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Associated Press
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Book Review: 'The Mission' reveals troubling political meddling in CIA after 9/11
The meeting place of facts, ego, ignorance and politics typically is a messy arena as Tim Weiner illustrates over and over in this powerful account of the Central Intelligence Agency actions since the 9/11 attacks. The title, 'The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century,' would seem to suggest a tidy, academic-style analysis. Instead, it's a riveting account of a vital institution that descended into turmoil with agents after 9/11 sometimes creating diabolical tortures and units operating seemingly on their own. The author details an agency that buckled under pressure from the younger President Bush to find evidence that Saddam Hussein had developed chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Compelling evidence was not to be found but Bush pressed on anyway with a military campaign to topple Hussein, killing 4,492 American service members in the process. Weiner leaves no doubt as to who is responsible in every misdeed and operational failure he describes — everyone in this 392-page narrative is identified by name. How Weiner persuaded so many people to talk on the record is a journalistic feat that should make this book impossible to dismiss. If 'The Mission' has a fault, it's that it is light on prescription — how do we insure that the CIA remains faithful — without political meddling — to its mission gathering the intelligence needed to keep America safe ? The CIA must reclaim its original mission, Weiner writes: 'Know thy enemies.' To do that work, the CIA has since its inception attracted some of America's brightest and most dedicated, willing to risk their lives to get the information the nation's top political and military leaders need. Consider counterterrorism expert Michael D'Andrea, for example. Weiner writes that D'Andrea worked 100 hours per week, obsessively pursuing al-Qaeda. How he managed that pace as a chain smoker is unexplored. Perhaps his vegetarian diet helped. Half of the book details how the CIA swerved far out of its intelligence-gathering lane after the 9/11 attacks and morphed into a paramilitary organization, calling its torture tactics 'enhanced interrogation techniques' and killing many thought to be terrorists absent the oversight that governs the military services. For example, one agent let a prisoner freeze to death in a dungeon-like 'fetid hellhole' at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. In the agent's defense, the post 9/11 months and years were a time of pervasive fear of another attack and relentless pressure on the CIA to prevent that. Some notable successes followed; agents penetrated both the Kremlin and Saddam Hussein's government. Knowledge is the essential tool of national security and peace and 'The Mission' makes it clear we let the CIA go off track at our peril. 'A new cold war is slowly escalating toward existential danger,' the author writes. 'Only good intelligence can prevent a surprise attack, a fatal miscalculation, a futile war.' ___ AP book reviews:
Irish Independent
4 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Independent
Tim Weiner's decades-long investigation into the shadowy CIA is top-notch
In 1988 Tim Weiner won the Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles he published in The Philadelphia Inquirer about the CIA's multi-billion dollar arms shipments to Islamist fighters in Afghanistan during the dying days of the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989).
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The Mission by Tim Weiner review
In 1976 when we were both based in Brussels, my BBC mentor, the great Charles Wheeler, came back to the office from a grand US embassy party one evening and remarked: 'The cleverest and most entertaining people at these things are always CIA. Makes it all the harder to understand why they get everything wrong.' An exaggeration, of course, but one with a degree of truth to it. Why has an organisation with huge amounts of money at its disposal, a record of recruiting the brightest and the best, and the widest of remits, failed to notch up a better record? It's true that we may not know about many of the CIA's successes. But we know about a lot of its failures, and some of them have marked US history ineradicably. In The Mission, Tim Weiner, whose reporting on the CIA in the New York Times was always essential reading, and whose subsequent books on the US intelligence community have a place on the shelves of anyone interested in international affairs, provides a variety of answers to this essential question. As he showed nearly 20 years ago in Legacy of Ashes, his history of the CIA from its founding in 1947 to the end of the 20th century, the agency's position by the end of the 90s was pretty desperate. It was starved of cash and bleeding talent. A high-flyer who had been station chief in Bucharest was revealed to be working for the Russians, handing them the names of large numbers of agents and employees. But the new US administration that came in at the start of 2001 wasn't too worried. In March that year, Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, told the joint chiefs of staff: 'For the first time in decades, the country faces no strategic challenge.' Six months later came 9/11. The CIA had tried to convince the feckless George W Bush