BLACKFIVE: Some expert commentary on the CIA's Italian Job

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Some expert commentary on the CIA's Italian Job

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Yesterday I asked WTF about the CIA rendition op that ended up with 23 CIA personnel convicted of kidnapping for scarfing up a radical cleric. Today at NRO an expert answers definitively, poor tradecraft and bureaucrats trying to justify their existence. Sounds familiar to me. From a former deep cover guy.

We should capture terorists anywhere, any time, but we should get the job done right and with a minimum of bureaucracy. Real spying is inexpensive and requires few people. The basic act of espionage is a single CIA officer meeting a single source — a person with access to secrets on terrorists or nuclear proliferators, for example — in a dingy hotel room in a dysfunctional country.

Any CIA operation that is revealed to the public, however, shows these telltale signs: The operation looks busy, a lot of people are involved, and large amounts of money are spent. Often you’ll hear the CIA accused of being risk averse. I agree. However, risk aversion is a complex concept. The CIA will sometimes conduct risky operations in order to achieve a more important goal: looking busy. In the Abu Omar operation, 21 Agency employees flew to Italy to abduct a single terrorist suspect — as an eminent scholar put it, “21 people to get one fat Egyptian!” — who was already under surveillance by the Italian police. The 21 people stayed in five-star hotels and chatted with headquarters on open-line cell phones, all at great expense and awful tradecraft. The number of people managing the operation from headquarters was enormous. But it was a successful operation in that it spent a lot of money, made a lot of people look active, and suggested the CIA’s willingness to take risk.

Froggy said it in comments yesterday in his understated fashion.

The Agency screwed the pooch on this one big time. The fact that the Italians had the names of everybody in on the caper is a disturbing lack of OPSEC and tradecraft. The reason for this is that we do not have a robust capability in this area of covert operations. There are no Mitch Rapps or Jack Bauers out there folks. Those are fantastical creatures.

There are a handful of ex-SOF guys that are solid, but they are all operating in active combat zones. The rank and file clandestine service officer in the agency is a nerdy Ivy League punk with nuts the size of a field mouse's. Worse than them are the mandarins in management that are totally political and value their large government salaries and slush funds over all else.

CIA=ICP (Insane Clown Posse)

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November 05, 2009 • Permalink
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We should capture terorists anywhere, any time, but we should get the job done right and with a minimum of bureaucracy. Real spying is inexpensive and requires few people. The basic act of espionage is a single CIA officer meeting a single source — a person with access to secrets on terrorists or nuclear proliferators, for example — in a dingy hotel room in a dysfunctional country.

Any CIA operation that is revealed to the public, however, shows these telltale signs: The operation looks busy, a lot of people are involved, and large amounts of money are spent. Often you’ll hear the CIA accused of being risk averse. I agree. However, risk aversion is a complex concept. The CIA will sometimes conduct risky operations in order to achieve a more important goal: looking busy. In the Abu Omar operation, 21 Agency employees flew to Italy to abduct a single terrorist suspect — as an eminent scholar put it, “21 people to get one fat Egyptian!” — who was already under surveillance by the Italian police. The 21 people stayed in five-star hotels and chatted with headquarters on open-line cell phones, all at great expense and awful tradecraft. The number of people managing the operation from headquarters was enormous. But it was a successful operation in that it spent a lot of money, made a lot of people look active, and suggested the CIA’s willingness to take risk.

Froggy said it in comments yesterday in his understated fashion.

The Agency screwed the pooch on this one big time. The fact that the Italians had the names of everybody in on the caper is a disturbing lack of OPSEC and tradecraft. The reason for this is that we do not have a robust capability in this area of covert operations. There are no Mitch Rapps or Jack Bauers out there folks. Those are fantastical creatures.

There are a handful of ex-SOF guys that are solid, but they are all operating in active combat zones. The rank and file clandestine service officer in the agency is a nerdy Ivy League punk with nuts the size of a field mouse's. Worse than them are the mandarins in management that are totally political and value their large government salaries and slush funds over all else.

CIA=ICP (Insane Clown Posse)

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