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...deadliest in CIA history. That sad honor goes to the 1983 truck bomb that ripped off the face of the U.S. embassy in Lebanon, killing eight members of the Beirut station, among many others. But this suicide bomber, a Jordanian doctor named Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, was the CIA's worst ever security breach. In an era when grandmothers are routinely screened at airports, al-Balawi was whisked into Forward Operating Base Chapman, the CIA headquarters for the drone war against al-Qaeda, without so much as a pat-down. He was then ushered into a meeting with...
Both of these facts are crucial. The CIA clearly considered this guy a hot ticket, the path--finally--to the al-Qaeda leadership. The idea that so many CIA personnel would attend the meeting, and that it would be held on base, is attributable not only to al-Balawi's perceived importance but also to the CIA's bureaucratic caution: in the past, such a meeting would be held off base, with fewer handlers. But everyone wanted to evaluate this guy in the flesh. The fact that al-Balawi wasn't given even a rudimentary security screening speaks...
...there was also a quieter and potentially more profound reaction: Given the skill of this operation, how trustworthy are the other sources the CIA has been using to help target its drone attacks against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan? The standard claim has been that the CIA's human intelligence against al-Qaeda--and other threats--has improved dramatically in recent years. "In a very perverse way, this attack may be the best testimony of all that human intelligence has improved," said the former official. But spies are, by nature, paranoid, and there will be suspicion now that...
...suppressing its extremist threat. In Yemen, with little government ability to monitor released former Gitmo detainees in the hinterlands of the nation, a program could probably not guarantee the Saudi level of success. And even Saudi Arabia's 15% recidivism rate is problematic: the No. 2 leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group that allegedly trained the Christmas Day bomber, is a graduate of the Saudi program...
...offshore facility. A special task force set up a year ago concluded last fall that the U.S. doesn't have sufficient evidence to successfully prosecute any of the Yemenis in either civilian or military courts. Still, the task force concluded, about half of the prisoners are devoted members of al-Qaeda and therefore too dangerous to release. (See pictures of the conflict in Yemen...