Experts weigh Goss’ ability to manage CIA bureaucracy

President Bush's nomination of Porter Goss to head the CIA raised questions this week about whether the Florida Republican is qualified to lead an embattled agency that is at the center of an historic restructuring of the U.S. intelligence community.

The Senate plans to hold confirmation hearings the first week of September. If confirmed, Goss will take charge of an agency that has been criticized by Congress in recent months for wrongly concluding that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and by the 9/11 commission for failing to act on intelligence about the Sept. 11 attacks.

Advocates say Goss is uniquely qualified to head the agency because he is a former CIA operative, an eight-term congressman, and was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until resigning on Tuesday after accepting the nomination. Critics argue that Goss is too political and has not shown signs that he is a real reformer who will be an independent voice inside the administration.

Congressional hearings the past few weeks have focused on how to overhaul the CIA and the U.S. intelligence community. Now, the head of the CIA is also the director of the central intelligence community. However, the CIA director only controls about 12 percent of the total intelligence budget, with the rest controlled by Pentagon agencies.

To resolve that problem, the 9/11 commission recommended creating a new national intelligence director who would have full budgetary and personnel authority over the CIA and the nation's 14 other intelligence agencies. Bush has publicly endorsed the creation of a national intelligence director, but stopped short of saying the position would have budget authority and the power to hire and fire.

Goss introduced legislation in June, while he was in the running to be nominated as CIA director, to expand the power of the CIA director to control up to 70 percent of the intelligence budget.

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., an outspoken advocate for reform who has helped write legislation to overhaul intelligence agencies, had this to say about Goss on Tuesday: "I think in the end he'll probably defer to what the president wants, which is a director of national intelligence. I think Porter's a team player."

Weldon said the biggest challenge Goss will face is trying to reform an entrenched CIA bureaucracy. "His problem is not going to be from the outside; it's going to be the bureaucracy inside. The bureaucracy doesn't like change," he said.

The congressman said the CIA has opposed intelligence reforms in the past, successfully outmaneuvering lawmakers by playing appropriation committees against authorization committees.

"The battle is within the agency," Weldon said.

Critics, however, say they do not think Goss is a real reformer who will stand up to the administration when needed.

"A team player is a guy who gives the administration what it wants. You need somebody who is objective; somebody who is a difficult person to get along with," said W. Patrick Lang, former chief of human intelligence collection and Middle East intelligence for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Lang said most problems associated with the CIA and other intelligence agencies occurred while Goss was responsible for oversight as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

He noted that the legislation that Goss introduced for intelligence reform is the opposite of the 9/11 commission recommendations. It is not clear what Goss' relationship would be to a new national director of intelligence if he were confirmed as CIA chief, Lang said.

Goss has not publicly endorsed the 9/11 recommendations and offered caution in implementing reform during the only hearing he chaired to consider the proposals.

"You need to have somebody in there that is really going to seek to reform the agency … and isn't so concerned with ruling the community," Lang added.

Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 commission and former Republican governor of New Jersey, weighed in on the nomination during a Wednesday interview. He said he was giving his personal opinion and not speaking for the commission.

"I have confidence in him personally, I have confidence in his integrity, and I have confidence in his background. He knows these agencies better than anybody else," Kean said. "A lot of what we're talking about--for instance strengthening intelligence oversight--is something he's tried to do in the Congress."

Kean said he has known Goss personally for more than 10 years. He said real reform within the CIA is going to happen by virtue of changing the intelligence community as a whole.

"If you force these people into an organization … where they are put together and forced to share information with a strong national intelligence director on top that can set the priorities, that's going to be the reform," Kean said. "What you need at the head of the CIA is a real operative who's going to understand the organization, be able to develop the human intelligence that we need, be able to bring in the language skills, and be able to recruit the right people. And I think Porter Goss can do that very well."