Hitch the cheap shot artist

Hitchens is usually an astute critic. Even his piece on George Tenet is mostly on the money. One point though, is beneath him:

His ridiculous agency, supposedly committed to "HUMINT" under his leadership, could not even do what John Walker Lindh had done—namely, infiltrate the Taliban and the Bin Laden circle.

The problem was never getting operatives into Afghanistan. I have no doubt that CIA could have positioned dozens of people inside the camps. The deal breaker was getting the information back to Langley and, eventually, getting our people back out.

HUMINT is always a tough nut versus closed societies. OSS and SOE had appalling loses in WWII. The same is true with CIA and MI6 in the Cold War in Eastern Europe. See more here and here and here.