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| Mueller Questioned by Ratcliffe [CBSN] |
There is quite a furor over the appointment of Representative John Ratcliffe to become the next DNI [Director of National Intelligence].
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| Brennan |
David Ignatius, a long-time supplicant of the CIA in even its most corrupt form, calls Ratcliffe a "dangerous, demented clown." Keep in mind that Ignatius thought Brennan, the Muslim buffoon, to be brilliant; so much for the Ignatius credibility quotient.
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| Clapper |
The Washington Post, lacking any real understanding of a professional Intelligence Community, regards the appointment of Ratcliffe as horrendous, tagging Ratcliffe as an "inexperienced, partisan politician."
We also hear from "former Intelligence officers" who demand that the DNI be selected from the executive levels of the CIA, or, at least from the existing DNI staff, or, By Gawd, from maybe the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence [SSCI], managed by Dianne Feinstein who employed a Chinese Spy as her driver for 20 years.
Why, Ratcliffe lacks "any real experience, and worse, he likely has embraces Trump's 'Deep State' conspiracy theories about the CIA and FBI. Goodness! Even a former "Station Chief" [aka: COS] claimed "this place is under siege." That, of course, would presume there are any Station Chiefs with any degree of credibility these days.
Pretty much ignored is that the Intelligence Community lost virtually ALL credibility when it conspired in a combined effort to effect a coup against President-elect Trump. And, let's not forget that Ilhan Omar, a Somali, sits on our House Foreign Affairs Committee - with a Top Secret Clearance.
So, before we comment on Mr Ratcliffe's selection, we refer you to the ABOUT section on our blog site so you can grasp a bit about our background, and why we feel entitled to weigh in on this topic, and to give our full endorsement to Mr Rattcliffe as the new DNI.
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After the dust of 9-11 had settled, we sat down with President Reagan's Attorney General, Ed Meese, and laid the groundwork for the new position of the DNI.
Until 9-11 [and for a while after] the Intelligence Community was managed by the Director of Central Intelligence [DCI], who also was the Director of the CIA, giving that agency extraordinary power over the entire IC analyses, assessments, and operational activities. The DCI could over-rule any agreements and suppress any reporting; and the CIA could take credit for any assessments or reporting by other agencies. And when its own fumbling created disastrous results, it could, and did blame other agencies for its own errors.
If there were successes, the CIA would claim the credit, no matter which agency had succeeded; and, if there were a failure, the CIA would run to the SSCI and point a finger [usually at Military Intelligence] claiming the Military was incompetent at Intelligence matters, and CIA should control all those operations [or analyses].
Given that history of abuse, we created the position of DNI to oversee the coordination of all components of the IC, but without the power the DCI had. Initially, the concept worked. But, then, under Obama, an IC which was limited to a few thousand employees of many specialties engorged to a population of nearly a million government and contract employees, creating a bureaucracy incapable of conducting or producing viable Intelligence. Thus, Trump's disdain for his IC support. Once again, having succeeded in neutering other components of the IC [e.g., DIA], the CIA assumed control of the IC once again with the combined power of Brennan and Clapper.
In plain and simple terms, the CIA was a Bully, and a fairly incompetent one at that with a long string of Intelligence failures, fiascos, abuses, and implications of corruption. Needless to say, this bullying annoyed the other members of the IC, and we all lurked in the shadows, waiting for the opportunity to drive a wooden stake through the heart of this almighty vampire.
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| CIA ignored all the Indicators and Reports |
In essence, there was a plethora of Indicators completely and totally ignored by the highly touted and self-proclaimed "Terrorism Expert" John Brennan, who, in spite of missing/ignoring all the indicators, immediately rose to prominence with George W Bush, going on to become, what else, the Director of the CIA!
This came as a stunning surprise to the entire IC, but particularly to the remaining CIA professionals who almost unanimously despised Brennan and regarded him as a complete buffoon [much as they had regarded Bob Gates, a previous Bush designee, who, in spite of a continuous history of failure at the CIA, was promoted to the position of DCI by President GHW Bush.
[We can speak pejoratively here since we were intimately familiar with the IC and had deep friendships and alliances with many CIA, DIA, NSA and FBI professionals, as well as colleagues in the Military Intelligence Services. Why, we even spent time with CIA as an operative, and at the Departments of Defense and State as a senior analyst with highly credible recognition (even from the DCI) - so we can't be accused of blowing smoke out our butt.] We knew lots of folks (still do) throughout the IC and coordinated operations directly with the Assistant Attorney General, back before the IC became politicized and weaponized by Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and Mueller. Given their atrocious behavior, we even wrote a blog on restructuring the IC.]
But, we have again digressed.
[Enough of slamming Brennan and Clapper; we'll spend more time on them in separate blogs.]
We worked with Ed Meese [Reagan's Attorney General] to create the DNI after 9-11 to eliminate the DCI position and to neuter the CIA's dominance of the analytical and operational community. We sought to create a lean and efficient Intelligence Community, unencumbered by bureaucratic bloating; one which could focus on creating viable operations through thorough and cooperative analyses from all elements.
Our proposed process, for example, might follow these components:
1) A CIA station might report rumors, via clandestine operatives, of coup plotting, while the Defense Attache might report comments by one or more of the military plotters.
