Ever get the feeling like you're the only person in the world who really understands what's going down? -I mean, with respect to a particular situation?

Yeah, not an accurate (or pleasant) feeling to have; for, if one's objective analysis is basically sound, then surely there are others who understand; yet in the midst of the grand social dialogue, its cascade of concepts flowing back and forth, when one hears the essential component of a story so-consistently misplaced, one feels alone, and saddened for the state of our collective understanding.

Yet perhaps I'm wrong; or perhaps this may be an opportunity for a breakthrough of sorts.

Perhaps.

Take the case of "outed" CIA agent Valerie Plame-Wilson, and the "crime" for which some senior members of the Bush Administration may be facing jail time.

Of all the thoughtful observers I routinely scan across the internet, I have found only two that come close to the heart of the matter. One is a rather brief reflection from a somewhat anonymous observer (who has nevertheless proven his/herself to be consistently astute). The other comes from investigators Ralph Schoenmann and Mya Schoen , who have provided a meticulous and well-documented analysis (in audio format) upon which I will be relying somewhat for my analysis here.

Now, the source of the confusion seems to arise around the desire by many to do something to stop the war in Iraq, and to see that those who lied... to get us into it, are held accountable.

An admirable goal.

The war in Iraq constitutes a grotesque violation of human rights, international law, and ethical government. Many know this. Many are speaking out. Yet into this mix are slithering a whole slew of questionable characters, slowly but surely shifting the ground of the dialogue away from the real architects of the war; and many are the well-meaning yet short-sighted observers, it seems, who are unconsciously allowing this to happen.

Let's look at this a little more closely.

Bush, Cheney, and their entire administration repeatedly lied to get us into this war.

Virtually the entire Congress and Senate bought the lies and voted to give Bush the power to invade.

Virtually the entire mainstream press bought the lies, and dutifully documented the details of the invasion from the inside of a tank -in this, the latest expression of the so-called "war on terror."

All this is a matter of record.

Well yes, now is the time for a great hand-wringing amongst the press and politicians: 'yes,' they say, 'we hate to admit it but... we were duped,' fooled, misled.

And we know this is udder nonsense. We know that any conscientious citizen could have gone on the internet within hours of Bush's or Powell's speech and exposed them for the juvenile frauds they were; yet with all the budgetary powers the press and politicians have to investigate the facts, they somehow "missed" the reality.

Let's be clear about this: they "missed" it because they WANTED to miss it.

They wanted to miss it because their integrity is thoroughly compromised to the military-industrial complex upon which they feed.... and which wanted the war to proceed.

Yet somehow the intelligence bureaucracy, (it seems, we are being told) is different; it appears as if the CIA and co. was trying to tell the truth about the WMD/yellowcake claims, but were somehow manipulated or prevented from doing their job.

But wait: of all the elements within the military-industrial-complex, is not the intelligence bureaucracy among the most firmly committed to the manufacture of war -and the lies necessary to achieve it? Have not its agents consistently proven themselves to be the bastions of deception and intrigue?

The "Valerie Plame indictment" is unravelling within the context of an assertion that the intelligence community is an entity standing somewhat at odds or even independent of the political games going on in Washington.

Is this true?

Were the analysts prevented from doing their job?
Or does "the company" merely want it to appear that way?

Let's look at the political context.

Broadly-speaking, why did we go to war? Why did top officials systematically lie to get us into Iraq? The immediate reason is obvious: oil. The longer-term reason is geo-political strategy: the control of the world's resources, beginning with the middle-east, and the usurpation of the former Soviet Republics in order to contain China; and the deeper, fundamental reason is that the American Empire is bankrupt from the inside out... entirely addicted to the expansion of its war machine for the continuation of its economic life.

The war-machine must grow, or the entire house of cards will begin to fall.

(If you don't know that, dear reader, then you need to do your homework; or, simply try to follow the logic here with an open mind).

Central to the war-machine is the element of secrecy.

