New CIA Director's Style Causing Shake-Up

Nov. 15, 2004 -- -- When former Rep. Porter Goss, a Florida Republican who was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was sworn in two months ago as the new director of the CIA, he made it clear he wanted to radically change the agency.

"I believe there is too much management at headquarters," Goss said at his Senate confirmation hearing in September. "I don't want to use the word 'bureaucratic,' but maybe it's the right word."

Goss' critics now say his heavy-handed approach is destroying morale at highest levels of the CIA.

The deputy director of the agency, John McLaughlin, resigned Friday. The 32-year CIA veteran had been acting director for two months, following the resignation of George Tenet.

Stephen Kappes, the CIA's deputy director for overseas clandestine operations, and his deputy, Michael Sulick, turned in their resignations today, and more resignations are expected to follow, raising the question of how well, with all these experienced people leaving, the CIA can continue to protect the United States in dangerous times.

Kappes and Sulick have told colleagues they were extremely frustrated with Goss' confrontational style.

"Goss came in with a mandate from the White House to make changes, perhaps many of them valid," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., Goss' former colleague on the House Intelligence Committee. "But the way he is going about it is [going] to implode his agency."

Harman claims resignations are coming fast and furious because Goss brought with him to the CIA some arrogant congressional staffers. She described them as abrasive and dismissive.

"After pledging to be nonpartisan, he brought in a highly partisan, inexperienced staff whom we all knew from the House," Harman said. "And they have sent signals throughout the agency which I think are causing very good people to bail out."

But some intelligence analysts say a dramatic overhaul may be just what the agency needs, especially given its failures in assessing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and dismantling al Qaeda before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.