Pentagon official sets up illegal spy network in Kabul

A senior US defence department official violated Pentagon rules and deliberately misled senior military officers when he created a spy operation using private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a Pentagon inquiry has found, according to the New York Times.

The Pentagon investigation concluded that the official, Michael Furlong, set up an “unauthorised” intelligence network to collect information in both countries — some of which was fed to senior generals and used for strikes against militant groups — while masking the entire operation as a more benign information operations campaign.

The Times quoted Pentagon spokesman colonel David Lapan as saying the probe found that “further investigation is warranted of the misleading and incorrect statements the individual made” about the legality of the spy program.

Furlong, a senior US air force civilian official, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former CIA and military operatives.

Defence secretary Robert Gates ordered the investigation in March.                                           

The contractors gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps and then sent that material to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, according to the paper. Pentagon rules forbid the hiring of contractors as spies.

The Times quoted Furlong as saying in a telephone interview that he is angry about the conclusions of the Pentagon’s investigation and that the Defence department had never interviewed him as part of the probe. “This is a lot like kangaroo court justice,” Furlong said.

The Times quoted him as saying that his work had been approved by a number of senior officers in Afghanistan, and that he had never misled anyone.                                           

The US government’s use of private security contractors has been controversial in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai issued a decree in August banning all private security contractors in Afghanistan, with an exception for those guarding embassies, military installations, diplomatic residences and the transport of diplomatic personnel, straining ties with Washington.

Furlong’s operation, using companies that employed agents inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, operated under a $22 million contract run by Lockheed Martin corp.