Weekly Intelligence Notes #23-03 |
WIN 23-03, dated 13 June 2003
Weekly Intelligence Notes (WINs) are produced and edited by Roy Jonkers for non-profit educational uses by AFIO members and WIN subscribers.
AFIO LUNCHEON -- 24 June 03 at the Holiday Inn, McLean Virginia, is rapidly approaching. Great program! Don't miss it, don't forget -- Sign up now! (afio@afio.com) (tel. 703 790 0320)
CONTENTS of this WIN
HTML version recipients - Click title to jump to story or section, Click Article Title to return to Contents] [This feature does not work for Plaintext Edition recipients. If you wish to change to HTML format, let us know at afio@afio.com. If you use AOL, you would need AOL version 6.0 or higher to receive HTML messages, and have that feature turned on. The feature also does not work for those who access their mail using webmail.]
SECTION I - CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
US Worldwide Strategic Troop Redeployments Planned
SECTION II - CONTEXT AND PRECEDENT
The Iraq-Niger Uranium Forgery Caper
Threat Matrix Guides Terrorism Alerts
SECTION III - CYBER INTELLIGENCE
SECTION IV - BOOKS AND SOURCES
Adak: The Rescue of Alfa Foxtrot 586
Early Cold War Overflights 1950 -1956, Symposium Proceeding
SECTION V - NOTES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
SECTION I - CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
KOREAN INTELLIGENCE -- The US military posture in South Korea will change as the US regional strategy in dealing with North Korea unfolds. The Defense Department announced on 5 June 2003 that it will move thousands of troops now stationed near the Armistice-line-cum-border to areas further south.
Initially the 7,000 personnel in the headquarters in Seoul will be moved, followed in stage two by moving the 2nd Infantry division, with some 15,000 troops now deployed in 15 small encampments close to the DMZ, to Camp Casey and Camp Red Cloud south of the Han River. Some time next year the entire division will be moved to a new facility near Osan. This will be the first repositioning of US troops since the Korean War ended in 1953. It will cost some $11 billion over four years to shift U.S. troops and to upgrade defenses. The redeployments will take away the North Korean option for a lightning surprise attack on US forces, inflicting major casualties by heavy artillery barrages and complicating the application of US air and space power. US Forces in neighboring Japan are not expected to change dramatically.
US strategy towards North Korea is clearly different from that adopted towards Iraq. North Korea is poor in natural resources. It has no oil. Its geo-strategic location is marginal. Neither occupation nor unification are high priority US national interests. But it has a small nuclear weapons capability, some ballistic missiles, and has exported the missiles. In the hard-nosed context of national strategy, there is a high premium on containing (stopping) the North Koreans missile exports, but the cost of completely demilitarizing the North could be too great -- and also, a continued 'threat' from the miniscule North Korean ballistic missile-nuclear capability would serve to help justify the US Ballistic Missile Defense system deployment and space strategy. (Jonkers) (WashTimes, 6 June 03, p. A1 //B. Gertz)
US WORLDWIDE STRATEGIC TROOP REDEPLOYMENTS PLANNED -- A radical redeployment of US forces worldwide is now being planned in conjunction with force transformation and the new national strategy. US forces in Western Europe will be reduced as troops are shifted to Eastern Europe and toward the Middle East and Central Asia as well as Africa. The redeployments are driven by US strategic requirements, including guaranteed access to key oil reserves, combating terrorism, and containing the spread of nuclear weapons and long-range missile systems. Final decisions will reportedly be made within months, and troops will begin moving in about a year.
In GERMANY, the 70,000 Army troops stationed there, particularly those in Heidelberg, Wiesbaden, Grafenwohr, and Wurzburg, will be reduced by as much as 75%. Some 5,000 to 10,000 troops will be moved eastward, to Poland, where they will have access to large training ranges without the same restrictions on environmental pollution that made training in Germany more cumbersome.
Some WEST EUROPEAN facilities have proved so useful that they will be retained. Ramstein Air Base in western Germany and key air hubs in Italy and Spain are unlikely to be downsized. The U.S. European Command headquarters (USEUCOM) based in Stuttgart also is not likely to move.
