WIN #17-04 dtd 24 May 2004
Weekly Intelligence Notes (WINs) are commentaries on Intelligence and related national security matters, based on open media sources, selected, interpreted, edited and produced by AFIO for non-profit educational uses by AFIO members and WIN subscribers. TO DISCONTINUE RECEIPT OF WINS/EBBNS -- CLICK UNSUBSCRIBE at the bottom of this email, or send a separate email to afio@afio.com and supply your name.
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SECTION I -- CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
SECTION II -- CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE
What’s Wrong at Homeland Security and How to Fix It
Joint U.S.-European Contract For NATO Surveillance Aircraft
SECTION III -- CYBER INTELLIGENCE
Richard Clarke Lambastes White House on Cybersecurity
Danger Seen of Cyberattack by Unknown Enemy
Complaint Filed Under Utah Anti-Spyware Law
SECTION IV -- EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Naval Intelligence Strategy Analyst Wanted
SECTION V -- BOOKS, SOURCES, AND ISSUES
BOOKS
A British View of the Iraq War
Conspiracy Theory for the American Talib
ISSUES
Has North Korea Been Selling What It Takes to Make Nukes?
Russian Imprisoned After Neglecting Wife’s Advice
Guess Who Russians Define as Their ‘Main Enemy’
SECTION VI -- NOTES, LETTERS, AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
NOTES
Private Funding Needed for New Cryptologic Museum Building
LETTERS
Information Wanted on Lambros Callimahos
Need for Regime Change in Washington?
COMING EVENTS
27 May - Inside Stories: Tales from the OSS
29 May - The Office of Strategic Services Society
8 June - The Greatest Spy Theft in History
10 June - Handbook of Practical Spying.
IN MEMORIAM
CIA Remembers Employees Killed in the Line of Duty
Memorial Service for Operative Who Never Was
SECTION I -- CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
THE CHALABI AFFAIR -- The U.S. government has launched an investigation to determine how Ahmad Chalabi, once Vice President Cheney and the Pentagons civilian leadership’s favorite Iraqi, obtained highly classified American intelligence and passed it on to Iran. Chalabi has responded by calling the allegations of espionage a smear that is the work of DCI Tenet. Chalabi attributed his difficulties to his calls for Iraqi sovereignty and an end to what he described as the failed U.S. occupation of Iraq. No warrant has been issued for his arrest but one has been put out for Aras Habib, Chalabi's top intelligence adviser. The Washington Post
On 21 May, a senior administration official described the evidence against Chalabi and his Iraq National Congress as rock solid. FreeRepublic.com. The official spoke the day after Iraqi police, backed by U.S. soldiers, raided Chalabi's house and offices in Baghdad and took away papers and computers. According to Ali Sarraf, the INC's finance director, three CIA agents followed the Iraqi police into the house. The Guardian. Entifadh Qanbar, Chalabi's spokesman, said armed plainclothes CIA agents participated in the raid. Witnesses reported seeing Americans in casual clothes and flak jackets standing outside the residence during the raid. The Washington Times.
The raid was preceded last week by Washington cutting off a monthly subsidy of $335,000 to the INC. According to the New York Post, the cut off was the result of King Abdullah of Jordan giving President Bush a file compiled by Jordanian intelligence about Chalabi passing secrets to the Iranians as well as running extortion rackets. The New York Post. Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz smoothly told Congress that the Pentagon had ended its relationship with the INC because the U.S. was transferring sovereignty to the Iraqi people at the end of June. Benador Associates.
Long a controversial figure, Chalabi was convicted in absentia of bank fraud in 1992 by a military court in Jordan when the Petra Bank he founded failed. He said the charges were politically motivated. A recent article by Andrew Cockburn, a respected writer on Iraqi affairs, offers a mass of testimony to the contrary. Chalabi has been at odds for months with Paul Bremer, the U.S. proconsul in Iraq. Chalabi has a shrewd ability to get his hands on files potentially embarrassing to people mentioned in them. Most recently he has been trying to gather evidence concerning the oil-for-food scandal in which senior UN officials, among many others, are implicated. This appears to have been one among several reasons why Bremer acted to hobble Chalabi whose money and political savvy have given him influence far beyond that his lack of popularity among Iraqis could allow. In the view of some observers, Bremer acted to avert a risk that Chalabi might become able to compromise America's interest in involving the United Nations in creating an Iraqi government, something Chalabi opposes. UN involvement would tend to bestow a legitimacy the current Interim Governing Council lacks. Its members were picked by Bremer who shares among Iraqis in the rising unpopularity with the coalition occupation.
Then there is the faulty intelligence Chalabi fed the Bush administration, determined as he was to get it to topple Saddam. Information concerning Saddam's WMD programs was accepted in Washington with the consequence that Secretary Powell told the United Nations in February 2003 that Iraq had mobile biological warfare laboratories. He did so despite warnings from the German Federal Intelligence Service, the Bundesnachrichtendiesnt, that the sources providing the information were unreliable.
