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The CIA At War
It's a grim, ugly thing, reports Jeff Stein in Congressional Quarterly:
According to several well informed intelligence sources, hundreds of CIA operatives have become virtual prisoners in the Green Zone, the sprawling American enclave whose high walls and guards separate the U.S. embassy, military command and related civilian agencies from the raging sectarian violence in Baghdad’s streets.
The CIA operatives cannot safely roam the city to meet their few agents, much less recruit new ones.
It’s just too dangerous. CIA chiefs don’t want to risk one getting kidnapped, tortured on camera and beheaded.
That would certainly dampen the allure of a career in the CIA.
So “they spend their days playing cards and watching DVDs,” said a former senior CIA operations official who maintains close ties in the agency.
There's a lot more about intelligence fecklessness amidst Iraqi chaos in the long article, and none of it is any more encouraging that we'll eventually figure out what's going on over there, much less how to turn the situation in a direction we'd prefer.
|1.23.07 @ 10:26AM|#
CIA officers in Iraq who want to avoid certain death are
"feckless", writes Doherty from his safe office in the US.
Classy.
|1.23.07 @ 10:31AM|#
Wow! I always thought the Jame Bond movies offered an acurate depiction of real-life espionage. I guess not. Once again, Reason unovers the hard truth. I can't wait to read all the insightful posts that will come in on this one.
|1.23.07 @ 10:40AM|#
...CIA officers in Iraq who want to avoid certain death are
"feckless", writes Doherty from his safe office in the
US.
Yeah, when I applied at the CIA I told them I would only come to
work if I could do it safely from the blogging machine in my
uniform......apparently they weren't impressed with my tolerance
for risk!
Shit ajay, they aren't Wal-Mart greeters.
|1.23.07 @ 10:40AM|#
Maybe this says something about how broke the CIA is and how they are hiring people. Go to the CIA website and look at who they are hiring. They want people with area studies degrees. I am sorry but going Georgetown and getting a middle eastern studies degree isn't going to help you blend in much in Bahgdad, especially if you are a blong blue eyed coed. The fact that they can't pass themselves off as something besides Americans or locals doesn't say very good things about the CIA. A few years ago I read the book "Blowing My Cover" by Lindsey Moran. It is actually a pretty good book but you can't help but wonder at the end, "why the hell did they ever hire her?" She really didn't have much of any qualification other than being smart and going to Harvard. You would think you would look to hire someone whose family is perhaps from the middle east and can look the part and speak Arabic without an accent and understands the culture. Not so. I am guessing there are a few Lindsey Morans running around the Green Zone wondering why all the local men stare at them when they wear shorts.
Sam Franklin|1.23.07 @ 10:45AM|#
It is actually a pretty good book but you can't help but
wonder at the end, "why the hell did they ever hire her?" She
really didn't have much of any qualification other than being smart
and going to Harvard. You would think you would look to hire
someone whose family is perhaps from the middle east and can look
the part and speak Arabic without an accent and understands the
culture.
Maybe the CIA knows something you don't.
Maybe they get double crossed a bunch in August 2001, fr'instance
by agents who were chosen for the ability to fit in.
Because us in our safe offices will never know one way or the other
on this, it makes critical thinking on these issues basically
impossible for us.
|1.23.07 @ 10:53AM|#
"Because us in our safe offices will never know one way or the
other on this, it makes critical thinking on these issues basically
impossible for us."
I don't think that is true. Yes, they have a tough job. That
doesn't excuse them from doing it. Clearly, the people their
current approach is not working. You can certainly judge their
record and it is pretty bad. The CIA has been wrong on about a
million things over the last 20 years and most of it has to do with
their complete inability to have reliable human sources. Go read
the book, if Lindsey Moran is the best they can hire, they have
some real problems. The fact that in the middle of a war they can't
get their agents out into the field is disgracful. The OSS managed
to send people out into Europe in World War II. I don't why the CIA
can't get their people out of the green zone.
|1.23.07 @ 10:58AM|#
So, the next time we're told the intelligence is a "slam dunk"
prior to invading another country...we gonna believe 'em?