Let's remember that, within any class society, any society dominated by a powerful few, there is always the danger that elected officials (and those whom they appoint) may cease to serve the interests of all -and instead, use the apparatus of government to further the interests of the few, in secrecy (to some degree).

This is nothing new: it's built into the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, The Bill of Rights. The different branches of the Federal Government, split into the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, were specifically designed to mitigate against the collection of power in any one area.

Even as some of the "founding fathers" were speaking of the necessity for the "eternal vigilance" of an awakened citizenry, most of them constituted the very economic elite (at the time) that posed the greatest danger to government "for, by, and of the people"; and, throughout American history, there has been an ongoing struggle for the control of the government, (at all levels) between the various economic elites and the grass-roots organizations of the common people.

Through numerous bloody wars, violent oppression, civil unrest, it's not difficult to see that the elite few have generally had the run of things. And today, in the era of the multinational corporation, with over half the world's wealth concentrated in the hands of 1% of the global population, it's quite clear that the power of the few is more-concentrated than ever, that the checks and balances have been overwhelmed, and that its primarily the corporate interest that government serves today.

Now, in a nominally-democratic society such as ours, the nature of this unethical allegiance is that it must be carried out in secret; that is, the compromised politicians and bureaucrats must put on a show of allegiance to "the people," so that we, the people, do not rebel.

Alas, by virtue of the bald-faced belligerence of some Republican hawks these days, and the apathetic response this seems to get from the general public, some may assume that this "show" is not all that significant; but this would be a grave mistake.

We must not confuse the effect of the Elite propaganda machine with the reality it is trying to control; that is, the very effectiveness of the media con job causes many to believe that it doesn't matter, that "we, the people" don't care, (precisely what the Elite want us to believe).

In reality, the political establishment goes to enormous expense to massage the public mind, (because they have to) and the colonic-collusion of the corporate press makes this manipulation seem almost natural.

Strategists in the corridors of power are certainly not unaware of the need to maintain the facade; so let us keep this element of secrecy clearly in our mind.

Even more so than the secret allegiances of individual politicians, we must be most-concerned here with organized secrecy: that is, networks of people, united in the commitment to carrying those decisions out.

In corporate America, for example, people are paid to lie and swindle. There's a profit to be had in exploiting others; and so, in the interest of furthering the common need/greed, people follow orders.

It is within this institutional culture where "following orders" prevails that secrecy is able to expand its reach most-fully.

In government, this becomes expressed in the corruption of the political parties as a whole; yet of all our public institutions, it has traditionally been the military which has most-clearly been governed by the principle of "following orders."

As we all know, in times of war: what residues of fair-play, civil liberty and common sense that exist in civil society often go flying out the window in the name of necessity, "patriotism," "honour," "helping our boys," etc.

Here, secrecy and don't ask questions is the norm; whereas, with the elected (and other bureaucratic) branches of government, there is often at least a paper trail showing the decisions that were made; and, the elected officials can be voted out of office.

What has traditionally kept the military somewhat (and only periodically) in check has been the difficulty -the sheer enormity- of getting the apparatus of government into a position to declare war, along with the cultural conditions necessary to convince the public to accept it.

This has kept the American military (at least partially) in a place where it, (and its code of secrecy) continued to act in service to the public, rather than as ruler.

For all those with the eyes to see, the military is now moving close to the time when it will be so integrated with the powers of the federal government as to become the lead agency in the promotion/enforcement of public policy.

There's no question but that we are moving towards a police state -where the essence of secrecy contained within the "private tyranny" of the corporation, (formerly held in check by the various separation of powers) is "coming out" to the public in the form of a uniformed, armed guard on Main Street America.

Yet the key element which is making all this possible is another reservoir of secrecy, operating at a whole other level of subtlety and sophistication... which has developed steadily (and massively) over the last sixty years, serving as a "plausibly deniable" bridge between the agenda of the military and the administrative levers of civilian government.

