Spy vs. spy: Former intelligence officers face off in House race
Hurd, Jones tout national security credentials in battle for San Antonio congressional district
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Will Hurd keeps a radar plot on his office wall from Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, charting the moments when operators misidentified the Japanese planes before they attacked, killing more than 2,300 American military personnel and destroying more than a dozen ships.
For Hurd, R-San Antonio, a former CIA officer, the print is a reminder of the consequences of intelligence failings and a historical marker close at hand as he pursues national security issues in Congress.
“It’s my background, it’s my passion,” he said. “Being able to work on the most important national security challenges of the day is what I love doing and why I ran for Congress.”
Gina Ortiz Jones, Hurd’s Democratic opponent, also knows something about national security. After a career as an Air Force intelligence officer that landed her in the Iraq War, Jones worked in the Obama administration alongside the National Security Agency and the CIA to spot security risks in foreign investments and ferret out theft of American trade secrets.
“My background from the very tactical in Iraq to the very strategic, working on economic and security policies in the executive office of the president, is an unmatched national security background in this race,” she said.
In November, voters in the San Antonio-area 23rd Congressional District will choose between two candidates with extensive security experience. The district stretches from San Antonio to the outskirts of El Paso, taking in all or part of 29 counties and including more than 800 miles of border.
The credentials of Hurd and Jones fit the territory: San Antonio is home to a main National Security Agency hub, the Air Force Cyber Command and a burgeoning cybersecurity industry. And there’s that expanse of border, a front-burner matter of security in Congress.
After nearly two terms, Hurd, 41, already is a leader on cyberse-
curity, chairing a panel that explores hacking threats and focuses heavily on advanced technologies, especially artificial intelligence.
Jones, 37, brings combat experience along with her intelligence background and what she describes as her understanding of veterans’ needs.
There are, of course, differences in their paths to politics.
Hurd: “She was an analyst and I was an operator.”
Jones: “As an operator, he would know that it was actually the analysts’ work that drove the things that he went out to collect. The questions that people like him go and answer, I wrote those.”
Hurd: “I took many analysts with me to give them real-world experience on the ground. The difference is, collectors are the ones out on the streets, in the back alleys, living in these environments.”
In the end, both agreed, analysts and operators work together.
Career against al-Qaida
At Texas A&M University, Hurd, a sophomore computer science major, decided to expand his horizons. He invested $425 of the $450 in his checking account to take journalism classes in Mexico City.
Later, he came under the sway of former Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates, who would become Texas A&M president before returning to Washington to head the Pentagon under two administrations.
But Hurd’s decision to apply to the CIA wouldn’t become a sure thing until he heard a lecture from former CIA counterintelligence chief James Olson, who had joined the faculty at College Station, in which he talked about life as a spy.
“The next day, I went to his office and said tell me more,” Hurd recalled.
In October 2000, driving his Toyota 4Runner from Texas to Washington to report to work at the CIA, Hurd learned that 17 sailors had died when an explosives-laden boat rammed the USS Cole, a guided-missile destroyer, off the southern coast of Yemen. The attack was attributed to al-Qaida.
Hurd was still in training when he was sent to Yemen as the CIA accelerated efforts to pinpoint other terrorism threats on the Arab Peninsula.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Hurd was back at CIA headquarters at Langley, Va. He had to walk part way back to Washington because of traffic and chaos in the city. At 2:30 a.m., he was ordered to return to the basement at Langley. He wasn’t told why.
Four hours later, Hurd learned the reason: He was being assigned to a special operations unit headed by Henry Crumpton, who became known as a key architect of the war in Afghanistan.
“My CIA career literally started by dealing with alQaida and was influenced by them,” he said.
Hurd managed CIA undercover operations in Afghanistan. On Capitol Hill, he likes to say, “I was the dude in the back alleys at 4 in the morning.”
In an interview, Hurd added a few details about his work Afghanistan. “We helped remove bombs off the street that were being used to target the U.S. and international partners. We dismantled suicide vests; people were manufacturing them there. We helped out with (CIA) station operations.”
Hurd also briefed members of Congress who traveled to South Asia. He found the task disconcerting when some of the visitors didn’t know the differences between the branches of the Muslim faith. In 2009, he left the CIA after nine and a half years and joined a cybersecurity company, intent on becoming a member of Congress.
From terrorism to AI
In August, at a campaign kickoff in San Antonio in August, Hurd warned family and close supporters about China.
“These are serious times and we need serious people. China is a true existential threat. By 2049, China is trying to become the lone world superpower,” he said. “They don’t care about things like breaking into our systems and stealing our information and our intellectual property.”