Just saying.
|1.23.07 @ 10:58AM|#
The CIA did a bang-up job when they were running the Arghan War. It was only when Rumsfeld pulled rank that we lost the momentum.
wayne|1.23.07 @ 11:00AM|#
John,
I did not read the book, but I saw here touting it on Good Morning
America, or a similar show, and I thought at the time that she is
pretty, and perky and she went to an Ivy league school so she fits
the good ole boy network, but she seems to be a typical, clueless
rich kid to me.
|1.23.07 @ 11:00AM|#
"Feckless" is not accurate in this instance, unless you are
talking about the brass in Langley. Stupid and suicidal is not the
same as courageous and effective.
If your 'covert' operatives can't blend in, why do you even send
them?
Sounds like the brass is trying to fill a requirement from the
politicos that they have 'x' many operatives in the field and
either haven't got the smarts to go for quality over quantity or
haven't carefully thought the matter through and realized it takes
a long time to develop covert field operatives.
[Alternatively, maybe the CIA brass haven't got the guts to tell
the politicos that it will be 5 to 15 years before they have a
cadre of working field operatives.]
|1.23.07 @ 11:01AM|#
"The OSS managed to send people out into Europe in World War II.
I don't why the CIA can't get their people out of the green
zone."
We don't hire brown people.
|1.23.07 @ 11:02AM|#
One more piece of evidence that the GWB policy in Iraq is an abysmal failure. Hey, I've got a great idea, let's bring democracy to Somalia! Just as soon as we finish bringing it to the Iraqis, of course.
|1.23.07 @ 11:02AM|#
The CIA traditionally hired kids from "good families" (read: rich WASPs) out of the Ivies, while the FBI hired Irish klds out of the "Catholic Ivies" (BC, Georgetown, Notre Dame, and the like). Odd history there.
|1.23.07 @ 11:02AM|#
"The CIA did a bang-up job when they were running the Arghan
War. It was only when Rumsfeld pulled rank that we lost the
momentum."
The CIA never ran the Afghan War CENTCOM did. There were CIA agents
in Afghanistan but the majority of the people there were Special
Forces and the plan and the execution of the plan that took down
the Taliban was the product of CENTCOM and General Franks, not the
CIA. Where do you get this stuff Joe? Really? Some of the things
you come up with are just bizarre.
|1.23.07 @ 11:04AM|#
That would certainly dampen the allure of a career in the
CIA.
The hell? The "allure" of a career in the CIA is becoming a James
Bondesque super secret agent with a pen that is secretly a gun and
a gun that is secretly a pen. Getting captured by terrorists is
part of that! The best thing that could happen to the CIA would be
to have one of their agents captured and get beheaded live, just so
we can see him cut his ropes with a laser key chain, karate chop
all the terrorists and then go have sex with some girl with a
ridiculous name like Shagg Nastee or Pussy O'Plenty.
|1.23.07 @ 11:04AM|#
"I did not read the book, but I saw here touting it on Good
Morning America, or a similar show, and I thought at the time that
she is pretty, and perky and she went to an Ivy league school so
she fits the good ole boy network, but she seems to be a typical,
clueless rich kid to me."
That is the exact impression I got from reading the book. Like I
said you finish the book wondering why the hell they ever hired
her.
|1.23.07 @ 11:05AM|#
If this war of "liberation" and "democracy" had actually
included a role for the Iraqis themselves, beyond hiring themselves
out as our cannon fodder, we'd have local intel sources, and a
community of allies among the populace willing and able to help our
agents.
Yet more evidence that efforts to impose democracy from outside,
rather than in support of a local popular movement, are doomed to
failure.
|1.23.07 @ 11:08AM|#
"If this war of "liberation" and "democracy" had actually
included a role for the Iraqis themselves, beyond hiring themselves
out as our cannon fodder, we'd have local intel sources, and a
community of allies among the populace willing and able to help our
agents."
