Hoekstra - CIA Group "Intentionally Undermined" Administration

The NY Times yesterday featured a Lichtblau-Shane story centered around a once-confidential letter to President Bush from Peter Hoekstra, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.  Here is the Times lead, but stay with me, since they buried a great tidbit:

In a sharply worded letter to President Bush in May, an important Congressional ally charged that the administration might have violated the law by failing to inform Congress of some secret intelligence programs and risked losing Republican support on national security matters.

The letter from Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, did not specify the intelligence activities that he believed had been hidden from Congress.

But Mr. Hoekstra, who was briefed on and supported the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program and the Treasury Department's tracking of international banking transactions, clearly was referring to programs that have not been publicly revealed.

Yeah, yeah.  But the Times also offers a .pdf of the letter itself, which includes this (my typing, and emphasis added) on the topic of Bush's decision to bring back Steve Kappes as Deputy Director of the CIA:

I understand that Mr. Kappes is a capable, well-qualified, and well-liked former Directorate of Operations (DO) case officer.  I am heartened by the professional qualities he would bring to the job, but concerned by what could be the political problems that he could bring back to the agency.  There has been much public and private speculation about the politicization of the Agency.  I am convinced that this politicization was underway well before Porter Goss became the Director.  In fact, I have long been convinced that a strong and well-positioned group within the Agency intentionally undermined the Administration and its policies.  This argument is supported by the Ambassador Wilson/Valerie Plame events, as well as by the string of unauthorized disclosures from an organization that prides itself with being able to keep secrets.  I have come to the belief that, despite his service to the DO, Mr. Kappes may have been a part of this group.  I must take note when my Democratic colleagues - those who so vehemently denounced and now publicly attacked the strong choice of Porter Goss as Director - now publicly support Mr. Kappes’s return.

Is the Times kidding?  The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is "convinced" that a CIA faction is intent on discrediting the Administration and that the Plame story is part of their scheming, and the Times can barely mention it?  (Or maybe I'm kidding - the WaPo does not mention it at all.  Did I pick a bad morning to switch to decaf, or did they?  More on the WaPo below.)

Here is the entire Lichtblau/Shane coverage of this "strong and well-positioned group" whose existence is alleged by Hoekstra:

Mr. Hoekstra (pronounced HOOK-stra) complained publicly about the choices when they were announced, but his private letter to Mr. Bush was much harsher. He warned that the choice of Mr. Kappes, who he said was part of a group at the C.I.A. that "intentionally undermined the administration," sends "a clear signal that the days of collaborative reform between the White House and this committee may be over."

And much later:

Mr. Hoekstra has been one of the strongest advocates in Congress for a crackdown on leaks of classified information to the media, a cause championed by both Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Well.  If the Times is stuck for ideas as to why it might be newsworthy to mention that Chairman Hoekstra thinks that the Joe and Valerie Show was staged by a "strong and well positioned group" within the CIA determined to "intentionally undermine[] the Administration and its policies", let me suggest two possible story angles:

(1)  Libby's defense team has been alluding to the possibility that the CIA referral of the Plame leak was a bit of a put-up job, that there was no real harm done by the leak, and that her classified status may have been a bureaucratic legacy rather than an indication of her current role at the CIA.   Sounds like Hoekstra might agree - should anyone care, and should the Times report on this?

(2)  *IF* Bush pardons Libby, arguing that he was a hapless victim of a CIA faction out to undermine the Administration, will the Times want it readers to be surprised? 

Let's file this under "Opportunities Missed" - it might have made for great journalism if the Times had asked Mr. Kappes to comment on whether he was a prime leaker to the press, and whether his goal was to undermine the Administration.  Then again, the Times may already know the answers.

For another view of the politicization of the Plame leak, Walter Pincus, Plame leak recipient, belongs in the mix:

Pincus believes that the Bush administration acted obnoxiously when it leaked Valerie Plame’s identity, but he has never been convinced by the argument that the leaks violated the law. “I don’t think it was a crime,” he says. “I think it got turned into a crime by the press, by Joe” — Wilson — “by the Democrats. The New York Times kept running editorials saying that it’s got to be investigated — never thinking that it was going to turn around and bite them.”