To project power into the CENTRAL ASIA area, with its large oil and gas deposits, US forces are likely to increase to as many as 15,000 troops, some rotating through small bases in countries such as Azerbaijan and Georgia, but most of them moving to larger facilities near Black Sea ports in Romania and Bulgaria. US bases are already established in the Central Asian republics of Kyrgyztan and Uzbekstan, as well as in Afghanistan.
In the MIDDLE EAST, some of the 5,000 US troops in Saudi Arabia will be moved to Qatar and others will return to the U.S. The 3,000 Air Force personnel at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey (who were enforcing the northern Iraq no-fly zone) will probably be reduced to about 500 troops. The ultimate size of the force may depend on what kind of assurances the Turks, who balked at allowing the U.S. to stage ground troops or fly Iraq war missions from their soil, give the U.S. regarding troop use in the future.
In NORTH AFRICA, planners are looking at establishing semi-permanent bases in Algeria, Morocco and possibly Tunisia. In EAST AFRICA the 1,500 Marines and Special Operations forces now in Djibouti could be expanded to 6,500 troops stationed at several posts, including in Kenya. They would be focused on terrorism. In WEST AFRICA, austere bases in Senegal, Ghana, and Mali are being considered to ensure that Nigeria's oil fields, which in the future could account for as much as 25% of all U.S. oil imports, are secure.
Bases in Australia are also being considered. On balance, the redeployments lay down the infrastructure to implement the current National Strategy, and although the considerable expense might cause some hesitation, they are likely to be funded. Clearly it will fundamentally affect US Intelligence community requirements, focus and forces, including local and regional force protection, and possibly a new type of Defense covert HUMINT counter-terrorist force. (Jonkers) (Wall St. Journal, 10 June 03, p. 1 //G. Jaffe)
OCEANIC INTELLIGENCE -- Generally overlooked as we concentrate on finding terrorist threat splinters in the whole threat forest of dangers to our global existence and well-being from industrial practices. Last month another major warning flag was raised, this time about the ocean's fish. Canadian scientists reported that 90 percent of the world's big fish have disappeared, wiped out by industrialized over-fishing, including particularly the practice of long-lining, using lines up to 60 miles long. Our children and grandchildren will inherit what we sow. (Jonkers) (WashTimes 12 June 03 //T. Steiner)
SECTION II - CONTEXT AND PRECEDENT
THE IRAQ-NIGER URANIUM FORGERY CAPER -- President Bush's claim in his State of the Union address last January that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program, as attested by its alleged attempt to buy uranium in Niger, was apparently based on a CIA report. Possessing documents purportedly showing that Iraqi officials had been seeking to buy uranium in Niger one or two years earlier, the CIA in early February 2002 dispatched a retired U.S. ambassador to the country to investigate the claims. The CIA's envoy spoke with the President of Niger and other Niger officials, some of whose signatures allegedly appeared on the documents. After returning to the United States, the envoy reportedly informed the CIA that his contacts asserted that the uranium-purchase story was false. Among the envoy's conclusions was that the documents were likely to have been forged because the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong."
The CIA report noted that Niger government officials had denied the attempted deal had taken place. But according to the critics in the media, CIA did not include details of the former ambassador's report in reports that were shared with other government agencies. One might note that the denial by Niger's officials at this point could not be taken as conclusive.
Thirteen months later, on March 8, Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, informed the U.N. Security Council that after careful scrutiny of the Niger documents, his agency had reached the same conclusion as the CIA's envoy. ElBaradei deemed the documents "not authentic," an assessment that U.S. officials did not dispute.
The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) or the Intellgience Oversight Board may be asked to investigate the Niger forgery and how it made its way into President Bush's State of the Union address on Jan. 28. In making the case that Iraq had an ongoing nuclear weapons program, the President declared that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." That same month, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice also mentioned Iraq's alleged attempts to buy uranium, and the story made its way into a State Department "fact sheet" as well. Later it was disclosed that the United States and Britain were basing their reports on common information that originated with forged documents provided originally by Italian intelligence officials.
