Duke Cunningham Rails against Leadership Failures and Scandals

/in /by

Okay, it’s been a busy day. But I thought I’d throw out this little tidbit just to lighten your afternoon.

On page 86 of this FOIA packet, a CIA MFR from a May 6, 2004 briefing on the Abu Ghriab scandal records Duke Cunningham’s outrage that DOD had not informed the House Intelligence Committee of the looming Abu Ghraib story. He wailed about how scandals cause a stain on the United States.

Other scandals. The pages here in Congress. Enron. The Catholic Church. In all these cases, the focus isn’t on the good but on the bad. There is a stain on the US as a result of this and that is what has us so upset. Leadership is at the point of contact. Here, they seem to have lost all attention to detail. Bureaucracies tend to prevent immediate action. There are exceptions to the chain of command. When I was a wing commander in the military, I told my people to go to me directly and speedily in certain cases. They included sexual harrassment. Radical prejudice. Spouse and child abuse. Drug abuse. In other words, any issues that could prove critical to the reputation of the unit, the service or our country. Twice, I shut down my squadron to address such issues. We are upset by the failure here to notify.

To which Jane Harman responded,

Hear, hear!

Slightly over a year after Cunningham made this impassioned speech, news began to break that Cunningham was selling himself to Defense contractors for–among other goodies–a yacht named the Duke Stir.

But boy can he make a nice speech, in the privacy of a classified briefing.

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  1. emptywheel says:

    One more point. Particularly given allegations about Duke’s own sexuality, I had to wonder whether he was talking about the past Page scandal, or the one that would break two years after this briefing…

    • scribe says:

      IIRC, wasn’t Foley’s predeliction for pages pretty much an open secret on The Hill, so much so that there was an unofficial “stay away from him, he’s creepy” out on Foley among the people in charge of pages?

      And, if the stories about Duke’s preferences are true, it is reasonable to conclude that such gaydar as he would have had would have twigged on Foley and he could/would have figured it out.

  2. scribe says:

    No need to snark on the Dukestir.

    His speechifying reflected correct behavior for leaders to engage in. That he, after being exposed to the ways of Washington, went down the DC road to corruption, does not change that in the past he had done the right thing and could still recognize it.

    Of course, since his protests were recorded in the CIA’s memo for the record, it is only one step further to go, to find the CIA being the little bird that told DoJ the San Diego paper the Duke was of suspect reliability corrupt. It needs also be remembered that the Duke’s corruption came up in the context of … classified contracts for provision of goods and services to … CIA.

    This one’s a tangled web, and it would take litle to persuade me Duke’s objection to torture in this or another briefing was the first pebble falling from the hilltop which led to the avalanche burying him in federal prison. Such would also go a long way to explaining both Duke’s not offering any cooperation in return for a sentence reduction and DoJ’s not seeking any. Likely DoJ already knew everything, on the one hand, and Duke was more afraid of turning on CIA than of prison.

  4. Hmmm says:

    …To which Jane Harman responded, Hear, hear!
    Slightly over a year after Cunningham made this impassioned speech, news began to break that Cunningham was selling himself to Defense contractors for–among other goodies–a yacht named the Duke Stir.

    …And Harman’s name was splashed across the headlines in the AIPAC thingie.

  5. skdadl says:

    I read that 2004 quote as very old-school stuff and highly ambiguous. What bothered him was this:

    In all these cases, the focus isn’t on the good but on the bad.

    And you know how the old school handled that sort of thing?

    When I was a wing commander in the military, [insert patriarchal huffing and puffing] I told my people to go to me directly and speedily in certain cases.

    I’ll just bet he did, too. And I’ll bet he made sure there was never any chance for a “focus” on the bad, because no one else would ever learn of what happened.

  6. SaltinWound says:

    It feels to me like he is in the process of building the rationale for his corruption. The bureaucracy does not work. He pays more attention to detail. It adds a touch of nobility to the stench.