White House Orders Purge of CIA ’Liberals,’ Sources Say

Agency officials believed to be disloyal to Bush are reportedly the targets

by Knut Royce

WASHINGTON - The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter
J. Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been
disloyal to President Bush or of leaking damaging information to the
media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin
Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House,"
said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the
agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get
rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on
by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been
obstructing the president’s agenda."

One of the first casualties appears to be Stephen R. Kappes, deputy
director of clandestine services, the CIA’s most powerful division.
The Washington Post reported yesterday that Kappes had tendered his
resignation after a confrontation with Goss’ chief of staff, Patrick
Murray, but at the behest of the White House had agreed to delay his
decision until tomorrow.

But the former senior CIA official said that the White House "doesn’t
want Steve Kappes to reconsider his resignation. That might be the
spin they put on it, but they want him out." He said the job had been
offered to the former chief of the European Division who retired after
a spat with then-CIA Director George Tenet.

Another recently retired top CIA official said he was unsure Kappes
had "officially resigned, but I do know he was unhappy."

Without confirming or denying that the job offer had been made, a CIA
spokesman asked Newsday to withhold naming the former officer because
of his undercover role over the years. He said he had no comment about
Goss’ personnel plans, but he added that changes at the top are not
unusual when new directors come in.

On Friday John E. McLaughlin, a 32-year veteran of the intelligence
division who served as acting CIA director before Goss took over,
announced that he was retiring. The spokesman said that the retirement
had been planned and was unrelated to the Kappes resignation or to
other morale problems inside the CIA. It could not be learned
yesterday whether the White House had identified Kappes, a respected
operations officer, as one of the officials "disloyal" to Bush.

"The president understands and appreciates the sacrifices made by the
members of the intelligence community in the war against terrorism,"
said a White House official of the report that he was purging the CIA
of "disloyal" officials. "The suggestion [that he ordered a purge] is
inaccurate."

Another former CIA official who retains good contacts within the
agency said that Goss and his top aides, who served on his staff when
Goss was chairman of the House intelligence committee, believe the
agency had relied too much over the years on liaison work with foreign
intelligence agencies and had not done enough to develop its own
intelligence collection system.

"Goss is not a believer in liaison work," said this retired official.
But, he said, the CIA’s "best intelligence really comes from liaison
work. The CIA is simply not going to develop the assets [agents and
case officers] that would meet the intelligence requirements."

Tensions between the White House and the CIA have been the talk of
Washington for at least a year, especially as leaks about the
mishandling of the Iraq war have dominated front pages.

Some of the most damaging leaks came from Michael Scheuer, former head
of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit, who wrote a book anonymously called
"Imperial Hubris" that criticized what he said was the
administration’s lack of resolve in tracking down the al-Qaida
chieftain and the reallocation of intelligence and military manpower
from the war on terrorism to the war i

Newsday is a Tribune Publishing newspaper.

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