SEPTEMBER 16, 02:42 EDT
CIA Losing Its Best Operatives
By JOHN DIAMOND Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA is pumping money and people into recruiting efforts to battle a trend that the agency's departing inspector general says has sapped the clandestine service of its most
experienced hands.
Agency officials outlined Tuesday initiatives that CIA Director George Tenet announced internally last month to increase pay, provide hiring bonuses and shorten the waiting time for job offers.
''There are plenty of headhunters out there ready to pounce on strong candidates,'' Tenet told agency employees in his announcement. ''To delay is to lose.''
The program is intended to combat a problem outlined in an op-ed article by outgoing CIA Inspector General Fred Hitz who said the CIA's Directorate of Operations, the clandestine spy service, is losing its
best people amid organizational drift and declining morale.
''The picture is not encouraging,'' said Hitz, the CIA's chief watchdog from 1990 until this year. Writing in
an op-ed article in The Washington Post, Hitz said the Directorate of Operations ''has been shrinking in size and capability since the end of the Cold War.''
A recent study showed departures from the agency due to attrition ''involved high-quality officers the agency could not afford to lose,'' Hitz wrote.
The number of CIA employees is classified, but the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington-based group that follows intelligence matters, estimates it has shrunk from more than
20,000 to about 16,000 since the Cold War. The clandestine service is estimated at several thousand.
Agency and congressional officials said the critique may be outdated as the CIA pumps new money and energy into recruiting. But one knowledgeable congressional staffer said the problem got so bad that an entire incoming class of operatives - perhaps a few dozen recruits - had to be canceled for lack of money.
Hitz pointed to the difficulty of recruiting in a booming economy and to low morale as a result of ''the lack of a clear mission'' at CIA.
''Nobody worth his or her salt is going to join an organization that has lost faith in itself, is confused about its mission and is trapped in the sclerosis of a middle-aged bureaucracy,'' he said.
Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a former CIA clandestine operative, said an instinct to blame the CIA every time a risky intelligence venture fails is taking its toll.
''With so many unyielding critics, the CIA has become gun-shy,'' Goss said.
Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Hitz has been a leading critic of the clandestine service and may himself be partly to blame for low morale. Still, Kerrey agreed recruitment is a serious agency problem.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the committee chairman, said the CIA must focus more clearly on defining its mission and outlining how it will use field operatives to combat terrorism, weapons proliferation and drug trafficking.
In recent months, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have pushed for more money for the CIA's so-called human intelligence efforts, including its field operatives. |
