Perle refers to the Clinton Administration; the LA Times prints instead "Dozens of CIA informants inside Iran were executed or imprisoned in the late 1980s or early 1990s after their secret communications with the agency were uncovered..."
Posted on 02/11/2005 10:57:51 PM PST by F14 Pilot
WASHINGTON — Dozens of CIA informants inside Iran were executed or imprisoned in the late 1980s or early 1990s after their secret communications with the agency were uncovered by the government, according to former CIA officials who discussed the episode after aspects of it were disclosed during a recent congressional hearing.
As many as 50 Iranian citizens on the CIA's payroll were "rolled up" in the failed operation, according to the former officials, who described the events as a major setback in spying on a regime that remains one of the most difficult targets for U.S. intelligence.
The disclosures underscore the stakes confronting the CIA and its informants at a time when the United States is under pressure to produce better intelligence on Iran and especially its nuclear activities. The Bush administration has indicated that preventing Iran from obtaining an atomic weapon will be a priority of the president's second term.
Like Iraq before the U.S. invasion in 2003, Iran is regarded as a "denied" territory by U.S. intelligence, meaning the CIA has no official station inside the country and is largely dependent on recruiting sources outside the Islamic Republic's borders.
Details of the setback were first outlined by former Pentagon advisor Richard N. Perle on Feb. 2 in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. During a hearing on security threats, Perle was critical of U.S. intelligence capabilities and cited the crackdown on American sources in Iran as an example of the failures that have beset U.S. espionage in the Middle East.
Perle referred to the "terrible setback that we suffered in Iran a few years ago when in a display of unbelievable, careless management we put pressure on agents operating in Iran to report with greater frequency and didn't provide improved communications."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
ping
Perle refers to the Clinton Administration; the LA Times prints instead "Dozens of CIA informants inside Iran were executed or imprisoned in the late 1980s or early 1990s after their secret communications with the agency were uncovered..."
Aldrich Ames?
Typical of the LA Slimes to lie about when this was done and not to mention the Clintoon/Carter moles in the CIA.
Good post, Southack.
Thanks for the ping.
Perle declined to name the individual, but other sources said it was Stephen Richter, who was appointed head of the agency's near east division in 1994. He has since retired and could not be reached for comment.
September 21, 1999
COMPANY OF SPIES: A new DO leadership team has come together under Pavitt, 53, a former operations officer and National Security Council official, and his new deputy, Associate Deputy Director for Operations Hugh Turner, 56, a legendary DO operator who won the Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart as a Green Beret in Vietnam.
Directly below Turner in the clandestine service's chain of command are Barry G. Royden, 61, associate deputy director in charge of counterintelligence, and John F. Nelson, 47, associate deputy director for resources, plans and policy.
Royden assumed the CIA's top counterintelligence post after serving as chief of the Latin America Division. Nelson filled a newly created associate deputy director's post after serving as CIA Director George J. Tenet's chief of staff, chief financial officer at the National Reconnaissance Office and a budget analyst on the staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Replacing Turner as director of the technology management group within the directorate is Stephen W. Richter, 57, former chief of the Near East Division.
While Pavitt, Turner, Nelson and Royden have all spent their careers mostly in the shadows, the preferred state for directorate officials, Richter last year earned the wrath of Richard Perle, an assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration, who publicly demanded Richter's ouster for allegedly botching a series of covert actions aimed at toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"Stephen Richter has an unbroken record of failure," Perle said in a speech last October at the American Enterprise Institute. "The head of the Near East division at the CIA . . . should be removed on grounds of incompetence and a lack of the fundamental qualifications to hold that position."
A CIA official responded that, far from removing Richter, the agency awarded him its Distinguished Intelligence Medal just last week. In five years running the Near East Division, the official said, Richter sharpened "its focus on key issues, was a forceful advocate for more resources, and put unprecedented emphasis on language training."
Clinton's CIA: rewarding failure.
I believe this is a muffled reference to the stupidity of Senator Leahy of Vermont, who was kicked off the Intelligence Committee for getting a bunch of our agents killed by his ill-advised release of information to the New York Times- - - who promptly printed it. Is my memory failing me?
Clintoon's CIA is exposed in your reply:
""Stephen Richter has an unbroken record of failure," Perle said in a speech last October at the American Enterprise Institute. "The head of the Near East division at the CIA . . . should be removed on grounds of incompetence and a lack of the fundamental qualifications to hold that position."
"A CIA official responded that, far from removing Richter, the agency awarded him its Distinguished Intelligence Medal just last week. In five years running the Near East Division, the official said, Richter sharpened "its focus on key issues, was a forceful advocate for more resources, and put unprecedented emphasis on language training."
"Clinton's CIA: rewarding failure."
I wonder if Seymour Hersh considered this when he supposedly outed our intel efforts currently taking place in Iran?
"Is my memory failing me?"
Oh...I don't think so. ;o)
Looks as though the Iran Operation was broken way long before Clinton was elected.
Which proves one more time .. the democrats/liberals cannot be trusted with national security. They don't know how to play the spy game so they always muck it up.
Perle is probably referring to Richter's bungling of our Iran assets after Richter went into a panic when India conducted three surprise nuclear tests at its Pokhran nuclear test-site on 5/11/98. Those tests included a fission-device, a low-yield device, and a thermonuclear device.
Pakistan followed with a couple of low yield tests of their own...but Richter's near-East division missed it all...the U.S. was caught by surprise by the tests.
Our idiotic CIA then orders our field agents in Iran to send *everything* that they know (oh my goodness, wouldn't want to get surprised by Iran next, would they)...so much data traffic floods the airwaves that our Intel cell there got caught; no more Intel from Iran.
And the LA Times shows absolute gall by blaiming this 1998 event on the Republican Presidents of 1984 and 1988 instead of on the Administration that had been in power for 6 years by that time.
It only *appears* that way to someone who believes the LA Times rather than post #14 on this thread.
Carter's DCI Turner fired 820 case officers October 31, 1977, a blow from which the agency has never recovered.
Robert Baer, See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terror, Crown, 2002.
If CIA Operatives were killed in Iran in the late 1980's it indicates a serious and long term promblem with the CIA not being able to protect their agents.
The CIA *has* lots of terminal, almost-certainly fatal problems, but the only "1980's" figures are editorial comments from the LA Times, not from their source (Perle).
Perle is referring to 1998; the LA Times seems to find that date uncomfortable. They cite "late 1980's or early 1990's."
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