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The Pentagon has launched an internal probe to determine how much was wasted on unnecessary weapons because of the bad reports. Intelligence sources say much of the information supplied by the doubles dealt with Russian aircraft, missile and radar capabilities. But Pentagon officials are privately dubious that they'll be able to pin billions of dollars in waste on the CIA reports. The Defense Department squanders money on unneeded weapons mostly because of pork-barrel politics, interservice rivalries and lobbying by contractors.
The latest scandal has sent morale at the agency to rock bottom. Disgusted with incompetence by higher-ups, many younger spies are resigning. Senior hands complain that Deutch pays too much attention to how operations will play on Capitol Hill. Gregarious and backslapping, Deutch can also be a ruthlessly tough manager and highly status conscious. He recently angered seven Senators planning a fact-finding trip to Bosnia by refusing to let them use a plane he had reserved from the Pentagon for a later trip, even though the Pentagon was able to find him an identical substitute. When one of Washington's hot restaurants, the Palm, was slow to put up Deutch's caricature among more than a thousand portraits of the city's political elite, Deutch had aides and relatives pester the manager with phone calls until the picture was hung.
But Congress is still confident that Deutch can reform the agency. In his first six months as director, he has replaced practically every top manager. And when he met last week with officers in the CIA's soundproof auditorium to explain his reprimands in the latest scandal and to buck up morale, he got a standing ovation. It was a small step in rebuilding confidence inside the agency. The larger task will be restoring the CIA's credibility with those on the outside.
--With reporting by J.F.O. McAllister and Mark Thompson/Washington