by Robert Mackey
Mark Mazetti's newest article on the suicide bombing that killed CIA agents in Afghanistan, "U.S. Saw a Path to Qaeda Chiefs Before Bombing, " has this interesting tidbit worth considering:
"Mr. Balawi proved to be one of the oddest double agents in the history of espionage, choosing to kill his American contacts at their first meeting, rather than establish regular communication to glean what the C.I.A. did — and did not — know about Al Qaeda and then report back to the network’s leaders."
That did make me think about what sort of threat AQ really is.
These guys...are idiots. Bear with me a moment.
The greatest double agent in history was, in my opinion, Mr. Juan Pujol. Mr. Pujol was a nobody in 1939 Spain. He held a grudge against both the Nazis and the Soviets, due to the butchery that was the Spanish Civil War. Consequently, he decided to become a spy for Great Britain when World War II began. Being a completely untrained spy, he calmly went to the British embassy in Madrid and offered his services. What Mr. Pujol did not know was that, in intelligence terms, he was the least likely person to be recruited for spying--a "walk-in." The British rejected him.
Juan was far from dismayed. Instead, he offered his services to the Germans in hopes of building up information that then he could then present to the British, who would surely hire him at that point. The Germans, who operated one of the most efficient spy networks in Europe under the protection of Franco, quickly recruited him. However, Juan was presented with a real dilemma. He told the Germans that he traveled to the UK on a constant basis and could provide shipping and other information to them. He did not, and did not know how to get himself to the UK to gather such information.
So he lied. A lot. And the Germans believed it completely. You see, Juan Pujol was a natural storyteller, one of those people who could not only lie convincingly but could create a believable story from his own imagination. Pujol's 'spy network' soon reached dizzying proportions--from disgruntled sailors in Glascow to an American sergeant in England. All were invented. When he again approached the British in 1942, they were both stunned and elated. The Germans believed everything he told them, paying him a hefty sum in "traveling expenses" and for bribes. Pujol was an Allied patriot--he reported the money and turned it over to his British handlers.
For Pujol, his big day was that of many others in Western Europe in the 1940s--June 6,1944. D-Day was Pujol's greatest victory. Because of him, and the British and American intelligence officers in the UK who were fooling the Germans, the Nazis believed that nearly 75 Allied divisions were in Great Britain. These 'extra' divisions resulted in Hitler demanding the defense of the Pas de Calais until July, 1944. Even as Allied troops liberated Paris, Hitler and his generals refused to pull troops off of the defense of potential invasion sites, from Norway to Spain.
For his reward, Juan Pujol was given the Iron Cross, First Class, by the Nazis. And was awarded the MBE by the British Government. He kept his secret until the 1980's, when the story of a spy called GARBO was finally told.
What does this have to do with the death of CIA agents by a suicide mole?
Everything. Juan Pujol was the perfect double agent. He kept his side informed, planted disinformation in the minds of his enemies, and literally shortened World War II by nothing more than creating an imaginary spy network. Al Qaeda, in stark contrast, decided to go through all the effort to get an agent into the American intelligence network, place that agent in a trusted position, and then...have him blow himself up.
That fact alone demonstrates the complete incompetence of not only the American ability to vett potential agents, but of Al Qaeda to plan and run a complex intelligence operation. Instead of having an 'inside man' to pass information to the terrorist group, they had their one guy on the inside blow up a bunch of co-workers. Imagine that you work for a software corporation that wants to get someone on the inside of Microsoft. They recruit and train you, get Microsoft to hire you. Instead of having you steal the code to the next version of Windows...they have you steal a couple of boxes of printer paper from the mailroom. You are caught and fired. But hey, Microsoft is really scared now, aren't they?
While it is obvious that the CIA needs to work on how it recruits its assets, it also needs to consider the amateurish approach that AQ took in this situation.
Imagine what the impact would have been had the bomber waited to do his deed for a high profile visit by General Petaeus, CIA Director Panetta, or even President Obama on a visit to the troops. Or if they had just quietly watched all the actions the Americans were taking for years before they were finally discovered.
Then again, maybe the CIA would have given him a medal by that point.
Great post. These days, AQ is "successful" not because they're much of a real threat, but because we perceive them to be.
Christ, we're flipping out over the underpants bomber and all I can keep thinking is that (according to news reports of which I'm highly skeptical) if AQ has spent all this time preparing for their next big attack and the best they can come up with is some disaffected kid who sets his bean bags on fire above Detroit, then we don't need to be tying ourselves in knots over them and expending tremendous resources to combat them. Every now and then they may get lucky and give us a bloody nose, but that's about it.
