Sunday, May 8, 2011

In finding Osama bin Laden, CIA soars from distress to success

CIA

Army Gen. David Petraeus, left, will become head of the CIA, replacing Leon Panetta, who will become Defense secretary. (Reuters)

Reporting from Washington—

The first CIA officers who rushed to Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden after the terrorist attacks of 2001 had to buy field gear at an REI camping goods store in Virginia. Some flew in on rickety, former Soviet helicopters. A few rode horses.

What a difference a decade makes.

Thanks to U.S. intelligence, the Navy SEALs who killed Bin Laden last Monday swept into Pakistan on nearly silent, secret stealth helicopters. The assault team had practiced in Afghanistan on a full-scale mock-up of the maze-like compound.

Photos: The death of Osama bin Laden

From satellite photos, they knew where the occupants hung their laundry and burned their trash. Spies at a nearby safe house had helped count the women and children inside. CIA analysts knew a tall man strode the dirt courtyard, but the suspect they dubbed "the Pacer" never left the prison-like walls.

The CIA's stunning success, after its disastrous judgments before the 2003 invasion of Iraq and other high-profile failures, follows drastic increases in funding, staff, new high-tech systems and tools, and the reorganization of the entire U.S. intelligence community since 9/11.

But it also underscores how the spy service best known for stealing secrets has become far more militarized in the last decade. That's unlikely to change when Gen. David H. Petraeus, who has helped run the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, takes over as the next CIA director this summer.

The CIA not only works with elite clandestine commandos to hunt and kill suspected terrorists, including night missions for high-value military targets in Afghanistan. Operators at CIA headquarters in suburban Langley, Va., also fire missiles from airborne Predator drones, which have killed more than 1,000 people in Pakistan, and watch on video as they explode.

"The Predator stuff gets to be very, very personal," said a former U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was discussing a classified program. "You're basically seeing a person and the people around them, and you know that in 20 or 30 seconds they very well could be dead, if you give the order."

Lethal counterterrorism operations have become "a way of life" at the CIA, according to Philip Mudd, who tracked terrorists at the CIA and FBI until he retired in 2009.

When Mudd joined the CIA as an analyst three decades ago, the focus was to provide strategic analysis of America's Cold War enemies: "What are the Soviets up to?"

Now special "targeting analysts" track individuals through their digital trails, he said.

"You have analysts whose [target] is a person," Mudd said. "It's 'How do I know enough about this guy to predict what he's going to do tomorrow and next week?'"

The end of the Cold War saw the CIA cut staff, close foreign posts and shrink operations. But Congress has tripled funding for U.S. intelligence since 2001 — it now totals about $80 billion annually — and an influx of young people has brought fresh blood to an agency that was struggling to stay relevant.

At first "they didn't know anything about anything," said a former top CIA official. "Now, 10 years later, they've got the razor's edge. They've stuck with it every year and they're working in it, they're getting better, and they don't get tired of it. The culture now has gotten deep."

It is CIA tradition to complain that while the agency's failures become public, it rarely gets credit for successes. Last week saw U.S. intelligence officials rushing to brief reporters and issuing news releases to congratulate each other.

"In my nearly 50 years in intelligence," said National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper, "never have I seen a more remarkable example of focused integration, seamless collaboration and sheer professional magnificence."

Not everyone was so sanguine about the Bin Laden raid, however.

"When we're all done celebrating — and we should be celebrating — we should soberly look at the fact that it took us a decade to get this guy when apparently he's been sitting still for five or six years," said Charles "Sam" Faddis, a longtime CIA case officer who retired in 2008 and wrote a book critical of the agency. "I don't think we ought to be saying this is as good as it gets."

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