Principally with the creation of the CIA in 1947, you have a (largely invisible) intelligence bureaucracy which has increasingly come to have more and more influence over the Executive branch of office, (National Security Council, Daily Intelligence Brief, etc.) while simultaneously using its Executive position to access funds, resources (and positions within other areas of both, government and civilian life) to further an un-written agenda... all under the rubric of "don't ask questions... national security."

The power of the CIA (and the various "intelligence" gathering agencies) goes WAY BEYOND the thirty-billion/year that we are told they are allotted by Congress. The true power of "The Company" lies not in its administrative/clerical (i.e. "public") side, it lies in the realm of covert operations, by which it has penetrated into the core of the stock-market, banking and finance, the media, the arms trade, illicit drugs, and so on.

It is absolutely essential for every thinking American to grasp the significance of this. To do so requires some study. There are numerous good books on the subject. In particular, I recommend the vantage-point of someone who was there from its inception, who saw it grow and change the face of the political landscape... and who has chronicled that development in exhaustive detail.

So the existence of this intelligence bureaucracy takes the element of secrecy within government to a whole other level of sophistication.

Imagine, for a moment, beyond the usual rank of influence-peddling, (i.e. The White House/Pentagon offering access to only those reporters who say the right things, or Republican Party money helping to finance publications and programs that appear on Fox news) that there's another, unnamed layer of organization that can withhold or "leak" classified information at will, stage events, plant stories, to which the compromised or unaware press, politicians, and public must then respond. The power of this bureaucracy is not absolute; but because it is, by its very nature, a hidden power, it has a flexibility to influence events that no other institution has, while appearing to be un-involved.

Now, it is the nature of this creature that it serves neither the civilian nor military command, directly; for it is, in essence, an instrument designed to subvert the mechanisms of public accountability; it answers only to itself; yet "the self" that it answers to is bound by an allegiance to Elite control, which it must share with the political, military, financial and industrial Elite as a whole. Thus, while there may be many times when various leaders in the political or military wings are embarrassed or provoked into action by the dirty doings of the CIA, etc. the CIA is protected from serious scrutiny; because, to expose the CIA would expose the degree to which the various political and military elites had colluded in the betrayal of their duty to the general public; and secondly, these Elites recognize, as a whole, that the intelligence-community is a key element to the advancement of America's imperial interests.

In effect, the military, elected, and judicial branches of government have learned to tolerate and work with a loose canon in their midst, preferring not to know the whole truth -knowing that it is their ignorance of the whole story which will, (in most cases, they believe) protect them from any possible prosecution.

It's called "plausible deniability" and it takes the secrecy of self-serving government and military collusion to a whole other level: providing another layer of control, (away from public scrutiny) by which the "news" may be managed.

It's political deception gone amok.

Conversely, it may also be described as smart-fascism: a methodology developed from the general desire amongst the ruling Elite to by-pass the democratic process -in favour of rule by decree; but here, the appearance of democracy has been maintained. Rather than a mass movement which arouses the passions of the people, (and is ultimately difficult to control) here the critical device is an administrative one. A zone of influence, carved between the elected and appointed branches of government, gains access to credit from a fraudulent banking system, its influence spilling over into the public sphere. Its influence grows, taking on the unseen mantle of a parallel power, while the populace remains largely passive.

It is precisely because the various elected and appointed elites already recognize the value of doing things in secret, that they can be so easily blackmailed and manipulated into schemes far beyond the realm of their own, narrow imaginations, then help to cover them up. Many an ambitious, cynical, and diabolical "public" official may fancy them self to hold extraordinary power in their hands, and be unaware of how much assistance they are getting from unseen forces which can just as easily turn on them.

For example, it was the CIA which initially used its intelligence-gathering resources in Southeast Asia, (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) to provoke incidents which justified an increasing military presence. Then-CIA Director Allen Dulles would make up some story (to the National Security council) about how the North Vietnamese had attacked the South, get permission for an increased military response, and then request a much bigger response from the military than was asked for.