AQ is a major threat in so much that the public perceives them to be. They're surviving off the legacy of their "brand", if you will. In many ways, AQ is like John McCain: Not that important, but everybody still pays a ton of attention to them.
/end incoherent post...
Posted by: Awesom0 | January 06, 2010 at 11:14 AM
David Ignatius was on NPR this morning; he had some rather uncomplimentary things to say about the CIA's role in this.
Basically he said they broke tradecraft by having the meeting on the base, and also broke tradecraft by not searching him.
I realize that this is perpendicular to your story, but a Randy Quaid line from Days of Thunder kind of comes to mind.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | January 06, 2010 at 11:23 AM
@Shane--thanks!
I'm reminded of when my wife, who used to work for a center/left think tank in DC, once headlined a blog 'Sarah Palin Bikini Pictures'--when the whole world was talking about those faked photos of Palin. My wife's point was about how women are presented in such a manner and so on.
She would get, normally, a couple of dozen hits a day. That day she got nearly 5000.
Got to love Google.
Posted by: Bob Mackey | January 06, 2010 at 11:32 AM
Shane,
Your tired ass is still here. That's gotta count for something, right?
Posted by: Eric Martin | January 06, 2010 at 11:39 AM
To paraphrase Ed Gruberman:
"Patience...how long does that take?
I want to blow people up now!"
And on a more serious note. Would the mindset of someone capable of collecting data from the inside for years be incompatable with the mindset of someone willing to blow themselves up?
Posted by: Fraud Guy | January 06, 2010 at 11:49 AM
This is a really good point that I hadn't thought about before. I wish this kind of thinking was presented a little bit more in the MSM, instead of Chris Matthews wetting his pants about some terrorist kung-fu master getting on board a flight.
Now I don't mean to downplay the deaths of the folks involved, but this guy could have fed us tons of damaging misinformation. Instead, he blew himself up. It suggests, though I suppose this shouldn't be surprising, that AQs operations are hidebound by their ideology. These guys are dangerous, but we shouldn't be terrified of them. We should be smarter, more flexible, and more adaptive then them.
Posted by: Crashman06 | January 06, 2010 at 11:51 AM
Come to think of it, I am tired. Maybe another cup of coffee will do the trick.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | January 06, 2010 at 11:57 AM
Hey Slarti, I gotta a 3 month old. Quit yer complainin'
Posted by: Eric Martin | January 06, 2010 at 11:58 AM
These guys are dangerous, but we shouldn't be terrified of them. We should be smarter, more flexible, and more adaptive then them.
Hear! Hear! Unfortunately, our overreaction is only proving that terrorism works spectacularly.
Posted by: Awesom0 | January 06, 2010 at 11:59 AM
Afghanistan - 80% illiteracy. Iran 41% illiteracy. Pakistan 50% illiteracy. And so on. It is very hard to overestimate the existential threat that these people actually represent to America and the developed world.
The real question is why it takes the full might of the US military and billions and billions and billions of dollars to fight them?
Who is playing who in all this?
Posted by: JV@shootyoureyeout | January 06, 2010 at 11:59 AM
I think one of the differences is that information at the operational level is more verifiable today. Misinformation could send drones to the wrong town, or have us target the wrong people, but it would not take to many of those before the spy was no longer trusted. In order to be effective, Al Qaeada would have had to provide some real information consistently enough for the CIA to continue to bother with the spy.
Plus, there is a whole lot of value in striking back at the seemingly untouchable drones, and having the most deadly operation against the CIA ever, and exposing the Jordanian connection, and creating further mistrust by Americans for all the local and foreign allies that are working with us.
Posted by: jrudkis | January 06, 2010 at 12:02 PM
This post assumes that Balawi was capable of running a double game. If he clearly wasn't (because too unstable or not a good liar), then perhaps this was his highest and best use to al Qaeda. Attempting to shoehorn someone into a role they're not suitable for would just have resulted in him being captured and interrogated and possibly revealing intel on his al Qaeda handlers.
Posted by: Mithras | January 06, 2010 at 12:04 PM
Hate to rain on the parade here, but maybe if Al-Qaeda felt safe expending a false-double in a (very effective) decapitation strike, maybe it's because they have others. (Very effective- I mean, c'mon, if AQ had a wish list of Americans in the Af-Pak theater that they wanted dead, the 7 killed, & 6 maimed were on it; at, or near the top.) In any case, we now have real cause to doubt our other doubles, if we have any. And you persist in calling these people stupid? Face it, they won this one, big-time.
