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Authors: Mark M. Lowenthal

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Coups, the overthrow of a government, either directly or through surrogates, are a further step up the covert action ladder (see Figure 8-1). Again, a coup may be the culmination of many other techniques—propaganda, political activity, economic unrest. The United States used coups successfully in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954 and was involved in undermining the Allende government in Chile, although the coup that brought down his government was indigenous.
Paramilitary operations
are the largest, most violent, and most dangerous covert actions, involving the equipping and training of large armed groups for a direct assault on one’s enemies. They do not involve the use of a state’s own military personnel in combatant units, which technically would be an act of war. The United States was successful in this type of operation in Afghanistan in the 1980s but failed abysmally at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. The contra war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua was neither won nor lost, but the Sandinistas were defeated at the polls when they held a free election in the midst of a deteriorating economy.
Some nations have also practiced a higher level of covert military activity—secret participation in combat. For example, Soviet pilots flew combat missions during the Korean War against United Nations (primarily U.S.) aircraft. This type of activity raises several issues: military action without an act of war, possible retaliation, and the rights of combatants if captured. The United States has largely eschewed this practice because of such complications, preferring to allow intelligence officers to take part in paramilitary activities.
Paramilitary operations need to be distinguished from special operations forces. The most fundamental and important distinction is that special forces are uniformed military personnel conducting a variety of combat tasks not performed by traditional military arms. The United States has a Special Operations Command (SOCOM). Other such forces are the British Special Air and Special Boat Services (SAS and SBS). Paramilitary operations do not involve the use of one’s own uniformed military personnel as combatants. In the war in Afghanistan (2001- ), the role of paramilitary personnel appears to be closer to actual combat than was primarily the case in Nicaragua, but their main role remains training, helping supply, and offering leadership assistance to indigenous forces. The CIA’s paramilitary forces in Afghanistan are part of the CIA Directorate of Operation’s Special Activities Division. According to press accounts, CIA paramilitary personnel were the first U.S. forces in Afghanistan, establishing contact with members of the Northern Alliance and preparing them for the offensive against the Taliban.
The war on terrorism has focused attention on a covert activity that does not fall neatly into the customary range of actions—renditions. Renditions are the seizure of individuals wanted by the United States. These individuals are living abroad and are not in countries where the United States either can or wants to use legal means to take them into custody. The operations are called renditions because the individual in question is rendered (that is, formally delivered) to U.S. custody. Renditions predate the war on terrorism, although the scale clearly has increased since 9/11.
Renditions are controversial for several reasons. First, they are extraterritorial actions. In some instances, the foreign government in whose territory the rendition occurred was aware of the operation and looked the other way, allowing the rendition to proceed but preserving its own plausible deniability. In the case of terrorism, some renditions have been controversial because the United States did not retain custody of the suspects but sent them on to their home nations, most often in the Middle East. Rules about custody, civil rights, and limits on interrogation tend to be different in most of these states, with the effect that some rendered suspects have likely been subject to harsh treatment if not torture. Although the United States has sought pledges from these states as to how they would conduct interrogations, U.S. officials cannot be present at all times in these countries. Critics charge that the United States is therefore knowingly complicit in torture. Others argue that the United States cannot hold all suspects, that it is doing as much as it can to prevent torture, and that the importance of breaking up terrorist networks and gleaning information about them requires such use of foreign nations. (See chap. 13.)
In both Italy and Germany, judges issued indictments against U.S. intelligence officers for renditions, one in Milan and one in Macedonia. Although the U.S. government made no official response, CIA officials let it be known that any rendition would have been known to the governments. The Italian government denied any such knowledge. The Italian case was suspended for procedural reasons. The German case ended after the United States made it clear that it would not cooperate in the case and would not hand over CIA officers to be prosecuted. According to press accounts, in March 2007, CIA director General Michael Hayden complained to European diplomats about the inaccurate and negative information being generated in Europe about CIA activities. Hayden also said that fewer than 100 people had been held in secret sites and fewer than half of these had been subjected to more intensive interrogation procedures. Referring to a report by the European Parliament on secret rendition flights, Hayden said that fewer than 100 flights concerned renditions to third countries and that these were undertaken with the knowledge and assistance of the countries involved, a point also made by the European report.
