I’d assume we’ve been trying to infiltrate Al Queda from the start. It’s a (heh) pretty standard intelligence technique. For awhile, it seemed we were neglecting humint in favor of signals stuff and crude torture techniques, but I bet the veteran agents who know that kind of stuff is unreliable continued to press forward with sound human intelligence strategies.

It was one of the more foolish conceits to think that we could replace the intricacy of intelligence work with satellites, email interception, and waterboarding.