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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Dozens of CIA Operatives Killed |
| 2005-02-12 |
| In a massive roundup by Iranian security officials, as many as 50 Iranian CIA operatives were exposed and killed, leaving the U.S without any intelligence sources in that critical Middle Eastern nation. The shocking story surfaced on Feb. 2, when former Pentagon adviser Richard N. Perle told the House Intelligence Committee about what he called the "terrible setback that we suffered in Iran a few years ago when, in a display of unbelievable, careless management, we put pressure on agents operating in Iran to report with greater frequency and didn't provide improved communications." He called it an example of the failures that have beset U.S. espionage in the Mideast. According to the Los Angeles Times, Perle, a longtime critic of the agency, recalled that when the CIA's sources stepped up their reporting, "the Iranian intelligence authorities quickly saw the surge in traffic and, as I understand it, virtually our entire network in Iran was wiped out." While confirming the gist of Perle's report, CIA sources told the Times that the incident occurred in the late 1980s or early 1990s, not "a few years ago," as Perle suggested. They added, however, it was not clear that the informants were exposed because of any pressure from the agency to file reports more frequently. The CIA declined to comment officially, but a U.S. intelligence official rejected Perle's criticism of the agency's record in the Mideast as both ill-informed and outdated. "Intelligence methods evolve constantly," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Times. "Trying to use these things from the past to make assertions about the present is in this case ill-advised." Perle admitted that his timing was off, but told the Times: "I don't recall the details, or the mechanism by which the [Iranian agents] were communicating. What I was told was that our entire network was destroyed" and that as many as 40 of the informants were executed. A former CIA official who served in the Mideast at the time confided to the Times that the Iranian informants were part of a network of spies that was run by CIA officers based at the agency's station in Frankfurt, Germany. Incredibly, the communications system used to contact their agents and be contacted by them was right out of a 19th century spy novel - they used invisible ink! According to the Times, the former CIA official recalled that the Iranian agents communicated with the agency "via secret writing," referring to messages printed in invisible ink on the backs of letters that were mailed out of the country. The spies received messages in the same fashion from a CIA officer in Frankfurt, the former official told the Times. While admitting that he did not know what tipped off the Iranians, Perle said: "All of the letters went to a handful of addresses in Germany. Once they had one agent and they recovered the letters that had come in to him and found out where he was sending his letters out, they quickly identified others who fit that profile." Consequently, the Times reported, as many as 50 spies, who were providing information on an array of activities, were exposed. They included members of Iran's military, the former official said. Perle, an assistant Defense secretary in the Reagan administration and a Pentagon adviser who advocated the invasion of Iraq, said he mentioned the Iranian operation to highlight how the agency had struggled in the region. "I think we're in very bad shape in Iran," Perle said during his testimony. He also complained that CIA leaders had not been held accountable and noted that the official who had been in charge of the exposed Iran operation was later promoted. In a recent unclassified report, the CIA, now operating in the blind without intelligence assets in Iran thanks to the destruction of its spy network there, says it believes Iran is "vigorously" pursuing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and that its civilian nuclear development program is a cover for efforts to build a bomb. And the agency doesn't have a single bottle of invisible ink left to equip any Iranian agents it manages to recruit to confirm its suspicions. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #4 No, you've got it wrong - 2,768 CIA agents in Iran are mullahs. Heard this staight from one of my many friends in the Mossad. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2005-02-12 5:44:59 PM |
| #3 reverse psychology RC |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-02-12 5:15:24 PM |
| #2 Frank, that's not the right number. You dropped a decimal point: 27,684. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-02-12 5:09:04 PM |
| #1 title might note this was a while ago..... I thought they'd rolled up our current 2,768 agents |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-02-12 4:23:07 PM |