Summary of Nada Bakos & Davin Coburn's The Targeter

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 I had returned from Iraq in 2004, after spending a summer there as the CIA’s point person for their Iraq terrorism analysis group in Baghdad. I had volunteered for a temporary duty assignment to Iraq to find signs that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was still in Iraq.

#2 The OSP seemed to utterly disregard the analytic tradecraft that the CIA holds dear. They passed along raw intelligence without context and without explaining the reliability of the source to the White House.

#3 In late 2002, the Bush administration pinpointed a new bogeyman to bolster its hegemonic intent: a thirty-six-year-old former drug-dealing street thug from Jordan named Ahmad Fadil al-Nazal al-Khalayleh. He would eventually join al Qaida after the invasion.

#4 The president’s assertion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was connected to al Qaida was a gross exaggeration. The CIA had determined that Zarqawi’s organization didn’t know about the 9/11 attacks, much less participate in them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669397656

IRB Media

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Insights on Nada Bakos & Davin Coburn's The Targeter

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I had returned from Iraq in 2004, after spending a summer there as the CIA’s point person for their Iraq terrorism analysis group in Baghdad. I had volunteered for a temporary duty assignment to Iraq to find signs that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was still in Iraq.

#2

The OSP seemed to utterly disregard the analytic tradecraft that the CIA holds dear. They passed along raw intelligence without context and without explaining the reliability of the source to the White House.

#3

In late 2002, the Bush administration pinpointed a new bogeyman to bolster its hegemonic intent: a thirty-six-year-old former drug-dealing street thug from Jordan named Ahmad Fadil al-Nazal al-Khalayleh. He would eventually join al Qaida after the invasion.

#4

The president’s assertion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was connected to al Qaida was a gross exaggeration. The CIA had determined that Zarqawi’s organization didn’t know about the 9/11 attacks, much less participate in them.

#5

At the Agency, each analyst finds at his or her desk every morning a brown paper bag decorated with red-and-white candy-cane stripes. These are used to hold classified documents until they can be irretrievably destroyed.

#6

I was scouring reports and documents every morning, and would set aside a handful of reports that seemed relevant. I was trying to paint a picture of the trends and events that were happening in Iraq, and how they related to 9/11 and al Qaida.

#7

I was lost in thought about all that when a soft ding snapped me back to the present. The elevator doors opened on the ground floor of the New Headquarters Building, and I walked through the sun-filled lobby. I was beginning to think about a job