Posted by: NC in MKE | January 06, 2010 at 12:15 PM
Until
He kept his secret until the 1980's
I thought Pujol was the inspiration for Our Man in Havana.
Posted by: Mike Schilling | January 06, 2010 at 12:29 PM
While I agree with the jist of what you've written here, calling the lives of those CIA agents the equivalent of "a couple of boxes of printer paper" at Microsoft is in pretty poor taste, I think.
Posted by: ChrisC | January 06, 2010 at 01:11 PM
Great post Bob; loved reading the GARBO comparison.
Hope to read a lot more of you in the posts to come.
Posted by: Point | January 06, 2010 at 01:12 PM
I feel smugly superior. We completely bypassed the newborn phase.
But, hey, I'm making the adjustment between New Orleans time and local time. And I'm not just talking time zones.
You still win, though.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | January 06, 2010 at 01:16 PM
calling the lives of those CIA agents the equivalent of "a couple of boxes of printer paper" at Microsoft is in pretty poor taste, I think.
But he didn't actually do that.
Posted by: Eric Martin | January 06, 2010 at 01:18 PM
I agree AlQaeda's not a major threat except to the extent the GOP can use it to further its agenda. However, I disagree they're as incompetent as you claim.
I think you're framing the "war on terra" as being similar to conventional wars where intelligence can provide one force with an advantage over a foe capable of at least occasionally going toe-to-toe.
AQ cannot. Moreover, it's not AQ's strategy to do so. Their overriding goal is to provoke final conflict between Islam and the West. Thus, many of its actions are designed not to gain military advantage but, instead, to provoke disproportionate responses in the hopes this will hasten the beginning of a greater conflict. To do this, they attack civilian targets, symbolic targets and targets desined to aid recruitment to the cause.
As I'm sure you're aware, the CIA in the ME represents both a symbolic target and a recruitment aid.
Posted by: Jadegold | January 06, 2010 at 01:20 PM
@ChrisC--I am sorry if you thought I meant that; I did not. I have a large number of friends in the Agency and in DOD, who have lost and continue to lose collegues. I can rattle off the names of a number of people I've shared a beer with and had to bury at Arlington.
The comparison is about, from AQ's perspective, planting an agent just to have him blow himself up. It was, from an intel person's view, a gigantic waste of time, resources and opportunity.
Posted by: Bob Mackey | January 06, 2010 at 01:26 PM
@Jadegold--I have to disagree. I think that AQ could have done a LOT more damage by keeping an agent on the inside capable of passing information (both false and truthful) to the Americans.
For example--you want to infuriate Moslems? Have an American drone strike take out a group of pre-schoolers in Pakistan, along with a "suspected AQ leader" that you don't mind losing. Or to hit a NATO outpost "by mistake." Just imagine if the Americans hit a mosque filled with worshippers on a Friday.
Or just have the Americans target your enemies for you.
A lot more damaging than blowing up a few Americans once, and letting them know that you are trying to slip agents in.
The more I read about this, the more I'm starting to believe the bomber did it on his own and AQ is trying to spin it.
Posted by: Bob Mackey | January 06, 2010 at 01:30 PM
@Bob: Right, I didn't mean to imply that you were intentionally glib about the deaths, but it does feel a bit off, tone-wise.
I mean, it sounds like you're saying that the CIA feels the loss of those members as much as Microsoft would feel the loss of a couple boxes of printer paper. Which is obviously wrong, and I can see how people would find it offensive, even if it's not at all what you meant.
Posted by: ChrisC | January 06, 2010 at 01:59 PM
Do you really believe we select targets on the basis of one person's intelligence? Especially, when that person is a foreign national? I think we've blown up enough wedding parties and members of the "coalition of the willing" to realize this isn't a good idea.
Again, this serves AQ well. It strikes a blow against a favorite ME boogeyman, the CIA--not to mention putting a serious crimp in further attempts to recruit local informants.
Posted by: Jadegold | January 06, 2010 at 02:06 PM
Do you really believe we select targets on the basis of one person's intelligence? Especially, when that person is a foreign national?
Uh...yeah!
We believed Saddam had battlefield ready chemical weapons based solely off the word of an Iraqi cab driver. If memory serves me properly (and someone, please correct me if I'm wrong), we sent a whole mess of troops to get Al-Zarqawi based on the information of one informant we flipped.
Happens all the time...
Posted by: The Ace Tomato Company | January 06, 2010 at 02:15 PM
...not to mention putting a serious crimp in further attempts to recruit local informants.
