Do assumptions about class create a vulnerability to terror?
The highly successful Taliban attack on the CIA compound at FOB Chapman is a reminder that the recruitment of agents to infiltrate adversary organizations is very much a two-way street. The past few months have revealed that various adversary groups — through their persistence, observation, and learning — have discovered vulnerabilities in U.S. security. Those on the U.S. side responsible for security – which increasingly means everyone, not just counterintelligence personnel — need to recalibrate their assumptions about who might be dangerous.
The CIA officers at FOB Chapman were very likely in the business of making contact with Afghan and Pakistani citizens in the area with the goal of recruiting agents who could nominate targets for either missile strikes or direct action raids. It is wholly appropriate that the CIA was there for this purpose — it is a core function of the Clandestine Service to recruit and manage such agent networks.
Naturally, the very fact that CIA officers were out making contact with the locals made them vulnerable to counter-infiltration. The origins of this dilemma date back thousands of years so we must assume that the CIA was well aware of the risks and had procedures in place to mitigate those risks. According to a story in today’s Washington Post, the Taliban claimed that the suicide bomber who infiltrated the inner CIA compound was an officer in the Afghan army. Although unconfirmed, this claim seems realistic. The Taliban handler of the infiltrator could have spent many months or even years building up a trusting relationship with the Americans. If the infiltrator was an Afghan army officer, this attack is likely to create additional difficult strains between Afghan and U.S. forces.
Might misguided American assumptions about class and social-economic status now be a security vulnerability? The CIA may never declassify its internal investigation of the FOB Chapman attack, so for now I can only speculate on what actually happened. It is easy to see how the Americans could remain suspicious of a common Afghan soldier, no matter how long they had known him. But an Afghan army officer, perhaps one who had travelled to the West, maybe gone to school there, would more easily find a place inside the CIA’s small circle of camaraderie.
Might a similar misguided American assumption about class and social-economic status at least partly explain how Major Hasan — an officer, medical school graduate and mass-murderer at Fort Hood — escaped scrutiny? We can assume that the State Department’s Consular bureau would resist issuing a multi-entry visa to a common Nigerian military-aged male from a Lagos slum. But the State Department did issue such a visa to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who nearly succeeded in downing an airliner on Christmas Day. Abdulmutallab came from a wealthy Nigerian family, lived in a multi-million dollar flat in London, and was an honors graduate from University College London. For a U.S. consular officer with perhaps a similar pedigree, someone like Abdulmutallab might not seem like a risk.
While the U.S. escalates its military operations in the dusty hinterlands of Afghanistan and Yemen, adversaries might be focusing their terror recruiting efforts at British universities. Which makes one wonder which side is better at learning and adapting, and exploiting his enemy’s blind spots and cultural weaknesses.
