http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/07/gerecht.htm
The Counterterrorist Myth
A former CIA operative explains why the terrorist Usama bin Ladin has little
to fear from American intelligence
by Reuel Marc Gerecht
.
The United States has spent billions of dollars on counterterrorism since the
U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, in August of 1998. Tens of
millions have been spent on covert operations specifically targeting Usama
bin Ladin and his terrorist organization, al-Qa'ida. Senior U.S. officials
boldly claim—even after the suicide attack last October on the USS Cole, in
the port of Aden—that the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau
of Investigation are clandestinely "picking apart" bin Ladin's organization
"limb by limb." But having worked for the CIA for nearly nine years on Middle
Eastern matters (I left the Directorate of Operations because of frustration
with the Agency's many problems), I would argue that America's
counterterrorism program in the Middle East and its environs is a myth.
Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier, is on the cultural
periphery of the Middle East. It is just down the Grand Trunk Road from the
legendary Khyber Pass, the gateway to Afghanistan. Peshawar is where bin
Ladin cut his teeth in the Islamic jihad, when, in the mid-1980s, he became
the financier and logistics man for the Maktab al-Khidamat, The Office of
Services, an overt organization trying to recruit and aid Muslim, chiefly
Arab, volunteers for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The
friendships and associations made in The Office of Services gave birth to the
clandestine al-Qa'ida, The Base, whose explicit aim is to wage a jihad
against the West, especially the United States.
According to Afghan contacts and Pakistani officials, bin Ladin's men
regularly move through Peshawar and use it as a hub for phone, fax, and modem
communication with the outside world. Members of the embassy-bombing teams in
Africa probably planned to flee back to Pakistan. Once there they would
likely have made their way into bin Ladin's open arms through al-Qa'ida's
numerous friends in Peshawar. Every tribe and region of Afghanistan is
represented in this city, which is dominated by the Pathans, the pre-eminent
tribe in the Northwest Frontier and southern Afghanistan. Peshawar is also a
power base of the Taliban, Afghanistan's fundamentalist rulers. Knowing the
city's ins and outs would be indispensable to any U.S. effort to capture or
kill bin Ladin and his closest associates. Intelligence collection on
al-Qa'ida can't be of much real value unless the agent network covers
Peshawar.
During a recent visit, at sunset, when the city's cloistered alleys go black
except for an occasional flashing neon sign, I would walk through Afghan
neighborhoods. Even in the darkness I had a case officer's worst
sensation—eyes following me everywhere. To escape the crowds I would pop into
carpet, copper, and jewelry shops and every cybercafé I could find. These
were poorly lit one- or two-room walk-ups where young men surfed Western
porn. No matter where I went, the feeling never left me. I couldn't see how
the CIA as it is today had any chance of running a successful
counterterrorist operation against bin Ladin in Peshawar, the Dodge City of
Central Asia.
Westerners cannot visit the cinder-block, mud-brick side of the Muslim
world—whence bin Ladin's foot soldiers mostly come—without announcing who
they are. No case officer stationed in Pakistan can penetrate either the
Afghan communities in Peshawar or the Northwest Frontier's numerous religious
schools, which feed manpower and ideas to bin Ladin and the Taliban, and
seriously expect to gather useful information about radical Islamic
terrorism—let alone recruit foreign agents.
Even a Muslim CIA officer with native-language abilities (and the Agency,
according to several active-duty case officers, has very few operatives from
Middle Eastern backgrounds) could do little more in this environment than a
blond, blue-eyed all-American. Case officers cannot long escape the embassies
and consulates in which they serve. A U.S. official overseas, photographed
and registered with the local intelligence and security services, can't
travel much, particularly in a police-rich country like Pakistan, without the
"host" services' knowing about it. An officer who tries to go native,
pretending to be a true-believing radical Muslim searching for brothers in
the cause, will make a fool of himself quickly.
In Pakistan, where the government's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency and
the ruling army are competent and tough, the CIA can do little if these
institutions are against it. And they are against it. Where the Taliban and
Usama bin Ladin are concerned, Pakistan and the United States aren't allies.
Relations between the two countries have been poor for years, owing to
American opposition to P
