The CIA's Role in the War on Terror
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[edit] Introduction
The Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, has been in involved in counter terror programs since the 1970s and officially opened its Counter Terrorism Center, under Deputy Director Cofer Black, in February 1986. This was a radical change of pace from its direct support of guerilla fighters during the Cold War in places such as Afghanistan, Panama, Vietnam, and Nicaragua (Wiki: Special Activities Division). In the early 1990’s the CIA’s shifted its focus form nationalist groups like the Irish Republican groups and the Japanese Red Army to Islamic extremists, like Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, in Lebanon and Algeria. . In 1999, CIA chief George Tenet, came up with a “grand plan” to deal with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda(9/11 Comission Report). This plan included the establishment of Counter Terrorist Intelligence Centers in twenty four countries across the globe(Wiki: Counter Terrorism Center). Unfortunately, this plan was unable to stop the events of 9/11, though. After the events of 9/11, this has become the primary focus of the Agency, according to CIA agent Lindsay Moran. There has been quite an upheaval in the Agency since then. This is a brand new threat, and the CIA is just coming face this challenge. They have new battlegrounds and have had to develop new tactics, and even resurrect some old ones from the Cold War days. Currently, and for the foreseeable future, the CIA will be heavily engaged in stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan.
[edit] The CIA and Osama Bin Laden
[edit] Before 9/11
The first interactions between the CIA and Osama bin Laden was during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980’s. Osama bin Laden was a Mujahadeen, or “holy fighter,” on Jihad, trying to repel the soviets from Afghanistan. The CIA supported him and his fellow warriors with cash and arms; most notable, the FIM-92 Stinger Missile (Charlie Wilson’s War). By 1996, however, Bin Laden was being tracked by the CIA and the CTC. Under the codename “Alex” they set up a Bin Laden tracking station led by Michael Scheuer. In 1998, after the Al Qaeda attacks on the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; CIA Director George Tenet “declared war” on Bin Laden. In 1999, the CIA and the NSA, begin getting word of planned terrorist attack by Al Qaeda against the United States. These would become the 9/11 terrorist attacks. By 2000, the CIA had MQ-1 Predator drones doing flyover tracking mission of bin Laden in Afghanistan. On two occasions out of the 15 sorties flown, Bin Laden was positively identified and his assassination was authorized (Wikipedia: Counter Terrorism Center). Both times they were called off, however, once because he was in a meeting with a UAE Prince (an ally of the US) (NatGeo: On Bin Laden's Trail).
[edit] After 9/11
After the 9/11 attacks the CTC and its Alex Station went into high gear to hunt down bin Laden. The CIA was the first agency to have boots on the ground in the War on Terror. On September 20, 2001, just nine days after the attack the CIA sent a Special Forces detachment to Afghanistan officially known as the North Afghanistan Liaison Team (NALT), led by Gary Shroen. Under the codename “Jawbreaker” there mission was, as dictated by CTC Chief Cofer Black was “Go find the al Qaeda and kill them. We're going to eliminate them. Get bin Laden, find him. I want his head in a box. . . I want to take it down and show the president.” The official war in Afghanistan wouldn’t start until Oct. 7th and the first ground forces, primarily Army Green Berets wouldn’t arrive until Oct. 19th.The main weapon of choice for Jawbreaker team was not M4 Carbines or AT-4 ATGMs instead they used cash hand outs. Gary Shroen was given $3 million in unmarked $100 bills to use at his discretion. This money was used to support Northern Alliance fighters and to bribe Taliban fighters. For example, a Taliban commander and his fighters would go for around $50,000. If he did not accept the bribe, Jawbreaker would call in for a “show of force” airstrike: a bomber would drop a 500lbs. bomb right outside the commander’s base as a warning. This tactic led to many Taliban defections. For the next two months Jawbreaker and the Green Berets coordinated airstrikes to support Northern alliance ground forces. This coalition led to a quick victory against the Taliban. By December 7th, the Taliban fled Kandahar, there last stronghold leaving the US and the Northern Alliance in control of Afghanistan. To overthrow the Talban regime took just 77 days, 110 CIA officers, 310 Green Berets, and $70 million in direct cash payouts(Washington Post: CIA cash handouts). Unfortunately, even with this quick and decisive victory, Osama bin Laden escaped. This most likely happened during the battle of Tora Bora in 2001(NatGeo). In 2005, the CIA shut down Alex Station, its bin Laden tracking station citing that “it reflects a belief that the agency can better deal with high-level threats by focusing on regional trends rather than on specific organizations or individuals” (MSNBC). Today, seven years later, the trail for bin Laden has become “stone cold” (Washington Post: Bin Laden Trail).
[edit] The CIA and Iraq
The CIAs history with Saddam Hussein and Iraq starts not in 2002 and lead up to the Iraq war; but back in 1959 when they helped him by guarding him after he tried to assassinate Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim, the ruler of Iraq. In 1963, the US backed a coup in Iraq which ousted Gen. Qasim because of his support for communism. By 1968, Saddam was in control of Iraq, allegedly because of the CIA’s help. (Wiki: CIA activities in Iraq). Today, though, Saddam Hussein is an enemy of the United States in the War on Terror. The CIA recently has been under intense scrutiny for its involvement in the production of intelligence concerning Iraq’s WMDs. According to Richard Kerr, the CIA agent in charge of Iraq WMD analysis, "A lot of analysts believed that they were being pressured to come to certain conclusions… I talked to a lot of people who said, 'There was a lot of repetitive questioning. We were being asked to justify what we were saying again and again.' There were certainly people who felt they were being pushed beyond the evidence they had." In fact many officers in the agency knew that the information that the Bush administration was using for support of the war was false, according to Lindsay Moran and Tyler Drumheller, both former CIA agents. According to the MI6 chief, in the Downing Street Memo, "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It was assumed that the Bush administration was prepared to go to war with or without the supporting intelligence. In 2002, the Bush administration authorized the CIA to conduct covert ops in inside Iraq in preparation for the invasion. One of the officers involved in these operations collected the intelligence used in the Dora Farm incident.
