WASHINGTON -- Top military officials have continued to rely on a secret network of private spies who have produced hundreds of reports from deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to American officials and businessmen, despite concerns among some in the military about the legality of the operation.
Earlier this year, government officials admitted that the military had sent a group of former Central Intelligence Agency officers and retired Special Operations troops into the region to collect information - some of which was used to track and kill people suspected of being militants. Many portrayed it as a rogue operation that had been hastily shut down once an investigation began.
But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government officials and businessmen, and an examination of government documents, tell a different a story. Not only are the networks still operating, their detailed reports on subjects like the workings of the Taliban leadership in Pakistan and the movements of enemy fighters in southern Afghanistan are also submitted almost daily to top commanders and have become an important source of intelligence.
The American military is largely prohibited from operating inside Pakistan. And under Pentagon rules, the army is not allowed to hire contractors for spying.
Military officials said that when Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in the region, signed off on the operation in January 2009, there were prohibitions against intelligence gathering, including hiring agents to provide information about enemy positions in Pakistan. The contractors were supposed to provide only broad information about the political and tribal dynamics in the region, and information that could be used for "force protection," they said.
Some Pentagon officials said that over time, the operation appeared to morph into traditional spying activities. And they pointed out that the supervisor who set up the contractor network, Michael D. Furlong, was now under investigation.
But a review of the program by The New York Times found that Furlong's operatives were still providing information using the same intelligence gathering methods as before. The contractors were still being paid under a $22 million contract, the review shows, managed by Lockheed Martin and supervised by the Pentagon office in charge of special operations policy.
Under investigation
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said that the program "remains under investigation by multiple offices within the Defense Department," so it would be inappropriate to answer specific questions about who approved the operation or why it continues.
"I assure you we are committed to determining if any laws were broken or policies violated," he said. Spokesmen for Petraeus and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, declined to comment. Furlong remains at his job, working as a senior civilian Air Force official.
While the Pentagon declined to discuss the program, it appears that commanders in the field are in no rush to shut it down because some of the information has been highly valuable, particularly in protecting troops against enemy attacks.
The exposure of the spying network reveals tensions between the Pentagon and the CIA, which itself is running a covert war across the border in Pakistan.
In December, a cable from the CIA's station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, to the Pentagon argued that the military's hiring of its own spies could have disastrous consequences, with various networks possibly colliding with one another.
The memo also said that Furlong had a history of delving into outlandish intelligence schemes, including an episode in 2008, when American officials expelled him from Prague for trying to clandestinely set up computer servers for propaganda operations.
How it began
The private contractor network was born in part out of frustration with the CIA and the military intelligence apparatus.
There was a belief by some officers that the CIA was too risk averse, too reliant on Pakistan's spy service and seldom able to provide the military with timely information to protect American troops.
In addition, the military has complained that it is not technically allowed to operate in Pakistan, whose government is willing to look the other way and allow CIA spying but not the presence of foreign troops.
Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, dismissed reports of a turf war.
"There's no daylight at all on this between CIA and DoD," he said. "It's an issue for Defense to look into - it involves their people, after all - and that's exactly what they're doing."
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Pentagon has used broad interpretations of its authorities to expand military intelligence operations, including sending Special Operations troops on clandestine missions far from declared war zones.
Concerns in D.C.
These missions have raised concerns in Washington that the Pentagon is running de facto covert actions without proper White House authority and with little oversight from the elaborate system of congressional committees and internal controls intended to prevent abuses in intelligence gathering.
The web of private businesses working under the Lockheed contract include Strategic Influence Alternatives, American International Security Corp. and International Media Ventures, a communications company based in St. Petersburg, Fla., with Czech ownership.
The Times is withholding some information about the contractor network, including some of the names of agents working in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A spokesman for Lockheed said that no Pentagon officials had raised any concerns about the work.
"We believe our subcontractors are effectively performing the work required of them under the terms of this task order," said Tom Casey, the spokesman. "We've not received any information indicating otherwise."
