Sic Semper Tyrannis

"Intelligence official shares his organizational vision" Walter Pincus

 
"Within the CIA, the argument against a DNI was that you did not need a new organization. Instead, clarify the authority within the intelligence community of the DCI, and that person and his or her deputy could handle both jobs."  Walter Pincus

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Yes.  That is CIA's extremely self serving argument.  Under the old set up. the CIA used their director's second hat as first among equals to suppress the work of the other agencies in the community whenever they had the chance.

NSA was always somewhat immune by law but everyone else ...

Jim Clapper is a pleasant surprise as DNI.  I continue to wish him well in this terrific struggle.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/11/AR2010101105499.html

Will Saber Rattling And Sanctions Work Against Iran? - National Security Experts

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2010/10/will-saber-rattling-and-sancti.php

 

 

 

 

Pollard - "Common Sense and Impudence" Richard Sale

By Richard Sale, author of Clinton’s Secret Wars                                                      

The recurring pressure from Israel to repatriate convicted spy Jonathan Pollard is clearly an expression of common sense if Israel wants to recruit any other agents in place. The KGB was always conscientious in extracting its snared spies by one means or another. 

If anything smacks of impudence it’s the current Israeli pressure when contrasted with the stormy ocean of pious Israeli government denials when the case first broke. 

My own view is that Pollard should never be released. 

I was the reporter who broke the story of how the Israeli government was selling the pilfered Pollard material to the Eastern Bloc in return for increased emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union. 

Mossad in America - Giraldi

 "Israeli government claims that it does not spy on the United States are intended for the media and popular consumption. The reality is that Israel’s intelligence agencies target the United States intensively, particularly in pursuit of military and dual-use civilian technology. Among nations considered to be friendly to Washington, Israel leads all others in its active espionage directed against American companies and the Defense Department. It also dominates two commercial sectors that enable it to extend its reach inside America’s domestic infrastructure: airline and telecommunications security. Israel is believed to have the ability to monitor nearly all phone records originating in the United States, while numerous Israeli air-travel security companies are known to act as the local Mossad stations.

As tensions with Iran increase, sources in the counterintelligence community report that Israeli agents have become more aggressive in targeting Muslims living in the United States as well as in operating against critics. There have been a number of cases reported to the FBI about Mossad officers who have approached leaders in Arab-American communities and have falsely represented themselves as “U.S. intelligence.” Because few Muslims would assist an Israeli, this is done to increase the likelihood that the target will cooperate. It’s referred to as a “false flag” operation." Giraldi

http://www.amconmag.com/blog/mossad-in-america/

Clapper - The Great Reorganizer

 "Clapper, whose dislike for hierarchical organizations is well known, outlined a community structure that at least on paper looks relatively horizontal. He is, for instance, eliminating a layer of deputies at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and pushing their jobs down into the organization.

He has created the job of deputy director for intelligence integration to unify the collection and analysis tasks.

"It shows a refreshingly new way of thinking about what this job is about," said Mark M. Lowenthal, a former senior CIA official. "I'm upbeat about this job for the first time since it was created. It's our last chance to get it right."

Others said Clapper, who has also served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, might be flattening too much. "For his first shot, he's overshooting the mark and will trim back where it doesn't make sense," another former CIA official said. "He's not afraid to reorganize and reorganize and reorganize and reorganize. This is not a secret. Jim must have reorganized DIA and NGA 182 times. He's not afraid to second-guess himself.""  Washpost

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A lot of the intelligence community needs to be smashed flat and re-grown.  The community is dominated by career managerial bureaucrats both in and out of uniform. Organizational and personal ambition and self-aggrandizement are the guiding principles for much of what goes on.  The bureaucrats rule the roost getting in the way of the real intelligence people. 

My advice, knock down those embattled towers.  Purge the bean counters and all those whose main function is to tell the productive what they may not do.

Is it possible to combine and unify the collection and analytic functions?  Yes.  The best people always did that against resistance from the bureaucracy.  Most people can't get their heads around the idea that they should analyse the material that they and others collect.  Solution: Start growing a new work force who can operate this way, and dump all those who can not learn new ways.

