The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, November 1, 1995 - 5
CIA report:
President
got false
soviet info
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON -Sweeping up af-
ter one of the greatest intelligence fail-
u-es in American history, the CIA's
inspector general has clarged that three
former CIA directors and nine other
former and current CIA officials should
be held accountable for the fact that
otheragency officials knowinglypassed
on disinformation from Soviet double
agents to the President and other senior
U.S. policy-makers.
Inspector General Fred Hitz recom-
mended that former CIA directors R.
James Woolsey, Robert M. Gates and
William H. Webster all be held ac-
countable for the agency's failure to
hotify the White House that much ofthe
information the President was reading
in top-secret intelligence reports from
inside Russia was actually "controlled"
information being fed to the United
States by Soviet double agents.
The inspector general's charges
against the three former CIA directors
accompanied the CIA's long-awaited
damage assessment of the Aldrich H.
Ames spy scandal. The assessment was
formally presented to Congress yester-
day by current CIA Director John M.
Deutch. Deutch reported to Congress
that more than 100 agents or potential
agents working for the CIA inside the
Soviet Union as well as other nations
were betrayed by Ames to the Soviets
or Russians during the nine years that
he spied for the KGB as a mole inside
the CIA.
After they were fingered by Ames,
someofthose 100-plusagents-'mostly
Russians recruited by the CIA to spy for
the United States - were forced by the
KGB to become double agents to feed
disinformation back to the CIA. In the
Yost explosive charge in the CIA's
damage assessment of the Ames case,
the agency has determined that some
mid-level CIA officers knew that their
,agents had been compromised and
"doubled" - and did not notify U.S.
policy-makers.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chair-
man of the Senate Intelligence Com-
mittee, confirmed that aspect of the
assessment yesterday, saying that sus-
pect information was allowed to go
directly to the President and that the
CIA has found 16 instances in which
one CIA officer passed along reports
from an agent that he knew had been
doubled and failed to disclose that.
Specter said that some of the
disinformation prompted Washington
to spend millions of dollars on needless
'military purchases that would not have
otherwise been made.
Of the 12 people cited as accountable
in the inspector's general report, only
one is still working at the agency, Deutch
said. The rest retired before he took
over as CIA director in May.
But in a sign of the growing dissen-
sion and bitter fingerpointing within
the U.S. intelligence community in the
aftermath ofthe Ames scandal, all three
former CIA directors wrote a letter to
Deutch disputing Hitz's recommenda-
tion that they be held accountable -
and in turn suggested that Hitz should
be investigated instead for his own
failures to uncover the wrongdoing
earlier.
The three expressed "dismay at the
InspectorGeneral's view that the three
of us should be held personally ac-
countable for these particular failures."
After briefing the House and Senate
Intelligence committees in separate
closed sessions on the classified dam-
age assessment and the inspector
general's report, Deutch told reporters
that he did not agree with Hitz's recom-
mendation that Woolsey, Gates and
Webster should be held accountable or
reprimanded.
There is no evidence that any of the
three knew that disinformation from
double agents was being passed on by
the CIA.
Powell's rivals are
ready to attack
AP PHOTO
House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas preside over a hearing of the House-
Senate Budget Conferees Monday on Capitol Hill. The conferees met to try and reach common ground in House and Senate
packages.
Cliton, GOP congressional
ledestodics etceiling
ldeb
WASHINGTON (AP) - If Colin
Powell becomes candidate Powell, the
knives come out. Rivals are already
looking over the retired general's vul-
nerabilities.
Powell's military record, philosophy
and legendary caution, his reliance on
powerful friends to rise as a "political
general," his inexperience with the prob-
lems that confront a President every
day, and now word that his wife has
been treated for depression - all be-
come grist the moment he runs.
Three-quarters of those who have
pledged to back him will "walk away"
ifhe declares, predicted Marilyn Quayle,
wife ofthe former vice president. "He is
notused to taking criticisms," she added,
"and he is used to people doing what
they are told."
Powell says in his autobiography that
he knows that if he jumps in, "I would
quickly alienate one interest group or
another and burn off much popular sup-
port."
So far, the attacks come from conser-
vatives who don't want to hand the
GOP to a moderate of the Nelson
Rockefeller mold - one who supports
gun control, legalized abortion and af-
firmative action and who opposes school
prayer and aspects of the Republican
welfare reform plan.
"Republicans rejected Rockefeller,
why would they want a clone?" asks
Lyn Nofziger, a former adviser to
Ronald Reagan who supports Bob Dole.
Political observers tick off these fault
lines that opponents might exploit in a
campaign:
® Powell's military record. He is no
Dwight Eisenhower, who forged
history's greatest battlefield victory. In
the Persian Gulf War, Powell was re-
luctant to get in - he favored an ex-
tended economic embargo - and he
acquiesced in ending the war before
Iraq's Saddam Hussein was neutralized
and the Republican Guard destroyed.
And in following apolitical route to the
top,boosted by heavyweight mentors such
as CasparWeinbergerand Frank Carlucci,
Powell left detractors in the ranks.
