More importantly for CIA Director: from the David Corn article above concerning the Valerie Plame affair: Quote: Goss rejected the call for an independent counsel. "I am not going to suggest there be any kind of independent counsel until it even rises to the level of coming to our committee's attention, which it hasn't risen to yet," he said. Yet the Justice Department, months later, did hand over the investigation to a quasi-independent prosecutor whom the department termed an independent counsel. And Goss told the paper that all his knowledge of the Wilson leak had come from the news media--meaning he had not bothered to make any inquiries of his own about the episode. How could he have not been curious about the leak and its consequences? He never asked anyone at the CIA whether the leak had caused damage? Or how it had affected the morale of CIA officers?
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But the CIA had considered this leak serious and had requested a criminal probe. Moreover, Goss acknowledged he had taken no steps to determine whether this leak was an important issue for the CIA.
If Goss could not see the difference between the Wilson leak--which was possibly a felony violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act--and the usual leaks that appear in the media and if he was unconcerned about administration officials blowing the cover of a CIA officer engaged in some of the agency's most important work, then he does not deserve easy confirmation--or confirmation at all--as CIA director. |
"Arms in the hands of the citizens may be used at individual discretion for the defense of the country, the overthrow of tyranny or private self-defense." -- John Adams |