about the looming threat of Islamic ultra-fundamentalism, but no one in the administration listened. The agency was regarded as broken. People in British intelligence are often snarky about the CIA, as poor relations tend to be. Nevertheless, some of the private criticisms made by SIS – better known as MI6 – are well observed. (Weiner's sources inside and around the CIA are impressive and absolutely impeccable, yet he seems to have no great interest in other western intelligence agencies; apart from a few scattered references to SIS and GCHQ in The Mission, only Dutch intelligence gets much of a mention.) SIS has tended to believe that a fault line of naivety runs through the CIA: witness the way that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence led the agency by the nose in Afghanistan, persuading it to lavish funds on anti-western warlords whom the ISI supported for its own political purposes. The CIA's eyes were only finally opened when, by good old-fashioned detective work, its agents discovered that Osama bin Laden was living alongside Pakistani top military brass in Abbottabad. But there's a more fundamental criticism that SIS and other intelligence aficionados level at the CIA: that it has never been allowed to be just an intelligence-gathering agency. US presidents from Truman onwards also wanted it to be a secret army, a point Weiner makes again and again. Long before the shameful Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, when Reagan's officials sold weapons to Iran then funded the CIA's illegal guerrilla war in Nicaragua with the proceeds, presidents used the agency for their shady schemes despite any ethical qualms its operatives, and sometimes its topmost officers, might have had. The CIA accepted Bush's edict, based on the highly questionable advice he received from the relatively junior White House lawyer John Yoo, that waterboarding, lengthy sleep deprivation and hanging prisoners by their arms for hours on end did not constitute torture. Perhaps, as a government agency, it had no real alternative, but its employees certainly obeyed, sometimes enthusiastically and even sadistically. Weiner is clear in his condemnation of this, but inclined to give the CIA the benefit of the doubt: 'The CIA, with rare exceptions, was not a rogue elephant. When people were trampled, it wasn't the elephant's fault. It was the fault of the mahout – the elephant driver. And the mahout was the president of the United States.' Well, perhaps. But it's hard to find excuses for Gina Haspel, for instance, who attended and oversaw one of the agency's black-site prisons before rising to become the first female director of the CIA. Weiner's sources, which are excellent, seem not to have included Haspel herself. But they do encompass several senior CIA figures from the period under discussion. These people opened up to him, and as a result the book contains many essential new details. Weiner's account of Donald Trump's links to Vladimir Putin in 2016 is clearly based on information from inside the agency, and it leads him to assert openly that Trump was Putin's polezny idiot – his useful idiot. There are all sorts of other important and fascinating revelations in The Mission, but it's the book of a journalist at the top of his game, not an academic. Some of it is written in white-hot anger at the thought of what Trump is doing to the US, and to the CIA in particular. Weiner is clearly channelling CIA opinion when he writes scathingly about the ludicrous John L Ratcliffe, who was given the job of director by Trump. Ratcliffe unhesitatingly complied with Trump's extraordinary demand that the CIA should send the White House the first names and initials of every recent CIA recruit by non-secure email. There is little doubt that Trump has damaged the CIA, but he may not have helped Putin as much as seemed likely when Weiner was writing his book. Whatever the Russian president thought he might get from a second Trump term, he has in fact been damaged quite badly so far. He has lost his puppet and his bases in Syria, partly through the CIA's efforts, and his ally Iran, after a shocking onslaught from Israel, now looks increasingly like a paper tiger. Ukraine – and Weiner is particularly good about the CIA's involvement in trying to stop the invasion in 2022 – hasn't, as many people expected, folded in the face of Putin's assault, and it's become harder for Trump simply to brush that war aside. Whether or not Putin indeed won the presidency for Trump in 2016 (Weiner quotes Russian government cybercriminals who he says swung the election as shouting 'We made America great again!') he is no longer pulling the strings to such good effect. As I say, this is a journalist's book, and bears the marks of it. But no one has opened up the CIA to us like Weiner has, and The Mission deserves to win Weiner a second Pulitzer. Given the intense unpopularity of Trump in the upper echelons of American journalism, he may well get it. John Simpson is the BBC's world affairs editor. The Mission by Tim Weiner is published by William Collins (£25). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The Mission by Tim Weiner review