WAPO WATCH:  Is it a naive domestic burgundy whose presumption will amuse you?  Noooo, it is the lead of the WaPo story:

In a sharply worded letter, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee has told President Bush that the administration is angering lawmakers, and possibly violating the law, by giving Congress too little information about domestic surveillance programs.

"Domestic" surveillance programs?  Says what, the letter?  Here is an excerpt:

I want to reemphasize that the Administration has the legal responsibility to “fuly and currently” inform the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of its intelligence and intelligence-related activities…. I have learned of some alleged Intelligence Community activities about which our committee has not been briefed.

The Hoekstra letter doesn't single out "domestic" programs; the Times doesn't single out "domestic" programs.

I think the WaPo needs to re-check the Times website, read the letter again, and try again.  If they want to revise their lead to mention a chat with a source familiar with the preparation of the letter, that's fine.  But originalists are stumped.

[UPDATE:  Hey, I win - the Wapo cuts and runs in their Monday story:

Hoekstra's remarks left unclear the nature of the intelligence programs he alluded to in his letter. He did not specify whether they involved domestic surveillance...]

THEN AGAIN:  The always astute Laura Rozen links to the Times story and asks "what else is there in the way of domestic surveillance programs that House intelligence committee chairman Peter Hoekstra doesn't feel Congress has been fully briefed on?"

Am I looking right past something?  The only appearance of "domestic" in the Times story is, per my word search, right here:

But Mr. Hoekstra, who was briefed on and supported the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program and the Treasury Department's tracking of international banking transactions, clearly was referring to programs that have not been publicly revealed.

Baffling.  [Also baffling - the excerpt I attribute to Ms. Rozen has disappeared from her site.  Should I get new glasses now, or hope she is in the midst of a doublecheck?]

LOVE LETTERS:  After the break, extensive fair use excerpts from a Times profile of Steven Kappes as he prepared to walk across the Potomac and return to the CIA.

Poised to Come Back to the C.I.A., a Former Official Who Has Become a Symbol
By MARK MAZZETTI (NYT)

WASHINGTON, May 29 - In his old office at the Central Intelligence Agency, Stephen R. Kappes once hung a World War II-era British poster that announced, ''Keep Calm and Carry On.'' He ignored this admonition 18 months ago, when he resigned in anger after bitter clashes with senior aides to Porter J. Goss.

But now Mr. Goss has been forced out as the agency's director, and Mr. Kappes is poised to return, with a promotion. He would become deputy director, under Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who won Senate confirmation on Friday.

A man of military bearing and a storied past, Mr. Kappes would become the first person since William E. Colby in 1973 to ascend to one of agency's top two positions from a career spent in the clandestine service. General Hayden has said that his return would be a signal that ''amateur hour'' is over at the C.I.A., which has seen little calm since Mr. Kappes's departure.

A no-nonsense former Marine officer who insists on addressing his elders as ''sir,'' Mr. Kappes speaks Russian and Persian; served as the agency's station chief in Moscow and Kuwait during a quarter-century at the C.I.A.; and played a pivotal role in the secret talks with Libya that culminated in December 2003 in the agreement in which Col. Muammar el-Qadaffi agreed to give up his chemical and biological weapons program.

His appointment has not been formally announced, but intelligence officials as well as Mr. Kappes's friends say he will probably take the deputy director position.

Mr. Kappes, 54, declined to be interviewed for this article, having spent most of his professional career trying hard not to be noticed.

Veteran intelligence officials say his expected return is being celebrated within the agency, and some Democratic lawmakers have even characterized Mr. Kappes as a savior who will rescue a moribund agency.

Some critics, including Representative Peter Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have portrayed his return as a victory for a hidebound C.I.A. bureaucracy that resists all change. There has even been grumbling among White House officials that Mr. Kappes, the former head of the clandestine service, criticized the Bush administration and its policies after he left the agency in 2004.

