panetta & the cia Options

[brooklyneast05]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Could someone without intelligence experience effectively lead the United States' top spy agency, particularly in a time of war?

Two Democratic sources told CNN on Monday that President-elect Barack Obama will nominate longtime Washington power broker Leon Panetta to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

The news provoked strong emotions in political and intelligence circles.

full story


what do you guys think about appointing someone to lead the CIA who doesn't have intelligence experience?

[hi-C]

He's really well respected, though, and is supposed to be incredibly smart and savvy. And with all the problems with the CIA's intelligence in the lead up to the war, it's time for some dramatic, drastic change.

[mipadi]

For the most part, the intelligence "failure" wasn't the fault of the CIA. The CIA knew Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction, they knew he wasn't trying to buy uranium, etc. But their estimates didn't agree with what the Bush administration wanted to believe, so they were modified to agree with Bush's view of reality, or ignored completely.

[digitalfragrance]

I like change... sometimes.
But I want change from someone that actually knows something about running the CIA. I don't think budget experience, or his term with Clinton as Chief of Staff prepares him for expertise with the CIA. There has to be someone that aligns with Obama's agenda that is more qualified than him. Leon's nomination makes me nervous.

[brooklyneast05]

yeah i'm not sure either way really i guess. i don't initially think it's a great idea to put someone in charge that doesn't have experience there. but, if you take someone who has good qualifications, smart, respected, and reason to believe they'd be able to make good decisions and what not and then surround them by people who ARE intelligence experts...i think it'll probably alright.

plus some are saying this:

They said Panetta worked closely with President Bill Clinton and his senior aides on every national security issue that came through the White House between 1994 and 1997 while becoming a sophisticated consumer of intelligence during Clinton's daily CIA briefings.

so it's not like he's never had anything to do with or knows anything about intelligence at all.

[sixfive]

I don't pretend to be knowledgeable in this regard, but does the leader necessarily need to be experienced in the field? For instance, in business you have leaders of different departments that manage the individuals beneath them. The people doing the managing aren't necessarily the ones knowledgeable in that field, but they can run their subordinates and their subordinates do know what they're talking about. Could this be used as an analogy to Panetta & the CIA? Idk, maybe?