Um, if you think about it, most of the knowledge in intelligence, like so many other areas, lies with contractor personnel - not with Government personnel. That's why the Government often hires contractors to write their specificcations and work statements for them. I would trust contractor knowledge over Government knowledge any day. Sad, but true.

1102, your theory would be correct if the contractors were only providing their expertise, experience and training to the Government. It fails, however, because these contractors are writing specifications and statements of work for their own company's goods and services.

The logical fault in this lies in exactly the specification and statement of work writing that you highlight. Contractors have a fiduciary interest in expanding the number of their own company's employees with which they can pad the payroll and collect a profit. They also have an incentive to write specifications that create a government need for their own company's hardware.

This is not efficient capitalism as Adam Smith described it, and which the neo-cons profess to worship. Capitalism creates efficiency by producing the most goods and services in the fewest labor hours. That ratio is called productivity.

Instead, the system followed by the IC is the reciprocal, and much closer to the dreaded socialism that neo-cons and libertarians rail against with every breath they draw.

It is a system which envisions full employment for all (their buddies), and it benefits the cronies on the inside, because those cronies get a kick-back on the contract dollars they bring in to their company.

If you think this is a joke, go back and look at past editorials in the Post by writers who dole out (in all meanings of that most expressive phrase) these contracts.

Spokespeople for the various Executive Branch offices have piped up about the need to finance American technology regardless of what it costs because of defense consolidation (the Boeing tanker deal), the need to keep ex-military on the payroll because of the service they have rendered to the country (General Hayden's argument for contractor/interrogators.) etc, etc, etc.

Supposedly, we did away with the "spoils system", 150 years ago, which is all that this contractor goldbricking amounts to. But we didn't really. Again and again it has reared its ugly head, and created the same problem. It caused the collapse of the railroads in the Credit Moblier scandal of 1873. Benjamin Harrison, who was not elected by the popular vote by the way, instituted the same process for his buddies and created the financial collapse of 1893.

Warren G. Harding did it again in the 1920s, and created the Great Depression. For historical parallels consider that Harding was so paranoid about his administration's corruption being discovered in the Teapot Dome scandal that he had the Attorney General set up a phone line directly the the White House, so that his administration could smear anyone who brought forth evidence about that corruption. Sound familiar, Mr. Mukasey?

And here we are again, looking at the same mess, and the same financial crisis as a result.

And do not fail to remember, Contractors have proven over and over they cannot be trusted to manage and police themselves. Machiavelli is alive and well in contractordom; the end justifies the means, especially when considering the bottom line for CEO's, Board of Directors, and major stock holders.

Che in Great Falls assimilates deep thoughts from the shallows - the usual liberal incidental commentary on things not understood by either the author or the audience. One is reminded of the current campaign. Nut I digress.

Intelligence is a rough, tough profession. it is fraught with frustrations - the inability to positively identify and report events of crucial importance - nor the ability to project which events of the day will have significance at a later date. The collectors collect, the analysts assimilate, analyze and report - the policy-makers (oh, hated term) decide.

But the issue at hand is the use of contractors - were the commentators allowed access to the community, they would find intelligent and dedicated militrary and civil servants doing their best to sort mere confusion from chaos. Both the military and civil service have rules, one of which determines when one should/must retire. In the case of intelligence, the accrued knowledge of thirty plus years can be dismoissed - and the agenies could start over. From scratch for the most part.

However, the use of contractors allows the accrued knowledge in some very exotic and unique fields to be brought back to bear on problems soley of interest to the government. The more obscure the expertise, the more important it is in times of crisis. After all, it is, per Voltaire, not a perfect world.

But the shallow - the yuppie puppies - would for some matter of distorted principle, try to preclude the use of experts - oh, shame, shame. They worry about the large expenditure of funds for such support- without considering that the funds are insurance premiums.

The fact that there is growth in contractor usage does not mean better marketing on the part of company executives - far from it - it means the government recognizes the value of keeping the "family" together. The growth comes form the recognition that there is always one more thing to do, one more tribe to consider, one more complex to analyze.

