Intelligence experts, including the vice president, say the screw-tightening cost the agency eyes

Intelligence experts, including the vice president, say the screw-tightening cost the agency eyes and ears in sensitive places populated by 'the bad guys.'
By JIM GERAGHTY
STATES NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON -- Did a policy change that forced the CIA to limit its use of murderers, terrorists and other unsavory characters as informants contribute to the intelligence drain that failed to detect the Sept. 11 terrorist attack? Sen. Robert G. Torricelli, D-N.J., says no.
Torricelli was at the root of the effort to tighten informant policies as a House member in 1995 after it was disclosed that the CIA had ties to Guatemalan Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez, a man accused of slaying a U.S. citizen and other abuses.
Now, ex-CIA director James Woolsey said the screw-tightening exercise cost the agency some of its eyes and ears in sensitive places, and in a world populated by those who spend little time in offices or conventional dress. In the aftermath of the 1995 disclosure, then-CIA director John Deutch fired the chief of the unit involved, Terry R. Ward, and laid out a policy that cost about 1,000 foreign informants their unofficial ''jobs.''
Torricelli says those who are making an argument that the lack of informants has harmed intelligence gathering are ''just misinformed.'' Under that policy, the CIA director -- and not a field office -- must approve the use of the individual.
''There has never been a request to hire someone that has been turned down because of the rule,'' Torricelli said. ''It is a problem that does not exist."
Deutch, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece last week, said the new policy was logical. ''Is the potential gain in intelligence worth the cost that might be associated with doing business with a person who may be a murderer?'' Deutch was appointed by President Clinton.
Woolsey, who also served during the Clinton administration, told the House Select Intelligence Committee the agency should be permitted once again to recruit capital criminals as agents if that's what is needed to infiltrate Osama bin Laden's terrorist cells.
Some former CIA agents agree that the policies made their jobs harder and hurt morale.
''[The rule] did make the workday a lot easier,'' former CIA field officer Robert Baer told the New Yorker last week. ''I just watched CNN. No one cared.''
Baer said that after the new regulations were put in place, recruitment of sources fell to the point where the CIA had no agents in central Asian nations Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which are also threatened by Islamic militants.
Some lawmakers agree with Woolsey. Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN that the restrictive regulations might be ''one of the prime factors'' in the failure to predict the attacks. He said the kind of people needed to infiltrate terrorists groups don't ''come out of monasteries.''.
On NBC's ''Meet the Press'' on the Sunday after the bombing, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared to support revoking that standard.
''If you're going to deal only with sort of officially approved, certified good guys, you're not going to find out what the bad guys are doing,'' Cheney said. ''You need to have on the payroll some very unsavory characters if, in fact, you're going to be able to learn all that needs to be learned in order to forestall these kinds of activities.''
But some intelligence analysts agree with Torricelli that the policy isn't at fault.
''In this case of the September 11 attacks, I would say the policy is largely unrelated,'' said Dan Smith, chief of research at the Center for Defense Information.
Smith, who served as military intelligence officer for 23 years in U.S. Army, suggested that the hiring of ''unsavory characters'' can be a useful tool against larger terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, but may not be effective against Al-Qaeda and bin Laden.
''From what we know about the cellular nature and organization of Al-Qaeda, they seem to be based on extended families and long-term acquaintances,'' Smith said. ''It's very hard to penetrate that kind of organization because of its cellular nature.''.
Torricelli said Tuesday that accountability is important.
''We want the decision made by the CIA director, not by a field agent,'' Torricelli said. ''I don't think it's possible to infiltrate narcotics traffickers without using people who have had long relationships with them. But I think it is important to know that the people we have hired are not continuing to harm American citizens and others.''.
Next week, Torricelli said he would introduce legislation to establish a board of inquiry to determine why U.S. intelligence agencies failed to prevent the attacks. The panel may be modeled after the Warren Commission that probed the death of President John F. Kennedy, involving both public and private figures.
''I do not rise to cast blame, but I do ask for accountability,'' Torricelli said. Even though Congress has regular oversight of the CIA, the special review is warranted.
''There is a national tradition from Pearl Harbor to the Kennedy assassination to the Challenger disaster, a tradition of having the nation step back and doing some deep analysis of what went wrong,'' Torricelli said.