Art Brown | intelNews.org

Analysis: CIA “cronyism, favoritism” prompts resignations

September 14, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Art Brown

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
Rumors emerged last week that the leading candidate to head the CIA’s station in Kabul, Afghanistan, has no experience in the Middle East or south Asia, and speaks no local languages. This is despite a bitter bureaucratic turf battle between the CIA leadership and the office the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to find the best-suited person for the job. Why is it still so hard, after nearly eight years in Afghanistan, for the CIA to find qualified senior managers? Jeff Stein of SpyTalk says it’s because skilled staff are demoralized and frustrated by the Agency’s chronic inefficiencies. He quotes an anonymous former senior counterterrorism officer who claims that escalating “cronyism and favoritism” are coupled by the lack of any serious “effort to address […] massive senior leadership problems”. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with Art Brown, Arthur Keller, CIA, CIA Kabul Station, DNI, intelligence recruitment, intelligence reform, Kabul (Afghanistan), News, turf wars, United States

Analysis: Are CIA Agents out of Control (Again)?

February 4, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
What’s going on at the CIA? As the corruption trial of Kyle “Dysty” Foggo, the Agency’s no. 3 under former CIA Director Porter Goss, continues this week, news has emerged that the Agency’s station chief in Algeria has been unceremoniously recalled back to Washington after being accused of drugging and raping two Algerian women at his residence. Meanwhile, an unidentified “former CIA station chief in Baghdad, allegedly ‘notorious’ for womanizing and the licentious behavior of his aides, is in line to become chief of the spy agency’s powerful Counterterrorism Center”. One might be excused for wondering what’s next for the troubled agency. Read article→

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with Algeria, Algiers, Art Brown, Baghdad (Iraq), Brent Wilkes, CIA, CIA Algiers station, CIA Counterterrorism Center, corruption, Ian Allen, Iraq, Kyle “Dysty” Foggo, Mark Zaid, Porter Goss, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Robert Baer

Analysis: Former CIA clandestine officer paints bleak picture of Agency

December 15, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment

In a brutally honest exposé, a 25-year veteran of the CIA has publicly described the Agency as an organization mired in failure, mediocrity and incompetence. Art Brown, who headed the Asia division of the CIA’s Clandestine Service from 2003 to 2005, has called the Agency’s seven-year, multi-billion operation to find Osama bin Laden a “failure” that “no amount of ‘rendition’ of bin Laden lieutenants can mask”. Writing in The New York Times, the CIA veteran has revealed that Syria’s alleged construction of a nuclear reactor in the country’s eastern desert came “as a surprise” to the Agency. Read more of this post