Chalabi is unrepentant about the deception and justifies the means by the end. "As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful," he told the Daily Telegraph (London) last February. "That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We're ready to fall on our swords if he wants." Telegraph Online.
But, Chalabi's conduct since then indicates he is not about to fall on his sword. The intellectually brilliant scion of a highly influential family when Iraq was a monarchy, he left the country when he was 13 but has never forgotten the power his family held prior to the military coup of 1958. In the view of some observers, his career has been divided broadly into two parts. The earlier was his accumulation of a new fortune for himself and his relations, culminating but not ending in what his critics, including the Jordanian government, see as the milking of the Petra Bank. Family resources restocked, Chalabi then launched into a determined effort to overthrow Saddam.
Chalabi may have expected his neocon friends to install him in power in Baghdad, but the best he has gotten was membership in the IGC. Opinion polls show that he is by far its least popular member. A BBC-commissioned poll showed Chalabi was distrusted by three times as many Iraqis as distrusted Saddam.
Scrambling to maintain himself at the center of the Iraqi scene, Chalabi switched to biting the American hand that fed him for so long, a policy that may improve his popular standing. A sophisticated, secularized Shii, he also appears to have understood that in order to have any kind of substantial political base, he must obtain the support of the power brokers in his branch of Islam, no matter how askance they look at the kind of people who imbibe Scotch.
Perhaps the most pertinent judgment of Chalabi was delivered by Martin Indyk, Assistant Secretary of State and National Security Council staff director under the Clinton administration, Indyk, who now runs the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington, commented about Chalabi: "He was impressive in Washington because, among a feckless crew of Iraqi exiles, he was the one who stood out for his intelligence and organizational abilities and his courage. But Ahmad has a fatal flaw: he's too clever by half and he's challenged by the truth, which has been the repeated pattern of his undoing." Washington Post (DKR)
ABU GHRAIB AND MI -- A sharper, more detailed picture of the role played by military intelligence at Abu Ghraib has emerged over the past week. So has the question of how high up in the chain of command the abuses at the prison were known. On 23 May, the Washington Post reported that a military lawyer, Capt. Robert Shuck, said a captain at the prison was ready to testify that the senior general in Iraq. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, had been present during some interrogations and was aware of what was taking place on Tier 1A of Abu Ghraib prison. Washington Post. Sanchez staff issued a flat denial.
Shuck was assigned to defend Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II of the 372nd Military Police Company facing charges originating in the abuse scandal. Shuck said Reese would testify that Capt. Carolyn A. Wood of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, who supervised MI operations at Abu Ghraib, was involved in intensive interrogations of detainees, condoned some of the activities and stressed that that was standard procedure. Other Army officers have said Wood brought to Iraq the aggressive procedures the unit had developed during her previous service in Afghanistan.
An MI sergeant, Samuel Provance, told the Post and ABC News on 16 May that MI officers directed the MPs actions at Abu Ghraib and that MI appeared to be covering up its role in the cases. Provance operated a top-secret computer network at the facility and processed information for the interrogators. On 21 May, Provance told the paper, he was stripped of his top-secret security clearance, transferred to another platoon and 'flagged,' that is in effect barred from promotion or honors. He had violated an order not to talk about the investigation into the scandal. Washington Post.
A new time line provided by an Army spokesman showed that the involvement of MI personnel in abuses at Abu Ghraib began in October 2003, the New York Times reported on 22 May. The first known episode involved soldiers assigned to the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center. Three enlisted soldiers from Wood’s battalion were fined and demoted in the incident. New York Times.
Attorney Paul Bergrin, who represents another charged MP, Sgt. Javal S. Davis, said the soldiers were simply following the lead of military intelligence officers. "There are no ifs, ands or buts," Bergrin said. "They [MI] did order it. They were told consistently, 'Soften them up; loosen them up. Look what's happening in the field. Soldiers are dying in droves. We need more intelligence...” "Nobody put it in writing; no one's going to be stupid enough for that. My client went to Sgt. Frederick and questioned him: 'Should we be following these orders?' And Sgt. Frederick said, 'Absolutely. We're saving American lives. That's what we wear the uniform for.' "
Sanchez told the Senate Armed Services Committee on 19 May, "We must fully investigate and fix responsibility, as well as accountability...As a senior commander in Iraq, I accept responsibility for what happened at Abu Ghraib, and I accept as a solemn obligation the responsibility to ensure that it does not happen again." Also last October, intelligence officers demanded strict limits on access by the International Committee of the Red Cross to prisoners.
In a November report to U.S. military commanders, the ICRC complained its inspectors had faced restrictions at the behest of MI but had even so found naked prisoners covering themselves with packages from ready-to-eat military rations. Prisoners had been subjected to deliberate physical violence and verbal abuse and were found to be incoherent, anxious and even suicidal, with abnormal symptoms provoked by the interrogation period and methods, the ICRC said.
Documents assembled by Army investigators and obtained by the Times cite American dog handlers as saying the use of military working dogs in interrogations at Abu Ghraib was approved by Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade.