Will Clapper last long?  The odds are that the process of undercutting him has already begun, but not here.  pl 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/20/AR2010082005272.html?hpid=moreheadlines

How did he do it?

"Col. Lang, No, you are right about thumb drives and such. While they are indeed disabled on most networks, in theater they are very common because there are a large number of laptops and stand-alone computers that require a "sneaker-net." When I was there, we had to use a thumb-drive to load threat data into our helicopter's moving-map display, for instance. You're also right that these documents come from an operational and not an intelligence source. They look to me to be a dump from the theater SIGACTs database which is accessible by pretty much everyone in the theater. It's a mix of operational and low-level intel information - a kind of news ticker for the theater. As a result, a lot of the reports turn out to be wrong or incomplete. Therefore, the information contained in this should be taken with a huge grain of salt. We don't know which reports turned out to be accurate, which ones only provided part of the picture and which ones were flat-out wrong. Without additional sourcing it's impossible to look at this database and determine which category a particular report falls into. In the end this database will only be useful to those who subscribe to the Doug Feith method of analysis, a five step process: 1. Begin with the desired conclusion. 2. Troll whatever data is available and specifically look for and pull information that supports the desired conclusion. Ignore any contrary information. 3. Assemble the collected data and make it look like "analysis" supporting the conclusion from step 1. 4. Disseminate the "analysis" to useful idiots, particularly those who can affect policymaking. 5. Profit! =="

Andy

A Few Musings on Intelligence - Richard Sale

By Richard Sale, author of Clinton’s Secret Wars 

As the brilliant Washington Post piece made uncomfortably clear, the dilemmas of intelligence are not only as intractable as they have ever been, they have become contaminated in a very dubious and even sinister way by questions of marketing. 

I am speaking, of course, of the hiring of outside intelligence contractors whose field may be intelligence assessment but whose survival and financial success depend on finding backing among decision makers who are no way exempt from the dangerous fallacies associated with the formation of opinion. 

More Clapper

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/06/10/the-value-of-advice-and-consent-clapper-nomination/

pl

"A Pack of Lies..." Gitaldi

 "...the ongoing National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, which has been languishing for more than two years, caught between the Bush and Obama Administrations’ desire to have a "strong" document justifying the use of force and the insistence of intelligence analysts that the information pass the smell test and not lead to something similar to the 2002 NIE on Iraq, which was a pack of lies."  Giraldi

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Jim Clapper said one of several true things in his testimony on Tuesday.  He said that the Iraq NIE of 2002 was a disgrace.  That was certainly true.  He also said that the outcome in that document was not "politicized."  Hah!  Anyone who wants to know more about that process should see my article "Drinking the Koolaid" in MEP, Summer, 2004.  pl 

http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2010/07/21/the-national-security-product/

Where has DNI procurement been going?

Make of this what you will.  pl 

Download Tuesday GeneralSession 1130 Everett

"... I won't be a 'hood ornament'" - Clapper

I watched this hearing for a while.  I thought that Clapper did a remarkably good job in answering questions clearly and succinctly.  He didn't read a long winded opening statement and came to the hearing  prepared to do business.  There were a few odd notes in the music.  "My station in life..."  What did that mean?

His statement to the committee that he believes he can use the existing statutory powers of the DNI more effectively than his predecessors was interesting to say the least.  Asked if he "had the horsepower" to win a contest of authority with the director of the CIA, he said "I do."

It sounds like I misjudged this situation.  I thought Clapper was going to roll over and play dead in this job.  Wrong.

He said that the president has given him direct assurance of his support and that this was a condition of his acceptance of the nomination.  That sets the stage for a real struggle over control of the community.

First there will be a period of "making nice."  Then there will be the "a-- kicking contest."  Clapper is a tough guy.  If Obama doesn't walk away from him, he probably will win.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/20/AR2010072004076.html

The Priest/Arkin Article

Good luck, Jimmy.

