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Pentagon official ran private spy network for lethal action in AfPak region  

KABUL, Afghanistan (New York Times) – Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants, according to military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States.

The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former CIA and Special Forces operatives. The contractors, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the officials said.

While it has been widely reported the CIA and military are attacking operatives of al-Qaida and others through unmanned, remote-controlled drone strikes, some American officials say they became troubled that Furlong seemed to be running an off-the-books spy operation.

Col. Kathleen Cook, a spokeswoman for U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees Furlong’s work, declined to make him available for an interview. Military officials said Furlong, a retired Air Force officer, is now a senior civilian employee in the military, a full-time Defense Department employee based at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.

Government officials said they believed Furlong might have channeled money away from a program intended to provide U.S. commanders with information about Afghanistan’s social and tribal landscape, and toward secret efforts to hunt militants on both sides of the country’s porous border with Pakistan.

Military officials said Furlong would often boast about his network of informants in Afghanistan and Pakistan to senior military officers, and in one instance said a group of suspected militants carrying rockets by mule over the border had been singled out and killed as a result of his efforts.

DUANE CLARIDGE / IRAN-CONTRA SCANDAL

Among the contractors Furlong appears to have used to conduct intelligence gathering was International Media Ventures, a private “strategic communication” firm run by several former Special Operations officers. Another was American International Security Corp., a Boston-based company run by Mike Taylor, a former Green Beret. In a phone interview, Taylor said that at one point, he had employed Duane Clarridge, known as Dewey, a former top CIA official who has been linked to a generation of CIA adventures, including the Iran-Contra scandal.

CIA WARNED PENTAGON INTELLIGENCE OFFICIAL

Last fall, the spy agency’s station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, wrote a memorandum to the Defense Department’s top intelligence official detailing what officials said were serious offenses by Furlong. The officials would not specify the offenses, but the officer’s cable helped set off the Pentagon investigation.

In mid-2008, the military put Furlong in charge of a program to use private companies to gather information about the political and tribal culture of Afghanistan.

Some of the roughly $22 million in government money allotted to this effort went to International Media Ventures, with offices in the Florida city of St. Petersburg, San Antonio and elsewhere. On its Web site, the company describes itself as a public relations company, “an industry leader in creating potent messaging content and interactive communications.”

The Web site also shows that several of its executives are former members of the military’s Special Operations forces, including former commandos from Delta Force, which has been used extensively since the Sept. 11 attacks to track and kill suspected terrorists.

Until recently, one of the members of International Media’s board of directors was Gen. Dell L. Dailey, former head of Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees the military’s covert units.

In an e-mail message, Dailey said he had resigned his post on the company’s board, but he did not say when. He did not give details about the company’s work with the American military, and other company executives declined to comment. From the company’s web site:

    “Ambassador at Large Dell L. Dailey at the Department of State’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism.  Prior to his current assignment, Ambassador Dailey served over 36 years on active duty in the United States Army, reaching the rank of Lieutenant General. He participated in major military operations such as Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Uphold Democracy, Joint Guardian, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.”

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."