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Private US spy network still on in Pakistan, Afghanistan: Report
WASHINGTON: Top military officials have continued to rely on a secret network of private spies who have produced hundreds of reports from deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to American officials and businessmen, despite concerns among some in the military about the legality of the operation.
Earlier this year, government officials admitted that the military had sent a group of former Central Intelligence Agency officers and retired Special Operations troops into the region to collect information - some of which was used to track and kill people suspected of being militants. Many portrayed it as a rogue operation that had been hastily shut down once an investigation began.
But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government officials and businessmen, and an examination of government documents, tell a different a story. Not only are the networks still operating, their detailed reports on subjects like the workings of the Taliban leadership in Pakistan and the movements of enemy fighters in southern Afghanistan are also submitted almost daily to top commanders and have become an important source of intelligence.
The American military is largely prohibited from operating inside Pakistan. And under Pentagon rules, the army is not allowed to hire contractors for spying.
Military officials said that when Gen David H Petraeus, the top commander in the region, signed off on the operation in January 2009, there were prohibitions against intelligence gathering, including hiring agents to provide information about enemy positions in Pakistan. The contractors were supposed to provide only broad information about the political and tribal dynamics in the region, and information that could be used for "force protection," they said.
Some Pentagon officials said that over time the operation appeared to morph into traditional spying activities. And they pointed out that the supervisor who set up the contractor network, Michael D Furlong, was now under investigation.
But a review of the program by The New York Times found that Mr Furlong's operatives were still providing information using the same intelligence gathering methods as before. The contractors were still being paid under a $22 million contract, the review shows, managed by Lockheed Martin and supervised by the Pentagon office in charge of special operations policy.
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said that the program "remains under investigation by multiple offices within the defence department," so it would be inappropriate to answer specific questions about who approved the operation or why it continues.
"I assure you we are committed to determining if any laws were broken or policies violated," he said. Spokesmen for General Petraeus and Gen. Stanley A McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, declined to comment. Mr Furlong remains at his job, working as a senior civilian Air Force official.
A senior defence official said that the Pentagon decided just recently not to renew the contract, which expires at the end of May. While the Pentagon declined to discuss the program, it appears that commanders in the field are in no rush to shut it down because some of the information has been highly valuable, particularly in protecting troops against enemy attacks.
With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the expanded role of contractors on the battlefield - from interrogating prisoners to hunting terrorism suspects - has raised questions about whether the United States has outsourced some of its most secretive and important operations to a private army many fear is largely unaccountable. The CIA has relied extensively on contractors in recent years to carry out missions in war zones.
The exposure of the spying network also reveals tensions between the Pentagon and the CIA, which itself is running a covert war across the border in Pakistan. In December, a cable from the CIA's station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, to the Pentagon argued that the military's hiring of its own spies could have disastrous consequences, with various networks possibly colliding with one another.
The memo also said that Mr Furlong had a history of delving into outlandish intelligence schemes, including an episode in 2008, when American officials expelled him from Prague for trying to clandestinely set up computer servers for propaganda operations. Some officials say they believe that the CIA is trying to scuttle the operation to protect its own turf, and that the spy agency has been embarrassed because the contractors are outperforming CIA operatives.
The private contractor network was born in part out of frustration with the CIA and the military intelligence apparatus. There was a belief by some officers that the CIA was too risk averse, too reliant on Pakistan's spy service and seldom able to provide the military with timely information to protect American troops. In addition, the military has complained that it is not technically allowed to operate in Pakistan, whose government is willing to look the other way and allow CIA spying but not the presence of foreign troops.
Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, dismissed reports of a turf war.
"There's no daylight at all on this between CIA and DoD," he said. "It's an issue for Defence to look into - it involves their people, after all - and that's exactly what they're doing."
Since the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Pentagon has used broad interpretations of its authorities to expand military intelligence operations, including sending Special Operations troops on clandestine missions far from declared war zones. These missions have raised concerns in Washington that the Pentagon is running de facto covert actions without proper White House authority and with little oversight from the elaborate system of Congressional committees and internal controls intended to prevent abuses in intelligence gathering.
The officials say the contractors' reports are delivered via an encrypted e-mail service to an "information operations fusion cell," located at the military base at Kabul International Airport. There, they are fed into classified military computer networks, then used for future military operations or intelligence reports.
To skirt military restrictions on intelligence gathering, information the contractors gather in eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas is specifically labelled "atmospheric collection": information about the workings of militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan or about Afghan tribal structures. The boundaries separating "atmospherics" from what spies gather is murky. It is generally considered illegal for the military to run organized operations aimed at penetrating enemy organizations with covert agents.
