Porter Goss Resigns

Within the last hour it has been reported that Porter Goss, Director of the CIA, has resigned his position after a meeting with President Bush in the Oval Office.



This is major news. I wonder if it was completely unexpected, or part of the on-going staff shake-up as the early spin suggests

TPMmuckraker.com implies that the Goss resignation may have something to do with the hookergate congressional scandal. At this point I do not see the connection, but I submit this for review of others on ATS.

Or maybe it is related to the recent 5.5 ton coc aine bust in mexico, flown by a plane, owned by a CIA front company?

5 tons of coke- flown by the CIA and Tom delay appointees

I still say (as I did on another thread) that Mr. Negroponte wasn't happy with Goss. I had heard on the news that it was decided that Mr. Goss resign after a meeting with Mr. Bush and Mr. Negroponte. One could only wonder what was said between the three of them.

Believe it or not, since Mr. Negroponte was appointed to a higher position in one administration in the secret service community than Mr. Goss as CIA director--historically held as one of the highest positions--that must have ruffled some feathers.

I also heard that "Hookergate" involved MZM and former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. The story as follows is that Goss appointed Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the person allegedly responsible for sending ladies of the night to a room at the Watergate Hotel for a fund-raising gathering. This was supposed to be officially known as a "poker party".

However, I later found out there were more "poker parties" such as this one and allegations were raised that these events were actually "bacchanals" going on--while money was being raised. These "parties" were not only held at the Watergate; they were also allegedly held on Cunningham's yacht. Foggo, of course, denies seeing "any hookers" at all. But his resignation as Executive Director is expected sometime next week.

However, the same report alluded to Mr. Goss having other problems--especially retaining some of his Congressional staff for positions in the CIA. That meant that in a post that was "notoriously" supposed to be "unbiased", he was making his decisions for a "partisan" cause.

Go figure.

However, one must check out the smirk Mr. Bush had at the end of the press conference after he said his words about Mr. Goss. I wouldn't say that it was "diabolical", but it certainly conveyed to me that he truly didn't mean what he said about Mr. Goss. In fact, I believe that Mr. Bush was rather happy to get rid of the man.









[edit on 6-5-2006 by ceci2006]

Thanks for developing the story so nicely, and it does seem like there are several levels of reason to this resignation, perhaps remaining to be revealed the chief among them.

President Bush appears to smirk alot, and sometimes its hard to tell if it is a smirk or a wince. A five year plan with the boss quitting after a year and a half doesn't seem like much of a plan to me. The President' s statement on the resignation didn't make much sense to me, either. I mean more than usual, it was really all over the place.

I can't help thinking this was a surprise to the White House, and they are reeling a little behind it. All Negroponte's posturing aside, the CIA needs a strong, popular with the rank and file, leader. The organization is still crucial to the security of the nation and the operation of the government, and the feds need it on a variety of fronts to handle specialized tasks no other intelligence agency is prepared to handle.

Porter Goss may not have been the man to continue in charge of the CIA at this point, but the White House needs to come up with someone good to take his place. Someone really good. Right away.

You're very welcome, Icarus Rising. Yes, there's more to be said about this "resignation". Fascinating. It seemed as I continue to read about this scandal in the making that Mr. Bush had the right person in place to lead the CIA. Mr. Goss was from Florida. He worked in the intelligence community, yet served as a Representative. But, I kind of get the feeling that some of the rank and file was just not going to have it. I had heard from many corners that the some of the most devoted CIA officials did not like the Bush Administration. I guess that could be proven with the latest confessions from retired CIA guys.

In fact, there is a couple stories that go a little bit more in depth with what has been reported today.

First, the Washington Post gives their take on the events of the day. I know that the story says that the Administration "claimed" that there was not a loss of morale within the ranks of the CIA. But I don't believe it for a minute. They just don't let go of their directors after a year unless there were true problems taking place that might blow the lid off the agency. But don't take my word for it. Read what the article says below:

washingtonpost.com
Porter J. Goss was brought into the CIA to quell what the White House viewed as a partisan insurgency against the administration and to re-energize a spy service that failed to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks or accurately assess Iraq's weapons capability.

But as he walked out the glass doors of Langley headquarters yesterday, Goss left behind an agency that current and former intelligence officials say is weaker operationally, with a workforce demoralized by an exodus of senior officers and by uncertainty over its role in fighting terrorism and other intelligence priorities, said current and former intelligence officials.

In public, Goss once acknowledged being "amazed at the workload." Within headquarters, "he never bonded with the workforce," said John O. Brennan, a former senior CIA official and interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center until last July.

Suprisingly enough, read how Mr. Goss was perceived to be when he was appointed. This too was reported in 2004 by the Washington Post:

Bush Nominates Rep. Goss to Run CIA
President Bush nominated Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), a CIA officer-turned-politician, as director of central intelligence yesterday and said he would rely on Goss's counsel on the politically volatile issue of intelligence reform in the midst of a presidential campaign.

"He knows the CIA inside and out," Bush said in a Rose Garden announcement yesterday morning. "He's the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment in our nation's history."

Key Senate Democrats, who have the power to hold up the nomination by filibuster, indicated they would not oppose Goss outright but would question his independence at a time when the prewar intelligence on Iraq and the failure to thwart the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have become tender subjects for the White House.

Can we say that Mr. Goss was used up and out? I dare say he was.

Btw, thanks to donwhite for pointing me in the right direction about Mr. Bush's opening remarks about Mr. Goss.





[edit on 6-5-2006 by ceci2006]

I find it quite interesting about Mr. Goss' history and connections. The article in wikipedia.org is quite fascinating. I am just going to take a few key passages for people to consider.