It took until 2014 for Hurd to win his congressional seat after losing a primary bid in 2010 and then joining the security firm headed by Crumpton, a mentor of his.
Focusing heavily on cybersecurity in Congress, Hurd has a list of accomplishments including legislation that prescribes a new system for federal government purchase of some $80 billion annually of IT equipment. His bill aims to save money and move away from upkeep of older computer gear vulnerable to intrusions.
From his post as chairman of a House Oversight subcommittee on IT, Hurd has stepped up his pace of analyzing — and often promoting — advanced technologies. He has conducted as many hearings on artificial intelligence, or AI, as the rest of Congress combined.
For three days running last week, Hurd devoted time to China and AI, including release of a report urging “conscious, direct, and spirited leadership from the Trump administration” to confront the China threat.
“They have stolen our technology. They are sending their kids to our schools and getting them to come back and starting to build their own systems,” he said in an interview.
“If they get there first and they are the ones who are able to set the de facto international standard, it will mean that the civil liberties we have enshrined in our Bill of Rights will not be important in the future in international systems.”
Experience in Iraq
Jones’ route to national security expertise began even earlier than Hurd’s. After graduating near the top of her class at John Jay High School in San Antonio, she won a four-year Air Force ROTC scholarship to Boston University.
After earning a graduate degree in economics, she joined the Air Force and trained as an intelligence officer.
Jones deployed to Iraq in 2005 as part of the 682nd Expeditionary Air Support Operations, stationed at Camp Victory, near Baghdad.
She provided what she referred to as situational awareness to pilots. For instance, she would report how long it would take for aircraft to respond to enemy engagement.
When asked about lessons she learned from combat, Jones recalls the allies she worked alongside from Europe and Japan.
“When we see some of the things that are happening on the international stage, and unfortunately the president was just laughed at in the UN, it really does cause me to think about how some of these actions will affect people’s willingness to help us in the future,” she said.
Role in Libya
After three years of active duty, Jones, who had attained the rank of first lieutenant, returned to San Antonio in 2006 to help care for her mother, who was battling colon cancer. For two years, she worked at Fort Sam Houston as a consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton, advising on a range of matters related to Latin America.
Jones was plugged into South American political and military matters at the height of Venezuela President Hugo Chavez’s power, during which time he alarmed American leaders with his efforts to export his brand of socialism across the continent.
She focused on how Chavez and other leaders were making decisions, the reach of their influence and the impact on U.S. interests in the region, she said.
Later in 2008, Jones faced a decision: go to law school or join the new U.S. Africa Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany. She chose Africa and the appeal of being on a team that set up the command. She traveled widely in Africa, carrying out intelligence assignments that included focus on the troubled country of Libya, ruled then by Moammar Gadhafi.
One of her tasks was to measure response from around the world to Operation Odyssey Dawn, the code name for the 2011 attack by U.S. and European forces on the Libyan air defense system. The allies sought to enforce a no-fly zone and prevent Gadhafi’s government from carrying out further violence on its own citizens and opposition groups.
In Africa, Jones worked alongside local militaries, including in Mozambique, where socialism had recently been abandoned in favor of a free-market economy. She recalled a meeting in Mozambique, seated around a table with military and local leaders, dealing with health issues.
“It dawned on me that I’m the only woman in the room and we were talking about health care. But the main health care and home care providers in the country are women,” she said.
In 2012, President Barack Obama set about tackling the foreign trade imbalance that was fast becoming the political issue that would help fuel Donald Trump’s rise. By executive order, Obama set up the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center, and Jones was asked to be a senior adviser examining matters such as the growing theft of American intellectual property.
“I understand the importance of foreign investment. I understand how the economy works. But I also understand how all of these things fit in the context of national security,” she said.
Jones also worked for a year and a half at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, leaving early in the Trump administration. That opportunity, combined with her military and intelligence experiences, suggests the approaches she would take in Congress.
“I will speak specifically about the kinds of questions that we must ask before we send our men and women into harm’s way,” she said. “But I also want to ensure that when we do work on an issue that we’re not just looking at it from a military perspective. How does it affect our economic security, and how does this affect our overall objectives?
“The way we are going to develop the partners and allies we need is through strong economic ties. But we have to do this with our values. It’s always our values that carry the day.”
“(National security is) my background, it’s my passion. Being able to work on the most important national security challenges of the day is what I love doing and why I ran for Congress.”
U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, Republican incumbent
“My background from the very tactical in Iraq to the very strategic … in the executive office of the president, is an unmatched national security background in this race.”
Gina Ortiz Jones, Democratic challenger