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    Intel failures: it's time to clean house

    From Congress Daily:

    The House Intelligence Committee's top Democrat said Tuesday he has recommended that President-elect Barack Obama keep the country's current national intelligence director and CIA chief in place for some time to ensure continuity in U.S. intelligence programs during the transition to a new administration.

    Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said he also recommended to Obama's transition team that some parts of the CIA's controversial alternative interrogation program should be allowed to continue. . . .

    In an interview, Reyes said he believes that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael Hayden should be kept in their posts. Reyes believes they should stay for at least six months, but said the time frame is ultimately a decision Obama must make.

    McConnell and Hayden have defended some of the worst aspects of Bush's "war on terror," from illegal surveillance to torture. Reyes seems to have bought into their logic.

    But then Reyes is not exactly an intelligence whiz. On his appointment as chairman in 2006, he flubbed an interviewer's questions on whether Al-Qa'ida and Hezbullah were Sunni or Shiite.

    Obama should dump McConnell and Hayden; they lack the bipartisan credibility of someone like Bob Gates. And while he's at it, he should talk to Nancy Pelosi about finding someone slightly more competent to run the intelligence committee.

    Comments

    I say, "Out With The Old & In With The New" for REAL change!


    Absent strong explicit reasons, toss 'em out!



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