DNI Designee Ratcliffe - Best Qualified

Mueller Questioned by Ratcliffe     [CBSN]

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There is quite a furor over the appointment of Representative John Ratcliffe to become the next DNI [Director of National Intelligence].

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.

Clapper

He also referred to James Clapper [the guy we saw smirking at Congressional committee members as he repeatedly perjured himself] "the most successful DNI since the position was created."  So, Ignatius manages to squeeze himself into a corner, worshipping the two most egregious criminals in the Intelligence Community since Jonathan Pollard, Ana Montes, Aldrich Ames, and Kim Philby.

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.

CIA ignored all the Indicators and Reports

And that day came with the horrors of 9-11, an event the planning/plotting details of which were discovered and provided by FBI agents, foreign intelligence and police services [e.g., the Philippines], and indicators from commercial [Private Sector] resources.

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.

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.

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].  

[See Rick Francona's book: Ally to Adversary, which examines the bewildering process by which Saddam was transitioned from our Ally to the basis for the Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm.]

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. 

[Unfortunately for The Swamp, particularly IC executives, modern technology is now revealing that 9-11 was a Bush ruse which cost the lives of thousands of people for the amusement and profit of a select group of Deep State puppet-masters; they've been identified and will find their way to Gitmo for trial, and likely execution. The professional investigators of 9-11 can no longer be dismissed as "Truthers" or Conspiracy Theorists with Tin Foil caps since forensic science now includes highly technical resources to discount the official versions with detailed revelations of the events and participants.]

But, we've digressed again.

When the Deep State positioned Obama in the Oval Office, it became important to create Intelligence Estimates [NIE] which lent credence to the Global War on Terrorism and justified the bloating of the IC from as few as 10,000 analysts and operatives to nearly a million government employees and private contractors, destroying any hope of processing any level of intelligence through hundreds of layers of indecisive and incompetent, but well-paid bureaucrats.

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]

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. 

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.

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Ed Notes:
Congressman Ratcliffe's assignments on Capitol Hill

House Committee Assignments

• House Intelligence Committee 
  • Strategic Technologies and Advanced Research Subcommittee
  • Intelligence and Modernization Readiness Subcommittee
• House Judiciary Committee
  • Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security (Ranking Member)
  • Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet
• House Committee on Homeland Security
  • Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Innovation
  • Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security
• House Ethics Committee

Brennan -- No Credentials

John, now here's what I want you to say next about Trump. 

We offer another guest post by a respected writer with the 

expertise for critical comment.

Charles Faddis is a retired CIA operations and case officer, and 
the author of “Beyond Repair: The Decline And Fall Of The CIA“.

AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. BRENNAN 
By Charles Faddis 
Published in andmagazine.com [July 24, 2018] 

Obama and his CIA Director John Brennan

Dear Mr. Brennan,

I understand that you are a political opponent of the current President of the United States.

I understand that you are an American citizen, and you have the right to freedom of speech.

I encourage you to utilize that right. I encourage you to speak your mind.

I encourage you, as I do all Americans, to be heard.

I implore you, however, to cease and desist from continuing to attempt to portray yourself in the public media as some sort of impartial critic concerned only with the fate of the republic.

I beg you to stop attempting to portray yourself as some sort of wise, all-knowing intelligence professional with deep knowledge of national security issues and no political inclinations whatsoever.




None of this is true!

You were never a spy.

You were never a case officer.

You never ran operations or recruited sources or worked the streets abroad.

You have no idea whatsoever of the true nature of the business of human intelligence.

You have never been in harm’s way.

You have never heard a shot fired in anger.


You were, for a short while, an intelligence analyst.
In that capacity, it was your job to produce finished intelligence based on basic intelligence provided to you by others.

The work of intelligence analysts is important; however in truth you never truly mastered this trade either. In your capacity as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, while still a junior officer, you were designated to brief the President of the United States who was, at that time, Bill Clinton.

As the presidential briefer, it was your job to read to the President, each morning, finished intelligence, written by others, based on intelligence collected by yet other individuals.
Period.

While serving as presidential briefer, you established a personal relationship with then President Bill Clinton.
End of story.

Everything that has transpired in your professional career since has been based on your personal relationship with the former President, his wife, Hillary, and their key associates.

Your connection to President Obama was, in fact, based on you having established yourself by the time he came to office as a reliable, highly political Democratic Party functionary.