After 19 November, on Sanchez’s orders, Pappas and his brigade took command of all of Abu Ghraib prison, taking over authority from the 800th Military Police Brigade. Pappas acknowledged in sworn testimony to a senior Army investigator that his subordinates directed MPs to strip Iraqi prisoners naked and to shackle them. Pappas is the highest-ranking officer on active duty known to be under investigation for the abuses committed at Abu Ghraib. The Times, citing senior Army officers, said on 19 May, that Pappas was under enormous pressure from his superiors to extract more information from prisoners at Abu Ghraib. NY Times. "He likened it to a root canal without Novocain," the newspaper quotes a senior officer as saying about Pappas’ meetings with his superiors in Baghdad. Often, the officer said, Pappas would emerge from discussions with Sanchez and Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast clutching his face as if in pain. Fast heads G2 in Baghdad and, according to the St Petersburg Times, was in charge of interrogators at Abu Ghraib, where prisoners were beaten, sodomized and photographed in sexually degrading positions.
Maj. Gen. George Fay, the Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, has been tasked with conducting an investigation into MI’s role in Iraq and Afghanistan. Provance says Fay was only interested in what MPs had done at Abu Ghraib and was asking no questions about MI.
SECTION II -- CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE
WHAT’S WRONG AT HOMELAND SECURITY AND HOW TO FIX IT -- Pity the poor Department of Homeland Security – and you will, if you read an ‘E-note’ by Seth Jones, written for the Foreign Policy Research Institute of Philadelphia (www.fpri.org) and distributed 21 May by e-mail. Jones works for the RAND Corporation, teaches at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and was an analyst with the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, known as the Gilmore Commission.
In “Terrorism and the Battle for Homeland Security,” he writes that when in June 2002, the White House announced plans to set up DHS, is was supposed to synthesize and analyze homeland security intelligence from multiple sources and coordinate communications with state and local governments, private industry, not to mention the American people about threats and preparedness. That has not happened and DHS has been sidelined while the CIA and FBI have strengthened their homeland security capabilities, according to Jones. The CIA has done this with the creation of a Terrorist Threat Integration Center in 2003, and the FBI by improving its homeland counterterrorism and intelligence capabilities.
Of the four directorates that make up DHS, that of Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection was intended to be the most important, says Jones. Its task was to be coordinating and analyzing intelligence about terrorist threats, assessing vulnerabilities to U.S. infrastructure, and disseminating information to the private sector and to relevant federal, state, and local officials. It was to fuse and analyze intel from the CIA, NSA, FBI, INS, DEA, DOE, Customs, DOT, and data gleaned from other organizations. Instead, the CIA and the FBI successfully resisted handing over significant power to DHS while support in the White House and on Capitol Hill for the new department faded away. When there was a call for a new interagency body, the TTIC was set up. It is not formally a part of the CIA but under the control of the DCI. It integrates and analyzes all terrorist threat information, maintains a database of known and suspected terrorists accessible to federal, state and local officials, and prepares the president’s daily threat matrix. Its staff is drawn from across the Intelligence Community, but as Jones writes, the CIA wields a preponderant influence in the center. “TTIC is currently placed under the CIA's budget,” Jones notes, “and is located at CIA headquarters, though there have been some indications that it could move to neighboring Tyson's Corner.”
As for the FBI, it has adopted a pre-emptive strategy, increased its counterterrorism resources, and established an Office of Intelligence, motivated by a desire to remain the lead counterterrorism agency for homeland threats. Since 9/11, Jones reports, the bureau has disrupted alleged terrorist cells in Buffalo, Detroit, and Portland, Oregon; charged nearly 200 terrorist suspects with crimes; and deported at least 500 suspected terrorists. On 9/11, some 635 agents were working fulltime on counterterrorism; now there are more than 2,000. The bureau established an Operations Center and set up 66 Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country, which include state and local law officers. It has greatly expanded its presence in Africa, the Middle East and Southwest, Central and Southeast Asia by adding FBI legal attachés, known as legats, to U.S. embassies. The bureau now has several hundred agents working overseas.
In January 2003, the FBI also bolstered its analytical capabilities by creating an Executive Assistant Director for Intelligence and an Office of Intelligence responsible for identifying emerging threats and to share information with the Intelligence Community, Capitol Hill, foreign governments and state and local law enforcement, and the private sector. This, Jones notes, places the FBI in direct competition with DHS which finds itself short of competent intelligence analysts, who would rather work for the CIA, the FBI or other parts of the IC.
How then to improve the provision and distribution of intelligence concerning homeland security? In Jones’ view, placing power to collect and analyze data on homeland security threats with the CIA, which both keeps a close hold on intelligence and has no legal domestic jurisdiction, compromises homeland security. As for the DHS, it lacks the needed analytical capabilities. That leaves the FBI and, after considering various possibilities, Jones comes down in favor of transferring TTIC out of the realm of the CIA and to the bureau. “The FBI has a clear and legal domestic jurisdiction, a good working relationship with state and local actors, a Counterterrorism
Division already in place, and proven willingness to become more proactive,” he writes.
