This is a rather chilling and revealing story about our intelligence community and our ongoing ability to effectively operate and maintain an intelligence operations in the middle east. Keeping in mind, this occurred primarily under the management of Leon Panetta as director CIA.
There were those from the beginning that said that Panetta had absolutely no intelligence background or experience and would prove questionable as the head of the CIA. I believe those questions raised three years ago, are now being verified as justifiable. The damage done to our intelligence operatives is only now being revealed. People will die as a result of ineptitude and the failure of those responsible to act responsibly. Our own people and those we have recruited to assist us in the middle east will be targeted and killed by the militant regimes in Lebanon and Iran and elsewhere.
As was the case in the wake of the Carter years, it will take a generation to repair the damage that has been wrought to our intelligence capabilities in the region and in the interim a lot of people will die.
American Spies outed and in danger
The CIA's operations in Lebanon have been badly damaged after Hezbollah identified and captured a number of U.S. spies recently, current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press. The intelligence debacle is particularly troubling because the CIA saw it coming.
Hezbollah's longtime leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, boasted on television in June that he had rooted out at least two CIA spies who had infiltrated the ranks of Hezbollah, which the U.S. considers a terrorist group closely allied with Iran. Though the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon officially denied the accusation, current and former officials concede that it happened and the damage has spread even further.
"The CIA was well aware the spies were vulnerable in Lebanon. CIA officials were warned, including the chief of the unit that supervises Hezbollah operations from CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and the head of counterintelligence. It remains unclear whether anyone has been or will be held accountable in the wake of this counterintelligence disaster or whether the incident will affect the CIA's ability to recruit assets in Lebanon."
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