INEPTITUDE

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Mission (The CIA in the 21st Century)

Author: Tim Weiner

Narrated By:  Stefan Rudnicki

This is a tough book to read/listen to because of its damning assessment of the American CIA. Weiner is not the only American writer to reveal failed operations of the CIA but his access to their files seems like America’s attempt to understand and improve CIA operations’ management. That is the best face one can put on Weiner’s highly critical assessment of CIA operations. The CIA’s official response is that Weiner is biased, and his research of CIA files misrepresents the complexity of intelligence work. Some historians suggest Weiner cites CIA’ failures without enough context to balance the need for a covert intelligence agency.

The more troubling concern inferred by Weiner is the Trump Presidency and his authoritarian character and tolerance for leaders like Putin who think “might makes right”. What use will Trump make of the CIA’s covert power?

Weiner explains the second Bush administration uses the CIA to push for evidence of WMD in their desire for justification to invade Iraq. The facts did not matter because the President wanted action. Under the Bush administration, the CIA adopts “enhanced interrogation techniques” (brutal torture) of political prisoners kept at Bagram Air Base. Weiner argues the CIA mission of covert intelligence is distorted in a drift toward paramilitary operations causing civilian casualties. One gets a sense that the second Bush administration is reacting to the horrendous 9/11 attack because of his administration’s failure to acknowledge CIA’s evidence that Bin Laden planned an attack on the U.S. The evidence of an attack’s imminence is clearly reported to the President by CIA leadership. This is a tough pill to swallow because the intelligence purpose of the CIA seems subordinated by both Democrats and Republicans to political interest rather than nation-state security.

Weiner vilifies CIA leaders like George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Leon Panetta. Tenet assures President Bush of Iraq’s possession of WMD. Goss, a Republican appointed by Bush, and Panetta, appointed by Obama, transformed the CIA into a paramilitary force after 9/11. Obama authorized use of drones in covert killings of over 500 foreign agents based on CIA’ espionage and analysis of their activities. Weiner notes Michael Hayden authorized torture programs by the CIA. Wiener argues torture programs and authorized assassinations damaged CIA’s credibility and effectiveness. To Wiener, the CIA’s leadership decline reaches back to Allen Dulles’s Cold War and William Casey’s Iran-Contra entanglement during the Reagan years. Covert action became more important than intelligence gathering.

“The Mission” is a depressing view of American ineptitude that reminds one of the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and 9/11. Wiener offers a dim view of both Democratic and Republican leadership in America. One hopes America can be better than what Wiener reveals in “The Mission”. The jury may still be out, but Trump’s administration seems likely to continue America’s international decline.