Saturday, May 20, 2017

China Crippled CIA Operations By Killing Or Imprisoning 20 Spies

New York Times: Killing C.I.A. Informants, China Crippled U.S. Spying Operations

WASHINGTON — The Chinese government systematically dismantled C.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.

Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades. It set off a scramble in Washington’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain the fallout, but investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved.

But there was no disagreement about the damage. From the final weeks of 2010 through the end of 2012, according to former American officials, the Chinese killed at least a dozen of the C.I.A.’s sources. According to three of the officials, one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The CIA still do not now how the Chinese did it. Did someone make a mistake? Communications breach? A mole? No one knows. But the word incompetence is being passed around.

More News On China Crippling CIA Operations By Killing Or Imprisoning 20 Spies

Report: China cripples CIA operations, kills informants -- Washington Post/AP
China Killed CIA Sources, Hobbled U.S. Spying From 2010 to 2012: NYT -- US News and World Report/Reuters
China Imprisoned or Killed Multiple CIA Sources to the US Between 2010 and 2012 -- Newsweek
China 'dismantled' CIA spying operations and killed sources – report -- The Guardian
China killed or jailed up to 20 US spies in 2010-12: Report -- AFP
China jailed, killed at least 18 CIA sources over two years: report -- The Hill
China cripples CIA operations, kills informants -- News.com.au
China is slowly dismantling America’s spy operations -- New York Post

5 comments:

Jay Farquharson said...

WNU Editor,

Tip for you:

The Pentagon has generated almost $6 billion over the past seven years by charging the armed forces excessive prices for fuel and has used the money — called the “bishop’s fund” by some critics — to bolster mismanaged or underfunded military programs, documents show.

Since 2015, the Defense Department has tapped surpluses from its fuel accounts for $80 million to train Syrian rebels, $450 million to shore up a prescription-drug program riddled with fraud and $1.4 billion to cover unanticipated expenses from the war in Afghanistan, according to military accounting records.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/investigations/at-the-pentagon-overpriced-fuel-sparks-allegations--and-denials--of-a-slush-fund/2017/05/20/c5ff4bf4-31b2-11e7-9dec-764dc781686f_story.html

aaa said...

Huh...China must have forgotten what Sun Tzu said about spies

War News Updates Editor said...

Thank you Jay for the link.

Someone told me last year that the US Navy's biofuels project was just a slush fund for other projects .... but he had no evidence or proof. Since then .... every month I always come across a story about secret slush funds and off-the-book black ops projects. But they are always short of specifics and information. Looks like someone spilled the beans to the Washington Post on this one. I will be posting it later.

As you know .... I am always sceptical of The New York Times and the Washington when it comes to their political reporting. But when it comes to covering certain international stories (or stories like this one) .... these reporters from the NYT and the Washington Post .... and unfortunately they are only a few of them .... are top-notch.

Anonymous said...

You would think that American spycraft would be highly advanced with the constant back and forth between Russia. Yet China is a completely different beast, besides the fact the people will readily report suspicious activity, you are dealing with a Country that is very oppressive.

There is not much you could offer a potential asset in terms of rewards, rather an effective method would be that of threatening family, exposing secrets and literally murdering people.

18/20 Assets, despite 18/20, they didn't get them all, which leads me to believe is was just effective counter operations rather then inside leaks. When the CIA began to scrabble and even low level employees would get wind, im sure alot more got picked off quicker.

End of the day it falls on the directors of these organization for sloppy work. What killed and imprisioned these people was not the information they provided, rather how it was used. CIA is anything but tactful in its execution.

Jac said...

This kind of event is, unfortunately, as usual in this field. We always know what is going wrong, but never what is going right.