Senior CIA Officer | Pat Weninger | Ep. 302

Leaks about CIA operations undermine recruitment because potential sources hear about organizational breaches and become predisposed to distrust that the CIA will actually protect them, and anonymous leaks from government officials seeking personal recognition erode the mystique that attracts agents

“I think there's a narrative out there that we're a rogue organization or we're a risk averse organization right uh and we're not both we're not either um you know there is as you guys know in this community they're good people good Americans you know follow the law yeah we break the law overseas but we follow the law in the US we're not the baby killers we're not the coup we're not doing the coups you know we're not all those negative things that you hear about that we're kind of this ghost and and easy to point to and you hear about our mistakes um but the thing that I think hurts us most are the leaks”

Pat assesses counterterrorism as a diminished threat compared to the early 2000s, having been significantly reduced through operations in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere, but it remains an active threat that cannot be ignored while focusing on China and Russia

“um the CT threat is always going to be there but frankly it's been diminished greatly um over you know the last five or six years great success in Syria and Iraq and other places um but it's still out there don't get me wrong but it's not where it was in the you know mid 2000s early 2000s it's been significantly diminished”

Pat assesses that the intelligence on bin Laden's location was so good that there were consequential reasons for conducting the raid—it was not merely a 50-50 call as President Obama characterized it, but rather intelligence that justified the operational risk despite the complications of Pakistan sovereignty

“I thought there was a pretty good I think there was a there was a I thought in my in my view that you know based on everything I've read and what's been an open source you can make an affair assessment that um the intelligence was so good that there was a consequence for not doing it right so that's a little bit you know that's kind of how I view it”

Pat assesses China as the greatest strategic threat to the U.S., more than Russia, because of its military capability, economic power, intellectual property theft, hacking of U.S. networks, aggressive expansion throughout the Pacific and globally, and extensive investment in Africa and Latin America

“I view them now that I'm out and you know what I read and what I see um I view them as the biggest threat right now to our you know our strategic um National Security you know from an economic standpoint from a military standpoint you know they are they are they are extremely aggressive you know when they're trying to steal our IP um hack into our networks ident identify and uncover vulnerabilities um they do they're in the misinformation disinformation game um they were putting out propaganda to maximize their influence and undermine ours”

Building the intelligence picture for the bin Laden raid involved layering signals intelligence, human intelligence, and other collection methods across multiple agencies and liaison partners over a period of time, with exceptional operational security maintained throughout the collection and exploitation process

“there was a lot of hard work from a lot of people um not just in South Asia but you know over I would say not just that year in South Asia but over a period of time developing that Network and fleshing it out and building it out um you know there was liaison partners that were contributing and they may not even know it known it you know how the putting this jigsaw puzle together and um you know the the way that this thing came together with the different parts of uh the or you know one the Enterprise kind of the technical side and the the doo side um combining that with you know the special Mission Unit side the way all that came together while maintaining the Integrity of the operation and the opsc of the operation is is really um interesting and a massive success”

Pat is concerned that policy changes toward privacy at the expense of security that resulted from Snowden leaks and other disclosures could enable another attack on the Homeland, and intelligence professionals should not be blamed if attacks occur after authorities and tools have been stripped

“from my perspective I was like well when there's another attack on the Homeland you know don't say it was an intelligence failure policy failure for changing the policy um so you know you're you're taking some of the teeth and the power out of our ability to you know be out in front and for cast and uh and predict and prevent attacks just understand that if you want your privacy over security just understand that that there's a I mean we Al we also have to point out here that you know if you look at like the uh hacking of what it was at the office of personnel management”

Pat recommends that the U.S. must come from a position of power when dealing with Russia, using all instruments of government (military, diplomatic, intelligence), rather than appearing weak, because Putin sees weakness and seizes on it

