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23 January 2005

Winds Blow

The snow came and stayed. Not like it did up in New York. They got a classic Nor' Easter. The winds swirled out over the ocean and brought the moisture back ashore and dumped it on Central Park. Maybe nineteen inches. It is not the storm of the century, but it is a solid top-ten meteorological event.

We got a few inches in Washington. We were quivering in anticipation. I even bought a shovel, one of the kind with a collapsing handle so I could throw it in the back of my car if necessary. But one thing we are sharing with our frigid brethren to the north is a roaring wind, focused between two weather fronts that is scouring the fac'ade of Big Pink and hurling things like trash can lids across the parking lot and banging them into the parked cars.

I was awake at the usual time, but savored the Sunday lethargy. Saturday had been spent in anticipation of the snow emergency that did not happen. There are chores that were deferred. Mistakes were made, passive voice.

When I finally got up and lurched to the keyboard to read the papers, I saw that The Post and The new York Times had broken the story. It had been building since Seymour Hersh lobbed his grenade in the New Yorker last week. His inventory of grenades is formidable, since he has become the leak of choice for those who disagree with Administration policy on anything associated with the Department of Defense or the Intelligence Community.

The article is on-line if you want to check it out: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/ . It is under the ''Annals of National Security'' section as ''The Coming Wars: What the Pentagon Can Now Do in Secret.''

I subscribe to the New Yorker, but I have to tell you that I am a reader mostly of the cartoons, and am still not completely sold on what Tina Brown did to the venerable old magazine when she was editor-in-chief. But part of her make-over brought in writers like Hersh who make the once frothy and ethereal magazine the source of electrical energy.

This latest article clamed there were people running around Iran. I knew that had to be something there because I read the official rebuttal from the Department last week. It was a remarkable press release. Pentagon Spokesman Lawrence DiRita launched an impressive ad hominem attack on Hersh's integrity and professional due-diligence regarding Iran's apparent nuclear ambitions, and its demonstrated support for terrorist organizations.

DiRita claimed that the story ''is so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed.''

I was intrigued by the vitriolic tone, and naturally went back and read the article. That's the way it is, my interest sparked in direct proportion to the vehemence of the denial. It seemed pretty reasonable, and it was tantalizing to match the leakers to the leaks. The population of recently separated Senior officials from the CIA is relatively limited. In fact, one of my sources indicated that the number of people they intended to get rid of could be ''counted on the fingers of one hand.''

But there I go. No one comes to me with leaks, and I am certainly no longer current enough to have any knowledge of ongoing operations, real or fictional.

But what Hersh has done is provide a high-profile outlet for the war between the CIA and the Defense Department. I do recall how irritated Secretary Rumsfeld was that he had to rely on CIA operatives to ''open the door'' in Afghanistan. It was common knowledge around town that he was determined to establish a capability to open his own doors in the future.

It has been a while since I left the secret world and joined up with the Public Health Response mission, not as unlikely a match as you might think, considering that the Bad Guys are determined to do something awful to us. I thought that if we could not stop them, we might as well be prepared to minimize the casualties as best we could when it happened.

But I followed with interest the 9/11 Commission report, and the big re-organization of the Intelligence Community that followed. The big loser in this is the CIA. The Administration has not nominated anyone to fill the position of Director of National Intelligence, so there is a yawning gap in the calculus of power here in town.

Based on what is in the papers this morning, the Department has not been sitting by, waiting for the new guy to show up. In the New York Times, Eric Schmitt penned a dramatic revelation of ''a small group of super-secret commandos'' who work for an organization known by the innocuous title of the ''Strategic Support Group.''

I did a Google search on the name and came up with 267 hits, most of them dealing with Public Health organizations. No other leaks on that yet, but I imagine there will be this week. I was pleased to note that, if true, they had not made the same mistake as when they opened the ''Office of Strategic Influence,'' which lasted a week or so officially.

I checked the Washington Post to see if they were piling on, too, and sure enough there was a piece by Barton Gellman about how the Pentagon was ''expanding into the CIA' historic bailiwick.''

Since Sunday morning is the only time people in Washington have to actually read the papers, I expect that these articles will set the tone for the national security policy discussions this week. The roaring wind will keep people pinned down, and they may read them carefully.

For the record, I think the Defense Department needs better human intelligence, and I support any means to make our troops safer in the field, and our military operations more effective, should things come to that.

But it doesn't appear that this furor is about, not specifically.

When the Intelligence Reform bill was passed I realized that the wild ride was only beginning. The war is on, the one inside the Beltway, anyhow. The Agency is conducting a desperate rear-guard action through the New Yorker and The Post and the New York Times. The Department is conducting its usual ham-fisted frontal assault.

I don't know how this is going to turn out. Hersh quoted one Spook with the old adage that the Department is the 500-pound Gorrilla, adding, perhaps gratuitously, that the Director of CIA was ''only a Chimpanzee.''

I don't have a dog in the fight. Or a monkey, for that matter. But I think that if the President wants to get a handle on things he had better come up with a strong Director of National Intelligence pretty damn quick. The law says he gets to plan operations, civil and military, and he will be accountable to Congress and the public.

But at the moment, there is a vacuum outside the Department of Defense that is roaring as hard as the winter wind against my windows.

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