While CNN was whipping up the mobs on Friday with "breaking news" all over the place and cancelling their scheduled program to follow the snipe hunt/Afghan branch ("Might be Ayman al-Zawahiri!!!!!!!!"), I was listening to Blitzer bluster even louder than usual--had to be on all afternoon, poor bably--and reading
this:
But interviews with top Afghan and US intelligence officials reveal a number of reasons the US has failed so far to catch Mr. bin Laden and his coterie of fighters. The difficulties, which cannot be easily overcome, are numerous:
* Few of America's local spies trust the US military or US intelligence agents, who by one account rotate in and out within three months.
- Most of America's human intelligence comes from local interpreters, many of whom have their own personal scores to settle, and have a history of giving false information.
- American technological advantages in satellite imagery and phone intercepts are almost useless in a country with few phones to monitor.
"Without human intelligence, this operation will be meaningless," says a senior Afghan intelligence officer, who requests anonymity. "Instead of catching Osama, the Americans will only create more opposition for themselves."
Most Afghans want the Americans to stay and rebuild the country, this Afghan intelligence officer adds, noting that Afghans regularly provide American intelligence agents and soldiers with tip-offs of Taliban movements. But individual American agents don't spend enough time in Afghanistan to know who is telling them the truth.
"American intelligence agencies change their staff every three months," he says. "How is it possible for a foreigner to come to Kandahar or Khost, to understand the society or the psychology, to know a man's tribal relations, his past behavior, his personal motives, whether he is honest or if he is telling a lie? It is not possible in three months."
Poor intelligence has led to mistakes.
In December 2001, a tip from the warlord, Badshah Khan Zadran, sent American AC-130 gunships and Navy fighters to attack a convoy of vehicles full of Afghan tribal elders on their way to show allegiance to the post-Taliban government; 65 civilians were reportedly killed.
In July 2002, at least 48 people were killed and 117 wounded when US warplanes attacked a wedding party in the town of Deh Rawud in central Afghanistan. The US military said a gunship had come under fire in the area.
More recently, on Dec. 6, 2003, US forces admitted mistakenly killing nine children when they bombed the home of a suspected Taliban commander near the town of Ghazni. The attack, prompted by "extensive intelligence" was precise, but the target left the location an hour before.
"I believe as long as you use local, infamous warlords, you'll always have problems," says Ali Ahmed Jalali, the Afghan interior minister, who maintains an extensive intelligence service. "Some of these warlords wanted to ensure mistakes were made, to keep the war going. There are cases where misinformation has been fed into the system."
So I'm reading this and listening to the Wolfster huff and puff, and I'm thinking, "This is a created media event to cover up the fact that "war week" as campaign event isen't working out so well." The fact of the matter was that if the Pakistani ISI was chasing Al Qaeda, they'd hardly have a clue about who it is. Pervez Musharraf remains in power only because they allow it, they are at least as sympathetic to AQ as they are to him, and it is unlikely the tribal chiefs in the area are going to be any more cooperative with them than with the US.
Our man Pervez put on a little show for Colin Powell, who had been in Islamabad the previous day to elevate Pakistan to "major ally" status, so he gets a show--a politically helpful one--in exchange for certifying Pak as a recipient for major arms shipments. How we will explain this to our friends the Indians is not certain, but it is clear that we don't have much of a diplomatic posture with regard to this explosive sittuation. Sort of like our lack of posture with Korea. It's worth noting that all of these potentially explosive situations have a nuclear triangle warning on them, unlike Iraq. In other words, the most dangerous proliferation situations are getting the least attention.
In short, the actual interests of the country with regard to security are nowhere in sight. Our "war" president has a very limited attention span, limited interest, limited intelligence. Listening to his speeches this week has been an exercise in Yogic self-control of breathing and pulse rate. His little subject-verb sentences with a Manichaen adjective thrown in here and there--the epic battle of good and evil--will probably drive me mad before we get anywhere near the election, and I don't have all that far to go after three and a half years of up-is-downism.