Earlier this month, former New York Times Iraq correspondent Alex Berenson published the paperback version of The Secret Soldier, his fictionalisation of the CIA’s operations in the Middle East. Last week, life imitated art with the news that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group has unwound much of the CIA’s spy network in the Lebanon. Below, Alex unpicks this intelligence disaster and human tragedy.
Just as the CIA seemed to have turned a corner…
America’s spy agency had a good run in the last year. First, the CIA helped score a bloodless but crucial victory over Iran by infecting a uranium enrichment plant with a software virus. The rogue code basically turned enrichment machines into out-of-control blenders, setting back Iran’s nuclear program for years. Then, after a decade of searching, it found Osama bin Laden at a mansion in Pakistan.
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