Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Rowan Scarborough, a Navy veteran who covered the Pentagon for the Washington Times for nearly two decades, where he built a tremendous reputation for breaking news. He now covers national security for the Washington Examiner. He previously wrote the New York Times best seller Rumsfeld's War. He is the author of the new book Sabotage: America's Enemies Within the CIA.

Photographer Credit: Chris Greer

FP: Rowan Scarborough, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Scarborough: Good to be with you

FP: What inspired you to write this book?

Scarborough: It was the drumbeat from conservatives that elements in the CIA were political enemies of Bush and his people. Rep. Peter Hoekstra sent a private letter to the president warning him in 2006 that he had enemies in the CIA and they were undermining his presidency.

FP: So why and how did elements within the CIA undermine the Bush administration?

Scarborough: I write of four categories: leaking false allegations against figures in the Pentagon, White House and Statement Department, allegations that damage the person’s reputation and hurt their effectiveness; leaking the existence of classified counter-terrorism programs in order to kill them; retired CIA people forming an association with the sole purpose of accusing Bush of being a war criminal; and of not doing the right thing professionally, the result of which the administration is embarrassed and badly damaged.

FP: So what exactly was the Wilson-Plame affair and how did it serve as an illustration of sabotage?

Scarborough: I look at three critical phrases. Plame recommends her husband for a trip to Niger after VP Cheney wants the CIA to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking uranium from an African country. That right there was not doing the right thing. The CIA should have done a thorough intelligence investigation, not send a retired ambassador to answer one of the most critical pre-war questions. Plus, neither Tenet nor Cheney was notified of the decision. They surely would have objected.

Secondly, when Wilson leaked his trip to the New York Times, with his wife at his side, he implied that the VP’s office had sent him. Surely he must have known then that this would bring attention to his wife since she did help him get the trip and the VP office did not and would say so publicly. As the spouse of a classified employee, he had the obligation to protect her identity.

Finally, the CIA lowered the boom. It sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department after Robert Novak disclosed her name. No probe was started. Someone leaked the existence of the referral, creating a media frenzy and forcing Justice to open an investigation. So, the CIA ensured that the administration was under criminal investigation for the next three years.

FP: Can you give a few concrete examples of the sabotage you have exposed?

Scarborough: Just look at what happened to Porter Goss. Bush sends him to the CIA to reform the clandestine service. The service rebels, leaking to the press that he is incompetent, partisan and is ruining the CIA. His effectiveness is eaten away. The White House loses confidence and he’s gone

Look at Robert Joseph, an arms control expert on the NSC. The CIA leaks that it told him personally to take the 16 words out of the president’s 2003 state of the union address, re uranium, Iraq and Africa. He is immediately labelled in the media as the guy who bungled the speech. It was all his fault. For months, blogs and news media pegged him as the guy who twisted intelligence. Over a year later, a bipartisan senate report clears him and concludes there never was such a conversation with the CIA. But by then the damage was done. He remains bitter today and blames the CIA. That is how you sabotage someone.

FP: What inspired these elements of the CIA to behave as they did? What is their ideology? Why would they undermine an administration in a time of war against a totalitarian enemy? What exactly is the mind-set here?

Scarborough: I believe this dates back to the 1990s. Under the Clinton administration, the clandestine service was devastated, shrunk by as much as a third. A lot of seasoned operators were shown the door. But the Clintons were good at putting their loyalists insider the bureaucracy. The CIA, in other words, became a more liberal place. And when these elements saw people or programs in the Bush administration they did not like, they leaked negative news media stories to destroy them. The motivation was political.

FP: If it were proven that the President’s enemies within the CIA did what you show they did, what do you think the punishments should be?

Scarborough: I have no opinion on punishment. It’s up to the CIA. If CIA workers believe the CIA can become a first class agency again by becoming involved in political warfare, more power to them.

FP: Is this behavior of the CIA toward an administration a departure from the past or is it a continuation of certain historical precedents?

Scarborough: I have found no previous time when CIA elements unleashed unsubstantiated false charges against key administration officials in order to damage their effectiveness and shift blame from the CIA to the White House. I know of no other time when CIA retires formed an association whose prime goal is the brand Bush as a war criminal. I know of no other time when elements within the CIA leaked a piece of information, the Plame criminal referral that insured that the White House would be under criminal investigation for over three years.

FP: So how is the administration supposed to deal with the CIA? And if a Republican gets into the White House in 2008, what exactly is his administration supposed to do with the agency?

Scarborough: I think President Bush realizes he cannot change the CIA bureaucracy. He has gone out of his way to reach out to Langley by visiting the place and keeping Tenet and getting rid of Goss. It will be interesting if Fred Thompson is elected. When asked recently about the Joe Wilson-Valerie Plame affair, he said it was just something cooked up at the CIA. Clearly, he realizes the CIA is not a friendly place for Republicans.

FP: So is there any hope the CIA can actually be remolded into an agency that actually helps to fight our enemies rather than its own administration at a time of war? What will it take to make a change? How likely is it that a change can be made for the better?

Scarborough: If the CIA is to become less political, now is the time to do it. The CIA is being rebuilt with huge budget increases which means hundreds of new people are joining the clandestine service. Now is the time to change the culture. Tell the new people that the CIA does not fight political wars, it fights the nation’s wars.

FP: How has the media reacted to your book? Were you surprised by any of the reactions?

Scarborough: Conservatives, especially bloggers, have embraced it, saying it is what they have suspected all along. The book has been mostly ignored by the mainstream media. After all, elements of the CIA used the mainstream media to smear people in the Bush administration. Why talk about a book that exposed the relationship?

FP: Rowan Scarborough, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.

Scarborough: Thank you.