[edit] Dora Farm Strike
The Dora Farm incident was an assassination attempt by the Whitehouse on Saddam Hussein and his sons before the war in Iraq officially began. On Amy 19th, 2003, a CIA agent intercepted a radio transmission saying that Saddam and his sons would be at the Dora Farm neighborhood in southern Baghdad. Two F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighters dropped 4 2000lbs. bunker busting GBU-27 bombs in addition to the 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles launched at the site. The strike leveled the compound and killed fifteen civilians but Saddam and his son were never there (Wiki: Dora farm Strike). This is yet another example of failure in intelligence by the CIA during the Iraq War.
[edit] The CIA’s New Tactics
[edit] MQ-1 Predator
Unlike during the cold war when there was a singular enemy, there threat is highly fractured but extremely organized and deadly. Counterterrorism is inherently asymmetrical, where a very large force is fighting a much smaller one, old tactics used during the cold war, such as the use of double agents and inserting informants within the enemy, has proven ineffective. Today, the need receive information in real-time is paramount. Even today’s satellites take a while to analyze their pictures. Due to this need the CIA has begun using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) such as the MQ-1 Predator and has been working with Special Forces teams to combat this new threat.
The first use of the MQ-1 Predator was during the civil war in Bosnia to collect intelligence. But they can also be used in lethal capacity as well. During the “Afghan Eyes” project by the CIA and the US Air Force, armed Predator drones did recon mission tracking Osama bin Laden in 2000 and 2001. The first armed mission was on Oct. 7th, ironically the first official day of the war in Afghanistan. The first time the CIA used a Predator for an assassination was on November 3rd, 2002, when Predator armed with Hellfire missiles fired on an SUV in Yemen carrying Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, the mastermind behind the USS Cole attacks. It has also been used to provide close air support for troops on the ground. On March 4th, 2002, in Afghanistan, a ranger unit was pinned down by a machine gun nest and a predator carrying Hellfire missiles took it out when other manned fighter planes were unable to get close enough. In Pakistan, a major airstrike involving 10 Predators destroyed the village of Damadola on Janurary 13th’ 2003. The attack was targeting Al Qaeda number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri. While it did not kill him, the strike did kill other high ranking Al-Qaeda members including, Abu Khabab al-Masri (Al Qaeda’s top bomb maker), Khalid Habib (Al Qaeda operations chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan), and Abdul Rehman al Magrabi. Predators were also used to kill Al Qaeda’s third highest commander: Abu Hamza Rabia on December 3rd, 2005. There have been many other assassinations by CIA Predator drones many of which remain classified (Wiki: MQ-1 Predator).
[edit] CIA Special Forces Units
The CIAs role in the War on Terror has also been characterized by its direct involvement with Special Forces units. The CIA has always supported Special Forces indirectly with intelligence analysis (Ultimate Special Forces). Today, support from the CIA to Special Forces not comes from intelligence gathering and analysis; but by use of drones for air support and reconnaissance. They have even started putting boots on the ground. The CIA has its own paramilitary or Special Forces unit known as the Special Activities Division. The SAD has gone by many different names such as the Special Activities Service, Military Special Projects, and Special Services Office. The conduct what is known as direct action missions such as raids, sabotage, assassinations, unconventional warfare (training and leading guerilla fighters), foreign internal defense (counter insurgency and rebellion), and psychological warfare. The SAD is made up of several hundred personnel most of them former Spec Ops soldiers from outfits such as the Navy SEALS, Delta Force, Green Berets, and Marine Force Recon. The SAD is one of the most secretive divisions of the agency. It was not publicly acknowledged to exist until 2001, when the NALT team was sent to take out Osama bin Laden. While their mission are classified top-secret, SAD teams have been deployed since the 1970’s to places such as Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Chile, Bosnia, Serbia, Somalia, Kosovo and Afghanistan (Wiki: Special Activities Division).
[edit] The CIA's use of Torture and Extraordinary Rendition
Since March of 2002, the CIA has been authorized to torture terrorist suspects. This includes torture by CIA agents at secret prisons all over the world and the transport of suspects to countries where torture is legal in a practice known as Extraordinary Rendition. Those tortured include top Al Qaeda figures like Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, as well as eleven other top terrorists (Wiki: CIA transnational human rights actions). The CIA uses what they call “enhanced interrogation techniques” (Amnesty International). The techniques include water boarding, cold room, sleep deprivation. Hundreds of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba are subject to these conditions; as well as hundreds of others in CIA detention facilities. While these practices are illegal by the US Constitution and the Geneva Convention, the Bush administration states that it is not but is in an “ethical grey area” (Times Online: CIA admits to use of water boarding). Amnesty International charges that, “the CIA detains hundreds of prisoners without the hope of a fair trial, in cruel and degrading conditions, without cause.”
