Always protect the source.

Rule one when you attend CIA case officer training.  Always protect the source - they teach it - and as a field operatives (case officers) we live it.

As a graduate of "the Farm" and having spent the better part of my 30-year career in the intelligence community conducting and directing agent operations, I am appalled at the White House failures to protect a critical source of Pakistani Dr. Shakil Afridi - the man, who as a clandestine operative of the United States, was able to provide the key information to verify the location of Usama bin Laden.  

Information that we now know was key and necessary to launch the May 2, 2011 raid that resulted in justice being brought to Usama bin Laden.  

Our inability to protect Dr. Afridi has been egregious failure, both moral and strategic.

I have been there - I have looked into the eyes of another human being