True enough, but go talk to the State Department who didn't want to
set up an Iraqi government in exile and mistrusted the exile
community. Had they set up an Iraqi government in exile before
going in and put them in charge rather thant Bremmer and the CIA,
things would have been a lot different.
|1.23.07 @ 11:10AM|#
You don't need case officers with local knowledge when you've got satellites and spy planes. Don't you guys know anything?
|1.23.07 @ 11:10AM|#
CENTCOM had formal command of the theater, but operations,
including those by Special Forces, were being run by the CIA for
the first couple of months after 9/11.
I "got" this particular bit of information from one of the numerous
excellent documentaries that Frontline has produced about the
Afghan War. For this one, they interviewed the people who were
running the Afghan War.
You have an amazing capacity to not know easily available facts
that don't fit your preconceptions, John.
|1.23.07 @ 11:12AM|#
"True enough, but go talk to the State Department who didn't
want to set up an Iraqi government in exile and mistrusted the
exile community. Had they set up an Iraqi government in exile
before going in and put them in charge rather thant Bremmer and the
CIA, things would have been a lot different."
The "exile government" in question was Chalabi and his gang. In
fact, the adminstration did attempt to set him up as the
government, flying him in with 500 mercenaries to try to stage a
"DeGaulle in Paris" moment, because of their certainty that the
Iraqis would flock to the leadership of the Geroge Washington of
Iraq.
State 1, Rummy Pentagon 0
|1.23.07 @ 11:14AM|#
"Had they set up an Iraqi government in exile before going in
and put them in charge rather thant Bremmer and the CIA, things
would have been a lot different."
Ahmad Chalabi? You're kidding, right?
|1.23.07 @ 11:16AM|#
"CENTCOM had formal command of the theater, but operations,
including those by Special Forces, were being run by the CIA for
the first couple of months after 9/11."
Joe, it was franks who thought up the plan after talking to Gen
(RET) Schoomacher. His original plan was to send an entire Corps
into the area and Rumsfeld vetoed it. It was Franks with
Schoomaker's help who thought up the idea of doing it with special
forces and air power. The CIA doesn't run air power and they don't
order four star theater commanders around. It just doens't work
that way. Every DOD asset in CENTCOM belongs to CENTCOM. I have
will to tell the people next door to me over at 3rd Army (CENTCOM's
Army component command) that they never ran the AFGHAN war the CIA
did. I don't know what you say on Frontline Joe, but you didn't
understand what you saw if you think the CIA and not CENTCOM ran
the Afghan war from the early October authorization to use
force.
|1.23.07 @ 11:21AM|#
the CIA was really good at playing disinfo games with the old
CCCP, but those days are done
these days, I see the CIA as a vestigial/degenerate structure left
over from the cold war that is about as useful to the current US
body politic as the appendix or coccyx is to the human body
|1.23.07 @ 11:21AM|#
John, you need to watch Frontline. They put their documentaries into rotation. That's all I can tell you.
|1.23.07 @ 11:23AM|#
Show of hands:
Who here ever thought they would see joe defending the CIA for
running a war?
|1.23.07 @ 11:23AM|#
"The CIA doesn't run air power and they don't order four star
theater commanders around. It just doens't work that way. Every DOD
asset in CENTCOM belongs to CENTCOM. I have will to tell the people
next door to me over at 3rd Army (CENTCOM's Army component command)
that they never ran the AFGHAN war the CIA did."
None of which changes the fact that the operations on the ground
were run, in the first few weeks, by the CIA, and the facilators at
CENTCOM were put on the task of providing what the CIA wanted.
Sam Franklin|1.23.07 @ 11:24AM|#
I don't think that is true. Yes, they have a tough job. That
doesn't excuse them from doing it.
let me ask a slightly different and hypothetical question(s) then,
John:
let's say a hypothetical CIA agent could have prevented 9/11 (or
the Oklahoma City bombing or the crash of TWA 800 or the Tube
bombing), but the hypothetical agent double crossed the CIA and let
the attack happen.
Should this information be kept as a secret by the CIA or should
they be forced to disclose it?
