on the phone is victor ostrowski at
using xmas side case officer former
member of the israeli defense force
lieutenant commander of the israeli navy
and has plenty of counterterrorism
and military experience also the founder
of the book patch dot com thank you for
being with us sir i'll thank you for
having me so
there's so much to talk about the
and i'm not sure start number one can we
whatever you can tell us about your
experience as an aside case officer i
would love to hear it kind of what it's
like a day today
well uh...
basically it's a lot of correa piggly
it's where you play that the problem
uh... it
than excel surges
you know uh... it's a combination of
uh... of uh...
uh... soldier
and and uh... information gather in fact
what you do it this specially in the an
agency like most side which is you don't
have it
at the time money you don't have
embassies in enemy country siblings
c_i_a_
he when it was working again to the
soviet union had an embassy in moscow
and and other places access
we did not have access so we had to
recruits
uh... are agents
in foreign countries which means if i
needed to recruit assyrian
coronal or something of that rank or
hire from the three air force together
information about them
i had to do that in london
and we were talking about is is a double
agent the central rate we will not be at
double agent if there's a lot of
terminology that that you know gets
mixed up crystalline agent
is a person that can recruit arctic
enemy
and houston
back to his country to gather
information for you
in the guys have been working for
someone else well yahi heath i think you
could get example alexei
uh... an iraqi
uh... scientist who works for worked at
the time for the iraqi nuclear program
uh... hw he was
training in uh...
say clay in
swim where they bought their facility
uh... recruiting uh... muhamed police
officer would then make an approach
to uh... it's an operation that doesn't
happen overnight takes time and setting
up
you approach him
and
you'll get him
to work for you so he gathers
information
for israel while he's still working as
uh... iraqi scientist
um...
and uh...
that's an agent a double agent is when i
recruited him to work for me
he can iraqi
and i recruited him to work for israel
and the iraqis
find out about it
and they turn him back
right now you have a guy who's a double
agent
who is really
uh...
feeding you false information
you know every every once in awhile we
hear about the double agent that's been
discovered in jail diversified it's been
uncovered
uh... you know i'm i'm a big fan of the
spy novelist george smiley to me is a
household name i don't know if you've
read any of those absolutely so every
one of the is the reality that
in involved in espionage more like james
bond or more like george smiley where it
can be very boring like you said a lot
of a lot of waiting around and a lot of
loneliness right
i'm absolutely there is nobody blake le
carre
to describe the actual work in the field
today as the uh... the blocks
collapsed
so to speak and now you're talking more
on the lower level which means you're
recruiting
terrorists
prop academic it's kind of a combination
between smiley
and uh... born identity answer
so somewhere in the middle it by no
means is that james bond i mean he would
not lasted day in the real and here's a
guy who
approaches somebody in the first thing
he said you give him his real name right
on james bond and is there in the real
world of espionage it's not as easy to
get women as it is for james bond rate
the women that are used in l i'm talking
to specifically two of the most side
which is israel's intelligencer
uh... but it was difficult to have women
as police officers because we were
recruiting
from the arab world landmark james bond
is the lady's name that's not the
reality for the majority of god now and
that's uh... you know this is the some
kind of uh...
uh...
a nice fantasy to put it up there
uh... itni low-key don't forget you are
are government employees
uh... better speech sent on the and you
know very uh...
dangerous missions and and that's what
you do but you're not uh...
that'd there is no reason for you to be
this lady's man to rise here not
unique angle around saying i'm barn
correct my father was recently in israel
and he described in detail the
procedures used at the tel aviv airport
and overall you tell me if he's wrong or
if i'm wrong and
understanding the big difference with
security there verses in the u_s_ is
that in the u_s_ t_s_ say agents
rarely look you in the eye and they're
focused on your luggage whereas in
israel the focus seems to be
on the person instead of on their
luggage is that arre correct the cessna
colombo
you you have to understand that in
israel d
you know that the amount of traffic
you're talking about is very minimal
through relative to everything else you
have one major airline
and one major airport
uh... which is
as a major is it is it's not as big a
newark
uh... so
increases it's easier
to to do that you have a mv are larger
procedure for example uh... allot of
times if you want to yourself time he
will provide in some are requested to
provide your luggage of their head
so you can drop your luggage artist
and it goes through pressurized rooms
where you know it's good
indicate that the uh...
the altitude of an airplane going up and
down and exeter uk that so the luggage
is security uh... and you have more time
he requested to show up for hours before
the flight right uh... that this is not
something and and for example when
you have a lower
stations
uh... and other countries they're
separated in airport in a small area
and they are guarded by people
that are
uh... from the israeli security sources
uh... so
it's a whole system that is
way different than what the u_s_ is in
its more
it's more targeted to don't forget the
in the israelis are far more targeted
as as me
until now it was anyway
sir than the u_s_ is you cannot
compared it to
the major thing to his
the uh...
