Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop

The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency simply does not up and quit on a Friday afternoon with no notice. There is a damned good reason for Porter Goss to get out of town in such a hurry. The President was unusually flat in the little dog and pony show that announced the resignation and Scott McClellan was coy in announcing that there would be an announcement. Add to that that there is no replacement in place for what is presumably a very important job while the War on Terror is raging, and you have the makings of a bona fide Washington scandal.

Speculation is ripe that his departure is connected to Hookergate. Larry Johnson speculates that Goss is probably not personally involved but that one of his staffers may be involved. The official spin is that Goss was on the losing end of a power struggle with John Negroponte. There may have been a power struggle but clearly that does not explain the sudden and hasty departure. Some significant precipitating event must have occurred to upset the schedule of the President of the United States on a Friday afternoon. It may be connected to Hookergate but if Larry Johnson is right about how that touches Goss, it makes no sense why he would run out of town with no notice.

So, my sense is that there is something bigger than Hookergate at work here. Atrios speculates that Dana Priest may have a scoop in tomorrow’s Washington Post. I will be reloading the Post just as furiously as Atrios looking for the other shoe to drop. Although if past is prologue the story may come out in drips and drabs rather than in one big swoop.

Stay tuned…

Update (5/5/2006 11:04 PM): The much-anticipated Washington Post story is up on their web site. It claims that Goss was forced out by Bush and Negroponte. However, it does not address nor does it explain the abruptness of the departure. Something still stinks. Apparently more to come…

Update (5/6/2006 12:34 AM): Another Washington Post article under Dana Priest’s byline is now up on the Post web site. Priest’s article looks at Goss’s departure from within the agency ranks and it contains this gem:

The perception that Goss was conducting a partisan witch hunt grew, too, as staffers asked about the party affiliation of officers who sent in cables or analyses on Iraq that contradicted the Defense Department’s more optimistic scenarios.

Looks like Goss was doing exactly what Bush sent him there to do. This raises even more questions about his sudden departure. Could Rumsfeld have been involved? More from the article:

While the stature and role of the CIA were greatly diminished under Goss during the congressionally ordered reorganization of the intelligence agencies, his counterpart at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, continued his aggressive efforts to develop a clandestine intelligence operation within his department. The Pentagon’s human intelligence unit and its other clandestine military units are expanding in number and authority. Rumsfeld recently won the ability to sidestep U.S. ambassadors in certain circumstances when the Pentagon wants to send in clandestine teams to collect intelligence or undertake operations.

"Rumsfeld keeps pressing for autonomy for defense human intelligence and for SOF [Special Forces] operations," said retired Army Col. W. Patrick Lang, former head of Middle East affairs at the Defense Intelligence Agency. "CIA has lost the ability to control the [human intelligence] process in the community."

Now, "the real battle lies between" Negroponte and Rumsfeld, said retired Army Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick, a former deputy national security adviser and once a senior official at the Defense Intelligence Agency. "Rumsfeld rules the roost now."

The other shoe is yet to drop…