Former CIA Operations Officer Gary Berntsen On Trump And The Gutting Of The Islamic Republic Of Iran

Gary Berntsen, a retired CIA Operations Officer, former Iraq Desk Officer, former Chief of Hezbollah Operations, three-time CIA Station Chief, and author, offers a piece in the Dallas Express on President Trump’s war on Iran.

I entered the Central Intelligence Agency in 1982 as part of the Career Service Trainee Program. By 1983 I was a trainee in the Near East Division’s Arab North section, responsible for Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. I became the Iraq Desk Officer the day after Iranian-backed and directed Hezbollah terrorists blew up our embassy in Beirut, killing half a dozen of my CIA colleagues.

I was present at the creation of Hezbollah as a lethal force. For the next three decades my home base remained the Near East Division, covering the Middle East and South Asia. I studied Persian, served in an Iranian Operations Group dedicated to countering the regime, and later became Chief of Hezbollah Operations in the Counterterrorism Center. I served as CIA Station Chief three times. Throughout those years I had a front-row seat to the murderous operations of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. What I witnessed across Republican and Democratic administrations was the same recurring failure: presidents unwilling to confront this self-avowed enemy for fear of “expanding the conflict.”

After Iran and Hezbollah slaughtered 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut in 1983, President Reagan ordered Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger to strike the IRGC at the Sheikh Abdullah Barracks in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Weinberger balked. Reagan did not overrule him. The signal to Tehran was unmistakable: murder Americans and pay no price. George H.W. Bush refused to hold Iran accountable for its continuing terrorism. The Clintons suppressed intelligence implicating Iran and Hezbollah in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 U.S. airmen in Saudi Arabia. George W. Bush never confronted Iran over the deadly explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) its Quds Force supplied to Shia militias that killed and maimed hundreds of American troops in Iraq.

Then came the deepest betrayal: Barack Obama and Joe Biden sought to realign the Middle East by accommodating and legitimizing this murderous regime through the disastrous JCPOA nuclear deal and its successor policies. For fifty years, from Reagan to Biden, both parties chose restraint, diplomacy, and wishful thinking over decisive action.

Only one president in that half-century has shown the courage and fortitude to face this enemy head-on: Donald J. Trump. Trump’s decision to align fully with Israel in a sustained offensive has gutted the Islamic Republic of Iran in ways previous administrations could only imagine.

You can read the rest of the piece via the link below:

OPINION | Trump And The Gutting Of The Islamic Republic Of Iran 

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine Q&A with Gary Berntsen via the link below:

Paul Davis On Crime: Operation Jawbreaker: A Look Back At The CIA's Bin Laden Hunters                                                                           

Former CIA Operatives Concerned About Personal Data Security Breach

 

Howard Altman at the Tampa Tribune offers a piece on why former CIA officers like Gary Berntsen (seen in the below photo) are concerned about the computer security breach at the U.S. Office of Personnel Managment (OPM) reportedly by Communist Chinese hackers.

Last year, former CIA operative Gary Berntsen spent more than a week filling out a 127-page security clearance application that seeks a wide range of personal information. Aside from the individual’s Social Security numbers, it demands names and Social Security numbers of cohabitants, history of arrests, bankruptcies and mental health issues and lists of foreign contacts, business associates, investments and personal information of foreign-born relatives — including whether they work for other governments or intelligence agencies.

“The form is a personal and financial colonoscopy,” says Berntsen, who led the first teams of CIA operatives into Afghanistan in 2001.
And now that information may be in the hands of Chinese hackers, who could use it to damage U.S. national security by compromising American spies and developing a better understanding of what American intelligence and military personnel are doing, several former spies and a Florida congressman on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence told The Tampa Tribune.

The local head of a national organization of former intelligence officers says the hack is further proof that the United States and China are already involved in a cyberwar.

The concern over the hack is so great that on Tuesday the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on the matter.  

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://tbo.com/list/military-news/former-cia-operatives-concerned-about-info-nabbed-in-government-hack-20150616/

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on Gary Berntsen and his role as the CIA commander in Afghanistan after 9/11 via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2014/08/operation-jawbreaker-look-back-at-cias.html

Operation Jawbreaker: A Look Back At The CIA's Bin Laden Hunters

A while back I covered Gary Berntsen, the former CIA field commander in Afghanistan at the start of the war, and Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, for Counterterrorism magazine when they came to speak at the Philadelphia Free Library.

