It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again, former CIA operatives say.
The CIA just doesn’t seem to have its groove when it comes to operations against Iran.
Poor intelligence tradecraft -- the tricks of the game -- have repeatedly doomed the CIA operations, former agency officers say.
Of course, the CIA doesn’t broadcast its spying successes -- or comment on failed operations-- so a balanced picture is nearly impossible to compile.
But from what the world knows about CIA operations against Iran (and its Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon), something seriously needs fixing -- again and again.
According to the Associated Press and other news organizations, the latest of several operations against Iran (and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah) blew up in its face last summer.
Iran’s counterspies were able to identify a dozen or so CIA informants in Beirut and elsewhere by analyzing their cell phone traffic.
“Beirut station is out of business,” the Los Angles Times reported, citing an unnamed source.
One CIA practice that made it easy for Iran’s agents, according to the reports, was that CIA spy handlers and local informants met regularly at the Beirut Pizza Hut. All that was required of the Iranians was to stake out the place, taking pictures and following people who met with their CIA handlers.
As astounding as that security lapse sounds, it’s not surprising, some former CIA personnel say.
“The Pizza Hut thing -- I’ve seen that again and again,” said one veteran CIA operative, reflecting the views of a half dozen others. “Why would they go there again and again? Because they like the pizza.”
CIA counterspies can be lazy, this and other operatives said. In one case years back the CIA gave a group of informants the same mail box in Europe to communicate through. The Iranians eventually figured it out and tracked them down. In another case, the CIA gave all its Iranian informants the same kind of Japanese radio to broadcast secret messages. When one was uncovered, it quickly led to others.
CIA counterterrorism agents “were never that careful,” one former operative said on terms of anonymity because the subject is highly sensitive. “They like to travel, run up their per diem pay," which could vastly inflate their earnings. "They liked dealing with these ‘raghead dirt balls’ in places like Lebanon.”
In the 1980s and again in 2004, sloppy CIA operations allowed the Iranian counterspies to identify and roll up CIA assets.
By 1989 “virtually the entire US intelligence apparatus in Iran had been detected and successfully disrupted by the Iranians,” according to a little-noticed account corroborated in general terms by former U.S. officials and other sources.
‘Some of the American spies had been ‘turned’ into double agents barely a few months after their initial recruitment,” Mahan Abedin, director of research at the London-based Centre for the Study of Terrorism, was quoted as saying in 2007, after analyzing official Iranian reports. “Some had been feeding their American controllers misinformation as early as the beginning of 1985.”
The CIA “had failed to give even basic training to their agents,” Abedin alleged. “None of the agents displayed a satisfactory knowledge of counter-surveillance, counter-interrogation, basic communication security, and deception techniques.”
Then in 2004, “the CIA lost its entire agent network in Iran when a CIA headquarters communications officer was about to send instructions to an agent via its Inmarsat transmitter/receivers,” according to veteran Middle East journalist and author Richard Sale.
Citing unidentified U.S. sources, Sale wrote that “the CIA officer attempted to download data intended for a single operative, but accidentally hit a button that sent it to the entire U.S. spy network in Iran.”
Then there’s the tale--now the subject of an ongoing leak prosecution--of a fiasco in which a former Russian nuclear engineer dispatched to Iran with nuclear blueprints “salted” with bad information lost his nerve and spilled the whole plot.
In the summer of 2010, an Iranian defector that CIA brought to Washington loudly re-defected to Iran.
“There have been enormous screw-ups, time after time,” the former CIA operative said.
“But I never saw anybody fired for sloth or incompetence.”
The CIA just doesn’t seem to have its groove when it comes to operations against Iran.
Poor intelligence tradecraft -- the tricks of the game -- have repeatedly doomed the CIA operations, former agency officers say.
Of course, the CIA doesn’t broadcast its spying successes -- or comment on failed operations-- so a balanced picture is nearly impossible to compile.
But from what the world knows about CIA operations against Iran (and its Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon), something seriously needs fixing -- again and again.
According to the Associated Press and other news organizations, the latest of several operations against Iran (and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah) blew up in its face last summer.
Iran’s counterspies were able to identify a dozen or so CIA informants in Beirut and elsewhere by analyzing their cell phone traffic.
“Beirut station is out of business,” the Los Angles Times reported, citing an unnamed source.
One CIA practice that made it easy for Iran’s agents, according to the reports, was that CIA spy handlers and local informants met regularly at the Beirut Pizza Hut. All that was required of the Iranians was to stake out the place, taking pictures and following people who met with their CIA handlers.
As astounding as that security lapse sounds, it’s not surprising, some former CIA personnel say.
“The Pizza Hut thing -- I’ve seen that again and again,” said one veteran CIA operative, reflecting the views of a half dozen others. “Why would they go there again and again? Because they like the pizza.”
CIA counterspies can be lazy, this and other operatives said. In one case years back the CIA gave a group of informants the same mail box in Europe to communicate through. The Iranians eventually figured it out and tracked them down. In another case, the CIA gave all its Iranian informants the same kind of Japanese radio to broadcast secret messages. When one was uncovered, it quickly led to others.
CIA counterterrorism agents “were never that careful,” one former operative said on terms of anonymity because the subject is highly sensitive. “They like to travel, run up their per diem pay," which could vastly inflate their earnings. "They liked dealing with these ‘raghead dirt balls’ in places like Lebanon.”