There are several interesting things about this WP story: 

- The MSM as is their custom either does not understand the story or is "dumbing it down" in the belief that complex thoughts are beyond the capabilities of the public. The story is being headlined as being about the Intelligence community.  It really is much more than that.  The story deals with whole complex web of homeland security agencies, things like the National Counter Terrorism Center, federal police forces, the intelligence world and the ever increasing number of consultant companies that service those activities and to some extent do their hardest work, the intellectual "heavy lifting "  that is best done by the "graybeards" who have a lifetime's experience and reputations for high achievement.  I know that will sound self-serving.  People outside this world will ask why the government should pay again for the expertise of the real experts.  Simple.  If the government does not, then it can do without.

- In the world under discussion, bigger is not better unless you are talking about the number of policemen.  At the end of the 1st Gulf War, DIA was thought by many to be a highly effective combat support organization.  Norman Schwartzkopf didn't think so?  Well Fat Norman couldn't have found his a-- with both hands if DIA had not devoted 2,000 odd of its people to exclusive support of FN's army in the desert.  DIA then had 6,000 people worldwide.  We were not undermanned.   According to Dana Priest's story DIA now has 16,000 people and is still one of the smaller "players" in the national security world.  What on earth are all those people doing?  The answer she provides is that they are mainly getting in each other's way.   I think that is true.  I have the chance occasionally to see some heavy duty thinking done in war games, panel discussions, etc.  It is noticeable that the more skilled are the people organizing such meetings the more they tend to isolate small groups of the highly capable to do the serious thinking.  More is not better, bigger is not better. Gigantism is inherently bad.

- Why has this catastrophic growth occurred?  There are probably several reasons, most of them embedded in our shared culture.  We like big.  There is an assumption in American culture that "bigger and more" must be better.  We tend to assume that we can solve problems by throwing money and manpower at them.  Why?  We are addicted to the leveling idea.  My insistence that smaller is better is typically seen as "elitist" because it implies that all people are not created equal and that some people do much better work than others, often being capable of the intuitive leaps called "intuition" by the "elitists" and "guessing" by the levelers.  The levelers are in charge.  Like "Poppy" Bush they are usually not good at "the vision thing."  Their reaction to the need to do serious thinking about phenomena that do not have linear outcomes from present events is often to divide the "action" up into smaller and smaller pieces that do not expect much insight from individuals.  Then these mental tessarae are submitted to the attention of layer upon layer of committees and inter-agency "coordination."  What results is often not useful, but the process is manpower and contract rich.

- A corollary of having "process people" in charge is the proliferation of acronym heavy programs, SAPs, endless "experimentation" by groups like JFCOM and a general inability to do anything with less that 50 people and ten million dollars (petty change).

What is described in this article by Priest and Arkin is the confluence of several Washington government/consultant firm/think tank and academic "industries."  They are the Homeland Security Industry, the Intelligence Industry, the Counter Terrorism Industry, the Cyber-Security Industry, etc.  there are other growing government industries, Climate 
control, etc.

Forget about what Eisenhower said.  Worry about this.  pl

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10681861

National Journal Blog - 12 July 2010

 http://security.nationaljournal.com/2010/07/does-007-have-a-future.php#1603239

The Russian "secret agents"

 "Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said U.S. police who arrested 10 suspected spies in four cities in the eastern the United States on Sunday had gone "out of control".

"I hope that all the positive gains that have been achieved in our relationship will not be damaged by the recent event," Putin told visiting ex-U.S. President Bill Clinton in Moscow.

An 11th suspect was arrested in Cyprus on Tuesday and freed on bail, police on the Mediterranean island said. The Russian Foreign Ministry said those arrested in the United States were Russians and the charges against them were baseless.

In Washington, administration officials said the case would not set back President Barack Obama's drive to "reset" ties with Russia, one of the signature diplomatic initiatives of his administration.

"I think we have made a new start to working together on things like in the United Nations dealing with North Korea and Iran," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. "I do not think that this will affect those relations.""  Reuters

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Every country spies on every other country.  That is the truth.  It is the "game of nations,"  This is nothing to get excited about.  We all do it.  Governments need information.  Governments try to hide information and so "Spying" is necessary.  Even countries that are supposedly close "allies" (a much over-worked word). spy on each other.   In such instances the operations are merely classified at a higher level.  Spying for information as well as "influence" operations are major weapons.  That is why they are taken seriously.