“what happens is you end up capitulating and allowing the Russians to do what they want to do and um continue with their bad behavior so like the one thing I would say is we have to change our our policy Dynamic our policy Playbook on how we manage the and address the Russians we have to come in with with a more powerful position using you know all the instruments of government MH in my view rather than oh sorry about that yeah there's the military The Diplomatic there's the intelligence piece you have to bring all those things together”

A persistent challenge for every U.S. administration is how to change Russian/Putin's behavior without causing escalation that could lead to nuclear war, and no administration has effectively solved this dilemma, with administrations often taking weaker positions to avoid upset because they fear escalation

“the thing about the Russian Target I'll say this and this isn't unique to this administration every Administration has had this challenge is how do you change Russian Behavior Putin's Behavior without escalation mhm right and no one's really figured that out yet so it's a challenge”

Post-9/11 CT operations led the CIA to develop a new methodology of layering intelligence from signals intelligence, human intelligence, and geospatial intelligence into targeting packages that enabled the 'fix, find, finish' mission and identification of tactical patterns and networks—a tradecraft innovation that later became standard for the targeting community and other agencies

“the pre 911 the targeting career track at the CIA was almost non-existent right I think it grew massively not only in numbers but in um importance with the you know the Advent of this new CT mission of hey we have to we have to we have to put people on The X to get them and remove them from the battlefield um we have to layer intelligence in a way that we weren't doing before where we were you know overlaying Sig humint geoint and um building out what that picture looks like on the ground these nais if you will and um start understanding patterns start understanding networks and and our trade CF change to accommodate and support the mission”

The U.S. and China cannot fully decouple economically because China is the U.S. largest trade partner, but managing the relationship requires 'de-risking'—reducing vulnerability without complete separation—while China acts as a full court press expanding influence in the Pacific, Africa, and Latin America

“we have this current policy with them where you know we have close they're they're our biggest trade partner and we can't decouple our relationship with them so how do we drisk it you know and a challenge with um with someone who doesn't play by kind of the the world rules if you will”

Post-9/11 U.S. government shifted from prioritizing privacy over security to prioritizing security, giving intelligence agencies and DOD broader authorities to operate under the Patriot Act, but this created a perception that the government was becoming Big Brother after leaks like Snowden's, shifting the policy pendulum back toward privacy at the cost of intelligence capabilities

“pre 911 you could say privacy was factored more than security post 911 you know tipped the balance the other way right the Patriot Act all these different things and it gave us it gave it gave you know the Enterprise of the intelligence Community uh and the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security a lot of additional authorities and space to operate to ensure there wasn't another attack on the Homeland then you start having you know the snowdens of the world and the leaks of the world and suddenly there's this perception that oh no the government is now Big Brother the government has gone way too far let's let's take let's bring back privacy over security”

Pat's three-star general commanding officer, after learning about the CIA offer and recognizing Pat's hesitation, told him 'you don't have to wear a uniform to serve your country' and explained that the Air Force has a hierarchy where intelligence officers rank lower than pilots, which fundamentally shifted Pat's perspective on leaving the military

“he said all right listen this is you know I owe this man a lot of credit he's like let me tell you something he's like first of all you don't have to wear a uniform to serve your country and I was like Wow when he said that like this like what what a great comment like this this burden just lifted off me immediately and and he's like let me tell you the second thing he's like this is the Air Force not the intelligence Force he's like look I fly gunships ac130 gunships and there's a pecking order you know there's the fighter pilots then guys like me then guys that find cargo planes then Navigators then weather officers then the maintenance officer then the Intel guy”

Pat initially rejected the military path because witnessing his father's absences from key life events (high school graduation, commissioning) created childhood resentment toward military service, but this changed in college when exposure to non-military peers made him realize military service was a moral responsibility

“it was an interesting time because um you know when my dad missed a lot of those events I remember having a lot of regret and and really blaming the military and I there was a time in my life when I was young and impressionable where I wanted nothing to do with the military”

Operating in austere South Asia CT environments, Pat and case officer teams used a strategy of managing villages and communities as 'blue states' (friendly perimeter), 'swing states' (vulnerable to extremist influence but accessible to US influence), and 'red states' (controlled by bad actors where firefights were likely) to balance intelligence collection with force protection