The FBI, Jones concludes, should be the lead agency for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating information on terrorist threats to the homeland, with support from DHS, the CIA, and the IC as a whole. (DKR)
JOINT U.S.-EUROPEAN CONTRACT FOR NATO SURVEILLANCE AIRCRAFT – In a rare demonstration of trans-Atlantic cooperation on a grand scale in defense procurement, a group of six companies, led by the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company and Northrop Grumman, are to build a fleet of manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft for NATO by 2010, according to an official close to the selection process. The deal is worth $4.8 billion. It would be only the second time NATO members have joined together in procurement on this scale. The first time was the AWACS aerial surveillance system purchase.
The EADS-Northrop consortium includes Galileo Avionics of Italy, General Dynamics Canada, Indra of Spain, and Thales of France. In addition, more than 80 other companies from NATO countries support the joint proposal, which is to provide manned A320 Airbus planes and unmanned Global Hawk UAVs. The price of an A320 is about $60 million, according to an EADS spokesman. But addition of an intel collection sensor suite would be likely to run up the cost. Northrop builds the Global Hawk for about $30 million a company spokesman said.
While consortium officials stress the element of trans-Atlantic cooperation in the deal, other observers noted it enabled the Europeans to acquire the only available, operationally-proven, state of the art, high-altitude UAV in existence without having to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development, already been done by the United States.(Harvey, DKR)
SECTION III -- CYBER INTELLIGENCE
RICHARD CLARKE LAMBASTS WHITE HOUSE ON CYBSERSECURITY -- He’s at it again. Having won fame as a critic of the White House's handling of 9/11, Richard Clarke is now attacking its handling of cybersecurity. Clarke, author of the best-selling book Against All Enemies, moved in 2001 from his job as White House counterterrorism chief to head a new White House cybersecurity office, created on his recommendation. The administration, he now charges, has given cybersecurity too low a priority.
Clarke told the National Journal's Technology Daily on 17 May, "I think the national strategy fell essentially on deaf ears. The president signed it, the president issued it, there was the usual amount of lip service to it, but then nothing ever happened for the better part of a year."
After agreeing to set up a national cybersecurity division in the Department of Homeland Security, the Bush administration first dragged their feet in appointing someone to run it and when they did, the position was too low a position to have government-wide impact, Clarke said. But that might change, he added, as House Republicans are interested in elevating the job to the assistant-secretary level and giving the incumbent authority over cybersecurity in other departments. He also criticized the administration for cutting overall funding for cybersecurity research and for not creating a federal government that is a model of how to do cybersecurity. "Most of the departments are still in bad shape," he said. Clarke left for the private sector after 30 years of federal service. (www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0504/051704tdpm1.htm) (Newsbits, DKR)
DANGER SEEN OF CYBERATTACK BY UNKNOWN ENEMY -- Andy Cutts, an expert on cyberterrorism at Dartmouth's Institute for Security Technology Studies, has warned that U.S. computing networks, as used by banks, law enforcement bodies, energy providers and emergency response organizations, face the risk of hostile campaigns by unknown adversaries.
Speaking at a Dickey Center's War and Peace discussion panel earlier in May, Cutts warned that because of the anonymous nature of cyberterrorism, such an attack could come from virtually any source, whether an enemy state or a small terrorist group. Cutts was briefing a discussion of Operation Livewire, a recent nationwide cyberterror simulation that tested America's preparedness in the event of a major cyber attack. The Darmouth (Newsbits, DKR)
COMPLAINT FILED UNDER UTAH ANTI-SPYWARE LAW -- Utah is unique in the world in having an anti-spyware law and now the first complaint has been lodged under that law. Overstock.com filed a complaint against online retailer SmartBargains in the Third District court in Salt Lake City. The anti-spyware law only entered the statutes on 3 May. California and Iowa are considering adopting similar legislation. The Register (Newsbits, DKR)
SECTION IV -- EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
NAVAL INTELLIGENCE STRATEGY ANALYST WANTED -- The essential duties will include supporting the N2's management and administration of its mission activities; including the assessment, development and coordination of concepts and/or processes that enhance "US Navy Business Practices"; the drafting and coordination of position papers and other memos to assist the N28 in documenting and coordinating mission activities/initiatives; draft and coordinating of material aids (e.g., briefings); the research and coordination of US Navy operational requirements; and the interaction with Naval & other government agencies as they discuss, plan and coordinate activities and strategies. May include the research and drafting of position papers and abstracts on key issues bearing on Naval Intelligence strategy and policy.
Basic requirements for this job are O5/O6, recently retired Navy Officer with an in-depth knowledge of Naval Intelligence. At least three years experience in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting processes, and platforms and systems that support and enable ISRT and Force protection. You must have at least an active TS/SI and be eligible for access to TK and B information. The location will be in Crystal City, VA. Salary range is $90-115K. Please contact Scott Boren at The Matrix Group. 703-359-8480 or scott@matrixx-group.com.
