'One of the greatest military operations ever,' former CIA chief says of Maduro capture

Former Caracas CIA Station Chief Rick de la Torre praised the United States' capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, describing it as "one of the greatest military operations ever conducted."

De la Torre said intelligence officials likely tracked the dictator for several months ahead of his capture early Saturday morning. He said they probably established patterns in Maduro’s daily life, such as what time he woke up, places he frequented, as well as who he spent time with.

“Once you understand and baseline that information, you can start to see those patterns and how you could use them to your advantage,” de la Torre, who is the founder and CEO of Tower Strategy LLC, said during an interview with The National News Desk’s Dee Dee Gatton.

“These are operations that take months and months of planning and practice," he added. “It is really mind-boggling if you look at the man hours that go into this kind of work. But the result is the professionalism, the exceptional results of this operation that I think is going to go down in history as probably one of the greatest military operations ever conducted by our U.S. military.”

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