Quote Originally Posted by Schmedlap View Post
Regarding the hybrid career paths for SOF/CIA mentioned earlier in the thread, it seems to me that allowing 18F's and certain WO's to run the hybrid path would help to bring out the positive aspects of the "seconded personnel" dynamic while familiarizing the military and CIA with one another. Maybe they worked together better than I got the impression they did, but I sensed a fair amount of friction between the SOF and CIA (and other) organizations in Iraq. My impression was that it was the result of a clash of organizational cultures. Some hybrid career paths could smooth this out, imo.

If limited to 18F's and WO's, I'd think that this could also avoid the danger of intel consumers being their own analysts. To the extent that an 18F is already an intel analyst consuming his own analysis, it doesn't seem that the hybrid career path would exacerbate this.

What about that agency guy who wants his time on an ODA? We know how these games are played, we are letting some of your guys do this, so now some of our guys get to do that. If that happens, everytime you go into some country, that country will be playing "Let's see if we can guess which one is the CIA guy."

A lot of that friction is caused by trust or lack there of. Creditability is a huge one as well. Matter of fact this is how a buddy of mine got blown up. They get told to go clear an area that the CIA swears is full of Taliban. My buddy and his team were just there 3-4 days prior. They go out, stand on the exact grid, CIA tells them they can't be in the right spot. On the way back out they hit an IED, kills everyone in truck except my buddy. Now let's look at that:

1. The ODA had already been there recently, the CIA didn't take the ODA's intel on the location.
2. The ODA goes to the exact spot and because there is nothing there, CIA tells them they can't be in the right location.

Yes, trust and crediability! There are a number of reasons for the friction, and we'll leave it at that.