Intelligence

February 29, 2004

Focus: Speak up Kofi: What's that about spies?

Times Online - Newspaper Edition

Former minister Clare Short claims Britain has been bugging the United Nations. But doesn’t everyone? Jonathon Carr-Brown and Jack Grimston investigate

TONY BLAIR was facing a busy schedule last Thursday morning and didn’t hear the bombshell dropped by Clare Short on Radio 4’s Today programme. He had a cabinet meeting to chair, and after that a press conference to announce a new initiative in Africa. Spying was not on his mind.
True, David Hill, his communications director, mentioned Short, a renegade former minister, in his morning briefing but time was pressing and Blair moved swiftly on. The cabinet, at which Patricia Hewitt droned on about free trade, ran to mid-morning. Only then, when the “murder board” went to work on Blair, did Short’s latest outburst hit home.

The murder board, nicknamed after American lawyers who drill homicide suspects for trial, is the group of Blair�s trusted advisers who prepare him for public grillings. They began to pepper him with awkward questions likely to arise at the looming press briefing.

�Are you facing a pensioners� revolt on council tax?� one aide asked. �Isn�t this announcement on Africa just a rehash of an old conference speech?� posed another. Then: �What are you going to do about Clare Short?�

This last test stumped Blair and his advisers. The seasoned spinners, including Jonathan Powell, Blair�s chief of staff, Baroness Morgan, his political adviser, and Godric Smith, his press spokesman, exchanged awkward glances.

That morning Short had accused the government of spying on Kofi Annan, the head of the United Nations, during crucial negotiations ahead of the Iraq war. She had read �transcripts� of his conversations, she said, implying that Britain had bugged Annan�s office or tapped his phone calls. �These things are done,� she said. �And in the case of Kofi�s office, it has been done for a long time.�

It was deeply embarrassing, possibly illegal and a clear breach of ministerial confidentiality.

What should Blair do, wondered his advisers: arrest �crazy Clare� for breaking the Official Secrets Act? It would look absurd, especially since a high-profile trial based on the act had collapsed the previous day. Withdraw the Labour whip? Downing Street had no desire to make Short, an MP popular in her constituency, any more of a martyr than she already pretended to be.

Deny the story? Tricky, if only because spying was meant to be a secret business never discussed by ministers.

As Blair faced a barrage of questions about the affair at the press conference that morning, his anger and impotence were almost palpable. Short, he declared, was �deeply� and �completely� irresponsible. She was also �entirely consistent�, he said � apparently in behaving disgracefully yet again. But he did not say she was wrong.

While there was confusion and plenty of misinformation over exactly what �transcripts� she had seen and where they had come from, there was no doubt among politicians, diplomats and former spooks that the UN was a hotbed of spies and eavesdropping.

One British former agent told The Sunday Times that MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, has five people in New York dedicated to the UN. �It is their entire job,� he said. �They bug places and they have been doing it for years.�

UN officials lined up to agree. Rolf Ekeus, a former chairman of the UN weapons inspectors, said he had routinely expected to be spied on and took precautions by sweeping offices for bugs and discussing sensitive matters only in parks or gardens.

�If you take telephone calls there are dozens of governments monitoring,� he said, adding wryly: �You should be flattered that someone is interested in your conversations.�

Hans Blix and Richard Butler, both also former weapons inspectors, said they thought their conversations had been bugged. Blix, while resigned to the reality of politics in the electronic age, said that bugging between supposed allies was �disgusting�.

Even Hans von Sponeck, a former assistant secretary-general of the UN, said that in Baghdad the UN had been bugged �by everybody � the Iraqis and the other intelligence services, both in the region and overseas�. The same went for UN headquarters in New York, he said. But surely Annan, the head of the whole UN, was spared? The diplomats don�t think so.

�Everybody spies on everybody,� said Inocencio Arias, Spain�s ambassador to the UN. �And when there�s a big crisis, big countries spy a lot. If your mission is not bugged, then you�re really worth nothing.�

Despite the realpolitik, Short�s allegations remained damaging. Sir Emyr Jones Parry, Britain�s UN representative, tried to smooth matters over personally with Annan that day. But the UN leader was affronted and his spokesman demanded �an explanation�.

Worse, the affair reopened Blair�s festering wound from the Iraq war: had the invasion been legal in the first place?

MI6 operatives in New York cultivate numerous sources within the UN, from diplomats to secretaries and clerks. The information they feed back is sifted and analysed, and might find its way to ministers. But politicians are unlikely to see a raw transcript of a conversation. Instead they receive reports and analysis, though these may contain some direct quotes.

Short has yet to reveal exactly what she saw. If it really was information gathered by spying, there would have been clues to its origin. Reports from informants or �human intelligence� sources can usually be identified because they tend to be described as coming from �a source who has reliably reported in the past . . .� or some such similar phrase.

But a report that is described, for example, as from �a totally reliable source with direct access� is a different matter. This indicates it has come from an intercept of a telephone call or an e-mail or other form of electronic communication.

This is by far the greatest source of secret information and it comes through two closely linked organisations: the US National Security Agency and GCHQ, the British eavesdropping agency based in Cheltenham.

With 6,500 staff and a bigger budget than any other British intelligence outfit, GCHQ can track communications across the world.

These days it likes to give an impression of openness. It has a swanky new building known as the doughnut; its discreet recruitment drives boast of plentiful staff benefits; it even has a press officer.

Don�t be fooled. Secrecy is still its lifeblood. Staff are bound by the Official Secrets Act and can say little or nothing about their tasks. They tend to work and socialise together, and often even their families do not know exactly what they do.

�GCHQ is like a university campus,� said one former member of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). �Some people there are linguists, some technologists, quite a lot come from a mathematics background. But it�s a bit incestuous. They tend to feel they are outsiders.�

The secret world, however, is no longer mapped out in the black and white of the cold war, and for some more recent recruits loyalties are not so clear. So it proved early last year for Katharine Gun, a 29-year-old translator in Mandarin.

In January 2003 Frank Koza, an official in America�s National Security Agency, sent an e-mail to GCHQ calling for a surveillance �surge� against key members of the UN security council. Koza wanted the �whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge�.

His message was marked Top Secret/COMINT/X1. According to one British security expert the X1 coding signifies that it was to be exempt from declassification in the future. It was meant to be secret and stay secret. Somehow Gun obtained a copy of the e-mail. Was she a recipient or did a more senior figure, also disaffected, pass it to her?

Either way, Gun passed the e-mail to an intermediary who passed it to a journalist. Days after it was published in newspapers, Gun was identified as the source of the leak. She cried on the shoulder of her manager � and was then hauled off to a police station and later charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act. Few, if any, intelligence observers have any sympathy for her.

�What the hell did she think she was joining at GCHQ if she didn�t think she would be listening to other people�s phone calls?� asked the former JIC member. Professor Anthony Glees, director of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, said: �GCHQ officers have been appalled. The idea that this is in the national interest is just nonsense.�

As her trial approached, Gun�s lawyers sought out Whitehall insiders. According to sources at the pressure group Liberty, which helped to defend her, the lawyers spoke to several civil servants who told them that the original advice of the attorney-general to Blair was that a pre-emptive war against Iraq would be illegal.

Certainly some experts thought an invasion would be illegal. Yesterday Elizabeth Wilmhurst, former deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office, issued a brief statement explaining why she had quit her post, after 30 years in the civil service, on the eve of the war. �I left my job because I did not agree that the use of force against Iraq was lawful,� she said.

The lawyers were constructing a potential defence for Gun. If they could obtain the attorney-general�s original advice, Gun could argue she had justifiably leaked information to prevent people being killed in an illegal war.

The defence planned to demand the disclosure of sensitive government documents. It was potentially explosive.

Those Whitehall sources who claim the original advice was that the war was illegal have not been identified. But Gun�s submission to the court, says Liberty, was going to be specific about where the information could be found.

Prosecution lawyers spin a different line. They say they dropped the case because of technical difficulties: Gun had not leaked the information directly to a newspaper. Whatever the truth, the case collapsed and in its wake Short, asked to comment on it, made her own revelations about spying on the UN.

Blair and other ministers swiftly turned on their former cabinet colleague. David Blunkett, home secretary, sniffed that he had higher security clearance than Short and he had no knowledge of any such intelligence.

One Downing Street source claimed Short was �almost driven to be destructive� after her confused emotions over the war. She had contemplated resignation on principle, but, seduced by power, had quit government only after the war was over.

George Foulkes, her deputy for many years at the Department of International Development, was scathing: �There were always tensions between her and No 10. We were having a drink in the Strangers Bar about two years ago. She told me even then she was going to �bring Tony Blair down�.�

Yesterday Short hit back and upped the stakes. She suggested that the attorney-general, Lord Goldsmith, who is an old friend of Blair�s, had been �leant on� to sanction the war as legal. She insisted that Blunkett was wrong, deliberately or otherwise: she had seen transcripts of Annan�s telephone conversations. Is it just another Short shambles, or could she be right?

THE technology is certainly there to bug almost anyone. At the shipyard of the Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut, for example, they are putting the finishing touches to a radical submarine. The USS Jimmy Carter, a Seawolf class nuclear vessel, has had a 60ft section added in its centre. This new �ocean interface� is designed to allow the crew to transport and work with large items � much bigger than can be released through a torpedo tube � deep on the seabed.

It is, according to one surveillance expert, designed for spying: the sub will be used to put in place �electronic labs� that can tap into the increasing number of undersea fibreoptic cables carrying international communications.

Other countries are trying to keep pace. A Dutch listening base near Groningen is being expanded from two to 20 satellite dishes. Spain and Denmark are enlarging satellite spy bases; even Switzerland operates seven listening stations and Sweden is building one near Gothenburg.

At the heart of the US-British eavesdropping system known as Echelon is a system called the Dictionary: massive computers that can target communications using specific telephone numbers, words or even voice-prints.

