Posted on 11/12/2005 12:36:13 PM PST by SmithL
Jordan's General Intelligence Directorate (GID) has surpassed Israel's Mossad as America's most effective allied counter-terrorism agency in the Middle East, the LA Times reported over the weekend.
According to unnamed former CIA officials, the United States provides secret financial assistance to subsidize the GID's budget and the two intelligence agencies conduct sophisticated joint operations and routinely share information.
The GID has emerged as a hub for "extraordinary renditions," the controversial, covert transfer of suspected extremists from US custody to foreign intelligence agencies, the report said.
"Jordan is at the top of our list of foreign partners," Michael Scheuer, who resigned from the CIA last year, ending a 22-year career that included four years heading a unit tracking al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, was quoted as saying.
"We have similar agendas, and they are willing to help any way they can."
Since the September 11 attacks, GID's cooperation with the CIA has grown even closer. GID has aggressively hunted Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born head of the extremist al-Qaida in Iraq, and suspected planner of Wednesday's bombings in Amman.
Last year, Jordanian agents reportedly foiled truck bomb attacks on the US embassy and government targets in Amman.
Frank Anderson, a former CIA Middle East division chief, characterized GID personnel as highly capable interrogators.
"They're going to get more information [from a terrorism suspect] because they're going to know his language, his culture, his associates - and more about the network he belongs to," Anderson told the LA Times.
Although the Mossad is commonly considered the CIA's closest ally in the region, Scheuer and others interviewed said that the GID is as capable and professional as the Mossad - and as an Arab nation, Jordan is more effective combating predominantly Arab militant organizations.
"The GID has a wider reach [in the Middle East] than the Mossad," Scheuer said.
Jordan receives about $450 million worth of economic and military aid from the US annually. Scheuer said the US continues to underwrite the GID's budget, but no figure was given.
"It's not a huge sum of money to us, but it's a significant amount of money for [the GID] and allows them to buy a lot of equipment, mostly technical stuff, that they could otherwise not afford," Scheuer said.
Another former CIA senior Middle East expert said Jordan's king often had a closer relationship with the local CIA station chief than with the American ambassador to Jordan.
Jordan's intelligence partnership with the US is so close, in fact, that the CIA has had technical personnel "virtually embedded" at GID headquarters, said a former CIA official in the Middle East. One former CIA official said he was allowed to roam the halls of the GID unescorted.
Following Wednesday's attacks on three hotels in Amman, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said her country "has had no closer ally than Jordan in the war on terror, and Jordan will find no better friend than the United States at this difficult hour."
Allegations of reported torture methods by Jordanian security agents have not hampered the CIA's collaboration with the GID.
According to a State Department report released this year, Jordanian security agents "sometimes abuse detainees physically and verbally during detention and interrogation, and allegedly also use torture."
It said Jordan's reported torment methods include sleep deprivation, beatings on the soles of the feet, prolonged suspension with ropes in contorted positions and extended solitary confinement.
The relations are so critical that Washington has given Amman "a free pass on human rights because it has been so useful strategically," said Marc Lynch, a professor at Williams College in Massachusetts and an expert on US-Jordanian relations.
Scheuer is the same guy that told Chris Matthews that Saddam was our greatest ally against Al Qaeda. Also, that our invasion of Iraq was the "death warrant" for the Levant.
Did you ever wonder why these supposed experts are former CIA?
I'm wondering if this is Scheuer's way of justifying blowing up a wedding party.
"I'm not convinced that everyone in the CIA is America's ally"
Your suspicions are correct in my opinion, and I'll discuss them on any thread. As the case in point, doesn't this very article seem odd? Assuming it's accurate, why give this information to the media?
Golitsyn wrote extensively, and effectively in my opinion on the subjectof the failings of the CIA and other Western intelligence organizations.
I have the impression that the new CIA head, Goss, may be an extremely good guy who's been brought in to do some badly needed "cleanup" among the personnel.
Wonder if this leak will cost lives? Way to go LA Times.
Only a major nut-job would publicly declair Jordan to be a better ally of the U.S. than the Mossad. It's like plastering the King's photo all over the Middle-East with a shoot to kill order.
The person who did this and the media that reported it are not friends of the west, and certainly not Jordan's king.
The LA Times is a passive conduit for an ex-CIAer who wants to damage both the US and Israel. Isn't that special?
We dont have a CIA we have a frickin Sieve. What secrets politicians dont give to the press the intelligence agency itself does. IMO the CIA outed Plame to hurt the Bush administration, but I cant feel sorry for the administration because Bush should have taken these people in hand 5 years ago. What ever happened to the CIA retiring people and swearing them to secrecy when they left the agency? Its getting so we need to start shooting ex-agents to keep them quiet. Other countries have no need to spy on us all they have to do is contact the media or an ex agent or maybe a Senator.
And no doubt also because they are more highly skilled at employing tools of the trade such as pliers, bolt cutters, and blow torches...
The two former CIA agents who disclosed this information should be prosecuted for treason.
