It was a box office story about Russia’s return to the imperial “Great Game” in Afghanistan. The Kremlin had been handing out money on the long battlefield of Central Asia for a long time for militants to kill the remaining American forces. It sparked a massive outcry from Democrats and their #resistance amplifiers over the treacherous Russian puppet in the White House whose admiration for Vladimir Putin had endangered American troops.
But on Thursday, the Biden administration announced that U.S. intelligence only had “low to moderate” confidence in history. Translated from spyworld slang, this means that intelligence agencies have found that the story is, at best, unproven and possibly false.
“The U.S. intelligence community assesses with low to moderate confidence that Russian intelligence officers tried to encourage the Taliban to attack U.S. and coalition personnel in Afghanistan in 2019 and maybe sooner, ”a senior administration official said.
“American intelligence had only “low to moderate” confidence in history. Translated from spyworld slang, this means that intelligence agencies have found that the story is, at best, unproven and possibly false.”
“This information is a burden for the Russian government to explain its actions and take steps to deal with this disturbing behavior,” said the official, who indicated that Biden is not ready to resume history completely.
Significantly, Biden’s team announced a series of sanctions on Thursday. But these sanctions, aimed at Russia’s sovereign debt market, are only provoked by Russia’s interference in the 2020 elections and its alleged role in SolarWinds cyberespionage. (In contrast, Biden administration officials said his assessment of the technology company SolarWinds’ non-compliance with hackers from Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service was “high confidence”).
“We have noted our conclusion of the review we have conducted on the issue of rewards and have conveyed through diplomatic, intelligence and military channels direct and strong messages on this issue, but we are not specifically relating the actions we are doing today matter, ”a senior administration official told reporters in reference to reward claims.
According to officials in Thursday’s call, reports of the alleged “rewards” came from the “detainees’ complaint,” which raised the ghost that someone told their Afghan prisoners lined up in the United States what they thought was necessary to get out. of a cage. Specifically, the official cited “information and evidence of connections with criminal agents in Afghanistan and elements of the Russian government” as sources for the assessment of the intelligence community.
Without additional corroboration, these reports are not remarkably reliable. Detainees who reported a man known as Ibn Shaikh al-Libi, extracted from torture, infamously and falsely fueled a claim by the Bush administration, which used to invade Iraq, about the formation of Saddam Hussein in Al Qaeda to make poison gas.
A senior Biden official added on Thursday that the “difficult operating environment in Afghanistan” complicated U.S. efforts to confirm what amounts to a rumor.
There were reasons to doubt the story from the beginning. The initial stories not only underscored its basis in the notification of detainees, but the rewards represented a qualitative change in recent Russian engagements with Afghan insurgents. Russian agents have been suspected of transferring money to several Afghan militants for a long time: a disadvantaged former Taliban official told The Daily Beast that Russia gave them money for years. But the Russians had not been suspected of having directly sponsored attacks on U.S. forces, an escalation that risked confrontation with the United States and that occurred long after it could have made a difference in the war.
In addition, there appeared to be no “causal link” with any actual deaths in the United States, according to the trial of General Frank McKenzie, a U.S. general in the Middle East and South Asia. Former U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials told The Daily Beast last summer that they viewed the rewards account with skepticism. A retired diplomat suspected that “someone leaked this to stop the withdrawal of troops.”
“Former U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials told The Daily Beast last summer that they viewed the rewards account with skepticism. One suspected that “someone leaked this to slow the withdrawal of troops.””
The main reason for believing the story was rarely discussed: the CIA actually did funding Afghan guerrillas to kill Russian forces during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The Pentagon said at the time that its massive intelligence apparatus, which includes both battlefield intelligence and the world’s most sophisticated surveillance network, did not generate the history of rewards. In September, McKenzie said the intelligence was not corroborated. “It just hasn’t been shown a level of certainty that satisfies me,” he told NBC News.
But Democrats came up with the history of the election. Then-candidate Biden defined it as a “horrible revelation” if true. Senate Democrat Foreign Secretary Robert Menendez (D-NJ) introduced a measure to punish Russia for alleged rewards. Congressional Democrats claimed to have been underinformed about the bill, which Trump called the White House a “farce” and suggested there was a cover-up underway. When Trump himself denied being told about the story, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff (D-CA), remarked: “This is a problem they can’t tell the president. things you don’t want to hear when it comes to Vladimir Putin and Russia? ? ”
In June, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) was added, “I think we knew the White House perspective, what we need to know is the intelligence perspective.” Now he knows.