All the talk about Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the al-Qaeda "triple agent", is obscuring real problems with America's intelligence gathering efforts in Afghanistan. Everyone loves a good spy story, but the issue in Afghanistan isn't that CIA was fooled by an al-Qaeda operative (all espionage comes with significant risk) but that America's intelligence community has basically failed to provide even the simplest of information about the way Afghanistan works to policy makers and military leaders.

Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, U.S. intelligence chief in Afghanistan and a PBOM favorite, recently published a scathing review of the American intelligence community's work in Afghanistan. From the introduction:

Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy. Having focused the overwhelming majority of its collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, the vast intelligence apparatus is unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which U.S. and allied forces operate and the people they seek to persuade.

Ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced, incurious about the correlations between various development projects and the levels of cooperation among villagers, and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers – whether aid workers or Afghan soldiers – U.S. intelligence officers and analysts can do little but shrug in response to high level decision-makers seeking the knowledge, analysis, and information they need to wage a successful counterinsurgency.

His recommendations for improvement are also well worth a read. Check out the full report here.