Bush's Nominated CIA Director Confessed He is NOT Qualified To Work in CIA

Read here full article by Reuter's David Morgan
11th August 2004

President Bush recently nominated Porter Goss, U.S. Republican Congressman from Florida, for the post of CIA Director replacing George Tenet. Goss is expected to appear at confirmation hearings before the Senate intelligence committee next month.

A day after Bush picked Goss for the top U.S. spy job, Michael Moore, the documentary film-maker of "Fahreinheit 9/11", released on Wednesday an excerpt from a March 3 interview in which the 65-year-old former House of Representatives intelligence chief recounts his lack of qualifications for employment as a modern CIA staffer.

Goss appears in Moore's film, the most financially successful documentary in history, during a segment devoted to the USA Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism measure. During the filming of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11", Goss told Moore's film crew:

"I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified.

And I certainly don't have the technical skills, uh, as my children remind me every day: 'Dad you got to get better on your computer.' Uh, so, the things that you need to have, I don't have.

I don't have the language skills. I, you know, my language skills were romance languages and stuff.

We're looking for Arabists today. I don't have the cultural background
probably."

Goss, who served with the CIA clandestine services in Latin America and Europe in the 1960s, was not immediately available for comment.

Moore told Reuters that Goss, who until Tuesday was chairman of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, granted an interview to two of his producers without first checking to see who they worked for.

Moore told Reuters via telephone from New York:

"You'd think the person who was the head of the intelligence committee would ask a few more questions.

The reality is that Porter Goss was in charge of the oversight of the CIA during a time when the CIA didn't do its job, which in part resulted in the loss of lives of 3,000 people."

A White House spokesman declined to comment specifically on the Goss interview but described the lawmaker as "the most qualified man for the job."

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