Goss Fired? or Retired? Questions Over CIA Politics

Porter Goss resigned suddenly Friday as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. At a White House Oval Office meeting with President Bush, Goss informs that he notified President Bush of his decision in the morning. The announcement came only hours later with Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte looking on (White House statement and photo here).

It seemed odd that on a day when the President wanted to focus on good economic news, visiting Fraegers Hardware Store on Capitol Hill, he would allow his good news message to get pushed behind this sudden announcement. Especially odd when the other major story was the late night car accident that Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) had last night on the Capitol grounds. Better to let the media stew over another Kennedy scandal, than focus on White House intrigue.

The Washington Post reports in Saturday's edition That Goss may very well have been forced out after President Bush lost confidence in his ability to carry out the critical mission of defeating the insurgency at the CIA.

Flopping Aces did his usual thorough and comprehensive roundup of the story and his conclusion is mirrored in the Post story. With the ongoing shakeup in the Bush team, if Goss wasn't meeting expectations it would certainly be the time to go.

The current buzz is that General Hayden, Deputy to National Intelligence Director (NID) Negroponte and former head of the National Security Agency will be nominated on Monday. In Time Magazine's reporting on the matter, Goss declined to wait until his replacement was ready for announcement which would explain the rather curious meeting in the Oval Office between Goss and President Bush yesterday.

Hayden would make an excellent replacement and is perhaps a better fit, as a former deputy to Negroponte, within the new bureaucratic framework for intelligence. (Note: his swearing in as Deputy NID in May 2005 shows the CIA flag center.)

As a former head of the National Security Agency which has recently come under scrutiny after the leak disclosing the NSA terror monitoring program, Hayden may be a lightning rod during Senate confirmation hearings where Democrats are itching to further politicize the issue.

In a speech to the National Press Club , General Hayden made a brilliant defense of the NSA program:

[T]his is a little hard to do while protecting our country's intelligence sources and methods. And, frankly, people in my line of work generally don't like to talk about what they've done until it becomes a subject on the History Channel. But let me make one thing very clear. As challenging as this morning might be, this is the speech I want to give. I much prefer being here with you today telling you about the things we have done when there hasn't been an attack on the homeland. This is a far easier presentation to make than the ones I had to give four years ago telling audiences like you what we hadn't done in the days and months leading up to the tragic events of September 11th.

Will confirmation hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee become another three ring partisan circus? Or has Vice Chairman, Senator Jay Rockefeller (Defeaticrat-WV) been burned by links to leakers and the partisan warfare at CIA? (See Flares Into Darkness for a brief rap sheet on Rocky)

An announcement may come as soon as Monday, so stay tuned!