If ther could be a chance to do a cost benefit analysis for contractors in support of the IC, the results would probably force consideration of immediately expanding the efforts. C'est la vie.

By the way, I am not a hired gun for any of the companies - but I have been in or around the agencies for the better poart of fifty years. It has been most satisfying - and deserves respect, if not understanding.

The continued use of "outsourced" security contractors whose conduct, accountability, and blatant fraudulent billing will be a black stain on this country for many years. But who's counting the billions wasted, missing, and otherwise plundered from this country? Mr. Bush has proven only one thing, and that is true "corruption" is attainable.

TheScot, you are obviously a shill for the privatization industry. You express the idiotic contention that all expertise in intelligence is lost with the retirement of certain individuals, as if they alone were capable of mastering the nature of intelligence gathering. Inherent in the military structure is the very well developed process of training your replacement and this has served us adequately for as long as the military has been around; the same can be said for the CIA or any other agency involved in intelligence gathering.

Your use of terms like "yuppy puppies" and the generally derisive tone of your comments, clearly highlight your partisan bias as well as your contempt for those who have real concerns about the proliferation of privatization in areas of national security. National security is too important to hand out to "for profit" groups.
Old soldiers as well as old intelligence specialists have been retiring for years and that is as it should be. They have no right to expect to continue in their field at vastly inflated salaries just because someone is well placed to facilitate contracts to that effect. The same is true of contractors like Blackwater who seem to think it their birthright to be able to continue with their military training in a civilian arena, again with vastly inflated salaries, at taxpayers" expense. (and no accountability)

As a retired Federal USDA employee and having served with the United States Airforce, I cannot help but think of the fact that I took the same oath that the President of the United States takes when entering government service. I took this oath very seriously each time, and like to think I lived up to the standard of conduct reguired of those serving in service of the United States of America.

Having worked for the USDA I am familiar with services being contracted out to private industry. I cannot recall of a single instance where our agency got a successful working program. The contractor, got the money without any accountability. If allowed, our agency personnel could have provided the same service that would have worked and would have cost much less!

Needless to say....government contracting out is a waste of tax payers money!

The corps are the puppeteers of New Rome, teh resurgence of fascism in all its horrors.

Factual military and technical or scientific intelligence are of great importance. Technical means of gathering are the most important for that. But better policies based on public information are the real answer to terrorism. Narrow political and economic pressure groups resist better policies as those will undercut their special interests.

Spies sought out and recruited by US agencies are rarely important. The most productive spies volunteer their help for money or from conviction. The Soviet's hugely productive Cambridge five spied from conviction as did the enormously productive Rosenbergs and Fuchs. (Though KGB files showed bonus cash payments to both Rosenbergs they were incidental additions to the Rosenberg's ideological motivation).
It seems unlikely that private intelligence contractors will add much to the useful intelligence gathered already by governmental bodies. There has been so far no single conviction in the U.S. of a terrorist based on the vast number of electronic communications examined by private and official intelligence groups. Nor has there been a single proven planned terrorist attack thwarted in the U.S. by intelliegence. The attack planned on aircraft flying from Europe to the US seems to be the greatest exception to the enormous record of fruitless searches, though I do not know the details of that case.
The recommendations of the National Intelligence Estimates routinely point out that US and European political and economic policies are the most important way to fight the causes of terrorism. Absent correct policies, the sources of terrorism continue to produce terrorists. Every Iraqui family terrorized in a pointless US raid produces rage and revenge. Every Arab home bulldozed by Israel sends a Quassam rocket into Siderot. Better intelligence governmental or privately contracted for is not the answer to terrorism, better policies are. The information required to make better policies is public, not secret, but is ignored due to pressure groups whose narrow interests, political or economic, are served by bad policies. In the longer run, even those narrow interest groups will be damaged by the bad policies. bob baker