The Iraq-Niger uranium purchase claim appears to have been someone's deception effort. It will be interesting (maybe embarrassing) to find the real source, but it will probably not become public. How the story was reported by intelligence and received by Administration and Congressional officials seems to hinge on nuances. The DCI and CIA reportedly stated clearly that Niger government representatives had denied the allegation of a sale of uranium to Iraq. With US officials operating within the pressure-cooker of Administration war strategy, however, the caveat seems to have gotten de-emphasized and lost somewhere in the process. Since this affected the President's address adversely, and with politicians and media now on the trail, someone may ultimately have to take the blame. (Jonkers) (WashPost 9 June 03 //W. Pincus)
THREAT MATRIX GUIDES TERRORISM ALERTS -- The Threat Matrix is a daily threat compendium of up to 30 pages, listing every threat directed at the US in the past 24 hours. No threat is ignored, and even known hoaxes are reported. Each entry includes the type of source, such as a human informant, intercepted signal or computer e-mail. Also included are possible targets and which terrorist group might be plotting an attack, and some notes about a threat's level of credibility or corroboration. The Matrix also describes possible methods of attack and lists what government action has been taken to avert it. For the FBI, that could mean obtaining an emergency warrant — Attorney General Ashcroft sometimes is awakened in the middle of the night for his signature — to set up secret surveillance and tap telephones of suspected terrorists in the United States. The Homeland Security Department might notify sensitive industrial sites about threats to their installations. The CIA could step up efforts to penetrate foreign groups that might be plotting.
Before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the CIA was responsible for providing the White House and other government agencies with terrorist threat assessments. Since the attacks, the FBI has reinforced its domestic intelligence-gathering capabilities, working more closely with the CIA than ever in the past. The daily Matrix now is produced by the two agencies' counter-terror units together at the new Terrorist Threat Integration Center, now at CIA headquarters in Virginia but soon to get its own home. (AP //J. Lumpkin)
SECTION III - CYBER INTELLIGENCE
CELL PHONES TRIGGER BOMBS -- Investigators looking into the May 12 terrorist bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed 35 people (including nine Americans), found that cell phones were modified and rigged to detonate explosives by remote control. The FBI urged U.S. law enforcement officials to be on the lookout for similar devices, according to a weekly FBI bulletin to 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies. (Levine 11 June 03) (http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/06/11/nationa l1833EDT0748.DTL)
NEW DOD ACCESS CARD PROGRAM -- The Defense Department is close to launching a pilot program that would provide DOD employees and contractors with a single access card for entering any DOD facility. The pilot program is part of the department's Defense 'Cross-credentialing Identification System,' which will consist of a collection of shared government and contractor databases of personnel information. The shared information will make it easier for the department to manage who has access to their facilities. (Levine 10 June 03) http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0609/web-dod-06-10-03.asp
HOW DUMB CAN ONE GET? -- A word to the unwary: Private missives don't belong on the Internet. Why can't we behave? When the risks are huge and the potential consequences dire, why can't we stop ourselves from typing those suicidal e-mails, hitting the send key and sealing our doom? This month, it's West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise's turn to ponder those questions. Until a few weeks ago, incumbent Wise was a shoo-in as Democratic candidate in his state's next gubernatorial election. Now, members of his own party are suggesting he resign; Republicans are savoring their improved chances -- and Wise, 55, has proved he is anything but smart. The reckless fingers of fate -- his own -- may have typed him right out of the governor's office. And his cyber-trail of decidedly unromantic e-mails to a state employee with whom he may have been romantically involved are making him something of a literary laughingstock as well. (Levine 9 June 03) (Courtesy L. Sulc) (LA Times 6 June 03) http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-et-levine6jun06,1,5771765.story
SECTION IV - BOOKS AND SOURCES
ADAK: The Rescue of Alfa Foxtrot 586: by Andrew. C.A. Jampoler, Naval Institute Press, May 2003, Notes, Bibliography, ISBN 1-59114-412-4. The author is a retired naval aviator, who knows whereof he speaks. He personally knew Jerry Grigsby, the Alpha Foxtrot aircraft commander, Alpha Foxtrot 586, a P-3 Orion aircraft, with fourteen crewmembers on a mission off the Kamchatka Peninsula during the Cold War, went down 25 years ago, in October 1978. The aircraft went down in just 90 seconds, taking one of the three rafts with it. A second raft, terribly overcrowded, soon begins to leak. The book tells the story of the desperate battle to survive, providing both a story of heroics and tragedies of survival on the open seas a rare insight into surveillance operations by Navy patrol boats during the Cold War. Ironically it was a Soviet fishing trawler that saved the living and recovered the bodies of the dead, affirming a common bond of humanity. (RJ)
