Shortly before a double agent for Al Qaeda detonated a suicide bomb and killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan last week, a U.S. general issued a report excoriating American military intelligence-gathering for being too focused on targeting enemy combatants at the expense of understanding civilians and the environment around them. Though unrelated, both developments highlight deep and enduring problems for the United States eight years into the war.
The suicide bomber was a Jordanian doctor recruited to infiltrate Al Qaeda at the highest level. Instead, he turned on his handlers like a Cold War spy and then, apparently steeped in religious fanaticism, blew himself up on a U.S. base along with the high-level CIA operatives. Casualties are inevitable in war, and the attack demonstrates the sophistication and adaptability of Al Qaeda; this apparently was no ragtag operation. But it also exposes poor tradecraft on the part of the CIA agents, who failed to search the informant before admitting him to the base, and it suggests that, like the military, the CIA also may be excessively focused on Al Qaeda targets.
