Finding Elusive Bin Laden

Intelligence agents don’t talk about their work. But it’s safe to assume a chart with Osama bin Laden’s picture in the center hangs on walls at the Pentagon and CIA headquarters, just as Saddam Hussein’s picture was centered on a chart in the 4th Infantry Division office in Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit before his capture. The diagram radiated links to members of six major tribal groups affiliated with the former dictator and led to the man who told investigators where to find Hussein.

Bin Laden has proven more elusive. He was heard on tape again this month referring to Hussein’s capture and urging Iraqis to fight the U.S. occupiers. Finding Bin Laden will require another tip; getting that requires men and women who understand the tribal culture of the Afghan-Pakistani border where Bin Laden is thought to be hiding.

In Iraq, Afghanistan and other trouble spots, including North Korea, intelligence agencies keep running up against the limitations of technical spying, especially satellites. Eyes in the sky can show stark differences at night between South Korea, filled with electric light, and North Korea, nearly black. But satellites cannot peer into North Korea’s underground facilities or decipher dictators’ intentions.

When satellites don’t work and the hunted do not use telephones that can be monitored, human intelligence is required. That means more U.S. agents who know Arabic in Iraq or Pashto or Dari in Afghanistan, as well as the local culture. Intelligence begins with the farmers and teachers who understand village power and know who is willing to gossip, for revenge or money. One informant leads to another.

Finding Bin Laden will doubtless require help from members of tribes on the all-but-ungoverned Afghan-Pakistani border. Pakistan’s federal government, based in Islamabad, has left distant denizens of areas like South Waziristan more or less alone for decades. Outsiders are spotted immediately, their requests for information rejected, politely over tea or rudely at gunpoint. Rewards, even millions of dollars, don’t work.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Afghanistan last month that Bin Laden “will be captured some day, just like we captured Saddam Hussein.” But as Myers acknowledged, Bin Laden hides where he has support and money. Row upon row of skyscraping mountains provide haven.

Intelligence agencies have been criticized for failing to warn of the 9/11 attacks and exaggerating Hussein’s possession of yet-to-be-found weapons of mass destruction. His capture, though, was a triumph. Bin Laden, too, can be caught if the U.S. can make use of the painful lessons it keeps getting about sound intelligence.