Throughout the Vietnam war, bloodthirsty generals and lickspittle politicians eagerly swallowed every scintilla of justification. They were the ones who went on record, or who had a paper trail chronicling their deeds. Only when it became clear that the war could not be won, did the CIA cover its involvement in the affair by blaming first the military, (through the leaking of the so-called "Pentagon Papers") then "outing" the hated Executive branch (Nixon) via a relatively minor infraction, ("Watergate"). Almost no one clued in that the CIA had been cooking the books at both ends of the spectrum to both, further the war and protect its own ass.

The loss of Vietnam was a huge blow to American imperial prestige; yet the CIA managed to emerge from it shining. A few generals and politicians retreated to their corners, skulking; but the critical mechanism for creating new wars was left unscathed; and that is precisely what the CIA began to do, in Angola, in 1975.

What is essential to grasp here is this: the most-visible exponents of the policy can always be sacrificed, but the means of maintaining the secrecy must be kept secret. The intelligence bureaucracy itself must not come under scrutiny.

So yes, of all the institutions involved in the promotion of the war machine, it is usually the intelligence community which is the most-hawkish, over-the-top-crazy-for-it because, on the one hand, they are not subject to the constraints of the public eye, (such as the military) they get far more leverage in choosing the character and timing of their operations, (don't have a lot of "higher-ups" telling them what to do). They experience a "freedom" to blow things up, kill, destroy such as few fascist-minded people can, (referred to in "trade-speak" as "fun and games"); and, if they play their cards right, they never have to be held accountable for any mistakes they make; because they're always one step ahead of their partners in crime, (the military, politicians) upon whom they can shift the blame.

This does not mean that there is a complete absence of honest analysts within the CIA etc. (dedicated to tracking down "Islamo-terrorists," or "commies," as they used to be called); it means that these people are not the core of the community; they are a peripheral instrument of what is, essentially, a criminal, subversive, anti-democratic organization.

So lets follow the logic:
1) if the reason for going into Iraq was (and is) clear, (oil, power, military addiction) and,
2) if the intelligence community was committed to seeing the invasion occur, and,
3) if they knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and
4) if they knew the heads of state were going to have to lie like baboons to get this war going, then they also knew that someone, eventually, (i.e. the ones who uttered the lies) was going to have to take the fall... so that the occupation/control of Iraq could continue, and the capacity for invasions elsewhere not be impeded.

So given all that, and given what we know about the character of the "intelligence community," how then might we have expected them to behave?

First, they'd make sure that the heads of state had access to the necessary package of lies to place before the American people, and that those heads of state had confidence that the intelligence community would back them up in those lies; otherwise, the performers would not have been able to put on a half-way believable performance.

Second, only after the invasion was clearly in the bag would they then start to slowly "leak" their alibi.

Then, within the few months it would likely take for it to become clear that there were no WMD's in Iraq, they'd have to move to contain the debate .i.e. provide a juicy leak about only part of the package of lies... and make sure that the debate is then drawn out over a long period of time so that by the time charges were finally being laid, no one but the politicians and CNN commentators gave a shit anymore.

So what then happened?

The CIA allowed the yellowcake-WMD claims into the State of the Union address. The Yellowcake claim also appeared in the President's Daily Brief, (PDB) "one of the most sensitive intelligence documents in the American system."

In other words, at the top of the CIA hierarchy, they were giving credence and support to the lies: i.e. where it counts. CIA Director George Tenet sat in the Congressional Chamber as Bush gave his address, and he said nothing to contradict it.

So what's the result of all this?

Two years after the invasion, a single member of the Bush administration is indicted, not for lying to Congress, but for the obstruction of justice in the "outing" of a CIA agent. (Special prosecutor Fitzgerald makes clear that the indictment has nothing to do with the war in Iraq).

