The CIA is Entering a Danger Zone. Here’s the Map. By David Ignatius - Washington Post
If the ghosts who inhabit the walls of the CIA could talk, they would tell Director Mike Pompeo to be careful. The agency is entering a danger zone where a White House in turmoil wants the CIA to take aggressive action overseas but hasn’t developed the clear strategy or political support needed to sustain it.
Pompeo is an activist, an exuberant politician with a flair for delivering one-liners. He’s a risk taker, who wants the agency to be more aggressive both in collecting information and in using covert action against targets such as North Korea and Iran. This aggressive stance was clear in his remarks last week at the Aspen Security Forum and in other public comments over the past six months.
Pompeo has some big problems that complicate his agenda. He won’t be able to deal with them without a broad, bipartisan base of support. Otherwise, he’s going to run into the same ditch in which the agency has regularly gotten stuck for decades — launching bold (sometimes dubious) programs that eventually deflate like leaky balloons, harming the agency, its workforce and its allies abroad.
Here’s a road map of three dangers ahead, drawn from conversations with a half-dozen CIA veterans who served in Republican and Democratic administrations…