After years in the FBI Foreign Counter Intelligence Division, what is clear is that we, the US, need information from anywhere we can get it. It is, however, important to discern how we are going to get it, and who is both responsible and accountable. Contractors should never be given direct responsibility for programmatic activities -- vetting prisoners is the proper domaine of government security and intelligence employees, period. Security in military war zones should be done by the military, period. Intelligence information should be scarffed from any resource we can find, and analyzed by trained intelligence employees, period. Carrying out appropriate responses, black or in the clear, should be decided by Congress or the Executive Branch, period. Accountability in all of these areas is as important as getting the job done itself. No buck passing means that the American people and their elected representatives have oversight. It may sound naive and a bit corny, and it is most often inefficient, but in the final analysis, it is we the people who are responsible and hold those accountable, accountable.

Yes!

To Messrs. FBI spycatcher, Hellin, Great Falls, et. al. Look: here's the deal. We have, as Prof. Paul Light recently documented, a"Government Ill Executed." To knock the contractors as no good, presumably in favor of bumbling, incompetent career feds is no bargain. The inmates don't control the asylum, and neither do the interloping contractors. And in the IC, believe me, they come from the same gene pool. The real problem is lack of management and lack of good people.
Contractors, especially if they just left govt, act the same. Some used the same cube or route or safehouse or whatever. Most intel people work in USG offices, dweebs who never see the world. Contractors won't help. Certainly, Bush won't help. And McConnell is bailing as soon as the election is over. So we're screwed.

If the US government is considering outsourcing interrogation abroad, then the same logic applies to outsourcing law enforcement at home. Why don't boduget-strapped police departments hire contract "questioners" to talk to suspects? Following the same lines, the Govt could also outsource diplomatic negotiations (as long as USG employee was brought in as the "closer") and on, and on, and on. The previous points raised in support of intelligence functions being an inherently governmental function are sound and valid. If, as others brought forward, government is incapable of fulfilling that role, then the real question is why the USG is spending tax dollars by outsourcing the activites rather than in-investing in training, promotions and incentives to retain the very people that are departing for the contracting sector? If you want great government in the national security arena, then insist that the IC look inward by raising standards, rewarding disciplined professionalism, and seeking out, cultivating and promting great leaders.

Hey WAKE UP PEOPLE! we have been taken down this road before! And it isn't no way going to change until we can get some good people in the congress AND THIS DOES NOT INCULDE AbAMA OR MCCAIN, THAT Is WHERE OUR PROBLEMS ALL LAY! People don't read the news papers or watch the news on TV, but there again lies a nother problem, when people don't listen, and then put some dummy in the run-off, we out here are put on the spot again, to vote we have to put in the lesser of the two evels, which happened the last time, and it seems there is no commen scence leafed in our country!
It just may be true, to put some body who knows nothing about the crooked government that is running our country!

Every body in the above posts all gripped about the same thing BUT nobod got up and put some light on the matter, what are they afraid,where is the man/lady that will put a lid on all this stuff, and the wouldn't be hard if in fact they are supposed to be the leader, then they better get up and lead!

Earlier comments are an interesting set, with the summing vector: little confidence in the IC, no matter how it is staffed. That correlates with the IC's record over the years. Read "Legacy of Ashes," the definitive history of CIA to realize that almost everything it has done has been a failure.
And let's not fall for the BS that, well, the successes are classified. The IC leaks so much that those stories would be impossible to contain. And the stuff can't be faked, like the Administration claims about DHS and counterintel successes about many big attacks pre-empted.
Let's clean house--we don't need the desks packed with people who have failed over and over and think they are fighting the Cold War or who are too lazy to get out of the office, understand Islam, and perhaps even learn Arabic. Hey, that is a novel idea>

Blessed are ye who retire from government for ye shall inherit a job with a contractor. This is my case and I must say it is great for me and the tax payer. They get a fully trained and experienced professional with knowledge of the playing field at half the cost. I get to work on a program that I truly believed in and get paid for it on top of my annuity! Art thou a doubting Thomas? Well, you may have reason as the only thing that mars this efficient system is cronyism. It must be eliminated for our country to work at its most efficient. Reality is - it will continue to take US down. God bless the USA.