Former CIA Agent: U.S. Has Lost Its Spy Mojo

ΠΑΡΑΣΚΕΥΉ, 25 ΝΟΕΜΒΡΊΟΥ 2011

Former CIA Agent: U.S. Has Lost Its Spy Mojo

With ABC News reporting this week that more than a dozen spies working for the CIA in Iran and Lebanon have been caught and are feared dead, one U.S. official said the losses had occurred because espionage is inherently a "risky business" in which there are "occasional setbacks."

But former senior CIA officer Robert Baer told ABC News this week that the loss of assets was more than a mere setback, and not an isolated incident but part of a disturbing pattern.

"When you lose your entire station, either in Tehran or Beirut, that's a catastrophe," said Bob Baer, a legendary CIA agent whose Middle East exploits were fictionalized in the George Clooney film "Syriana." Baer said the disaster was due in part to a new generation of agents that has forgotten, or never learned, the traditional methods of intelligence gathering.

"They don't understand tradecraft," Baer said. "And we have lost our touch in espionage."

Περισσότερα ABC