The Washington Independent » jeff stein

Post’s Stein Thinks National Counterterrorism Center Director Should Resign

Spencer Ackerman — Wed, 19 May 2010 15:40:00 +0000

I didn’t get a substantive response from the National Counterterrorism Center or its director, Michael Leiter, to yesterday’s Senate report singling it out for failure in the Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab case. Instead, I got pointed to Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair’s Wheatena-flavored reply. That might reflect the comfort Leiter has felt since the chairwoman of the committee that authored the report, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and the White House counterterrorism chief, John Brennan, embraced Leiter back in January, when the near-miss attack was at its most politically potent.

Jeff Stein of The Washington Post wants to dislodge Leiter from that comfort — and, for that matter, his job.

If U.S. intelligence hasn’t completely eluded accountability — and there’s widespread doubt about that — then somebody’s got to take the fall.

Why not start with Leiter?

U.S. Actually Prosecuting CIA Rape Case

Spencer Ackerman — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:27:30 +0000

So reports Jeff Stein on his brand-new Washington Post intelligence blog:

The Justice Department and Warren’s Florida-based attorney, Mark David Hunter, confirmed independently that the erstwhile covert operator is heading for a Washington trial, scheduled now for sometime in June. Hunter otherwise declined to comment.

As soon as Jeff More...

CQ: CIA Operations Folks Dissatisfied With Panetta

Spencer Ackerman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:25:34 +0000

My CIA sources on Monday were surprised but not so dismayed by the news that Leon Panetta is President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to head the agency. Jeff Stein’s CIA sources yesterday? Much more dismayed.

Writing in his CQ column, Jeff talks to veterans of the CIA’s operations directorate — the people who recruit spies, gather information, try to infiltrate governments and extremist organizations and, yes, interrogate detainees these days — and finds that they don’t see how Panetta has the skills necessary to lead the agency in wartime. Here’s Sam Faddis, a 20-year operative who retired earlier this year who calls himself “a big supporter of President-Elect Obama.” He says the central problem facing CIA is that it’s doing a poor job of intelligence collection:

“To fix that you need to get down in the weeds and really address the nuts and bolts of how CIA is performing its mission. You cannot do that unless you understand the business, and, frankly, you probably can’t do it unless you have been out on the street doing the work yourself.”

No outsiders need apply, in other words.

Clearly, there’s something to the idea that experience matters, familiarity with the profession matters and the details matter. And the “steep learning curve” that a few intelligence veterans told me independently of each other that Panetta faces is particularly steep in his case. But, to quote the fictional words of Commissioner Ervin Burrell, “that’s what the Deputy Ops is for.” In this case, the CIA’s deputy director for operations. You’d never want someone in that job without that experience and that skill set. The director’s job is much broader. It’s easy to imagine someone in the analysis directorate — the people who interpret the collected information — making Faddis’ exact same argument for why a CIA analyst ought to get the job.

In any case, this is probably another reason why Panetta may keep Steve Kappes as his deputy director. (It’s a different job than deputy director for operations, which is the top job at the National Clandestine Service, but a few pegs below deputy director.) A fair question to ask, though, is whether that means Panetta will be dependent on Kappes for mastering the learning curve, essentially making Kappes shadow director.