In 1976 when we were both based in Brussels, my BBC mentor, the great Charles Wheeler, came back to the office from a grand US embassy party one evening and remarked: 'The cleverest and most entertaining people at these things are always CIA. Makes it all the harder to understand why they get everything wrong.' An exaggeration, of course, but one with a degree of truth to it. Why has an organisation with huge amounts of money at its disposal, a record of recruiting the brightest and the best, and the widest of remits, failed to notch up a better record? It's true that we may not know about many of the CIA's successes. But we know about a lot of its failures, and some of them have marked US history ineradicably. In The Mission, Tim Weiner, whose reporting on the CIA in the New York Times was always essential reading, and whose subsequent books on the US intelligence community have a place on the shelves of anyone interested in international affairs, provides a variety of answers to this essential question. As he showed nearly 20 years ago in Legacy of Ashes, his history of the CIA from its founding in 1947 to the end of the 20th century, the agency's position by the end of the 90s was pretty desperate. It was starved of cash and bleeding talent. A high-flyer who had been station chief in Bucharest was revealed to be working for the Russians, handing them the names of large numbers of agents and employees. But the new US administration that came in at the start of 2001 wasn't too worried. In March that year, Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, told the joint chiefs of staff: 'For the first time in decades, the country faces no strategic challenge.' Six months later came 9/11. The CIA had tried to convince the feckless George W Bush about the looming threat of Islamic ultra-fundamentalism, but no one in the administration listened. The agency was regarded as broken. People in British intelligence are often snarky about the CIA, as poor relations tend to be. Nevertheless, some of the private criticisms made by SIS – better known as MI6 – are well observed. (Weiner's sources inside and around the CIA are impressive and absolutely impeccable, yet he seems to have no great interest in other western intelligence agencies; apart from a few scattered references to SIS and GCHQ in The Mission, only Dutch intelligence gets much of a mention.) SIS has tended to believe that a fault line of naivety runs through the CIA: witness the way that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence led the agency by the nose in Afghanistan, persuading it to lavish funds on anti-western warlords whom the ISI supported for its own political purposes. The CIA's eyes were only finally opened when, by good old-fashioned detective work, its agents discovered that Osama bin Laden was living alongside Pakistani top military brass in Abbottabad. But there's a more fundamental criticism that SIS and other intelligence aficionados level at the CIA: that it has never been allowed to be just an intelligence-gathering agency. US presidents from Truman onwards also wanted it to be a secret army, a point Weiner makes again and again. Long before the shameful Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, when Reagan's officials sold weapons to Iran then funded the CIA's illegal guerrilla war in Nicaragua with the proceeds, presidents used the agency for their shady schemes despite any ethical qualms its operatives, and sometimes its topmost officers, might have had. The CIA accepted Bush's edict, based on the highly questionable advice he received from the relatively junior White House lawyer John Yoo, that waterboarding, lengthy sleep deprivation and hanging prisoners by their arms for hours on end did not constitute torture. Perhaps, as a government agency, it had no real alternative, but its employees certainly obeyed, sometimes enthusiastically and even sadistically. Weiner is clear in his condemnation of this, but inclined to give the CIA the benefit of the doubt: 'The CIA, with rare exceptions, was not a rogue elephant. When people were trampled, it wasn't the elephant's fault. It was the fault of the mahout – the elephant driver. And the mahout was the president of the United States.' Well, perhaps. But it's hard to find excuses for Gina Haspel, for instance, who attended and oversaw one of the agency's black-site prisons before rising to become the first female director of the CIA. Weiner's sources, which are excellent, seem not to have included Haspel herself. But they do encompass several senior CIA figures from the period under discussion. These people opened up to him, and as a result the book contains many essential new details. Weiner's account of Donald Trump's links to Vladimir Putin in 2016 is clearly based on information from inside the agency, and it leads him to assert openly that Trump was Putin's polezny idiot – his useful idiot. There are all sorts of other important and fascinating revelations in The Mission, but it's the book of a journalist at the top of his game, not an academic. Some of it is written in white-hot anger at the thought of what Trump is doing to the US, and to the CIA in particular. Weiner is clearly channelling CIA opinion when he writes scathingly about the ludicrous John L Ratcliffe, who was given the job of director by Trump. Ratcliffe unhesitatingly complied with Trump's extraordinary demand that the CIA should send the White House the first names and initials of every recent CIA recruit by non-secure email. There is little doubt that Trump has damaged the CIA, but he may not have helped Putin as much as seemed likely when Weiner was writing his book. Whatever the Russian president thought he might get from a second Trump term, he has in fact been damaged quite badly so far. He has lost his puppet and his bases in