How the CIA can improve its ops in Afghanistan

This shouldn’t have been a surprise: CIA sources say that over the past year, two al-Qaeda allies in Afghanistan — the Haqqani and Hekmatyar networks — have run double-agent operations. That tactic succeeded disastrously in Khost a week ago, when the CIA’s defenses were penetrated by a Jordanian doctor posing as an informant for the Jordanian intelligence service…

Despite this growing threat, the CIA has devoted only limited resources to defending itself. Within its large Kabul station, the CIA is said to have just two officers working full time on counterintelligence. There’s a similar lack of resources devoted to Pakistani operations against the agency…

The CIA’s career track is another troubling part of the problem. The complex penetration and deception operations that could counter al-Qaeda take time and patience. But agency operations mirror the short, two-year tours of assignment — or the even shorter deployments to war zones. “We live in two-year cycles,” says one insider. The rational careerist looks at a penetration or deception plan and concludes: “It’s too time-consuming, it won’t get me promoted.”