Robert Baer

I've never discussed former CIA agent Robert Baer in these cyber-pages, mostly because I never knew what to make of him. He's the author of Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude and See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism.

There aren't many other people who could be respectfully interviewed by both Buzzflash and David Horowitz' Frontpage. That's one indication of how hard he is to pin down.

You can get a fascinating glimpse of the man if you visit Harry Knowles' movie site and check out this interview with director Stephen Gaghan. Gaghan directed the new film Syriana, inspired in part by Baer's writings. Here's the relevant passage (with paragraph indents added for readability):

I was able to travel with Bob a lot and travel to the south of France. I didn't take a lot from his book. The movie doesn't really come from SEE NO EVIL, but the movie comes in large part from Bob's life and his own experiences and his attitudes.

The first thing he said to me was, "All right, you want to meet some of the players in the Persian Gulf? Then come with me to the south of France in August." And I was like, "What?" And he said, "Oh, yeah, if you're worth anything in the Persian Gulf, you think you stay there in August? It's 130 degrees. Everybody's on their yachts in the south of France."

So we went there and we went on boats with people who were the heads of intelligence for an African Muslim nation. We met billionaires who were in the oil business or middle men in the arms business who were billionaires. It was amazing to me that a mid-level CIA officer who was the Iraqi bureau chief in the '90s had in his cell phone the numbers of multi-billionaires. And he would call them on their personal cell phones and they'd pick up and say, "Oh, hey, Bob. Sure. Goin' out with the fam on the boat tomorrow. Come on out. Oh, you have a friend? Bring him. Sure. Bring him along. No problem."

I watched him at length with these people and I realized, one, it wasn't at all what I thought it was. That what Bob was primarily was a nexus for information. The reason these men, these well-known men, these super-powerful famous people, were interested in spending time with him was because he was of use to them. Because he knew things that they didn't know and wanted to know. These are serious people, and what they do when they get together is they exchange information. And they exchange it very quickly. And they always had... there'd be some posturing, some "Oh, the lobster tail's delicious. It's a beautiful boat." And then they'd get right down to brass tacks. Sometimes in English, sometimes in French. Often in Arabic. And it would just be this series of like...three answers. Three questions from Bob. Three more answers. Then the whole day was done. That was the point of being there. It wasn't to show this Hollywood screenwriter the world.

He always has an agenda. Millions of dollars have been spent training Bob Baer to always have an agenda. He never dropped it. Never dropped it. Layer upon layer of obfuscation and lie and deception built into him, into his character. You never get to the bottom of it. Never. You have no idea what he's really doing, what he's really thinking about. He changes his story all the time.

A few questions: If Gaghan describes the man's character correctly -- especially the part about changing his story all the time -- what attitude should we take toward his books? Why did he write them? And how does a former CIA man still command entrance to this milieu?