The errant actions of the C.I.A. are by now so evident that they are a staple of Washington conversion.\u00a0Like the weather, though, it is the topic everybody talks about, but does nothing about.<\/i><\/p>\n
The drone revelations, and\u00a0the administration\u2019s stonewalling, that coincided with John Brennan\u2019s confirmation hearings created a stir.\u00a0That incident struck a nerve because the White House looked ready to extend its claim to a right to kill\u00a0Americans abroad to the domestic scene.\u00a0\u00a0The prospect of moves to bring the Agency to heal quickly died\u00a0down once he made a vague promise to downsize the drone program.\u00a0\u00a0Moreover, no elected official voiced\u00a0concern about the implications of killing lots of foreigners \u2013 even innocent civilians \u2013 as we are doing\u00a0routinely in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.<\/p>\n
That may change. Now we have the graphic account of a maverick C.I.A. conducting its own clandestine war\u00a0against the government of Pakistan without a stipulated authorization. And doing so in a ham-handed manner\u00a0that helped to ruin whatever small chance remained of extricating ourselves from Afghanistan and neighboring\u00a0frontier areas of Pakistan without leaving behind a dangerous chaos on both sides of the Durand Line. The\u00a0detailed picture painted by two authoritative accounts of the notorious Raymond Davis affair, and its\u00a0clamorous aftermath, provides us with a fine-grained view of studied ignorance and appalling incompetence\u00a0among C.I.A. leaders in Langley and Islamabad (Mark Mazzetti\u2019s The Way of the Knife<\/a> and\u00a0Jeremy Scahill\u2019s Dirty Wars<\/a>). It also describes National\u00a0Security Council sessions for which \u2018dysfunctional\u2019 would be a generous term. The slanging matches among\u00a0cabinet members on matters of sensitivity and importance took place with an absent Commander in Chief\u00a0failing to exercise the policy guidance and operational oversight that are his mandate as President.<\/p>\n Raymond Davis was at first a Blackwater hireling sent to Lahore where he was immediately given delicate\u00a0espionage missions by the C.I.A.\u2019s chief of station despite no knowledge of the country, no serious training\u00a0nor supervision. Later, he seems to have been on both the Agency and the Pentagon\u2019s Special Operations\u00a0Command (JSOC) payrolls. Davis was one of hundreds, of former military and espionage people who were\u00a0shipped clandestinely to Pakistan as part of a campaign to identify and suppress any radical Islamist grouping\u00a0we decided was a threat to the United States. That definition of \u2018threat\u2019 was so loosely drawn as to cover\u00a0dozens of purely Pakistani groups who had no presence in or evident intent to attack the United States.\u00a0Declaring the Pakistani Army and, especially its Inter-Service Intelligence unit (ISI), as itself an enemy rather\u00a0than a partner, the C.I.A. planned a massive intelligence operation against them. The aims and purposes of this\u00a0audacious plan were never spelled out nor, apparently, were they ever the subject of a dedicated, scrupulous\u00a0policy review by the White House. It could be considered a rogue operation except that President Obama gave\u00a0it some sort of tacit endorsement of which there is no record.<\/p>\n Davis turned it into a diplomatic disaster. Using thin Consulate cover in Lahore, he set out on some murky\u00a0mission directed against the home-grown Lakshar-e-Taibi group based in the Punjab, far from the Afghan\u00a0border. It had an ambiguous relationship with the Pakistani authorities who both feared its popularity in\u00a0fundamentalist circles and sought to coopt it. Whatever the particulars,\u00a0\u00a0Davis wound up shooting and killing\u00a0two low level ISI agents on a motor scooter who had trailed him on his way to and from a meet. Then, a\u00a0civilian was run down by a C.I.A. car sent to rescue him from an enraged crowd. Trailing him wasn\u2019t very\u00a0difficult since he was in a big SUV packed with guns, ammo, spy equipment (including a make-up kit) and\u00a0hung several official, if contradictory, credentials around his neck. He also had multiple passports of various\u00a0vintage and identification.<\/p>\n This incident led to a noxious crisis that has poisoned US-Pakistan relations to this day \u2013 thanks to\u00a0Washington\u2019s bellicose reaction. Spurning repeated Pakistani attempts to finesse the matter, Leon Panetta as\u00a0C.I.A. Director refused to acknowledge Davis\u2019 true identity even in confidence to his counterpart, General\u00a0Pasha, while issuing a barrage of threats against the Pakistani military leadership. He ran roughshod over the\u00a0American Ambassador. \u00a0Cameron Munter, who sensibly suggested ways to reach a\u00a0modus vivendi. He insulted\u00a0Hillary Clinton at a NSC meeting when she offered a few words in defense of Munter. His actions sparked\u00a0massive anti-American riots across Pakistan. The accounts offered by Mazzelli and Scahill reveals Panetta, his\u00a0senior deputies, and his chief of station in Pakistan as not knowing the\u00a0\u00a0most elementary facts about the\u00a0Pakistani government, laws, judicial procedures or personalities. Or caring very much what they\u00a0were.