UPDATE: Journal: CIA’s Poor Tradecraft AND Poor Management
UPDATE: Bomber was Jordanian doctor & Jordanian intelligence asset
Phi Beta Iota: This keeps getting worse. We wonder if CIA contractors get stars on the wall–4 employees including the one who was over-ruled by Berger, Tenet, and Brennen in taking Bin Laden out unilaterally; 3 guards, and a Jordanian intelligence officer who was probably “handling” the asset that did not get searched coming into a “safe” area. So now we have analysts as chiefs of base (or visiting) on the front line; Jordanian “case officers” providing the language, tradecraft, and other services, and “flipped” assets not validated who get to waltz inside our lines without being searched. Still unclear is whether the Atlanta detective until recently a UN security officer was an employee or a contractor.
The only thing worse than what CIA is doing in AF and IQ is what the military is evidently unable to do: combat intelligence and counter-intelligence.
See also the Sanity Check comments associated with this posting.
UPDATE: CIA invited suicide bomber on base as a potential informant
Phi Beta Iota: The informant was not searched prior to being brought into the “safe” area. This is what happens when you have inexperienced people too focused on convenient debriefings and not focused enough on counterintelligence. The Cubans and the Soviets have been running rings around CIA for decades with walk-ins, and CIA now has a whole new crop of folks with no idea how to operate in the field. We are reminded of the two CIA case officers that went nuts in Somalia. Somebody needs to tell Panetta he's in charge of Clowns in Action. Similarly, the first CIA casualty in Afghanistan was killed because CIA got into the prison business and had no clue on the fundamentals, such as searching prisoners before putting them into group confinement. This is a tragedy that could have been avoided.
Continue reading “Journal: Death of CIA Personnel in Afghanistan”