  People who know Mr. Kappes well reject these descriptions as simplistic.

''I would suggest that we dismiss all of the breathless characterizations of Steve Kappes either from his critics or the people trying to counter his critics,'' said Milton A. Bearden, who served for three decades in the C.I.A.'s clandestine service. ''The simple fact is that he is a very solid choice to come to the agency at a time when it is extremely wobbly.''

John E. McLaughlin, deputy director of the C.I.A. from 2000 to 2004, said Mr. Kappes would ''bring a sense of leadership and professionalism to the agency's operations division.''

Mr. Kappes, a Cincinnati native, joined the C.I.A. in 1981 after five years in the Marine Corps, where he once commanded a platoon of the Marines' legendary ''silent drill team'' in Washington that performs a tightly scripted rifle ceremony before thousands of spectators each year.

In 1988 he became the deputy chief of a secret C.I.A. station in Frankfurt, the agency's hub for collecting information about Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's government in Iran. From Frankfurt, case officers debriefed Iranian exiles and built up a network of agents inside Iran.

Mr. Kappes later transferred to the Middle East, where he served on the agency's task force before the Persian Gulf war of 1991 and re-opened the C.I.A. station in Kuwait after the war's end.

After running the C.I.A. station in Moscow in the late 1990's, Mr. Kappes returned to C.I.A. headquarters, where he ascended to the top echelon of the directorate of operations, now known as the national clandestine service.

His time at C.I.A. headquarters was marked by an occasionally stormy relationship with the lawmakers who oversee the intelligence community.

One of the biggest successes of Mr. Kappes's career came after he became the clandestine service's second-ranking official and was put in charge of coordinating the C.I.A's effort to penetrate the secret network of a Pakistani nuclear scientist, A. Q. Khan.

Dr. Khan had for years been using the black market to sell nuclear blueprints and centrifuge parts, and in October 2003, American and European authorities intercepted a freighter bound for Libya loaded with nuclear bomb-making material.

Soon afterward, Colonel Qaddafi agreed to allow American and British inspectors to tour suspected nuclear sites, and Mr. Kappes was put in charge of a team that began negotiating directly with the colonel over ending Libya's programs for unconventional weapons.

Former intelligence officials said Mr. Kappes was given the assignment because he had both the background and the temperament for the delicate negotiations with a longtime American adversary.

''You don't send just anyone to do this,'' Mr. McLaughlin said. ''It was an enormously difficult, complicated and high-stakes mission.''

After several rounds of talks led by Mr. Kappes, the Bush administration was able to announce in December 2003 that Libya had agreed to abandon the programs.

  Yet Mr. Kappes's career track veered off course in late 2004, when Mr. Goss and many of his top aides came to the C.I.A.

The incident that directly led to his resignation occurred in November 2004, shortly after Mr. Goss took over at the agency. Patrick Murray, who was Mr. Goss's chief of staff, ordered Mr. Kappes to fire his deputy, Michael Sulick, after Mr. Sulick had a testy exchange with Mr. Murray.

  Mr. Kappes, who at the time was in charge of the C.I.A.'s clandestine service, refused and chose to resign instead.

  After leaving the agency, he became an executive vice president at ArmorGroup, a private security firm based in London.

Those who know Mr. Kappes say he bears no grudges for the circumstances of his departure. But while many inside the agency are eagerly awaiting Mr. Kappes's return, his reputation as a taskmaster who does not suffer fools gladly has some bracing for what could lie ahead.

''The really good people are happy he's coming back,'' said a former top C.I.A. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because Mr. Kappes's return has not yet been made official. ''The ones who are scared of him should be scared of him.''

They like him.  They really like him.

Comments

[Redcoat]

Crosspatch

"Uranium is about the only exports such places have. If you are there talking business, chances are good you are talking Uranium because there is little else worth talking about."

This is true,perhaps my judgement is clouded by my all around low opinion of Joe Wilson.

