🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug13.162755.25755@cas.org> jac54@cas.org writes:
>
> In article <1992Aug12.235016.23628@bony1.bony.com> jake@bony1.bony.com (Jake Livni) writes:
> >HumInt (Human Intelligence), something the US has screwed up on big
> >in recent decades, not just in the Middle East, is something that the
> >Israelis are pretty good at...
>
> Do you have any evidence to suggest that the Israelis have HUMINT
> assets in Iraq?  The Ba'athists are particularly paranoid about Israel
> and have not shown any hesitation about killing their people on the
> slightest suspicion of spying for Israel.

In fact, common sense tells one that the Israelis today have no
particular advantage over the US (and parhaps even disadvantages) as far
as the possibility of developing HUMINT assets in Iraq, and in the Arab
world in general.

The situation was very different in the 50s and 60s after the large
waves of immigration of Jews from the various Arab countries.  Israelis
then could -- and did -- send into Arab countries operatives who were
truly native to the countries in which they were posted.  This has not
been the case for years, and what goes on in the occupied territories
indicates that today Israeli intelligence even has trouble getting hold
of enough people who can just speak Arabic decently.

Cases of Israeli intelligence activity that have come to light in recent
years would lead one to believe that they are relying on operatives of
Western European or American descent.  They still get a few immigrants
from those places.

US intelligence has better sources of such people, I would think.
--
Yigal Arens   "He seems like an average type of man.  He's not, like, smart.
USC/ISI        I'm not trying to bag on him or anything, but he has the same
arens@isi.edu  mentality I have -- and I'm in the eighth grade."     Vanessa
               Martinez, after VP Quayle's visit to her school-LA Times 5/21