Is this James Bond wizardry for real? James Woolsey, a former director of the CIA, is one of the few who has spoken out. After allegations that eavesdropping had helped American firms to win, ahead of European companies, a $6 billion contract to sell aircraft to Saudi Arabia, Woolsey said: �Yes, my continental European friends, we have spied on you. And it�s true we use computers to sort through data using keywords.�

Voiceprinting technology is also thought to have tracked down Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks, after he gave an interview to Al-Jazeera television.

And according to a new book by Philip Stephens, a political journalist, the British have spied on Jacques Chirac, the French president, who was opposed to the war in Iraq. Blair apparently received �snippets of the French president�s private conversations�. Labour MPs are expected to press Blair on it this week.

So technically it is possible Annan was spied on. But until Short is more specific about what �transcripts� she saw, it remains difficult to assess exactly what happened or its import. What she saw could just have been routine material from open sources.

The next instalment of the affair will come at lunchtime today, when Short appears on ITV�s Jonathan Dimbleby programme. �She�ll either calm down or blow up,� said a Downing Street insider. �There�s just no way of knowing which way she might go�.

Within the Labour party there is increasing incredulity at her actions. Even a close friend of Short, an anti-war MP, described her credibility as �battered�.

Unlike Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary who has won the respect of the left and his cabinet colleagues for his measured opposition to the government�s policy, Short is rapidly alienating the wider party and factions within her constituency.

The friend said: �Even I don�t think she should have made the revelation. It damages cabinet government and destroys trust between the security services and Labour.�

The friend added: �Clare is now going on about the way the legal case for war was presented to the cabinet on two sides of A4 without any debate. Didn�t she read it carefully at the time? Didn�t she complain at the time at the lack of scrutiny? Why did she stay in the cabinet and vote for the war if it wasn�t to stop things like this? And if she couldn�t do anything, why didn�t she resign at the time?�

Although the cabinet has been cautioned not to attack Short, former ministers such as Brian Wilson, now Blair�s envoy for the reconstruction of Iraq, have not been so reticent. Wilson described Short yesterday �as one of the biggest political frauds of her generation� who had based her entire career on �disloyalty and self-indulgence�.

With such animosity erupting, those close to Short fear she may now try to bring her grievances against Blair to a head. If so, she had better plot quietly � because all sorts of people may be listening.

Additional reporting:
Joe Lauria, Nick Fielding, Adam Nathan and Duncan Campbell

CLARE�S CLANGERS

They say �10,000, double, treble and then think of another number. It will be golden elephants next
� chiding the islanders of volcano-stricken Montserrat for requesting more aid, August 1997

There were people who opposed action being taken against Hitler
� rebuking opponents of the Kosovo war, April 1999. She earned the nickname �Bomber� Short

I think a politician that has done that much, told that many lies, isn�t really fit to be a leader
� on Bill Clinton, Tony Blair�s closest ally, October 1998

He is in danger of destroying his legacy as he becomes increasingly obsessed with his place in history
� on Blair, resignation speech in the Commons, May 2003

These things are done. And in the case of Kofi�s office, it has been done for some time . . . I have seen transcripts
� accusing British intelligence of spying on the UN, February 2004

February 29, 2004 at 11:57 PM in UK | Permalink | TrackBack (99) | Top of page | Blog Home

Briton's 'bomb link' to Libya and Pakistan

Times Online - Britain

By Dominic Kennedy

A BRITISH businessman accused of helping Colonel Gaddafi’s secret nuclear programme had previously been investigated by British authorities for exporting potential atomic bomb equipment to Pakistan.
Peter Griffin, a 68-year-old grandfather, is accused in a report sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency by Malaysian police of helping Colonel Gaddafi to design an uranium enrichment workshop that could be used for nuclear weapons or nuclear power, as well as training technicians and acquiring components. He denies any wrongdoing.

Mr Griffin, an engineer from Swansea, lives in a �500,000 villa on the French Riviera protected by electronic gates, video cameras, high walls and woodland.

The Times can disclose that he has been known to the British authorities since the late 1970s, when he was investigated as part of a network helping Pakistan�s clandestine efforts to become the Muslim world�s first nuclear power.

According to officials in Islamabad at the time, the secret project was part-funded by Colonel Gaddafi, who sent millions of dollars to Pakistan on condition that he was given access to the country�s atomic weapons capability.

However, there is no evidence that Mr Griffin received any money from Colonel Gaddafi.

Mr Griffin�s name emerged again last month when President Bush denounced a black market in nuclear technology created by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the rogue scientist known as the father of Pakistan�s atom bomb.

Last autumn a ship carrying specialised nuclear centrifuge parts to Libya was intercepted by America after being sent from Malaysia via Dubai.

The Malaysian manufacturer said that the components were made for a Dubai-based company called Gulf Technical Industries, which is owned by Peter Griffin and his 40-year-old son, Paul.

An alleged middleman, Bukhary Syed Abu Tahir, has claimed that the Malaysian company engineered more than 25,000 parts for Gulf Technical Industries, according to the police report.

Mr Griffin was alleged to be working on behalf of the disraced Dr Khan, who was providing sensitive equipment to Libya. Whatever equipment Dr Khan could not get directly to Colonel Gaddafi, the Pakistani scientist helped the dictator to build.

According to the Malaysian police report, Mr Griffin designed a workshop to make centrifuges and arranged for eight Libyan technicians to travel to Spain for training in the use of specialist lathes.

Colonel Gaddafi was acknowledged to be close to developing a nuclear bomb when he agreed publicly in December to drop his weapons of mass destruction programme.

By coincidence, British authorities had seized a computer from Mr Griffin�s home in France last June. It was an episode that brought back memories of how an invoice for equipment capable of building an atom bomb was traced from Pakistan back to a company part-owned by Mr Griffin in August 1978.

British authorities, eager to prevent nuclear proliferation, became concerned by the sale of 30 Swindon-made �inverters� capable of driving ultra-centrifuges in an uranium enrichment plant. The invoice led to Weargate, a company owned by Peter Griffin and Abdus Salam, a British citizen of Pakistani origin.

Tony Benn, then Energy Minister, ordered an investigation which concluded that the shipment was legal. However, Britain tightened up export rules three times in 1978 and 1979 to try to stop Pakistan acquiring the technology.

Simon Henderson, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told The Times last week: �The British Government tried to keep one step ahead by constantly changing export control regulations.� Mr Henderson confronted Mr Griffin at his home in Swansea at the time. �He invited me inside, though hardly welcoming me, and cautiously told me what business he was doing in Pakistan. �I am not helping Pakistan make a nuclear bomb, but why shouldn�t Pakistan have a nuclear bomb anyway?� was, I recall, his line of argument. He told me that he had sold �800,000 worth of equipment.�

Mr Griffin�s partner in Weargate, Mr Salam, later emerged in Dubai, importing inverter components from Canada for Pakistan. After a quarter-century of secretive developments, Pakistan�s first nuclear bomb tests stunned the world in 1998.

At her home in South Wales, Mr Griffin�s former wife, Sheila, maintained that her son Paul had nothing to do with sending equipment to Libya. �I can assure you everything is now resolved and all hell has been let loose. It�s somebody who used his name. Honestly, I�m not telling lies,� she said. She also denied that the family had been involved with Pakistan�s weapons programme. �We didn�t have anything to do with nuclear bombs.�

Peter Griffin remarried in Swansea in 1992 and now lives in the secluded villa on a private road outside the village of Figani�res, near Fr�jus.

He publicly denounced America�s wars against Saddam Hussein in a letter to a Gulf newspaper last year. �America sent all its bills for billions of dollars to Kuwait for every missile, bomb, toilet roll, etc, used during the (1991) Gulf War,� he wrote.

�America made money from that conflict but there is nobody to pick up the bills for the next one except the American (and British) taxpayer.�

Speaking from his villa, Mr Griffin said that the Malaysian police report had been misinterpreted by all the world�s media, with the exception of the Evening Post in Swansea. �They know me,� he said. �They know that I wouldn�t do anything.�

He threatened to launch defamation actions for �lies, damned lies and statistics� and said he hoped to issue a statement in the coming week.

�I�ve got both feet on the ground,� he said. �I�m not answering questions with the press. I hope one day to be able to give interviews and sell my memoirs and make some money on this.�

There is no suggestion that Mr Griffin or his son were breaking the law. Chris Mills, a solicitor with Clyde & Co, of Dubai, said that Paul Griffin was �obviously quite distressed� since he had �no knowledge at all� of any Libya-bound shipment.

�What Paul thinks is that someone has been using his company name in order to transship goods through Dubai,� Mr Mills said.

When the goods arrived, Gulf Technical Industries had not been contacted. Instead, a so-far unidentified person had paid the freight charges to clear the items through Dubai and out again.

Paul Griffin suspected that he and his company had been �set up . . . to take the fall if this all went wrong, as it has done,� Mr Mills said.

Paul Griffin was seeking documents to show that his company had not been involved.

February 29, 2004 at 11:54 PM in Espionage - general | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home

Wilson gave secret advice to Greek king

Telegraph | News | Wilson gave secret advice to Greek king

By Peter Day
(Filed: 01/03/2004)

The Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, acted as a secret mentor to King Constantine of Greece when the Right-wing colonels' junta seized control of his country.

Lord Mountbatten, the king's distant cousin, set up several rendezvous for the two men while keeping the Queen fully informed.

Documents released by the National Archives show that Mr Wilson and his advisers in Downing Street were far more hawkish than George Brown at the Foreign Office, where some diplomats preferred to work with the new regime.

But at a crucial moment Mr Wilson decided it was too dangerous, diplomatically, for Constantine to fly to Britain for clandestine talks at Lord Mountbatten's home, Broadlands in the New Forest.

