Monday, January 11, 2010

Mexico’s Security Apparatus Must Guard against Apathy

By Jerry Brewer

Mexico’s strategic and elite inner circle security council, and its policy makers, should immediately focus on the recent attack on U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officers at Forward Operating Base Chapman, in the Khost province of Afghanistan.

In particular, President Felipe Calderon must rely on the high ethical and moral integrity of his personal protective service cadre.

The internal security failure in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA officers and a Jordanian intelligence agent is a classic case of systematic security failures that are unusual for veteran clandestine service operators.  This case scenario no doubt reeks of lethargy with a passiveness that comes from simple failures to properly authenticate operational acts of intelligence tradecraft.

Within the compartmented structure of a critical operational plan of action, especially when a contributor or informant is involved as a principal source for the justification of covert action, the source’s “vetting” and diligent monitoring must be a fluid process.  In the Khost Province incident, Humam Khalil Abu Mual al-Balwi (36), a Jordanian doctor, became the source asset for Jordanian intelligence who had previously arrested him on “suspicion of extremist sympathies.”  His informational content was purported to be a high value in information on Osama bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Jordanian intelligence, with a proven track record of access and critical insight into Iraq and Iran’s inner-sanctum of suspected weapons proliferation, essentially delivered a “false flag penetrator” that took the lives of a cadre of elite U.S. intelligence officials, as well as one of their own.  Many believe this counterintelligence incident failure was a major coup and significant victory by penetration of al Qaeda and bin Laden’s (posthumously or not) network.

So, just what does this all mean to Mexico’s internal security and their war against powerful and sophisticated enemies of the state?  Quite simply, everything.

The Mexican organized crime cartels are conglomerates of wealth, power, and terror.  Too, they are a nation state within themselves.  When passiveness sets in and the proverbial failure “to connect the dots” ensues, people die, whether in war, in policing the streets, or in the world of espionage.  Much like a “terrorist watch list” that is obviously beatable, regardless of the painstaking efforts to prevent disaster.

An inner circle of intelligence personnel, personal security, and policy makers, as well as their operational plans against targets, are only as good and secure as the source ingredients of the group.  Consequently, the greatest virtue for Mexico’s elite to strive for in their battles against the cartels is security.  All else must be subordinated to that concept.

The connection of dots to those Mexican officials nationwide that have been kidnapped, tortured, and ritually murdered like fish in a barrel, with impunity, is virtually unbelievable.  However, the facts are that cartels routinely mount operations with sophisticated counterintelligence against Mexican officials.  They do this with their own network of spies and massive amounts of money, along with informants, other sources of information, and an iron death threat fist.

The upper echelons of Mexico’s governing officials are at great risk, a threat assessment based on an enforcement organizational hierarchy matrix that details decision making against the cartels and their structures.  Obviously, “one” stands at the highest placement of the decision making pyramid.

The security failure in Afghanistan is a grim reminder that should be a wake-up call to all of those that stand in harm’s way, or may be susceptible to retaliation and other acts of retribution.  Complacency kills.

As elite CIA operators targeted what they believed might be the mother lode of tactical intelligence information against the high ranking al Qaeda hierarchy, their usually ingrained system of checks and balances (security) degraded.  Source reliability and content validity assessments in this incident may have been solely overlooked due to Jordanian intelligence failures.  Balawi had done a classic example of previously establishing credibility in the eyes of Jordanian officials by simply spoon-feeding them morsels of intelligence.  He would later walk into the meeting in Forward Operating Base Chapman (unsearched) and detonate.

In Mexico’s war against the cartels, human intelligence is paramount to success.  This obviously requires the recruiting of informants and sources that have information which can effectively penetrate and interdict the organized criminal hierarchies.

And the cartels reciprocate in a similar manner.  But their payoffs are made easy with massive funding, plus the threat of death for failure to perform at their demand is a significant incentive to betray the established rule of law, and each of those who stand at or near the top.

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Jerry Brewer is C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International Associates, a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Miami, Florida.  His website is located at www.cjiausa.org.