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Posted on 01/09/2010 3:57:14 PM PST by KeyLargo
* The Wall Street Journal
* OPINION * JANUARY 7, 2010, 11:12 P.M. ET
The Meaning of al Qaeda's Double Agent The jihadists are showing impressive counterintelligence ability that the CIA seems to have underestimated.
By REUEL MARC GERECHT
The recent death in Afghanistan of seven American counterterrorist officers, one Jordanian intelligence operative, and one exploding al Qaeda double agent ought to give us cause to reflect on the real capabilities of the Central Intelligence Agency and al Qaeda.
The report card isn't good. America's systemic intelligence problems were partially on display in the bombing at the CIA's Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province. Worse, al Qaeda showed skill that had been lacking in many of its operations. In response, President Barack Obama will likely be obliged to adopt counterterrorist methods that could make his administration as tough as his predecessor's.
Professionally, one has to admire the skill of suicide bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi's handlers. This operation could well have been months—if not longer—in the making, and neither the Jordanian intelligence service (GID), which supplied the double agent to the CIA, nor Langley apparently had any serious suspicion that al-Balawi still had the soul and will of a jihadist.
That is an impressive feat. The Hashemite monarchy imprisons lots of Islamic militants, and the GID has the responsibility to interrogate them. The dead Jordanian official, Sharif Ali bin Zeid, reportedly a member of the royal family, may not have been a down-and-dirty case officer with considerable hands-on contact with militants, but al-Balawi surely passed through some kind of intensive screening process with the GID. Yet the GID and the CIA got played, and al Qaeda has revealed that it is capable of running sophisticated clandestine operations with sustained deception. [gerecht] Martin Kozlowski
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
"Language issues aside, the now-deceased chief of Base Chapman should have kept most of her personnel away from al-Balawi, and should never have allowed seven officers to get that close to him at one time. Traditional operational compartmentation clearly broke down."
If anything, it shows we do not have any real muslim allies in the WOT.
And that includes Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. himself!
For your list.
“The death of so many officers, and the failure to identify a double agent, said Bob Baer, is likely to make the CIA gun-shy for quite some time. “They are going to look at every walk-in, as we call it, as a potential suicide bomber. Everybody is going to be vetted 10, 20 times.”
“It’s going to be impossible to get outside the wire,” said Baer. “It has been a huge setback for intelligence collection in Afghanistan.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/al-balawi-double-agent-turned-suicide-bomber/story?id=9486017&page=3
Where’s the cynicism he values when it comes to Obama ? Yes, he does pin Brennan for what he looked like on Fox News Sunday last week (the timing of “Brennan figured out the inauguration plot was a poison pen plot between rival groups of Somalis” revelation this week must be an acknowledgement he looked like a big dope on TV, but contemptible itself), but the laudatory last two paragraphs of what Obama’s going to do are unconvincing.
The biggest muzzie commie subversive operation is in progress at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
They were working with a double agent...if you can flip once, it only makes sense not to trust him. I have to admit, I haven’t been following this as close as I would like, but how the hell did he get a bomb inside the compound, let alone inside the FOB without it being found.
>They were working with a double agent...if you can flip once, it only makes sense not to trust him. I have to admit, I haven’t been following this as close as I would like, but how the hell did he get a bomb inside the compound, let alone inside the FOB without it being found.<
People flip all the time, few become double or triple agents.
Once you have them, you pretty well have them, unless they are a set up from the very beginning.
As I understand it, he set off the device just before he was to be searched.
...If Attorney General Eric Holder is so unwise as to bring any charges against a CIA officer for the rough interrogation of an al Qaeda detainee during the Bush administration, the president will likely find himself deluged with damaging CIA-authored leaks. Mr. Obama would be a fool to confront the CIA on two fronts.
Well, I have heard tell that fools rush in where angels fear to tread...
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