In November 1967, seven months after the coup, Lord Mountbatten wrote to "King Tino" explaining the decision and added that their mutual friend - Mr Wilson - "went so far as to say that you were the one hope of preserving democracy between the dangers of dictatorship and communism".

A month later the king staged a disastrous counter-coup, which collapsed within 24 hours and led to him being exiled.

The first meeting had taken place in 1966 when the king was trying to broker a peaceful solution to the dispute with Turkey over Cyprus. He asked Mr Wilson to give up the British base at Dhekelia so that the Turks could have a garrison there to protect their citizens' interests.

In 1967, when it looked likely that a Left-wing government would be formed in Greece, the Foreign Office warned Mr Wilson: "This possibility has given rise to much speculation in Athens about the possibility of some kind of 'extra-parliamentary solution' initiated by the Right. We believe that the king is opposed to this.

"It is in HMG's interests that there should be a strong and stable Greek government which will not upset the Cyprus situation, will not diminish Greek interest in Nato, will not create conditions which the Communists can exploit and will not disturb conditions in which our commercial interests can flourish.

"An 'extra-parliamentary solution' of present Greek political problems would not necessarily conflict with those interests provided it was successful."

After the colonels took over, Constantine remained in Greece. Mr Wilson's instinct was to bolster his resistance but Foreign Office advice was to do nothing in case it drove the new regime to banish the king and move further towards fascism.

When the counter-coup failed, Mr Wilson was the only statesman who publicly supported the king, and his private secretary, Michael Halls, pointed out that the FO's policy had achieved exactly what it sought to avoid. Mr Wilson did not feel it was diplomatically expedient to meet the king again until May 1968.

He recorded that he found the king "a very lonely young man, totally bereft of any reliable advice - and therefore potentially exposed to unreliable advisers. It seemed to me to be in our interest to keep in close touch with the king and indeed to give him support."

Mr Wilson advised against further military adventures, or setting up a government in exile, with unreliable politicians, and suggested that Constantine should keep communications open with the junta's figurehead, George Papadopoulos, in the hope that he would restrain the wilder young officers and the country could be guided back to democracy.

February 29, 2004 at 11:47 PM in US | Permalink | TrackBack (27) | Top of page | Blog Home

Army chiefs feared Iraq war illegal just days before start

The Observer | Special reports | Army chiefs feared Iraq war illegal just days before start

Attorney-General forced to rewrite legal advice
� Specialist unit dedicated to spying on UN revealed

Martin Bright, Antony Barnett and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday February 29, 2004
The Observer

Britain's Army chiefs refused to go to war in Iraq amid fears over its legality just days before the British and American bombing campaign was launched, The Observer can today reveal.
The explosive new details about military doubts over the legality of the invasion are detailed in unpublished legal documents in the case of Katharine Gun, the intelligence officer dramatically freed last week after Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, dropped charges against her of breaking the Official Secrets Act.

Britain's Army chiefs refused to go to war in Iraq amid fears over its legality just days before the British and American bombing campaign was launched, The Observer can today reveal.
The explosive new details about military doubts over the legality of the invasion are detailed in unpublished legal documents in the case of Katharine Gun, the intelligence officer dramatically freed last week after Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, dropped charges against her of breaking the Official Secrets Act.

The disclosure came as it also emerged that Goldsmith was forced hastily to redraft his legal advice to Tony Blair to give an 'unequivocal' assurance to the armed forces that the conflict would not be illegal.

Refusing to commit troops already stationed in Kuwait, senior military leaders were adamant that war could not begin until they were satisfied that neither they nor their men could be tried. Some 10 days later, Britain and America began the campaign.

Goldsmith also wrote to Blair at the end of January voicing concerns that the war might be illegal without a second resolution from the United Nations. Opposition MPs seized on The Observer's revelations last night, accusing Goldsmith of caving in to political pressure from the Prime Minister to change his legal advice on the eve of war.

Senior Whitehall sources involved in putting together critical legal advice on the war told The Observer that Goldsmith was originally 'sitting on the fence' and that his initial advice was 'prevaricating'. This was 'tightened' up only days before the conflict began after concerns were raised by Sir Michael Boyce, the then Chief of Defence Staff, who told senior ministers of his worries. It is believed that Boyce demanded an unequivocal statement that the invasion of Iraq was lawful. It is understood that it was only after seeing Goldsmith's final legal advice, given days before the outbreak of war, that Boyce gave his approval.

Without this legal reassurace, military leaders and their troops could have laid themselves open to charges of war crimes. At the time, UK troops were already in Kuwait poised for an invasion.

Last week, Goldsmith controversially agreed to drop the Government's prosecution of the former GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun. Her defence had demanded documents relating to his legal advice, including communications with the Prime Minister.

Although Goldsmith denied his decision to drop the case was political, critics of the war believe the Government was desperate to prevent these details from being revealed in open court.

Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesman, said: 'These allegations go to the very heart of the Government's case for war, and inevitably its credibility. I have no doubt whatever that if Parliament had been told these things, the Government would not have achieved its majority and been unable to go to war. Public opinion, already deeply divided, would have swung overwhelmingly against the Government.'

Opposition MPs have demanded a statement in the Commons from the Prime Minister and will redouble the pressure for an explanation. The revelations will also increase pressure for the Butler inquiry, set up by the Prime Minister into intelli gence in the run-up to the war, to study the Gun case and subsequent revelations. It will take evidence in private.

Last night former Cabinet Minister Clare Short told The Observer that she knew of military doubts over the legality the war: 'I was told at the highest level in the department that the military were saying they wouldn't go, whatever the PM said, with out the Attorney-General's advice. The question is: was the AG lent on?

'This was a very personal operation by Tony Blair. The Attorney-General is a friend of Tony's, put in the Lords by Tony and made Attorney-General by Tony.'

The Observer has also established that GCHQ, the Government's top-secret surveillance centre, has a specialist unit dedicated to spying on the UN. The revelation will strengthen claims that the bugging of Britain's diplomatic allies at the UN was routine and is likely to trigger a fresh international furore over the legality of Britain's spying operations abroad.

The former Chilean ambassador to the UN, Juan Gabriel Valdes, said last night: 'All I can say is what I said at the time when asked if I had information about spying on Chile and I said yes, it has been proved.

'It [eavesdropping] was one more element of tension during some very tense weeks. Nobody was very surprised. But it is one thing not to be surprised and another to do clearly illegal things.'

Gun leaked a top-secret email published in The Observer last March revealing a joint British-American operation to spy on the UN in the run-up to war. She claimed she acted to prevent the loss of human life in an illegal war.

The political furore continued as Short's political future remains in the balance, with the Prime Minister reserving a final decision until he has seen the round of interviews she has planned for this weekend. 'Everyone has talked about the fact that they don't want her to be a martyr, but of course the only difficulty is that we are in her hands - what will she say tomorrow?' said one senior party figure.

However, it remains highly unlikely that she will face an organised attempt to unseat her, because of the months of upheaval it would cause in the Labour party. 'The pain of extraction might finish off the patient,' said one backbencher far from loyal to Short.

Downing Street last night refused to comment on the allegations. Blair's spokesman also refused to say whether the White House had been consulted over the dropping of the Gun case, despite growing conviction at Westminster that it would have been inconceivable for the Foreign Office not to have taken its closest ally's views into consideration.

Despite Blair's refusal to give a statement to the Commons, the Government is unlikely to escape further questioning. Both Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, and Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, are already due to answer questions next week while the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, will be grilled by a joint Commons inquiry into homeland security. Labour and Opposition MPs have also tabled a string of written questions.

February 29, 2004 at 11:40 PM in Iraq | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

Sinn F�in warns Blair to confront unionists

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Sinn F�in warns Blair to confront unionists

Nicholas Watt, political correspondent
Monday March 1, 2004
The Guardian

Sinn F�in yesterday gave a blunt warning that the Northern Ireland peace process is facing a "dangerous crisis" because of Tony Blair's failure to stand up to unionists who are refusing to share power with republicans.

In a hard-hitting speech to the party's annual conference in Dublin, its chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, accused Downing Street of failing to live up to its commitments to implement the Good Friday agreement. "There is no getting away from the fact that the process is in serious crisis," he said in his annual political report. "This is a dangerous crisis."

His remarks came as London and Dublin battle to keep alive the review of the Good Friday agreement, which was launched amid the refusal of unionists to share power with Sinn F�in in the light of continuing IRA activity.

David Trimble, the leader of the moderate Ulster Unionist party, which was replaced as the province's largest unionist party by the hardline Democratic Unionists in last year's assembly elections, has threatened to pull out of the review after the Provisional IRA attempted to kidnap a dissident republican.

The government has postponed today's session of the review, which is to discuss continuing paramilitary activity, until tomorrow to buy some breathing space.

Sinn F�in warned the government that it must not throw the republican party - the province's largest pro-agreement grouping - out of the review, a view shared by Downing Street, which does not want the republicans to play the "victims' card". The republicans made clear that the government must stand up to Mr Trimble and other unionist leaders who have seized on the alleged kidnapping attempt - what Sinn F�in called a "pub brawl" - to try to derail the peace process.

Mr McGuinness said: "The current stalemate is a crisis, a dangerous crisis. But it is not a crisis that began one week ago outside a bar in Belfast. It is not a crisis around the IRA or IRA intentions. The institutions have been suspended now for almost 18 months. This is the fourth suspension.

"In the same period the IRA have taken a number of initiatives to move the process forward, whereas both [the British and Irish] governments, and particularly the British, have failed repeatedly to deliver on their commitments. In the same period the securocrats have succeeded in stalling the process of change. But that is all they have managed to do. They have not halted this process, nor have they reversed it. Nor will we allow them to."

His tough message was echoed by Gerry Adams who used his presidential address on Saturday night to warn of the intense pressure faced by the Sinn F�in leadership from the republican grassroots. Mr Adams told the conference he had faced "profound difficulties" after persuading the IRA last October to embark on its largest act of disarmament, only for that to be rejected by Mr Trimble.

