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Did Obama F**k the CIA?

By Larry Johnson on January 4, 2010 at 6:30 AM in Current Affairs

* Bumped up *

Short answer? Yes! President Barack Obama’s public statment statement of condolence last Thursday regarding the suicide bombing of a CIA base in eastern Afghanistan may have been heartfelt but it was a bonehead move. In fact, it probably puts more CIA personnel at risk and compromises a CIA operation. Obama issued the following statement last Thursday:

Full text: Obama statement to CIA

Obama said he relied on the fruits of the CIA’s work every day
US President Barack Obama has sent his condolences to CIA staff after the US spy agency confirmed seven officers were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan on Wednesday, 30 December 2009. Here is the full text of the US president’s letter:

To the men and women of the CIA:
I write to mark a sad occasion in the history of the CIA and our country. Yesterday, seven Americans in Afghanistan gave their lives in service to their country.
Michelle and I have their families, friends and colleagues in our thoughts and prayers.
These brave Americans were part of a long line of patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens, and for our way of life.
The United States would not be able to maintain the freedom and security that we cherish without decades of service from the dedicated men and women of the CIA.
You have helped us understand the world as it is, and taken great risks to protect our country.
You have served in the shadows, and your sacrifices have sometimes been unknown to your fellow citizens, your friends, and even your families.
In recent years, the CIA has been tested as never before. Since our country was attacked on September 11, 2001, you have served on the frontlines in directly confronting the dangers of the 21st Century.
Because of your service, plots have been disrupted, American lives have been saved, and our Allies and partners have been more secure.
Your triumphs and even your names may be unknown to your fellow Americans, but your service is deeply appreciated.
Indeed, I know firsthand the excellent quality of your work because I rely on it every day.
The men and women who gave their lives in Afghanistan did their duty with courage, honor and excellence, and we must draw strength from the example of their sacrifice.
They will take their place on the Memorial Wall at Langley alongside so many other heroes who gave their lives on behalf of their country.
And they will live on in the hearts of those who loved them, and in the freedom that they gave their lives to defend.
May God bless the memory of those we lost, and may God bless the United States of America.

So what is the problem? Nice sentiment. Right? Wrong. Acknowledging the location of a CIA base in a theater of war compromises mission and puts people at further risk. Here is the implication going forward–the CIA will close this base and have to find another. Anyone else who comes to this base will be assumed to be a CIA operative. While I can appreciate the political imperative to appear sympathetic to the loss of lives at the CIA, Obama had a larger responsibility–protect the CIA and their mission and ultimately the nation.

The fault does not entirely lie with Obama. The CIA was sloppy in providing operational cover for these people. Let’s face it. If the deceased had operated under military cover we would only be moaning the loss of six more military personnel. No one outside of the Agency or the families of those who died would have realized the CIA took a hit.

But most of the dead were under State Department cover. Hell, the frigging White House did nothing to try to cover that position. Instead, Barack compounded the problem of CIA’s inadequate cover by going public with his statement of condolence. I don’t ascribe a malevolent intent to Obama. This is just another example of an amateur not ready for prime time.

Barack Obama is not the first one to help blow the cover of a CIA operation. Remember the death of John Michael Spann at Kala-i-Jangi prison in Afghanistan in November of 2001? George Tenet, the CIA Director at the time, did everything short of crawling into Spann’s coffin. He too made a public spectacle of something that should have been kept low key and out of sight.

And let’s not forget the Bush Administration’s outing of CIA ops officer, Valerie Plame. I don’t want to see Republican’s doing high dungeon over Obama’s exposure of the CIA mission in Afghanistan when they came up with all sorts of bullshit justification for ruining the career of a frontline ops officer who was busy trying to collect intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.

Once again a President is playing politics with the CIA. I hated it under Bush and I hate it under Obama. The CIA should not be a political football but politicians cannot help themselves. They want to play this game.

  • jbjd

    I know virtually nothing about the intelligence gathering functions of our government but, as soon as I read BO’s statement, I was struck by this fact:  I cannot recall any other President overtly acknowledging deaths of members of the CIA, let alone acknowledging the (contemporaneous) existence of those operatives in a particular geographical location.

