February 27, 2004, 8:46 a.m.
Once Upon a Spymaster
Consulting my man Angleton.

I was going to write something about the testimony of George Tenet (director of Central Intelligence) to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) last Wednesday, but then I thought I'd consult with my old friend, the late James Jesus Angleton. After all, he'd been the chief of CIA counterintelligence for many years, and knew a lot more about the intelligence business than I ever would. So I dragged out the ouija board, and after a few failed efforts (probably the fault of the Patriot Act) I got through.

ML: So how goes it?

JJA: It's pretty boring, frankly. But we do get a few interesting documents up here. I've been reading the Zawahiri tape and the Zarkawi letter, both of which are fascinating.

ML: Did you have a chance to look at Tenet's testimony?

JJA: Oh yes. We watched it, of course, and then I read it twice.

ML: The committee seemed to be impressed, and Tenet got good press on it. What did you think?

JJA: He's got it down pat now. He knows what they like, he speaks well, and the most important thing is that the senators know he's got a close working relationship with the president. That is the single-most important strength of any DCI. If the president likes him and listens to him, the CIA feels strong. Presidents like Clinton always discourage the intelligence community, and produce very weak CIA directors, but this president is interested in it, so Tenet matters a lot.

ML: Anything in there surprise you?

JJA: I thought it was badly crafted. There are many sentences in which it's impossible to decipher what he's referring to. For example, he warns that we have to carefully watch "places where terrorist networks converge." Then he says "Iraq is of course one. But so are the backyards of our closest allies. Even Western Europe is an area where terrorists recruit, train, and target." I don't get that "even." It suggests that Western Europe is in a different category from "backyards of our closest allies." So who are the close allies he's talking about?

ML: Israel maybe?

JJA: Maybe. He does talk about 600 attacks by Palestinian terrorists in 2003, producing 200 dead, including Americans. But I think he's also thinking about the Saudis?

ML: But the Saudis give lots of support to some of the terrorists.

JJA: Sure they do, but he's got them right at the top of his list of "Coalition partners, who have been central to our effort against al Qaeda." He implies that this cooperation is recent, saying that since the May 12 bombings the Saudis have been fighting hard, "and Saudi officers have paid with their lives." Then he talks about Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, the UAE, Oman, Pakistan, and then finally "partners in Southeast Asia" and then "our European partners." I guess that's the full list.

ML: So what's the problem?

JJA: The problem is that several of these countries, starting with the Saudis, are both friends and enemies, and you'd expect the DCI to try to educate the senators, and the American public, to the fact that the real world is complicated, and at least hint at our knowledge of the complexities.

ML: I agree. I was disappointed to find him lapsing back into some of the discredited oversimplifications that got us into so much trouble before 9/11, like the Sunni vs. Shiite business.

JJA: Right, and he puts it right in his "blockbuster." "What I want to say to you now may be the most important thing I tell you today," he says. You can almost hear the drum roll. And what is this most important thing? It's a single sentence: "The steady growth of Osama bin Laden's anti-U.S. sentiment through the wider Sunni extremist movement and the broad dissemination of al Qaeda's destructive expertise ensure that a serious threat will remain for the foreseeable future — with or without al Qaeda in the picture."

ML: You see? There's that "Sunni extremist movement" bit again, as if (Shiite) Hezbollah weren't one of the worst — if not the worst — of the terrorist groups. And as if Osama and Zarkawi weren't getting help from (Shiite) Iran as well as (Sunni) Syria, both of which he names as terror sponsors.

JJA: Indeed. Although he rightly says that it's a mistake to think about the terror network as a collection of discrete organizations — he stresses that it's a global movement — he still seems to believe that the division between Sunni and Shiite is fundamental.

ML: Why do you think he clings to this myth?

JJA: Two reasons. First, it's been conventional wisdom at the agency for a long time, and these things get embedded in the culture in Langley. And second, I think we have much better sources among the Sunni than among the Shiites, particularly in Iran. So he can speak much more confidently about Sunni groups and Sunni countries.

ML: I liked a lot of what he said about Iraq.

JJA: Yes, me too. He was quite explicit that the "insurgency" in Iraq aims at "driving the U.S. and our Coalition partners from Iraq." That's exactly right, and it should point right back to Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. But then he loses sight of one of the main objectives of the jihadists: the creation of an Islamic republic in Iraq. That never gets mentioned, he deals with the insurgency as if it were a purely paramilitary force. Even when he talks about Iran's support for the Badr militia, for example, he only mentions their penetration of the Iraqi police and media outlets in the south of the country. But the fact is that Iran wants to dominate the whole country, because a democratic Iraq would encourage the Iranian people to overthrow the regime in Tehran.

The greatest weakness of his presentation on Iraq is that it's a kind of political-science-style thumbnail sketch of the various contending forces. It's interesting, so far as it goes, but it's not enough. He tells us that, according to the agency, Iran wants a non-threatening Iraqi government (but he doesn't say, "and therefore an undemocratic regime") that is "not a U.S. puppet, can maintain the country's territorial integrity, and has a strong Shia representation." But there is every reason to think that Iran wants an Iraqi Islamic Republic, and there is abundant evidence that they are working towards it. Don't we listen to their radio and television broadcasts to Iraq? They certainly say that often enough.

ML: I thought he put a bit too much stress on the "movement," and not enough about the countries that support it.

JJA: True, although he covered his flanks by stating flatly that Iran and Syria were supporting terrorism, in Iraq and elsewhere. But you're right, his main emphasis was on the "movement," and he even said that you no longer need a state in order to produce terrible weapons. True, but it's a hell of a lot easier when you've got a state supporting you. And if the regimes in Damascus and Tehran were toppled, you'd see much less terrorism.

ML: He was happy to talk about Libya, wasn't he?

JJA: Oh, yes, and he's entitled. That was very well done indeed, and he was also happy to talk about the agency's good work on AQ Khan and his worldwide nuclear-proliferation network.

ML: Anything else strike you?

JJA: Yes, there was that non-sequitur about China.
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ML: I missed that.

JJA: Well, he said quite a lot about China's military programs — although you have to pull together elements from different sections of his talk to see it all — and then he comes out with this one: "All of these steps will over time make China a formidable challenge if Beijing perceived that its interests were being thwarted in the region."

Feh! That "if" is a total non-sequitur. All those steps will make China a formidable challenge, period. And China's interests are global, not just regional, as they say in their published military doctrine.

So that was a big disappointment.

ML: And you don't need spies to figure out that one.

JJA: No, you only need people who can read Chinese.

I was about to ask him whether he thought we had enough of those Chinese-language readers, and it occurred to me that I should ask him about Arabic and Farsi raiders, too, but the connection went all wheezy (he was a chain smoker, so it was hard to tell if it was him or the line), and that was it for the day.

Next time I'll follow up.