The CIA is seeing an unprecedented exodus of senior-level staff, some of whom operate as overseas spies from the ranks of the Agency. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the controversy around weapons of mass destruction and the war in Iraq, the CIA was revamped to play a more active role in gathering overseas intelligence.
Under direction from the White House, the CIA was to take the lead in the coordination, strengthening and unification of national security, national defense and domestic and global human intelligence in a new National Clandestine Service.
According to an October 2005 Reuters report, the new National Clandestine Service would oversee and coordinate various spying initiatives overseas, including those of the FBI and the Pentagon. Over the past year, the White House has ordered an increase in Central Intelligence Agency officers by up to 50 percent.
In the midst of these internal developments, the CIA has experienced a trend of the attrition of senior officials, particularly in its National Clandestine Service branch. Among the senior officials to leave include the former executive director of the CIA, the CIA's most senior spy, the deputy director of intelligence, and officials in the Counterterrorism Center.
Some argue that the 2005 appointment of former Republican congressman Porter J. Goss as director of the CIA is a principal reason behind the trend of senior officials leaving the CIA.
According to National Public Radio, a directive internal memo from Director Goss regarding heightening the protection of national security information from possible information leaks gives the new National Clandestine Services branch of the CIA a potentially super-charged bureaucratic and political culture. Some believe this is going against the original intentions of President Harry S. Truman, who created the CIA under the "National Security Act" in 1947.
Others argue that sensitive topics, including the use of overseas secret prisons and torture methods for obtaining intelligence from Al-Qaeda suspects, are another factor for the trend of attrition. Other possible reasons may point to an internal reaction against a top-down change in the CIA's operations and organization culture.
According to a March 1, 2006 Morning Edition report on National Public Radio, internal competition between U.S. government organizations such as the Pentagon's Department of Defense and the CIA may also have contributed to this occurrence.
Others argue that the trend of senior officials leaving the CIA is an interim process during a significant restructuring effort from the Bush administration to bolster its intelligence operations and national security. Despite the potential setbacks in losing senior officials with valuable experience, according to CIA Director of Public Affairs Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, the attrition of senior officials in the CIA may not necessarily be a negative event. Ms. Dyck believes that the CIA is adapting to new times and new circumstances.
Despite the attrition of so many senior-level officials, the CIA has recently experienced increasing popularity among job applicants. In a 2005 survey by Universum Communications, the CIA was ranked number nine in ideal places to work.
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