AP sources: CIA base chief killed in attack

[Adsos Letter]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON – The CIA said Thursday that seven of its employees were killed and six others wounded in a suicide bombing at a base in Afghanistan. The Associated Press has learned that one of them was the chief of the CIA's post in Afghanistan's southeastern Khost Province.

CIA Director Leon Panetta said in a message to agency staff that the casualties sustained in Wednesday's strike at Forward Operating Base Chapman were the result of a terrorist attack. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Initial reports indicated that eight American civilians had been killed. There was no explanation for the discrepancy in Panetta's message, which was released by the CIA in an unusual step a day after one of the deadliest attacks on the agency in its history.

"Those who fell yesterday were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism," Panetta said. "We owe them our deepest gratitude, and we pledge to them and their families that we will never cease fighting for the cause to which they dedicated their lives — a safer America."


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091231/ap_on_go_ot/us_cia_afghan_attack

[Barack_America]

1. Question is how this person got so close to the CIA chief?

And who was the 8th American?

[bemildred]

3. Story on other thread says bomber was wearing Afghan Army uniform.

Just sort of walked in.

[Xipe Totec]

6. Put another way, how did this guy become a CIA chief? n/t

[asjr]

2. This becomes just another reason to

get the hell out of that part of the world.

[xchrom]

4. Wow -- talk about well aimed. Nt

[yellerpup]

5. The big media question yesterday was whether or not this bombing

was an inside job... Well, DUH! Wiping out the CIA station chief would have required a bit of planning one would think.

[davepc]

7. More stars on the wall at Langley

[JDPriestly]

8. We spend a lot of money on the CIA.

This sort of incident makes me wonder where all that money goes. After all, the CIA is supposed to be the best and brightest, on-their-toes-and-ahead-of-the-game-guys. Who in the world are we paying to do our intelligence work? How do we select them? Why do they make so many mistakes? Is it poor leadership? Are they too traditional in the way they function?

We cannot afford to have a bungling intelligence operation -- not with all the lethal hardware we have out there that relies in their work product for implementation and control.

The CIA is supposed to know who is who and where they are. This is really horrible news. It's the scariest thing since George W. Bush left office. Having Bush and Cheney in "control" is the only worse thing I can think of.

[izquierdista]

11. Where does it go?

It's spent on Fitz-Hume and Millbarge

[Generator]

21. How do you stop

people that will never ever ever ever give up, are willing to sacrifice their own lives, their children's lives and believe (or don't-it doesn't really matter) that this is getting them to heaven. Even if they aren't believers they have nothing to lose. They have a country with no functioning government very little education that isn't religious and no infrastructure. No way out. They lost their mother/father/brother/cousin/countryman to the U. S of A. (even if they didn't they believe they did) and they are never getting over it.

Now tell me who is stupider, them or us.

[JDPriestly]

23. The hijackers and attempted hijackers of planes in or aimed at the U.S.

do not fit that description. We don't know much about the killer in Afghanistan. In solving problems, it does not help to work from stereotypes or preconceptions. That is especially true when solutions you have already tried have not improved things.

In my opinion, analysts in the CIA are supposed to be people who go beyond conventional thinking. They are also supposed to be people who do not trust in conventional ideas or conventional wisdom. It's thinking as we used to say "outside the box" that allows you to observe reality very accurately.

Obviously, the CIA agents did not assess this individual correctly. They trusted him or her too easily, too quickly. We hire them to be wary, to be suspicious.

When leadership in a system becomes entrenched and rigid, when the leaders do not respond positively to criticism, then the system goes into rigor mortis. I think that is what may have happened in the CIA and in our other intelligence operations during the Bush era (and way, way back). Remember, we and the British had brilliant, successful intelligence operations in WWII. A number of problems have become evident since that time.

What happened? Of course, I can ask this question, but I will never and should never get the answer. But that is the question that has to be asked. Why aren't our intelligence operations attracting the most open, least petrified minds.

I suspect it is too much authoritarianism in the leadership, discouragement of dissenting ideas perhaps. That is usually what causes problems in such organizations. When low level people do not feel free to criticize or provide input into decisions, serious accidents and failures happen.

[MadMaddie]

9. This proves again the Afghanastan military and government

is not to be trusted. There will be more incidents like this until the US stops them from coming into protected areas. The window when the US could have made an impact with the Afghan military was blown by *.

[EFerrari]

16. We invaded their country and killed a bunch of civilians.

We've tortured detainees in secret prisons and left their fighters to die in the desert by suffocation in shipping containers. We forced them to accept a notoriously fraudulent election of a CIA connected thug puppet.

Why the hell should they trust us? I'm just surprised there aren't MORE incidents such as this one, terrible as it was.

[MadMaddie]

17. I am not refuting that

That was my point the window when this could have been successful was blown by the previous administration.

[EFerrari]

19. Yep. They waited almost two years for Bush to get his act together

before they realized that it wasn't going to happen.

[Goldstein1984]

10. I wonder if the opposition

reports the successful killing of a senior CIA operative the way our side reports the successful killing of a senior Al Qaeda leader?

On the bright side, Afghanistan could very well turn out to be the end of the American empire.

[pjt7]

12. We have really lost the hearts & minds

of the people of Afghan. They are better fighters than the Iraqis & are getting help from Pakistan, Iran & Russia.

For every 100 "soldiers" we train, a few are going to turn their weapons against us.

Just a horrible, horrible situation we have gotten ourselves in & I still can't beleive Obama pushed us further into that shitstorm.

[Goldstein1984]

13. I think he's being poorly advised

And I think fear is driving him: Fear of admitting defeat with subsequent loss of esteem; fear that a victory by the people of Afghanistan will embolden other people to resist empire; fearing of losing the vote of the hawks in the Democratic party.

And yes, I believe there corporate global interests are driving this.

[Downwinder]

14. Just proves that despite their personal opinion, CIA personnel are mortal. n/t

[independentpiney]

15. I wonder if the Taliban are reporting they got the #2 guy? nt

[Pavulon]

18. You mean killed out VP? Wonder what the response would be here

if they managed to kill out VP or the head of a powerful committee.

[independentpiney]

20. No, I mean how our media repeatedly claims we killed the #2 man

of 'al Qaeda in (insert country here)'

[MetaTrope]

22. We aim for the Number Twos

and they get the Number Ones.

[Alamuti Lotus]

24. the martyr was INVITED onto the base to be enlisted as an informant

that apparently didn't work out so well...

[Alamuti Lotus]

25. AP sources: Suicide bomber invited to Afghan base

WASHINGTON – The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees at a remote outpost in southeastern Afghanistan had been invited onto the base and had not been searched, two former U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday

A former senior intelligence official says the man was being courted as an informant and that it was the first time he had been brought inside the camp. An experienced CIA debriefer came from Kabul for the meeting, suggesting that the purpose was to gain intelligence, the official said.

The former intelligence official and another former official with knowledge of the attack spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100101/ap_on_go_ot/us_cia_afghan_attack