Neither the existence of Russian operations against the US nor the comic but necessary "outrage" evinced by Putin are surprising.  What the reason was for arresting these people at this time is obscure but probably not very important.  Usually, the police prefer to let such activities continue under surveillance, believing that it is better to "supervise" known activities, perhaps even feed them a little "chicken feed" to see where the chickens run as a result.

I imagine that this group of agents were part of a project in infrastructure building to support more important Russian operations.   The thought that they were really part of an effort to infiltrate universities or think tanks is just too ludicrous to believe.

Send them home and their children with them.  pl 

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65R5OU20100629?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Clapper

 God help us all.    In this Reuters piece Gates makes clear what is happening.  He says (paraphrasing) that he was opposed to creating the DNI position, that it will never amount to anything and that Jimmy Clapper is temperamentally suited for such a job.  In other words Clapper is supposed to preside over the trivialization of the job with an eye to its eventual abolition.  

Perhaps that will work.  If so, it will be the DO's ultimate success in covert manipulation.

It will be interesting to see if Clapper's instinctive Type A desire to destroy his rivals will accept such a role.  pl

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6550OW20100606?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/05/AR2010060502969.html

National Journal redux - 26 May 2010

 

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2010/05/is-it-time-to-kill-off-the-dni.php#1588042

National Journal Blog - 24 May 2010

 
http://security.nationaljournal.com/2010/05/is-it-time-to-kill-off-the-dni.php#1587374

pl

Stein on Jim Clapper

"According to the two former top DIA officials, Clapper’s major initiative -- to reorganize intelligence analysis by specialists in enemy weapons, rather than specialists in countries and regions -- wreaked havoc at the agency and significantly downgraded its understanding of foreign events.

One of the analysts, Jeffrey White, who was chief of Middle East/Africa military assessments, among other top jobs during a 34-year career at the DIA, said Clapper eventually realized the mistake he made and reversed course.

But in the meantime, according to W. Patrick Lang, DIA’s chief intelligence officer for the Middle East, South Asia and terrorism at the time, veteran country and regional specialists rushed for the doors.

"We lost a tremendous number of analysts, old hands with 25 or 30 years of experience, who said, 'Screw this, I don't want to be a tank expert -- I'll just go fishing,’ ” Lang said in an interview. "

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Jeff White is one of the best analysts and managers of analysts ever seen in Washington.  These comments were not coordinated between us.  pl

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/05/former_dia_analysts_rip_clappe.html#more

Clapper will probably be DNI

 "The news will not come as a surprise to those in the intelligence community. For months, Blair has turf battles while the White House made it clear that it had more confidence in others, such as counterterrorism and homeland security adviser John Brennan, taking the lead both publicly and privately.

Last November, the White House sided with CIA director Leon Panettawhen Blair attempted, against Panetta’s wishes, to pick the chief U.S. intelligence officer in each country, a job that traditionally has gone to the CIA station chief."  ABC News

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- Dennis Blair is a poor briefer.  Many flag officers are not good briefers.  They are briefed.  They do not brief.  President Obama is a brilliant orator and such people often have little patience with those who are not.

-  Blair was unlucky enough to have several events occur on his watch that he had little control over.  His office is largely concerned with policy, budgets, estimates and community wide administrative functions like source registration.  The DNI is not an emperor who commands the activities of the intelligence community on a daily basis. Blair was blamed for things that were not really under his control.  The Ft. Hood and undy bomber incidents are good examples.

- CIA lost a lot of power and function in the re-organization that created the DNI function as head of the community.  Langley has been plotting to regain that power ever  since.  It will be a shame if they succeed in this Byzantine court political goal.  The present setup makes the playing field of the intelligence community more level since the director of the CIA agency is no longer head of the whole community and able to "break ties" in their favor.  An obvious goal in their effort to regain supremacy is the reduction of the DNI to the status of an impotent puppet for them.

Brennan or Hagel would be good choices for a replacement.  Clapper is the most likely.  He is a good briefer and a better apple polisher.  pl

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/05/exclusive-president-obama-to-replace-director-of-national-intelligence-dennis-blair.html

Israeli intelligence, our constant companion - Jeff Klein

 "...another of Mossad’s reason for being, as with all the world's spy services, is to make sure friends are really friends.

