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OPINION:
When I joined the CIA decades ago, the first thing my fellow trainees and I learned was that there was no manual for conducting overseas espionage operations. Our instructors, who had spent decades running covert operations, taught us the fundamentals based on what they had learned over the course of their careers, and they never missed an opportunity to remind us of our core mission in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations: to recruit spies and steal secrets.
In the words of retired FBI Special Agent and Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program Robin Dreeke, we learned how to “size people up” by seeing the world through the eyes of sources with whom — at least on the surface — we might have had little in common. Once we were deployed to the field, we spent our days and nights collecting human intelligence (HUMINT), which is the foundation for CIA’s all-source analysis.
My former boss, John Brennan, was never comfortable with HUMINT. As CIA director, he assiduously avoided using the term “espionage” — and in November 2015 told NPR, “We don’t steal secrets. … We uncover. We discover. We reveal. We obtain. We elicit. We solicit — all of that.”
The CIA actually does steal secrets. CIA sources conducting espionage on our behalf risk not just a jail sentence, but more often their lives. That’s why our superior tradecraft, which keeps our sources safe, matters.
CIA analysts expertly sift through HUMINT along with open source information, overhead reconnaissance and communications intercepts to deliver the analytical judgments — and, especially in war zones — battle damage assessments (BDA) on which the president relies to make the most informed foreign policy.
CIA sources will likely be concerned about whether the U.S. government can protect their sensitive information in the wake of the recently leaked Defense Intelligence Agency report, which prematurely assessed the impact of the U.S. strikes inside Iran.
Comprehensive and accurate BDAs take time.
During the three years I served alongside the U.S. military in war zones, my CIA colleagues and I often had to wait weeks for analysts to comb through the intelligence, even on the most superbly executed kinetic strike, to confirm that our intended terrorist target had indeed been eliminated.
Analysts at CIA, in close coordination with their colleagues in the intelligence community, are now on the hook to produce BDA on the Trump administration’s recent military strikes on Iran’s nuclear program. Democrats and Republicans have rightly lauded the U.S. military’s brilliant tactical success, but they have been largely split along party lines in their assessment of the resulting damage to Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump administration national security officials, as well as elected Democratic and Republican lawmakers (particularly those who serve on House and Senate intelligence committees), should patiently review the BDA and ask pertinent follow-up questions. They should focus especially on questions to related to the veracity of the raw intelligence. And they should commit themselves to agreeing on the facts absent any predisposed ideological or partisan bias.
Of course, Democrats and Republicans will disagree about policy. The days of bipartisanship on national security issues are sadly far off in our rear view mirror. But we will not get to a healthy debate about policy without establishing the baseline truth.
The biblical quotation John 8:32 is fixed in stone at the CIA’s Headquarters: “And Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free.”
The U.S. military strikes enabled the U.S. to achieve escalation dominance, thereby deterring any serious Iranian retaliation, but they are not an end unto themselves. The policy objective is still to deny Iran a nuclear weapon. And that means Iran will have to reverse its recent decision to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and engage in real diplomacy, possibly with an eye toward reducing the sanctions, which have crippled Iran’s economy.
Iran, of course, will lie about and obfuscate its intentions to reconstitute its nuclear program. The BDA must clearly delineate what, if any, nuclear infrastructure might have survived the kinetic strikes, including centrifuges that might not have yet been installed and the disposition of Iran’s stockpile of roughly 900 pounds of enriched uranium.
In order to negotiate a long-term deal that best serves U.S. national security interests, the Trump administration will need the most accurate BDA. This can also serve as a roadmap for IAEA inspections and, if needed, the follow-on military strikes Mr. Trump has already said he would be willing to order if necessary.
To paraphrase President Ronald Reagan, our strategy going forward should be characterized by mistrust and verify. A meticulously prepared and factual BDA is the only place to start.
• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. He can be reached at danielhoffman@yahoo.com.
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