No one views the CIA as anything resemble impotent . The drone strike it function are the most important counterterrorism tool the Obama giving medication uses , battering aPakistanso intensely , in 2010 they coin an norm of once every three days .
Osama bin Laden is deadas the issue of a military mental process the CIA commanded , highlighting the unprecedented coordination between CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command ( JSOC ) . In the word of the head of CIA ’s Counterterrorism Center , its central queasy system for counterterrorism : “ We are killing these Logos of bitches faster than they can grow them now . ”
CIA ’s fleet of 30 Predators and Reapers – the Post give the totality – get the most attention , and understandably so . But it ’s gentle to draw a blank that the drones are a lagging index number . Every intelligence mathematical process , even the unity that go wrong and kill civilian , is the final result of the CIA ’s culture of a internet of spies it did n’t own back during Tenet ’s testimonial . droning strikes need spotter ; the CIA has them in agroup of Pashtun informantswho cross the Afghanistan - Pakistan border with news of militant activity .
It ’s never been publicly acknowledged . But without that electronic connection , it ’s impossible to sympathize the massive and free burning rise in bourdon strikes . The Post reports that the program “ has drink down more than 2,000 militants and civilian since 2001 . ” That ’s not really the whole story . The vast bulk of those kills have come since 2008 , fit in todata pull in by the New America Foundation , with only 112 estimated deaths upper limit occurring between 2004 and 2007 . Last year , the drones killed as many as 993 people ; the body enumeration is as high as 453 so far in 2011 .
Why ? Two cause . First , President George W. Bushrelaxed privy restrictionson special operations and intelligence activities in Pakistan . And secondly , the spy web that Tenet did n’t have came to fruition . Waziristan tribesman describedgetting money to plant homing beacons for dronesin the houses of target militants . al - Qaida and Pakistani Taliban mouthpieces startedsounding paranoidabout infrared equipment powered by 9 - volt battery and blabbermouth chips planted in SIM bill . Unlike earlier in the 10 , the CIA had data about where the terrorists were and their “ patterns of liveliness ” – or , at least , datum about masses it think were terrorist .
Touring the Counterterrorism Center ’s Pakistan - Afghanistan Department – note the lean purchase order of those nation – the Post observes , “ Every pay informant is given a unique crypt ’ that starts with a two - varsity letter digraph designate undercover agent who are paid sources of the CTC . ” It ’s replicate that government agency ’s work with an “ equivalent section for Yemen and Somalia , ” the major centers of theU.S. ’ expanding tail state of war – which have already feature lagger strikes .
Then comes the miserly coaction with JSOC . So - called “ Omega ” or “ Cross Matrix ” teams comprised of CIA and JSOC operators move around Afghanistan and Iraq in civilian clothes and cars . Mostly they cope with with their local source of information . But on “ at least five occasions , ” the Post report , they ’ve try their power to filch into Pakistan undetected to execute raid – “ early dry run ” of the bin Laden hit .
They ’re also not so into comprehend terrorists . While the CIA still maintain clandestine prisons like the oneDanger Room crony Jeremy Scahill expose in Somalia , President Obama ordered most of the “ black-market sites ” close in 2009 . As former JSOC commander William McRaven recently attest , therearen’t any long - term hold facilities for terrorist any longer , leading to improvised solvent likethe brigs of U.S. warship . When the CIA ’s Pashtun snitch get used for attacking terrorist , they ’re “ ‘ more putting to death - capture ’ than seizure - kill , ” the Post reports .
That elicit the bountiful question of all surrounding the Modern post-9/11 CIA . If it ’s act like a military organization , should n’t it have the ( proportional ) transparency and accountability of a military organization ? Most member of Congress do n’t have the security clearance necessary to make love anything at all about CIA operations , preempting effective lapse . Congress is essentially reliant on the CIA to check its own piece of work , content to think the CIA director when he tell that the drones vote down terrorist , not innocent people . Meanwhile , the Post reports that CIA proxies have “ used more indiscriminate means , admit estate mines , to cut off insurgent networks . ”
Two analyst who ’ve closely studied the drone syllabus , Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann , recently argued in Foreign Affairs thatthe military should take over the dronesin order to introduce accountability into their operations . It would n’t impact the drone operations at all : Air Force pilots fly them for the CIA , the Post confirm . But it would contribute the phantom wars at least marginally out of the shadows .
At the same time , the 2011 - geological era CIA is the verbatim descendant of the CIA that existed on April 14 , 2004 . It was a moment of abject humiliation for the agency , called to account for 9/11 even after discourage the Bush White House in the spring and summertime of 2001 that it was perceivingan imminent , unspecified terrorist attempt . The 9/11 Commission accurately channelled a gumption of scandalization around the country over the fact that the CIA lacked – to despoil it of euphemism – a bolt down motorcar . Now the agency has build one . Will newfangled director David Petraeus be willing to give it up ?
Photos : Noah Shachtman , CIA
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