Leon Panetta will head the CIA
I just heard this on MSNBC. Having Leon Panetta run the CIA is another brilliant appointment by Obama. The CIA has been a problem for years, as the United States has suffered through intelligence failures and corruption scandals in the military procurement process. More importantly, the last administration cherry-picked intelligence when selling the war.
Leon Panetta isn’t the first person that comes to mind when considering a CIA director, but Panetta is one of the most capable and respected public officials in the country. He’s not a spin doctor and he doesn’t sugar-coat problems. He’s a serious man, and we need people like him in government. He also knows his way around Washington.
I suspect that this also signals that Obama is serious about cutting unnecessary military spending. The procurement process os out of control, and Panetta is a serious budget hawk. Panetta can work with Bob Gates to take on the big spenders in congress.
Posted in: Democrats, Policy, Politics
Tags: Barack Obama, CIA, CIA director, cutting defense spending, defense spending, intelligence failures, Leon Panetta, Leon Panetta appointed by Obama, Leon Panetta budget hawk, Leon Panetta CIA, Leon Panetta intelligence, Leon Panetta will head the CIA, military procurement process, new Obama administration, Obama administration
<i.Having Leon Panetta run the CIA is another brilliant appointment by Obama.
Excuse me? Panetta may have become the default because distrust for Obam runs so deep in the intelligence community that no one else could be persuaded to take the job, but that scarcely makes Panetta a “brilliant” appointment.
Intel is a difficult job – even for the professionals, as evidenced by the fact that ALL (and I do mean ALL) Western intelligence services thoroughly believed that Saddam retained the capacity to manufacture WMDs and likely had at least a few in reserve.
Having essentially threatened criminal sanctions against CIA interrogators (OK, torturers, if you prefer), I see this as a potential disaster as the legal standards appropriate to US criminal law are suddenly applied to intel work – resulting in all the professionals going in to extreme conservative mode.
The fact of the matter is that many WMDs are real old technology, war gases were used in WWI, and by WWII nerve gas was available, if not used. Of course, fission weapons are early 1940s technology. There is little chance that we can truly keep 70 year old technology away from determined and well financed bad guys – at least not without good intel.
Don’t get me wrong, the US is a big country, with a lot of resources. We can undoubtedly survive the nuking of an LA or NYC, just as the Japanese survived the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki despite an immensely smaller population and economy. Tough luck for those in the A and B rings, and a lot of cancer for those even downwind of the C-ring, but the US will survive.
Not so, the Democratic party, if the repubs can in any way make the case that dems putting rookies in key positions cost a few hundred thousand lives.
Welcome to the world of liberal la la land, George- where Bush takes the blame for everything from the potato famine in Ireland so many years ago to the decreased solar activity of our sun, and everything the messiah does is remarkable– where were you during the heat of the election? I could have used a reasonable voice in battling the regulars here.
Although, I LOVE his tax cut!
Wow Nick – you’ll embrace anyone who opposes a Democrat. You say we’re in la la land, yet you voted for this fool who has led us into a disatrous war and has presided with his GOP buddies over a near depression. Two years ago you were hailing this economy. Give me a break.
I’ll take Leon Panetta and his judgement over Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the other fools you guys supported for the past 8 years. Someone needs to clean up the mess left by Bush’s team.
George comes on this site and rambles about US cities getting nuked and you jump on his bandwagon???? You’re more desperate than I thought.
I gotta side with Nick for once in my life.
Panetta has no intel experience. I see his appointment on the only major error made so far by Obama but I still see it as a major error. The world we live in is vastly complicated by a terror threat that has no discernable base. Intel has to grow in its ability to meet the challenge. In my experience, a total outsider will spend months or years understanding the structure he enters into and any misundestanding will slow down change.
Panetta is a bad choice unless he’s a superman. That I don’t know but from what I do know he seems like a reasonably good political hack, that won’t cut it.
JP – Totally disagree with you.
It’s not the case that Panetta has “no experience.” As Baer points out and others have pointed out, Panetta was a direct consumer of intelligence in his roles in the Clinton administration. He saw all the PDBs. Thus, he understands what the President needs.
Next, not all CIA directors are former spies. About half historically are not former spies. George H.W. Bush is viewed as a very effective CIA director and he was not a former spy professional.
Knowledge of the bureacracy and Washington are imperative here. The intelligence operation is broken. A tough, connected, competent operative is needed.