CIA Director Porter Goss resigns

[Ivan Seeking]

WASHINGTON (AP) - CIA Director Porter Goss has resigned, President Bush said Friday.

Bush called Goss' tenure one of transition.[continued]

http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/front/story/3280434p-12096166c.html

There is rampant speculation that this resignation is related to the Duke Cunnigham conviction. Apparently there are claims of wild poker parties with prostitutes etc, that involved some high ranking CIA officials who were hired by and worked under Goss. A fellow name Mitchell Wade who was connected to Cunningham has been arrested - at least one source of these claims.

 

[Astronuc]

I would have never imagined that Republicans and conservatives were such wild party animals.

Liberals are so boring!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Sources are claiming that this results from tension between Porter and Negroponte.

This is interesting. It seems that few people had any idea that this was coming. The information vacuum is causing a good deal of consternation.

 

[SOS2008]

Sources are claiming that this results from tension between Porter and Negroponte.

This is interesting. It seems that few people had any idea that this was coming. The information vacuum is causing a good deal of consternation.

I agree there is a lot more to this then just deck chairs being moved in a White House shake-up (the BushCo spin). True "tensions" between camps have existed in every part of government during the Bush administration, however, I believe this also has to do with pressure on the CIA, making it a scapegoat, and attempting to suppress information from coming out of the CIA about WMD, NSA spying, etc. I think this is why there is turnover everywhere, from Powell, FEMA, etc. No one wants to work for BushCo anymore.

 

[Astronuc]

From NPR - apparently indicating that Goss's departure was imminent.

CIA Chief Goss Quits After Nearly 20 Months
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5387235

All Things Considered, May 5, 2006 · CIA Director Porter Goss resigns unexpectedly, leaving behind a spy agency still battling to recover from intelligence failures leading up to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as well as faulty information that helped bring about the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Goss, a longtime politician from Florida, assumed the CIA's top post in September of 2004. President Bush has not yet named a successor.

Goss Is Latest to Leave Bush Administration
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5387220

Goss's Time at CIA Helm Was Limited
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5387238

It was a surprise to some, but others have apparently expected it.

 

[scott1]

Let me guess the new replacment will be:
Dick Cheny's favorit game.

 

[SOS2008]

The whole matter consists of contradictions.

Goss, a former congressman "came under fire almost immediately, partly because he brought in several top aides from Congress, who were thought by some in the CIA to be too political." "...critics of Mr. Goss said he was under the spell of Vice-President Dick Cheney and that his presence on the joint 9/11 inquiry gave the administration a deal of protection." Goss was given the job to reform the agency (clean house) and stop leaks. "Several high-level CIA staff have resigned recently, amid rumblings of discontent at the CIA's headquarters in Virginia."

In addition, "[t]here has been speculation that Mr. Goss was not happy with the reduced access to the president he was afforded after the appointment of Mr. Negroponte to oversee the work of all the intelligence agencies. - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3552180.stm

The Post reported that Bush decided months ago to replace Goss, and after "a difficult meeting in April with Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte, Goss was told to prepare to leave by May."

But then...

The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol weighed in, on Fox News: "It wasn’t done in a routine way. I don’t think people — certainly people close to Goss did not expect this to happen. Senior congressmen and senators didn’t expect this to happen. I’m not sure the White House expected this to happen. …I think there were either serious disputes or some internal problem at the agency or some scandal conceivably involving an associate of Goss’. Who knows? Something that popped this week and that caused this sudden event this Friday."

CNN's national correspondent John Roberts observed, "But this idea that he would suddenly leave, and particularly without there not being another candidate to take over from Goss, is quite startling.

"What's all swirling around the CIA with the Duke Cunningham case goes to a fellow named Brent Wilkes, who was an unindicted co-conspirator in that -- that Cunningham case. There is a fellow who has pled guilty in that case by the name of Mitchell Wade who contends -- and this is only a contention, allegations again -- that Wilkes had been procuring prostitutes and limousines for Duke Cunningham and had also been hosting poker parties at a couple of hotels in Washington, one of them being the Watergate...

"Now, Wilkes has denied any involvement in this prostitution idea, but we do know that he did have some poker parties and that a very senior official at the CIA had been a guest at a few of those poker parties, a fellow by the name of Dusty Foggo, who is actually the number three at the CIA. There is an inspector general's investigation at the CIA going on over Foggo's appearance at those poker parties. And the CIA, I should say, has also come out to say that at no time did CIA director Porter Goss ever appear at one of those poker parties.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002463645

Apparently Dusty Foggo and Brent Wilkes are buddies from college days. At the minimum Foggo has awarded contracts to Wilkes, who is in the same defense contracting business as Mitchell Wade in the Duke Cunningham scandal (and lobbying connected to Tom DeLay, etc.). Whether Goss is involved remains to be seen.

The Bush administration is like watching Dallas. Except Cheney isn't as good looking as J.R.

 

[Astronuc]

Bush's Potential CIA Pick Worries Some
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060507/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/cia_future_13

WASHINGTON - Even before President Bush has named his choice to take over the CIA, the Air Force general who is the front-runner drew fire Sunday from lawmakers who say a military man should not lead the civilian spy agency.

The criticism of the expected choice of Gen. Michael Hayden to head the CIA is not just coming from Bush's political foes, but also from some influential members of his own party.

"I do believe he's the wrong person, the wrong place, at the wrong time," said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich. "We should not have a military person leading a civilian agency at this time."

On the other hand, Stansfield Turner was a U.S. admiral and Director of Central Intelligence during the Carter Administration.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Another possible spin on this is the investigation into secret CIA prisons, which just came up again.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Allegations that CIA flights through Europe carried detainees bound for ill-treatment are damaging transatlantic intelligence cooperation, a lawyer acting for the State Department said on Thursday.

Speaking before heading the defense of U.S. practices at the U.N. Committee against Torture in Geneva, John Bellinger reiterated Washington's position that it does not outsource torture or transfer suspects abroad expecting torture.

Bellinger was responding to a European Parliament probe which, while producing no firm evidence, concluded last month that more than 1,000 CIA flights had transited the EU and that the CIA had been responsible on several occasions for kidnapping and illegally detaining alleged terrorists on EU soil.

"The suggestion that intelligence flights are somehow engaged in illegal activity really undermines the cooperation between the United States and Europe," he told a news briefing.

EU lawmakers are due in Washington next week to probe allegations of secret detention centers and flights in Europe for terror suspects. Bellinger is among those they will meet. [continued]

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20...2Z_01_L04358789_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-EU-CIA-DC.html