His military philosophy. "The
PowelluDoctrine" opposes the use of
troops unless clear conditions are met: a
precise objective, public support, a will
to throw everything at the enemy, an exit
plan, the likelihood of low casualties.
Apply those rules rigidly, retired Lt.
Gen. Bernard Trainor said last week,
and "you will never use military force
for anything."
Worse, Trainor said, Powell's con-
cept turns 200 years of civilian control
of the military on its head: "The Powell
Doctrine, rigidly applied as it has been,
more or less tells the President when
and when not to use military force. I
would submit that that is not in the
interest of the republic."
Powell's business dealings. His si-
lent-partner investment of $100,000 in a
Buffalo, N.Y., television station, said to
have brought aprofit of $150,000 within
10 years, is already under scrutiny.
Family matters. A Powell spokes-
woman confirmed that Powell's wife,
Alma- who does not hide her opposi-
tion to a Powell candidacy and fears for
his life if he runs - has suffered from
depression and takes medication to con-
trol a chemical imbalance. The Powells
might not relish seeing that hashed out
in a campaign.
® Racial politics. They cut both ways.
ifhe became the first black person to run
as a majorparty's nominee, Powell could
get 30 to 50 percent of the black vote in
November, eroding President Clinton's
baseline support, Nofziger estimated.
On the other hand, "there will be
people who will not vote for Colin
Powell because he's black and who will
lie to pollsters about it," said Alan
Hertzke, a University of Oklahoma
political scientist. Powell offers "racial
absolution to white America" and would
attract votes from whites, he said. On
balance, political observers say, race
could be a plus, especially in states
where Democrats and independents can
vote in a Republican primary.
0 Powell's political innocence. He
hasn't been subjecttothe rough and
tumble and doesn't have a canned an-
swer to questions that demand detailed
knowledge. "Wait until he comes out
and he's surrounded (by reporters) ask-
ing about ethanol and target prices and
corn yields and that sort of thing," says
GOP front-runner Dole.
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - President Clinton will meet today
with Republican congressional leaders to discuss a plan to
prevent the government from defaulting on its debt in the first
sign of thaw in the fiscal deep freeze between the White
House and the GOP that has gone on for more than a month.
House SpeakerNewt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said he also wanted
to confront the issues most sharply dividing Republicans and
the White House, including Medicare, welfare and taxes. "I
don't think you can talk about the debt ceiling in isolation,"
Gingrich told reporters.
Acknowledging the seriousness of those issues, White
House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta said yesterday that if
Republicans did not eventually accommodate the President
on the size and scope of the tax cut, the proposed cuts in
Medicare and a raft of domestic spending programs, Clinton
would be forced to veto their seven-year budget package.
"The President is of the view that no deal is better than a bad
deal," Panetta told a group of Washington Post editors and
reporters.
Panetta also predicted that if there is a route out of the
budget stalemate, it might not be found until Christmas, and
he offered three scenarios for December:
A reconciliation package that Clinton vetos and then is
renegotiated so that both sides can claim some level of
victory in its passage.
A short- or long-term spending bill that would allow the
government to keep operating at a reduced spending level
but without some of the major fundamental changes pro-
posed by the GOP.
"The chaos scenario," in which the GOP and White
House reach no agreement causing a shutdown of govern-
ment for some period.
Panetta suggested that a Democratic budget alternative
rejected by the House and Senate last week might be a route
to agreement, but with some major caveats. The alternative,
drafted in the House by a group of conservative and liberal
Democrats, would eliminate the deficit over seven years but
with substantially smaller reductions in Medicare, Medicaid,
agriculture, welfare and the Earned Income Tax Credit for
the working poor.
"I think what they did was a step forward," Panetta said.
"My major problem with that is that it cuts too much in
discretionary funding and Medicare cuts (are) too high." He
also said the plan lacked a middle-class tax cut favored by the
President.
The Democratic alternative attracted 72 votes in the House,
including four Republicans, and 19 votes in the Senate. "The
coalition that voted for the alternative is a coalition we
probably will have to build on for a final agreement," Panetta
said.
House and Senate Republican conferees are scheduled to
begin formal negotiations tomorrow to work out differences
on the massive GOP plans each house passed last week to
balance the budget and cut taxes, known as reconciliation.
Both budget proposals call for $245 billion of tax cuts,
including a $500 per-child tax credit. Dole and Gingrich
agreed yesterday there would be no backsliding on the $245
billion figure, a source said.
Looking toward today's discussions with the President,
the first in seven weeks, Gingrich and Dole said they are
eager to try to resolve some of their differences before
Clinton departs in mid-November for a trip to Asia. "If you
put down the calendar, November is going to go pretty fast,"
Dole said.
White House press secretary Michael McCurry said it
would be "fine" if Republicans seek to broaden today's
discussion beyond proposals for extending the government's
borrowing privileges through Nov. 29 to avert a default on
government borrowing. "But if they don't go beyond what
they've been saying," he added, "it's going to be a one-sided
conversation on their part."
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