"Then, in October 2010, the CIA released results of the agency’s internal investigation into the Khost attack, fueling another round of stories that Matthews was partially responsible. Matthews and her team, the report concluded, failed to follow the agency’s procedures for vetting informants. One of Matthews’s severest critics was her uncle, Dave Matthews, a retired CIA official who had helped inspire his niece to join the agency." Washpost
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Evidently this woman was not qualified by training to deal with clandestine espionage operations in the field. She was also not qualified by experience. She was an analyst. That means that she was a kind of research scholar. She was evidently selected for this extremely dangerous post in the field because she was a woman and because she wanted the job for the purpose of advancing her career in CIA. The career had shown signs of slowing up in its progress toward "nirvana" on the top floor at Langley. Four year tours of duty in London as a liaison are not career builders, however pleasant they may be. There are analysts who are also good field HUMINT people, but not many.
She was a "church lady," whose husband seems to say that he and she believed that the US Army and God would protect her from the heathen. The Army could prevent Taliban or AQ capture of the outpost within which her "base" (a term of art) was sheltered but it could not keep her from trusting this recruited asset so much that she lined her staff up to welcome him as a "colleague." As for God, he appears to have been playing on a different team that day.
Some of the best and most tough minded field operatives I have known were women. I did my best to foster their careers. They contrasted starkly with the kind of staff "princesses" who generally get ahead fast in such organizations.
CIA sent a person who seems to have been ill suited by temperament, talent or experience for this important job. Men and women died for that error. One of them is reported to have counseled her to be less trusting.
What sort of persons are needed for this kind of work?
"Hard hearted empaths" pl
Dan Gackle,
PL nailed it. A wise HHE pretty much sums up what's taught as small unit leadership in the Army. It also sums up the Hagakure. The key is to not just study it, but live it... even when it sucks to do so.
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 01 February 2012 at 08:43 PM
Back when the Army was still doing most of the non-embassy based DOD HUMINT, Senior case officers and operations officers were on the street 5 to 10 years or more. These were the people who took the newbies coming out of the Farm under their wings to continue their training. The old timers retired or moved on and this truly effective mentoring system dissapeared with them. There just weren't enough old timers left in the field to keep it going. Over the last 10 years of HUMINT in Iraq and Afghanistan, tradecraft skills really went to hell for the most part. There were exceptions. Too bad we didn't have the experience of HUMINT in Viet Nam to fall back on. We needed PL's generation more than ever.
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 01 February 2012 at 09:09 PM