"Many republicans have raised what they and I consider to be reasonable questions about our handling of that episode," he said.

"There was, as one comrade put it to me, a question over the decisions made by us and by the [IRA] army leadership. 'Surely you knew better than to depend on David Trimble? Did you really expect the two governments to keep their commitments? Why is it always republicans who have to take initiatives?'".

But Mr Adams made clear that republicans were still prepared to offer further concessions if the government and unionists live up to their side of the bargain.

Sinn F�in wants the British government to embark on a wholesale process of demilitarisation, and for unionists to give a firm commitment to share power.

Describing the peace process as a "collective endeavour", Mr Adams said: "There can be no doubt if the two governments apply themselves to acts of completion of the Good Friday agreement, then others must do likewise."

February 29, 2004 at 11:39 PM in Ireland | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home

Search for bin Laden gathers steam

Search for bin Laden gathers steam

February 29, 2004
BY KATHERINE PFLEGER SHRADER

-- The United States is rounding up and questioning the relatives of fugitive al-Qaida leaders to generate information on the possible whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and his top deputies. This tactic helped lead to Saddam Hussein's capture.

So far, the information received is unconfirmed and does not mean the terrorist leader's location has been pinned down or his capture is imminent. U.S. officials caution that rumors of significant progress are overstated.

Saturday, Pentagon and Pakistani officials denied an Iranian state radio report that bin Laden had been captured ''a long time ago'' in Pakistan's border region with Afghanistan.

But some U.S. officials do say they have been able to extract useful information from Afghan and Pakistani relatives and friends of al-Qaida fugitives, providing hints on the possible whereabouts of the organization's leaders.

Meanwhile, Pakistani troops hunting for terrorists Saturday in a remote tribal region along the border with Afghanistan killed 11 people riding in a minibus that did not stop at a rural checkpoint, an army spokesman said.

Gen. Shaukat Sultan said troops opened fire on the minibus after someone fired on the paramilitary forces at a roadblock in Zeri Noor, a village just outside of Wana, the main town in tribal South Waziristan. Counterterrorism operations there last week netted 25 suspects.

Sixteen people were arrested.

The deaths were sure to raise the anger of fiercely independent tribal leaders already enraged by the presence of troops in their territory.

With the weather improving in Afghanistan, the U.S. military has sent troops and technology to the country to aid the search and to give forces on the ground more opportunity to track down bin Laden. He is the United States' most-wanted terrorist for his leadership in planning the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Rounding up relatives for questioning helped bring about the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam, the former Iraqi leader. U.S. officials hope the tactic could lead to information on the whereabouts of bin Laden and his top deputies, especially when combined with information from spy satellites, communication intercepts and prisoner interrogations.

U.S. military officials have said they are planning a spring offensive in Afghanistan in the hopes of capturing bin Laden, former Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and their associates.

AP

February 29, 2004 at 10:15 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | TrackBack (2) | Top of page | Blog Home

SAS joins fresh bid to snare bin Laden

Observer | SAS joins fresh bid to snare bin Laden

Jason Burke, chief reporter
Sunday February 29, 2004
The Observer
American and British forces have launched a dramatic new effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan.
SAS detachments will join thousands of US troops - including a 'super-secret' special forces unit transferred from Iraq - and contingents of Afghan soldiers in a huge sweep of mountainous border areas where the terrorists are believed to be hiding.

The push will be the biggest such operation for 18 months. Attempts to find the fugitives last year were hindered by a lack of special forces soldiers - most of whom had been deployed in Iraq - and the failure of Pakistan to cut off escape routes by closing its border with Afghanistan. Harsh winter conditions in recent months have made movement in the high ground where bin Laden is thought to be hiding impossible.

Thousands of Pakistani troops and paramilitaries are preparing to move into positions along the 1,520-mile frontier to act as an 'anvil' against which the US-led 'hammer' can strike. Reports from an Iranian news agency yesterday that bin Laden has been captured proved false but Washington is confident the Saudi-born militant will be killed or captured within a year.

The operation will be led by the ultra-secret Task Force 121 - a unit of elite Navy SEALs and Delta Force soldiers led by top intelligence analysts that was formed by the Pentagon last year to head the hunt for Saddam Hussein.

Key personnel from the unit have now been transferred to Afghanistan. The Americans are also expected to draw on British elite forces. Soldiers from territorial army units 21 SAS and 23 SAS have recently arrived in Afghanistan to join their full-time counterparts. Unmanned Predator drones have also been switched from Iraq to Afghanistan. The Predator is equipped with Hellfire missiles and powerful spy cameras which can follow cars or even individuals from thousands of feet up.

Bin Laden, 47, is believed to be hiding with his partner Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian militant, in the mountains lining the border. The terrain and sympathetic tribesmen offer substantial protection. Al-Zawahiri issued two tapes last week calling for attacks on the 'Crusader-Zionist alliance'. In one he referred to the recent controversy in France over the banning of the Islamic veil from schools, making it clear he was alive at least a month ago.

The hunt is being boosted by a computer program developed in Iraq to locate 'high value human targets'. The program charts links between thousands of people associated with a fugitive, allowing intelligence officers to detect key individuals who might have vital information.

The Americans are also employing 'psychological operations' against bin Laden, allowing news of the new push to leak into the media. US intelligence specialists know that, like Saddam, bin Laden and his aides monitor the media and are hoping that news of the operation will 'flush out' the terrorist leader, forcing him to leave winter hideouts for fear they have become known to the coalition or to Pakistan.

'The sands in their hourglass are running out. We reaffirm our effort to track these guys down and get 'em,' said Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Beevers, a US military spokesman in Afghanistan.

Officials are careful not to seem over-confident. Beevers admitted that if coalition forces knew where bin Laden and his men were, 'we'd already have him'. Last week Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary, played down the prospect of catching bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban.

Most intelligence analysts believe bin Laden and a small number of associates have been hiding somewhere between the eastern Afghan city of Khost and the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta since slipping the net drawn round them by American forces at the cave complex of Tora Bora in December 2001.

American intelligence officials say bin Laden recently crossed into Afghanistan from Pakistan, where they believe he was being sheltered in the remote south Waziristan tribal agency by local leaders, during the winter. Mullah Omar is believed to be on the move in the areas of south eastern Afghanistan where support for the Taliban is strongest, travelling remote desert and mountain regions by motorbike.

Both bin Laden and Mullah Omar have been assisted by the fiercely autonomous, heavily armed tribes which straddle the border. Pakistan has adopted a 'carrot and stick' policy towards the tribesmen, many of whom see bin Laden as a hero.

Pakistani troops using helicopters and artillery flattened three housing compounds and detained at least 20 people last Tuesday in a remote region where bin Laden and other al-Qaeda fugitives are believed to have hidden recently. Four of the detainees were from the Middle East, the rest from the local Pashtun tribes. On Friday armed tribesmen raided a military compound in south Waziristan and 11 men died in a shoot-out at a border post.

Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

February 29, 2004 at 05:22 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home

Special Ops, CIA Mix In War, Stir Legal Questions

Special Ops, CIA Mix In War, Stir Legal Questions - from TBO.com

By RICHARD LARDNER rlardner@tampatrib.com
Published: Feb 29, 2004

TAMPA - Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration progressively has blurred the line distinguishing CIA activities from military operations handled by U.S. Special Forces, according to military lawyers and national security analysts.
Although the integration has produced powerful antiterrorism capabilities, the merger has raised a number of complex political and operational issues that need be addressed to ensure this potent combination remains within legal and ethical bounds, they said.

The issues are especially relevant to U.S. Special Operations Command, based at MacDill Air Force Base. SoCom manages close to 50,000 special forces and has emerged as one of the military's most prominent players in the global war on terrorism.

``The president has committed us to a pre-emptive strategy, and that might require us to put forces in places and under circumstances that require new and creative ways of doing business,'' said retired Army Col. Michael Pheneger, former intelligence director at SoCom.

In Afghanistan, CIA units and Special Forces were on the ground a few weeks after the attacks in New York and the Pentagon. That cooperation continued in Iraq.

CIA paramilitary operatives work undercover, operating much like Special Forces and using some of the same equipment.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has boosted SoCom's budget and given the command expanded authority to go after terrorist networks. Rumsfeld has been criticized for operating with too few controls and for intruding on the CIA's territory.

Defense officials said the issue is not about turf and control. It's about allowing Special Forces to react quickly when information is received so a critical target can't slip away.

Boundaries Being Erased

The working relationship is not a new one, with joint operations between the military and CIA dating back decades. Before al-Qaida and other terrorist groups emerged as major threats, more effort was made to separate the two communities, which are governed by separate legal authorities and have different cultures and methods of operation.

``What you're looking at are different resources, each with unique capabilities,'' Pheneger said. ``If you can orchestrate these capabilities, that's the way to go. But there are issues to be resolved.''

A significant issue relates to denial. The CIA exists in large part to conduct missions unacknowledged by the U.S. government. Yet the more often Special Forces support those covert operations, the greater the risk of linking them to the United States, according to Army Col. Kathryn Stone, staff judge advocate at U.S. Southern Command in Miami.

``As the size of the operation increases, secrecy becomes more problematic, particularly if military or paramilitary forces are involved,'' Stone wrote last year in an Army War College study. ``Forces mean people and people talk.''

CIA activities must comply with U.S. law, but much of what the CIA does is intended to skirt international law. The Defense Department is bound by both, according to Stone.

Although the war on terrorism is not a traditional war as defined by the Geneva and Hague conventions, U.S. military forces must comply with these rules as they fight in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. As the CIA and Special Forces work together, the military must be careful to remember the distinction, said Stone, who discussed her study in an interview.