It is unlikely that even the number of flights claimed by General Hayden could have been conducted without the knowledge of European countries. It is also possible that the leaders of the governments involved, or their intelligence services, would rather not admit their cooperation and perhaps see judicial proceedings as a way of quieting domestic opinion.
ISSUES IN COVERT ACTION
 
Covert action, both in concept and practice, raises a host of issues. The most fundamental is whether such a policy option is legitimate. Like most questions of this sort, there is no correct answer. The prevailing opinions can be divided into two schools—idealists and pragmatists. Idealists argue that covert intervention by one state in the internal affairs of another violates acceptable norms of international behavior. They argue that the very concept of a third option is illegitimate. Pragmatists may accept the arguments of the idealists but contend that the self-interest of a state occasionally makes covert action necessary and legitimate. Historical practice over several centuries would tend to favor the pragmatists. Idealists would respond that the historical record does not justify covert intervention. (This debate took a curious turn with passage of the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, in which Congress and President Bill Clinton agreed to spend $97 million to replace the regime of Saddam Hussein—an overt commitment to interfere in Iraq’s internal affairs.)
In several instances during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the United States intervened in other nations, primarily in the Western Hemisphere, but these activities were largely overt and usually military in nature. The United States began to use covert action in the context of the cold war. Did the nature of the Soviet threat make covert action legitimate? Did the use of this option—not only directly against the Soviet Union but also in developing nations that were often the battlegrounds of the cold war—lessen the moral differences between the United States and the Soviet Union? Again, there are broad differences of opinion. To U.S. policy makers during the administrations of Harry S. Truman (1945- 1953) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961), the Soviet threat was so large and multifaceted that the question of the legitimacy of covert action never arose. In any event, both administrations preferred covert action to the possibility of a general war in Europe or Asia. However, some people believe that the use of the covert option blurred distinctions between the two nations that were important.
Assuming that covert action is an acceptable option, is it circumscribed by the nature of the state against which it is being carried out? Or does this question become irrelevant if one accepts the legitimacy of covert action? For example, the United States used covert economic destabilization against Fidel Castro’s Cuba and Allende’s Chile. Both were communists, but Castro had seized power after a guerrilla war; Allende never commanded an electoral majority, but he had been elected according to the Chilean constitution. Castro turned Cuba into a hostile Soviet base; Allende showed only disturbing signs of friendliness to Castro and to other Soviet allies. Instead of having a second Soviet satellite in the Western Hemisphere, the United States opted to destabilize Allende in the hope of fomenting a coup against him. Should the fact that Allende had been elected according to Chilean law have been sufficient to preclude covert action by the United States? Or were U.S. national security concerns of sufficient primacy to make the covert option legitimate? This was not the first time the United States had intervened in democratic processes. For example, it gave covert assistance in a variety of forms to centrist parties in Europe in the late 1940s to preclude communist victories.
Central to the U.S. concept of covert action is
plausible deniability—
that U.S. denials of a role in the events stemming from a covert action appear plausible. The need to mask its participation stems directly from the idea that the action has to be covert. If the situation could be addressed overtly, the role of the United States would not be an issue. DCI Richard Helms (1966-1973) held that plausible deniability was an absolute requirement for a covert action but also conceded that it was becoming an outmoded concept because of the expanded requirements for oversight and notification.
Plausible deniability depends almost entirely on having the origin of the action remain covert. Once that is lost, deniability is barely plausible. Deniability may have been sustainable during the 1950s and 1960s, but this has become more difficult since the revelation that the president signs each finding to order a covert action.