If they should be forced to disclose it, who should be forcing
them?
|1.23.07 @ 11:25AM|#
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14464-2001Dec8?language=printer
Joe,
This is a good account of the early days of the Afghan war from the
Washington Post. Yes, the CIA had preditor drones and some
paramilitary there, but they never ran the air force and the
overall plan was Franks and CENTCOM's and Rumsfeld's really. The
CIA never ran the war in any meaningful way. And certainly were not
running the war in November and December when the bulk of the work
to take down the Taliban was done.
|1.23.07 @ 11:27AM|#
let's say a hypothetical CIA agent could have prevented 9/11 (or
the Oklahoma City bombing or the crash of TWA 800 or the Tube
bombing), but the hypothetical agent double crossed the CIA and let
the attack happen.
No they shouldn' have to disclose that, but I am operating from the
assumption that the report is true. Maybe it is not. Maybe it is
disinformation and things are going smashingly for the CIA in
Bahgdad, in which case I take it all back. I am just saying that if
the CIA can't get their agents out into the field and blend in in
Iraq, what the hell good are they and why are they not taking a
different approach?
|1.23.07 @ 11:28AM|#
Is there really much point in speculating about the inner
workings of a secret group?
I read the Lindsey Moran book, and while it was an interesting
time-killer there's no way the CIA would have allowed it published
if it were in any way an accurate look at the agency.
|1.23.07 @ 11:30AM|#
as useful to the current US body politic as the ... coccyx
is to the human body
Hey! I need my coccyx. Hands off!
|1.23.07 @ 11:37AM|#
"The OSS managed to send people out into Europe in World War
II. I don't why the CIA can't get their people out of the green
zone."
We don't hire brown people.
Quite. How many field officers did OSS have in wartime Japan?
Egon|1.23.07 @ 12:05PM|#
Playing cards and watching DVDs? That sounds exactly like MY (national-security-related) government job. Am I seeing a pattern here?
|1.23.07 @ 12:18PM|#
Actually, the US military does have pretty good intel sources in Iraq. They have the standard high tech stuff (satellites, and drones, etc), but they also have decent human intel as well.
|1.23.07 @ 12:32PM|#
"decent human intel"???
in Iraq?
guffaw
we must not be watching the same war
or maybe I'm just deficient in the "blind faith" dept
Garth|1.23.07 @ 12:40PM|#
In 1988 I spent a weekend at Langley interviewing for a job with
the "Company". I appeared to be exactly what they were looking for:
Blond/Blue, Soviet Studies major from George Washington U., Decent
Russian skills that they could have perfected in no time. Scored
well on all my tests, including, apparently, the bizarre
psychological ones they were still giving at the time. (Would you
rather be a) Lumberjack b) Bee-keeper c) Ballerina d)
Fireman?)
And I seemed to fit in well with all the other wasps that were
there at the time with me... mostly a bunch of conservative white
guys.
But then came the aweful truth: I had smoked, I had inhaled, I
swore I would never do it again but I also stated that I had no
regrets. I even defended past drug use as a useful complement for
an agent.....
I was taken in to a wee room and was told to go home.....
Garth|1.23.07 @ 12:41PM|#
Oh, yeah... Just pointing out that they used to not hire people for skills as much as for being they version of "good americans"
|1.23.07 @ 12:44PM|#
A fair amount of information flows from ordinary Iraqis to
coalition forces because they (the Iraqis) want the insurgents out
of their neighborhoods.
There was a news story just a couple of days ago about the Iraqi
leader Maliki changing his stance on protecting Muqtadr Al Sadr
because he was presented with proof of the Shiites participating in
murder and mayhem. That proof came from Intel sources.
|1.23.07 @ 12:45PM|#
"But then came the aweful truth: I had smoked, I had inhaled, I
swore I would never do it again but I also stated that I had no
regrets. I even defended past drug use as a useful complement for
an agent....."
There is a lesson there: don't tell the truth. It is nobody's
business but your own.
Thomas Paine\'s Goiter|1.23.07 @ 1:20PM|#
CIA officers in Iraq who want to avoid certain death are
"feckless", writes Doherty from his safe office in the
US.
