CIA

The station phase starts slow, then ramps up into confusion, chaos, and crisis. Imagine a CIA officer in Moscow when communism fell. That about captures it.

Hersh’s recent work about the raid which killed Osama Bin Laden is the most thorough and accurate we have yet seen. Read why we think so.

All that remains is for us to survive the final, brutal, week-long exercise, followed by graduation. Not everyone will make it to become CIA case officers.

General order #5 states that a Marine on duty will, “Quit my post only when properly relieved.” Is the U.S. abandoning its post prematurely?

Why is the character of General William Donovan, founder of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and one of America’s greatest patriots, under attack?

I had started the first phase of the CIA’s field tradecraft training. I had taken the proverbial pill, and seen the Matrix. My eyes had been opened.

I guess they were not kidding at the Team when they said a lot of SEALs do not make it through the background check and polygraph, and I am better off staying in the Teams.

The CEO brought the group onto one of the colorful factory floors and turned toward them. Normally friendly and always wearing a smile, this time, his look was stern and he appeared circumspect. He swept his eyes over them before he spoke. “Now remember, no messing about. No touching, no tasting, no telling.” There was a […]

It has been almost 14 years since the attacks of 9/11/2001, and during that time, America’s intelligence professionals at the CIA, mostly from the Counterterrorism Center and the Near East Division — though from the other Divisions within the National Clandestine Service, as well — have been on the front lines of the War on […]

Has anyone ever stopped to actually ask what it is that America wants to accomplish with our foreign policy? What are our long-term goals? What is our strategy to achieve those goals? Instead, our diplomatic, intelligence, and military forces are constantly in ‘react mode’ due to a lack of guidance from our legislative and executive […]

In CIA Director John Brennan’s recent speech and Q&A session at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), as well as in his recent address to agency personnel at CIA headquarters, the head of America’s leading human intelligence agency discussed the way forward for the agency, the grand restructuring of its workforce, and how it operates against the […]

In 2003, the CIA abducted Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off the streets of Milan. He was suspected of recruiting foreign jihadist fighters and then facilitating their way to Iraq. With Hassan shipped off to Egypt for interrogation, the operation at first appeared to be a success. What happened over the following months and years demonstrated how technology may be the […]