Goss Confirmed as New CIA Director

As questions swirled about the future of the CIA and the intelligence community, the Senate Sept. 22, by a vote of 77-17, confirmed Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) as the new director of central intelligence.

Poor intelligence has been cited as a reason for the Bush administration’s failure to prevent the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and correctly assess whether Iraq had nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and related delivery systems. Several reform proposals are under consideration on Capitol Hill.

Goss, the chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and a former CIA officer, replaces George Tenet, who surrendered his position after seven years on the job. Tenet presided over the CIA during a period in which the intelligence community was repeatedly challenged by weapons of mass destruction (WMD) development, from Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in 1998 to Iran’s perceived bid to obtain nuclear weapons.

During his confirmation hearings before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Goss outlined a number of areas he would change to track such development better, including improving the CIA’s spy network, improving officers’ language skills, preparing more detailed analyses using a greater variety of intelligence sources and targets, and improving data sharing.

At one point during the hearings, Sen. Mike Dewine (R-Ohio) expressed dissatisfaction with recent CIA efforts. “We have been very frustrated, of course, with the National Intelligence Estimate in regard to Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction.…[W]hat were the lessons that you learned from this failure?”

In response, Goss said agents had failed to collect enough information and were not creative enough in using what information was made available. He also pointed to a “groupthink” that developed among intelligence officers, a problem that was cited in a July report from the Senate intelligence panel.