SECTION V -- BOOKS, SOURCES, AND ISSUES
BOOKS
HIT’EM HARD -- Thomas McInerney and Paul Vallely, intro. by Oliver North, Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror, (Regnery, 224 pp., $27.95) Thomas McInerney and Paul Vallely are both retired generals and pundits for Fox News -- and they both admire the way the Bush administration has been conducting the war on Islamist terrorism and especially its taste for regime change.
Terrorism will not be defeated by a law-enforcement paradigm of counterterrorism or the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, they assert. What has to be done is to go after state sponsors of terrorism, among them Iran, North Korea and Syria. Application of soft power to encourage democracy where it does not exist and using public diplomacy to get out the American message and foster Islamic moderation is all well and good, but when it comes down to it, regime change is what is needed. If the present regimes in North Korea and Syria wish to survive, they must end nuclear programs and stop supporting terrorism otherwise they should be invaded. Should the Islamist militants who regard the Saudi royal house as corrupt and insufficiently Muslim take over, well, then Saudi Arabia will have to be conquered. The authors grant that Iran is too big to be invaded, but embargoes and a naval blockade could to the trick.
Not only are they enthusiastic for military solutions, they support Donald Rumsfeld’s doctrine of light, mobile forces, backed by increased spending on the latest weaponry when in the eyes of some nothing has contributed more to the problems the United States faces in Iraq than the Secretary’s dismissal of the need for more, many more boots on the ground. To many with direct experience of the Middle East, the book smacks of an earlier, more innocent time that vanished when the present circumstances in Iraq gave the lie to self-deception in high places. (DKR)
A BRITISH VIEW OF THE IRAQ WAR -- John Keegan, The Iraq War, (Knopf, 254 pp., $24.95) Sir John, Britain’s most prominent military historian, has no doubts that driving Saddam Husayn from power was justified on practical and moral grounds. Keegan makes the point that Saddam brought about his own downfall by his refusal to satisfy the demands of an increasingly angered international community. His account of the military campaign is divided into chapters on American and British efforts with praise for commanders of both forces with particular praise for the U.S. mastery of mechanized maneuver war. (DKR)
D-DAY EVE PANORAMA -- David Stafford, Ten Days to D-day: Citizens and Soldiers on the Eve of the Invasion, (Little, Brown, 440 pp., $26.95) Stafford recreates for the reader the fears and expectations of those who on the eve of the invasion of German-held France on 6 June 1944. His cast includes Eisenhower, Churchill, de Gaulle and Hitler, but also many ordinary Americans, a Canadian soldier, members of the Norwegian and French resistance and double agent of Spanish origin. (DKR)
CONSPIRACY THEORY FOR THE AMERICAN TALIB -- Richard D. Mahoney, Getting Away with Murder: The Real Story Behind American Taliban John Walker Lindh, (Arcade, 296 pp., $25) Mahoney claims to put the U.S. government on trial as well as the American member of the Talib, John Walker Lindh. The charge against both is treason involving states that aid terrorists.
Often muddled, the book is laden with conjecture yet still raises troubling questions about Washington’s relations with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Mahoney is one of those who hold the United States responsible for facilitating the rise of the Taliban by the indiscriminate arming of Muslims fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Mahoney would also have the reader believe that an insatiable thirst for oil and profit has resulted in the United States ignoring support for terrorism in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Moreover, he asserts that the Justice Department halted Lindh’s trial for fear of what might come out. He is indifferent to the judge’s finding that the evidence of Lindh’s conspiracy to kill Americans was far from convincing and argues that it was. If you are into conspiracy theories, you should enjoy Mahoney’s book. (DKR)
ISSUES
HAS NORTH KOREA BEEN SELLING WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE NUKES? -- The world's intelligence services are racing to find out whether North Korea has been selling abroad material for making nuclear weapons, the New York Times reported on 23 May. The race follows evidence that North Korea secretly provided Libya with nearly two tons of uranium in early 2001. If confirmed, this would be the first known case in which the Pyongyang government has sold a key ingredient for manufacturing nuclear weapons to another country, the newspaper cites American and European officials as saying.
"The North Koreans have been selling missiles for years to many countries," the paper quotes a senior Bush administration official saying recently, referring to sales to Iran, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and other nations. "Now, we have to look at their trading network in a very different context, to see if something much worse was happening as well."
International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have found strong evidence that uranium hexafluoride turned over by the Qadhafi regime to the United States last January came from North Korea and not, as had been previously thought, from Pakistan. The inspectors’ suspicions derived from interviews with members of the secret nuclear supplier network set up by Abd al-Qadir Khan, regarded as the father of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. The IAEA discovery suggests that North Korea has done just what many experts have warned, the Times noted: It has turned into a supplier of nuclear technology.
