TIME: The CIA Double Cross: How Bad a Blow in Afghanistan?

[tekisui]

The CIA Double Cross: How Bad a Blow in Afghanistan?
By Joe Klein

Source: TIME

The reaction to the two terrorist attacks during the last week in December is puzzling. One of the attacks, against a CIA outpost in Afghanistan, succeeded; the other, on an airplane landing in Detroit, failed. The Undiebomber was an amateur who was thwarted, rather neatly, by his fellow passengers on the plane. The Afghanistan operation was quite the opposite--highly sophisticated and devastating, with vast implications for both the war in Afghanistan and future clandestine CIA operations. And yet the Undiebomber has provoked an avalanche of attention in our twittery media--and from Republicans like Dick Cheney who yearn for the return of "enhanced" interrogation techniques. The Afghanistan attack hasn't caused nearly the public fuss, but make no mistake: it has to be a matter of much greater concern to the White House than the Detroit fiasco.

The Afghanistan bombing was not the deadliest in CIA history. That sad honor goes to the 1983 truck bomb that ripped off the face of the U.S. embassy in Lebanon, killing eight members of the Beirut station, among many others. But this suicide bomber, a Jordanian doctor named Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, was the CIA's worst ever security breach. In an era when grandmothers are routinely screened at airports, al-Balawi was whisked into Forward Operating Base Chapman, the CIA headquarters for the drone war against al-Qaeda, without so much as a pat-down. He was then ushered into a meeting with 13 CIA operatives and his Jordanian handler.

Both of these facts are crucial. The CIA clearly considered this guy a hot ticket, the path--finally--to the al-Qaeda leadership. The idea that so many CIA personnel would attend the meeting, and that it would be held on base, is attributable not only to al-Balawi's perceived importance but also to the CIA's bureaucratic caution: in the past, such a meeting would be held off base, with fewer handlers. But everyone wanted to evaluate this guy in the flesh. The fact that al-Balawi wasn't given even a rudimentary security screening speaks to the credibility he had built up over time, feeding valuable information to Jordan's General Intelligence Department, a trusted CIA partner. "This was an extremely sophisticated, well-thought-out operation," a former senior intelligence official told me. "It took years to set up. And quite frankly, we didn't think al-Qaeda had that capability." (Several intelligence sources told me they thought the operation was run out of the al-Qaeda high command--Osama bin Laden's headquarters--which would make it a departure from the recent trend of decentralized al-Qaeda operations, like Undiebomber's, which was run out of Yemen.)

"This is a real kick in the teeth,"

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1952321-1,00.html#ixzz0bxkDYWRr
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Informative read at link. Including a warning from the CIA, and possibilities of this attack being coordinated from the top of al-qaeda.

[Beetwasher]

1. The Proximity Of This Attack To The Undie Bomber Is Curious

As is the relatively immediate disclosure and confirmation that this was a very succesful attack against a CIA forward operating base .

It's also curious that this information is being so widely and prominently disseminated. I'm not sure what it means.

[ArcticFox]

2. The post deserved better

less than 1 rec?

Yet one more example of important news being masked by less important (often trivial) news.

[malaise]

3. Yes the bigger question is why is the real attack receiving way less

coverage and discussion than the one that failed.

[tekisui]

4. It boggles the mind.

One was a failed attempt, with an understandable security breech. It was powder in his crotch for chrissakes.

Yet, the one that gets shove aside was an actual attack that killed 7, including CIA agents on their own base!

I guess the terror angle from the CIA attack doesn't fit into the required narrative.