POTUS, Pelosi and Panetta Promise Partisan Political Pandering
By Larry Johnson on July 15, 2009 at 10:29 PM in Current Affairs
NOTE: THIS ARTICLE WAS AUTHORED BY MIKE GORBELL, A FORMER CIA OFFICER AND GOOD FRIEND. THIS WAS FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE AND IS REPRINTED WITH MIKE’S PERMISSION.
When I was an NROTC midshipman, the Marine Officer Instructor at my college taught me an important concept, to wit: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Most recently, Americans were introduced to the newest concept of intelligence reality: POTUS (President of the United States), Pelosi and Panetta Promise Partisan Political Pandering.
So, lemme get this straight. Shortly after 9/11/2001, somebody in the Central Intelligence Agency’s Counterterrorism Center comes up with idea of sending hit teams of Agency paramilitary officers out to kill or capture the Al Qaeda leadership, including, and perhaps most importantly, Osama bin Laden himself. CIA runs it up the flagpole, and the White House says, “OK, work up a plan.” After all, it is kind of in line with then President Bush’s televised statement that we would kill Al Qaeda wherever we found them.
But, like so many Jack Baueresque ideas, real life isn’t quite as simple as filling an hour of primetime TV (believe me, I’ve been there a few times). Not wanting the blowback of Mossad’s little 1970s adventure into globe-trotting “Wrath of God” hit squads, CIA decides to plan this out to the last detail before actually doing something. Good for them. Their mission is (or at least, was) to get bin Laden and fade into the night like Jim Phelps and the original 1960s Impossible Missions Force, not incur the wrath of locals like Chevy Chase in “Spies Like Us.”.
While they’re figuring it all out, the Agency gives the White House in general, and then Vice President Cheney in particular, somewhat breathless status reports on their progress (or lack thereof) and advises the Veep that they are going to brief the Hill. Cheney says, “Don’t brief the Hill until you actually have something to tell them. You’ll just unduly raise expectations before you know that you can really deliver.” Sounds like pretty sound advice to me. And not just to me, but to the three directors of the CIA during the seven year period 2001 to 2008, as well.
Fast forward eight years later. CIA still hasn’t briefed the Hill because they still haven’t figured out how to do it yet. Besides, their Predator drones seem to be working out just fine, so why risk potentially high profile boots on the ground when whispering death from above is getting the job done so neatly?
Not being a big deal, newly minted CIA Director Panetta isn’t briefed on this all-but-defunct idea until four months into his tenure. He immediately sees it for what his three predecessors did not: A chance to curry favor with POTUS and Pelosi, albeit at the expense CIA’s dignity, and give the evil Dick Cheney what a British SAS Regimental Sergeant Major once charmingly referred to as a “groinal smash” for good measure.
So, without a thought for the morale of his troops on the frontiers of freedom around the globe, Leon the Panderer rushes over to the White House, kisses The One’s ring, and tattles a tale. The Prez blesses the Oracle of Monterey and instructs him to go to the Hill and advise House Speaker Pelosi, whose accusations against CIA are looking pretty weak with her failure to name names, let alone kick behind, that he has “cancelled” a secret Cheney assassination program that those bad old CIA guys, who still remain nameless, have “hidden” from Democrat lawmakers for eight years..
Did I miss anything here?
Note to Obama, Panetta and Pelosi: I know that you think that we’re stupid outside of the Beltway and will never figure this out, but I would direct your attention to recent major newspaper articles on this “story,” and particularly to the online comments accompanying them. Not only are you busted by we dumb yokels in flyover country, but you have seriously misread the druthers of Mr. and Ms. America when it comes to killing Al Qaedans whenever and wherever, even in this enlightened age of 2009. My advice: Stop smoking the Hope bongs and start reading those emails from your constituents.
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