All of your commentary in the public sphere is on behalf of your political patrons. 
It is no more impartial analysis than would be the comments of a paid press spokesman or attorney. You are speaking each and every time directly on behalf of political forces hostile to this President.

You are, in fact, currently on the payroll of both NBC and MSNBC, two of the networks most vocally opposed to President Trump and his agenda.

There is no impartiality in your comments.
Your assessments are not based on some sober judgment of what is best for this nation.
They are based exclusively on what you believe to be in the best interests of the politicians with whom you have long since allied yourself.

It should be noted that not only are you, most decidedly, not apolitical, but that you have been associated during your career with some of the greatest foreign policy disasters in recent American history.

As CIA Director for Barack Obama you:

1) Presided over the Iran nuclear deal, which allowed Iran to escape from decades of containment and set the Middle East on fire.

2) Watched while Russia annexed Crimea and then reestablished itself as a hostile force in the Middle East.

3) Dithered and tinkered with organizational wiring diagrams at CIA Headquarters while China annexed and fortified the entire South China Sea.




The extent to which you are tied directly to the Clintons, Barack Obama and the Democrat Party is clearly evident in the emotional nature of your recent commentary.

Ever since President Trump was elected, there has been a concerted effort to delegitimize him and destabilize him. This has been an unprecedented attempt to undermine the stability of the Republic in order to achieve partisan political advantage.

You and your patrons have been complicit in this effort and at its very heart.

Now as the Mueller investigation collapses of its own weight and the extent of this conspiracy is beginning to become clear you are in evident panic.

You should be.

You are free to do as you wish politically.
Stop representing to the American people that there is anything else at play.

You abandoned any hope of being a true intelligence professional decades ago and became a political hack.
Say so!

Meanwhile, Senator Rand Paul’s assessment of you stands:


“John Brennan started out his adulthood by voting for the Communist Party presidential candidate. He’s now ending his career by showing himself to be the most biased, bigoted, over-the-top, hyperbolic sort of unhinged director the CIA ever had.”

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Ed Note:
Having served with the CIA as a Case Officer, a guerrilla advisor, and as Regional Intelligence Advisor in Asia (1970-74), and having received, among other forms of recognition, the DCI Exceptional Intelligence Analyst  Award, we feel qualified to add a few comments on Mr Brennan, based on both personal knowledge as well as feedback from colleagues in the CIA, DIA, FBI, DEA, and other IC agencies.

1) Mr Brennan first came to our attention when we observed him as the analyst at CIA's Terrorist Desk, which, at that time, was the lowest and least respected position in the analytical chain. He was then, as now, regarded as a simpleton, but, in that position, no one felt he could do harm.  His co-workers had nothing positive to say about him.  We all assumed he was a protected entity as his incompetence demanded he be fired, much the same as Bob Gates was viewed during his early years at CIA.

2) Dysfunctional and incompetent as an analyst, Brennan was inexplicably bumped up as an assistant briefer at the White House, again, presumably a position in which he could do no harm.

3) Alarm bells began going off when the professional Intelligence Community noticed he was was providing the Print Media opinion pieces on Intelligence - while a member of the Intelligence Community!  This was a first, and an appalling breach of security as well as ethics for any officer still active in the IC.

4) Still, he toadied up to Bill Clinton, who recognized Brennan as a "useful idiot", and potential tool for the future.

5) When W arrived on the scene as the new POTUS, he recognized Brennan  as a very useful tool, particularly in endorsing the bogus 9/11 scenario, pointing fingers at the IC for its failure.  Not mentioned was the fact that the precise details of the attack had surfaced in a police raid in the Philippines as well as by several other elements of the IC -- and all reports were stifled.  But, Brennan was quite willing to toady up to Bush in recounting the official version of the "attack" on the Twin Towers, in spite of the challenges to the story by highly experienced engineers who viewed the destruction of the Twin Towers as a carefully constructed "implosion".

6) And, like Bob Gates, he was well rewarded, and, without operational experience or CIA backing,  Brennan was appointed as the Chief of Station in Saudi Arabia, coordinating with the Saudi Intelligence on US Intelligence, and ignoring the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Middle East.

7) Although young toadies feel Brennan had some credibility, experienced professionals felt that Brennan had been emplaced from Day One by the Deep State to ascend to the highest level of the CIA in order to bolster as "Intelligence Community Fact" whatever nonsense was proposed by other IC leaders.  

Notably, both Brennan and Clapper became documented perjurers while serving in their appointive positions. 

