Should the CIA be disbanded?

Of course, radical leftists want to shut down the Central Intelligence Agency because they think it spends too much time undermining hostile governments, assassinating terrorists, arming pro-U.S. resistance groups, and invading the privacy and just being mean to nasty people who would like to slaughter American citizens.

Conservatives, however, have grown to dislike and distrust the Agency for its real problem -- It actually spends very little time doing those things.

Even worse, CIA case officers who are itching to run operations to get the bad guys, identify threats or cultivate sources in foreign countries are constantly battling roadblocks; even their low-risk proposals are scuttled. And trapped in a classic bureaucracy, they are working against a reverse incentive. Spending time abroad protecting the country is the surest way to slow-track their career path.

If you want to get ahead in the CIA, don't spend your time in Baghdad, Moscow or Beijing. Hang around Langley, VA.

"Ishmael Jones" -- the pseudonym of a retired CIA case officer -- blows the lid off the culture of the CIA in a mind-boggling new book, The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture. In fact, "dysfunctional" doesn't even begin to cover what could be called a systematic scam of taxpayers that leaves the United States vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

The idea that the CIA is deficient in human intelligence (HUMINT) overseas has become common knowledge, as is the idea that CIA brass have been timid to authorize risky operations. (In his great book, Jawbreaker, which told about the CIA paramilitary-types who toppled the Taliban, Gary Bernsten called CIA chief George Tenet "allergic" to special operations.)

CIA leaks of intelligence operations hardly ever lead to investigations — especially the leaks that damage the Bush administration. CIA officers can write books critical of President Bush that contain operational details with impunity.

When Tenet -- on whom Bush had bestowed the Medal of Freedom instead of firing for his abject intel failures before the 9/11 terror attacks -- retired from the Agency, he signed a big book deal for a don't-blame-me, blame-Bush memoir, complete with some juicy tidbits that should never have made it past the censor.

On "celebrity spy" Valerie Plame's would-be bestseller, which came nowhere near making back its huge advance, Jones comments, "CIA censors seem to have approved those portions of her book that were critical of the President; but to have blocked those portions that would have revealed she was not an active intelligence officer."

But when Jones brought his book to the CIA censors, as required when a current or former CIA employees write anything, he delivered a book with no operational details and no classified information — but entirely too much truth.

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