Friday quick-hits

There is a lot of stuff to talk about right now, and we've been largely absent from the conversation. Egypt is at the top of the list, of course. I'm reticent about engaging in the sort of sudden-expertism that's so prevalent in the blogosphere and on cable news, but there are certainly angles to this story that we can meaningfully weigh in on (for me it's American security assistance to Egypt and the broader U.S.-Egypt mil-to-mil relationship), and I hope to get to that in the near future. But for now I'm mostly focused on the immediate struggle against the Old Enemy (and late-afternoon drinks with some defense-blogging luminaries), so I just want to hit you with a few brief notes.

1. Read Jason's tank-wonk piece on what changing Army org structure means for armor culture and the future employment of tanks. Then read this excellent (if incidental) companion story in Aviation Week by Friend of Ink Spots Paul McLeary, Andy Nativi, and David Eshel: "Future of Main Battle Tank Looks Secure." Good contributions to the never-ending "Is Armor Dead?" debate.

2. Check out this review of the new Rumsfeld book by Bloomberg defense guy Tony Capaccio. Note this excerpt in particular:

“What was unique about Iraq was that the intelligence community reported near total confidence in their conclusions,” Rumsfeld writes. “Their assessments appeared to be unusually consistent.”

Now get in the way-back machine and go read Eli Lake in The New Republic in September 2002. This is six months before the Iraq war started, remember. Money paragraph:

But this is all mere speculation, because there is no NIE for Iraq and there probably won't be one anytime soon. The reason for this omission is that the Iraq hawks running the Pentagon and staffing the office of the vice president long ago lost faith in the CIA analysis. So they set up their own network for analyzing and collecting intelligence regarding Iraq and have been presenting it to the president themselves. The result is that instead of Bush receiving one assessment of the facts on the ground, he has for months been receiving two--one (more cautious) from the CIA and the other (more optimistic) from the Iraq hawks. As one former CIA analyst says, "Not since Vietnam has there been as deep a divide over intelligence as to enemy capabilities as you are seeing now in Iraq." The administration's confusion on Iraq, in other words, goes even deeper than its critics understand. It's not just that different factions in the administration disagree about U.S. policy vis-a-vis Saddam. They disagree about the fundamental facts on which that policy should be based.

The whole article is worth reading -- it's a thoughtful look at how the intersection of intelligence and policy is fraught with all sorts of problems of ideology, perception, and so on. Great, great work from someone I frequently butt heads with. Oh yeah, and Rumsfeld: face.

3. And finally, the Most Disingenuous Quote of All Time award goes to the anonymous defense industry flack who told Politico's Jen DiMascio (re: foreign military sales to Egypt)

“We do this because we are told by the U.S. government it’s in the U.S. national interest,” a defense industry official said, referring to U.S. sales abroad. “If at any time it stops becoming so, ... it’s not too hard to say we’d be on board with that.”

Um, riiiiight. That's why there's no Lockheed guy in Baghdad lobbying MNF-I and the Iraqi MoD that the F-16 is the best solution to Iraq's air-defense needs, right? They're just siting at their desks in Bethesda waiting for an order to come in, then executing on USG requests to support the national interest? Sure.

Hey, "national interest" can be a really complex mix of things, and it can include jobs and economic strength and industrial base health and a whole bunch of other stuff aside from military-strategic concerns. I get that. But it is just totally obscene for arms manufacturers to suggest that they only sell systems abroad "because [they're] told by the U.S. government it's in the U.S. national interest" -- with the further implication that they're not out ahead of the USG pimping their stuff as the best solution for everybody involved. Sure, the defense industry just fills orders as a public service, with the almost not-even-worth-mentioning side benefit that it helps to sustain their business and increase revenue. Bullshit.

And on that happy note, enjoy your weekend.

Iranian rebel leader received U.S. backing

Oh, no, wait, that's just what he told Iranian authorities after he'd been captured and likely tortured.

Sunni Muslim rebel leader Abdul Malik Rigi, arrested Tuesday by Iran, said the United States had offered to provide him with a base, cash and weapons, according to Iranian state television, which showed him purportedly making the admissions.

Iranian authorities said Rigi's group, Jundallah, was responsible for several deadly attacks in southeastern Iran and is backed by the United States. They said he was provided with an Afghan passport and had been at a U.S. base in Afghanistan 24 hours before the arrest.

U.S. officials, of course, deny anything of the sort.

While I think this guy would probably tell his government tormentors just about anything they wanted to hear, it's fair to note that there were rumblings during the prior administration that the U.S. ought to support Jundullah. Here's what Bob Baer had to say about that in Time last October, after a suspected Jundullah bomb had killed IRGC leadership alongside a number of other people:

"American intelligence has also had contact with Jundullah. But that contact, as Iran almost certainly knows, was confined to intelligence-gathering on the country," Robert Baer, a former Middle East CIA field officer wrote on the Time.com, IRNA reported early on Saturday.

However, he noted that the US-Jundullah relationship "was never formalized, and contact was sporadic."

The news comes amid US denial of any involvement in a recent terrorist attack in Sistan-Baluchestan province in southeastern Iran, which Jundullah claimed responsibility for.

"I've been told that the Bush Administration at one point considered Jundullah as a piece in a covert-action campaign against Iran, but the idea was quickly dropped because Jundullah was judged uncontrollable and too close to al-Qaeda. There was no way to be certain that Jundullah would not throw the bombs we paid for back at us," said the former CIA agent who is a columnist in the weekly, and very probably an advisor in the Middle East.

Baer also noted that Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has had relations with the Jundullah leader, Abdolmalek Rigi.

