A retired senior CIA operations officer who quit last summer after 20 years tracking terrorists says the rank-and-file reaction to President-elect Obama's choice of Leon E.Panetta to run the spy agency has been "overwhelmingly negative."
Charles "Sam" Faddis, who led a CIA team into northern Iraq before the 2003 invasion, says he had "already heard from a large number of rank and file within CIA on this choice, and the reaction has been overwhelmingly negative."
Faddis added:
"These are people who are sweating blood everyday to make things happen and living for the day that somebody is going to come in, institute real reform and turn the CIA into the vital, effective organization it should be. To them this choice just says that no such changes are impending and that all they can look forward to is business as usual."
A number of field operatives have voiced similar sentiments to me since word spread Monday that Obama had chosen Panetta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton known for his budget expertise, to run the CIA. Panetta was also a Democratic congressman from the Monterey area of California from 1977 to 1993.
"His credentials do not warrant the appointment, especially in a wartime footing," said one CIA operative who has been pursuing al Qaeda in Afghanistan, in a typical remark.
Faddis, who was working on nuclear nonproliferation issues when he left the agency in May after 20 years as a covert operator, called Panetta "a disappointing choice."
"I am a big supporter of President-Elect Obama," Faddis added, "but Panetta is not the guy we need to run CIA right now. He may be a very good man. (But) he knows nothing about intelligence, particularly human intelligence" -- recruiting and managing spies.
"The central problem at CIA is that it is not doing a very good job of collecting the information it was created to collect," Faddis said.
"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."
In contrast to the field operatives, a numer of former top CIA officials have been telling me that Panetta, 70, could be a very good CIA director, despite his lack of experience.
In particular they cite his highly regarded tenure as Clinton's Chief of Staff and familiarity with intelligence issues through his stewardship of the House Budget Committee and White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
As a longtime Washington powerbroker, he'll also have the "juice" to get President Obama's ear, they say.
"While intelligence experience is obviously desired, it is not absolutely essential," said former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin, by e-mail from London.
"Other qualities are capacity to make decisions when there are no easy options and to take responsibility for them, situational awareness about the secondary and tertiary consequences of those decisions, good judgment about what is right, true, or advisable when presented with conflicting assessments -- a common situation in a field where you are almost always dealing with incomplete information. An instinct for dealing with people -- at the core of the job. The capacity to communicate clearly to a work force that needs an understanding of the larger picture in order to fit their discrete jobs into the broader mission."
McLaughlin concluded, "From what I know of Panetta, he should be good at most of these things."
Running the CIA, said another top former official, is not "neurology or rocket science."
But voices from below decks insist that's not enough to get a grip on what they call a self-serving, insular corps of middle managers in the clandestine service, which, they say, has become hidebound and risk adverse.
"When Panetta ends up sitting in a room with the senior 'spooks' from the agency, and they start with the smoke and mirrors and obfuscation, how is he going to cut through that?" Faddis asked, echoing a common view. "He's not."
"No matter how well intentioned he is or how intelligent, he does not have the background. He does not even speak their language. He will end up like Porter Goss did, sitting in an office, talking on the phone, and, at ground level, nothing will change," Faddis maintained.
Goss, a onetime CIA case officer, was a Republican congressman from Florida and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee when President Bush picked him in 2004 to head the CIA. His two-year tenure was marked by clashes with senior CIA management.
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