“there was kind of this sense of the way I would the analogy I give to it is kind of um uh blue states red States and swing States if you will you kind of had this perimeter of villages that was right outside your wire that were your blue States if you will and then you would always try to push to the swing states that were being influenced by um you know as as some of my colleagues or some of the locals they call the miscreant uh term that they use but the extremists were influencing those”

CIA culture emphasizes 'we don't leave agents on the street' as an ethos of protection and source management regardless of whether meetings are planned, unscheduled, or compromised, which Pat credits to mentors like Mark Kelton who understood the moral and operational responsibility to safeguard sources

“it highlights that ethos that we have in the agency that you know one of my mentors a senior officer by the name Mark Kelton used to say we don't leave agents on the street like we go and get them whether you know it's a planned meeting unscheduled meeting we don't leave them behind that ethos of we protect them at all costs we go and get them”

Pat's relationship with his Al-Qaeda source involved managing a tension between his moral obligation to protect the source and his responsibility to protect US troops, as tactical successes against the network tightened the noose around the source's neck and forced difficult conversations with special operations commanders about which targets to hit

“as they action these targets The Noose is tightening around the source's neck right you know that makes sense yes yeah because the special Mission unit's taking all these people off the chess board so there's just naturally less and less players on the field and they're all I imagine pointing fing at yeah who has access who was where yeah yeah”

Early in Pat's first overseas posting in South Asia, CIA leadership (including legendary COS Greg Vogle) used direct language 'kill Al-Qaeda' as guidance, reflecting the organization's immediate post-9/11 directive to eliminate terrorist threats

“I walked into this C's office this legendary cosos uh goty by the name of Greg vogle and he'd know me from Adam and he said uh Hey man come in sit down um where you going and I told them he's like all right you're going to see some [ __ ] there he goes here's my guidance and he looked at me and he said you ready I'm like yeah he's like kill Al-Qaeda any questions”

When Pat's Al-Qaeda source was scheduled to meet what was supposed to be senior leadership but Pat feared was a setup to execute him, Pat convinced special operations to launch a daytime raid on a house in hostile terrain with minimal planning (five minutes) to extract him, and they succeeded in rescuing the source with no US casualties

“I was like I want you to go get him I go this guy's done a lot for us and we owe it to him at least try now asking that question I had a moral conflict with too because I was asking them to go do a daytime raid in a not pleasant place in a violent part of the city so I had a moral conflict with that like wow you know I'm putting US troops at harm to go get this guy”

Pat's assessment of the Ukraine invasion was that the U.S. and allies overestimated Russian military capability and underestimated Ukrainian willingness to fight, which complicated policy decisions made immediately after the invasion began

“it wasn't surprising I think that there was a in in my view so the things that I've read I think there was a in one sense we had really good intelligence were able to warn our partners of when the invasion was going to occur that's been widely reported um but I think we also overestimated the Russian capability and we underestimated the Ukrainian willingness to fight and so I think so that that you know that miscalculation if you will I think also made the policy DEC decisions coming soon after the invasion more difficult”

The 1991 Gulf War caused the Air Force to initially upgrade Pat's navigator slot to a pilot slot due to overestimated Iraqi capability, but when the war ended in approximately one week, the military downsized and he lost the pilot slot again, forcing him to commission in intelligence instead

“the Gulf War happened and the lead up to the Gulf War if you guys recall there was a big concern about the Iraqis and their capability where we had overestimated and they're like okay we got to get a lot of people in the pilot pipeline you're getting upgraded to to a pilot great fantastic and then um you know the war was over in what a week”

Foreign diplomats and intelligence officers assigned to the U.S. represent the best talent from their home intelligence services and governments, have significantly improved lifestyles (higher salary, better housing) compared to assignments abroad, and face exposure to Western democracy and capitalism, creating a home court advantage for CIA recruitment efforts