  • wbboei

    Larry–excellent points, and congratulations on your interviews on msm.  Erick Erickson has been in touch with some company people and concurs with your analysis–as follows:

    It appears Barack Obama inexperience and amateurishness has just started bonfires on the bridges connecting him to the American intelligence community and delivered a huge, HUGE psychological win to Al Qaeda.
    People tell me the President’s rush to acknowledge the attack on the CIA in Afghanistan and mourn the deaths openly, publicly, and via press release is a huge no no. The CIA and greater intelligence community would prefer not to have the attention put on them. Additionally, because the President took the time to draft a blanket statement focused on the CIA in general instead of individually and more privately focusing on the families of the victims, it acknowledges the CIA’s work in Afghanistan, acknowledges that the attack has an impact on the CIA, and gives the terrorists a new recruiting tool — “you too can cause America to publicly mourn the loss of their spies.”
    To you and me this may not seem like a big deal. But I’m told this is hugely significant and shows just how out of touch the Obama administration is with the intelligence community. I’m told that no other President has issued such blanket statements of public mourning directed toward an attack on the CIA and thereby having the White House itself confirming an attack on our intelligence community.
    The intelligence community is licking its wounds right now and Obama’s rush to confirm for the world that the community suffered such wounds has the intelligence community simmering tonight and Al Qaeda preparing a PR blitz with what they view as good news.
     

  • wanderer

    Mr. Johnson, has there ever been a President, since and including JFK, who hasn’t screwed over the CIA?  Nobody really appreciates the job they do for this country–just look at Hollywood.  In film, the CIA is almost always depicted as either a group of bumbling idiots or as an evil cabal of right-wing masterminds bent on world domination.

    The only way President Dunsel could have surprised me is if he hadn’t screwed over the CIA, or the troops, or … well, just about everybody.

  • TeakWoodKite

    That is not the tin can I knew.

  • Peggy Sue

    Well, this proves how dumb I am about intelligence operations because I never gave a thought about Obama acknowledging that the losses were CIA.  I thought he was trying to wriggle around the earlier fingerpointing.

    My bad!

    So, then I guess my other question is: who is advising the President in these matters?  Or isn’t he seeking advice?

    The bad news has been coming quickly for this Administration.  And I don’t suspect it’s going to slow down any time soon. 

    Not a cheery thought!

  • getfitnow

    Where is Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton? For that matter, where is Joe Biden?

  • +++

    I think the base’s cover was already blown and they were likely going to close it. You make a moot point.

    Can’t win with you guys. If he says nothing you critize him. If says somehting you critize him.

  • elizabethrc

    “You have helped us understand the world as it is….”.  Is he kidding?  There has never been a president who less understood the world as it is than this moron (with the possible close runner up of Carter).

    Presidents, going forward, should be required to PROVE experience, competence and sound judgment.  None does this man have and look where we are as a result.

    I favor doing away with the electoral college entirely and letting the people, the real voters choose their president.  Believe me, they won’t cheat and steal away an election as our so called political ‘professionals’ did.

  • karen for Clinton

    +++,

    There are things to say when things happen and there are things not to say when other things happen.  BO gets it wrong frequently. I blame his handlers who put inappropriate stuff on his teleprompter.

    Does it occur to you that Larry might have some insight into this subject or is that entirely beyond your realm of understanding?  Did you even read what he wrote or did you decide to just knee-jerk attack him?

    Larry is an expert on the subject, it is his life work.

  • Donna Brazile

    Stop the Pretender President fest!

  • Larry Johnson

    He could have mourned the loss of State Department employees (if that was their cover) but he didn’t.

  • Doc99

    As his predessor learned, arousing the CIA’s ire is counterproductive.

  • Texas Playwright

    Gross incompetence from the narcissistic, corrupt bho the fraud and his corrupt cabal again. 

