The man who led the US' hunt for Osama bin Laden says the CIA was wrong to disband the only unit devoted entirely to the Islamist leader's pursuit -- just at a time when al-Qaeda is reasserting its influence over the global jihad.
Shutting down the bin Laden unit squandered 10 years of expertise in the war on terror, said Michael Scheuer, who founded the unit in 1995 and arguably knows more about bin Laden than any other Western intelligence official. He believes the unit was dismantled because of bureaucratic jealousies within the CIA, and that the closure delivers a further setback to a pursuit that has been squeezed for resources for the past two years.
"What it robs you of is a critical mass of officers who have been working on this together for a decade," he said in an interview. "We had a breed of specialists rare in an intelligence community that prides itself on generalists. It provided a base from which to build a cadre of people specializing in attacking Sunni extremist operations, who sacrificed promotions and other emolients in their employment in the clandestine service, where specialists were looked on as nerds."
A 22-year CIA veteran, Scheuer became aware of bin Laden in the 1980s when the Saudi-born militant was on the fringes of the US-backed mujahidin fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. In 1995, when Western intelligence agencies knew little about bin Laden, Scheuer was charged with setting up a unit that would track what support he was giving to Islamist groups, and determine whether he himself was a threat. Scheuer left the agency in 2004 after writing a scathing book about its counter-terrorism efforts called Imperial Hubris. He is now a consultant on terrorism.
CIA officials disclosed this week that the Alec unit -- named after Scheuer's now teenage son -- had been disbanded, and its agents reassigned. The agency described the shakeup as a necessary adaptation to the changing nature of the US war on terror.
"The reorganization just reflects the understanding that the Islamic jihadist movement continues to diversify," a US intelligence official said.
Scheuer said he disagreed with the argument it was making that bin Laden was isolated, the organization was broken and that he was now just a symbol.
"How do you explain the fact that he is able to dominate international media whenever he wants to?" he said.
On Friday, the FBI said it had foiled a plot to blow up the railway tunnels which run beneath the Hudson river into Manhattan, and send a torrent of water gushing toward Wall Street. The leader of the cell, Assem Hammoud, 31, a member of al-Qaeda, and two other plotters were arrested in Beirut. None of the conspirators had ever entered the US.
Investigators said the plotters had received money and support from the former al-Qaeda lieutenant in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was recently killed in a US attack.
In video footage released on the Internet on Thursday , bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, claimed to have directly masterminded last year's London bombings.
In recent weeks authorities have made arrests of alleged al-Qaeda activists in Manchester, London, Toronto and Miami.
"Bin Laden has always said the main activity of al-Qaeda is the instigation and inspiration of Muslims to jihad," Scheuer said.
"All of the people who have been picked up have said they were inspired by bin Laden, that they trained in their own countries, and used information picked up on the Internet," he said.
"So the fire that bin Laden was trying to set is what we are beginning to see around the world and, unfortunately, nowhere more than in the West," he said.
He said the closure of the unit reflected a myopia in an intelligence community uncomfortable with the independence of the agents who championed bin Laden's pursuit.
"From the very beginning, Alec was an anomaly in that it was not subordinated to any area division, and it was given the authority to communicate with overseas stations -- with or without the permission of area divisions. That caused a great deal of heartburn among very senior leaders at the agency," he said.
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