Porter Goss to do with Iran Policy? - a wild-assed theory

I have nothing to back this up, and I don't think it's really the likely cause, but just as an interesting backburner theory, let me reintroduce from yesterday the possibility that Porter Goss wasn't producing enough incriminating evidence on Iran to advance the policy the hawks wanted. This NYTimes article hints around it,

But as Mr. Goss leaves the agency, the intelligence watchers say that huge uncertainty remains in estimates of Iran's weapons, complicating the task of persuading the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions or take other measures.

But perhaps it's more useful to look at the shift in relationships. Goss and Negroponte had problems. Negroponte is close to Cheney. Goss's presumed replacement Michael Hayden "has a close rapport with Vice President Cheney."

One of the elements of the CIA power shift is that the Defense Intelligence Agency and the NSA have both been taking over traditional CIA roles, such as foreign operations out of the embassies and surveillance functions. And, I believe I'm safe in saying that Rumsfeld has a certain "rapport" with Cheney.

I don't think this is likely the cause of Goss's sudden departure, but one of the results will be that all of the major intel agencies will now be "friends of Dick."

(Remember it was just Thursday that, quite controversially, Cheney lambasted Russia. Then, there were also the recent reports that the terror group MEK, and other anti-Iranian groups were being protected, supplied and run across the border into Iran by elements of military intelligence(not the CIA.))

I don't know if there's a direct connection, it's just something that's been rattling around my head today. But, suddenly, maybe by side effect, Dick Cheney holds fairly direct sway over all the intel gathering in the US. After his use of intel in Iraq, and the threats he's issued regarding Iran, this really scares the hell out of me.

(And I know that Goss wasn't particularly hostile to Cheney's viewpoint, but now we're looking at another level of devotion beyond the law. Michael Hayden managed and defended the dubiously legal NSA warrantless wiretapping which was Cheney's baby. John Negroponte famously managed the death squads in Central America, and you know Rumsfeld and Cambone.)