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U.S. Is Still Using Private Spy Ring, Despite Doubts
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Times
Posted: May 24th, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/world/16contractors.html
Top military officials have continued to rely on a secret network of private spies who have produced hundreds of reports from deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan. Earlier this year, government officials admitted that the military had sent a group of former Central Intelligence Agency officers and retired Special Operations troops into the region to collect information some of which was used to track and kill people suspected of being militants. Many portrayed it as a rogue operation that had been hastily shut down once an investigation began. But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government officials and businessmen, and an examination of government documents, tell a different a story. Not only are the networks still operating, their detailed reports on subjects like the workings of the Taliban leadership in Pakistan and the movements of enemy fighters in southern Afghanistan are also submitted almost daily to top commanders and have become an important source of intelligence. Pentagon officials said that ... the supervisor who set up the contractor network, Michael D. Furlong, was now under investigation. But a review of the program by The New York Times found that Mr. Furlongs operatives were still providing information using the same intelligence gathering methods as before.
Note: For revealing reports on the secret and extra-legal operations of the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq, click here.
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