| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: WoT |
| Analysis: CIA can't retain trained staff |
| 2006-10-24 |
| WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- U.S. spy agencies cannot retain the people they are recruiting and training for the toughest jobs of all -- collecting human intelligence on al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. Thomas Waters, a former CIA officer who was a member of the agency's first post-Sept. 11 training class, told United Press International that the agency's clandestine service -- which recruits agents who spy for the United States -- had special problems retaining those like him, who had joined mid-career. "You start doing the math and thinking about when you're going to retire and you can't get the numbers to add up," he said, adding that he had left the agency because he could not afford to stay there. "You don't want to end up working at Wal-Mart (after retirement) to put your kids through college," said Waters, who has written a book about his experiences in CIA training called "Class 11," and who is now an intelligence contractor for the Department of Defense. The article goes on for more whining about how the Govt is competing against contractors for talent, but NEVER once addresses the biggest issue outside of money: the old-boy network made up of incompetent risk-averse ass-covering career b-crats who backstab analysis and ops people, leak documents and are generally political assholes. I'm talking about the ones that can't tell between a shia and a sunni, and think it doesnt matter, they probably have better contacts in the NYTimes and Dem Party than they do in tracing Al Qaeda. NOBODY want to work for those sorts, and unfortunately there are a lot of them there in crucial positions; they are mainly dregs who wormed their way there during the Bush-41 and Clinton years while shedding the "talent" that is now missing. Try firing an entrenched management-type GS-UpThere. Can't be done. And thats why the CIA needs to be dismantled and parceled out to NSA, NRO, DoD and so on. |
| Posted by:Oldspook |
| #24 Oldspook your full of shit "YOU BELONG TO US NOW!" "GET DOWN WITH MY SICKNESS!!" |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-10-24 18:27 |
| #23 Good pitchin', Steve S, in these parts its called "creative destruction". So the graphic of the spook boomers carries added meaning. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-10-24 23:17 |
| #22 Ah ... that 'nym thief is a troll from China, trying out his limited cultural awareness. Excuse me a moment while I go zap him. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-10-24 18:59 |
| #21 Ah, I was wondering! Watching for anonanonamoose. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2006-10-24 18:44 |
| #20 Naughty: someone is forging me. I do not and will not direct obscentity to another Rantburger, so mods, please nuke the IP responsible. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-10-24 18:42 |
| #19 The evidence is all around you in the form of leakers and their enablers, bias, and flat out lying about what was reported when and wherel this is in addition to the inability of many in the IC to admit mistakes and fault - and act to FIX things rather than cover them up. So best back that stuff up moose - because you're the one looking like 20 pounds in a 10 pound sack.. Or did I miss the sarcasm tags in your post? |
| Posted by: Oldspook 2006-10-24 18:42 |
| #18 Hell, I was going to disagree OS, I thought Gen. Roy Geiger went to Princeton, nope Stetson. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2006-10-24 18:28 |
#17
| |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-10-24 18:27 |
| #16 TW, yu'd be amazed at all the peopel that shoudl ahve been hired in and were not becasue they didnt have the right connections - and stunned by the people who were hired in because they did have the right political connections. An Ivy League pedegree goes a great deal farther than actual subject matter expertise with some pretty important folks. Myself, I think an Ivy Legaue degree should disqualify you from employment in the field unless you have extended military (combat arms) service to offset it; even then you end up with politards like Jack Murtha. If we hire more people with a univeristy degree that said "State" or "Tech" or had a compasss point ("North, Southwestern", etc) in it someplace, we'd be much better off. |
| Posted by: Oldspook 2006-10-24 18:07 |
| #15 I smell a certain amount of "disinformation". Much like Fernandez' remarks on Al-Jazeera. Of course he knew what he was saying which is exactly what he was told to say. Keep them all off balance. We are divided. We are disorganized. We have humint recruiting and retention problems. You are safe to proceed. Bang. Got you. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2006-10-24 16:43 |
| #14 There are plenty of Jews who escaped from those parts of the world post 1948 too, and hence speak the required languages fluently. Masses of them put their names down after 9/11, but were told more or less politely that the Muslims wouldn't work with Jews. Oh, well. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-10-24 16:14 |
| #13 Are there such good muzzies amongst the rabble? Yes. I know a few. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-10-24 15:00 |
| #12 Sure looked like some kind of privatization. Jack Bauer needs to make a living too. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-10-24 14:53 |