Goss spent much of the 1960s — roughly from 1960 until 1971 — working for the Directorate of Operations, the clandestine services of the CIA. There he first worked in Latin America and the Caribbean and later in Europe. The details are not known due to the classified nature of the CIA, but Goss has said that he had worked in Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Mexico.

Goss, who has said that he has recruited and trained foreign agents, worked in Miami for much of the time. It is speculated that there he took part in the recruitment of Cuban exiles and immigrants for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, which was crushed by Fidel Castro. Goss was also involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, telling the Washington Post in 2002 that he had done some "small-boat handling" and had "some very interesting moments in the Florida Straits."

Could this also be another of the reasons he might have had to "step down"? Wikipedia describes the events prior to his appointment as CIA Director. It already seemed that his view of the CIA had already been tainted:

At the same time, in a sharp turn from his earlier statements defending the CIA, Goss said the agency has "been ignoring its core mission activities" and the clandestine service is on its way to being "a stilted bureaucracy incapable of even the slightest bit of success." He called the CIA's human intelligence gathering apparatus "dysfunctional" and averse to change, and charged that its intelligence analysts were timid and lacked proper focus. Tenet called the attacks "ill-informed" and "absurd." Goss also used House rules to keep Democrats from attaching their amendments to the intelligence appropriations bill.

Things didn't change much after he was appointed, it seems. But knowing his attacks might have allegedly made some of the rank and file mad, not all his connections in Florida or with the Bush administration could have saved him in the world, imho. The scandals he is allegedly involved in just proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

P.S. Lazarus the Long, I did read that thread. OMG, what amazing work. I wonder how it will turn out. It is yet another chapter befouling this cabalistic administration, imho.



[edit on 6-5-2006 by ceci2006]

Have we reached a record yet for resignations under one President?

Would you buy the stock of any Corporation with turnover like this?

Goss says it is "just one of those mysteries" when asked why he resigned.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Porter Goss said Saturday that his surprise resignation as CIA director is "just one of those mysteries," offering no other explanation for his sudden departure after almost two years on the job.

www.cnn.com...

Would like to know the real reason behind this.

Maybe some of the hookers in Hookergate heard things at the poker parties:

Federal investigators have apparently interviewed prostitutes involved in the Wilkes-Wade parties.

TPM

Speculation is that the next DCI will be Michael Hayden, a 4-star general. Not good for a civilian agency the dems are saying. I say it's a smokescreen to slide in a ringer while Goss heads out to lawyer up for his legal woes. But what do you think Hayden gets promoted to Negroponte's place when this latest CIA dog-and-pony show gets done.

Then the military man will be the head of the whole shebang.

[edit on 7-5-2006 by psyopswatcher]

yesterday, on the radio, i heard a snippet of a speech this goof gave to graduating students(at a university or college).

his final words to the students: "admit nothing, deny everything, make counter-accusations"

'good' advice, creep.

I have some advice for him: Don't tick off an Irish girl named Mary.

She denys leaking state secrets, but corruption issues are another matter? She worked for the IG's office:

The inspector general of the Central Intelligence Agency, the agency says, is conducting an inquiry into Kyle Foggo, its executive director, who said this week that he attended some of the parties over the years.

NYTs

McCarthy's revenge?

Porter Goss resigns in a turf war with his new boss the director of national intelligence....or so they say. there has been a trend over the past few years to consolidate power, something that always happens in republics (and one that, if they are healthy will be bucked in the next few years as well) but this is something different, major power being given to underlings. Think about it...do we really want ONE person overseeing what intelligence the president is given (especially if that president doesn't have much in that department himself ) power goes to power and that is a considerable amount in and of itself. It is dangerous to have so much consentrated in one person or office. The same goes for the department of homeland security. Bush was for once correct (and yes I give him credit for being so though it was probably by accident) to oppose its creation. The larger the agency, the more unweildy and complex it becomes, and by neccessity the slower its responses, but the arguement about the consentration of too much power in one individual is the same. The other thing is, and it applies to both is that there is just too much info involved for one person to process and so the urge to simplify or to distill that info is very great, and simplifing what goes on in this extremely complex world is also dangerous, especially if the simplified info is being given to a simpliton as it is.

I'm with grover on this. The Goss resignation is clearly just another step in the long march toward greater centralized power in the U.S. Bush's desire to appoint an active duty Army general to the DCI makes it clear that he wants the intelligence community on a short leash.

This is not news. I published two years ago [ISBN 1933538325], and I did make the case that the Executive branch does want greater obedience from what it sees as lesser departments. Negroponte didn't like Goss from the start. H has made it clear that he's getting rid of all the old school spooks to make room for a more obedient class of tech-savvy bureaucrats.

If you're looking for some good fuel for your favorite conspiracy theory, keep an eye on the NSA. Specifically, watch what their mid-level field managers do. If they perform as expected, you could see a lot of very quiet departures. the, the real domestic spying will begin.

CIA number three steps down.



Part of Gen' Hayden's shake up?

Hayden is the kind of guy who should scare you. If he doesn't scare you, please check your meds. This is just one more example of the trend I wrote about in my book. [see, ISBN 1933538325] All future Presidents will want the intelligence community on a short leash. It's all abou the centralization of power, and the control of information.

We can expect to see many retirements in the next few months. Our national intelligence gathering capability is about to be turned inward. Seems that we are regarded as more of a threat to the people in power than our overseas opposition.

Look for Hayden to bring in some of his air force buddies. By this time next year, it won't matter so much if they're retired or on active duty. We should expect to see a greater "militarization" of the intelligence services.