What does safety have to do with effectiveness?
|1.23.07 @ 1:23PM|#
Actually, it is not just CIA officers who face certain death, it is anybody who look European; sounds kind of racist, huh?
|1.23.07 @ 1:54PM|#
if we were asshole deep in red chinese soldiers engaged in a
belligerent occupation of our country (plunged into anarchy ever
since the invading chinese gov't declared our existing government
illegal and provided us with an inept replacement)
would we label our insurgents "racists" for targeting foreigners of
asian extraction?
"anti-american" for targeting quislings helping the invaders?
would we cast the insurgency as "foreign fighters", because real
americans are happy with being occupied by foreign troops who
killed our government off from top to bottom?
it's easy to sit here in the belly of the beast and make excuses
and rationales for our treatment of those at the business end of
our nation's ham handed and irrational foreign policy
but reverse the polarity, and it's a different ballgame
it appears that we expect Iraqis to react differently than we
ourselves would to a given stimulus (belligerent occupation by
foreign troops)
sounds kinda racist, huh?
Sam Franklin|1.23.07 @ 2:03PM|#
[Sammy:] let's say a hypothetical CIA agent could have
prevented 9/11 (or the Oklahoma City bombing or the crash of TWA
800 or the Tube bombing), but the hypothetical agent double crossed
the CIA and let the attack happen.
[John:] No they shouldn' have to disclose that, but I am
operating from the assumption that the report is true. Maybe it is
not. Maybe it is disinformation and things are going smashingly for
the CIA in Bahgdad, in which case I take it all back. I am just
saying that if the CIA can't get their agents out into the field
and blend in in Iraq, what the hell good are they and why are they
not taking a different approach?
and I am saying maybe they are doing smashingly -- it depends on
what you compare the present situation to.
If there was a CIA agent we don't know about, involved in the
McVeigh plot, who was supposed to pull the plug, but didn't, well,
we are doing smashingly compared to that.
If there was a CIA agent who could have reported that Mohammad Atta
and a sleeper cel were going to used jets as bombs on 9/11, but
decided not to report this info for whatever reason, then we are
doing smashingly compared to that.
Having a do-nothing CIA agent only seems bad until you consider
that you may have one who is helping the terrorists bring about
Pearl Harbor events.
so, the issue becaomes: "how common is it for CIA agents to help
terrorists?" Since we don't know the answer, it becomes effectively
impossible to judge performance of the CIA rationally as
laypersons.
wayne|1.23.07 @ 2:10PM|#
Kowt,
Struck a nerve, huh :-)?
As far as I can tell, weepy liberals are never far from race
baiting, so I have adopted calling people racist as a fun past
time. Which is not to say that you are a weepy liberal. I have no
way of knowing.
Your analogy of "Red Chinese Soldiers" invading America and
declaring our government illegal is not applicable or appropriate.
We went in to Iraq for completely different reasons, but Saddam was
not a legal ruler of Iraq. He was a dictator who seized power and
murdered his detractors. No matter what you think of the filthy
Republicans or even the despicable Democrats, they have stooped
that low yet.
Sam Franklin|1.23.07 @ 2:24PM|#
Your analogy of "Red Chinese Soldiers" invading America and
declaring our government illegal is not applicable or appropriate.
We went in to Iraq for completely different reasons, but Saddam was
not a legal ruler of Iraq. He was a dictator who seized power and
murdered his detractors. No matter what you think of the filthy
Republicans or even the despicable Democrats, they have stooped
that low yet.
Maybe the Chinese could show war crimes in Iraq and would invade
for that reason. If so, how many war crimes would they have to
demonstrate before we would have a duty to be nice to them when
they invaded the US?
Bob Z|1.23.07 @ 2:37PM|#
They've taken to airing CIA recruitment commercials on the local AM sports station and every time I hear one I get Jello Biafra singing "if you can't afford a slick attorney we might make you a spy" running through my head. Anyone else have this problem, or did I listen to too much Dead Kennedys in high school?
cecil|1.23.07 @ 3:07PM|#
A few dozen lily-white, self-righteous, steroid enhanced,
arrogant assholes stuck over there?...sounds good to me, at least
they aren't breaking down doors looking for the killer weed in your
neighborhood.
