Goss resignation ignites DC firestorm

By Shaun Waterman in Washington, DC for ISN Security Watch (08/05/06)

The sudden resignation of CIA Director Porter Goss has ignited a firestorm of speculation in Washington, coming as it does amid news that his personal pick for the agency's number three spot attended parties that are being looked at by the FBI as part of a congressional corruption probe.

Last year, California Republican congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham pled guilty to taking US$2.4 million worth of bribes from two defense contractors in return for steering military intelligence work their way.

One of those men, Brent Wilkes, still as yet facing no charges himself, had a contract to provide field supplies to the CIA, now being probed by the agency's inspector general.

But Wilkes also has a decades-long friendship with the agency's number three, Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo. Foggo has confirmed through the CIA's office of public affairs that he attended parties at the Watergate hotel suites maintain by Wilkes - which federal investigators believe were also used to provide prostitutes to Cunningham and other members of Congress, as part of Wilkes' corrupt enterprise.

Wilkes' lawyer has denied the charge and CIA spokespeople insist Foggo was aware of nothing untoward at the events, characterized as "occasional card games with friends".

Goss picked Foggo for the number three post after his first choice was shot down by the leak of a shoplifting incident from his personnel file.

The Baltimore Sun reported this weekend that Goss' refusal to fire the executive director precipitated the decision to force him out as CIA director.

How Goss came to pick Foggo, given the latter's apparently broadening involvement in a huge election-year scandal, has become the focus of particular attention. One fact ISN Security Watch was able to glean is that he had briefed staffers on the House committee about flaws in the pay reforms proposed by his predecessor in the number three slot, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard.

There may be underlying reasons for Goss' departure that are much more prosaic - he was seen by some as lacking vision and criticized by others as a lousy manager - but the rumor-mill was stoked by the fact that his departure on Friday had the unconvincing choreography of the Andropov-era Soviet Union.

"He's led ably," President George W. Bush said of Goss at a hastily called press event in the Oval Office. "I appreciate his integrity."

Goss responded by lavishing praise on the man who, by all accounts, at least acquiesced in his forced departure.

"I honestly would report to you, sir, that we are safer for your efforts, your leadership," he said.

"I can tell you that the trust and confidence you've placed in me," he said of the man who accepted his resignation within minutes of its submission, "is something I could never have imagined and I am most grateful for."

In a statement later, Goss added: "It was my desire to lead the CIA - this is where I started my career, and where I always wanted to return."

The unanswered, and elephantine, question naturally was, "why is he leaving then?"

In the vacuum caused by the absence of any clear answer to that question, small pieces of information can swell until they are of grotesque significance.

Goss' defenders argue that he ended up doing a very different - and lesser - job than the one he signed up for.

Goss, a Florida lawmaker and one-time CIA operations officer, was nominated in the frantic summer of 2004. That July, with the agency in caretaker hands following the departure of long-time Director George Tenet, the 9/11Commission report, recommending the establishment of a national intelligence czar, became an overnight national bestseller.

With a finger in the pre-election wind, the US Congress convened an unprecedented series of recess hearings and embarked on the tortuous process that eventually resulted in the passage (after the November election) of the huge Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act.

The net effect of the reforms was to relegate Goss to being "just another agency head".

Prior to the passage of the 2004 act, the title Goss held, director of central intelligence, denoted a dual role - he ran the CIA, but he was also the titular head of the sprawling and fractious collection of US agencies dubbed without apparent irony, the intelligence community.

The new law created an independent czar to manage the CIA and the other 15 agencies, effectively demoting Goss.

Worse still, one issue that had been left unclear by legislators - the key question in status-conscious Washington of who would brief the president every morning - was quickly resolved once John Negroponte got the czar's post the following year. And not in Goss' favor.

In early 2005, before Negroponte was confirmed, Goss was wont to boast to visitors to the CIA's Langley, Virginia, headquarters about the extent of his face-to-face access to the president.

"He actually joked about maybe having too much face time," said one former intelligence official who sat in on a talk Goss gave for some guests.

But if Goss felt diminished in the newly drawn post, his critics say he also managed the transition badly, driving out the door a seemingly endless succession of talented and experienced senior officers at the agency.

He brought with him a small coterie of staff from his former post as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence - aggressive young staffers considered by many at the agency as too political, and derided as the "Gosslings", or worse. Within weeks they had provoked the resignation of several widely admired senior figures.

But like many managers at the pivot of organizational change, Goss managed to alienate his underlings without being able to please his bosses.