Or at least doing so while bringing them on base without a search.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | January 06, 2010 at 03:43 PM
"These guys...are idiots."
Al Qaeda's objectives are, for the most part, unachievable. My guess is that the group doesn't do serious strategic planning because it doesn't want to confront this. If that's the case, they aren't complete idiots. Instead, they engage in a selective, self-imposed idiocy in their strategic planning.
Posted by: Kenneth Almquist | January 06, 2010 at 03:57 PM
Fraud Guy:
"So, what, like an hour or so?"
I love that track! And I use that "patience" quote all the time.
[/boot to the head]
Posted by: tgirsch | January 06, 2010 at 04:49 PM
JV:
I think you mean "very hard to underestimate."
Posted by: tgirsch | January 06, 2010 at 04:55 PM
I agree that they're idiots. One reason I was shocked by 9/11 was that al-Qaeda's first attempt to blow up the World Trade Center had a Keystone Kops kind of incompetence. It appears that the 9/11 attack was an exception to their rule.
Posted by: ...now I try to be amused | January 06, 2010 at 05:00 PM
a guy pulls off being a TRIPLE agent, got the nerve to bluff a torture apparat like the Jordanians, and sets off a bomb while at a SIT DOWN inside a CIABlackwater base, wiping out decades of knowledge as well as the CIABlackwater assassination program braintrust.
and you equate him with the underpants bomber?
I usually can detect satire......
Posted by: mutt | January 06, 2010 at 07:27 PM
I just wonder if we know for sure the CIA guys hadn't discerned that he was a double agent, and he knew that. It seems that might account for such a radical action. There are any number of scenarios that wouldn't be obvious to us that might make AQ seem much less stupid.
Posted by: Marty | January 06, 2010 at 07:47 PM
We had an important operation devoted to targeting and killing Al Qaeda members.This guy killed them all. Just like we killed all the guys behind 9/11. Seriously, he drove a serious wedge between American and Jordanian intelligence and demonstrated Al Qaeda's ability to hit us hard, just where we think we're safe, as well as eliminating the most experienced members of the Predator team. Sounds like a pretty good day's work to me
Posted by: Paul Gottlieb | January 06, 2010 at 07:52 PM
Jeremy Scahill says "They say al-Balawi (the Khost CIA bomber) provided intel for drone strikes vs. al Qaeda. I'm sure it was real accurate."
Posted by: KCinDC | January 07, 2010 at 09:30 AM
Hey Bob... It's Dan (yes, that Dan)... good post.. call me at work, love to catch up.
Posted by: Dan | January 07, 2010 at 09:45 AM
Hey Dan, (yes that Dan), you do not have permission to comment on my blog. Next time I see you, you'll pay ;)
Give em hell Bob.
Posted by: Eric Martin | January 07, 2010 at 11:01 AM
Eric, don't be so hard on Dan. Do you have any idea how hard it is for him to get up, go to work at 10, have a 1 hour coffee break, a three hour lunch, a "meeting" for 10 minutes, then go home at 4?
Dedicated civil servant that man. :)
Posted by: Bob Mackey | January 07, 2010 at 11:42 AM
[bites tongue, clenches keyboard]
I'll leave him alone...for now.
Posted by: Eric Martin | January 07, 2010 at 11:50 AM
Eric... Bob is mistaking me for an overpaid contractor... speaking of, since he left our office, my shoes have lost their shine.
Posted by: Dan | January 07, 2010 at 12:44 PM
OK, could somebody fill the rest of us in here -- who the heck is Dan?
Posted by: Point | January 07, 2010 at 01:04 PM
He was a triathlete back in the early '90s, wasn't he?
Posted by: Slartibartfast | January 07, 2010 at 01:42 PM
Point,
Dan's one of my closest friends - and unknown to me, he used to let Bob shine his shoes in the office space they shared.
I could tell you more, but then he'd have to kill me. And you.
Posted by: Eric Martin | January 07, 2010 at 01:53 PM
You got it right Eric but I don't like to get my hands dirty, which explains the aversion to shoe shining... Bob on the other hand, is a man to be feared.
Posted by: Dan | January 07, 2010 at 02:16 PM
Ah -- many thanks.
Posted by: Point | January 07, 2010 at 02:24 PM
I don't know about poor taste, but it's an inapt analogy. I work in IT, and I was expecting that analogy to end with something to the effect of "and deleted everything they could get access to".
