Ex-CIA guy: Briefers may have "dissembled" to Pelosi

Ishmael Jones, the pseudonym of a former CIA agent who has been critical of the agency, thinks Nancy Pelosi may have been right when she claimed the CIA misled her on interrogation briefings.

Writing in National Review's The Corner blog, Jones (who apparently wasn't one of the Speaker's briefers) opines:

In Mrs. Pelosi’s defense, CIA managers do not give fist-pounding briefings. They mumble, they dissemble, and there’s a lot of “on the one hand . . .” Its enormous numbers of employees have led to briefings being handled by groups, with vague chains of command, so that it may have been difficult to pin down what was said, when it was said, and who was in charge.

Jones, who describes himself as a "former deep cover operative," suggests Pelosi (and, by implication, the House Republicans who howled about her attacks on the CIA) should actually be pushing the agency much harder:

The CIA should be systemically changed so that it becomes an effective force for the defense of Americans, and not a political special-interest group. It needs to get its officers out of the United States and operating in foreign countries. (President Obama visited CIA Headquarters in April, where he was greeted by throngs of cheering CIA employees. With 90 percent of its employees now living and working within the United States, it is easy for the CIA to gather a rock-concert crowd.) The CIA needs to establish accountability for taxpayer funding — no whistle-blower system currently exists at the CIA to prevent fraud. [T]he CIA must shift its focus to gathering critical intelligence on foreign threats such as Iran and North Korea, and stop engaging in political fights in Washington, D.C. The real challenge to Mrs. Pelosi’s political power will come not from these latest revelations, but in the fallout from the next intelligence failure, when America is taken by surprise, or when President Obama makes a crucial decision based on false or nonexistent CIA intelligence. Jones' blog, which focuses on intel reform, is here.

[h/t Jeff Stein]

Glenn Thrush is senior staff writer at Politico Magazine.