The most dramatic set piece in ''See No Evil'' is Baer's virtually single-handed attempt to stir up a rebellion against Saddam Hussein in Iraq in the mid-90's. As Baer tells it, he managed to get various Iraqi colonels and Kurdish leaders lined up to overthrow the Iraqi strongman, but the nervous Nellies in Washington pulled the plug at the last minute. The Kurds fell to fighting with each other, and Baer had to flee. Did the Clinton administration blow a great opportunity? Baer argues that it did, but Clinton's national security adviser, Anthony Lake, and the C.I.A.'s analysts back at Langley apparently believed that the operation had been fatally compromised and decided to cut their losses. The full truth about the operation and its chances for success will probably never be known.
I had a peon's view of the events described here, and let's just say that Baer's presentation (which was excerpted in Vanity Fair recently) is pretty self-serving. As Biden correctly said to Scott Ritter, the decision to go to war with Iraq was something to be made by people "above your paygrade," and the same holds for Baer. I have every reason to believe that in this case it was Lake and his people who were correct, and Baer who was (at least) pushing the limits of his authority and in the process advocating a rather reckless course of action.
As with the Hillel Halkin review of the Martin Kramer book, once again this is the kind of manuscript that is filled with specific charges only a few people can actually evaluate properly. Thomas was a better choice for reviewer than the Times book review generally makes, because he's a seasoned journalist with pretty broad knowledge of the agency and its history. I found his conclusion sensible:
How credible is Baer? C.I.A. old boys tend to have more glorious memories than history warrants. The agency's so-called golden age, which ran roughly from the beginning of the cold war in the late 1940's to the Bay of Pigs debacle in 1961, saw plenty of blown or botched operations. C.I.A. officials like to say that you never hear about their victories, only their defeats, but that is to some extent a canard. Old hands eventually brag about their secret successes. Burned by scandals, the C.I.A. pulled back from aggressive covert actions in the 1990's. But the agency takes fewer foolish risks as well. The key to good intelligence is striking a balance and accepting the reality that some covert actions will fail.
For the most part, policy makers turn to covert action when all other options look hopeless. Presidents still call on the agency to do dirty jobs: intelligence officials now say that the C.I.A. has been trying to kill Osama bin Laden since at least 1998. The agency's failure of intelligence on Sept. 11 may say more about the magnitude of the task than the lack of will or effort. Now the job is to root Al Qaeda out of dozens of countries. That will take luck and ingenuity and -- for all their bluffing and swagger -- more men like Bob Baer.
tb@editorialpolice.com |