Jennifer Kibbe, a national security analyst with The Brookings Institution in Washington, argued existing U.S. laws are too vague to cover a war in which the enemy is not linked to a country. The lack of clarity has allowed the Pentagon too free a hand, she said, citing Rumsfeld's interest in establishing ``hunter-killer'' teams.

There's less control over the military's planning system than the CIA's, she said.

``The way the military's system works is very different. They can come up with a mission and go ahead and execute it,'' Kibbe said. ``Their covert actions can be completely developed in-house.''

The danger, she said, is if U.S. forces track a terror suspect into a country such as Yemen or Somalia but end up capturing or killing the wrong person. Such an error would undercut worldwide support for the war, she said.

Questions Of Identity

Appearance is important on the integrated battlefield. CIA paramilitary personnel must blend into the environment. To do so, they operate without uniforms or identification as U.S. government employees. They are in the cold.

Accordingly, CIA operatives have no expectation of protections under the Geneva Conventions that govern the treatment of prisoners of war, Stone said. CIA operatives accept this possibility as part of the job.

The laws of war require military personnel to distinguish themselves, even when conducting covert operations.

W. Hays Parks, a senior Defense Department lawyer, wrote that neither the war on terrorism nor being a Special Forces member eases the requirement that full uniforms be worn. Even a minor deviation from that rule must be approved at the highest levels, Parks wrote in an article published last fall in the Chicago Journal of International Law.

Military personnel cannot be forced to purposefully hide their military identities, particularly if doing so would cause them harm, Stone said. If commandos were captured with CIA personnel during a combat operation, a variety of difficult scenarios could emerge, she said.

What if the Special Forces received Geneva Convention protections and the CIA operatives did not? What if the enemy could not distinguish between the two and decided they were all unlawful combatants? How would senior government officials react in either case? Would they demand protection for the soldiers but not for the CIA operatives?

These are critical questions, said Stone, noting the Bush administration's decision to classify Taliban and al-Qaida members as enemy combatants, not necessarily entitled to POW status.

It's possible American forces might be treated the same by a hostile nation, and commandos need to be prepared for that, Stone said.

``It's like having surgery,'' Stone said. ``There needs to be informed consent.''

Parks wrote that U.S. forces must be ``fully aware of the risks they may face if captured if they fail to comply with the laws of war.''

The CIA wouldn't comment on the integration of its personnel with Special Forces. Special Operations Command did not respond to a request for comment.

Communication Is Key

In advance testimony delivered to the Senate Armed Services Committee in July, Gen. Bryan Brown, SoCom commander, said the integration of Special Forces with conventional troops in Iraq ``was a major success.'' Brown didn't mention CIA involvement.

An after-action report on the Iraq war prepared last year by the 3rd Infantry Division offers a glimpse into the highly classified world of special operations.

In Iraq, the Special Forces- CIA commingling included conventional forces and ``was unparalleled in modern history,'' the division's report said.

The alliance produced many benefits and a few headaches.

The 3rd Infantry's size and armored power provided Special Forces and intelligence operatives, referred to in the report as ``other government agency elements,'' with a ``mobile and secure base'' from which they could operate.

``Overall, the relationship was a positive one in spite of the cultural differences between SOF and conventional forces that often create friction points between these elements,'' the report said.

Reluctance to share information was a problem. Special Forces and CIA personnel did not want to disclose much about their secret operations with the division staff for fear the mission would be compromised. This prevented the staff from learning details that might have given them an edge in combat, the division's report said.

Communication on the battlefield is critical. According to Pheneger, if an American division commander were ordered to take out an important target but detected Special Forces in the area, he would be faced with a difficult choice: Hit the target and risk harming U.S. forces or pass on the target until the Special Forces were out of the area.

Situations such as this needed to be practiced during military exercises, Pheneger said.

Guidelines Needed

Stone, the Southern Command attorney, said use of CIA operatives and Special Forces should continue because it's an effective way to fight terrorism. She recommends guidelines be developed to better manage these operations and to improve the exchange of information.

Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, CIA general counsel from 1990 to 1995, said the challenge is to develop laws and policies reflecting the new nature of warfare.

Enemies are declared and troops assembled, even though no formal declaration of war has been issued.

``It's not the absence of a declaration that is problematic here, but rather the nature of the present `war on terrorism,' which lacks bounds of time and space,'' she said. ``It's for that reason there is a blurring. There's a blurring by what we mean by war.''

Reporter Richard Lardner can be reached at (813) 259-7966.

February 29, 2004 at 10:21 AM in CIA | Permalink | TrackBack (40) | Top of page | Blog Home

February 28, 2004

Reagan Approved Plan to Sabotage Soviets

washingtonpost.com: Reagan Approved Plan to Sabotage Soviets

By David E. Hoffman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 27, 2004; Page A01
In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including software that later triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian natural gas pipeline, according to a new memoir by a Reagan White House official.
Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who was serving in the National Security Council at the time, describes the episode in "At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War," to be published next month by Ballantine Books. Reed writes that the pipeline explosion was just one example of "cold-eyed economic warfare" against the Soviet Union that the CIA carried out under Director William J. Casey during the final years of the Cold War.

At the time, the United States was attempting to block Western Europe from importing Soviet natural gas. There were also signs that the Soviets were trying to steal a wide variety of Western technology. Then, a KGB insider revealed the specific shopping list and the CIA slipped the flawed software to the Soviets in a way they would not detect it.

"In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds," Reed writes.

"The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space," he recalls, adding that U.S. satellites picked up the explosion. Reed said in an interview that the blast occurred in the summer of 1982.

"While there were no physical casualties from the pipeline explosion, there was significant damage to the Soviet economy," he writes. "Its ultimate bankruptcy, not a bloody battle or nuclear exchange, is what brought the Cold War to an end. In time the Soviets came to understand that they had been stealing bogus technology, but now what were they to do? By implication, every cell of the Soviet leviathan might be infected. They had no way of knowing which equipment was sound, which was bogus. All was suspect, which was the intended endgame for the entire operation."

Reed said he obtained CIA approval to publish details about the operation. The CIA learned of the full extent of the KGB's pursuit of Western technology in an intelligence operation known as the Farewell Dossier. Portions of the operation have been disclosed earlier, including in a 1996 paper in Studies in Intelligence, a CIA journal. The paper was written by Gus W. Weiss, an expert on technology and intelligence who was instrumental in devising the plan to send the flawed materials and served with Reed on the National Security Council. Weiss died Nov. 25 at 72.

According to the Weiss article and Reed's book, the Soviet authorities in 1970 set up a new KGB section, known as Directorate T, to plumb Western research and development for badly needed technology. Directorate T's operating arm to steal the technology was known as Line X. Its spies were often sprinkled throughout Soviet delegations to the United States; on one visit to a Boeing plant, "a Soviet guest applied adhesive to his shoes to obtain metal samples," Weiss recalled in his article.

Then, at a July 1981 economic summit in Ottawa, President Francois Mitterrand of France told Reagan that French intelligence had obtained the services of an agent they dubbed "Farewell," Col. Vladimir Vetrov, a 53-year-old engineer who was assigned to evaluate the intelligence collected by Directorate T.

Vetrov, who Weiss recalled had provided his services for ideological reasons, photographed and supplied 4,000 documents on the program. The documents revealed the names of more than 200 Line X officers around the world and showed how the Soviets were carrying out a broad-based effort to steal Western technology.

"Reagan expressed great interest in Mitterrand's sensitive revelations and was grateful for his offer to make the material available to the U.S. administration," Reed writes. The Farewell Dossier arrived at the CIA in August 1981. "It immediately caused a storm," Reed says in the book. "The files were incredibly explicit. They set forth the extent of Soviet penetration into U.S. and other Western laboratories, factories and government agencies."

"Reading the material caused my worst nightmares to come true," Weiss recalled. The documents showed the Soviets had stolen valuable data on radar, computers, machine tools and semiconductors, he wrote. "Our science was supporting their national defense."

The Farewell Dossier included a shopping list of future Soviet priorities. In January 1982, Weiss said he proposed to Casey a program to slip the Soviets technology that would work for a while, then fail. Reed said the CIA "would add 'extra ingredients' to the software and hardware on the KGB's shopping list."

"Reagan received the plan enthusiastically," Reed writes. "Casey was given a go." According to Weiss, "American industry helped in the preparation of items to be 'marketed' to Line X." Some details about the flawed technology were reported in Aviation Week and Space Technology in 1986 and in a 1995 book by Peter Schweizer, "Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy that Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union."

The sabotage of the gas pipeline has not been previously disclosed, and at the time was a closely guarded secret. When the pipeline exploded, Reed writes, the first reports caused concern in the U.S. military and at the White House. "NORAD feared a missile liftoff from a place where no rockets were known to be based," he said, referring to North American Air Defense Command. "Or perhaps it was the detonation of a small nuclear device." However, satellites did not pick up any telltale signs of a nuclear explosion.

"Before these conflicting indicators could turn into an international crisis," he added, "Gus Weiss came down the hall to tell his fellow NSC staffers not to worry."

The role that Reagan and the United States played in the collapse of the Soviet Union is still a matter of intense debate. Some argue that U.S. policy was the key factor -- Reagan's military buildup; the Strategic Defense Initiative, Reagan's proposed missile defense system; confronting the Soviets in regional conflicts; and rapid advances in U.S. high technology. But others say that internal Soviet factors were more important, including economic decline and President Mikhail Gorbachev's revolutionary policies of glasnost and perestroika.

Reed, who served in the National Security Council from January 1982 to June 1983, said the United States and its NATO allies later "rolled up the entire Line X collection network, both in the U.S. and overseas." Weiss said "the heart of Soviet technology collection crumbled and would not recover."

However, Vetrov's espionage was discovered by the KGB, and he was executed in 1983.

