CIA charges hard on morale

EDITOR:

The most recent attention paid to the CIA's classified program to terminate with extreme prejudice the senior leadership of al-Qaida is almost impossible to comprehend.

But wait, perhaps it isn't given the potential for enhanced political careers for certain members of congress and members of the current administration. This latest revelation comes on the heels of a previously released internal CIA report on the interrogation of al-Qaida detainees - a report that set off every political smoke alarm from the White House to the Justice Department to the Hill.

In that particular report, Attorney General Eric Holder is considering appointing a prosecutor to investigate criminal actions by certain CIA officers who were involved in "harsh" interrogations of al-Qaida members at detention centers outside the U.S. The report if we remember from recent media reports and agency statements was referred to the Justice Department five years ago by the CIA's legal team and where DOJ's attorneys concluded subsequently that no prosecution was warranted.

Now we are at the bashing gates once again. Never mind that the termination program never got off the ground and that CIA director Leon Panetta briefed the congress on the program as soon as he himself was briefed on it by senior CIA officials.

Yet the bashing continues and the clarion calls for yet more oversight continue to resonate throughout political Washington. On the one hand, we have the democrats who continue to mine for "substantial" clues and evidence in order to confront the CIA with accusations that it lied to and "mislead" congress about the its counterterrorist/interrogation operations - evidence certain members of congress hope will exonerate House Speaker Nancy

Pelosi who accused the agency of lying about its activities. One the other, we have the Republicans who early on bashed the CIA for allegedly interfering with certain Bush administration policies on Iraq, al-Qaida, and Afghanistan.

Most active and former members of the CIA are used to the bashing, and understand with some sense of beltway reality that certain members of congress and of the administration tend to gain politically as a result.

But yet there may be profound negative effects within the CIA as a result of this continued bashing when agency employees see their work exposed and vilified, their errors trumpeted, their successes muted.

And although no one at the CIA will be sent to the big house over past alleged regressions, morale may be impacted in other more subtle ways: Critical counterterrorism jobs may go unfilled ("I'm not going that route"). Careers may shorten. Aggressiveness may wane. For although this fallout may occur in theory or in the abstract, we know it will not occur in fact or in a true sense since at the very end, the agency's employees will continue the fight; continue to protect the nation, and ultimately move on to a higher mission than those who bash.

J. D. Cardosi

Retired CIA officer

Minden