The Central Intelligence Agency has been in a state of decline for decades and needs reform, former CIA Middle East specialist Reuel Marc Gerecht said yesterday.
In a speech severely criticizing his former employer, Gerecht -- who worked with the CIA's clandestine Directorate of Operations for nine years -- said many problems stem from the agency's inability to recognize problems and change accordingly.
"Sept. 11 is looked on as an unlucky day" by the agency, rather than as reflecting the need for change, he said.
Throughout its existence, the Directorate has done "a mediocre job of collecting information in the Middle East" and elsewhere, Gerecht said. "When it comes to basic knowledge [of other nations], it's always paper-thin."
One exception to this rule was in the Soviet bloc, where many sources volunteered intelligence to the agency at great risk.
Generally, CIA operatives were sent to foreign nations with false diplomatic credentials, but this often meant that they were watched closely by the other nation's intelligence service, compromising their missions.
Gerecht rejected claims that the CIA began to suffer because of cuts during the Clinton administration, though he believes foreign policy as a whole grew worse during that era.
"The agency has been in awful shape for decades" as a result of an inept bureaucracy with conflicting aims, Gerecht said.
When Gerecht started in the mid-1980s, he and other new agents were eager to work, but were soon disillusioned by the system. Starting with basic training, new agents noticed problems within the CIA, but "we suspended doubts," he said.
As the perceived problems continued, they "began to gnaw on us," leading to the resignation of many officers within a few years.
In one such problem he described, several agents in Europe were discovered and their operation was compromised.
Many of the agents involved "were horrified by the level of incompetence" of the CIA leadership when no investigation followed, he said.
Outside criticism of the intelligence failures that allowed the Sept. 11 tragedy and other mishaps is often deflected by CIA leadership by overstated claims of past successes, he said.
According to Gerecht, much of the information given to reporters by the CIA is inaccurate or wholly untrue.
Gerecht cited as an example a recent series in The Washington Post discussing CIA plans to assassinate Osama bin Laden. Based on statement of friends still working at the CIA, Gerecht claimed the stories were based on on false information.
In order to enact reform, public discussion of the CIA is necessary, he said, but the agency's inherently secret nature makes starting such discussions difficult.
He noted, however that most of the CIA's secret information, including that about botched operations, does eventually become public anyway, "because it is an American institution and Americans love to talk."
Gerecht ended the speech on a pessimistic note, concluding that the events of Sept. 11 will "make the agency richer" and add more agents, much like when he started in the 1980s.
The speech was the first of six lectures scheduled this term on the subject of "Intelligence: The Need to Know."
The series is being funded by the Montgomery Endowment, established in 1977 by Kenneth F. Montgomery '25 and his wife to bring outstanding figures from academic and non-academic fields to interact with Dartmouth students.
