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| Iraq |
| CIA OFFICER: We Had No Idea Militants Would Seize Iraqi Cities |
| 2014-06-26 |
| "This is a glaring example of the erosion of our street craft and our tradecraft and our capability to operate in a hard place," said Maguire, who helped run CIA operations in Iraq in 2004. "The U.S. taxpayer is not getting their money's worth." |
| Posted by:Uncle Phester |
| #22 One quibble. The ISIS didn't seize the cities, the Shia-led military abandoned them in a cowardly run, and some of the local Sunni |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2014-06-26 23:38 |
| #21 Well, yes. Rainbow and equal-sign stickers are all the rage now. Discount them at your peril; the EO is only a phone call away. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2014-06-26 21:27 |
| #20 Ship - I used to cringe when I saw one of our people wearing a shemagh [man scarf]. Posing for happy snaps with the locals, bad juju. Bad for you, potentially very bad for them. People who need memorabilia on the walls or a "hurrah for me room" suffer from Low-T. I don't even care for bumper stickers. Probably a bit radical or narrow minded on my part. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-06-26 20:24 |
| #19 Just wait until they get the shocking news that night follows day |
| Posted by: regular joe 2014-06-26 20:18 |
| #18 I'll wager they both have professional candid shots of themselves in Balaclavas and maybe even Paleo dinner cloths amongst safe locals, along with photographs of mystery people on their walls. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2014-06-26 17:08 |
| #17 Roger Ship, they're both looking forward to that regional ME desk, or POLMIL job in Foggy Bottom and some decent Simonsberg-Paarl merlot. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-06-26 16:16 |
| #16 Loco and Daisy have you figured out where they went to school? Princeton maybe? Turned down a job at Dad's partnership to do wild and crazy things? (With Daisy). |
| Posted by: Shipman 2014-06-26 14:39 |
| #15 50 billion looted dollars being spent looking for people who may threaten the establishment, rather than looking for terrorism. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2014-06-26 13:22 |
| #14 OK, so they miss little things like the war in Syria flooding into Iraq and the recent title transfer in the Crimea. But they are on top of the big stuff, like the collapse of the fUSSR. Well, OK, not that. But other stuff, I'm sure. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2014-06-26 13:19 |
| #13 Thanks, Admiral Turner. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2014-06-26 12:02 |
| #12 That is the problem with relying on space and air based recon. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2014-06-26 11:19 |
| #11 Where's Gen. Stan McCrystal and the network he set up in Iraq to roll up these guys. Oh never mind, I forgot, we left there in 2011 and McCrystal is gone. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2014-06-26 10:44 |
| #10 |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-06-26 09:05 |
| #9 Is this what happens when you refocus your intelligence operations on your own people? |
| Posted by: Cliter Glaique5068 2014-06-26 08:55 |
| #8 A few heads poled on Potomac Bridges after 9/11 would have 'encouraged others' to be more attentive to their mission. Instead they would expended their efforts to undermine the elected president of the United States with leaks and counter position papers that just so happened to get into the press. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-06-26 08:39 |
| #7 Did you ever get the impression that when they spun NSA out from CIA, all the competence went with NSA? |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2014-06-26 08:15 |
| #6 CIA OFFICER: We Had No Idea Much more accurate title.(Still don't) |
| Posted by: Redeck Jim 2014-06-26 06:53 |
| #5 Good work if you can get it. Easy to stay in the HUMINT loop when you're running 'kill or capture' operations and US SOF or Brit SAS are doing the hard work in the bush. [sometimes we ride along, if it's not an over-niter]. Loco and Daisy running around the FOB in their Toyota 4x4, returning to their comfi compound to read traffic, write contact reports and sip gin from the embassy. No FOB Chapman shit here, nobody gets inside the wire. Hot shower and pipe cleaning to follow. Tomorrow, it starts all over again with the 'Tuesday morning weekly update' and seeing what big Army intel is up to....the poor clueless buggers. Punching our deployment tickets. And by the way, this isn't just Klington SOP in Iraq and Afghanistan, it goes back to the 1960's. Good work if you can get it, and the pay is ridiculous. In all fairness, there are... or were exceptions, Mike Spann being one such exception. Loco and Daisy are not entirely to blame. The attitude at 'main' is low risk/no risk, just keep the reports coming. [Loco and Daisy are pseudonyms of my own creation]. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-06-26 05:29 |
| #4 But you're sure Iran is years away from nuclear weapons? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-06-26 04:36 |
| #3 You sure Bammer isn't Muslim Brotherhood? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2014-06-26 04:13 |
| #2 Nerither did POTUS Obama + SecState Jaawhan [+ SGT. Schultz?] apparently, despite Milyuhns-n-Dilyuhns? of warnings ... ... * TOPIX > [Fox News] INTEL OFFICIAL SAYS MULTIPLE WARNINGS GIVEN ON ISIS AS KERRY CLAIMS "NOBODY ANTICIPATED" CRISIS. IIUC, both the Bammer + Kerry they didn't get the proper information or followup to queries on same. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2014-06-26 02:46 |
| #1 Comforting to know the security of our nation is in such knowledgeable intelligence apparatus. |
| Posted by: Thineng Angailet7166 2014-06-26 01:24 |