Read The art of intelligence : lessons from a life in the CIA's clandestine service / Henry A. Crumpton. c 2012
Notes
Summary
- Introduction -- Dreaming -- Training -- Recruiting -- Collecting -- Liaising -- Counterterrorism -- Federal Bureau of Investigation -- The Counterterrorism Center[CE1] -- Afghanistan, strategy -- Afghanistan, operations -- Beyond Afghanistan -- Reflecting -- America -- Policy.
- Includes index.
- A counterterrorism spy describes his leadership of the campaign that routed al Qaeda and the Taliban in the weeks after the September 11 attacks, offering insight into the ways in which the Afghanistan campaign changed American warfare.
Crumpton led the charge, & CIA had spent 3 years studying Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Taliban, the situation on the ground. The intel on Iraq, in contrast, was sharply limited - we didn't operate against S. Hussein in that way. The campaign against Al Qaeda & Taliban was sharply focused, low footprint, with mostly native Afghans doing the ground fighting.
Everything was very much different in the war in Iraq - & it shows. Once we decided not to pursue victory in Afghanistan nor Iraq, there was no point to leaving our forces in the meat grinder. Crumpton had a precise, actionable set of goals to achieve in Afghanistan, to take advantage of the temporary defeat & ejection of Al Qaeda & Taliban. As we didn't pursue the enemy into their safe areas - Pakistan, anywhere else - they regenerated & built up their forces again. Nor did we rebuild Afghanistan nor Iraq into a functioning government - it was all half-measures & political cronyism & money thrown away on contractors, instead of plowed into the local economies by putting willing people to work.