CIA's bungled Italy job

The Chicago Tribune did an expose on the Milan snatch and run in yesterdays paper. The Trib puts together a narrative that makes a Maxwell Smart operation preferrable.

The trick is known to just about every two-bit crook in the cellular age: If you don't want the cops to know where you are, take the battery out of your cell phone when it's not in use.

Had that trick been taught at the CIA's rural Virginia training school for covert operatives, the Bush administration might have avoided much of the current crisis in Europe over the practice the CIA calls "rendition," and CIA Director Porter Goss might not have ordered a sweeping review of the agency's field operations.

But when CIA operatives assembled here nearly three years ago to abduct an Egyptian-born Muslim preacher named Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, more familiarly known as Abu Omar, and "render" him to Cairo, they left their cell phone batteries in.

There is also a side piece detailing the room tabs run at your expense:

Another group of seven operatives spent $40,098 on room charges at the Westin Palace, a five-star hotel across the Piazza della Repubblica from the Principe, where a club sandwich is only $20.

Freedom isn't free but it would be a hell of a lot cheaper if they weren't staying at the Westin Palace. Apparently accountabilty and competence are not high on the CIA's tradecraft list.

"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free."