Peter Theroux, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, is the author of In Obscura Part One: Adventures in the World of Intelligence. After more than 20 years in the U.S. government, the CIA awarded him the Career Intelligence Medal. Theroux spoke to a December 2 Middle East Forum Podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
In Obscura, the first book in a trilogy covering Theroux’s years with the CIA, is an account of the myriad aspects of operations in the foreign intelligence organization that, while headquartered in McLean, Virginia, “works out of locations around the globe.” Having climbed the ranks first as an Arabic linguist, then as an analyst, Theroux advanced to counterterror targeting of Al-Qaeda and then to targeting Iranian proxies in the Levant. Following his service abroad as a deputy station chief, Theroux returned to headquarters as branch chief, where he describes the agency’s case officers, analysts, recruiters, targeters, and handlers of human intelligence and spy networks as having “the greatest talent in the world there.” Many operate “in obscura,” or “in the shadows” of “anonymity and clandestinity.”
The majority of agency officers “focus on the job” and ignore the “nonsense.” In doing so, they adhere to the directive of “mission first.”
Theroux’s motivation to write about an agency whose depiction had previously “not been done objectively,” was to dispel the “complete lies and misrepresentations” that too often malign the CIA. The majority of agency officers “focus on the job” and ignore the “nonsense.” In doing so, they adhere to the directive of “mission first.” That is why, when Theroux began writing his book, the “episode of 51 former intelligence officers” who fell in lockstep at the direction of the man who was spearheading Joe Biden’s election campaign at the time “infuriated me.” That man, Antony Blinken, later to become U.S. Secretary of State under the Biden administration, wanted “a talking point, literally that was what Blinken asked for” in order “to mute the coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal, which revealed Biden family corruption.”
Former senior intelligence officers, including John Brennan, Michael Hayden, Michael Morrell, James Clapper, and the rest, “wrote this very disingenuous article suggesting that it was all Russian fabrication or embellishment (and that) this laptop was not real.” They signed onto this “infamous criminal letter,” and did so “dishonestly, I think criminally, [to] swing an election to influence the last presidential election before this one.” The insult to the integrity of the agency from “these characters who give credence to the [assertion] that the agency does interfere domestically … it’s an absolutely horrible thing.” The only domestic issue the CIA should involve itself with is working cases jointly with an FBI officer “to cover what leads abroad” when investigating bad actors.
Gina Haspel, then director of the CIA, offered the 51 former intelligence officers a “full intelligence briefing” on the laptop, which would have told them “there is no interference. It was not hacked. This is not a Russian operation.” However, James Clapper made a “very misleading and stupid remark” to the effect that he wanted to base his finding “on open sources only,” which resulted in a “purposely dishonest and disingenuous deed.”
Politically motivated lies undermining the agency are not the only threat to its mission. The actions of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, both of whom released classified documents, “got a lot of people killed” by compromising agency officers and exposing assets. For example, disclosures of state cables, which have a lower classification than agency content found in sensitive channels, describe a meeting with a Pakistani villager who approached a U.S. officer or diplomat to expose the Taliban. The villager “came to us probably in great fear, but complaining and pleading for protection.” For authentication purposes, that person would be named in a state cable, elevating it to “a sensitive matter” that would not be shared. Assange and Snowden would expose such individuals, thereby providing fodder for “nasty players” who are “avid consumers of Wikileaks,” like the Pakistani Taliban, who would identify whistleblowers and murder them.
“I’ve never gone to the site, and I advise people not to look at WikiLeaks, not just because they’re bad people, but my personal assessment is that I think every intelligence service in the world has infected that site to see who’s going there. And I think if you visit it, you have just asked for a keystroke longer to be put on your computer, so stay away.”
Other “phony humanitarians,” like Bradley/Chelsea Manning, also “have a lot of innocent blood on their hands.” Instead of being held accountable, Manning was pardoned by Barack Obama. “I would support the harshest measure against people who got other people, innocent people, murdered, and who destroyed trust between those and the American officials.”
The actions of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, both of whom released classified documents, “got a lot of people killed.”
Strategic intelligence failures happen “because of human failures.” Pearl Harbor, the September 11th attacks, and missing the call on “Iraqi weapons of mass destruction” are all a result of “failures of analysis, not failures of collection.” Either the information was “misread or it was ignored.” In the case of 9-11, “there was this wall, so-called, between the FBI and the CIA. The intelligence was not shared.”
John Ratcliffe, who was nominated to be the new CIA director under the incoming Trump administration, “would be a distinct change of pace and probably a refreshing change” from others before him. “What the intelligence community and the government at large can always use is a clean broom to sweep out stuff that shouldn’t be there. I would love to see the new director of the agency address the 51 formers and currents, the intelligence officers who interfered in a domestic election. They should have their clearances pulled; they should be punished.” If those who interfered can be called to account, “it would restore a lot of public faith in the people who do all the good work at the agency.”
By illuminating “what goes on at CIA all day long licitly and by decent people,” Theroux, in retirement, saw himself “as being in obscura, in the dark enough, that I could commit this act and write the first part of the book.” In the coming months, he plans on vacating his clearance so that he can be more “forthright” and “unconstrained” in commenting on “our politics and our security” without revealing information that is out of sensitive channels. Stay tuned for part two of his In Obscura trilogy.
