b"Welcome to the launch of Covert Contact: The Blogs of War Podcast. In episode 1 I am looking at the notion of intelligence failures and why they're often more complicated than they seem - or not failures at all. \\xa0I'm also taking a look at \\xa0the new biography of Murad Storm, the towering\\xa0red-haired Danish agent who infiltrated al Qaeda.\\xa0Agent Storm: My Life Inside al Qaeda and the CIA is a fascinating read that raises many questions about our ability to infiltrate radical Islamic groups. And then a discussion about the darker side of eDiplomacy. Do we really want world leaders trolling each other on Twitter?"