In the 1980s and again in 2004, sloppy CIA operations allowed the Iranian counterspies to identify and roll up CIA assets.
By 1989 “virtually the entire US intelligence apparatus in Iran had been detected and successfully disrupted by the Iranians,” according to a little-noticed account corroborated in general terms by former U.S. officials and other sources.
‘Some of the American spies had been ‘turned’ into double agents barely a few months after their initial recruitment,” Mahan Abedin, director of research at the London-based Centre for the Study of Terrorism, was quoted as saying in 2007, after analyzing official Iranian reports. “Some had been feeding their American controllers misinformation as early as the beginning of 1985.”
The CIA “had failed to give even basic training to their agents,” Abedin alleged. “None of the agents displayed a satisfactory knowledge of counter-surveillance, counter-interrogation, basic communication security, and deception techniques.”
Then in 2004, “the CIA lost its entire agent network in Iran when a CIA headquarters communications officer was about to send instructions to an agent via its Inmarsat transmitter/receivers,” according to veteran Middle East journalist and author Richard Sale.
Citing unidentified U.S. sources, Sale wrote that “the CIA officer attempted to download data intended for a single operative, but accidentally hit a button that sent it to the entire U.S. spy network in Iran.”
Then there’s the tale--now the subject of an ongoing leak prosecution--of a fiasco in which a former Russian nuclear engineer dispatched to Iran with nuclear blueprints “salted” with bad information lost his nerve and spilled the whole plot.
In the summer of 2010, an Iranian defector that CIA brought to Washington loudly re-defected to Iran.
“There have been enormous screw-ups, time after time,” the former CIA operative said.
“But I never saw anybody fired for sloth or incompetence.”
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11 comments:
God, I hope this isn't all true, but as I told some of my friends, it does seem to have the ring of truth. This kind of thing is inherently a risky business, but I'm afraid we have not been not very good at learning from our mistakes.
Merle Pribbenow
Only one hope left.
Superspy Thomas Ryan must be dispatched immediately to Beirut.
(The fat fuck will find the Pizza Hut fits his operational requirements perfectly.)
What I find interesting is how something so simple as monitoring the cell phone traffic of CIA operatives allowed Iran to gain them to gain there identities. It seems too simple of a measure....there has to be more to this. I believe they would have had to know who cell phone traffic to specifically follow unless there was something else that could have possibly put them on the radar. I doubt Iran will give up all there tricks of the trade regarding there counterintelligence capabilities regarding espionage. But it does manage to make our guys look badly if something so simple as monitoring "cell phone traffic" managed to compromise and gain there identities.
Don't be so sure about the technical incompetence of the entire US intelligence community. Take a look at Sy Hersh's article in The New Yorker earlier this year about the use of MASINT in the search for information about Iran's wildly exaggerated nuclear weapons program. There are some sharp people doing some good work, on both sides. Might not be such a completely stupid idea to leak the notion that say, the US had shut down all of its stations in Africa (as it did a few years ago) or that it shut down its Beirut operations. Oh really? And the CIA and the NSA don't monitor the cell phone traffic between say, southern Ohio and Minnesota, both zones that have tens of thousands of Somalis who are in daily touch with events in the Horn of Africa. Even the Feebs figured that one out. Yeah, I think the intelligence community is stupid because I fell off the turnip truck yesterday. One of their big problems is the political missions they get; they play the same roles in foreign affairs as the brain surgeons do in medicine, namely, when the patient or policy is doomed to failure, turn it over to the neurosurgeons with their high failure rate; or the covert agencies, with the trail of tears they have left behind in Hungary '58, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, Iran, it goes on and on. Hats off to the people around the world who trust their CIA contacts, for their courage; and, when will the White House felons who outed a serving NOC agent face justice?
Interesting comments, all. The science of tracing cell phone calls to their owners is sophisticated but routine. It's how Italian authorities got the identities of the CIA team that kidnapped Abu Omar.
Just wanted to add to the comment from "Anonymous" ("Don't be so sure about the technical incompetence of the entire US intelligence community...."): You make a very, very good observation that anything that makes the news about intelligence ops needs to be taken with a big grain of salt. Or put another way, one must always ask, who benefits? The reporter's history of accuracy must also be taken into account. Etc, etc.
I hope this isn't all true.I'm afraid we have not been not very good at learning from our mistakes.And Stein,I agree with him
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In the 1980s and again in 2004, sloppy CIA operations allowed the Iranian counterspies to identify and roll up CIA assets...asme tank
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God, I hope this isn't all true, but as I told some of my friends, it does seem to have the ring of truth. This kind of thing is inherently a risky business, but I'm afraid we have not been not very good at learning from our mistakes. truck rental philadelphiaorganic superfood
Merle Pribbenow
People should be careful how they conduct themselves when representing their country. Something that a lot of international sportsmen and women all too easily forget. The moment you accept the invitation to wear that jersey, and represent your nation, you must accept that your personal views are no longer your primary objective. I have great respect for men and women who stand up for their beliefs, but I wonder how much more Mr Norman could have achieved if he had become a spokesperson for the subject and used his fame from the Olympics as a springboard, rather than ending his career (albeit unfairly) under a shadow.
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