Reading the tea leaves at CIA

Powerline gets an assessment from a former case officer:

On the departure of Stephen Kappes

The retirement of Steve Kappes, the CIA's number two, is significant because he represented the status quo at the CIA. He was a fierce defender of CIA bureaucracy.

Kappes apparently had some responsibility for the operation which resulted in the suicide bomb attack at Khost. That catastrophe "helped push Kappes out the door." If this is true, then the disaster Khost may have been preventable.

According to this Newsweek story from 2006, one of the issues between Porter Goss and Kappes was the bureaucracy's refusal to hold officers accountable for grievous failures in operational security. Goss won the battle but the bureaucrats won the war when the director resigned and Kappes came back as Hayden's #2.