Posted by Eduardo Arizaga on January 30, 2006 at 08:49:42:
In Reply to: Jawbreaker posted by Peter on December 30, 2005 at 14:07:13:
Don't like the book. But I recommend "First In" from the on ground commander of the Jawbreaker team. A much better reading.
: To see a real life version of the headaches Paul Crocker, Tara Chace et al. undergo, CIA officer Gary Berntsen's memoir "Jawbreaker" may interest you. The title is a double entendre. It's the code name for Berntsen's mission to Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda and nail Osama bin Laden. It's also a reference to the jaw's reaction at seeing firsthand just how obtuse CIA managers and government bureaucrats can be in a crisis. For example, a 2000 mission which had a good chance of success of taking out an al-Qaeda lieutenant got sabotaged by a CIA station chief's feeling that Berntsen was treading way too heavily on his turf.
: The book itself is written in high testosterone mode, and Berntsen himself is definitely not a critic of the current administration. But for a portrait of both CIA CYA behavior and CIA effectiveness when it focusses on a mission, this sounds like illuminating reading.