Former CIA insider to speak at McDaniel by Karen Kemp, Carroll County Times Staff Writer

Former CIA insider to speak at McDaniel by Karen Kemp, Carroll County Times Staff Writer

Sunday, November 30, 2008

A former CIA insider is visiting McDaniel College on Monday to discuss the corruption and politicization of U.S. intelligence that led him to resign from the agency in 1990.

Nearly two decades later, the agency’s weaknesses continue to put the country and its citizens at risk, said Melvin Goodman, who served as division chief and senior analyst at the CIA’s Office of Soviet Affairs from 1966 to 1990.

“[Sept.] 11 shouldn’t have been such a surprise,” said Goodman, calling the 2001 terrorist attacks an intelligence failure.

Goodman’s talk at the college’s ninth annual Resnick Lecture on Monday will relate to a new undergraduate course called “September 11th and Its Aftermath,” which explores why the attacks happened and analyzes the response of the Bush administration, according to political science professor Christianna Leahy, who is teaching the course.

[…]

If you go

What: Ninth annual Resnick Lecture

When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 1

Where: McDaniel Lounge at McDaniel College, 2 College Hill, Westminster

Topic: “The Failure of Intelligence in a World at Risk” by former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman

Cost: Free

[…]

Read Ms. Kemp’s entire article here: Former CIA insider to speak at McDaniel

20081130 Former CIA insider to speak at McDaniel

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Democracy Now: Ex-CIA Officials Tied to Rendition Program and Faulty Iraq Intel Tapped to Head Obama’s Intelligence Transition Team

Democracy Now: Ex-CIA Officials Tied to Rendition Program and Faulty Iraq Intel Tapped to Head Obama’s Intelligence Transition Team

November 18, 2008

Related:

Melvin Goodman: "Change in Intelligence?"

Glenn Greenwald: "John Brennan and Bush's Interrogation/Detention Policies"

John Brennan and Jami Miscik, both former intelligence officials under George Tenet, are leading Barack Obama’s review of intelligence agencies and helping make recommendations to the new administration. Brennan has supported warrantless wiretapping and extraordinary rendition, and Miscik was involved with the politicized intelligence alleging weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the war on Iraq. We speak with former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s been less than two weeks since Obama’s election. Speculation is already rife about the change he intends to bring to Washington’s intelligence community. The Washington Post reported last week that Obama is expected to replace the country’s top two intelligence officials over their support for controversial Bush administration policies like torture and electronic surveillance. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA chief Michael Hayden reportedly wish to remain on the job.

No appointees have been named as yet, but questions are already being raised about the people heading Obama’s transition efforts on intelligence policy. John Brennan and Jami Miscik, both former intelligence officials under George Tenet, are leading the review of intelligence agencies and helping make recommendations to the new administration. Brennan has supported warrantless wiretapping and extraordinary rendition, and Miscik was involved with the politicized intelligence alleging weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the war on Iraq.

I’m joined now by Washington, D.C.—in D.C. by former CIA and State Department analyst Mel Goodman. He’s a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, director of the Center’s National Security Project. His latest book is called Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA. He is also co-author of Bush League Diplomacy: How the Neoconservatives are Putting the World at Risk.

We’re joined here in New York by Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. His latest book is The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! I want to start with Mel Goodman in Washington. Long years at the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department. You’ve just written an op-ed piece in the Baltimore Sun that looks at these two top transition officials. Explain who they are and what they represent.

[…]

MELVIN GOODMAN: OK. John Brennan was deputy executive secretary to George Tenet during the worst violations during the CIA period in the run-up to the Iraq war, so he sat there at Tenet’s knee when they passed judgment on torture and abuse, on extraordinary renditions, on black sites, on secret prisons. He was part of all of that decision making.

Jami Miscik was the Deputy Director for Intelligence during the run-up to the Iraq war. So she went along with the phony intelligence estimate of October 2002, the phony white paper that was prepared by Paul Pillar in October 2002. She helped with the drafting of the speech that Colin Powell gave to the United Nations—[inaudible] 2003, which made the phony case for war to the international community.

So, when George Tenet said, "slam dunk, we can provide all the intelligence you need,” [inaudible] to the President in December of 2002, it was people like Jami Miscik and John Brennan who were part of the team who provided that phony intelligence. So what I think people at the CIA are worried about—and I’ve talked to many of them over the weekend—is that there will never be any accountability for these violations and some of the unconscionable acts committed at the CIA, which essentially amount to war crimes, when you’re talking about torture and abuse and secret prisons. So, where are we, in terms of change? This sounds like more continuity.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to excerpts from a December 2005 interview with John Brennan, the former CIA official now leading Obama’s intelligence transition. Brennan was interviewed by Margaret Warner on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer about his views on the Bush administration’s practice of extraordinary rendition.

Read the entire article and interview here: Ex-CIA Officials Tied to Rendition Program and Faulty Iraq Intel Tapped to Head Obama’s Intelligence Transition Team

20081118 DemNow Ex CIA tapped to head Obama intel transition team

Baltimore Sun Op-ed: Righting the CIA by Melvin A Goodman

Baltimore Sun Op-ed: Righting the CIA by Melvin A Goodman

Righting the CIA by Melvin A. Goodman Published on Friday, November 19, 2004 by the Baltimore Sun

President Harry S. Truman created the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947 to coordinate the various assessments of the intelligence community and to place the CIA outside the policy community. In this way, Mr. Truman wanted to encourage competitive analysis within the intelligence community and to make sure that policy-makers did not tailor intelligence to suit their interests.

Over the years, there have been many attempts to politicize intelligence. But no government has been so blatant as the Bush administration, which used phony intelligence to justify the war against Iraq and has introduced a new director of central intelligence, Porter J. Goss, to conduct a political housecleaning at the highest levels of the agency.

I joined the CIA in 1966 during the Vietnam War and witnessed a major campaign to ensure that intelligence supported the Johnson administration's troop buildup in Southeast Asia. Working-level analysts correctly estimated the size of the Viet Cong forces and even predicted the Tet offensive in 1966, but time and again, senior officials caved in to Pentagon demands to limit the order of battle for irregular forces and to downplay the strength of Vietnam's military capabilities. After Tet in 1968, the CIA made honest efforts to accurately assess the capabilities and strengths of the enemy.

We are witnessing a similar phenomenon today, with agency analysts trying to improve their Iraqi intelligence reporting after tailoring intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism prior to the war.

[…]

I resigned from the CIA in 1990 because of the politicization of intelligence on the Soviet Union, which was championed by CIA Director William J. Casey and his deputy for intelligence, Robert M. Gates. The overestimates of the strength of the Soviet Union in the 1980s meant that the policy community was completely surprised by the Soviet collapse and missed numerous negotiating opportunities with Moscow.

[…]

Read the entire opinion piece here: Righting the CIA by Melvin A. Goodman Published on Friday, November 19, 2004 by the Baltimore Sun

20041119 Baltimore Sun Op ed Righting the CIA by Melvin A Goodman