| #11 Privatization: When I checked the jobs listing about a year ago at my old company (a beltway bandit) there were about 50 openings for intel analysts and even some positions requiring humint operations experience. Sure looked like some kind of privatization. |
| Posted by: former mil contractor 2006-10-24 14:23 |
| #10 Sarge: I imagine that most of those PMCs are smoke and mirrors, either set up as shell corporations for other PMCs, or as administrative functions for whatever laws apply. It is exceptionally hard to set up a mercenary organization of scale that is well managed and logistically capable. Governments have an inherent distrust of such organizations, and go out of their way to interfere with them. Capitalization is also problematic and unpredictable. Back in the 70s, it was suggested that eventually corporate armies would be conducting most proxy fights by now, but PMCs just don't fit easily into parent company business models. Halliburton had to go through all sorts of contortions to have Kellogg, Brown & Root providing support services in Iraq, even though they had been providing support services to the US military since WWII. Eventually it was too much for them, and they had to spin off KBR, while keeping an 80% share. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-10-24 14:19 |
| #9 Wouln't recruiting human capital required to deal with AQ and the like mean recruiting people that are muslim that speak Farsi, Arabic, etc., that understand that culture but basically reject it in favor of Western Democracy? Are there such good muzzies amongst the rabble? |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2006-10-24 14:02 |
| #8 "By design or default, we were gutted in the 1990s and we didn't replace the human capital we lost." My response: Well DUH! They were warned that they were keeping political fat (like Plame) and cutting the muscle (ops) and bone (analysis) of the agency. If they had bothered to keep us "cold war dinosaurs" (as we were called when it came time to chop headcount) in the 90's instead of tossing us operators and analysts out while keeping the ass-covering ass-kissing management, they wouldn't be paying out so much now, nor would they ahve been repeatedly bruened back in 2001-2003! Shame of it is the same idiots who didnt address the real problems then are missing the real problems now: sh*t head political leakers that are now risk-averse management, people who seem more concerned with treating Bush and Republicans as if they are enemies than they are with truly defending the nation against terrorists and the nutjobs in NKor and Iran. |
| Posted by: Oldspook 2006-10-24 13:55 |
| #7 "Letters of Marque and Reprisal." I saw a story on the a cable network (not sure which one) where they talked stated there were over 2,000 “Private Military Companies” or PMC. I think the U.S. is a bit shy about unleashing hired guns to kill people in the Middle East (at least openly). We have done it before and are doing it today in some areas. In the 1970s we funded several Thai mercenary divisions to fight the Communists in Laos. Recently we hired guns to interrupt, harass, and monitor drug trafficking in South America. I am all for funding small mobile teams that basically go about vetting out justice to any Jihadi the can find. You have my vote. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2006-10-24 13:23 |
| #6 To thoroughly purge CIA, what must happen to it is what happened to the Army. In the case of the Army, its upper eschelons of West Pointers had to be replaced with ROTC graduates. With the CIA, anyone from Yale, Harvard, or other Ivy League schools has got to go. They have created an "honorable schoolboy" cancer in the CIA that is just as corrupt as what happened in British Intelligence with "The Cambridge Five" in the Philby Affair. Even if they are loyal to the US, which is questionable, they are more loyal to the democratic party, and most of all loyal to their schoolmates, no matter how untrustworthy. The vast majority of the CIAs upper eschelon should come from the South and West, not including the West Coast. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-10-24 12:46 |
| #5 Lololol, SteveS! Coffee Alert! |
| Posted by: .com 2006-10-24 12:31 |
| #4 Interesting peek inside, OS. In the private sector, when this kind of fossilization takes place in a big company, all the smart little mammals run off and join a start-up company where they proceed to eat the dinosaur's eggs. Time to privatise the intelligence business? Fits right in with my plan to issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal. Vote for me! |
| Posted by: SteveS 2006-10-24 12:25 |
| #3 |
| Posted by: doc 2006-10-24 12:12 |
| #2 OS, your comments make so much sens, there is nothing to add! |
| Posted by: SwissTex 2006-10-24 10:59 |
| #1 OS go ahead and name Valerie Plame she is one of them. They eek out an existence until their incompetence runs smack into reality and then they have to resign or take a fallback job as a bean counter. DonÂ’t get me wrong there are some good people out there but they are vastly outnumbered by the career and politicos couldnÂ’t analyze their way out of a wet paper back. Not to go too much on a rant (too late) but can someone name an intelligence success before 9/11? |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2006-10-24 10:55 |