Or Is It Truly Just More Evidence Of A Broken National Intelligence Capability
I believe it to be the latter. Aerosmith said it best, “Same old story, same old song and dance (my friend.)”
The “61 minute” Lesley Stahl (“Sir, Sir)” interview of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner is a good listen. Anybody who has ever been involved in this type of negotiation-and I would hazard a guess (blinding flash of the obvious) that very few do this type of work routinely-while many others have undergone the Ivy league version of the “best and final offer-BAFO” theory of deal making that is good background and preparation, but nothing like this high level Richard dance with the maniacs.
To cut to the chase President Trump understands high stakes deal-making better than most people in America-on the order of 99.9%-and certainly better than any president since perhaps Teddy Roosevelt. His selection of Witkoff and Kushner has everything to do with their strategic patience, strategic outlook and ability to focus on the strategic imperatives while deferring the apparent predominate “angst points.”
And more importantly these two have no dog in the fight-despite the carping of their “poodle-like” critics both here and abroad-and are laser focused on a deal that allows all involved to achieve their end state objectives while deferring potential deal breakers whose time has not yet come for resolution.
Leaving some issues to rest for now, as my Combined Armed Services Group leader LTC Brooks would say, like a ham cooking in it’s own “chuices.”
To the point of my article, during a critical time after the Israeli’s attacked the venue where the Qataris as interlocuter were hosting the Hamas negotiation team-which did not kill any prime players, but did kill the son of the chief Hamas negotiator-intensive and great work was done to finalize what emerged as the 20-point plan, to closure.
Witkoff and Kushner had done a master negotiator’s redefinition of the stakes by isolating Hamas’ continued holding of the hostages as a liability, vice an asset in the negotiations, persuading the Turks, Qataris and Egyptians to see that it was in the best interest of all to use that as the basis for the start of the peace: coupled with Israel agreeing to a cease-fire and withdrawal in stages.
When this document was put on the table and Hamas was considering a response, Witkoff and Kushner reported they were in contact with their sources from all countries non-stop and continuously, receiving word that Hamas was going to do some face-saving modifications/soft level demands, but basically was going to agree to the plan.
Concurrently they were briefed three times a day by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who continuously reported that Hamas would not/was not going to agree to a deal. View it yourself in the Sam Faddis attached article that contains the video at the ~22 minute mark.
Reality bites and then you die. More will emerge later, but there is not much to hang your hat on therein. I believe the problem here is somewhat of an unrealistic expectation that somehow the CIA personnel would have access-methods and tactics, syncs, sources and nodes-that would be unique and insider information and informed beyond the access that Witkoff and Kushner would have.
I think such an expectation is reasonable and that is what the CIA is paid to do-what we fund them to do-what we need them to do above all others-but just think through the high stakes situation here and whether any defensive postures might go up with any who might risk talking to our CIA given the wild west aspects going on in Gaza and the high stakes effort going on at the highest levels of the involved governments.
And-I know-that is exactly what “we” think the CIA is being paid to do: exactly such situations and circumstances. I would label it the exemplar mission definition I would like to see under the CIA Director of Operations (DO) job description under the category of strategic and national level support to POTUS and the National Security Council (NSC.)
It is easy for me to say, but we don’t need a CIA Director and a DO who can’t or won’t get the right personnel to do such jobs. That would be like a horse owner who hires a trainer who looks good and talks a good game but can’t get the horse working through a progression to achieve the time gates.
To be fair, intelligence collection in Gaza has obviously been broken for going on near 20 years, ever since Israel was forced to cede control to the Palestinians. How else can we explain the intelligence failure of 7 October in such a small area? Over two decades of tunneling with all the engineering it took-generators, electricity, provisions, food, labor, arms procurement, ammunition-rockets, mortars, incendiary devices, etc. An astounding amount of stuff accrued over the years leading up to the attack.
Which nobody apparently noticed…
We can blame the increasing reliance on mechanical, stand-off intelligence collection by the IC, but that is not what we fund the CIA DO to do or rely on (vice-for instance-the CIA Director of Intelligence/DI.) A friend often observed that we fund the DO to collect information “coffee-breath close.”
The bottom-line here is that for likely a variety of reasons the personal and professional relationships Witkoff and Kushner have cultivated in the Middle East-with the imprimatur or sanction of President Trump-have had to substitute for what constitutes a failure of the CIA DO to provide critical intelligence to the President of the United States when it was needed.
Which is why we need to reform the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) led IC.
Max Dribbler
27 October 2025
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4 thoughts on “Is There A Rogue Tier Of Bureaucrats Ensconced In Our Intelligence Community Working Out Of Langley And LX-1 That Are Undermining America’s Foreign Policy To Spite The President? Part 2”