Concerning the CIA

From a comment I made on another blog that probably never got read since I was late to the party;

No one outside the intelligence community has any business criticizing the CIA for several reasons.

#1, they don't know how intelligence works. This includes the media (especially them), Congressmen without intelligence backgrounds (them too), and day to day citizens.

#2, they have no access to the reality of the operations in question; I promise, things are always way more complicated than anything that gets leaked to the press.

#3, no one ever hears of the successes, because the very nature of the success means that it is kept secret. This is why the CIA appears to civilians to be an inept organization. All the *successful* operations are kept under wraps, where they belong.

#4, the US intelligence community has retarded amounts of restrictions, red tape, and "mother may I?" clauses than A) it needs and B) it wants, especially the CIA. Case in point; leading up to 9/11, the US Army got wind of some of the hijackers traveling to the US for the operation. The Army, however, couldn't do anything about it because it is not legal for the military to collect information for intelligence purposes on "US Persons," much less act on it, which is a ridiculously large category including citizens, resident aliens, visa workers, diplomatic staff, and basically anyone able to come into the country, ever. So the Army passed the info on up to the FBI, where it got lost. (surprise!) Other, similar rules exist concerning who intelligence agents are allowed recruit, who and how much they can pay and for what purposes, when force is allowed, firearms are allowed, where you can operate, and so forth.

I'll mention two things that I know about that the CIA has done since 9/11 that are worthwhile.

1) Made possible the interception of a radiological bomb en route to the Atlantic seaboard. Bet y'all forgot about that dirty bomb alert in 2002 that culminated with the arrest of Jose Padilla didn't you? The feds don't just make this stuff up.

2) Prevented Afghanistan from sinking into another multi-factional civil war. Fuzzy on details, but it included a powerful knowledge of local politics and some greased palms.