I’m still bothered by the “Friendly Fire” death of BPA Ivie. It’s gnawing on my brain. I wrote my armchair analysis of the incident in a previous blog characterized as “…more Benghazi BS”. In the fascinating world of intelligence (I’m serious!) there are several types of information gathering: Signal Intelligence (SIGINT), Open Source (OSINT) – the most lucrative source of information; Imagery Intelligence (IMINT); and Human Intelligence (HUMINT) to name the most common. Within the human intelligence arena there are two sub-categories: Counterintelligence and Interrogations. HUMINTers, in their quest for determining the threat to American troops, have tongue-in-cheek additional methods of obtaining actionable information: Rumor Intelligence (RUMINT) acquired through the “grapevine” and Hose Intelligence (HOSINT) which involves a non-traceable section of garden hose. I’ve recently acquired some RUMINT through a former law enforcement co-worker that the bullet extracted from Border Patrol Agent Ivie’s body was a .223 caliber round. That is the type of ammo used by tactical border patrol agents. In my rush to smell something “rotten in Denmark” about Agent Ivie’s death I posited political influence in an expeditiously announced finding by the FBI. Having forgotten that BP agents often carry the M-4 assault rifle I declared anything other than a Smith & Wesson .40cal round proved he was not killed by other Border Patrol agents.
That doesn’t necessarily mean I am wrong. Having spent around 18 years in Special Forces (Note: there is only ONE “Special Forces” and those are Green Berets. Everyone else -SEALS, Rangers, etc. are members of Special Operations Command. It is a minor but significant difference when coversing with the opposite sex) I can tell you it is not uncommon for Green Berets to deploy on missions in which our presence in certain countries was a political liability. As such, we either infiltrated wearing “sterile” U.S. military uniforms with an innocuous cover story or dressed in that country’s military uniforms -including boots and AK-47s to avoid betraying our presence. As such we became very familiar with the difference in the sounds between an AK versus M-16. I never went on a mission wearing my green beret. As Los Zetas were trained by our own green berets – not the first time we’ve trained soldiers who have turned on their own governments- and are the most lethal threat to both the U.S. and Mexican government forces, it is not conceivable that they or someone like them decided to cash in on the long-standing bounty on American federal border officers. If I were to do so I would dress and arm as a Border Patrol agent, infil into an area I knew was sensored and ambush the responding agent with a pre-determined escape route/method.
However, Occam’s Razer theory states that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. In the case of Agent Ivie being killed by his fellow agents that seems to apply. BUT, (and my ex-wife constantly complained I can’t apologize…then say BUT -as in “I’m sorry I got angry BUT IF you hadn’t spent five thousand dollars in one month…!) there are still nagging questions that I hope the FBI -the vaunted “most professional law enforcement agency in the world” – is asking. I wouldn’t expect border patrol agents to have the presence of mind to immediately identify gunfire from a “friendly” weapon and hold return fire until announcing their presence. I had that experience in Africa while we were conducting border security operations. While walking through a thick, high stand of elephant grass a weapon began firing from our front unseen and very closely. I hit the ground, recognized it as an M-16 and hollered out our password. Turned out to be an incoming friendly patrol and the point man, my best friend, had shot a six-foot long, black cobra claiming the trail as his own. But I digress. Even if they had recognized the incoming fire as an M-4 it didn’t mean it was being fired by another Border Patrol agent – a la’ Los Zetas, “Fast & Furious”, etc It wouldn’t have been the first time someone laid low, fired a round and let the surrounding threat shoot each other. More salient questions still remain about why the agents began shooting at each other. My RUMINT source said he heard that BPA Ivie saw two persons with weapons and just started firing at them whereupon they (a male and female) returned fire, one of them killing agent Ivie. The media reports -interestingly- it is unknown who fired first. (Note: the same issues regarding the feminization of the military [see “Weak Link”] also affect every law enforcement agency in America)
It is also unknown why the ground sensor was tripped. I knew a salty old NCO at Ft. Bragg who emplaced ground sensors “extra-territorially” along the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War. The system was called REMBASS – the same system used by the border patrol today. It detects vibrations from the ground and sends a signal back to “net control” that something is trodding on the ground nearby. It was infamously unreliable back in the ’60s and ’70s triggering an aggravatingly high number of “false positives”. It’s main problem was it couldn’t differentiate between animal and human. My buddy was one of those terrible garrison soldiers but an outstanding field trooper. He did some amazing stuff with REMBASS and real-time video in Panama prior to our invasion of Panama and along the Honduran/Nicaraugan/El Salvador border during the Reagan years. In 1987, he heard the government spent 76 million dollars “upgrading” REMBASS. Out of curiousity he took the “upgraded” version apart and discovered the contractor had just changed the outer casing. None of the inner workings had been modified with recent technology. Incensed at the fraud, waste and abuse, he wrote a quite scholarly expose’ on the “upgrade” and sent it to an interested congressman. Two weeks later he received orders to Alaska. There are better, cheaper, more dependable ground sensors available commercially. A simple Google search would save our military and border patrol millions in maintenance and responding to fewer “false positives”. It probably won’t be determined what tripped the ground sensor.
The most important remaining question remaining in my mind is why didn’t any of the agents know the other was in proximity? Here we delved into what the military calls “Course of Action” (COA) analysis. Call me sexist but here’s a course of action that comes to mind: It wouldn’t be the first time a male and female agent/cop/co-worker had called in reporting their location as sitting on their “X” but in fact rendezvousing for a romantic interlude. This offers one explanation of the seeming “surprise” factor in the abrupt exchange of fire. This would also perhaps explain why the dispatcher may not have advised agent Ivie there were other agents in the area. Neither the dispatcher nor Ivie knew they were there. Another COA and, according to Occam’s Razer, the simplest explanation is that one or several of those involved -including the dispatcher- failed to follow procedure in maintaining accountability and location on the radio….. and it turned tragically wrong.
Obviously, I don’t know. I wasn’t there and I don’t have access to the surviving parties. So I apologize for jumping to a political cover-up explanation. BUT…..as they say, “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they are not after you!” Despite goings-on in the White House, State Department and Attorney General’s office -and my fury at it- I hope I drew a wrong conclusion. A ballistic match of the .223 round from Ivie’s body to one of the others’ (I’ve heard it was the female’s) weapon would eliminate a fourth party’s presence – and nullify the arrest of the schmucks in Mexico. But it doesn’t explain the abrupt firing. Law enforcement officers just can’t immediately open fire on armed persons without further articulation that it was an immediate lethal threat to themselves. Maybe the fear/surprise factor caused it to be so. Training and experience of Ivie dictates otherwise. In the words of Colonel Nathan R. Jessup in “A Few Good Men: I apologize for being a little testy but this heat (political garbage) is driving me insane”.
