In Germany where freedom of the press ranks higher than the
53 place U.S. standing in the world a veteran CIA operative had this to say
about 
the war on terrorism.

for the full interview see:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,445117,00.html

Suskind: They will say what I said: That the United States and its allies were
winning this struggle up until around the end of 2002. Think back to September
12th. That arguably is the most important day, when we mustered ourselves to a
response ...

SPIEGEL ONLINE: ... and most of the world stood in unity with the Americans.

Suskind: There were candellight vigils in Tehran -- a nice marker of where much
of the world was. Even virulent radicalized Islamists were saying: "That is not
my Islam." And virtually all were saying, in unanimity, "Well, the United
States
is certainly justified in doing whatever it sees fit in Afghanistan with the
Taliban and al-Qaida. If any goal of foreign policy is to unite your allies and
divide your enemies, it is fair to say that we were successful. Even countries
that were not naturally inclined to be helpful were being helpful, especially
in
the Arab World. Our allies said, "How can I help?"

SPIEGEL ONLINE: During that time there were also defections from al-Qaida.

Suskind: Yes, dissent (inside al-Qaida) helped to provide the seabed for human
intelligence that the United States harvested, including Ali. He provided
important tips right up until early 2005. And the Emir of Qatar gave us
intelligence that helped us to catch Binalshibh, and Mohammed was turned over
by
another source. He got a $25 million reward and is now living somewhere in
America with his family. These are human intelligence assets and they are the
how you win these wars.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So things were going well ... at least until the Iraq war?

Suskind: You can almost mark by the day how our human intelligence assets have
withered. The chances of someone coming to the US authorities in this period
are
slim to none and that will blind us at a time when the terrorist threat has
metastasized into what I call the franchise model. It is particulary difficult
to discover prior to the operational moment.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: That has been a source deep frustration for the intelligence
community.

Suskind: And that is why people in the counter-terrorism community in the
United
States are terrified at this point and why many cooperated with this book. They
wanted to send out a signal and say: "We need to have a real strategy here that
is not only tactically forceful, but where the left hand of the US foreign
policy doesn't undermine what the right hand is doing." Right now we often run
like a headless chicken. We need a strategy. And we need it immediately
because,
in some ways, we are less safe then we were on Sept. 12.

This interview was conducted by Matthias Gebauer and Georg Mascolo in Ron
Suskind's Washington office.



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