CIA which can't and won't be audited for its use of US taxpayer dollars, has become a political lobby for those who favor unaccountable, top down centralized government closely partnered with the Washington Post and NY Times-Ishmael Jones, Oct. 2010

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10/19/2010, "CIA sues Ishmael Jones: His response," American Thinker, by Clarice Feldman. Jones' book about the CIA, "The Human Factor"

"Despite the growth of internet news and talk radio, the New York Times and the Washington Post retain enormous power. Their reporters have developed excellent sources among top CIA managers. These sources illegally provide classified information on such things as torture/interrogations and Iraq WMD intelligence failures, and in exchange these journalists will not attack the CIA's bureaucracy because to do so would be to attack their sources. A member of the Senate intelligence committee told me he met with CIA officials to propose changes to improve clandestine operations and the CIA fought back through a Washington Post column the very next day. In not confronting intelligence reform, journalists who cover the CIA build careers and win prizes, but in doing so the New York Times and the Washington Post, located in America's two primary terrorist target cities, abandon their readers. In order to protect their readers, these newspapers should pay more attention to intelligence reform. Journalists who explore CIA dysfunction are nearly all political conservatives....

Democrats have greater faith in the efficiency of government and tend to be less responsive to intelligence reform. They are reluctant to believe that top-down centralized government can be dysfunctional. The CIA has come to form a political ally, a lobbying group, a supporter.... 

The book contains no classified information and I do not profit from it. CIA censors attack this book because it exposes the CIA as a place to get rich, with billions of taxpayer dollars wasted or stolen in espionage programs that produce nothing. Despite the talented work force, more than 90% of employees now live and work entirely within the United States where they are largely ineffective, in violation of the CIA's founding charter.... 
  
The key indicator of the CIA's lack of operational accountability thus remains: no top manager has ever been disciplined, demoted, or even reassigned for failure to provide the intelligence the President needs. 

In working toward financial accountability, I focused on a single issue. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Congress gave the CIA more than $3 billion to increase its deep cover capabilities overseas. During the years after 9/11, the CIA was not able to field a single additional effective deep cover case officer overseas. The money disappeared in increased pay packages to employees, expensive boondoggles, the enrichment of contracting companies run by former CIA employees, and the expansion of CIA offices within the United States. More than 90% of CIA employees now live and work within the United States.

In meeting with members of congressional intelligence committees to discuss financial accountability, I was in for a surprise. I had expected a variety of reactions, but not the one I got. They politely interrupted me. They already knew about the missing $3 billion. They already knew about this accountability failure, this waste and theft. They agreed with me. But they couldn't do anything about it. There is simply no financial accountability mechanism to deal with waste and fraud at the CIA.

The Government Accountability Office (the GAO) audits government spending. A 2001 GAO report says: "We have not actively audited the CIA since the early 1960s, when we discontinued such work because the CIA was not providing us with sufficient access to information to perform our mission...we have made a conscious decision not to further pursue the issue."

When the waste and stealing start, effective clandestine operations end. The contracting game at the CIA has continued at full force, and has even mutated into a faux industry that uses the jargon of real business. M&A, profit margins, and synergy are discussed as if this were a real American industry instead of a bunch of government contracting scams. 

Real human sources work doesn't take much money, just agent pay, hotel rooms, airplane tickets. With the money forced into the system after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it seemed to make the system burst. Intelligence operations ran better before 9/11 simply because there was less money.

Citizens Against Government Waste published one of my articles, in which I suggested that CIA employees be given a whistleblower mechanism, the ability to contact cleared law enforcement officials when they see fraud and waste. The CIA currently has no whistleblower system....

Politicians can make a difference. CIA dysfunction thrives in the political conflict between left and right. Traditionally the CIA has been perceived as a gang of right wingers seeking to topple leftist governments. Some see the CIA as the hand behind worldwide conspiracies and complex dirty tricks. The CIA actually encourages this viewpoint."...

Despite my efforts to make intelligence reform a bipartisan issue, nearly all of the articles I've written have been in conservative media, and most of the meetings I've had with politicians have been with conservatives. Conservatives are quick to acknowledge dysfunction in government bureaucracy."...





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