Hillarysworld

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In the early days and weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, a small cadre of men (and a few women) with vast amounts of intelligence experience reported to the Langley, Va., headquarters of the CIA. These unsung heroes then were dispatched across the globe to run operations against the al-Qaida conspirators who leveled the WorldTradeCenter and struck the nerve center of the U.S. military.

The FBI, a domestic law enforcement agency, did not have the ability or skills needed to track down and strike the attackers overseas. The Pentagon, with F22s, nuclear aircraft carriers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and battalions of the best armor in the history of mankind, was like an elephant attacked by a mouse — mighty, but helpless in its mammoth rage.

Our best hope was in the hands of the gray-bearded intelligence professionals who fanned out across the world. Supplementing the skeleton crew of staff officers left in the wake of President Clinton's anti-intelligence scourging of the CIA, the volunteers went to the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, to the most remote and isolated outposts in the world. Sometimes they worked with friendly forces, and sometimes they worked alone. They focused like a laser beam on one thing: Stop the next attack.

Their mission: Seek and destroy the terrorist planners, facilitators, trainers, financiers, and their infrastructure wherever they were.

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, CIA officers, both the contractors and the overextended staff officers, launched dozens of initiatives. The CIACounterterrorismCenter’s motto, “Deny, Disrupt, Destroy,” became the reason for our living. We left our families for months on end and sacrificed personal and professional lives to fight the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Google “Jihadists in Paradise,” for an unauthorized account of one of my contributions (I have been advised that I can neither confirm nor deny).

As I did my part in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa, my family tried to maintain a semblance of normalcy at home. My son was in eighth grade in September 2001. I did not see him graduate the next summer. I was home less than six months for each of the first three of his high school years.

Even with my nightly phone calls, his attitude and grades plummeted in my absence. He went from a happy, engaged, charming 13-year-old with straight A’s and a focus on the future to a sullen, uncommunicative, high school flunky. I put my successful and lucrative executive recruiting business on hold for eight years. Finally, after five years of constant travel, my family sacrifice account was overdrawn. Coming home was an option for me, and I took it.

Others did not take that option, and they sacrificed the quality of their marriages, participation in their children’s and grandchildren’s lives, the profitability of their businesses, and more. Personal and professional issues festered and rotted while they fought to keep America safe and prevented further attacks on our homeland.

In contrast, where was Eric Holder? Before leaving President Clinton’s employ, he orchestrated the pardons of several Puerto Rican separatist terrorists. Then in 2003, as a partner in the Washington law firm of Covington & Burling, Holder’s client, Chiquita Brands, admitted paying to support terrorist death squads in Colombia and paid a $25 million fine. During the time my friends worked to disrupt and destroy terrorist networks threatening America, Holder’s firm represented — for free — 16 terrorist detainees at Guantanamo.

Has he made any personal or professional sacrifices since his country was attacked in 2001? If he has, it is difficult to find them. When the special prosecutor comes calling, maybe someone from Covington & Burling can represent my colleagues for free, like they did for Lakhdar Boumedienne and 10 other terrorists in Gitmo.

The Holder/Obama Global War on the CIA (GWCIA) has only just begun, as it debuted with “grisly revelations” of revving drills, gunshots in the next cell, and threats against a terrorist’s children. The GWOT is not for the faint of heart, nor the queasy. No war ever has been. There may be slight improprieties stashed in the CIA’s closets, but the liberal-appeasing GWCIA is foolhardy and dangerous.

Mike Spann, was the first to die in the GWOT. He won’t have to worry about the Holder/Obama GWCIA. But others in the agency are very worried. While we sacrificed to achieve incremental victories, Holder and Obama plotted and schemed — not against those “evil-mongers” who killed our countrymen, but against those of us hunting the terrorists. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. The odor is not from Langley, Mr. Holder.

Kent Clizbe is a former member of the CIA's Directorate of Operations. In 2001, in the aftermath of Sept. 11, he returned to the CIA to serve multiple counter-terrorism deployments. In 2005, he was awarded the Intelligence Community Seal Medallion for his anti-terrorism work.