Maybe the CIA should take a few lessons from its Russian counterpart, the SVR — successor to the KGB.
The Justice Department this week took down what it described as a long-term, deep-cover mission of Russian spies, sent here in the ’90s to become Americanized and establish plausible cover stories.
Their mission, according to an intercepted message from Moscow: “to search and develop ties in policy-making circles in the US.”
Just like in the bad old Cold War days, when Soviet agents stole vital security secrets and infiltrated the highest levels in Washington.
Moscow has long specialized in the use of “human intelligence” — live agents.
Not so Washington — not then, and certainly not now.
That was underscored over the weekend, when CIA Director Leon Panetta said that US intelligence hasn’t had reliable information on Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts since “the early 2000s.”
That is, not since the 9/11 attacks.
This, despite the fact that Washington likely has spent half a trillion dollars on intelligence since 9/11 — the most reliable estimate of Washington’s annual intel budget being about $44 billion.
Now, nobody believes spying is easy.
The Russians, according to prosecutors, used time-tested methods familiar to those who read spy thrillers — but updated to incorporate sophisticated 21st-century wireless technology.
Certainly, the Russians understand the importance of having well-placed agents. And while Monday’s arrests demonstrated that the method isn’t foolproof, it remains that the spies did get away with it — for years.
But ever since the failures on the 9/11 attacks and Saddam Hussein’s WMD program, numerous experts have blamed the CIA’s obvious weaknesses on a lack of human intelligence.
Porter Goss, named by President Bush to head the CIA in 2004, made the deployment of agents a top priority. But he met fierce internal resistance and was eventually forced out.
Now, nearly a decade and half-a-trillion dollars after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still just a face on a wanted poster.
The arrests demonstrate that espionage is more art than science, but it’s an art that our enemies practice with skill.
We should, too.