Word: cia
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Whatever Leon Panetta lacked in formal intel experience he would make up for with his political smarts. That was one of the chief points made in his favor when the Obama Administration named the former California Congressman and Clinton White House chief of staff as its CIA director. So many CIA veterans were not happy over the summer, when they felt that Panetta had failed to protect the agency from the political backlash over its Bush-era detention and interrogation practices. "There was a feeling [Panetta] had not done enough to defend the CIA from the politicians," says a former...
...Panetta has put those doubts to rest, winning kudos from his troops for successfully defending the agency's turf from Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair. The mood at Langley has always been difficult to measure, since insiders are not allowed to speak to the media. But several former CIA veterans who remain in contact with serving colleagues say spirits were lifted in recent weeks when the White House ruled in the agency's favor on two disputes with the DNI. "People are more upbeat than they have been in a long time," says a retired station chief. "They...
After months of disagreement between Panetta and Blair, Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Adviser James Jones ruled that the CIA would continue to have a direct line to the White House on covert operations and that the long-standing policy of CIA station chiefs being the top intelligence officers in all missions abroad would continue. Blair had sought greater responsibility over the covert ops and the right to anoint a non-CIA staffer as intel boss at certain foreign missions...
...disputes may seem arcane to those outside the intelligence community, but many in the CIA were alarmed by what they saw as Blair's interference in the agency's operations. "For some, this was an existential threat. If Blair was allowed to control covert ops, then how long before the whole of the CIA was absorbed into the DNI?" says a former operations official who retired from the agency last year. "Everyone was looking to Panetta to prevent that from happening." (See who's who on the CIA payroll...
...address struck a new equilibrium between security and civil liberties - a stark contrast to the security-at-any-cost approach advocated by Cheney, but also a departure from his direction at the start of 2009. The President pointed out that he had ended "enhanced interrogation" and closed the CIA's secret prisons. But he also pledged to "use all elements of our power to defeat" al-Qaeda...