See No Evil - The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks it has become painfully clear how the intelligence community failed to uncover the widespread, long-term plot to bring down the World Trade Center and attack Washington, D.C. From the front page of the New York Times to articles in major magazines such as the New Yorker, the CIA has been portrayed as a bumbling organization that closed down its overseas presence after the Cold War and couldn't maintain a team of operatives who knew the language and customs of the country, necessary to root out terrorists. While the U.S. may have been surprised, Bob Baer wasn't. A 21 year veteran of the CIA's war on terrorism who ran agents in the Middle East, Baer saw Islamic terrorism - and our inadequate response to it - up close. See No Evil is the riveting, illuminating, at times disturbing memoir of Baer's years in the CIA's Directorate of Operations, almost all of them spent in the back alleys of the Middle East. Baer was a throwback to the days of swashbuckling operatives who didn't mind getting their hands dirty, knew how to run a covert operation, and had an understanding of Islamic culture and a fluency is Arabic language. In his book Baer reveals not only the decline of the CIA that led to September 11 but how terrorism works on the inside, including information never before made public...