I'm convinced this "CIA" jerk was as sloppy with his work, as he appears to be with his big mouth...
There is NO possible benefit to our efforts - by having this a$$hole run off at the mouth...
The CIA is in need of some SERIOUS house cleaning.
Semper Fi
AND WHO IS MARC LYNCH?
Marc Lynch is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Williams College and the author of "State Interests and Public Spheres: The International Politics of Jordan's Identity."
Topics:
U.S. Policy and Politics
Middle East
Losing Hearts and Minds
By Marc Lynch
foreignaffairs.org, April 28, 2004
Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East
Leon Hadar. : Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Iraq: Learning the Lessons of Vietnam
By Melvin R. Laird
Foreign Affairs, November/December 2005
The Iraq Syndrome
By John Mueller
Foreign Affairs, November/December 2005
Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?
By F. Gregory Gause III
Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005
How to Win in Iraq
By Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr.
Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005
RIGHT GOAL, WRONG APPROACH
For the hawks in the Bush administration, one of the keys to understanding the Middle East is Osama bin Laden's observation that people flock to the "strong horse." Bush officials think U.S. problems in the region stem in part from "weak" responses offered by previous administrations to terrorist attacks in the 1980s and 1990s, and they came into office determined to reestablish respect for U.S. power abroad. After nearly two years of aggressive military actions, however, the United States' regional standing has never been lower. As the recent Pew Global Attitudes survey put it, "the bottom has fallen out of Arab and Muslim support for the United States."
The failure to find dramatic evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction has spurred widespread debate in the Middle East about the real purpose of the recent war, which most Arab commentators now see as a bid by the United States to consolidate its regional and global hegemony. U.S. threats against Iran and Syria play into this fear, increasing a general determination to resist. And the chaos that followed the fall of Baghdad, the escalating Iraqi anger at what is always described as an American occupation, and the seemingly ambivalent U.S. attitude toward Iraqi democracy have reinforced deep preexisting skepticism about Washington's intentions.
Because of the speed with which intense anti-Americanism has recently emerged across all social groups in the region -- including educated, Westernized Arab liberals -- the problem cannot be attributed to enduring cultural differences, nor to long-standing U.S. policies such as support for Israel or local authoritarian leaders. Arabs themselves clearly and nearly unanimously blame specific Bush administration moves, such as the invasion of Iraq and what they see as a desultory and one-sided approach to Israeli-Palestinian relations. But perhaps even more important than the substance of the administration's policies is the crude, tone-deaf style in which those policies have been pursued. The first step toward improving the United States' image, therefore, must be figuring out how to address Arabs and Muslims effectively.
Ironically, for this administration above all others, taking Arab public opinion seriously cannot be considered either a luxury or a concession to "Arabists" lurking in the bureaucracy. It is instead crucial to the success of the administration's own strategy, which links U.S. security to a democratic and liberal transformation of the region. The Bush team's practice, however, has worked against its stated goals, largely because it has been based on misguided assumptions about the Arab world.
One such assumption is that Arabs respect power and scorn attempts at reason as signs of weakness -- and so the way to impress them is to cow them into submission. Another assumption is that Arab public opinion does not really matter, because authoritarian states can either control or ignore any discontent. Still another is that anger at the United States can and should be disregarded because it is intrinsic to Islamic or Arab culture, represents the envy of the successful by the weak and failed, or is simply cooked up ...
End of preview: first 500 of 4,847 words total.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030901faessay82506/marc-lynch/taking-arabs-seriously.html
I think Jordan is an ally in extracting intel in ways we don't publicly wish to acknowledge.
A good thing.
Some nations intel agencies extract information using methods we can't? Oh, the horror!
This word "abuse" means wrong use. Wrong in whose opinion? You are talking about people who are planning killings and captures and beheadings and such, information that must be obtained in order to prevent those killings and captures and beheadings. How is rough treatment of these fellows "wrong use?" And "verbal abuse?" What is that? Is it morally wrong to speak in unkind tones to one whose only use for you is your heinous murder?
What is more important in the larger scheme of things or in the little details, the comfort and self esteem of a potential or actual mass murderer or the lives of many others?
"According to unnamed former CIA officials, the United States provides secret financial assistance to subsidize the GID's budget and the two intelligence agencies conduct sophisticated joint operations and routinely share information."
AKA traitor, if he exists at all.
(Maybe one of Ray McGovern or Larry Johnson's pals.)
BTW, Michael Scheuer is so eager to score with his "book" and his speaking fees, he is willing to lie his head off.
He now claims that "in the war against al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein was one of our best allies."
And yet he whistled an entirely different tune back in the day when Fitzgerald (yes, Father Fitzmas) was indicting Bin Laden.
Check out Powerline's article on this lying, traitorous creep:
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012223.php
Well, that would seem to explain why we never found him.
(I myself am of the "He's dead, Jim" school, but never mind.)
We ought to go back to the good old days of the "Bureau of Public Roads" and make all disclosures an act of treason.
I don't understand your reference. When did Scheuer blow up a wedding party?
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