January, 2005

Well, John McCain was listening and claimed to be not all that happy about reading things that pertained to his Senate committee in the Washington Post. That was followed by much backpedaling, bowing and scraping on the part of some poor Pentagon spokesman. Would you sleep well at night if your day-job were to clean up after Rummy’s dirty laundry?

Gosh, maybe it’s all just a misunderstanding.

George Waldroup, a reserve colonel runs this particular clandestine show and when you Google his name you pretty much come away with zip. Navy Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, expresses "utmost confidence in Colonel Waldroup's capabilities" and said in an interview that Waldroup's unit has scored "a whole series of successes" that he could not reveal in public. Well, that would be refreshing, after the CIA scoring a whole series of fuckups that the administration would not reveal in public.

Chock full of code-names and special units, the “Rumsfeld Cloaks and Daggers” are bound to impress and, as the Post notes, “add missing capabilities, such as the skill to establish local spy networks and the technology for direct access to national intelligence databases.” So, that’s what’s been wrong with the CIA! They were unable to establish local spy networks. No wonder Rummy’s disgusted and to think that George Tenet got a Presidential Medal of Whatever without being able to spy on the people Rummy wanted spied on. It just boggles the mind. However are we stumbling through day after day? The CIA must have been Googling al Queda.

Over at Langley, the CIA has been battening down whatever hatches it has left and refuses to grant interviews for the Washington Post article. Things must be a bit touchy over there.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is absolutely going to remain accountable to congress, while insisting that defense intelligence missions in their bailiwick are less subject to legal constraints than Rummy’s predecessors believed. Apparently they’re gonna stub that same sore toe again while arguing legalities. Don’t lose me folks, it has to do with new interpretations of articles 10 and 50 of the U.S.Code. I looked into these titles and, like the tax code, they are so arcane in language that multiple definitions cry out for attention. Rummy’s gonna run with this ball and see if anyone blows a whistle.

And maybe he’s right. But putting together a spy network isn’t all that great an idea within an organization that can’t do its primary job correctly, which is to win the wars that congress asks and requires them to win. We already have an organization that doesn’t know how to spy and hardly need another. Peter Sellers isn’t supposed to be running clandestine operations in the United States . . . he’s supposed to be dead. Donald Rumsfeld isn’t supposed to be running clandestine operations either . . . he’s supposed to be running a military that knows how to win an armed conflict.

Get the first part right, Donald. Then we’ll see if you deserve your own spy operation and if you do, we’ll let you designate yourself Agent 001. Until then, don’t buy the hat.

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