<\/p>\n When finally Davis was freed after intractable dealings concluding with Washington paying blood\u00a0money to relatives of the victims before a Sharia court, Panetta got his revenge by launching a\u00a0drone attack the next day in Northwest Pakistan that killed 40 people \u2013 women and children\u00a0among them. Equally distressing, this episode starkly reveals a United States government flailing\u00a0about blindly unsure as to what it is trying to accomplish on the basis of what strategic conception\u00a0of national interests. It reveals as well an unaccountable C.I.A. whose incompetent conduct at\u00a0times bordered on the comic, and an Agency staffed by hyper-active egoists at all levels \u2013 from\u00a0Raymond Davis on up. This is an intelligence agency that contracts with the notorious Blackwater\u00a0to sweep up former soldiers and spies who are then dispatched to alien places where they are\u00a0enlisted in security operations with little preparation and less discipline. And paid more than\u00a0$200,000 a head \u2013 privatization at work.<\/p>\n Davis, who some months after his eventual release, was convicted of unprovoked assault against\u00a0a minister in a Denver parking lot, seems to have been vetted by no one. Thousands of people of\u00a0his background have been recruited and deployed to perform sensitive assignments because the\u00a0C.I.A., despite its huge resources, is overstretched as it chases could-be bad guys of various types\u00a0across the globe. One wonders whether other Davis types were in Libya where their presence may\u00a0have contributed to the tragic fiasco at Benghazi.<\/p>\n What we see is the portrait of a semi-autonomous agency, poorly led and allowed unjustifiable\u00a0independence by an absentee president \u2013 an agency that has done grave damage to the security\u00a0and well-being of the United States. Yet nothing is changing or is likely to change. William Brennan\u00a0is a creature of the C.I.A. where he sent his entirely career on its operational side. Brennan is\u00a0imbued with the passions of a true believer in an unlimited and largely unrestrained \u201cwar on terror.\u201d\u00a0He displays the gung-go enthusiasm of those who somehow believe that if you move fast enough,\u00a0all accidents will occur behind you. In short, he is the embodiment of all that explains why the C.I.A.\u00a0is now a national liability.<\/p>\n The valuable analytical work done at Langley by responsible professionals is not the problem. In\u00a0that sphere, the worrisome feature is the intrusion into their work of policy-makers who let it be\u00a0known what answers they want to validate what pre-conceived purposes.<\/p>\n What can be done to remedy this painful state of affairs? Obviously, the first step is to recognize\u00a0the seriousness of the harm that has been done and how deeply rooted the causes are. Once that\u00a0prerequisite is met, we can consider the following measures. One, remove from the Agency all\u00a0means and power to use force. The C.I.A. has proven itself too prone to abuse, too lacking in\u00a0judgment, and too impervious to political control to place weaponry in its hands. As additional\u00a0example, the CIA is running its own army of Afghan recruits, the O-4 units, who were responsible\u00a0for the killing of children in Kunar province last week. Plans call for them to stay after 2014. Two,\u00a0the use of unconventional weaponry generally should be narrowly circumscribed as a matter of\u00a0principle with any deviation from that norm requiring explicit presidential approval. Simply to\u00a0transfer the means and methods from the C.I.A. to the Pentagon\u2019s JSOC under General McRaven\u00a0is pointless in terms of practical effect. They are both reckless and literally out of control. Three,\u00a0terminate the use of contract workers in combat or quasi-combat roles, and terminate their use by\u00a0the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies. The risks and costs are demonstrably enormous; the\u00a0gain is invisible.<\/p>\n Finally, the time is long overdue for a systematic critical review of the GWOT in all its aspects. The\u00a0United States no longer is killing people in Afghanistan and Pakistan in a hunt for al-Qaeda\u00a0terrorists. We are killing them to prevent the Taliban and affiliates from challenging the ramshackle\u00a0regime we have installed in Kabul and the pliable one we aim to install in Islamabad. In short, we\u00a0created a monster that itself now a greater problem than the boundless \u2018enemy\u2019 it supposedly is\u00a0fighting.<\/p>\n It comes down to what you\u2019re trying to do and matching personnel to mission. If we aim to crush\u00a0Islamic fundamentalism around the world; if we aim to root out terrorism around the world; if we aim\u00a0to police the Congo jungles; if we aim to search out and destroy drug dealers around the world\u00a0because American society produces drug addicts in droves; if we aim to tell everyone everywhere\u00a0how to conduct their domestic affairs \u2013 then we need a magnitude and range of personnel far\u00a0beyond anything we now have. Of course, constituting it will wreak the American economy \u2013 and\u00a0we will fail ultimately on every front anyway.<\/p>\n _______________________<\/p>\n Michael Brenner<\/i>\u00a0is a Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.<\/i><\/p>\n