OP-ED: How the CIA Became Dangerously Dependent on Outside Contractors, By Allison Stanger, U.S. News & World Report, August 27, 2009

As per my recent Esquire column, a lot of the MSM analysis said (in effect): "Look at all the wonderful rules the CIA made up for the interrogations. See, they had it all in hand!"

I read the report and got a very different vibe, as I stated. I saw the CIA overmatched by the situation and having to rely a lot on unexperienced contractors and scary legal opinions, with their instinct being to bureaucratize it big-time with rules that gave them the illusion of control, when, deep down, it seems a lot of those involved felt it was going badly from the start.

Allison's piece on US News.com explores, like her upcoming book (which I want the usual free copy of, so I can slavishly push it in a WPR column), just how dependent our national security/intelligence establishment became in recent years, and how--in effect--we now reap what we sowed in this age of frontier integration and all the burden that Gap-spanning tumult causes for our government. The "peace dividend" was a myth in terms of money. It's real in terms of the great-power piece.

Now, we've simply moved onto the next stage of expanding our international liberal trade order, meaning the hardest nuts/regions to crack. Some of it will be outsourced, but we need to be careful on the what and the why.