American officials described discovery of the North Korean connection as an intelligence success that came out of a Libyan decision to dismantle its nuclear program, and the drive to break up Khan's network. The agency hopes to confirm the finding with the North Koreans, but since IAEA inspectors were evicted 17 months ago, there has been virtually no contact with the North Korean government. The North Korean sales, if confirmed, would also indicate an intelligence failure: Despite U.S. satellites monitoring of North Korea, the Intelligence Community failed to detect the uranium shipments.
The CIA, DIA, Energy Department and the State Department's intelligence unit are reported to be reviewing their assessments of the size of North Korea's nuclear arsenal. In recent months, intelligence agencies in Europe and in the United States have picked up indications that North Korea has been aiding Iran’s nuclear program. "North Korean experts have been monitored at Iranian nuclear sites," a senior arms control expert told the Times.
RUSSIAN IMPRISONED AFTER NEGLECTING WIFE’S ADVICE -- On 19 May, Mikhail Trepashkin began a four-year sentence in a penal colony after a military court convicted him of divulging state secrets and the illegal possession of ammunition. A veteran of the KGB, Trepashkin said its successor the FSB (Federal Security Service) fabricated evidence to prevent him from exposing its involvement in the bombing of apartment houses in Moscow and elsewhere in 1999 that took more than 200 lives. Trepashkin's wife, Tatiana, called the verdict a sham, but added her husband should have realized that his probing would have dire consequences, the Daily Telegraph (London) reported on 20 May.
Vladimir Putin, head of the FSB until August 1999, blamed the bombings on Chechen separatists. The following year he won a presidential election and Moscow launched its second Chechen war that continues to the present. (The first war was from 1994 to 1996.)
There has long been speculation among Kremlin watchers that the bombings were provocations carried out by the authorities to rally the public around Putin and crushing the Chechen uprising.
Last fall, Trepashkin was preparing to present his findings in the case of two Chechen militants accused of three of the bombings when he was pulled over a week before their trial and accused of illegally possessing a handgun said to have been found in his car. He has been in jail ever since, with additional charges of divulging state secrets to British intelligence to discredit the FSB and illegal possession of ammunition at his home. A decision on the handgun charge was expected this summer. Trepashkin insists police planted the gun. "I'm absolutely certain that this was the system taking revenge on him," said Valentin Gefter, a member of a parliamentary commission and director of the Moscow-based Human Rights Institute. "It's a shame that our courts cannot act independently."
The State Department has said the Trepashkin case raised concerns about the undue influence of the FSB and arbitrary use of the judicial system.
In a curious incident related to the bombings, police in Ryazan, 120 miles southeast of Moscow, discovered large sacks of what they said were explosives and a detonator in the basement of an apartment house in September 1999. The FSB acknowledged placing the sacks there but said they contained sugar and had been put there as part of a civil defense exercise.
GUESS WHO RUSSIANS DEFINE AS THEIR ‘MAIN ENEMY’ -- In a recent poll of Russians, 43 percent of those surveyed named the United States as Russia's most important foe while 47 percent said they considered the West and NATO countries to be Russia's principal enemies, RIA Novosti reported on 11 May. In the poll, conducted by the Independent Analytical Center, a St. Petersburg-based sociological research group, 13 percent named China as Russia's most probable enemy, while 15 percent named the countries of East and Southwest Asia and 13 percent named the countries of the Islamic world as Russia's main enemies. Only three percent named the former Soviet bloc countries or former Soviet republics as likely enemies, with 1.3 percent naming the Baltic countries as the most likely foes, followed by Georgia and Ukraine. (www.afpc.org, DKR)
WOMEN MAKE THE BEST SPIES -- So said 'M,’ head of Britain's MI5 in documents made public on 21 May. That 'M' was Maj. Maxwell Knight, head of the Security Service in 1945 when he wrote, "There is a very long standing and ill-founded prejudice against the employment of women as agents. Yet in the history of espionage and counter-espionage a high proportion of the greatest coups have been brought off by women."
Knight advocated the use of women as undercover secretaries because they would end up knowing more about their target organization than the people running it, the London Daily Telegraph reported. His female agents successfully exposed a Soviet spy ring at the Woolwich Arsenal and the activities of the Right Club, which supplied Hitler with details of Cabinet discussions. But MI5 failed to detect, Red Sonja, a Soviet spy in the English countryside who was in touch with Klaus Fuchs who delivered the secrets of the atom bomb to Moscow.
"A man's conceit will often lead him to indiscretion, in an endeavor to build himself up among his fellow men, or even to impress a woman. Women, being vain rather than conceited, find their outlet for this form of self-expression in their personal appearance, dress etc. The emotional make up of a properly balanced woman can very often be utilized in investigation and it is a fact that women's intuition is a direct result of her rather complex emotions," wrote Knight in the papers now available at the National Archives in the London suburb of Kew.