And judging by once sensitive FBI documents making the rounds in recent days, the Israelis have been at this task in Washington for a very long time.

The 21 documents, obtained by Grant F. Smith, a Washington, D.C. author who has made a career out of writing critical books on Israeli spying and lobbying, detail the FBI’s investigation into the theft of a confidential U.S. document on the Reagan administration’s position going into the 1984 U.S.-Israel Free Trade Area Negotiations.

Acting on a complaint that the document was circulating on Capitol Hill, the FBI discovered that an Israeli diplomat had acquired the paper and given it to officials at AIPAC, the lobbying group whose annual convention drew both Netanyahu and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton this week.

Although the document was classified only “confidential” (as opposed to Secret, Top Secret and higher), the FBI concluded that President Reagan’s “negotiating position concerning a trade agreement between the United States and the State of Israel is compromised because this report divulges those products and industries that have been identified by the International Trade Commission as being the most sensitive to imports from Israel.""  Washpost

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I suppose that this is news outside Washington and New York.  pl 

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/03/israeli_spies_our_constant_com.html

"Will the Dubai hit increase Israel's global isolation?" By Haaretz Editorial

 "These are the known facts: The Dubai police claim that 26 visitors entered and exited the emirate over the past year on false British, Irish, Australian, German and French passports. Some or all were involved in the assassination of senior Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who also entered Dubai under a false identity. The Dubai police chief has accused the Mossad of the January 19 hit. He has presented no proof, but more than half of the fake passports in Dubai bore the names of Israelis. 

The European Union and the countries whose passports were counterfeited have criticized the misuse of their identity documents without mentioning the names of those responsible. French President Nicolas Sarkozy termed the assassination utterly unjustified - "nothing more than a murder." Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in Mabhouh's killing or in falsifying the documents, but former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Dan Halutz said that such actions attributed to Israel "deter terror organizations." "

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Several networks here and abroad have called for my opinion on this matter.  I have declined to be interviewed, saving this for you.  The best was a foreign network in which the "booker" wanted to know if I would subscribe to the rumor being bruted about (or aboot for South Parkers) that the Israelis wanted to be caught so that they could seem more "bad-assed" (my vernacular).  I laughed and told her that this rumor was clever on the part of the Mossad.  In fact, they and the Israeli general staff intelligence are just not very good services.  AIPAC does its best to disguise that but in truth most of what the Israelis have, their friends gave them.

Dubai?  They screwed up.  Too many people, too clumsy, too arrogant in their assumption that the "ragheads" would never catch them.  The truth is that the Israelis think of all gentiles that way.  pl 

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1152509.html

"Artists versus Bureaucrats"

Download Artists Versus Bureaucrats...

More incompetence, this time the US Marines

"On the satellite photographs of Marja that Marines scrutinized before launching a massive assault against the Taliban a week ago, what they assumed was the municipal government center appeared to be a large, rectangular building, cater-cornered from the main police station.

Seizing that intersection became a key objective, one deemed essential to imposing authority and beginning reconstruction in this part of Helmand province once U.S. and Afghan troops have flushed out the insurgents.

But when Marine officers reached the area, they discovered that two-dimensional images can be deceiving. What they had thought was the flat roof of the municipal building turned out to be a concrete foundation, and the police station was a bombed-out schoolhouse." Rajiv Chandrasekaran

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I criticized the US Army for failures in competence in an earlier post  today.  Now it the turn of the US Marine Corps.

Long ago, before I drifted off into the world of strategic intelligence, I was a combat intelligence officer.   In that long ago and far away time there was such a thing as "oblique photography."  (seen above)  Satellites generally, but not always, deliver images taken from a point of view directly above.  Aircraft, manned and not, can be flown off to one side to deliver images (radar or optical) from a slanted point of view.  This process of "oblique" imaging started in WW1.  And then, there are always human eyeballs peering out of the aircraft.  That is also a possibility.  That was not done?  The 6th Marine Regiment arrived in Marja' believing that a foundation was actually a roof?   I will not dwell on the obvious fact that a scout or two (spy) was not sent into the town to report on the layout of the place and these "buildings."  After all, the brigade commander planned to make these structures the center for the renewed Afghan government in the area, the one that is to be presided over by a district head that Karzai does not want.

