US: Facing criticism both inside his agency and from Capitol Hill for a lack of vision and leadership, CIA director Porter Goss on Thursday outlined his plans for expanding CIA's spying and analytical operations overseas while cutting back on the bureaucracy at headquarters.
In an unusual town hall meeting for his staff, Mr Goss said he would send more case officers and analysts abroad and put "a refreshed emphasis on the CIA as a global agency", according to a prepared text.
That would mean, he said, locating agency personnel not only "in places that [ policymakers] need us to be today . . . but where they may need us to be tomorrow".
He said he would expect and encourage "calculated risk-taking", a sensitive subject for agency personnel who have been accused of being risk averse by the independent 9/11 commission and by members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Saying he expected risky efforts to "go right", he added that he knew "it won't go right all the time and, when it goes wrong, I will support you".
Mr Goss also made clear that sending more people overseas also meant moving agency officers and analysts out of embassies and under cover, no longer guaranteeing them diplomatic immunity if they were caught spying.
"We are definitely going to be using new cover arrangements overseas, because we have to. We are not in all of the places we should be. We don't have this luxury any more . . . We are going to be in places people can't even imagine."
Mr Goss's talk, which came on the one-year anniversary of his taking over the agency, reflected many of the positions he and his top aides took when he was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It also followed the departure of many senior members of the clandestine service, including Robert Richer, the service's number two officer and a more than 30-year veteran with Middle East experience.
Mr Richer abruptly announced his retirement earlier this month, telling colleagues that he lacked confidence in Mr Goss's management and likening the director to an "absentee landlord", according to former intelligence officials close to Mr Richer.
Asked about Mr Richer's retirement during the question period, Mr Goss denied that his private talk with the departing veteran was as confrontational as it was described in news stories, according to reports from persons who were at the meeting.
Mr Goss reassured the clandestine service that the "CIA remains the flagship of the intelligence community for humint [ human intelligence]".
He said he would "very soon" be announcing an awaited appointment within the CIA of a co-ordinator for all US clandestine activities overseas, including CIA, Pentagon and FBI activities.
Addressing widely voiced complaints within the agency that President Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney and other top administration officials either misused or ignored intelligence, Mr Goss cautioned: "We must not lose sight of the notion that our policymakers are not obligated to accept at face value any intelligence estimate we put before them and they are not required to follow it." - (Los Angeles Times-Washington Post service)