I'm sure,as is the case with commodities of high value that are in short supply,there are all sorts of side ventures.

He could be doing busisness connected with the Uranium trade,legal or otherwise,but given the stakes of illicit trading in yellowcake,if it were me,I would not want a media whore involved,especially one who is such a poor liar.

Good call on the WMD issue,you're smarter than both the N.Y. Times, and the Washington Post.

I know that can be considered a backhanded compliment,but sincerely, that was pretty damn perceptive.

[crosspatch]

Eh, even a stopped watch is right twice a day. The timing of the letter and the language is what made me think of the WMD, that and having listened to both Senators give interviews on the day of the press conference. It was quite clear that Hoeksta was NOT pleased with having to find this out through some backchannels.

As for the worries about the partisan cabal within CIA, my gut tells me that problem will wane over time. It seems that the ones most displeased with the administration were with the DI (Directorate of Intelligence) and that group is being, uhm, transformed. The new CIA will apparently be built around the NCS (National Clandestine Service, formerly DO or Directorate of Operations)

[crosspatch]

Oh, but don't for a minute believe there aren't knots of partisan poison in other arms of the intelligence community. There are lots of agencies besides just CIA and NSA and there are plenty of primadonnas with tender egos to go around.

[crosspatch]

Looks like both WaPo and I were both wrong. Santorum says he didn't tell Hoekstra about the WMD report until early June. The letter we are talking about was from May, so unless Santorum is wong in his dates, the letter can't be talking about WMD.

[lynfidel]

Seems to me that Hoekstra is pissed that he and Santorum got burned on the fake WMD story, and is retaliating for being used by the administration as a patsy to push what everyone knows is a load of bull.

Once you understand that policy drives intelligence, not the other way around, it becomes alot clearer. They used Hoekstra and Santorum to float a trial balloon that was so filled with lead that it fell before it got a chance to be shot down.

So Hoekstra is pissed that his reputation is considered expendable in the intelligence community and he wants payback.

[Lurker]

"Seems to me that Hoekstra is pissed that he and Santorum got burned on the fake WMD story, and is retaliating for being used by the administration as a patsy to push what everyone knows is a load of bull."

What makes this a fake WMD report? Based on my readings, this wasn't a fake WMD report at all. It simply is a small piece of a still-classified report. Only a tiny piece just got declassified. It proves the fact that Saddam violated each and every UN resolution, which justifies the final UN resolution. Saddam lied to the inspectors. Now we're hearing that Hans Blix had been in bed with Iraq and that UN, including ElBaradei, is in bed with Iran.

Coupled this with UN's approach towards the recent Israili attacks against Hamas, UN's integrity and future are in serious jeopardy.

[Egs]

pql,
I am not saying the CIA used the Plame story, I'm saying she was a sent agent using a foreign intelligence operation to attack the WH BEFORE THE WAR. She was planned.

OSS devolved into CIA? DIA is absorbing all the CIA analysts under the new AIR FORCE Director(conspiratorialists; plames dad was air force). He will be known as the military man who brought down the DIA. Yes, everyone who got promoted out of the Plame mess, including the new 'director' overseer of the bringing down of the the DIA by CIA analysts - Plame's old boss, is a Russian expert. DIA(NSA)devolves inot CIA.

CIA policy on non operations officers doing spy shit: USE THEM TILL THEY ARE DEAD. Sorry, Joe.

See all those retired operations officers blogging? Larry Johnson at State, Counterterrorism blog, etc. There used to be no one there. Well, I guess bloggers have done something right to deserve it.

NCS? CIA operations officers are not what was wanted and will be pulling down on the NCS or whatever they are going to put all the operations people into.

[emcee fleshy]

Is it really that hard to hear this conversation:

Congressman -- Find me a way to write this letter without pissing off the president too much.

Staffer -- We could put some political stuff in it so that the media won't print it in its entirety, or, if they do, at least there will be some red meat for the home team to chew on.

Congressman -- yeah, draft that for my signature. thanks.

[john]

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