The issue at hand has gone from WMD's, to "yellowcake" to the 'mis-treated' CIA. No one is talking about the "5,000 gallons of VX nerve agent, anthrax, and botulinim toxin" that Bush described in his speech to Congress. No one is talking about whether America lacks any moral right to have forces in Iraq. Even voices on "the left" are talking as if a few rogue elements inside the Bush Cabinet were responsible for the lies; and all of it amounts to nothing, as the American war machine emerges unscathed, sympathetic even, ("as our boys struggle heroically in the absence of the best equipment and reinforcements").

If you were wanting to invade a country, and you had to lie to do it, I'd say this was a pretty successful campaign for getting away with it. No?

Now, some coincidence-theorists out there might say that things just unfolded this way; but let's take a closer look at the players involved.

Cheney, Libby, Rumsfeld, Rove, etc: yes, there's little doubt that these creeps are pathological liars, who would stoop at nothing to expand the prime directive of imperial power. It's no surprise that they worked to cook the evidence. So what? Does that mean that the CIA et all didn't collude in the deception? Is it not possible that the Agency was playing a double game? -encouraging Rumsfeld and Libby to be aggressive, saying there's support, (a "deal") while not telling some of the analysts whom Rumsfeld and Libby would work with... causing them to get aggressive? The Agency ensured that the bogus material got into the most sensitive and important documents: is it not possible that Rumsfeld etc. were led to believe they were all on side?

Joe Wilson Turns out Joseph is no ordinary former Ambassador. Oh no, he has a very colourful past indeed, as a point-man in innumerable bloody, covert operations carried out by the CIA. Well, surprise, surprise. Let's look at the long list of "achievement's" on uncle Joe's resume.
Well, he was the Deputy Chief of Mission in Iraq, in the build-up to the first Gulf War... the second in Command to Ambassador April Glaspie. In Glaspie's absence Joe is on record as being a very "active" ambassador.... selling weapons to the Iraq regime in a meeting in Paris... (this, when they were still gassing Iranians and Kurds). Then comes the time when the Americans sell the Kuwait government the slant-drilling facilities for cutting into Iraq's oil fields. America then encourages Saddam Hussein to "settle his grievance" in his own way. The trap had been set.
This is all a matter of record; and for anyone who has read Agee's "Dirty Work" (or otherwise knows how The Agency works) the American Consulate is the CIA's standard focal point in the coordination of intelligence work, coup d'etats, and invasions. Yes, uncle Joe was very busy it seems, (and good at his job too, cause he got lots more work after the war).
It seems that Joe then went on a long tour of Africa, going from mission to mission in various consulates; and wherever Joe went, insurrection, massacres, civil war and coup d'etats seemed to follow.
By all honest accounts, this man is a serious war-criminal; but today, we hear nothing but praise for him -even in the so-called "alternative press". Funny that, no?
At present, he's a member of the National Security Council for African affairs. The guy is pure Intel. A liar extraordinaire. He should be indicted (along with the rest of them).
Lock him up, people.

Valerie-Plame Wilson: notwithstanding the attempts by Vanity Fair magazine (in its latest issue) to turn her into some glamorous "New Avenger," "Mrs. Peel," etc. it seems our gal Val has not had quite as colourful life of late as our lackadaisical, stooge press would have us believe. Yes, you've heard all the whining and complaining, the bleating of concern for the "annihilation" of her "team" that supposedly took place once she was "outed" by Libby; (some Intel freak masquerading as a journalist on the normally thoughtful "Counterpunch" website even equated the act to the betrayal of Jesus); well, it turns out that she was actually "outed" back in 1994 by the defector Aldrich Aims. She was ready for retirement, (for God's sake).

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald: described as the knight in shining armour by the presstitute gallery, from the New York Times to the Washington Post, CNN and sin-dicated affiliates; "a non-partisan warrior" "speaking truth to power."
Well, it turns out that Prosecutor Fitzgerald is the go-to guy in the cover-up (I mean) prosecution of "terrorists" who weren't guilty of any crimes -such as those supposedly involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre, (which any informed person knows was instigated and led by the FBI as a supposed "sting" operation).
He has intelligence ass-et written all over him.