  • blogforce one

    92% of all the cabinet positions filled at present came from the
    public sector. These people incuding the POTUS are used to telling everyone in a very public manner how to live their lives. If they had come from the private sector or the armed forces they would be very concious of the “need to know” policy of public declarations. Rank amateurs put EVERYONEat risk, not just those in their immediate vecinity. The POTUS is totally clueless in this respect. Unfortunate for our nation at this critical time in history, but true.

  • Clara

    John Brennan, on MTP this morning, said essentially the same as obama, expressing condolences on the horrible tragedy to the CIA.  I’d be curious to know Larry’s reaction to his comments since Hayden and Chertoff were on after Brennan and both deferred to him on everything.

  • blogforce one

    John Brennan Is aware that the cat is out of the bag. So secrecy at this time is a moot point regarding this episode.

  • tek

    Why does the public never see these pictures of The One puffing away?  Liberals HATE smoking worse than adultery!  This is what your so-called president really looks like most of the time.

  • tek

    I’m too cynical.  It starting to look like too convenient that this Nigerian guy got on the plane at all and only a few days after Obama announced his very unpopular controversial plan to escalate in Afghanistan.  Fear-mongering.  Oh, yes.  It’s Al Quaida, we have to stay at war forever.

  • tek

    Bush’s appointees were from the private sector and they got us into this quagmire.  The military people actuaLly LIED to get us into Iraq.  Don’t see a great advantage there. 

  • Jazzman

    Eh…looks like the cover shop or should I say, its contractor, blew it again…Were these Blues or Green Badgers who were killed?

    Larry…here is a blast from the past you forgot about….This one was a real humdinger and the cover shop seems to have missed this lesson learned……

    Newspaper: CIA Identities Easy To Find

  • AnnieCarmel

    You are right but it’s he who’s not winning.  He inappropriately waits for days to make an acknowledgement of a terrorist act then, again, inappropriately announces his faux concern for the CIA agents killed by those carrying out his agenda…ya know…to fundamentally change the USA?  We’ve never had a president at such cross purposes with our nation.  And how do you know their “cover was already blown”?  Are you with AQ?  If not, then you don’t know shit.

  • TeakWoodKite

    Funny how the mind plays tricks on oneself. :)

  • Jackie

    All I can think is ….Gad what a boob.

  • cc

      top edhardy  shoes http://www.lookedhardy.com

  • morris1030

    I was aghast at these naive, foolish unnecessary revelations.

    Very dense, foolhardy and compromising.. But Obama knows how to compromise.

    Doesn’t anybody at the WHouse know what the hell they’re doing?

  • Sonic Ninja Kitty

    The title and first three words of the post say it all.  That’s one of the things I like about this site:  it can be very succint.

  • tek

    Obama earned this treatment after he turned on his own party.  ’bots are too young to realize the enormity of this man’s sins.  Whatever he gets, he deserves.

  • blog force one

    Brennan goes further and states that more  Guantanamo detainees will be sent to Yemen. BTW, anyone think the POTUS trusts the CIA any more than he trusts The armed forces? He has made a decision that NO enemy combatants will be given military tribunals.Period.Moreover.he and his cohorts have detested the CIA for decades for varius “transgressions”. Their school of thought had been and probably still is that the U.S. servicemen and inteligence officers are the “Terrorists”.
    Hence their refusal to even utter the word “Terrorist” in reference to Foreign enemy combatants. A sad state of affairs, but probably true.

  • Pingback: Monday: What’s Going On Between Obama and the CIA? « The Confluence

  • Cal keefer

    ummm they were already “outed”. As soon as the news reported “7 civilians killed in suicide bombing at a base near the Pakistani border “. My 1st thought “must have been CIA’ I have no special knowledge of covert operations or the CIA. I am just a schmuck that reads and can think critically. Like you said Larry ” The CIA was sloppy in providing operational cover for these people.”

  • b mathews

    when are those in power going to realize that the ursurper in chief is in way over his head and needs to be removed  before he can do any more damage to the US.?   never before has a president done so much harm in so short a time.  heaven help us if we have to  put up with this for 3 more years.