"Pakistani intelligence has indeed had contact with Jundullah over the years, but there's no good evidence that Pakistan created Jundullah from scratch. And there's certainly no evidence that Pakistan ordered the attack," Baer said in reference to the terrorist attack that took place in Iran on Sunday, October 18, which killed 42 people including the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps commanders.

There are a million good reasons why our association with Jundullah should never have progressed beyond the point where it apparently stopped (according to Baer), so this explanation has a ring of truth. That the Iranian regime would try to associate Rigi with the U.S. is about as surprising as it is compelling, which is to say not at all.

Top Taliban commander captured (UPDATED)

The New York Times is reporting that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the most senior Taliban official after Mullah Omar, has been captured in a joint U.S.-Pakistani intelligence operation. (h/t Leah Farrall on Twitter)

Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.

It was unclear whether he was talking, but the officials said his capture had provided a window into the Taliban and could lead to other senior officials. Most immediately, they hope he will provide the whereabouts of Mullah Omar, the one-eyed cleric who is the group’s spiritual leader.

Disclosure of Mullah Baradar’s capture came as American and Afghan forces were in the midst of a major offensive in southern Afghanistan.

His capture could cripple the Taliban’s military operations, at least in the short term, said Bruce O. Riedel, a C.I.A. veteran who last spring led the Obama administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan policy review.

Details of the raid remain murky, but officials said that it had been carried out by Pakistan’s military spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and that C.I.A. operatives had accompanied the Pakistanis.

This is undeniably good news, particularly in light of what looks like extensive cooperation from Pakistan. I'm not sure I'm ready to say that the ISI has turned the page here, but it's certainly a step in the right direction. In related news, for the first time ever, Michael Cohen is more optimistic about Afghanistan than me.

Not only is this enormous as far as the US war in Afghanistan, but it suggests for perhaps the first time that the Pakistan government is willing to cooperate with the US in going after the Afghan Taliban. One can only imagine the impact on Taliban feelings of security and reliance on Pakistani support: that safe haven ain't feeling so safe anymore. One has to think this will affect the drive toward political reconciliation in a dramatic way - because if you're the Taliban this news suggests that time is no longer necessarily on your side.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say this may be the most important to thing to happen to the US war in Afghanistan - as Leah Farrell suggests this might be the more significant US capture since 9/11. This has the potential to change the entire complexion of the war in Afghanistan - and for the better. For the first time in a very long time, there is reason for optimism.

Let's cross our fingers that he's right. I don't see how it changes a lot of foundational dynamics of the war (including the cost-benefit analysis that underlies American involvement in Afghanistan), but if we're gonna be there, we may as well be shutting down the bad guys.

UPDATE: Here's a good backgrounder on Baradar from Newsweek last summer.

New French Spy School

Le Monde is reporting that a new school, in fact a "grande ecole," is being created for French intelligence professionals. This is part of ongoing reforms to France's national security structures, stemming from the 2008 White Paper on Defense.

As the article explains (second paragraph, loose translation/paraphrase):

Open to professionals (cadres are professional staff not support staff) this new school will be reserved to six specialized civilian and military services: the Direction centrale du renseignement intérieur (DCRI--National Directorate for Interior Security) - which reports to the Ministry of the Interior -, the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (DGSE--the National Directorate for Exterior Security), the Direction du renseignement militaire (DRM--the Directorate for Military Security) and the Direction de la protection et de la sécurité de la défense (DPSD--Directorate for the protection and security of defense) - which report to the Ministry of Defense -, Tracfin - the Ministry of Finance's anti-laundering cell - and the Direction nationale du renseignement et des enquêtes douanières (DNRED--the National Directorate for customs investigations).

This represents over 11,200 people and the school will provide training and certification that is expected to be required for professional advancement. The creation of the school is also expected to help with mobility between the services, better integration of effort, etc. The challenge of course is that financing is uncertain: as a result, the article reports that certain branches have been excluded. In particular (last paragraph, loose paraphrase/translation again):

1,300 police officers from the under-director for general information, which is part of public security are not eligble. This was created in September 2008 when police intelligence was reformed and it includes a significant part of the personnel from the former General Intelligence service who after being unexpectedly separated from their colleagues chose to join for the National Directorate for Internal Security. In addition, the gendarmes, who are trying to develop their intelligence capacity (often causing friction with the police officers), and who have an antiterrorism liaison office are also excluded.

This creation is complemented by the official formation (just before Christmas) of two National Security Council type structures, both headed by the President: the National Council for Defense and National Security and its more specialized counterpart, the National Council for Intelligence.

So what does this all mean exactly? Well, first that President Sarkozy is creating in France some of the structures that we have here with respect to national security decision making. He's also trying to figure out ways to improve France's intelligence services. There's one thing I'm not sure about though: is it a good idea to exclude the gendarmerie from this, particularly given its increasing role to support police reform in other countries (and the ensuing intelligence collection/analysis requirements that such work entails)?

Everyone's an intel expert this week

So why not me too? But instead of offering anything substantive, I'll just criticize someone else. Here's David Ignatius (in a column originally titled "A Breakdown in CIA Tradecraft," as if Ignatius knows a whole lot about tradecraft):

The bombing in Khost is a much more tragic case of good intentions gone awry. The question to ask is why the suicide bomber was allowed into the agency's base in eastern Afghanistan. Agency officers traditionally meet their sources at clandestine locations -- "safe houses," as they're known, and car pickups -- outside an embassy or military base. The reason is security: The agent shouldn't see many CIA faces, and vice versa.

This is actually wrong. Yeah, security is the reason, but it's about security of the asset, not the officer(s) working him: it's generally a bad idea to trot a source in the front door of a U.S. intelligence facility if you want him to A) continue to have access to useful information and B) continue to not be dead.