CIA Director…Panetta?
That’s what’s being reported, that Obama will tap former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta to run the CIA, a surprise to many given Panetta doesn’t have any background in intelligence. Panetta was a congressman from California and later director of the OMB before running the Clinton White House from 1994-1997. When I say no background on intelligence, I mean no background. Even with 16 years in Congress he never had a notable role in intelligence or foreign policy matters, focusing instead on budget, civil rights, and environmental stuff.
However, in some ways this is a positive step. People like Glenn Greenwald and myself have considered as a virtual disqualifier anyone who had a hand in the abuses of the intelligence community under the Bush administration, but the problem is, that disqualifies most anyone who, well, works in intelligence at a high level. In withdrawing Brennan, spending a long time ruminating, and then nominating Panetta, it’s pretty clear that the Obama transition team was very, very sensitive to such criticisms. That may have led them to nominate a nobody flak, if that’s who Panetta turns out to be, but at the very least it shows that their ear is definitely tilted in the right direction.
All I’ve been able to find on Panetta regarding intelligence matters is this op-ed in the Monterey County Herald (as we all know, the paper of record for the intelligence community).
More recently, President Bush vetoed a law that would require the CIA and all the intelligence services to abide by the same rules on torture as contained in the U.S. Army Field Manual.
The president says the rules are too restrictive, implying that the use of some forms of torture just could help avoid another Sept. 11.
But all forms of torture have long been prohibited by American law and international treaties respected by Republican and Democratic presidents alike.
Our forefathers prohibited “cruel and unusual punishment” because that was how tyrants and despots ruled in the 1700s. They wanted an America that was better than that. Torture is illegal, immoral, dangerous and counterproductive. And yet, the president is using fear to trump the law.
The same rationale is used to justify eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without a warrant. The president has made clear that the failure of the Congress to pass this authority could jeopardize our security. Instead of trying to negotiate a compromise with Congress that would meet both our intelligence and privacy concerns, it is easier to threaten with fear.
I’ll be interested in watching his confirmation hearings. If Obama wants a manager in the CIA Director slot rather than a lifetime spook or legal analyst, I have to say, that’s alright with me.
I guess that would depend on whether you think that an effectively run CIA is necessary for America or not.
There was abundant dissent within the CIA over Bush’s policies, and there were innumerable leaks coming out of Langley to discredit Bush. The idea that the entirety of the intelligence community is compromised post-Bush is a nonstarter. Even if we were to entertain that clearly false hypothesis, it is hard to imagine what kind of change would be wrought by Leon Panetta. If the ENTIRE CIA has been rendered radioactive, then the correct response is presumably to eliminate it.
Clinton as Secretary of State. Panetta as CIA chief. What this points to is an utter disdain on the part of the Obama administration for the concept of field expertise. It appears to be their thesis that any successful administrator can run any organization, whether or not he or she knows what it does. Who knows? Relative to the Bush administration, they may even be right. But those who voted for Obama seeking competent government can’t be feeling too rosy at the moment.
Comment by Rojas — 1/5/2009 @ 6:44 pm
A bit weird, this. My understanding is that Hayden had rolled back some of the problems created by Tenet and Goss and now this?
Rockefeller and Feinstein not too impressed, apparently (outgoing and incoming chairs of Senate intel committee) were pushing someone else, apparently.
This is a potentially much bigger risk than the Clinton/Sec. State one, I think. Not just from the point of view of keeping the CIA effective (remember that part of the criticism of Goss was that he just didn’t understand how the modern intelligence business worked because he lacked recent experience) but politically; if the CIA fail publicly whilst Panetta is there, his appointment is going to be a weight around Obama’s neck. Also, as Rojas mentions, the CIA are fractious; if Panetta doesn’t get on with them, they’ll leak him to death.
Comment by Adam — 1/5/2009 @ 7:44 pm
It appears that Clinton & Company won the election after all.
Comment by James — 1/6/2009 @ 10:50 am
Well yes, and then there was Clinton era CIA head James Woolsey, career spook with no political or managerial acumen to speak of who just ended up a caretaker, more or less shut out of the process.
I have to disagree with Rojas here. Certainly, experience is and should be an issue. But I think I learned my lesson from the Bush II White House—you can go the route of just taking the Most Experienced Person On Earth for every given position, but those people tend to come with a lot of baggage, hard-wired hidden agendas, their own cliques, their own ideological axes to grind, etc.
Or, the analogy can run like this. Say you have a very large 6A inner city school that is failing miserably in every conceivable way. Now, Rojas’ line would say you should look to the senior-most teacher in that school and promote them to principal. But at that point you run exactly the risk of just magnifying the problems further, to say the least. Barring some obvious standout choice within the school, it might be better to go fishing.
Other people might say it would be worth it to bring in someone who doesn’t necessarily come from the realm of education, but knows how to right a sinking ship (say, a business executive with an interest and a track record of whipping failed institutions into shape).
That’s a very rough analogy obviously, but I think it gets the general gist of it. There is a risk to it, of course—could be that the outsider’s skills just don’t translate at all and he misses key components of the job. But there’s a risk in going the “heavy experience” route as well—the candidate, pretty likely, will be mired in the same kind of failed thinking and inefficiency you’re trying to cleave.
Some reactions I like:
The bottom line, for me, is I (and others) demanded a CIA director that might represent a clean break from the agency in the last 15 years or so. The bottom line for Obama, it seems to me, is he’s looking for a manager, someone that can take the goals of the White House (which are not, in the case of the CIA, necessarily ideological, unless you view torture and wiretapping and the like as ideological, but even those are just a component) and instantiate them while keeping the CIA relevant in the Oval Office and not just a distraction wherein the left hand doesn’t always know what the right hand is doing.