  • Anonymous

    Cover was already blow because it was all over the news during those three days you were concerned that Obama did not say anything.

  • foxyladi14

    i,m totaly confused about bo,s response to this

  • sonny

    wait a minute,this clueless idiot doing these stupid and devestating to the u.s. outrages, and people writing here to n.q. are surprised!! these things he’s doing now are chump change to what is coming down the road. this bufoon is just getting warmed up, and we were warned for almost two years about this clod.  wait until some of his wife’s ideas start to come out, we aint seen nothing yet. and to think that people were comparing this vaca to Jackie O. does anyone happen to remember, i know it hurts to recall this in ones mind but, o’blow’me’s wife getting off Air Force One in those hand me down clothes a homeless person wouldn’t be caught in, waving away without a clue of her tank top sliding over revealing her you know what, janet jackson malfunction, to the world. this is supposed to be the 1st lady.  We are soooo through!

  • Mr X

    I’m starting to wonder if incompetence isn’t worse than malevolent intent.

  • donjo

    To be “fair and balanced,” Chris Floyd has a 180 degree view of the Great Fraud’s statement on Khost – and of the CIA in general:

    http://tinyurl.com/ykdrah2

  • EllenD

    Amateur is right. What part of “secret” does he not understand? Could he not have transmitted his sympathy to the CIA and through the CIA to the families? He reminds me of a little kid. Where are his handlers?

  • EllenD

    Suspicions are not facts. People can think someone was CIA but it takes public corroberation to make it a fact and “outed”.
    I’ve had two lunatics in other countries, when I was living there, tell me they thought I was CIA. Does that mean I was “outed” because they thought that?

  • Paul Burrell

    So, no one here thinks the White House could even possibly have run the letter by the agency before publishing it? 

    You might want to bear in mind that BBC was reporting those dead were intel within a few hours of the attack.  From the reporting that I read, many of the locals knew this was an agency shop. 

    It’s helpful to remember that rarely does the CIA do anything that the locals don’t know about.  Their specialty is doing stuff without the folks at home knowing about it.  Served them well in postware Germany and Korea, when about the best they could do was to parachute their would-be assets into the hands of their opponents.  Very fortunate (for the agency) that few at home learned about that;  damned obvious the East Germands, North Koreanes, etc. knew what what was going on. 

  • T Marley

    RE:

    “And let’s not forget the Bush Administration’s outing of CIA ops officer, Valerie Plame. I don’t want to see Republican’s doing high dungeon over Obama’s exposure of the CIA mission in Afghanistan when they came up with all sorts of bullshit justification for ruining the career of a frontline ops officer who was busy trying to collect intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.”

    Not exactly “Apples to Apples” !  ”A Plame Game”

    Pure political theater —>look it up she was already listed in Who’s Who

    Scooter Libby—-> He was not charged for revealing Plame’s CIA status.

    Plame6.png 1000×600 pixels

    Colin Powell (conservative?) right hand man
    = Richard Armitage 

    Armitage admits leaking Plame’s identity
    CNN.com – Armitage admits leaking Plame’s identity – Sep 8, 2006

  • Retired

    EllenD wrote: “People can think someone was CIA but it takes public corroberation to make it a fact…”
    Totally wrong.  If people think that one is CIA, for whatever reason, and one actually is CIA, public corroboration is irrelevant.  You will be ineffective if you require cover to get your clandestine job done.
    You have just been given a lesson in what intelligence officers call “The Winsocki Syndrome,” i.e., if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it probably is a duck and should be treated as a duck.  It really doesn’t matter if the game warden confirms that it is a duck or not.  

  • Retired

    It gives me a great sense of satisfaction that in some miniscule way as the result of my service, Chris Floyd is safe, warm, ignorant and free to put his ignorance on public display here in the U.S.  That is what I and my colleagues, too many of them stars on that wall at Langley, strove for.
    As long as there is an America that has the luxury of producing Chris Floyds, then we are winning.  It is when we can only afford to produce hard eyed, hard hearted pragmatists as a matter of national survival that we need to worry.