Hillary Clinton’s State Department bureaucrats are interfering
with current CIA operations by denying passports to agents,
according to intelligence community sources.
Though this has happened in the past, these denials were until
recently a rare occurrence. There has been a surge in the State
Department’s denial of “country clearances” in recent months.
Because the State Department has legal control over the issuance of
all U.S. passports — including those diplomatic and other special
passports often used by active CIA operatives — its refusal to
issue passports in recent months has denied the CIA the ability to
mount planned operations in several nations. My sources did not
reveal which countries are involved but — given the turmoil in
Egypt and Pakistan, and the U.S.’s tenuous relationship with both
countries — they would likely be among those nations for which the
passports are being denied.
The State Department’s decreasing cooperation with the CIA may
have begun as early as January 2011 when CIA contractor Raymond
Davis got into a shootout with Pakistanis on a street in Lahore,
killing two men who Davis said were attempting to rob him. Davis
was arrested for murder and his diplomatic passport was deemed
ineffective by the Pakistanis, who held him in prison until the
U.S. government paid “blood money” to the relatives of the
dead.
These events come at a time when rumblings about the
effectiveness of new CIA Director, Gen. David Petraeus, are also
being heard. If the passport denial is as great a problem as my
sources indicated, why would Petraeus not be fighting the State
Department’s usurpation of his job?
The denial of passports to CIA agents would most affect those
who are going abroad to gather intelligence under an official cover
of other U.S. government employment. Covert operations, logically,
would not be affected as the agents involved would not be traveling
on U.S. government passports, though “case officers” who run the
covert agents might be.
The need for the intelligence those agents would gather is too
obvious to explain at length here. In short, the instability in
nations such as Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen, Somalia, and others
enjoying the Islamist fruits of the “Arab spring” has reduced
America’s ability to influence events in those nations to a
dangerous degree. More — and more accurate — intelligence is
essential to maintaining what little influence we have.
The urgent need for intelligence from inside those nations
raises three large questions: is Hillary Clinton behind these
actions? Is the president not interested in what advantages we
could gain from having it? What is DCI Petraeus doing about the
problem?
One source questioned whether Clinton was behind it. This person
reminded me of Attorney General Eric Holder’s war against the CIA.
Holder, before he was confirmed as AG, promised several Republican
senators that he would not try to prosecute current and former
intelligence agents who were involved in using the “enhanced
interrogation methods” that were highly effective when used during
the Bush presidency. Obama banned them soon after he was
inaugurated. Holder is known to have favored the ban and broke his
promise to the Senate members. Though the cases have not yet been
pressed, his Justice Department has an open investigation into the
conduct of CIA interrogators. That source expressed skepticism that
Clinton would be behind the passport denials, pointing instead to
Holder.
But Clinton is now in Egypt, delivering praise of its new
Islamist president. She might have wanted to bar CIA operations in
Egypt to gain favor with Morsi.
Whether Holder or Clinton is behind the State Department’s
action, Gen. Petraeus is the man who has the responsibility of
gathering, analyzing, and passing to the president and other top
intelligence consumers the information they need to function in all
matters of foreign affairs and conflict. But, as one source said,
Petraeus’s political nature may be preventing him from insisting
that the State Department issue the clearances and passports his
operatives need.
Petraeus is ambitious and when his term as CIA Director ends it
is highly unlikely that he would simply disappear from the
political world. More likely is that he would use the CIA post as a
stepping stone to a bigger position in a second Obama
administration or to pursue political office on his own.
But nothing would excuse his acquiescing in even a temporary
reduction in the CIA’s ability to gather intelligence. Petraeus —
as U.S. commander in Iraq and then Afghanistan — saw first-hand
how crucial intelligence is to every U.S. action in those nations.
It is no less crucial in learning what the capabilities and
intentions of our adversaries are elsewhere.
The CIA has taken a battering over the past few years. House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, when she was speaker of the House,
accused the CIA of lying to Congress over the use of the “enhanced
interrogation” methods. Pelosi falsely denied being briefed on the
use of waterboarding when she was on the House Intelligence
Committee. Her accusation has not been withdrawn.
Holder’s actions in bringing and continuing the investigation of
CIA interrogators put the CIA, as one source said, into the “CYA
mode.” Obama has done nothing to help the CIA recover from Holder’s
actions, but has been all too willing to take credit for its
successes such as finding Osama bin Laden.
The State-CIA conflict comes at a time when our intelligence
community should be focusing on a great many threats to vital U.S.
national security interests. It’s been years since the Russians
loaded up ships with weapons and sent them to places such as Syria.
What, precisely, are they sending to aid Bashar Assad, and how will
that affect the stability of those nations adjacent to Syria? How
is Pakistan aiding the Taliban to ensure it can return to govern
Afghanistan when we leave? What will the Egyptian army do to help
its new Islamist government aid terrorists organizing attacks on
Israel?
The State Department has the legal authority over government
passports. But it should never — repeat never — be able to
interfere with CIA operations that the Director of the CIA deems
necessary to gather essential information abroad. Whether Hillary
Clinton, Eric Holder, or even President Obama is behind the State
Department’s actions, Petraeus is duty-bound to defend his agency’s
mission even to the point of taking the issue to the bipartisan
leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees.
The intelligence committee leaders have cooperated on a
bipartisan basis on a great many important issues since 9/11. Only
a few weeks ago, they held a joint press conference to urge a
thorough investigation of the leaks of intelligence information
evidently coming from the White House.
They should take action now. The four — Sen. Dianne Feinstein
(D-Cal.), Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ala.), Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.)
and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) should call Petraeus to the
Hill for a classified briefing on the State Department’s
interference in intelligence operations. Once they find out how big
and how severe the problem is, they can demand that the CIA — and
the White House — solve it forthwith.