the american system
relies very much on on contractors
israeli system does not
uh... these are government employees
and they're very highly regarded
uh... there from there from the internal
security
uh... they get
training in weaponry
uh... they get training in in equipment
uh... interrogation
uh... and they're not afraid
to do what's called profiling
so and when you say profiling it's not
racial profiling but it's is behavior
profile absolutely eration ito
racial or age go i hear a lot when
people are saying lately
all you know the checked this little old
lady would she before she wore little
lady can explode
so
at saying like week in israel
there was an expectation of a terrorist
attack from palestinians at the time
and and the palestinians were smart
enough
to recruit
the of the red army brigades
which were japanese
and a group of japanese
terrorist arrived include or large
airport which is the degree an airport
now
and they carry out a massacre there cuz
they were not expected
you know they work profile right
absolutely so behavior seems to be much
more effective way to go
the age race or
ni or country of origin yesterday the
other thing is i i i think you're
people are underestimating the that
yesterday um...
and and if it's a good thing well when
you hear about the guys on the phone so
he let somebody you go the wrong way
through newark airport security it
doesn't sound good right what happened
in israel to yet will have gone on
airplanes in israel with weapons
uh... you know and tried the system and
made it you know and and have gone
through it
and there's always a failure somewhere
but when you're comparing besides
a look take the example of this flight
uh... and you know the northwest flight
to the underwear
in an accident or of the of the quality
of the kids sec
i mean to paris if they wanted to i mean
if they had dirt druthers and their
choice
they would have taken an airplane or
boarded a plane in the u_s_
uh... it's still full of fuel
uh... it's closer to the target
which means if you want to blow it over
cd you're taking off from the city
uh... on the other hand they chose to go
to schiphol airport
which is way out there
they complain that made had to cross the
atlantic
before they made their attempt
to blow it up
now if you're comparing israelis and
others will be she polio port
is really uh... that people who are
handling the security there or training
that security there at least for the
company called i_t_t_ s
which is an israeli company
so you have
it kind of put everything not you know
on its head and missing company has
subdivision
handling about thirty airport in the
u_s_
with regard
whole-body screening that is being
talked about implementing in the u_s_
everything i've read suggests it would
be implemented at some airport so my
question is is is that going to be
effective wouldn't terrorists just
figure out which one those are and fly
to other airports yet
so it's probably so you're saying is
unless you put it in every single
airport it's not going to have any
effect no i haven't asked i think it has
in effect in the secretary going bitter
making ever-expanding in the
technological way
i think though that basics
screening
of of
dada
it would be so efficient i mean
we're going overboard in pic thought we
were kids
stepping
uh... the the mic
mechanisms and to technology to solve
our problem
uh... it's same thing by the way in the
spy world uh...
the
c_i_a_ relied
very highly on
on an electronics
and and devices and very little on human
um...
which is you know the the recording all
those somebody
and and you cannot
rely on information
more than that
promote personal upcoming
he was there when somebody's set
something and he brought to the
information
uh...
it's it's they're more expensive to get
it harder
circle
but that's the kind of information you
need
mind last question for you and i wish we
had more time to talk is red flags
and the underwear bomber i have a long
list here that come up to me which is
you paid cash for a one-way ticket he
brought no luggage to travel halfway
around the world he had no passport he
claimed to be from sudan when he was
nigerian and his own father had called
the c_i_a_ about have now
is this the result of no talking between
agencies that he was able to sf go from
country to country or is the problem
somewhere else and with so many red
flags absolutely somewhere else but i'll
tell you where
uh... the airport security
sheetal
should have gone on to this
uh... the the k_k_k_ at not only that he
was to eat it based on his age hicks
ticket was far more expensive then
should a bit
uh... you know and and all those
reply should have been raised
by the security elements in the airport
so that was there was a failure in in a
lot of locations and i think he's i mean
in his origin he was allowed to get
under the guise of being from a
different country with no passport
that's a problem that's a problem that
he keep you have problems everest
step of the way
the fact that he was on a list should
raise us a lot of flags because
that means that we're only protecting
against people who are now live
so it's not a list and ted kennedy was
on that list for a while so that there
you go you know the list isn't the end
of the world rights no any shouldn't be
relying just on that it's a it's a pool
it's a lot more to learn that in the
system but i think that this sides of
the u_s_ for this type of the here
of the whole system its best protection
uh...
because no work we're talking
were were very scared
quite panicky about it but in the big
picture
if not pat pat
victor ostrowski using xml aside case
officer former member of the israeli
defense force and stubborn c_e_o_
the book patch dot com thanks so much
for calling in today
thank you for for having me ok take care
being fascinating stuff listening really
hands-on
knowledge
yeah of exactly where things broke down
and uh...
and just the the work vivid stories he
if they weren't secrets i'm sure we're
would fill pages and pages
books i can imagine reminds me a little
bit uh... just here for talk you know
about my uh... my trip to israel right
now and i was questioned
right lewis says the situation where
he's g is jewish and he was on a birth
rate
but his father's from iran
and the patsies
probably didn't help right i mean we
know from uh... weaver had any other
time ok and you ever there were a lot of
questions asked
yes i was questioned for about twice as
long as there's anybody else i will come
lessons
well basic questions but then uh... the
questions were repeated to make sure i
was telling the truth questions about if
you had a bar mitzvah
where i was from
which one of your parents is jewish
within uh... where where i was coming
from
which airport i uh... i flew in from
uh... you know
stuff like that and it went on for
fifteen twenty minutes
art said maybe uh...
a five to ten minutes but all the other
interviews for a very short for the rest
of the people on the trip a couple of
minutes one to two minutes in
