Retired spy: CIA Lacks "Human Intelligence" In Hotspot Countries
Last updated Wednesday, May 16, 2007 8:27 PM CDT in News
By Andrew DeMillo
The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK -- A retired Central Intelligence Agency operative and counterterrorism official sharply criticized the agency Wednesday and said it lacks good "human intelligence" in hotspots such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
"We didn't have any good intelligence on Iraq, we didn't have any good intelligence on Iran and we don't have any good intelligence on North Korea," CIA veteran Duane Clarridge said in a speech to the Arkansas Committee on Foreign Relations. "We have photo intelligence and we have maybe some signal stuff, but we don't have any human intelligence, and you've seen what the results have been."
Clarridge, a former chief of the CIA's counterterrorist center, said the agency had little human intelligence on Iraq before the U.S. invasion in 2003.
"We literally didn't have any sources that were worth a damn," Clarridge said. "The point is that those three targets have been very important over the past several years, yet we couldn't get it right because we didn't have any human sources."
Clarridge served 33 years with the CIA, starting as a junior officer trainee and eventually serving as chief of the agency's Latin America and European divisions. He retired from the agency in 1988.
Clarridge was indicted in 1991 for allegedly lying about his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, which involved the sale of U.S. arms to Iran and the diversion of profits to the Nicaraguan rebels when such aid was barred by federal law.
Clarridge had not yet been tried on the charges when he was pardoned along with four other officials in 1992 by then-president George H.W. Bush.
Now the president of a San Diego consulting firm, Clarridge said he thinks the agency could improve morale by "getting on the offensive again."
"That's why you have a spy agency," he said. "If you don't want to do these things, then disband the spy service and depend on the state department. These decisions are fairly clear."
Clarridge also decried what he called his agency's unnecessary growth in lawyers.
"They've put lawyers in every echelon of the operations directorate," Clarridge said. "Why? They're breaking the laws overseas. They're not breaking the laws here in the states. The lawyers are in the decision-making process."
Clarridge said he doesn't think any of the efforts to study or reform intelligence efforts in recent years have focused enough on the top leaders of the agency. He also said the agency needs to be more willing to work with unsavory people in their intelligence gathering efforts.
"The people who have the secrets that the spies are after are not nice people," he said. "You're just going to have to recruit some of these ugly people. You may want to have levels of ugliness. You just can't get away from this."
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cybertech wrote on May 17, 2007 4:51 AM: