The CIA is well known for having spies, double agents and in some cases triple agents. They are known for having ‘assets’ in all countries deemed to be adversarial to the West. Some assets were of great success while others betrayed the CIA and the West.
When came to Iraq, there were no assets and no chance of creating any with proven worth. After the Clinton administration, the CIA was operating at a profound handicap and today under Barack Obama, the CIA continues to be handicapped. Reliance on technology is no replacement for human intelligence.
Relying on walk-ins or other allied assistance in the world of espionage is not a viable objective, often it falls to scant military personnel or contractors to fill the gaps.
A senior Central Intelligence Agency official, who led the agency as its acting director before retiring in 2013, has said that not having sources in the Iraqi government’s upper echelons led to the intelligence failure of 2003. Michael Morell retired as deputy director of the CIA, after having served twice as its acting director, in 2011 and from 2012 to 2013. A Georgetown University graduate, Morell joined the agency in 1980 and rose through the ranks to lead the Asia, Pacific and Latin America divisions. In May 2015, Morell published his book, The Great War of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight against Terrorism from al Qa’ida to ISIS, which he has been promoting while working as a consultant in the private sector.
Morell spoke at the Aspen Institute earlier this month, and once again offered a public apology to former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell for the CIA’s erroneous estimates on Iraq. He was referring to the Agency’s claims prior to the 2003 US invasion that Iraq maintained an active weapons-of-mass-destruction (WMD) program. The claims formed the basis of Powell’s February 2003 speech during a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, in which he claimed that the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had “biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce […] many more.” There was no question, said Morell, that Powell’s reputation “was tarnished” as a result of the speech, and that a public apology was in order. The same apology, said Morell, applied “to every single American.”
The retired intelligence official went on to say that the main cause of the CIA’s erroneous assessment of Iraq’s WMD program was that the Agency had failed to penetrate the highest echelons of the Hussein regime. “We were not able to come up with the right answer [because] we didn’t do our fundamental job of penetrating [Hussein’s] inner circles with a human asset,” said Morell. As a result, there was “no information to give to the [CIA] analyst to say ‘here’s what this guy is up to’,” he added. The author of The Great War of Our Time, went on to suggest that the CIA’s failure to penetrate the inner circle of the Iraqi government prior to 2003 was “quite frankly a national security failure.”
There is a feeble clandestine operation in Syria, with few results. We then must question the espionage efforts in Afghanistan with the Taliban, Daesh and al Qaida. The Taliban and the West once again have a common enemy in country in Islamic State. So are we forced to support the Taliban where they beheaded a handful of Islamic State fighters?
Who is the United States relying on when it comes to Iran? It is reported that Iran has shipped uranium out of country to Russia, but what uranium exactly? The next fight between the White House and Congress on Iran comes in January when Obama returns from his holiday vacation in Hawaii.
Obama removed spies from China in 2010, but why? The United States maintained a clandestine operation in Russia until under Barack Obama we didn’t and a few years ago swapped assets.
The question now, is what is the condition of the CIA’s espionage efforts across the globe today? How many countries need U.S. supported human intelligence and covert operations? The list is long.
