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"They aren't allowed to set foot outside to go out on a raid," said Gary Berntsen, a career CIA officer who led one of its first teams into Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. 

Berntsen went back to Afghanistan in an advisery role with the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade last year, and maintains contact with his former comrades there.

"We're not letting our civilian advisers stay with the police on their base," Berntsen added. 

"We won't let them. And the Afghans think we're afraid," he said.

Berntsen maintained that the restrictions were designed to reduce the chances for casualties and the political effect they might have back home.

 "We want to win the war with zero casualties," he said.           

Another former CIA adviser backs up Berntsen's story, saying "restrictions on his movements" were such that he could not get any work done.

"Almost all" of  his time was spent "sitting on a base, eating five meals a day and watching DVDs," said this former CIA employee, who could not be named because he still does sensitive work with the government.

"Two days of meetings and paperwork [were needed] to get permission to move outside the wire," he said, which restricted his time and movement to such a degree "that there was no point in showing up," he said.

A spokesman for the Defense Department could not be immediately reached for comment.

"I am not surprised that some Pentagon spokesman would provide such an answer. The reality in the field is completely at odds with his statement. Police advisers are blocked from any effort to accompany the police on operations. I have seen it with my own eyes, and spoken to dozens, repeat dozens, of police advisors that complained bitterly about not being able to do their jobs."