"A clever woman, who can use her personal attractions wisely, has in her armory a very formidable weapon," Knight believed, but added, 'I am no believer in Mata Hari methods. More information has been obtained by women agents by keeping out of the arms of a man than by sinking too willingly into them." "That a woman's intuition is sometimes amazingly helpful and amazingly correct is well-established; and given the right guiding hand this ability can at times save the Intelligence officer an enormous amount of trouble." The right guiding hand? One wonders what the current director general of MI5, Eliza Manningham Buller, would have to say about that. (Cameron L.C., DKR)
SECTION VI -- NOTES. LETTERS, AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
NOTES
PRIVATE FUNDING NEEDED FOR NEW CRYPTOLOGIC MUSEUM BUILDING -- Jack Ingram’s article on the National Cryptologic Museum in the Winter/Spring 2004 issue of the Intelligencer mentions the National Cryptologic Museum Foundation, which performs several important functions that the museum cannot legally do, since it is a U.S. Department of Defense military museum and limited to Congressionally appropriated funding. The long-term goal of building a new museum will require funding well beyond any provided by the government. The foundation is now looking into the prospect of building a state of the art museum to be located at the site of the existing one. Meanwhile the foundation continues to assist the museum in many ways, including arranging for the recent acquisition of David Kahn’s extensive collection of books, monographs and artifacts on the subject of cryptology. For further information about foundation activities, visit the web site at http://www.nationalcryptologicmuseumfoundation.com or call the office at (301) 688-5436/37. Membership is open to all.
LETTERS
INFORMATION WANTED ON LAMBROS CALLIMAHOS -- Charles Varga, who began research several years ago aimed at writing a biography of Lambros Demitrios Callimahos, a distinguished former NSA employee who is included on the Agency's Wall of Fame, is seeking assistance from anyone in the Phoenix Society who may have information to contribute about Mr. Callimahos. Mr. Varga has shared that his book addresses Mr. Callimahos as a Cryptanalyst, teacher, virtuoso flutist, and all round exceptional person. He has been gathering information from various sources and interviews of former co-workers of Mr. Callimahos. If you would like to assist Mr. Varga, please contact him as indicated below: Charles Varga, 452 West Huntington Drive, Unit A Arcadia, CA 91007, cvarga@pacbell.net, Home Telephone: 626.445.3594, 213.200.2994 (cell phone).
Mr. Varga's efforts are supported by the Callimahos family and endorsed by Maj Gen Morrison, the President and Chairman of the Board of the National Cryptologic Museum Foundation. In particular, he seeks help and guidance from those who may recall any personal experiences, covering the following periods in the life and background of Lambros D. Callimahos: The Early Years: 1930 - 1937 - Julliard School of Music through Professor of Flute, Salzburg Mozarteum Academy. Cryptanalytics and Linguistics: 1941 - 1953 - Instructor, U.S. Army; Assistant Theater Signal Intelligence Officer, Hq. SIS CBI; Command and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth; Technical Assistant to William F. Friedman, Army Security Agency; Technical Consultant, Army Security Agency; Chief, Training Branch (Training Division), Air Force Security Agency. Cryptanalytic Literature Chief and Cryptologist Staff: 1953 - 1977- NSA.
He is particularly interested in speaking with any graduates of CA-400 and their personal social (non-operational) histories and stories concerning The Dundee Society. The Open-Source research has produced detailed materials covering Lambros' exceptional musical career, including reviews, concert announcement, programs and the like. May 2004 Post Crypt 8. As the National Cryptologic School and the training function was under various agencies before being consolidated at NSA, any oral history or personal remembrances dealing with the Vint Hill, Fort Monmouth, Arlington Hall and Nebraska Avenue periods and the later period at Fort Meade, would be most helpful and appreciated. Mr. Varga is a member of the National Cryptologic Museum Foundation and the AFIO and he has had an involvement in security issues for many years. He has also found three cryptograms, authored by Mr. Callimahos, that he intends to use in his book, IF he can find a solution. Can you help with them? The cryptograms are:
(1) VUIFN HAFWN JMVDJ JWHIZ JWNRJ M
(2) YYJIU KDPRJ ZCZUO OVHTR BEFLA E
(3) FKUPK JYZVB NCJNC RCAVP XIIAI P
Please feel free to contact Mr. Varga if you can share an interesting anecdote or experience. He would be appreciative
of any assistance.
NEED FOR REGIME CHANGE IN WASHINGTON -- John H. writes that the weekly “The Nation” has posted the following article by Roy Close in a forum on How to Get Out of Iraq. The Nation. Close, says John H., is known to many CIA colleagues as a wise veteran of years in the Middle East and a member of a family long known for its experience in the region. Close’s opinions are grounded in an operational career of years in the Middle East. A former station chief in Saudi Arabia, he served for 27 years as an “Arabist” for the agency.
