offices. CIA director Porter Goss has crossed that line by encouraging his employees to support the administration’s policies and, by so doing, has put the country in danger.

Goss told employees, in an internal memorandum made public in The New York Times on Nov. 17,

"We support the administration, and its policies, in our work as agency employees. We do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies." He went on to offer the seemingly contradictory, "We provide the intelligence as we see it — and let the facts alone speak to the policy-maker," a statement that appears to be an outright lie considering the preceding instructions.

If Goss truly believes that the role of the CIA is to support the administration, it can be inferred that the information presented to the president and the public will not be a complete, objective set of data.

Without encouraging study of all intelligence from all angles, Goss is setting himself and the CIA up for another fall similar to the misinformation about Iraq’s pre-war weapons — a situation where some dissent was ignored in favor of more agreeable analysis, and policy was decided based on this faulty information.

Rather, Goss should be encouraging opposition to accepted policy because, without examining all possible interpretations of information, the truth will never be found. The U.S. justice system believes in this principle — a juror must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of a defendant’s guilt. What Goss has told CIA employees is that there will be no doubt tolerated at the agency. The errors that will result from this will be enormous.

This memo is the latest event in a turbulent year at the CIA that included former director George Tenet’s resignation in June and the more recent resignations of two deputy directors and two directors of operations — all as a result of personal or policy disagreements. The CIA is under pressure form the federal government and the public to reform its policies and practices as a result of the perceived failings that led to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Efforts at damage control by the CIA are unconvincing — the memo is quite clear in its direction.

Statements have emphasized the non-partisan nature of the CIA, which is encouraging — regardless of who is president, they still only will be told what they want to hear.

The only silver lining to this is that the memo was made public and, at the very least, Goss will be forced to consider whether he is acting in the best interest of the public. It is possible that he simply wrote something very stupid accidentally, but that deep of an error does not lend credibility to the man who committed it.

The CIA’s credibility has been low after Sept. 11, and the Iraqi war bungles, and Goss’ instructions have done nothing to restore it. While the public never sees much of the information that crosses the desks at the CIA, it expects that the information be presented as just that — information, without agenda or bias.

It is shameful that Goss would institute a policy that will be detrimental to the United States, and it is frightening to think what analytical and policy errors will be committed and what new wars will be fought because their opposition was squelched.

Alex Sirney is a sophomore SMAD/anthropology major.