We understand both their names are on several of the 50,000+ sealed indictments which will be served up in September.  

We trust they will be comfortable in their Gitmo cells.

Federal Computer System at Risk?

Sabotaging the federal computer system can paralyze the entire government

We were recently speaking with a senior federal employee and learned that the IT department of one agency had reprogrammed the servers to fail in the near future, which would have caused that agency to lose its computer capability -- pushing it into collapse. 

The failure would have amounted to administrators and citizenry trying to open emergency websites, only to find that  the sites no longer working -- and without a redirect to a new site.

This is one agency, and we are certain that such sabotage is now rampant in this bureaucracy that Trump inherited, and that the government faces severe degradation from within; this would include normal [e.g., FAA Air Traffic Control], Emergency Response systems, as well as many DOD and Intelligence Community defense and monitoring systems, to include critical surveillance systems, such as the ones keeping an eye on North Korea nuclear developments.

This again appears to be an Obama/Soros-inspired sabotage effort.

Obama likely began his sabotage ops on 7 Nov 2016, when Trump won, surprising the Deep State.

He completed his sabotage preparations by depleting the Presidential Discretionary Fund [PDF], paying out all the funds between 1 January - 19 Juanuary 2017 to the cronies he had appointed during his Administration.

"The purpose of the PDF is/was to facilitate the easy transition of a new Administration to hire the 4,000 new appointees in every new Administration so that the new President will be able function with a fully developed Cabinet. 

Without those funds, Trump has been hamstrung and able to appoint only his Cabinet officers, but no staffs. Thus, Trump has not been able to fire the top tier in agencies like DOJ, FBI, CIA etc.  

Worse, Attorney General Sessions has come under considerable criticism for not firing [and arresting] senior Obama holdovers for their criminal activities.

So, why has Trump not fired all the Obamanite hold-overs remaining at the top tier of the federal bureaucracy?

Better to keep the Obamanites employed and monitored rather than to set them free to attack via the stay-behinds.      [Keep your friends close; and your enemies closer - Sun Tzu]

[Ultimately, laws of Sedition and Treason remain in place as a threat to keep the Obamanites in check; allowing the Administration to compile evidence of the wrong-doing of these perpetrators and for their eventual prosecution.] 

As background, Obama's key appointees were creating the mechanism for a mass failure of federal computer systems several years ago when a senior official at Treasury developed and planned the implementation of a new, REPLACEMENT, system to manage all acquisitions,procurements, and administrative spending for routine operations, to include salaries and expenses.  

This system would have, without parallel testing, replaced the existing system, and likely would have failed without adequate testing.

Keep in mind that the Obama Administration was not put in place to strengthen America, but to destroy it from within. Now that Obama is out of office, he has created a Shadow Government of violence and insurrection to bring down the Trump Administration.

To strengthen the Anti-American agenda, we now have a coalition of former Presidents, several of whom we used to trust, but, we realize now that they were all essentially puppets, each enabling the further erosion of the Constitution [e.g., Bush's Patriot Act, and Obama's unconstitutional Executive Orders].

Currently, Obama has recruited the Bush family, Clinton, and Jimmy Carter to attempt to maintain the continuity of the Deep State and to reinforce Obama's Shadow Government which will be funded by another Cllintonesque-style Relief Effort -- titled One America Appeal [to counter Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA)].

All One America Appeal donations will be funneled into "... a 'special account' at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation, a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization. Since it is a Presidential Library Foundation, audits will have to go through a special access process which will likely take years due to special barriers designed to keep official Presidential materials secret from the public. Other Presidential Libraries are notable for their secrecy and prurient interests [e.g., the Clinton Library housed a top floor bordello].  

We would not be surprised if this foundation were to be administered by our dearly beloved Hillary Clinton, whose Clinton Foundation laundered hundreds of billions of dollars in the name of "... helping Haiti's disaster recovery..." and which the President of Haiti announced was a sham since Haiti saw little, if any of those "disaster relief" funds.

This "ex-President Coalition" will enable the structuring of a clandestine communication among these gentlemen who have joined together to undermine President Trump in any manner possible.  In developing countries, we would refer to this organization as a Junta, designed to overthrow a duly elected government -- commonly referred to as Treason.

We fear for the future of our country as we see these five puppet President's create an anti-Administration effort to prevent President Trump from 'Draining the Swamp'!

They did what they were told, and We, The People, have suffered.