Beyond Repair

Starred review from September 21, 2009
Faddis (Operation Hotel California
), a career CIA operations officer, pulls no punches in this provocative critique of the iconic—and dysfunctional—spy agency. Noting that the CIA was created to protect the U.S. from another Pearl Harbor, the author points to 9/11 as proof that the agency can no longer perform that task and is so beyond reform that it must be replaced. In his portrayal of the CIA, “risk-taking, daring and creativity” are discouraged, bureaucratic concerns are given precedence, senior leadership is lacking and morale has been sapped by “crippling purges and witch hunts.” The author concludes that the agency “is dying a death of a thousand cuts” and offers “a blueprint for a new OSS,” modeled on the legendary Office of Strategic Services, FDR's WWII spy agency that spawned the CIA. Keep this new organization, like its wartime predecessor, small, flat and elite, he cautions, and use it sparingly. In a world where threats “are multiplying and becoming more complex,” Faddis's bleak assessment of the CIA should be required reading.

October 1, 2009
Faddis, an angry retired covert operations officer, has written a slim attack on what he sees as a dysfunctional, chaotic, and dangerously ineffective intelligence agency, especially when compared with its earlier history. He thinks that it has calcified into a paper-processing, risk-avoidance business that does not value the importance of capable individuals and human intelligence. Instead of strengthening the agency, the U.S. government has let more organizations try to play the Great Game of intelligence, which has led to a dispersal of resources, turf wars, less success, and global antagonism. Faddis recommends a smaller, more independent agency with fewer domestic competitors, but readers may doubt that this will ever happen, given our political structure. John Diamond's "The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. Intelligence from the End of the Cold War to the Invasion of Iraq" covers much of the same ground. VERDICT This book is similarly critical of the White House's handling of strategy and resources as Faddis's previous "Operation Hotel California: The Clandestine War Inside Iraq", which he coauthored with Mike Tucker. This new effort is suitable for all interested in current events.Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL

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