Pentagon investigates Jason Bourne spy program (Part 1)

 Michael Furlong led illegal spy ring in Afghanistan

The Department of Defense is investigating an illegal spy operation in which a Defense Department official by the name of Michael Furlong purportedly diverted $24 Million of government funds to an “off the books” real world Operation Treadstone to kill militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mr. Furlong, who once served as deputy director of the Joint Military Information Support Command and Deputy Commander of the Joint Psychological Operations Support, referred to his stable of contractors as “my Jason Bournes”.

The ruction over the incident is a bit perplexing because, although it does indeed sound like something out of a Robert Ludlum novel, the U.S. government has been outsourcing clandestine and covert activities for years.

Ground truth
It appears that Mr. Furlong and his associates were trying to enhance the quality of the military intelligence apparatus, however, they might have gone a bit too far according to officials in the C.I.A. Ironically, this story breaks not long after the U.S. top spy chief in Afghanistan issued a blistering report of the defense intelligence community that we covered a few months ago in a story entitled U.S. spy chief calls for cultural overhaul of defense intelligence.

Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn had chastised intel agents for gathering the wrong types of information in Afghanistan. He accused them of being incurious of local economics and landowners, ignorant of who the powerbrokers were in the region and thought they were disengaged from those in the best position to find answers, including aid workers and Afghan soldiers. He went so far as to recommend that journalists be used as intelligence agents because they are a better source of information.

What was frustrating for the General is that all of this information is “open source” intelligence which is readily available to anyone willing to do the research. He was also very critical of the fact that U.S. intelligence focused only on gathering intel for “lethal targeting” and hunting terrorists.

Mr. Furlong agreed with the General’s assessment, well at least partially, because he hired journalists to gather “ground truth” information about the cultural landscape in Afghanistan. However, Furlong also used this information for “lethal targeting” anyway, but contract money meant for open source intelligence gathering cannot be used to target individuals, according to military officials. And, according to the New York Times, it is illegal for the military to hire contractors to act as covert spies – a shocking revelation considering it seems like common practice.

Privatizing intelligence is nothing new
The reality is that key intelligence operations have been run by private contractors for quite some time. A few years ago, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) revealed that 70% of the intelligence budget goes to contractors.  The CIA, who blew the whistle on the latest controversy, doesn’t have much room to talk because they outsource up to 60% of the work done by the National Clandestine Service (NCS), which is responsible for gathering human intelligence. The CIA calls these employees “green badgers” and they provide highly sensitive services that have ranged from covert operations in Iraq to recruiting and running spies.

In 2006, the CIA collaborated with private U.S. military companies, including a firm called ATS Worldwide, and British security firms to run covert operations in Somalia against UN rulings. US firms planned undercover missions to support Somalia’s transitional federal government against a radical Muslim militia which promised national unity under Sharia law.  Just last year it was reported that infamous Blackwater operatives gathered intelligence and helped direct a secret U.S. military drone bombing campaign that ran parallel to the CIA predator strikes.

R.J. Hillhouse is an expert in intelligence outsourcing and has a website called The Spy Who Billed Me, which includes a list of private companies that do espionage work on behalf of the U.S. government. She has links to 33 companies under a heading called “Rent a Spy”, which include companies like Abraxas, Booz Allen, CACI, CENTRA, Diligence, ITT AES, Lockheed Martin, ManTech, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, SAIC, and Total Intel.

According to Wired magazine, on Monster.com you can find a job ad for an “all-source intelligence analyst” willing to work for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan.  Responsibilities include:

Analysis, reporting, data-basing and dissemination of Afghanistan measures of stability which include security, governance and development, Human Terrain Analysis, preparation of Campaign and Mission Analysis briefings and annexes, High Value Individual Targeting products, Extremist and Regional Threat Network Nodal Analysis, Preparation of Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Assessment Metrics which include daily IMINT, SIGINT and HUMINT products to gauge the effectiveness of collection operations, 24/7 Indications & Warning and all-source exploitation of documents and media from detainees.”

One of the firms involved in Furlong’s shadowy program was American International Security Corporation (AISC), which is run by former Green Beret Mike Taylor. On its website they promote themselves as a security risk management firm that does vulnerability assessments and crisis management for both business and governments. Taylor admitted employing Duane “Dewey” Clarridge as part of Furlong’s off the books program, who is an ex-CIA operative involved with the Iran-Contra scandal.

Calnet is another company that provides intel services and on their website they say: “CALNET is proud to continue to serve the United States Intelligence Community.” The website also specifies some of the types of work they do, including human intelligence gathering:

CALNET’s HUMINT experts are involved in a variety of missions from the tactical level to Strategic roles within our national intelligence community. CALNET’s HUMINT specialists have years of experience and uphold the highest professional standards. CALNET's intelligence professionals are involved in all steps of the intelligence cycle, from planning and direction, to collection, processing, production, and dissemination.

A company called CACI markets themselves as an information technology firm, but they sure operated outside of their supposed core competencies in Iraq because CACI personnel acted as interrogators at Abu Grahaib and were accused of some of the well publicized torture of prisoners, along with another government contractor called Titan Corp (now owned by L-3 Communications). During their investigations the Army found that contractors were involved in 36 percent of Abu Ghraib incidents.

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In Part 2 of Pentagon investigates Jason Bourne spy program we discuss the territorial battle between the CIA and the military over covert activity and the shadowy connections between the New York Times, an ex-CIA officer who was involved in Iran-Contra and a former CNN news executive.

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