Syria, partly through the CIA's efforts, and his ally Iran, after a shocking onslaught from Israel, now looks increasingly like a paper tiger. Ukraine – and Weiner is particularly good about the CIA's involvement in trying to stop the invasion in 2022 – hasn't, as many people expected, folded in the face of Putin's assault, and it's become harder for Trump simply to brush that war aside. Whether or not Putin indeed won the presidency for Trump in 2016 (Weiner quotes Russian government cybercriminals who he says swung the election as shouting 'We made America great again!') he is no longer pulling the strings to such good effect. As I say, this is a journalist's book, and bears the marks of it. But no one has opened up the CIA to us like Weiner has, and The Mission deserves to win Weiner a second Pulitzer. Given the intense unpopularity of Trump in the upper echelons of American journalism, he may well get it. John Simpson is the BBC's world affairs editor. The Mission by Tim Weiner is published by William Collins (£25). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply
The Print
25-04-2025
- Politics
- The Print
Who is backing Pakistan? India must guard against Turkey & China's dirty games
Despite its economic and political instability, Pakistan has demonstrated the capacity to carry out an unprecedented targeted attack, brutally killing Hindu tourists in Pahalgam. The act shocked a stronger, larger, and technologically superior India. Pakistan is currently a fragile, fragmented nation plagued by radical ideologies, deep internal divisions, and numerous insurgencies. It is a perpetually struggling country that, while on the brink of collapse for years, has been kept afloat by its international patrons. The perpetually failing state has never completely failed. Pakistan's playbook of hate toward India must be met with a firm and decisive response—one that is strategically timed and executed entirely on India's terms. India's military is preparing a suitable retaliatory strategy in response to this barbaric assault. In parallel, several non-kinetic, strategic steps have already been taken. However, these actions represent only the beginning—the visible surface of a much deeper and more complex challenge that lies beneath. Who is backing Pakistan? The question carries several layers, but the most immediate and clear answer—especially when it comes to military capabilities—is China, followed closely by Turkey. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assertive stance, which calls for holding not just Pakistan but also its backers accountable, will have to address the growing involvement of both China and Turkey in strengthening Pakistan's military apparatus. Any comprehensive response must confront the strategic advantage China enjoys through its military foothold near India, particularly in regions like the Shaksgam Valley. The valley was originally under Pakistan's control but was ceded to China decades ago, allowing Beijing to exert additional pressure on India. Contrary to the commonly held view that China simply filled the void left by the United States after it distanced itself from Pakistan in the 1990s, the ties between Beijing and Islamabad run much deeper. Their collaboration, especially in defence, dates back to the Cold War era. When the US and its Western allies eventually severed military support to Pakistan, China had already begun establishing itself as Islamabad's primary strategic partner—a role it continues to expand. In recent years, Turkey has also stepped into this role, further reinforcing Pakistan's military ambitions. Complicating matters for India is the current situation in Bangladesh, again to China and Turkey's advantage. To understand the depth of China's involvement in Pakistan's defence setup, one must look back at a 1998 article by Tim Weiner in The New York Times. The piece shed light on China's crucial role in helping Pakistan develop nuclear weapons. While the US initially facilitated training and turned a blind eye to Pakistan's nuclear ambitions during the Cold War, it was China that provided the actual blueprint for nuclear weapons. It also supplied Pakistan with enriched uranium, tritium, experienced scientists, and other essential components for building a functioning nuclear arsenal. Without China's direct intervention and material support, Pakistan's nuclear programme likely wouldn't exist. Confirmation of China's involvement had come earlier, in 1983, when a classified report by the US State Department was made public. It clearly stated that China had provided direct assistance to Pakistan's nuclear programme. This revelation came before Washington imposed sanctions and ceased aid to Islamabad—a turning point that marked the end of Pakistan's strategic utility for the US. These records are now accessible in the US National Security Archives, offering a well-documented trail of China's support for Pakistan's nuclear and military growth. That, however, is history. In the post-Cold War era, China has emerged as the leading defence supplier to two of India's most challenging neighbours—long-standing adversary Pakistan and increasingly unfriendly Bangladesh. According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), from 2019 to 2023, China exported weapons to nearly 40 countries. What's concerning for India is that over 82 per cent of these exports were directed solely to Pakistan. With Western nations gradually withdrawing from arms deals with Islamabad, Pakistan has grown heavily