Word: experts
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...intelligence expert who has done contract work for the CIA says many in Langley feel Panetta, who had only weeks before testified that the agency did not lie to Congress, was acting "to protect his own skin," rather than in the agency's best interests. "He was looking to make sure nobody could accuse him of knowing about this program and being complicit in keeping it from Congress," says the official. (For his part, Panetta might well argue that it was the agency that misled and embarrassed him in the first place...
Nevertheless, many CIA watchers take the opposite view. Panetta's handling of the secret program was "the one bright lining in this whole business," says Amy Zegart, a national security expert and professor of public policy at UCLA. By immediately shutting down the program, he "signaled that he has turned a new page at the CIA," she adds...
...several former CIA officers and intelligence experts contacted by TIME found that explanation problematic. For one thing, they say, the mere fact that the program apparently merited Cheney's close attention should have been a red flag. "Even if the program was dormant, the top officials would have known about Cheney's instructions, and they should have told Panetta right away," says a former operations expert...
...lack of intelligence experience may well have been a factor, since he did not know to look for potential grenades like the secret program. "One of the concerns when he was appointed was that he would be the weak link inside the agency," says Amy Zegart, a national-security expert and professor of public policy at UCLA. But Zegart points out that Panetta isn't alone in his ignorance. "There are two big 'so whats' to the latest news," she says. "One is: What's going on in the Executive Branch that the CIA director doesn't even know about...
...factory in the Guangdong city of Shaoguan were part of a government program to send minority workers to the coast. "They can't get work in their own province, so they go to the far corner of the country to seek jobs," says Dru Gladney, an expert on Islam in China and president of the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College. "They are recruited by the government, and then they feel like government doesn't defend and protect them. They feel discriminated against. They can't win at home and they can't win far afield...