Former CIA insider Reuel Marc Gerecht dishes on the impact of moving the agency out of the forefront in the war on terror:
American counterterrorism has now enthusiastically shifted from the “gloves coming off” to a post-post-9/11 determination to return American virtue to what it supposedly once was. Unless Langley now piles on cash bonuses—and CIA bonuses usually aren’t compelling—the incentives for agency officers to join the White House’s new plans for a multiagency “professional” cadre of interrogators will go nowhere. Langley will be lucky if it can get the third-rate among its own to sign on. And one has to wonder about the better agents at the FBI, which still hasn’t happily made the transition into a counterterrorist organization. Who would want to join an interrogation outfit that sounds so politically correct and sensitive?
Throughout the 1990s, FBI offices grew rapidly overseas. In some places, the bureau’s men actually took over the offices of CIA station chiefs, pushing the bureaucratic equivalent of four-star generals into much smaller digs. Returning rapidly to a pre-9/11 world, the Obama administration seems poised to give the FBI overwhelming responsibility for counterterrorism at home and abroad. The CIA is no longer the pre-eminent agency in the fight against Islamic militancy. It hardly did a superlative job. But many will not be rejoicing at the rise once again of the FBI in counterterrorism. Being “virtuous” may not look so good looking back.
A lot of folks want to go back to 9/10, back to the way we were in our placid self-absorption. Me?
I’m not so sure. Sure it was a good show while it lasted.
But I really didn’t like the sequel.
Edging out or forcing out the good and committed at the CIA — those who love this country and will risk their own lives to protect it — is THE PLAN. It has been the plan all along among those who now infest Washington, D.C.
The evidence is mounting that the CHANGE that people thought they were voting for is not the CHANGE they got. Leopards do not change their spots, and Obama was quite open about where he was coming from for years before the election. You know people by the friends they keep. He has quite a few friends that do not have the welfare (and I use this word in its proper meaning) of this country at heart.
Elections have consequences.
“the incentives for agency officers to join the White House’s new plans for a multiagency “professional” cadre of interrogators will go nowhere. Langley will be lucky if it can get the third-rate among its own to sign on.”
What this fails to make clear, as I understand it, is that this “new” agency will be accountable to the white house. It might be staffed in the higher echelons by FBI but will report to the white house first.
Any interrogator worth his salt would refuse to be party to this fascist power grab by Obama Inc….
Let’s see, Obama and Co. are now going to “investigate” prior interrogations while simultaneously forming a new cadre of interrogators that report to the white house?
If I ever had anything to do with interrogations I would keep my passport in my pocket at all times along with a one way ticket to an un-extroditable country…
This really is too much.
Fer some reason my first comment didn’t stick, lost in the trons.
For a lot of CT, FBI is a better fit than CIA. Each has different legal authorities, but ironically, the FBI’s are in many ways better. In Europe, for example, we’re not going to do “snatch and grab” or targeted strikes. The whole game is giving host nation law enforcement what it needs to arrest, convict, imprison or deport. In Africa, by contrast, where host nation law enforcement is usually just an illusion, FBI is welcomed (DoJ is welcomed) and allowed much greater leeway than the spooks. Finally, based on my limited but not inconsequential observations, DoD and FBI both do interrogations much MUCH better than the CIA I saw in play. While CIA was still repeating the same inane questions off the cue card to the detainees and getting zero response, FBI was given a few and after two sessions they told the CO who would break, on what session they would break, why they would break and what they would (and would not) be willing to cough up. They were absolutely right.
Interestingly, Gerecht has written dozens of articles trashing DO’s “bean-counting” approach to sources, which deserves to be trashed, but here he’s concerned about DO’s ability to continue bean counting. The perils he poses are real, but the flip side of the coin is that while CIA is under political attack, they still are more of a hindrance than a help in the CT fight.