� 2004 The Washington Post Company

February 28, 2004 at 10:09 PM in Cold War | Permalink | TrackBack (38) | Top of page | Blog Home

Saudis accused British diplomats of terror

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Saudis accused British diplomats of terror

Compensation claim by tortured Britons exposes allegations of MI6 plot against kingdom's royal family

David Pallister and Paul Kelso
Friday February 27, 2004
The Guardian

Saudi Arabia accused two senior British diplomats of orchestrating an MI6 bombing campaign to undermine the Saudi royal family, it emerged yesterday.
The allegations were revealed as seven British men tortured and falsely accused of carrying out the bombings launched legal action against Saudi officials, including the interior minister, Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz. They are seeking compensation for more than two years' imprisonment and torture.

Five of the men appeared in televised confessions claiming responsibility for a wave of anti-western explosions that killed one Briton and injured several others. The Saudis said the bombings were the result of a turf war between western bootleggers, although they were widely acknowledged to be the work of dissident Islamist groups.

The men said their Saudi interrogators had pressurised them to admit they were low-level MI6 agents acting on orders from Simon McDonald, then the deputy head of mission and consul general, and Ian Wilson, then consul in Riyadh.

Shortly after the Foreign Office learned of the allegations both men were moved to other posts. Mr McDonald went on to become private secretary to Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and is now the ambassador to Israel. Mr Wilson is consul in Beijing.

The Foreign Office admitted last night the allegations against the diplomats had been investigated by British police, who visited Riyadh. "The allegations were found to be baseless," a spokeswoman said.

The former detainees and their lawyers said they were disappointed the Foreign Office had not acknowledged their innocence while clearing the officials.

Naming the two diplomats, William Sampson, who spent more than a year in solitary confinement, said: "I was tortured and forced to confess to spying for the British government. At the same time two diplomats were investigated by the Foreign Office. They have been cleared but we have not."

Glen Ballard, who was detained without charge for 10 months, said: "I was forced to say I was a low-level MI6 agent trying to undermine the Saudi royal family."

Mr Sampson, Sandy Mitchell and Les Walker, represented by Geoffrey Bindman, have issued writs in the high court. Lawyers representing the other four said they would join the action shortly.

Mr Bindman's clients have been given permission to take the case directly to the court of appeal, where they are expected to be joined to the case of another Briton, Ron Jones, who was accused of causing an explosion in which he was seriously injured. All the men are likely to face opposition from the British government. Mr Jones is seeking to challenge the State Immunity Act 1978, but government lawyers are preparing to lodge an argument next week formally defending the act.

Requests for a meeting with the Saudi ambassador to London, Prince Turki-al Faisal, have gone unanswered.

Five of the men are said to have produced "compelling and credible" medical evidence of torture, including beatings and sleep deprivation, after examinations at the Parker Institute, a torture treatment centre in Denmark.

In their report institute experts said there was "a high degree of consistency between the findings at physical examination and the allegations of torture".

Mr Bindman called on the government to acknowledge the men's innocence and to be more vocal in supporting their case. He said they were having difficulty finding work because, technically, they were convicted terrorists and murderers.

"I find it extraordinary that the government has not acknowledged the innocence of these men nor acknowledged that they have been tortured," he said. "Privately they have acknowledged it."

Richard Scorer, who represents James Cottle, James Lee, Peter Brandon and Mr Ballard, said: "We have mixed feelings abut the Foreign Office ... now we have compelling evidence of torture we hope they will be more vocal than in the past."

The men said they were still suffering as a result of their treatment. Describing his torture, Mr Mitchell said: "I still suffer from the shame of being broken physically and mentally. The pain was excruciating to the point where dying was preferable to living. It was the fact that I was innocent that kept me going."

February 28, 2004 at 10:07 PM in MI6 | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home

Iranian Radio Reports Bin Laden Captured

Yahoo! News - Iranian Radio Reports Bin Laden Captured

Sat Feb 28, 6:02 AM ET

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's state radio, quoting an unnamed source, said Saturday that Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) was captured in Pakistan "a long time ago." A Pakistan army spokesman denied he was captured.

The report said that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's visit to the region this week was in connection with the arrest.

The state radio said a reporter for its Pushtun service in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar "confirmed the news" that bin Laden had been captured in a tribal region in Pakistan. He said the news was from "a very reliable source in Peshawar, Pakistan," but the source was not identified.

Pakistani Army spokesman Gen. Shaukat Sultan told The Associated Press that the report is completely untrue. "That information is wrong," he said.

A Pakistani military operation has been under way in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan (news - web sites) and a Pakistani official said previously that members of al-Qaida are being sought there, although bin laden was not a specific target.

Iranian state radio quoted its reporter as saying the arrest happened a long time ago.

"Osama bin Laden has been arrested a long time ago, but Bush is intending to use it for propaganda maneuvering in the presidential election," he said.

Homayoun Jarir, son-in-law of Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, said he could not confirm the report.

Shamim Shahed, the bureau chief for "The Nation," an English-language newspaper in Peshawar, was cited by the director of IRNA's Pashtun radio service as the source of the bin Laden report.

But Shahed denied in an AP interview ever telling the Iranian news service that bin Laden had been captured.

"I never said this, but I have for the last year been saying that he is not far away. He is within their (the Americans) reach, and they can declare him arrested anytime," Shahed said. He gave no evidence to back up that claim.

February 28, 2004 at 01:48 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

John Kerry Unveils Comprehensive Plan to Fight the War on Terrorism

:: John Kerry for President - John Kerry Unveils Comprehensive Plan to Fight the War on Terrorism ::

February 27, 2004
For Immediate Release
Los Angeles, CA -

In a speech today at the UCLA International Institute, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry offered his comprehensive approach to fighting the global war on terrorism. In the second of a series of speeches on national security, Kerry presented a plan to identify, disrupt, and eliminate terrorist networks using all the resources at our disposal. As CIA Director George Tenet starkly reminded us this week, we are threatened by a far-flung terrorist network that will continue to operate even if Bin Laden is caught. Last December, John Kerry addressed the Council on Foreign Relations and outlined a global vision to make America safer and more secure. Today, he is detailing the terrorism component of that vision, strengthening the nation's position in the global war on terror.

Kerry will act militarily when necessary, build strong alliances with other nations and enhance our intelligence and law enforcement capabilities. Kerry addresses the root causes of terrorism and offers a real plan to secure our homeland by safeguarding our chemical and nuclear facilities, bolstering port and aviation security, restoring 100,000 COPS on the street and adding 100,000 new firefighters in our communities.
�We cannot win the War on Terror through military power alone,� Kerry told an audience at the University of California at Los Angeles. �As President, if necessary, I will use military force to protect our security, our people, and our vital interests. But the fight requires us to use every tool at our disposal. Not only a strong military � but renewed alliances, vigorous law enforcement, reliable intelligence, and unremitting effort to shut down the flow of terrorist funds.�

�To do all this, and to do our best, demands that we work with other countries instead of walking alone. For today the agents of terrorism work and lurk in the shadows of 60 nations on every continent. In this entangled world, we need to build real and enduring alliances.�

�We need a comprehensive approach for prevailing against terror � an approach that recognizes the many facets of this mortal challenge and relies on all the tools at our disposal to do it.�

Kerry also criticized the Bush Administration�s failure to maintain the post-9/11global coalition, inaction in stemming the rise of terrorism and inadequate efforts to defend the homeland.

�Day in and day out, President Bush reminds us that he is a war President and that he wants to make national security the central issue of this election. I am ready to have this debate. I welcome it. I am convinced that we can prove to the American people that we know how to make them safer and more secure � with a stronger, more comprehensive, and more effective strategy for winning the War on Terror than the Bush Administration has ever envisioned.�

John Kerry outlined a seven-point comprehensive plan to fight the war against terror:

I. Use Direct Military Action: Kerry will use military force when necessary to capture and destroy terrorist groups and their leaders. He will also increase active duty end strength and tailor forces to be better prepared for post-conflict and stability operation.

II. Improve International Intelligence and Law Enforcement: Kerry will strengthen communication networks between intelligence agencies, build cooperative capacity with international law enforcement agencies, increase the number of linguists trained in critical languages and create a real Director of National Intelligence with budget and personnel power.

III. Cut Off the Flow of Terrorist Funds: Kerry will impose tough financial sanction against banks or nations that engage in money laundering or fail to act against it and will launch a �name and shame� campaign against those that finance terror.

IV. Control the Spread of Weapons on Mass Destruction: Kerry will appoint a high-level Presidential envoy to lead the effort and expand the Nunn/Lugar program to buy up and destroy stockpiles of loose WMD materials.

V. Win the Peace in Iraq and Afghanistan: Kerry will bring real security in Iraq by broadening the coalition, including the United Nations, and creating a real Iraqi security force that can take care of itself and the people it is supposed to protect. In Afghanistan, Kerry would put forward a major increase in security and fund the promised a Marshall Plan for reconstruction.

VI. Win the War of Ideas and the Future of a Young Generation: Kerry will build bridges to the Arab and Islamic world by supporting and assisting human rights groups, independent media, and labor unions dedicated to building a democratic culture.

VII. Secure America's Homeland: Kerry will restore funding for the COPS program, add 100,000 firefighters to our streets, secure and protect our nuclear and chemical facilities, bolster port and aviation security.

John Kerry: Winning the War on Terror

I. An Integrated Strategy to Destroy Terrorists Groups

Terror is the principle threat we face. John Kerry will deny terrorists sanctuary in every cave and with every tool, by:

1. Direct Military Action. John Kerry will always be prepared to use military force when necessary to neutralize terrorists and drain the swamps where they breed.

