I am probably the least qualified to claim to understand the exciting world of Intelligence. Having stated that I must proceed to say that the suicide attack that took place in Khost, Afghanistan on 12/30/2009 should not pass as a regular attack or as business as usual.
The told story according to The Washington Post, The New York Times and other news outlets is that a Jordanian intelligence officer that happened to be a cousin of the King of Jordan has recruited a well known and well documented extremist to work for the intelligence to hunt Al-Qaeda terrorist organization and it's number two leader; the Egyptian doctor, Ayman al-Zawaheri.
The previous paragraph was the told story. The analysis to that story brings tons of questions and I will start from the last to the first. The last question is who drove that Jordanian doctor, same profession as Al-Zawaheri, terrorists and doctors, to the CIA base; his handler, the Jordanian officer was not in the car with him but waiting outside the office inside the base with other CIA operatives.
The suicide bomber- the Jordanian doctor- had his hand, right one, in his pocket when he came off the car, when asked to pull his hand out to search or maybe to shake, he instead chose to pull a trigger that killed many CIA operatives, the Jordanian handler, and himself.
The big questions are: Have this bomber been under observation from the time he was recruited to the time he denoted the bomb, and if he were monitored, how did he find the time to wear this explosive belt or device. The second question, was this bomber with his Jordanian handler all the time, or was he on and off the safe place if there was a safe place. The third question, was the Jordanian handler experienced enough to be given such a huge task of recruiting a well-known extremist; he had a web site in which he spread his destructive ideas all over the net. The fourth question, it is well known and intelligence communities do recruit extremists as double agents and do encourage those extremists to be even more fanatics so they can gain the confidence of the terrorists groups to trust them enough to provide them with information and even recruit them,
But any first grade intelligence office or analyst knows that you just can not have full trust in those agents and that you must be on your guards at all times; it did not happen here, why? The fifth question, did we go through the basics of recruitment of doing a lie-detecting test or as some news reports indicated, we felt that this process might humiliate the double agent and show no trust in him.
The sixth question, have we left the world of intelligence victim to budget cuts, bureaucracy, third rate officers and cut corners that we were so excited of the bait that this Jordanian suicide bomber gave us, providing real information about Al-Qaeda and such, that we just rolled the red carpet for him without due process and basic intelligence analysis.
The questions can go on and on.This is a big failure for the Jordanian intelligence as well as for our intelligence.
Again, based on the information we have I just cannot see any other reason for Al-Qaeda’s success so far except for our human errors. Leon Panetta, the CIA director is a nice person, was Bill Clintons’ chief of staff and president Obama appointed him as CIA director, He is well known of his pleasant personality and good humor. The time now is not for that or at least, we need Mr. Panetta to be nice, pleasant and humorous but we want him to protect our country as well.
The told story according to The Washington Post, The New York Times and other news outlets is that a Jordanian intelligence officer that happened to be a cousin of the King of Jordan has recruited a well known and well documented extremist to work for the intelligence to hunt Al-Qaeda terrorist organization and it's number two leader; the Egyptian doctor, Ayman al-Zawaheri.
The previous paragraph was the told story. The analysis to that story brings tons of questions and I will start from the last to the first. The last question is who drove that Jordanian doctor, same profession as Al-Zawaheri, terrorists and doctors, to the CIA base; his handler, the Jordanian officer was not in the car with him but waiting outside the office inside the base with other CIA operatives.
The suicide bomber- the Jordanian doctor- had his hand, right one, in his pocket when he came off the car, when asked to pull his hand out to search or maybe to shake, he instead chose to pull a trigger that killed many CIA operatives, the Jordanian handler, and himself.
The big questions are: Have this bomber been under observation from the time he was recruited to the time he denoted the bomb, and if he were monitored, how did he find the time to wear this explosive belt or device. The second question, was this bomber with his Jordanian handler all the time, or was he on and off the safe place if there was a safe place. The third question, was the Jordanian handler experienced enough to be given such a huge task of recruiting a well-known extremist; he had a web site in which he spread his destructive ideas all over the net. The fourth question, it is well known and intelligence communities do recruit extremists as double agents and do encourage those extremists to be even more fanatics so they can gain the confidence of the terrorists groups to trust them enough to provide them with information and even recruit them,
But any first grade intelligence office or analyst knows that you just can not have full trust in those agents and that you must be on your guards at all times; it did not happen here, why? The fifth question, did we go through the basics of recruitment of doing a lie-detecting test or as some news reports indicated, we felt that this process might humiliate the double agent and show no trust in him.
The sixth question, have we left the world of intelligence victim to budget cuts, bureaucracy, third rate officers and cut corners that we were so excited of the bait that this Jordanian suicide bomber gave us, providing real information about Al-Qaeda and such, that we just rolled the red carpet for him without due process and basic intelligence analysis.
The questions can go on and on.This is a big failure for the Jordanian intelligence as well as for our intelligence.
Again, based on the information we have I just cannot see any other reason for Al-Qaeda’s success so far except for our human errors. Leon Panetta, the CIA director is a nice person, was Bill Clintons’ chief of staff and president Obama appointed him as CIA director, He is well known of his pleasant personality and good humor. The time now is not for that or at least, we need Mr. Panetta to be nice, pleasant and humorous but we want him to protect our country as well.
