Photo: Top, Dennis C. Blair, director of national intelligence; and Leon E. Panetta, the Central Intelligence Agency director. Brendan Smialowski (top) and Michael Temchine for The New York TimesFrom The Washington Post:
A Turf War Exposes a Botched Reorganization
There are spy wars, and there are turf wars. But watch out when the two are combined, as in the battle over who will appoint America's intelligence chiefs abroad -- Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, or Leon Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Blair, a retired admiral who likes an orderly chain of command, fired off a memo on May 19 claiming the right to install non-CIA officers as his representatives overseas. Panetta, thinking this contentious issue was still under review at the White House, sent a cable the next day saying, in effect, that station chiefs should ignore Blair's edict until the matter is resolved by the National Security Council. Blair went ballistic, viewing Panetta's actions as, in the words of one official, "an act of insubordination."
Read more ....
My Comment: Paying $200 million to a small island c
There are spy wars, and there are turf wars. But watch out when the two are combined, as in the battle over who will appoint America's intelligence chiefs abroad -- Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, or Leon Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Blair, a retired admiral who likes an orderly chain of command, fired off a memo on May 19 claiming the right to install non-CIA officers as his representatives overseas. Panetta, thinking this contentious issue was still under review at the White House, sent a cable the next day saying, in effect, that station chiefs should ignore Blair's edict until the matter is resolved by the National Security Council. Blair went ballistic, viewing Panetta's actions as, in the words of one official, "an act of insubordination."
Read more ....
My Comment: Paying $200 million to a small island c
Blair, a retired admiral who likes an orderly chain of command, fired off a memo on May 19 claiming the right to install non-CIA officers as his representatives overseas. Panetta, thinking this contentious issue was still under review at the White House, sent a cable the next day saying, in effect, that station chiefs should ignore Blair's edict until the matter is resolved by the National Security Council. Blair went ballistic, viewing Panetta's actions as, in the words of one official, "an act of insubordination."
Read more ....
My Comment: Paying $200 million to a small island country to accept 17 Chinese terrorists wanted in China, reading out Miranda rights to terrorists in Afghanistan, shipping a dangerous terrorist from Guantanamo to New York for trial .... but not answering what will happen to him if he is acquitted .... and now this turf war.
I live in Canada which gives me the position to look at the U.S. from the outside. Sigh .... from my perspective .... it appears that a lot of things are screwed up, and maybe deliberately so.
Read more ....
My Comment: Paying $200 million to a small island country to accept 17 Chinese terrorists wanted in China, reading out Miranda rights to terrorists in Afghanistan, shipping a dangerous terrorist from Guantanamo to New York for trial .... but not answering what will happen to him if he is acquitted .... and now this turf war.
I live in Canada which gives me the position to look at the U.S. from the outside. Sigh .... from my perspective .... it appears that a lot of things are screwed up, and maybe deliberately so.