"Come hep me Ketch them Tearists and them
Tearist Sympathizers, you know them that makes fun of me and my Daddy.
Come on it'll be fun.
Ya gotta pass the Test first."

Your PreZidente
Junior bush
aka Emperor Junior bush
aka Hitler Junior bush
Leader of the Impeared World -
And I Impeared 'em!!!

Test = Find out if you're an impressive mastermind:
[link to www.cia.gov (secure)]

A rare glimpse inside the secret training program that produces
America's spies.

Reviewed by John Lehman
Sunday, November 26, 2006; BW04



CLASS 11

Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class

By T.J. Waters

Dutton. 299 pp. $24.95


The skills of lying, stealing, bribing and deceiving do not usually
belong to brave, bright, patriotic young Americans. Nor does the
practice of these arts exist happily in a law-based government and a
bureaucracy increasingly dominated by lawyers, whistleblowers and
anonymous hotlines. So, since the Revolutionary War, we have been out-
spied by our enemies (and, often, by our allies).

We came closest to competence in gathering human intelligence (or
HUMINT, as it's known in the trade) and catching enemy spies during
the Cold War. While the CIA and the FBI had many dramatic successes
in those decades, the recently opened archives of the KGB and the
East German Stasi show that, overall, the Soviet bloc's spy agencies
ran rings around us. Indeed, for the latter decades of the Cold War,
America's spying capacities had been essentially shut down by the
purges of the CIA instigated by the post-Watergate Congress. A
convenient belief took hold that we had such good satellites and such
neat gadgets that we no longer needed actual human spies. Throughout
the 1980s and '90s, the gathering of human intelligence was limited
mostly to having CIA operatives sit in U.S. embassies abroad
under "official cover," waiting for "walk-in" sources to offer their
services. This risked much less exposure to prowling lawyers,
whistleblowers and congressional committees, but, unfortunately, it
offered much less exposure to what was really going on.

This period of self-delusion coincided with the rise of al-Qaeda and
Islamist terrorism. Washington was amply provided with satellite
photos of camps in Syria, Lebanon, Sudan and Afghanistan, as well as
the occasional electronic intercept of a communication, but we had
few reliable human sources to tell us what was actually going on. We
were caught flat-footed by attacks in Beirut, Mogadishu, New York,
Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Aden and elsewhere, teaching our enemies just
how blind and unwilling to retaliate we were. The second attack on
the World Trade Center (after the far less deadly 1993 plot
masterminded by Ramzi Yousef) was the result.

After 9/11, the utter lack of useful human intelligence was suddenly
seen as a huge hole in our defenses. A massive rebuilding of the
CIA's clandestine service began.

T.J. Waters has given us a very readable account of the first wave of
this rebuilding in Class 11. Waters, now an intelligence consultant,
was a member of the first post-9/11 class of recruits for the CIA's
spy wing, and his book describes how very different it was from those
preceding it.

For one thing, this class was several times larger than normal,
reflecting a surge of patriotic enlistment. It was also far more
diverse, including more women, minorities, an airline pilot, a pro
football player and Waters himself, who was a mid-career consultant.
Before 9/11 and after Watergate, the CIA had recruited mainly "corn-
fed Aryans" (as one veteran told me) who had never been out of the
country. Rather than hiring well-traveled area specialists or native
speakers of foreign languages, the CIA preferred to teach these
uncomplicated people languages and lore from scratch. Class 11, which
included Arab, Muslim and South Asian Americans, was different. The
mission, however, remained the same: "Recruit foreign nationals who
are willing to sell out their nation, leader, or religion for the
benefit of the United States." Class 11 was about to join a dangerous
and stressful profession -- made all the more so by the inability to
share anything about what they did with friends or family, which
helps explain why "the divorce rate in the Clandestine Service is
greater than 50 percent." Waters offers a rare glimpse into what it
is like to join this cadre and how its tradecraft is taught.

The reader accompanies Waters from his first day at the CIA's
Langley, Va., headquarters to his graduation from "the Farm," the
agency's legendary training camp in Virginia. But while Waters's
publisher is trying to hype his book as something wrested from the
clutches of outraged CIA censors, Class 11 is a PR coup for the
agency. The book reveals much new detail about the 18-month training
process, but nothing in it would remotely compromise security.
Although it includes descriptions of nifty James Bond gear such as a
lifelike flying dragonfly that's actually a listening device, all of
this is old-generation stuff no longer in use.

Also absent is any description of some of the most valuable -- and
least enjoyable -- experiences that tend to weed out many aspirants,
such as survival training. Indeed, Class 11 contains nary a word
critical of the CIA or its training, which, from Waters's
description, is still focused on "official" cover (in U.S. posts
abroad) rather than "deep" cover (in the dens of America's foes). The
writer is genuinely motivated to do battle with the country's
enemies -- so motivated that his writing sometimes verges on flag-
waving ("Terrorists turned to new tactics . . . . Well, two can play
at that game. It's our turn now").

Still, Waters has done an excellent job recounting his experiences,
and he and the CIA deserve much credit for a book that can only
enhance the public's understanding of the importance of a rejuvenated
clandestine service. This book should prove a useful recruiting tool.
·

John Lehman was secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration
and a member of the 9/11 Commission.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Daniel