Afghanistan a 'quaqmire,' CIA officer says

SYDNEY, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. intelligence agencies are dysfunctional and are contributing to a "quagmire" in Afghanistan, a former CIA officer complained.

Former CIA officer Robert Baer told Australian newspaper The Age that bureaucracy is making U.S. intelligence agencies ineffective in their war on terror.

''(They) have the same problem they had before 9/11," he complained. "It is a system that doesn't work.''

He said a failure to get operatives on the ground collecting real intelligence and the lack of communication between agencies are creating obstacles.

Baer, who spent two decades with the CIA working in the Middle East, said U.S. and international forces were fighting an uphill battle in Afghanistan because of an ineffective and isolating intelligence strategy.

"Afghanistan is a quagmire and it can only be fought with an effective counterinsurgency," he said."It cannot be fought with Abrams tanks and F-16s."

U.S. President Barack Obama revised the war strategy for Afghanistan in December, using a counterinsurgency operation in Iraq called the surge as his model. War planners in Washington are to review the strategy later this year.