Posted on 01/09/2010 7:53:18 AM PST by tobyhill
The Jordanian doctor arrived in a red station wagon that came directly from Pakistan and sped through checkpoints at a CIA base in Afghanistan before stopping abruptly at an improvised interrogation center. Outside stood one of the CIA's top experts on al-Qaeda, ready to greet the doctor and hear him describe a way to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri, the organization's number two and a man long at the top of U.S. target lists.
The Jordanian exited the car with one hand in his pocket, according to the accounts of several U.S. officials briefed on the incident. An American security guard approached him to conduct a pat-down search and asked him to remove his hand. Instead, the Jordanian triggered a switch.
A sharp "CLMMMP" coincided with a brief flash and a small puff of smoke as thousands of steel pellets shredded glass, metal, cement and flesh in every direction.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
We can go back to the Clinton administration for that. Also, this PC BS that permeated our thought processes over the past couple decades. We're fighting a war, and we've lost the knowledge and experience in how wars are fought.
If a CYA story it’s lame. A suicide bomber and purported informant baited the agency into letting an unscrutinized person into its main area office. If I had my druthers all such people would be first greeted and examined by a robot at a site miles away.
It’s all the CIA has. “We were about to”. Sounds like my kid after he gets caught.
Much like the airport bombers in England and Scotland!
Then they need to be checked by bomb sniffing dogs before they get a to the pat down.
If a bomber gets to the pat down that is too late for someone.
“An intelligence official who agreed to speak on background about Balawi’s suicide bombing called it “an important base, and [being] chief there is an important assignment. You don't get that one unless you know your stuff — and the CIA had a world-class expert on al-Qaeda and counter-terrorism operations running the place.”
“The official was referring to a nearly 20-year agency veteran killed in the attack, a 45-year-old woman with three children. At the CIA’s request, the Post has agreed not to use her name in this article.”
“A former reports officer in the agency's directorate of intelligence, she started tracking al-Qaeda before the Sept. 2001 attacks, spent nearly 10 years in the agency's counter-terrorism center and had several brief tours in Afghanistan before landing in Khost six months ago.”
“People in the field are more engaged. She wanted to see that, to see the problems up close, and be on the cutting edge,” said a former senior intelligence officer with whom she discussed the assignment.”
“The others who died included Jeremy Wise, one of the security guards, a 35-year old former Navy SEAL who was remembered at a Virginia Beach memorial service last Thursday as a good-humored father to his young son; Dane Clark Paresi, a 46-year old former Special Forces soldier who saw duty in Iraq and elsewhere in southwest Asia and was the second CIA-contracted security guard; a 30-year-old CIA analyst and Rockford, Ill., native named Elizabeth Hanson, whose academic background was in Russian literature; and CIA officer Scott Roberson, a 39-year-old former Atlanta police detective.”
Never trust Muslims. Verify and be wary. They are all susceptible to viral, Islamic, brain rot.
Vigilance is so inconvenient these days, especially when being so casts you as intolerant and politically out of step. Of course, the commander in chief sets the tone for how we pursue this war... must show them we mean them no harm.
Even if true, it doesn’t change a thing. They were stupid. They forgot their basic tradecraft.
You don’t let someone come up to you and then search them. You search them first.
Yes, you have to risk the life of the searcher, but that denies them a high priority, high publicity target.
I suspect that the problem is, as another recent article pointed out, that CIA agents rotate from one assignment to another if they want to get ahead. It’s becoming just another bureaucracy, where you keep your nose clean, suck up to the boss, and never get any real field assignments that go on long enough to gain real experience.
I feel sorry for the guys who risked their lives in Afghanistan and got killed. It’s the system that’s broke.
He asked him to remove his hand from his pocket?? And they know this how????since the guy was obviously killed.
Exactly. The guard didn’t write a report before the guy blew up.
Another reality is we have HVTs alive today because we have been too much by the book, to often and risk adverse.
We lost some valuable warriors / assets here. God Bless them. Another reality of war.
Sorry....I believe there was a mole among the CIA agents.
Cows escape moments before barn door is closed...
Which is why one of the first principles of an EFFICTIVE Physical Security system is conducting searchs AT YOUR PERIMETER!!!!!!
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