By Steve
Last week I wondered what the fallout would be from the revelation that Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the spy-cum-suicide bomber who blew up himself and a bunch of CIA agents, had provided key intelligence for the CIA's program of drone strikes against Al Qaeda's leadership. It raised the serious possibility that several vaunted drone attacks on AQ key leadership may have struck patsies rather than their claimed targets, or that those leaders killed were ones AQ felt were acceptable losses in order to lull the CIA into a false sense of security.
Eli Lake says the CIA and other agencies are now scurrying to find out.
U.S. agencies are conducting a review of intelligence supplied by an al Qaeda double agent, including a list of senior al Qaeda and Taliban operatives reported killed in the drone strikes since January 2009.
The review is examining whether the double agent, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, supplied false information about U.S. successes amid valid data used to establish his credibility, U.S. officials said.
..."When something like this happens, it's logical � and indeed prudent � to review information associated with an intelligence asset, especially one who wasn't trusted completely to begin with," one intelligence official told The Washington Times on Monday.
This official added, "Various agencies � primarily the CIA and the FBI � are in the process of doing precisely that. The asset had provided information that was independently confirmed through other means. And certainly no one relied exclusively on what he provided to reach any conclusions about the fate of senior terrorists who have recently died."
Well, we'd all hope and even expect so - but then again most wouldn't have expected a double-agent "who wasn't trusted completely to begin with" to get so close to key CIA agents in the heart of a U.S. military base without being searched either.
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