Private US spy network still on in Pakistan, Afghanistan: Report - US - World - The Times of India
WASHINGTON: Top military officials have continued to rely on a secret network of private spies who have produced hundreds of reports from deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to American officials and businessmen, despite concerns among some in the military about the legality of the operation.
Earlier this year, government officials admitted that the military had sent a group of former Central Intelligence Agency officers and retired Special Operations troops into the region to collect information - some of which was used to track and kill people suspected of being militants. Many portrayed it as a rogue operation that had been hastily shut down once an investigation began.
But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government officials and businessmen, and an examination of government documents, tell a different a story. Not only are the networks still operating, their detailed reports on subjects like the workings of the Taliban leadership in Pakistan and the movements of enemy fighters in southern Afghanistan are also submitted almost daily to top commanders and have become an important source of intelligence.
The American military is largely prohibited from operating inside Pakistan. And under Pentagon rules, the army is not allowed to hire contractors for spying.
Military officials said that when Gen David H Petraeus, the top commander in the region, signed off on the operation in January 2009, there were prohibitions against intelligence gathering, including hiring agents to provide information about enemy positions in Pakistan. The contractors were supposed to provide only broad information about the political and tribal dynamics in the region, and information that could be used for "force protection," they said.
Some Pentagon officials said that over time the operation appeared to morph into traditional spying activities. And they pointed out that the supervisor who set up the contractor network, Michael D Furlong, was now under investigation.
But a review of the program by The New York Times found that Mr Furlong's operatives were still providing information using the same intelligence gathering methods as before. The contractors were still being paid under a $22 million contract, the review shows, managed by Lockheed Martin and supervised by the Pentagon office in charge of special operations policy.
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said that the program "remains under investigation by multiple offices within the defence department," so it would be inappropriate to answer specific questions about who approved the operation or why it continues.
"I assure you we are committed to determining if any laws were broken or policies violated," he said. Spokesmen for General Petraeus and Gen. Stanley A McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, declined to comment. Mr Furlong remains at his job, working as a senior civilian Air Force official.
A senior defence official said that the Pentagon decided just recently not to renew the contract, which expires at the end of May. While the Pentagon declined to discuss the program, it appears that commanders in the field are in no rush to shut it down because some of the information has been highly valuable, particularly in protecting troops against enemy attacks.
With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the expanded role of contractors on the battlefield - from interrogating prisoners to hunting terrorism suspects - has raised questions about whether the United States has outsourced some of its most secretive and important operations to a private army many fear is largely unaccountable. The CIA has relied extensively on contractors in recent years to carry out missions in war zones.
The exposure of the spying network also reveals tensions between the Pentagon and the CIA, which itself is running a covert war across the border in Pakistan. In December, a cable from the CIA's station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, to the Pentagon argued that the military's hiring of its own spies could have disastrous consequences, with various networks possibly colliding with one another.
The memo also said that Mr Furlong had a history of delving into outlandish intelligence schemes, including an episode in 2008, when American officials expelled him from Prague for trying to clandestinely set up computer servers for propaganda operations. Some officials say they believe that the CIA is trying to scuttle the operation to protect its own turf, and that the spy agency has been embarrassed because the contractors are outperforming CIA operatives.
The private contractor network was born in part out of frustration with the CIA and the military intelligence apparatus. There was a belief by some officers that the CIA was too risk averse, too reliant on Pakistan's spy service and seldom able to provide the military with timely information to protect American troops. In addition, the military has complained that it is not technically allowed to operate in Pakistan, whose government is willing to look the other way and allow CIA spying but not the presence of foreign troops.
Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, dismissed reports of a turf war.
"There's no daylight at all on this between CIA and DoD," he said. "It's an issue for Defence to look into - it involves their people, after all - and that's exactly what they're doing."
Since the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Pentagon has used broad interpretations of its authorities to expand military intelligence operations, including sending Special Operations troops on clandestine missions far from declared war zones. These missions have raised concerns in Washington that the Pentagon is running de facto covert actions without proper White House authority and with little oversight from the elaborate system of Congressional committees and internal controls intended to prevent abuses in intelligence gathering.
The officials say the contractors' reports are delivered via an encrypted e-mail service to an "information operations fusion cell," located at the military base at Kabul International Airport. There, they are fed into classified military computer networks, then used for future military operations or intelligence reports.
To skirt military restrictions on intelligence gathering, information the contractors gather in eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas is specifically labelled "atmospheric collection": information about the workings of militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan or about Afghan tribal structures. The boundaries separating "atmospherics" from what spies gather is murky. It is generally considered illegal for the military to run organized operations aimed at penetrating enemy organizations with covert agents.
Private US spy network still on in Pakistan, Afghanistan: Report - US - World - The Times of India