Or for people who are so literal they can't bear to compare anything involving human lives to anything nonhuman, assume your mole at MS bombed his office, killed 6-7 people. You might very well get some senior architects and cause a setback, but in the end it's just a futile gesture.
Posted by: Catsy | January 07, 2010 at 03:28 PM
@Catsy--That is a much better analogy; I wish I'd thought of it.
Posted by: Bob Mackey | January 07, 2010 at 03:41 PM
Another possibility:
Posted by: KCinDC | January 07, 2010 at 04:29 PM
KCinDC: I just finished reading that story. I hope there's further investigation into that.
If the broad outlines of that report are true then the CIA's negligence makes more sense. Assuming he had given them correct information in the past they had some reason to trust him.
That explanation, however, is -- in some ways -- the inverse of Bob Mackey's 1:30PM post yesterday. In other ways, it fits well viz. the hypothesis that the bomber made his own decision to blow himself up vs. and AQ plan.
Posted by: elm | January 07, 2010 at 06:20 PM
You are assuming his goal or mission was to spy on the Americans- but I have read that the number one desire of AQ in Pakistan was to stop drone attacks- and that this base was the regional targeting center for drone attacks.
So if their goal was to incapacitate the american drone targeting center, I would say he succeeded.
Posted by: Ries | January 07, 2010 at 06:52 PM
Al Qaeda has no need for the standard sort of intelligence information. Who's a spy and who isn't, the plans for the next drone attacks or even good info on the military spooks running around Pakistan. In other words important tactical information that could lead to larger strategic victories.
Al Qaeda isn't going to defeat anyone. It's a sort of phantom organization that has extremely limited operational ability in any traditional military sense.
From the story about how he gave them solid info about suspected Al Qaeda affiliated people to prove his worth it does seem that they did 'run' Balawi in a traditional sense but that doesn't mean they wanted to use him that way. You know, take his reports back to Al Qaeda HQ so Osama and his experts could do all that stuff intelligence people do. Read the tea leaves and build scenarios. For what? The invasion of America? No, all they wanted was what they got. A headline. Balawi wasn't the worlds oddest double agent. He was an unusual suicide bomber.
Posted by: rapier | January 07, 2010 at 08:58 PM
The boxes of printer paper is a bad analogy, since it is so bad I don't think it even offends anyone.
The problem with us is that we want to analyze things from our world view. These people don't work under our logic system, the way they act seems irrational to us but they clearly know what are they doing. They succeeded. 7 well trained agents are not that easy to find, a crazy man that doesn't care about anything, in that land can be picked easily.
Posted by: baakanit | January 07, 2010 at 10:28 PM
Al Qaeda has succeeded fantastically well if you consider how few of them there are, how little money and what pedestrian technology they have and the selection pool from which they recruit.
a bailing wire & duct tape operation takes on the most technological/economically advanced nation in the history of the world and not only causes the abandonment of some of it's most fundamental values but also causes it to become almost obsessed with it's own safety. Al Quaeda has significantly damaged the economy of the US, divided us politically and caused the people of a significant number of nations to lose respect for us.
Posted by: fahrender | January 08, 2010 at 12:49 AM
Al Queda is winning.
Rachel Maddow nailed it yesterday: We're still fighting on Al-Queda's terms.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#34759132
Posted by: BruceJ | January 08, 2010 at 02:55 PM
Awesom0: Great post. These days, AQ is "successful" not because they're much of a real threat, but because we perceive them to be.
Not to mention, this worthless halfwit Abdulmutallab was supposed to ignite a bomb, right? Yet after the first pitiful failure (that moron Richard Reid, who managed to blow up exactly nothing) it still didn't occur to any of these Islamic-fundamentalist geniuses to test their ignition technique prior to sending their fool on the airplane, to see if it would, like, actually ignite anything. The happy outcome was another failure.
And just today I read about some other Islamic-fundamentalist geniuses in Karachi who managed to blow up their own safe house. (http://sify.com/news/blast-kills-eight-insurgents-at-pakistan-militant-safe-house-news-international-kbit4cdigah.html)
Keep it up, you dumb pigs. May all of our enemies be so very, very stupid.
Posted by: W. Kiernan | January 08, 2010 at 07:23 PM
Has it occured to anyone that just because this guy blew himself up it doesn't mean that there are not others? If one person can become so trusted so easily couldn't that mean their whole network of informants is compromised?
Posted by: James | January 09, 2010 at 05:55 PM
Shhhhh! Don't tell Al Qaeda what they're doing wrong!!
Posted by: maxiewawa | January 14, 2010 at 05:02 AM