“typically the best of the best of their diplomats of their Intelligence Officers are the ones that are awarded right with that cherry on their career cherry on top of their career to come back and work in the United States right and so those people are usually connected people people that have access people um that may or may not have um been exposed previously been exposed to a western lifestyle having been exposed to democracy and the freedoms that we have uh to a capitalist society”

Pat's first real-world exposure to CIA work came through a tasking to meet with the CIA counterterrorism center without revealing operational details, which taught him about agency capabilities and led to him being sponsored for a sensitive training course restricted to FBI and CIA personnel

“we were planning this op jck was doing had a planning cell and kind of an afo team that that worked on the planning cell and I somehow I can't remember how I got looped into that to be part of the planning team and um it was overseas to kind of do a sensitive um CT up so my boss comes to me he's like hey man we need somebody to go to the agency and talk to them about it”

The loss of Chinese intelligence sources and agents to Chinese counterintelligence in the mid-2010s harmed US intelligence collection capabilities, making operations harder without stopping them, described as 'putting one arm behind your back'

“what you're referring to has kind of been reported in the media and I can just say that um it undermines our ability to do it not you know I'm not saying we can't do the job it just makes it harder puts puts one arm behind your back right if you will and and and you know these quote unquote Anonymous leaks whether they're coming from the hill or the whatever you know one of the three branches of government”

A major Al-Qaeda source that Pat recruited in the mid-2000s Mesopotamia region had access to senior leadership, had pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda with blood on his hands and US casualties on his record, but became disillusioned when he realized the Al-Qaeda myth was a 'grand lie'—leaders broke their promises about taking care of martyrs' families, smoked and drank despite claims of piety, and the organization was killing other Muslims

“he was one of the brothers the brothers you know as they call themselves and was fully bought in and pledged by at to Al-Qaeda and all those things and Allegiance and over time time you know he realized he became disenfranchised because he he kind of the myth of al-Qaeda he realized was a grand lie you know the way they were treating other Muslims through some of their attacks you know a lot of Muslims were getting killed”

When special operations extracted the Al-Qaeda source, the source confirmed that the planned meeting was indeed a setup to kill him, saying he had been marked for death by the leadership because of meetings Pat had arranged, though the reason he survived was he prayed when he realized he was going to be executed and the helicopter rescue happened while he was praying

“I was like hey man I gotta know was um were you gonna meet a senior guy or were they gonna kill you and he said they were going to kill me and um they just about they were about to kill me and I was arguing with him that they the leadership had sent two people to kill me”

Post-9/11 oversight committees had responsibility to be transparent with the CIA about operations, with staffers being vetted and cleared, but Pat found that those on intelligence oversight committees were more trusted and less likely to leak than those on other committees seeking public attribution

“we have a responsibility to be transparent about what we do with those you know like whether it's cobt C or any you know we there's very candid discussions uh with the oversight committees and the staffers about what we do and and and look they they are you know they they are um vetted and read in and all the background checks on them and everything so they are cleared people to do it um and I you know frankly I don't know I don't think they're necessarily the ones from the oversight committees that are that are the most responsible my experience is those are people that we were most trusted with um that I felt most comfortable talking to frankly because they did get they were welcomed into our world”

In 2017, Pat was assigned to lead all Russian operations globally for CIA despite lacking traditional background in Russian affairs or Moscow service, with a mentor on the seventh floor asking him to help modernize the program in response to Russian interference in the 2016 elections

“running the Russian operations position which you know in our organization is a very um unique and wanted position but traditionally it goes to somebody who had come up through the ranks in Central Eurasia Division and served in Moscow and spoke the language um you know I had reached out to a mentor of mine on the seventh floor and said hey here's the here's the five jobs I'm looking at and they noticed the you know being the in charge of all Russian operations around the world”

The CIA brought in personnel from CT backgrounds to Russian operations because they could apply lessons learned from CT targeting methodology (applying fresh approaches) rather than relying on Cold War-era tradecraft that had not adapted to modern Russian active measures tactics

