Clinton Criticizes CIA for Shying Away From Hands-On Work
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

At a time when many Democrats are faulting the CIA for its aggressive interrogation practices and a new Hollywood film is attacking the agency for transferring terrorism suspects to shadowy regimes, Senator Clinton is going against the grain by critiquing the CIA for shying away from the hands-on overseas work needed to keep America safe.
“Combating terrorism around the world will require better intelligence and a clandestine service that is out on the street, not sitting behind desks,” Mrs. Clinton writes in a summary of her foreign policy views to be published in the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs. “As president, I will work to restore morale in our intelligence community, increase the number of agents and analysts proficient in Arabic and other key languages, and raise the profile and status of intelligence analysis.”
Mrs. Clinton’s 17-page essay, which is part of a series of policy statements from Democratic presidential candidates, also denounces torture and some of the Bush administration’s policies on handling suspected Al Qaeda operatives. “As we counsel liberty and justice for all, we cannot support torture and the indefinite detention of individuals we have declared to be beyond the law,” she writes.
However, her complaint about CIA agents “sitting behind desks” seems to put her in the company of conservatives who have grumbled since President Clinton was in office that Langley has become too cautious and paralyzed by debates over limits to the agency’s legal authority.
Under a 2005 law, the National Clandestine Service includes both intelligence gatherers and those who carry out the CIA’s covert operations. However, in a conference call with reporters, a foreign policy adviser to Mrs. Clinton said her criticism was directed at the intelligence-seeking part of the equation. “I think what Senator Clinton is talking about in this piece is just that we need to deploy all the tools that we can to deal more effectively with the terrorist threat that we face in Afghanistan, and that includes to empower our intelligence agency to act effectively and to provide the best intelligence they can,” the adviser, Lee Feinstein, said in response to a question from The New York Sun. “It is beyond question that the U.S. government seeks better and more information about our enemy, and one of the ways you can get that better information is to have people on the ground providing that information back to the people who will be setting policy.”
Mr. Feinstein did not say whether Mrs. Clinton would be more or less assertive about covert operations than President Bush has been.
Asked about Mrs. Clinton’s suggestion that too many CIA personnel are desk-bound, a CIA spokesman said the agency recognizes that its success will be defined by its work abroad. “The fight against terror is a critical priority and, for America’s clandestine service, the focus of that vital effort is indeed the field — just as it should be,” the spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, said. A former CIA counterterrorism official, Vincent Cannistraro, said Mrs. Clinton’s comments were dated and designed to convey an appearance of toughness while criticizing the agency. “This sounds like something you might have heard when [CIA Director John] Deutsch came in and said you can’t have contact with anyone who has human rights abuses on their hands,” Mr. Cannistraro said. “Hillary’s triangulating.”
An intelligence analyst with the Federation of American Scientists, Steven Aftergood, said Mrs. Clinton was embracing the idea of an aggressive CIA, while stepping away from some of its disputed tactics. “There’s a simultaneous distancing from the abuse associated with the CIA, such as waterboarding and so forth, as well as an affirmation that, ‘Yes, we want an active competent clandestine service,'” he said.
Elsewhere in her essay, Mrs. Clinton strikes an ominous tone about gathering threats to America from nations not seen as threats by most Americans. “In the cities of Europe and Asia — such as Hamburg and Kuala Lumpur, which were the springboards for 9/11 — terrorist cells are preparing for future attacks,” she warns. “We must understand not only their methods but their motives: a rejection of modernity, women’s rights, and democracy, as well as a dangerous nostalgia for a mythical past.”
With indications growing of Turkish military action against Kurdish separatists along the border with Iraq and a chill descending on America’s relationship with Turkey, Mrs. Clinton writes that she would be willing to leave an American military force in northern Iraq to keep the peace. She adds that the Kurdish militants “must be dealt with and the Turkish border must be respected.”