Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/porter-goss-resigns-as-head-of-cia Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Central Intelligence Agency Director Porter Goss resigned without reason Friday after less than two years on the job. Two intelligence experts discuss possible reasons. Read the Full Transcript JEFFREY BROWN: More turmoil at the CIA, which has seen a lot of it since 9/11. We get two perspectives on the Goss resignation.Mark Lowenthal was an assistant director of central intelligence for analysis from 2002 to 2005 and served on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee, where Porter Goss was chairman. He's now president of the Intelligence and Security Academy, which provides training in analysis for the government.James Bamford has written widely on U.S. intelligence. His most recent book is called "A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies."And welcome to both of you.MARK LOWENTHAL, President, Intelligence and Security Academy: Thank you.JAMES BAMFORD, Author, "A Pretext for War": Thank you. JEFFREY BROWN: Mr. Lowenthal, starting with you, how much of a surprise was this resignation? JAMES BAMFORD: Actually, in the last week, there were a lot of rumors going around that this was going to happen, so I would say that, for some people, it was not a surprise. JEFFREY BROWN: Not at all?What do you think, Mr. Bamford? JAMES BAMFORD: Well, it was a surprise to me. I think it was a surprise to a lot of people. However, there was a lot of rumors going around for some time that John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, wanted to start exercising some muscle and putting some of his own people in.He inherited Porter Goss, so this was an opportunity to start putting his own team in place. JEFFREY BROWN: Well, as Jim said in the news summary, Mr. Lowenthal, there were reports about an agreement with Mr. Negroponte. What does that mean? What do you think? MARK LOWENTHAL: Well, I think, as Jim said, we're still working out what the relationship looked like between the new DNI, Negroponte's job, and now the person who only runs the CIA. And this was the first two men to have this job. And so we're still working that out, and so it's not that surprising that, after this transitional period of a year that Negroponte's been the DNI, that you would have a change coming on.