CIA Wants Obama to ‘Have Its Back’ When Things Go Wrong -- CQ Politics
Let’s say that on Jan. 21 a massive car bomb meant for Osama bin Laden goes off in a Pakistani village, killing 120 local citizens but missing the elusive al Qaeda leader, who was riding in another vehicle.
In an elaborate press conference, the president of Pakistan blames the CIA. On an easel next to him is a three-by-five foot photo of the CIA’s station chief in Islamabad, who is sent packing.
President Obama, in office for mere hours, finds out that the CIA did, in fact, plant the bomb, based on what it thought was solid intelligence that bin Laden was in the car.
How will the new president react?
That’s much on the mind of intelligence officials awaiting the Jan. 20, 2009, inauguration of Obama, a short-time U.S. senator with no discernable record and little demonstrated interest, so far, in intelligence issues.
“I was with a group of intelligence officers today,” Roger Cressey, a counterterrorism official in the Clinton White House, said on MSNBC Thursday night, “and I think the most important thing for the president to say is, ‘We’ve got your back.’ That ‘we want you to take risks — risks that conform with our law and our values as a country.’
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My Comment: What everyone in the CIA is looking forward to is the following .... who will be the next CIA Director. This, more than anything else, will tell them the direction that the Obama Administration wants to go.