Deploy the Best-Equipped Forces Backed by the Most Accurate Intelligence. Kerry will increase the size of the special operations forces; and, increase training for peace-keeping missions so that failed states can be secured and terrorist sanctuaries denied. He will ensure that America�s fighting men and women always have the best equipment and information.
Tailor Forces to be Better Prepared for Post-conflict and Stability Operations. Kerry will add more engineers, military police, psychological warfare personnel, and civil affairs teams to the military to ensure combat forces are not drawn away to fill roles that stability forces should fill -- and that a security vacuum does not threaten hard-won victories.
Increase Active Duty End Strength. To better meet the needs of the War on Terror and America's global obligations, John Kerry has called for a temporary increase of about 40,000 active-duty Army troops: 20,000 in such specialties as military police and civil affairs, and 20,000 combat.
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2. Improve International Intelligence and Law Enforcement. John Kerry will lead our nation in building strong international cooperation to ensure that America has the best information available and works effectively to cut financing for terrorist organizations.

Strengthen Communication Networks Between Intelligence Agencies. Kerry will ensure that our intelligence agencies receive the most accurate and timely information through established channels with intelligence and law enforcement agencies in other countries.
Build Cooperative Capacity with International Law Enforcement Agencies. Kerry will ensure that we are able to impart the latest and most effective techniques in battling terror to law enforcement agencies abroad as appropriate.
Increase the Number of Linguists Trained in Critical Languages. A Kerry Administration will increase funding and training for linguists competent in critical languages like Arabic so that American intelligence agencies have the best, most timely and translated information about terrorist planning and staging.
Create a Real Director of National Intelligence with Budget and Personnel Power. John Kerry will make the Director of the CIA the true Director of National Intelligence with real control of national intelligence personnel and budgets. John Kerry will also undertake and complete a national intelligence review immediately.
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3. Cut Off the Flow of Terrorist Funds

Impose financial sanctions against nations or banks that fail to cooperate in the effort to control money laundering. This is an urgent step to ensure that rhetoric is backed by the tough action required to cut the stream of terrorist financing.
Launch a "name and shame" campaign against individuals, banks and foreign governments that are financing terror. Those who fail to respond will be shut out of the U.S. financial system. There will be no sacred cows as we take the steps that are necessary to protect America.
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4. Control the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Appoint A High Level Envoy to Lead the Effort. John Kerry will ensure that the urgent and critical challenge of controlling the spread of WMD does not fall prey to inter-agency differences, and that a single individual is empowered to rally other nations to join an American-led effort to secure nuclear weapons and nuclear materials around the world.
Keep WMD from terrorists by aggressively refocusing and expanding efforts to secure stockpiles of loose WMD materials. Kerry will lead in this effort, and create a new international protocol to track and account for existing nuclear weapons and deter the development of chemical and biological arsenals.
Create a U.S.-Russian Commitment to Secure Russia�s Nuclear Weapons. Kerry will ensure that all of Russia�s nuclear weapons and materials are effectively secured within four years. He will significantly increase funding for Comprehensive Threat Reduction programs.
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5. Win the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan. John Kerry will bring real security in Iraq and Afghanistan to prevent terrorists from reemerging in Afghanistan or establishing a base in Iraq.

Broaden the Coalition in Iraq, Include the UN and Create Real Iraqi Security Forces for Stability. Kerry will do the tough diplomacy and hard bargaining to get more international boots and dollars and get the target off the backs of American troops. Kerry will rally the UN to help forge a transition to Iraqi sovereignty based on the need to build a stable democracy in Iraq. Kerry will be upfront about the costs, and he will make sure we meet our obligations fairly by rolling back tax cuts for the wealthiest and getting real international contributions.
Restore Security in Afghanistan and Undertake the Promised Marshall Plan. Kerry would expand the ISAF force and extend its reach into the provinces; and increase the trainees in the Afghan National Army (ANA). Kerry would pressure donor nations to meet the aid commitments they made at the Bonn Conference. He would double our counter-narcotics assistance to the Karzai government and make available a team of American counter-narcotics experts to provide technical assistance.
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II. Win the War of Ideas and the Future of a Younge Generation

John Kerry�s plan for building bridges to the Arab and Islamic world recognizes the key challenge posed by burgeoning youth cohorts. America�s security demands that young people have a future of promise and opportunity that is a clear alternative to terror and extremism.

Build Networks to Improve Education and Fight Brain Drain. Kerry will build closer integration between business communities and educational institutions so that curricula are developed and tailored to impart marketable skills to students. The project should build an infrastructure of knowledge and excellence that has suffered from brain drain and a dearth of important materials � from textbooks to news programming.
Assist Civil Society Through Human Rights Groups, Independent Media, and Labor Unions. Kerry will ensure that the U.S. government works with the private sector and international institutions to help civil society groups and governments aid democracy, public participation, free expression, transparency and efficient economic management.
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III. Secure America's Homeland

Recent reports have revealed alarming gaps in security procedures at our nation�s most critical facilities. John Kerry will secure out nuclear weapons storage sites, nuclear power plants and chemical facilities. Kerry will ensure our first defenders are equipped, that we can respond to biological attacks, and air transportation security is made safer.

1. A New First Defenders Initiative to Ensure Local Responders are Equipped and Ready. John Kerry will ensure that first defenders have the gear to do their jobs safely and effectively. John Kerry has proposed creating a new fund for fire fighters � named after a September 11th hero, Father Mychal Judge, the chaplain of the New York City Fire Department who died delivering last rites. The Father Judge Fund would be similar to the COPS program and will hire up to 100,000 new firefighters and to provide the equipment necessary to assure firefighters are prepared. Kerry also believes we must restore funding to COPS to realize its initial mission of 100,000 new police officers. This initiative would also develop appropriate standards for preparedness in our cities and provide resources so communities can meet these goals.

2. A National Homeland Health Initiative. America�s public health system has risen to important challenges before, but it lacks the advances necessary to detect or contain a major outbreak. John Kerry believes we must connect the nation�s public health systems with a real time detection system to pool patient data across the country. This initiative would also provide training in developing plans for a surge in patients. We also need to increase research � and bring together the best of the public and private sectors to develop broad-spectrum designer antidotes so that our first responders and our population can be protected and treated from the widest possible range of attacks.

3. Increase Port Security and Accelerate Border Security. Currently, 95% of all non-North American U.S. trade moves by sea, concentrated mostly in a handful of ports. John Kerry believes improvements in port security must be made, while recognizing that global prosperity and America�s economic power depends on an efficient system. Kerry�s plan would develop standards for security at ports and other loading facilities for containers and assure facilities can meet basic standards. To improve security in commerce, John Kerry believes we should accelerate the timetable for the action plans agreed to in the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico �smart border� accords as well as implement security measures for cross-border bridges. Finally John Kerry will pursue modest safety standards for privately held infrastructure and will help owners find economical ways to pay for increased security.

4. Secure Nuclear Power Plants, Nuclear Weapons Facilities and Chemical Facilities. John Kerry will appoint an Energy Secretary who takes nuclear plant security seriously and ensures meticulous follow-up to any security violations. He would also order an immediate review of engagement orders and weaponry for plant guards, and ensure attack simulation drills be as realistic as possible. A Kerry Administration would ensure that security of our nuclear weapons facilities is a U.S. government responsibility � not cede it to private contractors as the Bush Administration considered doing. A Kerry Administration will tighten security at chemical facilities across the nation that produce or store chemicals, focusing first on facilities in major urban areas where millions of Americans live within the circle of vulnerability.

5. Tighten Aviation Security and Combat Threats to Civilian Aircraft. John Kerry will close loopholes in existing regulations on cargo carried by passenger flights and increase the reliability of new screening procedures. Kerry will increase perimeter inspections of U.S. airports and work with international aviation authorities to make sure the same standards are in place at all international airports. He will work with our allies to crackdown on the sale of shoulder-fired missiles that could be used in an attack on civilian aircraft, and are sold on the black market.

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February 28, 2004 at 11:34 AM in US | Permalink | TrackBack (5) | Top of page | Blog Home

Global Warming a Greater Threat Than Terrorism!!

Report on potential for crisis in 20 years, as a result of global warming.

Pentagon.pdf

February 28, 2004 at 11:27 AM in UK | Permalink | TrackBack (13) | Top of page | Blog Home

Split of DHS, CIA Intel Functions Leaves Lawmakers Muddled

FOXNews.com - Politics - Split of DHS, CIA Intel Functions Leaves Lawmakers Muddled

Friday, February 27, 2004

WASHINGTON — One year after the Homeland Security Department (search) was opened to be a center for intelligence analysis, another shop overseen by CIA Director George Tenet (search) appears firmly ensconced as the intelligence community's leading brain trust.

That leaves some congressional members wondering who in the intelligence community is in charge of what.

The Homeland Security Department's inspector general warned in December that the main objective of the department's intelligence division - to centralize analysis and information about threats to the homeland - may be duplicated or trumped by other organizations, including the increasingly prominent Terrorist Threat Integration Center (search).

John Brennan, the threat center director who reports to Tenet, said his center fills a need spotted by the Bush administration to protect U.S. interests at home and abroad, pulling expertise from the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security and elsewhere.

Homeland's mission stopped at the U.S. shore, he noted in an interview this week at CIA headquarters.

"Did you really want to give this new organization (Homeland) the responsibility for setting something up, with secure communications systems and networks and having a fully trained analytic cadre?" Brennan asked. "No, you don't want to do that. What you want to do is tap into that capability that already exists."

Some lawmakers are not convinced.

Congress created Homeland and its information analysis, or intelligence, division in November 2002 as part of the largest government reorganization in more than 50 years.

Congressional sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were surprised when, just before President Bush's 2003 State of the Union, they learned Bush planned to announce another intelligence analysis center operating under Tenet's umbrella.

Lawmakers recently have been grilling administration officials about which agency is responsible for what.

In an October letter, Senate Government Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, and the panel's top Democrat, Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, asked how the intelligence community is operating - "to avoid any overlap, any confusion, any kind of uncertainty as to who has the principal responsibility," Levin said, following up at a hearing this month.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said: "The Homeland Security Act called for a robust intelligence fusion center within the Department of Homeland Security, but the administration created a separate threat center ... which does not truly break down the turf barriers among intelligence agencies."

