Though clear in expressing support for Obama's release of the torture memos, David Ignatius' latest column involves a lot of handwringing about the decision's negative effect on morale within the CIA. I don't think it's an unreasonable concern; like Ignatius, I think the disclosure would be worth it anyway, but it's not crazy to think that the release would lead intelligence staffers to be more cautious, and thus potentially less effective. I'm not an intel specialist, so I know if Ignatius' anecdotes are an accurate representation of the situation, but he doesn't paint an unbelievable picture. But in a broader sense, the reason we care about the effectiveness of CIA officers is due to a belief that their actions make the country safer in a real way. And I'm not sure a lower CIA morale runs a real risk of, say, letting a terror plot slip through the cracks. The nightmare scenario Ignatius presents is hardly convincing:
For a taste of what's ahead, recall the chilling effects of past CIA scandals. In 1995, then-Director John Deutch ordered a "scrub" of the agency's assets after revelations of past links to Guatemalan death squads. Officers were told they shouldn't jettison sources who had provided truly valuable intelligence. But the practical message, recalls one former division chief, was: "Don't deal with assets who could pose political risks." A similar signal is being sent now, he warns.And…what? Guatemala became some kind of hostile state? America's position in central America fell precipitously? The current situation in Guatemala is hardly a terrifying "taste of what's ahead".
Obviously, the situations are different, but given how low the risk of truly damaging terrorist strikes is independent of CIA actions, it seems that the damage to national security of a fall in CIA effectiveness would be marginal to the point of irrelevance. If real damage could occur due to this kind of hesitancy and caution, intel folks and their allies like Ignatius had better make the case more explicitly, rather than treating the connection between CIA aggressiveness and national security as a given.
