Tough to only have a hammer when you really need a fly swatter.
Washington Post
March 25, 2012
Pg. 1
The CIA's Enigmatic Al-Qaeda Hunter
Convert to Islam has led spy agency's renewed assault on terror group
By Greg Miller
For every cloud of smoke that follows a CIA drone strike in Pakistan, dozens of smaller plumes can be traced to a gaunt figure standing in a courtyard near the center of the agency’s Langley campus in Virginia.
The man with the nicotine habit is in his late 50s, with stubble on his face and the dark-suited wardrobe of an undertaker. As chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center for the past six years, he has functioned in a funereal capacity for al-Qaeda.
Roger, which is the first name of his cover identity, may be the most consequential but least visible national security official in Washington — the principal architect of the CIA’s drone campaign and the leader of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In many ways, he has also been the driving force of the Obama administration’s embrace of targeted killing as a centerpiece of its counterterrorism efforts.
Colleagues describe Roger as a collection of contradictions. A chain-smoker who spends countless hours on a treadmill. Notoriously surly yet able to win over enough support from subordinates and bosses to hold on to his job. He presides over a campaign that has killed thousands of Islamist militants and angered millions of Muslims, but he is himself a convert to Islam.
His defenders don’t even try to make him sound likable. Instead, they emphasize his operational talents, encyclopedic understanding of the enemy and tireless work ethic.
“Irascible is the nicest way I would describe him,” said a former high-ranking CIA official who supervised the counterterrorism chief. “But his range of experience and relationships have made him about as close to indispensable as you could think.”
Critics are less equivocal. “He’s sandpaper” and “not at all a team player,” said a former senior U.S. military official who worked closely with the CIA. Like others, the official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the director of CTC — as the center is known — remains undercover.
Phi Beta Iota: A decent man and committed professional trapped in a pathologically twisted system. Deja vu.
See Also:
Chuck Spinney: Myth of Precision-Guided Coercion
Chuck Spinney: Real Cost vs Real Value of Drones? + RECAP
Chuck Spinney: Richard Falk on USG Learning Disability
CIA Further Out of Control–New Persian “Base”
David Isenberg: Jim Clapper Claims Transformation — Robert Steele Comments on Each Misrepresentation
DefDog: CIA Decides Who to Blow Up – Without Having Any Idea Who They Are…
DefDog: Delusions of Power – Absolute Corruption of US Power
G.I. Wilson: Killer Drones, Moral Disengagement, + War Crimes RECAP
Journal: Dumbest Weapons Money Can Buy…
Marcus Aurelius: US at Permanent “War” + War RECAP
Marcus Aurelius: WSJ on Viet-Nam War – Lack of Integrity
Mini-Me: Assassination – Made in America – At What Cost? Impeachable Treason.
Mini-Me: End of the Delusional UAV Era
Reference: Gorgon Stare–USAF Goes Nuts (Again)
Review: Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy – Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform
Review: No More Secrets – Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence
Review: Top Secret America – The Rise of the New American Security State
Richard Wright: More on CIA’s Continuing Implosion
The Year of the Drone: Map & Analysis of U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan, 2004-2010
USA Has Become Deaf, Dumb, and Blind
USA Spectrum Out of Control & Self-Destructing
Winslow Wheeler: Drones Dead on Arrival
Winslow Wheeler: ONE COLONEL TELLS THE TRUTH – Major Investigation Called For + Meta-RECAP
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Intelligence (Most)
