The
Obama Administration says it wants to create a special new spy agency
in the Pentagon which will focus on emerging threats and needs.
"The Pentagon is revamping its spy operations to focus on high-priority targets like Iran and China," wrote New York Times reporter Eric Schmitt
this week, seeming to support the need to expand intelligence gathering
capabilities as new threats emerge or older threats grow, and when the
CIA is clearly not doing the job on its own.
One
can imagine that if George W. Bush, Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld had
asked for more data-gathering power they would have been condemned by
Democrats and the press for making a naked power play. Indeed, one need
not imagine, because this actually happened, several times.
Rumsfeld, Cheney, Assistant Defense Secretary Doug Feith and analyst Richard Perle felt the CIA dropped the ball before and after
9-11. The Bush security team saw CIA needed help. Rumsfeld tried to
beef up the Defense Intelligence Agency, the DIA. He and his aides were
often attacked by Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) for their efforts.
Worse,
the Bush security team was regularly pilloried by liberal media press
and Democrats for sabotaging the CIA, for abusing their powers and
American liberties.
Times
columnist Maureen Dowd and her colleagues slammed Rumsfeld, Cheney,
Perle with epithets like "Darth Vader" and "the Prince of Darkness."
They and other media voices alleged torture of suspected terrorists at
Guantanamo prison, which The Times and presidential candidate Barack
Obama demanded be closed.
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