“so let's bring in a new face that has a different type of experience using different methodology like that we've learned in other parts of the world about putting people on the X but let's put them on the X for fi purposes to recruit people right let's I mean so it wasn't cleaning a house it was just let's think let's let's bring in a fresh idea person to think about how we could do this different and and that's so so again it's not a negative thing about the past it's just like hey can can we prosecute this in a different way and let's think about this um this this you know how this Mission set differently that's that was the impetus behind it”

During the 15-year focus on counterterrorism (roughly 2001-2015), Russia and China were building military and intelligence capability while the U.S. was downsizing its budgets against them, creating a strategic reversal where the U.S. now faces more capable peer competitors

“when we were so focused on the CT War you know for for the first 15 years of it leading up into the 2016 elections we were so focused as a country and as a nation on on on counterterrorism the Russians and the Chinese were building capacity and capability and we were downsizing our budgets against them where they were increasing so now the you know it's flipped where we increased our budgets on China increased our budgets to counter Russia and we can't take our eyes off the CT uh you know threat because if we're not looking that's going to grow”

CIA's approach to Russian operations involved building coalitions with liaison partners that also had Russian programs, sharing intelligence with allies like European services and other governments to create greater effect against Russian targets

“we and now how do we um approach our foreign partners that view the Russians as a compatible Target in other words hey we have a Russia program you guys have a Russia program what if we brought those Russia programs together uh to have a greater effect against this target was kind of the the mentality that we had to start um Prosecuting you know how we did operations differently and it worked and we started to see difference is yes uh we learned some things along the way but we also kind of started building these um this Coalition uh again this was reported in some New York Times stuff in just in the last year um on on kind of building this Coalition of liaison Russia programs that Prov to be um very helpful leading into obviously in the last few years years with the with the uh the Russian invasion of Ukraine”

Pat worked as an assistant to CIA Deputy Director Avril Haines (who is now Director of National Intelligence) in a position that exposed him to how different CIA directorates operate together, how finished analysis is produced for policymakers, and how the agency engages with the White House and Congress

“I had a chance to be uh really a unique opportunity to be um an assistant to the deputy director the time was AEL Haynes who's now the dni um and it allowed me to kind of see how the sausage was made not just you know I was very I had been limited to the do really up into this point in my career”

As leader of Russian operations (2017 onwards), Pat worked with oversight committees across all three branches of government, driving a unified message on both sides of the aisle about need to shift from defensive posture after 2016 to offensive position to prevent interference in 2018 and 2020 elections

“there was UN uniformity on both sides of the aisle about getting off our back foot and getting on the front foot to ensure what happened in 2016 doesn't have it in our midterm elections in 2018 and more importantly what do we do to make sure it doesn't happen again in 2020 right”

In response to Russian interference, there was a 'call to arms' (reported in media) asking CIA personnel with various experiences and career tracks to help prosecute the Russian mission differently, leveraging technology, targeting, and other modern approaches similar to how the post-9/11 CT effort was organized

“there it's been widely reported that there was a there was a call to Arms um in in in different media outlets and there was and and it was um you know and that that to me instituted a change it's was a change of mindset if you will and it was kind of harking back to to to what we had learned over the last you know 17 years in the long Wars and applying that and and and really similar to what we did post 911 where we did a call to Arms to get people to to to deploy out to South Asia in the Middle East”

Pat views the 2016 Russian interference operation as a form of covert action attack on American democracy comparable to (though distinct from) 9/11 in its profound impact on national institutions and trust, striking a deep cord in American society

“I don't I want to show respect to 911 because of the lost souls and I do but a like not to the level of 911 but a version of 911 where that's how deep it struck a cord what the Russians did this covert action program that they did which you can make the argument is still continuing to this day I mean if you look about the Russia collusion investigation that that came out of that and and how that polarized our politics and how that continues today the Russians are just laughing about this and they are happiest and they are amplifying these divisions”