C.I.A. Director Goss Resigns

The is the same CIA agent known to me since 1974 that works with General Petraous during Iraqi Freedom. 

One person to note is Commander George Driscoll (Walnut Creek, LLHS) of the Contra Costa DA's offices was located in Iraq in control of the CIA detention centers located throughout the region.  One highly dubious connection is Spc James Coon (Walnut Creek, LLHS) was killed during August 2007 in Balad, Iraq.

C.I.A. Director Goss Resigns

By DAVID STOUT MAY 5, 2006
WASHINGTON, May 5 — Porter J. Goss abruptly resigned today as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a post that had been diminished in the restructuring of the intelligence bureaucracy after the Sept. 11 attacks.
With Mr. Goss sitting next to him in the Oval Office, President Bush said the director had offered his resignation this morning. "I've accepted it," Mr. Bush said, praising the retiring director for his "candid advice" and his integrity.
The president said Mr. Goss had led the C.I.A. "ably" through a period of transition, and that he had "helped make this country a safer place." Mr. Bush did not mention a successor, but The Associated Press reported that a senior administration official said one could be chosen as soon as Monday.
Mr. Goss said it had been "a very distinct honor and privilege" to lead the C.I.A. "I would like to report to you that the agency is back on a very even keel and sailing well," Mr. Goss said. He did not explain his decision, and both he and Mr. Bush ignored questions after making their statements.
But it was no secret in Washington that Mr. Goss and John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence whose position came into existence as the result of the Sept. 11 attacks, had engaged in turf battles. Mr. Negroponte was at the Oval Office announcement, but said nothing.
Mr. Goss's time with the C.I.A. was marked by the departure of many long-time agency officials, some of whom complained that he had been overly political in his approach to his job. Mr. Goss sometimes appeared uncomfortable in the office, as when he remarked in early 2005 that the workload was heavy and he sometimes felt pulled in different directions.
Photo


President Bush and Porter Goss in the Oval Office. CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times
Mr. Goss's departure comes as the president and his top aides are trying to reinvigorate an administration whose public support has sagged in recent public opinion surveys. The new White House chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, has already announced some changes and has said that more are on the way. And he pointedly invited people who were thinking of leaving the administration by the end of the year to step down a lot sooner.
Mr. Goss, a former Republican Congressman from Florida who headed the House Intelligence Committee and was once a C.I.A. officer, became director in September 2004, succeeding George J. Tenet. His tenure was, as Mr. Bush said, a time of transition _ and undeniably a painful one.
The C.I.A., whose prestige had suffered from intelligence failures on terrorism and Iraq before Mr. Goss arrived, was further reduced in power and official stature by the reorganization of intelligence-gathering that followed the post-mortems over the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
The independent bipartisan commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks recommended the creation of a new post, national intelligence director, that would have supreme power over the C.I.A., the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies in the far-flung intelligence bureaucracy.
Congress accepted that recommendation, creating the new post, which is now filled by Mr. Negroponte, former ambassador to the United Nations and Iraq. He displaced the C.I.A. director as the president's principal intelligence adviser and took what had been Mr. Goss's seat at meetings of the president's key national security aides.
When he took over the C.I.A. in September 2004, Mr. Goss vowed to work hard at "breaking some molds" and getting "more and more of our officers out of Washington." The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. were both criticized by the 9/11 commission.
Mr. Bush said today that Mr. Goss had "instilled a sense of professionalism" at the C.I.A. "He honors the proud history of the C.I.A., an organization that is known for secrecy and accountability," Mr. Bush said.
But Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued a somewhat tepid statement. The senator praised Mr. Goss for his service and acknowledged that he had taken over at a difficult time. "Porter made some significant improvements at the C.I.A.," Mr. Roberts said, "but I think even he would say they still have some way to go."