Phrases like “utter disdain for field expertise” are beyond hyperbole. What Obama is shooting for is a trade off, just as doubling down on field expertise would have been a trade off. Needless to say, a “let Langley run Langley” sort of attitude would have been one I, certainly, would have chafed at.
All that said, it’s certainly a risk in many respects, but I roundabout agree with the direction of the tradeoff.
Comment by Brad — 1/6/2009 @ 4:17 pm
How about you bring in somebody from outside the school with a proven track record of success in education? Good luck trying to run a high school on a business model.
The dichotomy you’re proposing–use a complete outsider or yeild entirely to existing institutional paralysis–is a false one. It is inexplicable that Obama cannot find a single person with professional diplomatic experience who is capable of advocating for US interests as Secretary of State, and equally implausible that he cannot find a single person with intelligence expertise who can be relied upon to run the CIA responsibly. The responsible course, obviously, is to pick someone who will advocate for the President’s priorities and who has background in the field in question. He’s done that with most of his appointments; yet somehow for these two he hasn’t done so.
In fact, he doesn’t seem to have tried very hard. Instead, he has decided that political utility is a more important principle in the operation of his administration than is field expertise. The only mitigating factor is that, due to the nature of the CIA, we will never know about the worst consequences of Panetta’s inexperience are. Unless, as Adam suggests, someone leaks them.
By and large, the decision to put jobs in the hands of people who don’t know how to do them is its own punishment. We will see what sort of price the President pays for his hubris.
Comment by Rojas — 1/6/2009 @ 5:01 pm
The issue, I think, is that there were people with CIA/Intel experience AND managerial expertise, but Panetta isn’t one of them. The question may have been over whether those people protested enough over ‘enhanced interrogation’ but it seems to me that where you can combine the managerial expertise with the experience, that some of those candidates were better choices than Panetta. Particularly true when the potential problems this could cause for Obama, who will be as bare-arsed as any Democrat could be if something does go wrong, are somewhat large.
Comment by Adam — 1/6/2009 @ 5:05 pm
Do either of you have any suggestions for somebody with significant managerial experience, CIA/Intel experience, plus who would be seen by more or less everybody as a totally clean break from the Bush years?
Clearly, Panetta wasn’t Obama’s first choice, and I think it’s pretty reasonable to assume that he cast around for exactly the kind of candidate you’re speaking of. CIA Director was both the first appointment made and the last appointment leaked; there’s a reason for that lag, would be my hunch. In the end, Obama could have leaned one of two ways. Giving up a degree of “new direction” for the sake of field experience, or giving up a degree of field experience for the sake of new direction. He went with the latter, and I have to say if he was going to compromise in either direction, I’m glad he did so in that one.
I also think none of us are quite getting the big picture here, on either Panetta’s intended role or his experience. On the latter, Tim Roemer:
There are two nodes in the White House – Intelligence paradigm: Obama chose one from the former. But unlike, say, Porter Goss, there’s no indication that Panetta has no intention of surrounding himself with experts and insiders and merely wishes to staff the place with ideological-driven hacks. My guess would be at his press conference we hear a lot about how he intends to work closely with the director of national intelligence, keep on a lot of the current deputies, and keep the CIA strong (i.e. he’s not there to burn down the place). But what he’s not going to be is a career spook which with have an awkward relationship with the new White House, nor is he going to be an ideological hack intending to bend it to some sort of top-down agenda. That strikes me as a smart balance.
Oh, and finally on Adam’s repeated point about what happens if it goes wrong: of course that looks bad for Obama. But that is also true if Obama appoints anybody using any rubric to the position and they fail, so I’m not quite getting the relevancy. Obviously, failure is bad.
Comment by Brad — 1/6/2009 @ 5:35 pm
I am going to be interested to see if Obama makes any poor choices in your opinion(s) going forward, Brad. I find this one a bizarre one that can only be explained by sheer politics, IMHO.
Comment by James — 1/6/2009 @ 7:51 pm
Interesting you should say that, James. The one poor choice I discovered was Obama’s first pick for this very post. Look here.
The other one I haven’t been thrilled about is Clinton, but I do find it a defensible choice, with plenty of very agreeable political ramifications.
But certainly, I’m giving the benefit of the doubt here. For the record, I did the exact same with the incoming Bush administration (where most of my glowing praise was in service of their enormous experience–fat lot of good that turned out to be).
But I think the difference in perspective here isn’t that I’m biased and cynics are not (oh, cynicism is never biased), it’s that you’re looking at the ways in which the nominees may fail, and I’m looking at the ways in which the nominees may succeed. Half-full half-empty sort of thing.
Comment by Brad — 1/6/2009 @ 8:05 pm
Am I detecting a trend?
Comment by James — 1/6/2009 @ 8:09 pm
I tend towards optimism, and giving the benefit of the doubt until the point where that is unearned. I seek the best in people, and find it, you seek the worst in people, and also find it.
That’s just a personality difference between the two of us.
Comment by Brad — 1/6/2009 @ 8:10 pm
That would depend on the extent to which you insist on it being a break. Feinsten and Rockefellar — the new and old heads of the Senate intelligence committee — had Steve Kappes in mind, as I understand it.
I don’t think that you can insist on a break so complete that you don’t pick anyone senior from inside the CIA if the alternative is someone unsuitable, so the real question is whether Panetta is unsuitable given that there are experienced alternatives.
Comment by Adam — 1/7/2009 @ 9:20 am
Brad 11> Yeah, but I don’t have to seek as hard as you do.
Comment by James — 1/7/2009 @ 12:59 pm
Great interview with two former CIA people (both of whom I respect greatly) who disagree.
MH
Comment by daveg — 1/7/2009 @ 5:45 pm