Blockbuster

Drudge has been touting Bill Gertz's new book, and by all accounts, it should be a blockbuster. "Enemies" How America's Foes Steal Our Vital Secrets--and How We Let it Happen" is scheduled for release later this week. In his latest work, Gertz recounts scores of successful foreign intelligence operations over the past decade, efforts that have led to the loss of sensitive technical, diplomatic and intelligence information.

Based on extensive research and scores of interviews, Gertz proves (once again) that U.S. counterintelligence efforts are broken. Enemy intelligence services have successfully penetrated both our spy agencies and our counterintelligence organizations, resulting in espionage cases that go unresolved, and of course, the loss of vital information. Among Gertz's charges:

--China successfully recruited three CIA officers as agents for Beijing, and paid them lavishly. Despite solid leads on their treasonous activities, the officers were never punished.

--Beijing has established a massive intelligence-gathering operation targeting the U.S., and Gertz reports that Chinese agents are still at work within our government.

--A female PRC agent successfully seduced two FBI counterintelligence officers, and used the relationships to gain sensitive information.

Gertz also sheds new light on two spies we've written about before--Ana Montes (who worked for Cuba), and Ronald Montaperto, who reportedly passed sensitive information to China. Ms. Montes was Cuba's top mole in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for years, providing a gold mine of information to Casto's government. Montaperto is another former DIA employee who eventually ran a PACOM think tank, specializing in Chinese affairs. During his government career, Montaperto repeatedly downplayed the Chinese threat, and influenced intelligence assessments on the PRC.

Equally damming is Gertz's assertion that senior government officials have refused to follow-up on suspicions of espionage, and go after suspected spies. In that kind of environment, it's no wonder that so much sensitive information has "gone out the door" in recent years, and those losses will only continue. We desperately need a single agency for counter-intelligence, and senior leadership that's willing to follow the spy trail, no matter where it may lead.