The scale of the activity also matters. For example, in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs debacle, President John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) sought counsel from his predecessor, President Eisenhower. Kennedy defended his decision not to commit air power to assist the invasion on the grounds of maintaining deniability of a U.S. role. Eisenhower scoffed, asking how—given the scale and nature of the operation—the United States could plausibly deny having taken part.
Plausible deniability also raises concerns about accountability. If one of the premises of covert action policy is the ability to deny a U.S. role, does this also allow officials to avoid responsibility for an operation that is controversial or perhaps even a failure? Or does the fact that the president must sign a finding put the responsibility on him or her?
The main controversy raised by propaganda activities is that of
blowback.
The CIA is precluded from undertaking any intelligence activities within the United States. However, a story could be planted in a media outlet overseas that will also be reported in the United States. That is blowback. This risk is probably higher today with global twenty-four-hour news agencies than it was during the early days of the cold war. Thus, inadvertently, a CIAPLANTED story that is false can be reported in a U.S. media outlet. In such a case, does the CIA have a responsibility to inform the U.S. media outlet of the true nature of the story? Would doing so compromise the original operation? If such notification should not be given at the time, should it be given afterward?
Not all covert actions remain covert. One of the key determinants seems to be the scale of the operation. The smaller and more discreet the operation, the easier it is to keep secret. But as operations become larger, especially paramilitary operations, the ability to keep them covert declines rapidly. Two operations undertaken during the Reagan administration—aid to the contras in Nicaragua and to the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan—illustrate the problem Should the possibility of public disclosure affect decision makers when they are considering paramilitary operations? Or should disclosure be accepted as a cost of undertaking this type of effort, with the understanding that it is likely to be something less than covert and not plausibly deniable?
Despite the desired separation of intelligence and policy, covert action blurs the distinction in ways that analysis does not. Instead of providing intelligence to assist in the making of decisions, through covert action the intelligence community is being asked to help execute policy. Of necessity, it has a role in determining the scale and scope of an operation, about which it has the greatest knowledge. The intelligence community also has a day-today part to play in managing an operation.
The distinction blurs further because the intelligence community has a vested interest in the outcome of a covert action in ways that are vastly different from its interest in the outcome of a policy for which it has provided analysis. Covert action is not just an alternative means of achieving a policy end; it is also a way for the intelligence community to demonstrate its capabilities and value.
Thus, covert action makes the policy and intelligence communities closer collaborators, as the separation between them diminishes. Conversely, the intelligence community takes on additional responsibilities in the eyes of the policy community. The intelligence community usually bears a greater burden for a less-than-successful covert action than it does for less-than-perfect intelligence analysis.
Paramilitary operations raise numerous issues. In addition to the problem of keeping them covert and the strains they put on plausible deniability, paramilitary operations raise serious questions about the amount of time available to achieve their stated goals. Unless these operations appear to have a reasonable chance of success in a well-defined period of time, policy makers find their ensuing options limited. On the one hand, they can decide to continue the operation even if the chances of success—usually defined as some sort of military victory—appear slim. It may be that the paramilitary force is unlikely to be defeated but unlikely to win, offering the prospect of an open-ended operation. On the other hand, policy makers can decide to terminate the operation. U.S. abandonment of the Kurds in Iraq in the 1970s is a case in point. The United States had been supporting the Kurds in their struggle against Iraq to create an independent homeland. Covert aid was given to the Kurds via Iran, which also had an interest in weakening its neighbor. However, the Kurdish effort was inconclusive. In the mid-1970s, the shah decided to resolve his differences with Iraq and ordered the operation to cease. The United States complied, abruptly leaving the Kurds to fend for themselves. But when an operation such as this is shut down, extricating all of the combatants may not be possible. In such a case, what is the obligation of the power backing the operation to the combatants? Do the combatants understand the risks they have undertaken, or are they simply assets of the power backing the covert action?
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