Report: The CIA Does Not Spy On The UAE

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates June 24, 2019. File photo. Jacquelyn Martin/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Reuters: Why the CIA doesn't spy on the UAE

(Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates finances the military leader trying to topple a United Nations-recognized government in Libya. It helps lead a coalition of nations imposing an economic blockade of Qatar, despite U.S. calls to resolve the dispute. It hired former staffers of the U.S. National Security Agency as elite hackers to spy in a program that included Americans as surveillance targets, a Reuters investigation found this year.

And yet, in a highly unusual practice, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) does not spy on the UAE’s government, three former CIA officials familiar with the matter told Reuters, creating what some critics call a dangerous blind spot in U.S. intelligence.

The CIA’s posture isn’t new. What’s changed is the nature of the tiny but influential OPEC nation’s intervention across the Middle East and Africa - fighting wars, running covert operations and using its financial clout to reshape regional politics in ways that often run counter to U.S. interests, according to the sources and foreign policy experts.

The CIA’s failure to adapt to the UAE’s growing military and political ambitions amounts to a “dereliction of duty,” said a fourth former CIA official.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The CIA does not operate in a vacuum. The political leadership and oversight committees are the ones who dictate what the CIA can and cannot do. So the real question that should be asked is .... why. Why is the political leadership in the U.S. giving a pass to the UAE when it comes to U.S. intelligence?

from War News Updates https://ift.tt/33XUvbj