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Summary: An awsome 271 pages
Review: In See No Evil Robert Baer tells of his 25 years in the CIA and how it was systematicaly destroyed by White House politics and how this interference lead to the massive intelengence breakdown of Sept. 11.
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Summary: SEE NO EVIL
Review: This was an excellent book. What an insight into how dirty washington politics really can be. Those who allowed the CIA to disengage from the World should be tried for treason.
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Summary: Couldn't Even Finish It
Review: I am not up on politics, so maybe that is why I had such a hard time with this book. It reads more like a report to headquarters than anything. It skips around a lot, too, which made it difficult for me to follow. The subject matter is so interesting that you'd think you wouldn't be able to put it down, but as it turned out, I had to force myself to continue. About halfway through, I gave up. The author has had an incredible life, and what I did manage to get through really opened my eyes to a lot of things. You might like this book more than I did, especially if you are already familiar with middle eastern politics. I think it could have been an excellent book had the author co-written it with an experienced writer instead of trying to do it himself. To sum up, the subject matter is great, but the way it is written makes what should be a thrilling read, slow and confusing.
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Summary: Sad but true story of staggering ineptness
Review: Baer has written a brilliant book that truly captures the staggering incompetence of the Agency's Directorate of Operations. Sadly Baer's book has the ring of truth. Lack of trained linguists, religious nuts trying to convert assets, management more concerned with sexual harrassment training than ops, who could make that up? Unfortunately todays intell community on both the ops and analytical side is teeming with people better suited to selling shoes at Macy's then doing real intelligence work. Baer's book is a living illustration of this. Missed opportunity after missed opportunity is portrayed in agonizing detail. This book is a testament to the sad catalogue of failures that our Intelligence Community has racked up over the years. What do you want for 30 billion a year? Even more galling is that in the aftermath of 9/11 some intelligence types (like the DCI) continue to preen about our intell successes. Watch as they try and spin 9/11 into an intell triumph. Only the clowns who decided that language skill were not important could try and spin a disaster as monumental as Pearl Harbor into a victory. Its no coincidence that Baer left the Agency, most of the effective ones have fled or are closing in on retirement. Well done Mr. Baer, keep the faith!!
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Summary: A Real Eye Opener!
Review: This "must read" is unquestionably the best of the current crop of terrorism-related literature. In describing the systematic degradation of CIA successfuly undertaken by the Clinton Administration, it addresses the question of why the massive 9/11 intelligence failure occurred. Using an anecdotal, personal experience perspective as a point of departure, the book leads the reader to arrive at two compelling and significant, interrelated conclusions: (1)There exists a decades-old partnership of Arafat's Palestinian Fatah, Lebanese Hizbullah, and the Islamist Iranian leadership; and (2)Without the sponsorship of a substantial state (i.e., not merely an Afghanistan), 9/11 would not have been possible. The conclusions are all the more compelling because the source (Bob Baer) was an American intelligence insider whose bona fides attest to the book's being untainted by the likely Mossad disinformation that renders others in the genre suspect.
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Summary: A bombshell for news junkies - provacative for all Americans
Review: This book astonished me. Could the failed CIA-organized coup in Iraq back in the 90's really have failed because of Tony Lake's direct intervention? Did America really cut off its nose by virtually destorying its Arabic intelligence-gathering missions following that misreportage? Was 9-11 preventable, if not avoidable? Well, according to Mr. Baer, the answer to all of those questions is yes. He was there, in the middle of it, running leads and gathering whatever intelligence he could in the Middle East for a span of about twenty years, getting out in the mid 90s when the CIA was 'overhauled' at the hands of the FBI. This is a 'you're there with him' book, and Mr. Bear's writing is never slow or disinteresting. Is it all true, though? Given Bear's background and the 'official' censorship by the current CIA administration of many passages in the book, I have little reason to doubt him. He claims to have solved the Beirut embassy bombing in which hundreds of marines were killed. He claims the US called a halt to the Kurdish-organized coup of Hussein with 24 hours of its planned execution, dooming it to failure. This is deeply disturbing material. If you ever wondered how foriegn spies are recruited, read this. If you want a down-and-dirty account of our failed intelligence mission, read this. Also reccommended: "American Jihad", "Hazardous Duty", "Report From Ground Zero" and "War In a Time of Peace" (a bit dry, but great backround on Clinton's foriegn policy cabinet during the years Bear was running contacts in Iraq).
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Summary: The CIA must change
Review: This book frightens me. Bob Baer's account of his service to our country is a compelling read in its own right. It is his demonstration that the CIA has become unwilling and now unable to protect our country from the Islamic terroists that will keep me frightened for a long time to come. This book should be must reading for everyone on capitol hill - and for every American.
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Summary: Inherently incredible
Review: This is a fantastic book. It is well-written and pursuasive. If it is true, it is an important book. Unfortunately, it is inherently incredible that anyone who actually feels that way Baer claims to feel would have Seymour Hersh write the Foreward. Seymour Hersh has done as much as anyone to destroy the CIA and leaders who have the back-bone to use the type of human intelligence that Baer advocates. Hersh, and other liberal dogmatists like him, have emasculated this country--we need leaders like Nixon and Kissinger before the CIA will regain its place in the world. Hersh, and other like him, have made that impossible. The CIA has been imasculated, and all Americans are in grave danger, as Baer argues. Unfortunately, it happened on Hersh's watch. Thus, Baer's entire argument is undermined by have Hersh introduce the book. And Hersh, once again, shows himself to be a hypocrite, by now advocating the type of "dirty" business that he has, in his hypocricial fashion, heretofore condemned. Bear cannot be telling the truth if he is in bed with Hersh.
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Summary: A not too detailed indictment of the CIA
Review: The grand message of this book is that desk jocks and inexperienced analysts are running the CIA. To me this is not new news but it further makes the case that much of what the CIA does is victimized by flawed analysis and ladder climbing wonks who want to call the shots without ever having gone "in country."
The book didn't do much for me until Baer started talking about his experience in the Middle East. But left unanswered is the question of why, in the case of the hostages in Lebanon, he wasn't more vociferous in pin-pointing where the hostages were being held. His experience in Iraq is an indictment against both the CIA and the Clinton administration. While that episode is worth the read, he doesn't really go after the political reasoning that may have been behind Clinton's refusal to get rid of Saddam, and later bin Laden. Much, if not all, of our current problems with Islamic terrorism could have been prevented had Clinton taken action. The CIA reviewed the manuscript and didn't really black out all that much but it is a good read and confirmed to me that the problem with the CIA isn't with the Bob Baers that the CIA doesn't seem to value, it is with the mentality of those sitting behind desks, plotting their next career move.
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Summary: Baer in the Wilderness
Review: The media has made a lot of Robert Baer's revelations about the decline of the CIA in recent years, and SEE NO EVIL certainly is illuminating in that regard. Much like some of our professional athletes, the Agency comes across as arrogant, overweight and overpaid. But the true value in Baer's book lies in his ability to take us into the field with him on one CIA adventure after another. We're with him in the car late as night as he eludes Indian agents who are chasing him while he tries to get to a dropoff point so he can return the Soviet documents he's just photocopied. We're with him when he straps on his boots and backpack and hikes into the mountains. And we're inside the chopper when he's flown across from Cyprus and inserted into Beirut during the civil war. Baer covers just about everything you might want to know about a career in the CIA--the recruitment, the training, the frustrations, the victories. Baer is a pretty good writer. I trust he'll get better in his next book. Forget all those routine special ops U.S. techno-thrillers. This is the real thing.
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