 Dick
Coffman is an international business and security
consultant and media commentator on intelligence,
homeland security and terrorism. He is managing
Director of Odysseus
Group International, which provides risk
management and security solutions to the transportation,
basic infrastructure and manufacturing industries.
Mr. Coffman specializes in ports and maritime
security and homeland defense. He is founder
and President of Coffman
Global Group, which leverages worldwide
networks for business development and marketing
in high technology, basic materials and capital
construction.
Mr. Coffman has conducted assessments of intelligence
operations for the U.S. Customs Service and
the Office of Naval Intelligence and for a
major defense contractor.
Mr. Coffman served 31 years in the Central
Intelligence Agency where he formed and managed
the Agency's first counterterrorism analytic
organization and served as Chief of Station,
chief of staff to the Director of the Clandestine
Service, coordinator of major worldwide covert
intelligence programs and CIA representative
to the NATO Commander.
He also served four years in the U.S. Marine
Corps, including duty in Vietnam in 1965 and
1966. Mr. Coffman remained in the Marine Corps
Reserves retiring in 1992 at the grade of
Colonel. Mr. Coffman is a student of military
history and an authority on the U.S. Civil
War.
Coffman
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August 16, 2004
("Intelligence has never been more important to the security
of our country." CIA Director George Tenet, February 5, 2004)
And now, with Tenet's words, if anything understating the role of
contemporary intelligence in safeguarding US security in today's
world, Porter Goss is poised to take over the reins of the CIA.
Goss will confront the daunting task of rebuilding US intelligence
so that it is equal to the challenges of our time: the threats of
terror and militant Islam at home and overseas; looming upheavals
in the Middle East and Central Asia; the so far unchecked growth
of nascent nuclear capabilities in Iran
and North
Korea; the rising power of China
in the Pacific; and, further deterioration on the Israeli-Palestinian
front. All of this is at a time of shrinking western European strategic
relevance leaving the US alone to face these strategic problems.
Is he up to the job, particularly with current efforts to revitalize
US intelligence severely complicated by the 9/11
Commission recommendations and the unbridled partisanship of the
coming national elections? Could anyone be up to this job?
Goss, a former CIA operations officer and chairman of the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence since 1997, has already
been criticized as having been too cozy with the CIA in his oversight.
True, he led his committee during the Clinton years to urge higher
funding levels and stronger political support for CIA. But, he was
doing so to protect a vital national resource battered by post Cold
War budget cuts, harsh criticism over the treachery of Aldrich
Ames and a series of politically inspired and downright silly investigations
with such forgettable names as BCCI, BNL, and the so-called October
Surprise.
Still other investigations - the Paris Station, congressional notification
regarding human rights issues in Guatemala and CIA activities in
northern Iraq
- seriously diluted CIA operational boldness leaving the Agency
and country more vulnerable to the threats enumerated above.
The efforts of Goss and others were aimed at preventing the Agency's
demoralization and crippling loss of capabilities at the hands of
an Administration lacking the foresight to preserve the nation's
intelligence in the face of quietly but surely gathering storms.
Another line of attack, mainly from partisan Democrats, is that
Goss is too political for such a sensitive job, as if anyone in
Washington outside the cicada population gone back to ground for
the next 17 years is not overly partisan.
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In fact, Goss has enjoyed a reputation as a relatively nonpartisan
Member of a Congress often overheated by partisanship. Even the
most partisan Democrats concede that he will be rather easily confirmed
after tough confirmation hearing questions. The Ranking Member of
his Intelligence Committee, Jane Harmon, has said that contesting
Goss' confirmation is the "wrong fight" for the Democrats.
Moreover, an earlier successful DCI, George H. W. Bush had previously
served in Congress and came to the Agency from his position as Chairman
of the Republican National Committee. Many of the Agency's least
successful DCI's - Stansfield Turner who came from the Navy and
John Deutch from the academy via a top Defense Department job -
were largely non-political.
That said, Goss' congressional pedigree is of some concern not for
political reasons, but because some legislators who move into the
Executive Branch sometimes remain excessively respectful of congressional
prerogatives. It is one thing to keep Congress properly briefed
on intelligence matters and to work the Congress for resources and
authorities. It is quite another to cross the line and allow Congress
to set policy and drive management of intelligence agencies.
Fortunately, Goss has recently displayed both sound judgment and
independence, not to mention political courage in criticizing the
performance of CIA and the Intelligence Community, as well as many
of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
Like other veteran national security observers, Goss appears to
harbor reservations about many of the 9/11 Commission intelligence
recommendations, but, almost alone of Washington's political leaders
- most of whom have been stampeded into blanket endorsement of the
Commission - he has shown the nerve to give voice to his views.
Regarding CIA, Goss said in a public statement in June the Agency
was "dysfunctional " and the Intelligence Community was headed over
the "proverbial cliff." So rare and sharp was his criticism that
then-CIA Director Tenet responded with a public letter of protest.
So much for concerns that Goss will be a patsy for the CIA old guard
and that he lacks the independence and backbone to deliver intelligence
straight and without trimming to his boss in the White House.
Probably the best news is that Porter Goss knows the CIA and Intelligence
Community inside and out, its strengths and weaknesses, what needs
to be fixed and how to do it better than virtually any American
political figure. In his June statement, Goss directly addressed
his former Agency home and the most important intelligence component
to America's future security, the Clandestine Service, saying the
CIA was ignoring its core mission - clandestine human source collection
- and that the Service was on its way to becoming a stilted bureaucracy.
He not only has headed HPSCI for seven years, but he was co-chair
of the joint House-Senate inquiry into the 9/11 attacks, whose report
over a year ago provided a far stronger blueprint for US intelligence
than the 9/11 Commission.
This augers well for Goss to hit the ground running at Langley.
He knows the Agency, its issues and its people and will have virtually
no learning curve to navigate. As both a politically savvy and powerful
DCI, he is likely to move quickly, decisively and knowledgeably
on strengthening the essential components of CIA. He will be inclined
to leave to others such grand designs as the intelligence "czar,"
whose impact if any will take years to measure.
So, on balance, the President's appointment of Porter Goss to run
CIA is about as good as it gets in contemporary Washington. The
question is: will this appointment be in time to meet those daunting
challenges facing us at home and abroad?
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© 2004 Richard Coffman. All opinions expressed in this article
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