And don't tell me the CIA doesn't engage in WOD operations. The
entire federal law enforcement brigade is obsessed with what you
put in your body.
On another subject entirely: Tony Dungy and Bob Ersay...shove your
Bible thumping bullshit up your asses.
|1.23.07 @ 4:27PM|#
John said
"""The OSS managed to send people out into Europe in World War II.
I don't why the CIA can't get their people out of the green
zone."""
John also said
""" I am sorry but going Georgetown and getting a middle eastern
studies degree isn't going to help you blend in much in Bahgdad,
especially if you are a blong blue eyed coed. The fact that they
can't pass themselves off as something besides Americans or locals
doesn't say very good things about the CIA.""""
So you do know why they can't get out of the Green Zone. The blonde
blue eyed coeds don't blend in, in Iraq, but they did in Europe.
It's a very valid point, and has more importance that most people
realize. But I have to point out that White people don't do the
spying in Mid-east countries. They are handlers, they recruit
locals to do the spying for us. But if your white people can't get
off the base, those they handle become irrelelvent and the system
breaks down.
If a Muslim walks into CIA for a interview, the interview will not
be about a job. Besides, many people in this country support
treating Muslims differently, so why would any Muslim want to
devote his life protecting yahoos that want to jail him or give him
lesser rights because he's a Muslim?
The so called war on terror and our debacle in Iraq will prevent
many quality Muslims from joining our intel operations. They don't
trust us, and why should they. We say we deny using torture at the
same time we argue to allow the use as a tactic and have no problem
using the unreliable information gained by torture in a trial
against them. The Bush admin has brought our nation leadership that
is willing to bullshit us and the world. If you don't support
torture you don't support the use of information gained.
We could come up with two dozen reason why Muslims should join us
and why it would benefit the Muslim community. But without trust,
they won't listen.
I don't believe in the CIA failures. The CIA usually puts
assessments in terms of probabilities unless they have fairly
concise data, such as their fact book. The only CIA officals to say
Iraqi intel was a "slam dunk" was the extreme upper echlon, and the
rest of agents involved did not believe that to be the case.
It is those who make policy from CIA intel that really let us down.
Those who didn't like what the CIA was saying so they expanded the
role of the Defense Intelligence Agency and gave extraordinary
weight to undeserving data. Rumsfield, et al wanted to hear certain
things that the CIA wasn't really saying. Top CIA operatives have
gone on record saying such. Paul Pillar said the Bush admin
"politicized" CIA assessments. It was obvious in the interview he
was choosing his words carefully. There was much dissenting
information in that famous NIE brief, but it was ignored, even when
it was strong dissent against the primary points.
Everybody's got their own opinion about the CIA, but I'm not going
to drag the organization through the mud because the director was
playing politics and saying things unsupported by the analysts
themselves.
Mike Laursen|1.23.07 @ 4:58PM|#
We could come up with two dozen reason why Muslims should
join us and why it would benefit the Muslim community.
Hell, we Americans practically view being Muslim as a communicable
disease. Just about everywhere else we have fought a war, our
soldiers ended up intermarrying with the locals. Our military
leadership is making damned sure nothing like that happens in our
forays into the Middle East.
well, actually|1.23.07 @ 7:11PM|#
Of course those agents are just decoys, and the real ones are out in the field saving us from what would otherwise be unmitigated disaster.
Egon|1.23.07 @ 10:44PM|#
^^^ I mean, a Muslim is one who follows Islam. It's not racial. You know what I meant.
|1.23.07 @ 11:52PM|#
"There's a lot more about intelligence fecklessness amidst Iraqi
chaos in the long article, and none of it is any more encouraging
that we'll eventually figure out what's going on over there, much
less how to turn the situation in a direction we'd prefer."
What in the world does this sentence mean? Where do you people
learn to write (and later edit yourself)?
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