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 ...
And CIA told president Carter that Iran is not any where near an ISLAMIC revolution.
When?!
1977
Why do you keep repeating nonsense about us losing CIA agents in Iran in the 1980's?
Who did we lose in the 1980's there?
The big loss of our Iranian agents was in 1998.
You seem unclear on that point.
Did we lose any in the 1980's?
In Iran?!
yes.
We probably lost a couple of assets there in 1980 and 1981...but that had nothing to do with this article for this thread.
When?!
1977 Carter's Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was Stansfield Turner.
Bush has replaced Tenet with Porter Goss.
Goss has caused much loud squawking in the chicken coop.
I say YES!
When the coup of the Iranian Air Force failed in July 1980, the regime executed and killed as many as they could!
The Shah's last prime minister and CIA was behind the coup to overthrow the Mullahs but it failed and resulted in death of 9000 Iranian servicemen loyal to the Shah and the USA.
/al-Qaeda operations?
This purge didn't happen to start about the time Maddy Albright blabbed about them losing the (unencrypted, not even password protected) laptops over there in Eastern Europe or the Balkans, did it?
We recall that Goss' late COS John Millis called Deutch the "worst DCI for counterintelligence" and called Clinton the "worst president for counterintelligence."
Thereafter Millis sucked a shotgun in a bathtub at the Breezeway Motel.
Clinton and CIA amounted to a vast roaring hellhole.
Deutch compromised 17K files on his unsecure computer logged onto Russian sites, then ran to Citibank with his DO Nora Slatkin covering his ass.
And offered her a job there as reward.
Rope, gallows; rinse, repeat.
Does the Church Committee, Leaky Leahy and Roberts Torricelli ring a bell?
Holy carp! What is going on? That sounds like an assasination.
Perhaps that was the Extinguished Intelligence Medal.
What year was Millis found dead?
Or the RIM award:
Rats Intelligence Medal
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