Posted on 09/13/2001 3:09:04 PM PDT by Liz
A lot of people are blaming the CIA for failing to penetrate whatever terrorist group coordinated Tuesday's attacks. But how can the CIA penetrate terrorist groups when its agents are prohibited from employing terrorists as sources?
That may sound absurd, but it's the current CIA policy. It was implemented in 1996 by the Clinton administration thanks to the urgings of our own Bob Torricelli, then a representative and now a senator. The so-called "Torricelli Principle" was implemented by John Deutch, then the CIA director, after Torricelli got involved with a conspiracy theory regarding the CIA's activities in Guatemala.
The conspiracy theory concerned the CIA's supposed illegal funding of the Guatemalan army in its fight against guerrilla groups. As it turned out, the CIA wasn't funding the Guatemalans. It was simply paying a Guatemalan officer for information on drug smuggling. But the conspiracy buffs managed to convince Torricelli to buy their theory about the back-channel funding and the informant's role in killing an American citizen.
Torricelli released the colonel's name, though it was highly classified, and held a press conference at which he said the CIA "continued financial payments to him and did nothing to bring him to justice, although they knew he killed an American."
In fact, he hadn't killed an American. The killers had already been caught and sentenced long before Torricelli got involved. And there was no illegal effort to fund the Guatemalan army, as a later report by a congressional panel showed.
But that didn't stop the Clinton people from implementing a rule banning CIA agents from employing any sources who may have done anything illegal. This is like telling FBI agents they must infiltrate the Mafia without talking to any mafiosos.
The restriction had a negative effect on CIA morale and on spy operations, according to James Woolsey, the CIA director who preceded Deutch. Just last week Woolsey blasted the Torricelli Principle before a Senate panel on bio-terrorism.
"These rules make absolutely no sense with respect to terrorist groups because the only people who are in terrorist groups are people who want to be terrorists," Woolsey testified. "That means they have a background in violence and human rights violations.
"If you make it difficult for a CIA case officer in, say, Beirut, to recruit spies with this sort of background, he'll be able to do a dandy job for you, telling you what's going on inside, for example, the churches and the chambers of commerce of Beirut, but we don't really care what's going on there. He'll have no idea, however, what's going on inside Hezbollah."
Woolsey has also noted that no other country restricts its intelligence services to what has been lampooned as "politically correct spying."
Gary Richter, a physicist who works on anti-terrorism strategies for Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, Calif., notes that in many cases virtually every member of a terrorist group will be guilty of some sort of illicit activity that would preclude him from being recruited as a CIA source.
"Members of these organizations are by their very nature unsavory characters," Richter told me. "We have known for some time there was a risk of this, but now that the shock has hit us, we may be willing to put up with more unsavory types."
Richter said most CIA agents are patriotic people who have taken low-paying jobs. Many agents feel that the principle could get them fined or jailed for pursuing terrorists too zealously.
"Look at it from the point of view of the people who are involved in these types of operations," he said. "It has a chilling effect on your work if you feel you are going to be prosecuted for doing your job. It's hard to describe from an insider's perspective just how chilling an effect it can have on you. What if the source is someone who was involved in something you didn't know about? Should you have known of it?"
Richter noted that U.S. intelligence has headed off many terrorist attacks -- "more than you're aware of" -- but that the Bush administration needs to get rid of the Torricelli Principle if it intends to get serious about terrorism. That's likely to happen.
The National Commission on Terrorism last year proposed scrapping the Torricelli principle. The rule had its basis in a left-wing conspiracy theory picked up by an ambitious congressman. Conspiracy theories may be fun, but some conspiracies are real.
Yes I do. Our SOBs stopped the Russian's SOBs, with the exception of Argentina. The CIA had nothing to do with that mess. It was all home grown in the aftermath of the great leftist icon Perone and his whore wife.
He tossed out a puppet of Fidel and the KGB and ran Chile for about 20 years and then voluntarily turned power over to elected officials. No coups, no revolutions, no blood baths. In that 20 years, Chile and all of its citizens not only prospered economically, but advanced socially and politically to became the strongest Democracy in all of Latin America. Now tell us about freedom-loving Cuba and that great proponent of Democracy that has run that island for 40 years with secret police, slave labor, beatings, torture and concentration camps.
I have lots of clues pal. Would you like to buy a couple? Your Marxist, liberation theology crap just don’t cut it anymore. As they say, facts are stubborn things.
God bless the CIA.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic!)
In which country. Cuba? Nicaragua while the Ortegas were reeducating the Indians? How about Peru and the nice folks from Shining Path? Or Columbia with the narco-Marxists? Or Venezuela and its assassins? There's lots of Mothers of the Disappeared.
not all liberals are Marxists
True. But they are all fools and relativists who willing damn the US for protecting our vital interests while ignoring or excusing evil by those who would destroy us. I am sick of it. I’m tired of the Bianca Jajers and Ed Asners and the other touchy-feely apologists and enablers of evil. This week, I’m especially tired of them. .
Tres bien. Liberte, egalite, fraternite.......alors, n'est ce pas le guilliotine......
Nous sommes du soleil
Les visages de les enfants
La main de Dieu.
We are of the sun
The faces of the children
God's hand in us all.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic!)
Notre pere qui etres aux cieu, que votre nom soit sanctifier,
que votre reigne arrive, que votre volunte soit faite, sur la terre comme au ciel.
Did you see this Article from Le Monde?
I was going to translate it this weekend but the Babelfish beat me to it. Pretty good for Le Monde.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic!)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.