It hired former staffers of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as elite hackers to spy in a program that included Americans as surveillance targets, a Reuters investigationfound this year.

And yet, in a highly unusual practice, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) does not spy on the UAE's government, three former CIA officials familiar with the matter told Reuters, creating what some critics call a dangerous blind spot in U.S. intelligence.

The CIA's posture isn't new. What's changed is the nature of the tiny but influential OPEC nation's intervention across the Middle East and Africa - fighting wars, running covert operations and using its financial clout to reshape regional politics in ways that often run counter to U.S. interests, according to the sources and foreign policy experts.

The CIA's failure to adapt to the UAE's growing military and political ambitions amounts to a "dereliction of duty," said a fourth former CIA official.