Next case.

Ah yes, and last but not least, we have the legendary "Protection of Intelligence Identities Act," that "noble" piece of parchment upon which so much of this facade doth rest. Well, it turns out that this "law" makes it a crime to "out" an agent even if that agent is doing something illegal.
Think about that for a moment: even if a CIA agent assassinates someone, launders drug money, even if they may have participated in some "false-flag" terrorist operation, killing innocent people in order to blame it on OSAMA, it's a crime to expose them to the light of day.
Is this a law worth defending?
Obviously not.
Is it treasonous to expose an agent who's doing something illegal? Absolutely not. It's treasonous not to expose them.
This f-LAW should be referred to as the "Lou Wolf" Act, after the courageous investigator who, along with former agent Phillip Agee, realized the scope of the CIA's criminal behaviour, and made it their patriotic duty to "out" as many agents as possible. It was due to their success in publishing those names and exposing the patterns that the Washington status quo was compelled to make such endeavours a crime.

So to sum up:
an American President goes before the American people and lies his face off to justify the invasion of Iraq;
the Congress, the big media, and the intelligence bureaucracy all abrogate their responsibility to question and investigate the truth; they play dumb, and buy into the lie, (and we know exactly why);
then the Congress, the media, and the intelligence bureaucracy all claim they were "duped" or "prevented" from countering the lies -with various intelligence leaks providing the focus for who to blame.
The "blame" then becomes narrowly localized/contained when one of the "culprits" commits another, related "crime" for which they may face "tough" justice.
The intelligence community emerges, once again, shining like a new car.

For all intents and purposes, the invasion of Iraq and the WMD claims are, as White House Chief of Staff Andy Card put it way back in Dec. of 2003, "a moot point."

It's a done deal. A non-issue.

So is there anything to be gained from this?

Yes, if we use it to gain a deeper insight into how the system works and apply it to contemporary events; for while we may add the invasion of Iraq to a long list of historical infamies which shall go unpunished, the occupation of Iraq is another matter.

Let us recall that the military-industrial-complex (otherwise known as the monopoly-capitalist state) is in crisis. As such, the "state" is going to reflect contradictions in its behaviour. It's going to attempt to do something to put out one fire, which then causes another. Into this mix, there are going to be arguments, battles between the different factions within the Elite apparatus; who, at one point or another, propel a certain perception forward, only to find it rich with unforeseen repercussions; and beneath it all, the covert intelligence apparatus is attempting to guide, correct, manipulate those different factions through the course of unfolding events, from the safety of its shadowy lair.

Even here, the adage, "those who play a rigged game get stupid" applies.

Take the occupation of Iraq. Intelligent investigation on the ground could have foreseen that the common Iraqi citizen was well-armed... that the invasion would not be the hard part. The intelligence community helped Bush steal two elections, they helped form his policy on Iraq, (daily!!!). The occupation is something they supported because monopoly-capital wanted it; yet now that it's going badly, they're feeding the ground of dissent against Bush and co. -not as an "exit" strategy, but as a domestic diversion, in the interests of managing the occupation.

Oh yeah, some politicians are beginning to speak of an "exit strategy." Others look straight in the camera and say, "we do not retreat."

It's all a show folks; or rather, while some politicians may actually believe some of their own rhetoric, the real game is this: Imperial America wants the oil, (and the middle east). They don't want the people who live there, (besides those who work the oil pumps); and above all, they don't want the American people to get pissed off with the increasing number of body-bags being sent home. So they're attempting to start a full-scale civil war in the most-populated non-strategic areas such as Baghdad, to eliminate the civilian (i.e. insurgent) population, keeping the American troops engaged only so long as they have to; and the key to this is keeping the American public distracted with debates about "exit strategy," giving the impression that some movement is happening.

