American Intelligence gathering in Pakistan, just across the Afghan border, has been a huge success in the past few years. These agents provided targeting information for CIA controlled UAVs and the missiles they carried. Hundreds of al Qaeda leaders, including some very senior ones have been killed as a result. Yet the U.S. Department of Defense has been forced, by Congress, to investigate this effort in the belief that laws were broken. Namely, that you cannot use contractors to run intelligence operations. But since the CIA cannot operate on the ground in Pakistan, the only way to create and run an informant operation is to use contractors.
Are these congressional people serious? I wish we were doing more than just setting up a network of informants. We should seriously be thinking about recruiting our own lashkars to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda inside Pakistan, and not be limited to the friendly side of the border.
If the laws stop us from doing common sense things to win the war, the obvious solution is to amend the laws--not halt the successful operations.