EARLY COLD WAR OVERFLIGHTS 1950 -1956, SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDING: Volumes I (Memoirs) and II Appendixes, compiled and edited by R. Cargill Hall & Clayton D. Laurie, Eds, Office of the Historian, National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Washington DC, 2003, ISBN 0-9724322-0-5. Outstanding, interesting reading of early US and UK missions, intruding over "denied territory" to gather vitally needed intelligence on the Soviets and their allies early in the Cold War. These highly classified missions involved incredible dangers and hardships. This is not dry history -- but first-hand accounts. Fascinating reading. What is today routine and done by satellites or high performance vehicles, in the early 1050's was done by courageous crews in high-risk missions with RF-86's and RB-57's or 45's. A great contribution to public knowledge of early post-WW II intelligence. Highly recommended! NOTE: The volumes are for sale by NTIS, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, Va. 22161, tel.# 703 605 6000, fax #6900. NOTE: The NTIS number is: PB 2003 928 004. (Jonkers) (courtesy George DP.& NRO)
ALTERNATIVE NEWS SITES -- English-language news sites from
other countries –
http://news.bbc.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk
http://www.observer.co.uk
http://www.atimes.com
http://www.news.com.au
http://www.rnw.nl
http://www.alternet.org
ALTERNATIVE NEWS AND COMMENTARY (US-BASED) --
http://www.inthesetimes.com
http://www.tompaine.com
http://www.mediamonitors.net
http://www.alternet.org
http://www.commondreams.org
(Quoted by Roz Ault in the thread, "Alternative News Sites", in Internet)(BG)
SECTION V - NOTES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
AFIO LUNCHEON -- 24 June 03 at the Holiday Inn, McLean Virginia, is rapidly approaching. Great program! Don't miss it, don't forget -- Sign up now! (afio@afio.com) (tel. 703 790 0320)
EMPLOYMENT NOTICE -- Integrated Data Systems is looking to hire about 20 intelligence analysts to work at the DIAC (Bolling AFB) or Northern Virginia locations. Contact Col (ret) Kevin Johnson, kjohnson@idshq.com
Intelligence Analyst Job Description --
Responsible for performing all-source intelligence analysis to support the global war on terrorism. Will perform database support (migration of data between legacy and new counter terrorism/force protection databases); review and evaluation of raw information; drafting, publishing and disseminating critical information/products; conducting open source research on terrorism-related subjects. Must have proven analytical skills and exemplary written and oral communications skills. The nature of work requires a high attention to detail and strong organizational abilities. Must possess a proven ability to perform all-source research and analysis, either from prior military or civilian experience in security, counter-terrorism, or force protection in support of military or government operations. Must have experience with intelligence and/or open source information systems, specifically database and web browser manipulation. A strong understanding of database concepts is highly desired. Also desired is experience with US Intelligence Community (specifically Department of Defense) message handling systems. Transferable Top Secret clearance required. Location: Washington, DC; Colorado Springs, CO; Tampa, FL and St. Louis, MO.
GAIL N. writes on IRAQ WMD -- Something is really wrong within the IC when we cannot find WMD capabilities in a nation (Iraq) that touted just such a capability. Saddam's 'denial and strategic deception' policy simply was not that good. It appears there was a systemic failure within the IC to authoritatively analyze Saddam's Security and Cover & Denial Policies and Capabilities.
Where are our Iraqi specialists and geopolitical scholars in the IC to explain these perception failures? Where are the in-depth, authoritative CIA, DIA, or CENTCOM Annual or Special Country Estimates on Iraq that should have provided accurate WMD assessments and projections? To assume that we are going forward based only on Current Intelligence Assessments is foolish and a recipe for more Intelligence failures. (GN)
WINs are protected by copyright laws and intellectual property laws, and may not be reproduced or re-sent without specific permission from the Producer. Opinions expressed in the WINs are solely those of the editor(s) or author(s) listed with each article. AFIO Members Support the AFIO Mission - sponsor new members! CHECK THE AFIO WEBSITE at www.afio.com for back issues of the WINs, information about AFIO, conference agenda and registrations materials, and membership applications and much more! (c) 2003, AFIO, 6723 Whittier Ave, Suite 303A, McLean, VA 22101. AFIO@afio.com; Voice: 703 790-0320; Fax: 703 790-0264