CIA plans to purge its agency

From Newsday courtesy of Eschaton:

The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

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"A hotbed of liberals." That's just too funny. Of course, behind the humor is a pretty chilling thought: purges of this type are generally associated with how both Hitler and Stalin came to power. Even Saddam Hussein had periodic purges of the Ba'ath Party in order to solidify his power. Granted, their purges were generally of the murderous variety, and these CIA guys seem to be getting out with their lives intact. Nonetheless, it's creepy, and will probably make the intelligence failures from the run-up to the Iraq invasion all the more likely--Bush "loyalists" will undoubtedly tell the President exactly what he wants to hear, whether it's true or not.

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