There is no "movement" as such, (just as there is no "peace process" between Israel and Palestine). There will be no "exit" until the American people say "Enough!!" (just as we did with Vietnam).

The Bush-it artists have taken a lot of "hits" over the past six years: from the leaked PDB which showed that Bush had been warned about Al Queda a month before 9-11, to Enron, Hurricane Katrina, the WMD fiasco and the situation in Iraq, (not to mention the state of the American economy). With his dunce cap slightly askance, and overworked smirk, Curious George makes an easy target, if they want to take him out. Yet it's unlikely that Bush will be hit with any serious, de-throning scandal unless the situation in Iraq causes citizen America to finally wake up.

If that happens, the line from a song by the rock band, "The Who" may become an appropriate battle-cry: "we don't get fooled again."

Good friends, conscientious citizens, let us not be distracted by this ongoing charade. The system is not correcting itself. It is protecting its infamy from reaching the true light of day. Defend not the intelligence bureaucracy, the epicentre of secrecy, deception, and criminality.

Let us keep our eye on the shadow-power of the corporate-intelligence cabal which cloaks our politicians like an oily ooze. Let us build a resistance movement, with our eye clearly on the prize.

Ciao

For those of you who want to further investigate the nature of the CIA, I provide a few samples of the info. I have come across... to help get you started, (i.e. besides the sources I listed below notes 9&10).

As mentioned, I think the single-best online source of information on the CIA is the Fletcher Prouty website.... The reason being, that he is able to show us how this bureaucracy was slowly (yet exponentially) built up under the watchful (and murderous) eye of "the company's" architect, Allen Dulles.

A Lawyer Loves his Loopholes:
Prouty also goes into great detail showing how Dulles was able to manipulate loopholes in the National Security Act to sequester for himself increasing powers.
For example, the National Security Act of 1947 gives the CIA no legal basis for undertaking covert operations, nor even for gathering intelligence; it's legal role is simply to coordinate the intelligence of the other intelligence agencies.
It is the National Security Council alone, which has the legal mandate to undertake such operations. Via a vague loophole in the wording of the above "Security Act," founding CIA-director Allen Dulles was able to manipulate the National Security Council into a posture of "approving" clandestine plans brought to it by the CIA, rather than directing such operations itself; and by a process of erosion, the NSC ceased even to become an effective watchdog over the CIA's (illegal) activities.
For President Harry Truman, the nominal creator of the Security Act, (and, by extension, the CIA) it was clear that the NSC was an advisory institution only -that ultimate responsibility for decisions lay with the President. Under President Eisenhower, this sense of ultimate responsibility remained; yet by this time, the unaccounted-for activity of Allen Dulles and his agents had grown to such an extent that a private, parallel power grew in strength as the NSC's oversight duties became diluted in expanding numbers of sub-committees.
By the time of the Kennedy Administration, he was led to believe that the NSC was irrelevant. This "left the door wide open for the CIA" to assume far greater responsibilities, and "helps to explain why Henry Kissinger's role became so dominant in the Nixon years."
So the essence of the CIA's role -in relation to both the NSC and the President- is that the President does not know, (and, in a very real sense, does not want to know) what the CIA is up to, or what it's role should be.

A brief word on a total turd:
Allen Dulles was a unique character amongst human beings: an exceptionally calculating, greedy, amoral (and therefore successful) lawyer on Wall Street, he played a central role in the financing of the Nazi military machine, (alongside Prescott Bush); then, during World War 2 he somehow got himself ensconced at the highest level of American Intelligence (OSS) while simultaneously living in Switzerland, taking care of all the banking needs of the looters and pillagers (on both sides, of course). Then after the war, he was instrumental in rescuing a great number of Nazi spies (the Gehlen organization) who had been operating in Eastern (communist) Europe.
Only someone with his personal talent and dedication for self-promotion, vulturism, and hatred for democracy could have created something like the CIA.
And hey, he's even got an airport named after him.