2) CIA and DIA analysts would examine the profiles of the plotters, and establish key words for NSA to monitor in Communications Intelligence [COMINT].
3) NRO [the satellite imagery guys at the National Reconnaissance Office] could then monitor any and all military movements which might be gauged as supportive of a coup.
4) Since most coups are bloodless, we would also review Private Sector Intelligence showing commercial movements of personal goods and wealth transfers in preparation of the soon-to-be deposed leader.
5) We might even send in covert operatives to help the soon-to-be deposed leader on his way with dark means of transport.
6) And, all elements of the IC would work together on this project via the DNI o!ce where information on analyses and operations could be exchanged.
1) A CIA station might report rumors, via clandestine operatives, of coup plotting, while the Defense Attache might report comments by one or more of the military plotters.
2) CIA and DIA analysts would examine the profiles of the plotters, and establish key words for NSA to monitor in Communications Intelligence [COMINT].
3) NRO [the satellite imagery guys at the National Reconnaissance Office] could then monitor any and all military movements which might be gauged as supportive of a coup.
4) Since most coups are bloodless, we would also review Private Sector Intelligence showing commercial movements of personal goods and wealth transfers in preparation of the soon-to-be deposed leader.
5) We might even send in covert operatives to help the soon-to-be deposed leader on his way with dark means of transport.
6) And, all elements of the IC would work together on this project via the DNI o!ce where information on analyses and operations could be exchanged.
In fact, the process actually worked like that, briefly.
We originally envisioned the DNI to occupy a rather small building near the White House which had served as a place for representatives of the IC to meet and coordinate issues and operations around the world. Gradually, however, it expanded into a bloated empire of hundreds of thousands of bureaucratic entities incapable of coordination, much less creating actionable Intelligence.
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| Saddam Hussein |
The politicization and bloating of the process began under George W Bush, whose primary goal was to create a smokescreen disguising his 9-11 attack as the basis for our new international war adventures throughout the Middle East, disposing of Saddam Hussein, our long-time Middle East ally and stabilizer [albeit brutal].
And then, the IC was directed to create the basis for the endless war in Afghanistan to track down Osama bin Laden and kill him - a simple enough task in the old days with a few teams of lightly armed Special Forces operatives.
But, the Bush and Obama Administrations expanded both the Military and the IC into massive, expensive, and incoherent bureaucracies, while destroying the competency of both entities.
But, we've digressed again.
The Plan was to make the system so convoluted that no one could understand it, or its products.
When Trump took office, he was faced with nonsensical IC smoke and mirrors briefings which had no bearing on reality.
Thus, Trump's disdain for, and refusal to accept his IC support.
He preferred to get his Intelligence assessments from the Private Sector -- which had hired the professionals from the IC and given them the resources and facilities to conduct Intelligence as we had envisioned the DNI to operate.
Clapper and Brennan recognized the Handwriting on the Wall, indicating their power positions and commercial contracts, post retirement, were in jeopardy, at which point they attempted to stage a coup with the amateurish resources they had at hand.
And, we are now witnessing the unravelling of that process.
So, now, we return to the origin of this tale.
What about Mr Ratcliff's qualifications, or lack thereof, to become the DNI.
[We list his Committee participation below]
[We list his Committee participation below]
Briefly, as we've noted, the DNI position is not one of power over the IC, but is precisely limited in that respect.
In fact, the DNI, by charter, is limited to only MANAGE the IC and to coordinate the functions of the components of the IC as the Chief Executive Officer [CEO] of a large corporation would manage all the components of a large company. Just as the corporate CEO need not be a programmer to manage an Google, or an engineer to manage Bechtel, the DNI needs only management skills, and a legal mind since much of what the IC does require a legal review.
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| Judge William Webster No Intelligence Background Before Appointment |
Keep in mind, the IC currently consists of highly technical resources [NSA, NRO, NGA], along with HUMINT [clandestine, covert, and open source operations].
You will never find any executive skilled in all those specialties, but, recall that Jack Welch managed General Electric and increase the company's value by 4,000%.
Ross Perot managed EDS, leading it to become one of the most successful companies in US history..
The skills of Welch and Perot consisted of directing capable executives who, in turn, managed highly technical components -- much the same as the DNI would direct the executives in charge of the various Intelligence agencies which comprise the IC.
Perhaps the best and most respected Director was Judge William Webster who successfully managed not only the FBI, but later became the Director of Central Intelligence -- as a lawyer/jurist - NOT an Intelligence specialist.
Mr Ratcliffe is a manager, so, like Webster, he won't favor one agency over another in his management process. As an attorney, he can recognize all the elements of a good legal brief
as it would pertain to clandestine or covert operations; and, he would be the most capable executive of listening to the heads of the specialty units of NSA, NRO, NGA, DEA, FBI, DIA, and the Military Services and evaluating their assessments and/or their proposed courses of actions as they would merge into achieving an ultimate goal, or operation.
So, we suspect Mr Ratcliffe can manage the Intelligence Community in an equally common sense manner, even if he is not an Intelligence technician.
Ed Notes:
Congressman Ratcliffe's assignments on Capitol Hill
House Committee Assignments
- House Intelligence Committee
- House Judiciary Committee
- House Committee on Homeland Security
- House Ethics Committee
