Intel gathering

The CIA Is Getting a Private-Sector Makeover

As part of his management-reform push, Bulatao has cut the number of meetings Pompeo attends, shut down mission centers that focus on certain regions and some specific issues, and slashed programs he deemed unnecessary—though he wouldn’t offer examples. He’s also “shooting to reduce” the time it takes to join the CIA by “40 percent,” in part by shifting it from a paper-application process to a digital system.

The biggest change he touts is pushing “decision-making down to the lowest level possible,” he says. There are now “a significant number of fewer decisions coming to the seventh floor to be made.” As an example, Bulatao points to the benefits of giving CIA agents more freedom to act. “If an officer in a foreign country says, ‘I really want to go after this target,’ and his in-country supervisor says, ‘Yeah, that makes sense,’ why send that decision back to headquarters here to go through another process?” Bulatao asks. “Let’s let them make that decision locally.”