I later contacted Gary Berntsen and interviewed him for the piece.

You can read my piece below:

Note: You can click on the above to enlarge.

Former CIA Field Commander Gary Berntsen On The Recent Attacks In Afghanistan

Gary Berntsen, the former CIA field commander in Afghanistan appeared on CNN and commented on the recent attacks in Afghanistan and how the Afghanistan security forces responded.

You can watch the video via the below link:

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2012/04/16/exp-cia-berntsen-afghanistan-troops.cnn#/video/bestoftv/2012/04/16/exp-cia-berntsen-afghanistan-troops.cnn

Former CIA Head Of Bin Laden Unit Discusses Current Situation In Afghanistan

Gary Berntsen, the former CIA officer who led a group of operators that hunted Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, spoke to CNN about the current situation in Afghanistan.

On Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien, Gary Berntsen, former commander of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit in Afghanistan, discusses the potential fallout of the U.S. moving the Afghanistan shooter to Kuwait, Leon Panetta security scare and sustained American Presence in the country.  

You can watch the video via the below link:

http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/15/fmr-cia-head-of-bin-laden-unit-on-us-soldier-could-be-moved-back-to-afghanistan/

Note: I interviewed Gary Berntsen about Operation Jawbreaker a few years back for Counterterrorism magazine. You can read the piece via the below links:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/OpJawbreaker1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/OpJawbreaker2.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/OpJawbreaker3.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/OpJawbreaker4.jpg

My Crime Beat Column: Michael Scheuer, The Former Chief of the CIA's Bin Laden Unit, On Bin Laden

I read Michael Scheuer's Osama bin Laden over the weekend.

While I may not agree with Mr. Scheuer's worldview, particularly on noninterventionism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I thought his book was a knowledgeable and interesting look at Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, terrorism, and Islamist insurgency.

Know Thy Enemy!

Scheuer, seen in the above photo, is a 22-year-veteran of the CIA and served as an analyst and chief of the bin Laden unit at the CIA's Counterterrorist Center. Today he is a foreign policy critic and the author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War On Terror and Through Our Enemies' Eyes.

Scheuer's new book debunks the popular misconceptions about bin laden and al Qadea. Scheuer wrote that Bin Laden is successfully leading an Islamist insurgency. Scheuer believes bin laden is a formidable enemy and his is winning the war against America and the West.

I ventured to Philadelphia's Central Library this past Thursday to hear Michael Scheuer speak about bin Laden, the war on terrorism and the crisis in Egypt. Although I didn't agree with everything he said, I found him to be an interesting and engaging speaker.

He was critical of the efforts of the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations to fight al Qadea. He pointed out that before 9/11, the Clinton administration blew several chances to kill bin Laden and the Bush administration blew the chance to kill bin Laden after 9/11 at Tora Bora during the initial action in Afghanistan.

I plan to interview Michael Scheuer for the upcoming issue of Counterterrorism magazine. 

I heard Michael Scheuer speak before at the Philadelphia Main Library a few years back. Scheuer appeared with Gary Berntsen, the CIA field commander who lead one of the first teams into Afghanistan after 9/11. Berntsen wrote a book about that time called Jawbreaker.

I later spoke to Gary Berntsen and wrote a piece for Counterterrorism magazine, noting Scheuer and Berntsen's talk in Philadelphia .

You can read the piece via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2014/08/operation-jawbreaker-look-back-at-cias.html

The CIA's Hunt for Bin Laden

The National Geographic Channel offered a good program on Sunday night about the CIA's hunt for bin Laden.

The program, CIA Confidential, interviewed Gary Berntsen, a retired CIA officer who served as the field commander of the small unit of CIA officers and Special Forces soldiers who entered Afghanistan after the horrific terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11.

I interviewed Gary Berntsen for The Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International (www.iacsp.com/publications.php). He is the real deal.

The magazine piece can read via the links below:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/OpJawbreaker1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/OpJawbreaker2.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/OpJawbreaker3.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/OpJawbreaker4.jpg


More to come.

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