A Few Important Facts:
Perhaps we should also recall that the CIA (amongst others, notably the FBI) was the lead agency in the assasinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and a host of other regional and world leaders.

For anyone who takes the time to investigate, the evidence is clear.

Now some readers may not know this or want to believe it; if so, you need to do your homework. Other readers may acknowledge the evidence of past misdeeds, yet fail to recognize their significance in the light of ongoing events.

Think about it: if the intelligence community could orchestrate, in broad-daylight, the murder of such prominent public figures and sufficiently cover it up (so as to confine it to the back pages of history and/or the corridors of "conspiracy-theory") do you think this organization, (and the "community" itself) has shrunk in its thirst and capacity for influencing public events.

Not a chance.

The evidence clearly reveals that they've gotten smarter, more sophisticated, brazen, more integrated into the bureaucratic fabric of private and public power than ever before.

And finally, a brief word about who "they" are.
"They": i.e. the CIA, the intelligence community, the real brains behind it.
Since the very essence of deceptive, self-serving elite rule is secrecy, and the intelligence bureaucracy is the very embodiment of the secrecy-germ, it makes little sense, (at this point) for us to try and figure out exactly who in the CIA etc. is ultimately responsible for the creation of this or that particular campaign of deception; that is, simply to have confidence that "they" exist... and that this level of manipulation is occurring.

For, on the one hand, the denial of responsibility is built-in to the "intelligence" campaign. Those responsible for saying something to a more-publicly visible official, or not saying something (when they should have) may themselves have been "handled," provided only so much information on a "need to know" basis; furthermore, the true scope of the power being exercised flows from the intelligence to the corporate and banking institutions and back again; its tentacles are ultimately very elusive and difficult to discern. Only when the full weight of an awakened citizenry begins to press for answers, only as the quality of the public dialogue rises sufficiently to shed light on this hidden network of power, will it make sense to track the really big boys down, identifying all the bit players along the way; and the simple fact is that we are not going to raise the quality of our social dialogue until we have first shaken off the illusion of power which the "plamegate" affair represents; and which this article is primarily concerned with.

So for the moment, let's not get distracted by the built-in duplicity contained within this house of mirrors. Let's keep our eye on the ball, and simply refer to "them" as "they."

Also, a word about how this power "works." Generally-speaking, the ones exercising the key decision-making powers within the intelligence community are not the ones most visible to the public eye; i.e. the Director. The real power tends to flow from the second-tier of command, or from the advisors to those supposedly "in command." The reason for this is that power and authority (within such hierarchical systems) does indeed flow from the top, and so the decision-makers must have a hand close to the helm; yet that hand has a lot more room to manoeuvre if it isn't pre-occupied with making statements to the public; furthermore, the manipulation and exchange of information has now gotten so complex these days, that those in public positions of leadership are extremely dependent upon their advisors for the content of their policy. This is painfully obvious in relation to a baboon like Bush; but it's just as true for a snake like Cheney, Powell, or Rice-crispy.

This is not to say that the real, underlying power (to make long-term policy/military moves) flows from the second-in-command or advisor them self. They are merely serving as the conduits for the collective intelligence of the larger community -applying the rather subtle, hands-on manipulation of those in front of them, knowing that the weight of the resources that can be brought in from other sectors of the apparatus, (in support of the "handling") may be all the "hard-ball" needed.

It also seems that the flow of power changes as the agency and the social/political landscape changes. It used to be, under Dulles, that the Director had all the power; but now that the CIA has developed a more home-spun image, the Director is more of a figurehead. In Kennedy's day, (and with Kissinger under Nixon) it was the National Security Advisor who had his finger on the President's "golly gee" spot. Now I would suspect the National Security Advisor is being advised by some nameless slug who knows a whole lot more than them.

Good luck in your investigations; and thanks for your time.