I just finished reading another outstanding book, “Enemies” by Bill Gertz. “Enemies” is about the intelligence agencies of the United States and how effective they are at their job. So if you want to find out the truth about how many enemy spies are in the US, how successful our enemies are in conducting espionage operations, and just how good the US is at combating these foes. BUY AND READ THIS BOOK! However, if you do not want to be outraged, disgusted, and have to suppress the urge to take every self-serving, incompetent, bureaucratic idiot at the FBI and CIA and shake them like a rag doll, DO NOT BUY AND READ THIS BOOK! Because you will feel above emotions and feel like taking said action.
Bill Gertz pulls no punches in this extremely well-written, informative and disturbing book. Gertz goes into great detail about the hostile regimes facing the United States, such as Russia, China, Iran, Islamic terrorist groups and (surprisingly) Cuba and what the US does to counter these threats, which is about nil. “Enemies” is chock full of Gertz’s own observations, interviews with intelligence officials, and declassified documents which are used to paint a disturbing picture of the US intelligence apparatus. Gertz writes that the biggest problem (of many) that the US intelligence agencies have is the lack of an aggressive, successful counter-intelligence operation (CIO). A good counter-intelligence (CI) program, as defined in “Enemies”, is “…quite simply, the process of identifying and catching foreign spies, either to neutralize them or to exploit knowledge of their activities for one’s own purposes” and “Turning enemy agents — convincing captured spies to work as double agents rather than go to jail — is one of the highest objectives of US counter-intelligence.”
Unfortunately, Gertz says that CI is one of the United States’ biggest failings. Gertz writes that our CI failures are caused by complex issues, some of which are near impossible to correct, such as our lack of trustworthy Chinese and Arabic sources. But other problems are far more correctable, and Gertz outlines them in “Enemies.”
They include:(a) serious lack of “humint” or human intelligence agents
· caused by downsizing of CIA’s humint by the Clinton administration
(covered in Bill Gertz’s book “Betrayal”)
(b) change in philosophy by the CIA of how to conduct intelligence ops and if CI is needed
· caused in part by Clinton Administration
· caused in part that CIA never had an aggressive CIO
(c) self-serving bureaucrats preserving careers at the expense of National Security
· FBI / CIA have repeatedly promoted agents who have blown CIO
· FBI / CIA have repeatedly covered up disastrous failings to save jobs of bosses
· FBI / CIA have repeatedly ignored executive orders from the President to correct flaws
As a result of all these problems the US is extremely vulnerable and has been fleeced and will continue to be fleeced by enemy regimes. Bill Gertz goes into much greater detail about these issues, even including declassified intelligence reports, than I have (obviously) and since I don’t want to steal his “thunder” I will conclude by saying that Bill Gertz has done a great service to the public in writing this book. Hopefully the issues he brings to light in “Enemies” will be addressed, but I am not very confident. Again, I say BUY AND READ THIS BOOK! You will not regret it.
Mike Grant — Samnite Gladiator
[...] Congratulations! Move to the head of the class! Now why would the United States be worried about sensitive technology falling into the hands of the wrong people? I mean, isn’t the world just full of harmony, peace, and understanding like the UN says it is? We have nothing to fear from modern day Chinese and Russian espionage, do we? If you are laughing hysterically by now, join the club. Just take a gander here, here, and here to get just a peek at what our enemies are up to. For even fore intel, read Bill Gertz’s book “Enemies” which I reviewed here. [...]