Homeland's inspector general cautioned in December that two groups, including the terrorist threat center, either "overlap with, duplicate or even trump" the department's responsibility for centralizing terrorist threat information.

"Ensuring that DHS has access to the intelligence that it needs to prevent and/or respond to terrorist threats is, under such circumstances, an even harder challenge than it would otherwise be," the report said.

Brennan, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and other officials insist that the system works.

The threat center "is fulfilling DHS's mission," Brennan said. "We don't see ourselves as a competitor at all."

When asked at a hearing Wednesday about duplication, Ridge replied, "Some people call it duplication, others call it competitive analysis." He said diverse opinions help the process.

Brennan says his shop leads analysis operations, culling information from Homeland and other sources to develop threat reports for policy makers. Ridge and other officials can ask for more, or use the information to determine the nation's color-coded threat level or recommend air marshals.

Critics note that Homeland lacks resources and hasn't hired all the employees that Congress funded.

"It's a joke," said Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief who maintains contacts in the intelligence community. "What do you gain by having a DHS intelligence shop?"

Privately, even some in U.S. law enforcement and intelligence circles have called Homeland's analysts inexperienced and reactionary.

A senior French official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while the French have had a good working relationship with the FBI and CIA, Homeland officials are far less experienced and sometimes appear overly cautious. The official said the department tends to "open the umbrella" at the hint of rain.

Brennan, though, insists Homeland did a "superlative job" handling aviation threats over Christmas. But he says some allies may still be getting used to dealing with new players.

February 28, 2004 at 11:01 AM in CIA | Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Top of page | Blog Home

Amid debate on responsibility, CIA oversees threat analysis

Amid debate on responsibility, CIA oversees threat analysis

Friday, February 27, 2004
By Katherine Pfleger Shrader
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — An office overseen by the Central Intelligence director now plays the key role of analyzing threats to the United States, even though the Department of Homeland Security was opened a year ago for that reason.
Lawmakers are asking pointed questions about who's in charge, amid worries the overlap and confusion that plagued intelligence efforts before Sept. 11, 2001, could recur.

Homeland's inspector general warned in December that a principal objective in creating the department's intelligence division � to centralize analysis and information about threats to the United States � may be duplicated or trumped by other organizations, including the increasingly prominent Terrorist Threat Integration Center, overseen by Central Intelligence Director George Tenet.

The threat center's director John Brennan, who reports to Tenet, said, however, that his center is filling a need spotted by the Bush administration to protect U.S. interests at home and abroad, pulling expertise from the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security and elsewhere. Homeland's mission stopped at the U.S. shore, he noted in an interview this week at CIA headquarters.

"Did you really want to give (Homeland) the responsibility for setting something up, with secure communications systems and networks and having a fully trained analytic cadre?" Brennan said. "No, you don't want to do that. What you want to do is tap into that capability that already exists."

Still, some in Congress are not convinced. In November 2002, Congress created Homeland and its information analysis, or intelligence, division as part of the largest government reorganization in more than 50 years.

Congressional sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they were surprised when, just before President Bush's 2003 State of the Union, they learned Bush planned to announce another intelligence analysis center under Tenet's umbrella.

Lawmakers in recent weeks have repeatedly grilled administration officials about which agency is responsible for what.

In an October letter, Senate Government Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) and the panel's top Democrat, Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, asked how the intelligence community is operating � "to avoid any overlap, any confusion, any kind of uncertainty as to who has the principal responsibility," Levin said, after a hearing this month.

Said Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.): "The Homeland Security Act called for a robust intelligence fusion center within the Department of Homeland Security, but the administration created a separate threat center ... which does not truly break down the turf barriers among intelligence agencies."

In December, Homeland's inspector general cautioned that two groups, including the terrorist threat center, either "overlap with, duplicate or even trump" the department's responsibilty for centralizing terrorist threat information.

"Ensuring that DHS has access to the intelligence that it needs to prevent and/or respond to terrorist threats is, under such circumstances, an even harder challenge than it would otherwise be," the report said.

Brennan, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and other officials insist, however, the system is working.

The threat center "is fulfilling DHS's mission," Brennan said. "We don't see ourselves as a competitor at all."

Asked at a hearing Wednesday about duplication, Ridge replied: "Some people call it duplication, others call it competitive analysis." He said diverse opinions help the process.

Brennan says his shop is the lead analysis operation, culling information from various sources, including Homeland, to create threat reports for policy makers. Ridge and other officials can ask for more, or use the information to determine the nation's color-coded threat level or recommend air marshals.

Critics note that Homeland lacks resource and hasn't hired all the employees Congress has funded.

"It's a joke," said Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief who still maintains contacts in the intelligence community. "What do you gain by having a DHS intelligence shop?"

Privately, even some in U.S. law enforcement and intelligence circles have quietly called Homeland's analysts inexperienced and reactionary.

Internationally, a senior French official, speaking on condition of anonymity recently, said that while the French have had a good working relationship with the FBI and CIA, Homeland officials are far less experienced and sometimes appear overly cautious. The official said the department's reflex is to "open the umbrella" at the hint of rain.

Brennan, though, insists Homeland did a "superlative job" handling aviation threats over Christmas. But some allies may still be getting used to dealing with new players, he acknowledges.

"People are probably out of their comfort zones in some of these areas," Brennan said. "But DHS has some very important responsibilities."

� 2004 Associated Press � All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

February 28, 2004 at 11:00 AM in CIA | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home

John Kerry Unveils Comprehensive Plan to Fight the War on Terrorism

John Kerry for President Blog

Los Angeles, CA– In a speech today at the UCLA International Institute, John Kerry offered his comprehensive approach to fighting the global war on terrorism.
In the second of a series of speeches on national security, Kerry presented a plan to identify, disrupt, and eliminate terrorist networks using all the resources at our disposal. As CIA Director George Tenet starkly reminded us this week, we are threatened by a far-flung terrorist network that will continue to operate even if Bin Laden is caught.

Last December, John Kerry addressed the Council on Foreign Relations and outlined a global vision to make America safer and more secure. Today, he is detailing the terrorism component of that vision, strengthening the nation�s position in the global war on terror.

Kerry will act militarily when necessary, build strong alliances with other nations and enhance our intelligence and law enforcement capabilities. Kerry addresses the root causes of terrorism and offers a real plan to secure our homeland by safeguarding our chemical and nuclear facilities, bolstering port and aviation security, restoring 100,000 COPS on the street and adding 100,000 new firefighters in our communities.

�We cannot win the War on Terror through military power alone,� Kerry told an audience at the University of California at Los Angeles. �As President, if necessary, I will use military force to protect our security, our people, and our vital interests. But the fight requires us to use every tool at our disposal. Not only a strong military � but renewed alliances, vigorous law enforcement, reliable intelligence, and unremitting effort to shut down the flow of terrorist funds.�

�To do all this, and to do our best, demands that we work with other countries instead of walking alone. For today the agents of terrorism work and lurk in the shadows of 60 nations on every continent. In this entangled world, we need to build real and enduring alliances.�

�We need a comprehensive approach for prevailing against terror � an approach that recognizes the many facets of this mortal challenge and relies on all the tools at our disposal to do it.�

Kerry also criticized the Bush Administration�s failure to maintain the post-9/11global coalition, inaction in stemming the rise of terrorism and inadequate efforts to defend the homeland.

�Day in and day out, President Bush reminds us that he is a war President and that he wants to make national security the central issue of this election. I am ready to have this debate. I welcome it. I am convinced that we can prove to the American people that we know how to make them safer and more secure � with a stronger, more comprehensive, and more effective strategy for winning the War on Terror than the Bush Administration has ever envisioned.�

John Kerry outlined a seven-point comprehensive plan to fight the war against terror:

I. USE DIRECT MILITARY ACTION: Kerry will use military force when necessary to capture and destroy terrorist groups and their leaders. He will also increase active duty end strength and tailor forces to be better prepared for post-conflict and stability operation.

II. IMPROVE INTERNATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND LAW ENFORCEMENT: Kerry will strengthen communication networks between intelligence agencies, build cooperative capacity with international law enforcement agencies, increase the number of linguists trained in critical languages and create a real Director of National Intelligence with budget and personnel power.

III. CUT OFF THE FLOW OF TERRORIST FUNDS: Kerry will impose tough financial sanction against banks or nations that engage in money laundering or fail to act against it and will launch a �name and shame� campaign against those that finance terror.

IV. CONTROL THE SPREAD OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: Kerry will appoint a high-level Presidential envoy to lead the effort and expand the Nunn/Lugar program to buy up and destroy stockpiles of loose WMD materials.

V. WIN THE PEACE IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN: Kerry will bring real security in Iraq by broadening the coalition, including the United Nations, and creating a real Iraqi security force that can take care of itself and the people it is supposed to protect. In Afghanistan, Kerry would put forward a major increase in security and fund the promised a Marshall Plan for reconstruction.

VI. WIN THE WAR OF IDEAS AND THE FUTURE OF A YOUNG GENERATION: Kerry will build bridges to the Arab and Islamic world by supporting and assisting human rights groups, independent media, and labor unions dedicated to building a democratic culture.

VII. SECURE AMERICA�S HOMELAND: Kerry will restore funding for the COPS program, add 100,000 firefighters to our streets, secure and protect our nuclear and chemical facilities, bolster port and aviation security.

February 28, 2004 at 12:56 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home

CIA plot led to huge blast in Siberian gas pipeline

Telegraph | News | CIA plot led to huge blast in Siberian gas pipeline

By Alec Russell in Washington
(Filed: 28/02/2004)

A CIA operation to sabotage Soviet industry by duping Moscow into stealing booby-trapped software was spectacularly successful when it triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian gas pipeline, it emerged yesterday.

Thomas Reed, a former US Air F