THIS WEEK'S U.S. SPY AGENCY HAPPENINGS! (11/10/14)

**The Central Intelligence Agency launched a fascinating stream about how the Iran hostage rescue depicted in the film “Argo” really went down. The CIA stream focuses on the 35^th anniversary of the start of the Iran hostage crisis. They held a day-long “real vs. reel” tweetstorm correcting some facts in the 2012 Academy Award-winning movie "Argo" and the specifics about how the CIA quietly rescued a handful of diplomats caught up in the crisis. Note: I met Tony Mendez in Cleveland Heights, Ohio at an AFIO chapter event and lunched with him for two hours. He spoke about operation "ARGO" before the movie was made. Here's an article about Mendez I wrote: "ARGO reveals a CIA Hero: Antonio Mendez."

**A classified CIA study of the practice of arming insurgencies around the world finds that the strategy rarely worked without direct support from Americans on the ground. According to the New York Times, this still-classified agency review of the practice was conducted during debate over arming rebels in Syria. It was one of the many CIA studies commissioned in 2012 and 2013 as the Obama administration considered how to counter Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces amid the nation’s civil war

** Retired Marine Corps intelligence officers Ben Connable, now at the RAND Corp., says "I'm not aware of any successful decapitation strike that resulted in the end of an insurgency." The Pentagon has been unable to confirm reports that the leader of the Islamic State was injured or killed this weekend, but his loss wouldn't necessarily spell the end of the organization.

**Shut down the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) to make America safer. It's a massive department that wastes taxpayer dollars and abuses civil liberties. Replaced the DHS with a small, focused and efficient set of federal security and intelligence agencies.

** The head of US naval intelligence has not been able to

view classified information for an entire year. US Navy VADM Ted Branch, the director of naval intelligence, had his security clearance suspended in November 2013 after being investigated for possible misconduct. In the year since, no charges have been filed and there is no sense of when they might be, leaving the Navy in an untenable situation.
 

**The recently formed Defense Clandestine Service (DCS), the elite in-house spying operation of the US Department of Defense (DOD), is training a large force of new military-intelligence agents to conduct covert operations around the world.

Robert Morton, M.Ed., Ed.S. is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and publishes the online spy series "Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster in the Caribbean". His views are his own and do not represent those of any agency he is a member of. We welcome comments and suggestions- contact OSINT News on the Secure Contact Form.