reliant on Beijing to meet its defence requirements. From 2009 to 2013, 51 per cent of Pakistan's military imports came from China. This figure increased to 69 per cent in the following five years, and between 2019 and 2023, it surged to a staggering 82 per cent. Beyond standard arms sales, China has also helped Pakistan develop key defence projects, including the JF-17 fighter jet. Additionally, Islamabad is preparing to add eight Chinese Yuan-class submarines to its navy, significantly enhancing its maritime power. China's influence isn't limited to Pakistan. It has also become the main defence supplier to Bangladesh, particularly following the political shift in Dhaka after Sheikh Hasina's ouster in August 2024. The defence relationship between China and Bangladesh has deepened over the years, anchored by a comprehensive defence cooperation agreement signed in 2002—Bangladesh's first such pact with any nation. Over 72 per cent of Bangladesh's weapons came from China, and in just the past two years, this reliance has jumped to 86 per cent. China's military exports to both countries include high-value naval assets like submarines and frigates, which are critical to modernising their respective naval forces. Moreover, China is actively engaging in joint exercises, such as the 'China-Bangladesh Golden Friendship 2024' military drill. While such initiatives may seem routine, they reflect a broader strategic alignment that is developing just as India's own diplomatic ties with Bangladesh appear to be weakening. Despite maintaining a public image of improving ties with India, China is covertly strengthening both of India's flanks through advanced military support. This two-pronged approach is raising the strategic pressure on India while fostering an emerging Pakistan-Bangladesh alignment, which, if left unchecked, could significantly challenge India's regional security architecture. Also read: Pahalgam is helping Pakistan army become nation's saviour again, regain lost image Turkey's 'Asia Anew' is harming India If China was the only country supplying arms to India's adversaries, the situation might have been less alarming—largely because Chinese-made weapons are often plagued with quality and reliability issues. Even in recent shipments as of 2021, including trainer aircraft and naval frigates, performance deficiencies have been widely reported. The much-hyped Ming-class submarines, offered at steep discounts, also failed to meet operational standards. Several deliveries have since been delayed or placed on hold due to these shortcomings. However, another serious concern has emerged for India: Turkey's expanding footprint in the region. This has become especially evident following Turkey's launch of its 'Asia Anew Initiative', which aims to strengthen ties with Islamic nations across the continent, including those in India's immediate neighbourhood. Take Pakistan, for instance. After Western nations ceased their weapons exports to Islamabad, Turkey became the only other significant supplier besides China. While China was already arming Pakistan extensively, Turkey stepped in to further bolster its defence capabilities. What's more troubling is that Turkey has completely banned the sale of military equipment to India. This policy, which had not been officially announced, came to light unintentionally during a Foreign Affairs Committee meeting on 10 July 2024. During the session, Mustafa Murat Seker, deputy head of Turkey's top arms procurement body, the Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB), disclosed that Turkey had quietly enforced this restriction on India. Unlike Chinese weapons, which are not battle-tested, Turkish arms are modern, combat-proven, and highly advanced. They have been effectively deployed in various recent conflicts, including the Armenia-Azerbaijan war and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, making them far more credible and effective. Like China, Turkey's involvement also goes beyond conventional arms sales. Similar to China's playbook of manipulating information, Turkey has been covertly helping Pakistan build a sophisticated cyber force. This cyber unit is reportedly tasked with shaping narratives, influencing Muslim communities in Southeast Asia, conducting digital attacks on the US and India, and shielding Pakistan's leadership from international criticism. These operations are believed to have been underway since at least 2022. Turkey's influence is also growing in Bangladesh. In 2022—the year Dhaka signed a defence cooperation agreement with China—it also entered into a similar pact with Turkey. This parallel deepening of ties with both Beijing and Ankara underscores a strategic shift in Bangladesh's foreign policy posture. While arms producers naturally seek markets for their products, what sets China and Turkey apart is the coordinated and aggressive nature of their support to India's regional adversaries. The fact that they are not just selling weapons but also actively working to influence public opinion, destabilise India's digital domain, and challenge its regional standing makes their actions a significant and evolving threat to India's national security. For a long-term strategy on Pakistan to work, India has to keep its guard up on the dirty games played by its backers and enablers. Swasti Rao is a consulting editor at ThePrint and a foreign policy expert. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal. (Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
