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Two top officials resign from the CIA, the Post reports. The problem? Goss's deputy Patrick Murray is threatening the staff:
Associates said [deputy director John] McLaughlin was disappointed by Goss's management style and was particularly disheartened by a series of recent confrontations between Murray and senior leaders.
Yesterday, Murray told the associate deputy director of counterintelligence that if anything in the newly appointed executive director's personnel file made it into the media, the counterintelligence official "would be held responsible," according to one agency official and two former colleagues with knowledge of the conversation.
All three sources gave the following account:
The woman, a highly respected case officer whose name is being withheld because she is undercover, told Michael Sulick, the associate deputy director of operations, about the threat. Sulick told [Deputy Director of Operations Stephen R.] Kappes, and both sought a meeting with Goss to complain.
Goss, Murray, Kappes and Sulick met to discuss the matter. After Goss left, Sulick "got in Murray's space," according to one of his associates whose account was corroborated by another. Murray then demanded that Kappes fire Sulick. Kappes refused, and told Goss that he would resign. Goss and other White House officials appealed to Kappes to delay his decision until Monday.
Here's the NYT's take. But while I read this that Patrick Murray is a dangerous bully, David Brooks says it's about imposing White House discipline at the Agency.
In short, people in the C.I.A. need to be reminded that the person the president sends to run their agency is going to run their agency, and that if they ever want their information to be trusted, they can't break the law with self-serving leaks of classified data.
This is about more than intelligence. It's about Bush's second term. Is the president going to be able to rely on the institutions of government to execute his policies, or, by his laxity, will he permit the bureaucracy to ignore, evade and subvert the decisions made at the top? If the C.I.A. pays no price for its behavior, no one will pay a price for anything, and everything is permitted. That, Mr. President, is a slam-dunk.
To his great credit, Brooks makes good on correcting an error Atrios, Kaus, Sullivan, and one of my readers pointed out. Brooks writes:
Sincere respect to Brooks for that.Not that it will do him much good at this point, but I owe John Kerry an apology. I recently mischaracterized some comments he made to Larry King in December 2001. I said he had embraced the decision to use Afghans to hunt down Al Qaeda at Tora Bora. He did not. I regret the error.
Monday Update: Jeffrey Dubner is not feeling very generous to Brooks, apology or no apology.