More incompetence.  pl

"Outside the Beltway" Radio - 17 February, 2010

I was on "Outside the Beltway" radio last night with James Joyner and Dave Schuler. This three sided conversation lasted an hour and covered a lot of ground.  If you want to hear this podcast, the link is below.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/otb/2010/02/17/politics-and-foreign-affairs

Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community

 

http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/2010_NIE.pdf

pl

A grade?

D+  on the details.  He does not understand the situation.

The establishment has gone into a defensive crouch.

John Brennan is a skilled bureaucratic survivor and politican of no great intellect.  I knew him when he was a second lieutenant equivalent in CIA and he was not impressive except as an a-- k----r.

I insist that this is a structural problem beyond the reach or indeed the comprehension of the senior bureaucrats (in and out of uniform).

We need people who can see and feel beyond themselves. 

Today I heard someone say for the first time that we need to make the Yemeni government's writ run throughout the country.  That is the crack of doom.  pl

What Obama ought to do- In my opinion

It is 1615.  The president has not yet spoken.  The "undiebomber" phenomenon is being hyped to death by those whose interest is thus served.  TV News, the neocons, etc.

The essential problem in this matter was not one of collecting information or indeed of analysing it.  The problem was that the structure for applying that knowledge in a timely way so as to block an identified "probable" is badly defective.  This is an ARCHITECTURE problem.

The various agencies are autonomous bodies under the presidency.  CIA, FBI, DHS, NSA - are all essentially independent of each other.  They are headed not just by the politically appointed heads but also by several layers of career senior executives and flag officers.

These people have reached their present positions by being obsessively competitive.  They fight everyone and everything within and without their groups for scraps of "turf," budget, promotion and function.  They are not eager to make each other look good.  They will always act like that if they are subject to a master who will not punish them for doing so.

Solution:  Put Joe Biden in charge of all these groups with control over money, operations and personnel matters (hiring and firing).  pl

Nozette's trial was supposed to start yesterday.

You haven't heard much about this lately?  pl

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime/Feds_-Accused-scientist-spy-breached-top-secret-policy-in-_02-8723021-80742877.html

A dearth of "tradecraft."

We should have a discussion here of the many principles of clandestine operations (espionage) that were violated or ignored at Khowst.  No fantasy please.  Here are a few.

1- Never trust a recruited foreign asset (spy).  What you are supposed to do is to persuade the asset that you trust him.  You are not supposed to actually trust him.  A certain talent for acting is desirable.  It is being said on television that the CIA at Khost were exposing themselves as they did in the hope of solidifying his belief in them.  This is both childish and naive.  It is not possible to truly know what is in a man's heart, specially on a given occasion.  What he is, must be judged by endless testing of the reliablility of his response to control and vetting of the information product of the operation.

2- Never let the asset direct what is going to happen in the operation.  This man called for a meeting.  The meeting should have happened when and where the case officer wanted and never the other way around.  What one strives for in these relationships is control over the asset.  The asset must never be allowed to think that he is running the show.  The media keep referring to this man as an "informant."  City police departments have "informants."  They give you information.  You give them money, end of story.  They are not under your control.  Agents like this man are supposed to be under the absolute control of the agency involved.  If they are not...

3- Never bring a recruited asset into any permanent operational facility, much less your base.  First of all you should not start trusting him.  Secondly, in running this asset you are striving to create a certain view of the universe in the asset's mind.  Who you are, individually and collectively, how powerful you are (or not), where the facility is located, how it is laid out, what your people look like.  These are all things that should not be available to the asset.  CIA apologists are now saying that they had to meet him at Khowst because there are no other places.  RUBBISH!  You do not allow circumstance to dictate what you will do.  This man could have been flown to another country for de-briefing.  If necessary, the army could have been asked to secure a hilltop for a few hours so that he could have been debriefed in tents.  there are many possibilities.

The facts seem to be that an excess of pro-active enthusiam and a hunger to be "in on the kill" caused this.

Our absence of real skill now seems to made us a menace to ourselves.  pl

Artists versus Bureaucrats - WP Lang

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