Buying friends

last updated 8 January 2015

Washington, D.C.

CIA agents have given foreign spies millions of dollars to help hunt al Qaida leaders, The Boston Globe reported this week. Intelligence operatives in Yemen, Pakistan, and other countries have received piles of unmarked $20, $50, and $100 bills, and passed on some to informants. The largess has bought “tremendous cooperation” and helped rebuild a neglected network of spies, a former CIA member said. Yemeni intelligence helped track down six suspected al Qaida terrorists, who were then killed last month by a flying CIA drone. Not all foreign agents care to get mixed up with the U.S. “The general impression,” one Pakistani official said, “is that Americans use people like condoms, and then walk away.”