This is refreshing:
The very idea of dismantling the Central Intelligence Agency, Senator Pat Roberts concedes, is one that he could not have conceived of proposing even a year ago.
But the overhaul now being pressed by him and seven other Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee is very much the product of accumulated frustrations, Mr. Roberts said. On the issue of Iraq in particular, but also Sept. 11 and other setbacks, repeated intelligence failures have transformed even Mr. Roberts, a Kansan long regarded as a dependable defender of the C.I.A and a loyal ally of President Bush, into a vociferous critic of intelligence agencies and an impatient second-guesser of the White House’s own overhaul plan.
Among the factors that Mr. Roberts, a droll former marine, cited in a conversation with reporters in his office on Monday afternoon as those that prompted his call for urgent action were a succession of “Oh my God hearings” in which senators asked in response to one intelligence failure after another: “Oh my God, why did that happen?”
Two words, Senator: Bureaucratic inertia. And there’s no cure for it short of something drastic. Getting rid of the CIA might just be drastic enough.
Reminds me of an article written by David Hackworth for Playboy ten or twelve years ago. It was called “Nuke the Pentagon.” Hackworth argued that the only way to get the ruinous politics out of the military was to drop the Big One on the five-sided headquarters — and move the military HQ somewhere far, far away from Washington. If I remember correctly, Hack suggested Ft. Leavensworth, Kansas.
Not that you could ever get the Navy or Air Force to relocate to an Army base, but you get the point.
So, it seems does Senator Roberts.
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