Politics

The man who reforms the CIA

He has just been confirmed by the Senate as a new director of the CIA. AND John Ratcliffe It already has clear ideas on how to drive the agency. “What the president wants Trump It’s – he says – ‘Driving integrity and removing politics from the intelligence community’, “he said. “Part of what we have to do is restore the trust of Americans in our institutions, such as the Community of Honest and Law Enmellar, and this includes the CIA,” he added.

In this context, among its first acts, Ratcliffe He has desegnted an assessment of the agency on the origin of Covid: an evaluation that, dating back to the Biden administration, claims, albeit with “low security”, that the virus is more likely to escape from a Chinese laboratory. Interviewed by Truth in October 2023, Ratcliffewho in 2020 had been director of the national intelligence, he had accused the CIA of having “politicalized” the analyzes on the origins of the pandemic with the aim of damaging the election campaign of Trump. Furthermore, according to the son of the same TrumpDonald Jr, already in the early hours of the new assignment, the director of the agency would have closed the CIA offices for diversity and inclusion.

In short, Ratcliffe intends to reform the agency, entering the strategy carried out by Donald Trump. The goal is that of a renovation of government apparatuses, aimed at cutting superfluous expenses and redirect those used badly. In this sense, the uprooting of progressive policies from the institutions represents a crucial necessity for the new American administration. Not only that. The appointment of Ratcliffe It also presents significant implications in the field of foreign policy: the new CIA director in fact carries on a particularly severe line against China and Iran. Finally, but not less important, Ratcliffe It is Catholic: an element that, given the historically transversal nature of American Catholicism, could help him manage the complexity of the agency in an articulated way.

Of course, there are those who accuse Ratcliffe of inexperience and to be an ally too close to Trump. Now, beyond the fact that – as mentioned – he was director of the national intelligence in 2020, it is not that the alleged “competent” of the Biden Administration have given great proof of himself. Last December, the FBI arrested a CIA analyst, accused of having disclosed, two months earlier, the Israeli attack plans to some Iranian military sites. In May 2022, the same Joe Biden He complained with the then head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austinand with the then director of the national intelligence, Avril Hainesof the escapes that had been recorded in reference to the Ukrainian conflict. Without then forgetting the scandal of Pentagon Leaks in April of the following year. Undoubtedly the challenges that await Ratcliffe They are numerous. But the credentials to succeed in the intent, the new director has them all.