Mole Hunt
11.16.2007 - 8:03 AMTwo weeks ago, I called attention to CIA worries over the possibility of an al-Qaeda mole inside the agency. We still do not know if al Qaeda has any agents inside the CIA or other components of the U.S. intelligence community. But what about Hizballah?
The stunning case of Nada Nadim Prouty, the Lebanese woman who entered the U.S. via a fraudulent marriage, ended up with sensitive jobs in both the FBI and CIA, and has just now pleaded guilty to a series of criminal charges, raises all sorts of questions about internal security at our premier domestic and foreign intelligence agencies. Slate’s Bonnie Goldstein has the best short roundup of the case, complete with links to all the public documents available so far.
We still need to know much more about this affair. One thing is clear: the demand for fluent Arabic speakers evidently collided with security procedures, and the latter gave way. If there is one such case, there might be two or more. Both the FBI and the CIA have been chronically weak in the area of counterintelligence. Even as a Lebanese immigrant who came to the U.S. via a fraudulent marriage, entered their ranks, and was promoted to sensitive jobs, they seem to have focused their limited resources on the hunt for Israeli spies. The quest for a second Jonathan Pollard seems to be the genesis of the breathtakingly shaky AIPAC case.
The more dots Connecting the Dots connects about the CIA and the FBI, the more evident it becomes that these agencies remain unable to connect the dots.
| »Back to Connecting the Dots | »Back to Commentary |
November 16th, 2007 at 9:46 AM
But we don’t want to upset the Muslims.
November 16th, 2007 at 11:17 AM
The existence of an “intelligence community” implies the existence of a “counterintellegence community.” The militant fundamentalists or jihadists have their own spy cadre, obviously,and have shown great determination to enter our country and its intellegence agencies. Such audacity!
What is truely remarkable is the utter deficiency of US efforts to impart foreign languages to our citizens. The idea that we can get by in this world with poor foreign language skills needs to be challenged. The irony is that the world navigates today using business English and makes itself understood quite well. English only speaking Americans can’t get by in this world using only English, however.
It is a scandal that at this date in the “war on terror” there is a deficiency in the ranks of Arab speaking and Middle East savy intellegence specialists. First the public is exposed to the fact that reputtedly homosexual Arab speaking analysts are expelled from their posts because of sexual orientation. Next, the officialdom hires moles and extends the red carpet treatment.
We look bad. We can’t speak the languages, sexual intolerance underminds the corp of translators and Uncle Sam is not able to run reliable security checks on the rogues and spys it uses to “speak the languages of the neighborhood” we have invested so much to shape.
November 17th, 2007 at 9:40 AM
“… the demand for fluent Arabic speakers evidently collided with security procedures, …”
Correct me if I am wrong but way back in 2001/2 when a reasonable number of Arabic speaking people of Syrian extraction could have been employed it was surreptitiously refused on the grounds of their Jewishness.
It is not just the lack of the ability to read, write and speak Arabic but also the complete ignorance of the culture America is going head to head with.
November 17th, 2007 at 5:54 PM
There’s a touch of irony in that William Murray; former station chief in Beirut, back in the early part of this decade; then opponent of Iranian & Iraqi dissidents in Paris, is now among
the new team at Langley. Prouty, the Hezbollah spy was in Iraq almost from the beginning,
‘debriefing’ AQ; but more importantly establishing contacts with Al Dawa , SCIRI & Sadrist
activists in the runup to the rise of the insurgency. John Maguire, first COS there there was too busy leaking his misgivings to the likes of David Corn and Knight Ridder to really notice
such things.
November 18th, 2007 at 11:10 AM
My guess is there are a lot of 50 year old Russian speakers running around our intelligence agencies wondering how they’ll continue to justify their existence in the bureaucracy.
Even Condi Rice is a Russian speaker. She was used effectively by Bush 1 during the negotiations to break up the old Soviet Union. Those old generals hated talking to a woman who was their equal/superior.
But other than Russian, and of course the plum diplo languages like French (great for cocktail parties and the juiciest Euro assignments), how did we do in planning for our intelligence future?
We stunk on ice.
It’s a real revelation of the narrow-mindedness of our efforts down through the years that nobody was brought up into the agency as an arabic speaker.
They simply didn’t think it was necessary. Backward, medieval arabs, not smart enough to ever pose a threat, why bother learning that stuff?
It’s clear when we look at our politicians that they are, for the most part, mediocre men who would never make it to the highest levels of corporate business… so, naturally, they end up running our government instead. Irony.
But our agencies are likewise filled with bureaucrats, mediocre people who are fanatical about their own files and their own careers but little else.
And when we DO get people who loudly and passionately speak for action and for aggressive defense of our country, they turn out to be like Scheuer, people who think they know better than everyone and that everything is the fault of the Jews… sorry, the Zionists. :-)
My kingdom for a capable, steady, morally grounded and mentally stable bureaucrat– or two, or a dozen, or a hundred.
Dave in Texas
http://davogrande.blogspot.com
November 19th, 2007 at 12:43 PM
There were plenty of dots to connect prior to 9/11.