Doesn't speak too well about our spy-in-the-sky capabilities to spot movements from where 'we knew they were located'.
We don't have an infinite number of spy satalites. Most if not all of them are not in geosynchronous orbit. They can't watch everywhere, all the time. The movement of the satalites relative to the earth is not something we can hide. Foreign countries and terrorists know when the satalites can't see them.
We also use planes and UAVs to suppliment our satalites, but those have a possibility of being detected and shot down.
Spy satalites and UAVs are not supsitutes to human intelligence on the ground, which we lacked.