Leon Panetta and the state of American intelligence

Intelligence services
A new broom for the CIA
Jan 6th 2009 NEW YORKFrom Economist.com
Leon Panetta and the state of American intelligence
AFP
OUTSIDERS have typically had a hard time running the CIA. So why has Barack Obama chosen 70-year-old Leon Panetta for the top job? Mr Panetta was Bill Clinton’schief of staff and he ran the budget bureaucracy, but he has no background in spying. Improving the state of America’s intelligence services should bea priority, yet Mr Obama is installing a man whose experience lies in politics and management, not spookery.
A partial answer may be that anybody—even an insider—would have a difficult task heading the agency today. Morale is low after the organisation has lurchedfrom failure to scandal in the past few years. Under George Tenet, the long-time director who was beloved by his staff, the CIA failed to spot the September11th attacks in the works. Then came intelligence mistakes over weapons of mass destruction and Iraq, followed by controversy over the use of torture andharsh interrogation techniques, such as the “waterboarding” of suspected terrorists (making the detainee believe he is suffocating or drowning).
Mr Obama may have concluded that the CIA is now in sharp need of reform. It may be, too, that candidates from within the agency were tainted by close associationwith practices such as “rendition” (the snatching of suspected terrorists abroad, who were then sent to prison camps in third countries in the Middle Eastand eastern Europe for interrogation and torture). Mr Panetta has certainly been vocal in his criticism of the CIA’s recent techniques; last year he wrotein a newspaper that “Torture is illegal, immoral, dangerous, and counterproductive”.
Whether he could be effective in improving affairs at the agency is less clear. Staff will not welcome him if he is seen to hold them to task for followingorders from the Bush administration. Nor will they be cheered if it seems that the CIA is being brought even further to heel within the American intelligencecommunity. After the failures of September 11th the intelligence services were reorganised, with the agency losing status and with a top layer of bureaucracyadded, under the command of a Director of National Intelligence. Mr Obama has chosen Dennis Blair, a former admiral, for that job. It will be Mr Blair,not the CIA director, who oversees the entire intelligence apparatus and who briefs the president.
Mr Panetta will need to use his bureaucratic skills to compete with other agencies. The Pentagon eats up the biggest share of the intelligence budget and,under Donald Rumsfeld as defence secretary, tried to muscle into a bigger intelligence role. Other agencies are responsible for satellite and other high-techreconnaissance, and the FBI does domestic intelligence. The challenge for the CIA is to excel at human spying.
His selection has, so far, received a mixed response. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat who will head the Senate’s intelligence committee, is nonplussed at thenews. She says that she has long backed someone with a background in spying. The leading Republican on the committee, Christopher Bond, is equally sceptical.But some Republicans—such as Richard Perle and Douglas Feith—suggest that Mr Panetta’s good political contacts will serve him well on Capitol Hill. Itremains to be seen whether his lack of familiarity with the nuts and bolts of intelligence gathering will hinder the CIA in its job of keeping a closewatch on America's enemies abroad.