The first thing we have to adjust to is the reality that nationalism is the most significant force in Iraq today. It is replacing the genuine feelings of gratitude that many Iraqis had toward the United States immediately following their liberation. We have always had a set of objectives -- based on neocon ideology, not Iraqi hopes -- which are unattainable because they offend the spirit of Iraqi nationalism. One, we want long-term strategic military bases. Two, we count on retaining significant influence over Iraqi oil policy. Three, we favor unrestricted foreign investment in a country that has a history of intense hostility toward alien ownership of the country’s economic enterprises and natural resources. Four, we expect Iraq to support America’s role in the Middle East Peace process even when it would mean aligning Iraq policy with that of George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon. Failure to achieve those four objectives will appear to both Republicans and Democrats to be a failure of Bush’s overall policy. But the Administration has already boxed itself in to the point where there is no way it can modify those objectives to meet reality.
There has to be regime change in Washington. It’s the only way to solve the Iraq problem. (John H., DKR)
COMING EVENTS
27 MAY - WASHINGTON, DC, INTERNATIONAL SPY MUSEUM -- Inside Stories: Tales from the OSS, America's First Intelligence Agency. Three OSS veterans will open your eyes about espionage in the Second World War Heroism, daring undercover exploits, clever disguises, and luck were everyday fare at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) -- forerunner of the CIA. Hear about the extraordinary accomplishments of these American spies, intelligence officers, and commandoes, and the pivotal role this organization played in the Allied victory in WWII. Three OSS veterans: Fisher Howe, Elizabeth McIntosh, and Maj. Gen. John Singlaub (Ret.), will share stories about the OSS and their missions. The session will be moderated by historian Patrick O'Donnell, author of the newly released Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs: The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of the OSS. Presented in collaboration with the OSS Society. Tickets: $20. Members of The Spy Ring (Join Today!): $16 Members of the OSS Society: $16. Space is limited – advance registration required! For more info. visit www.spymuseum.org/do/programs.asp#1.
29 MAY - THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES SOCIETY -- forerunner to CIA -- will holds its 62nd anniversary reunion dinner on May 29, 2004 at the luxurious Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC. Several hundred OSS veterans, their families, and distinguished guests are expected to attend the banquet -- part of a weekend celebration -- that will observe the founding of OSS in June 1942. During the weekend, guests will also attend the dedication of the National World War II Memorial. AFIO members are invited to attend the "business-attire-or-better" banquet and celebration at an all-inclusive cost of $150/person. Contact OSS Society President Charles Pinck at 202-207-2915 or via email at osssociety@aol.com.
3 JUNE - JOINT MILITARY INTELLIGENCE COLLEGE ANNUAL CONFERENCE -- at the DIAC in Washington, DC: This year's conference will have a historical flavor: "Vernon Walters: Pathfinder of the Intelligence Profession". The conference includes morning and afternoon sessions, a luncheon at the Bolling O'Club and a post-conference "Cocktail Hour". Speakers will include DIA Director Lowell Jacoby and many other prominent officials. For more information, contact Major Che V. Russell at 202-231-3359 or Major Phil Oakley 202-231-2897. Or, via Classified Email diruscv@dia.ic.gov or Unclassified che.russell@dia.mil.
8 JUNE - THE GREATEST THEFT IN HISTORY: SOVIET PENETRATION OF THE MANHATTAN PROJECT -- International Spy Museum, Washington, D.C.
Soviet spies stole our biggest secret to date…here’s how they did it. Hear the most up-to-date intelligence on the Soviet espionage inside the United States that shaved years off their atomic bomb production schedule. Renowned British intelligence expert and author of the newly released book, Mortal Crimes, Nigel West will describe the breathtaking scale and sophistication of the Soviet espionage network that infiltrated the Manhattan Project. With information uncovered from the long-secret VENONA files, and declassified documents from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, West will narrate the true story behind this extraordinary intelligence success. Tickets: $20. Members of The Spy Ring (Join Today!): $16. Space is limited – advance registration required! For more info. visit http://www.spymuseum.org/do/programs.asp#1.
10 JUNE - HANDBOOK OF PRACTICAL SPYING -- The International Spy Museum Washington, DC, International Spy Museum -- FREE LUNCHTIME AUTHOR DEBRIEFINGS AND BOOKSIGNINGS. From the belly of the beast...Forget the fancy James Bond weapons from “Q,” the Ninja’s concealed dagger, and even the Museum’s own lipstick pistol. The spy’s most potent weapon is his or her own mind. In this first-ever “how-to” handbook from “inside” the International Spy Museum, Executive Director Peter Earnest shares insights into the thoughts and strategies of successful spies. All the tradecraft and specially designed “tools of the trade” are useless if the mind behind them does not “think like a spy.” Learn how you can! For more info. visit http://www.spymuseum.org/do/programs.asp#1.
IN MEMORIAM
CIA REMEMBERS EMPLOYEES KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY -- On 21 May, the CIA honored 83 employees who died in service to their country, including Christopher Glenn Mueller and William "Chief" Carlson, two civilian contractors killed in an ambush in Afghanistan last fall. "The bravery of these two men cannot be overstated," DCI Tenet told a gathering of several hundred agency employees and relatives of those killed in the line of duty. "Chris and Chief put the lives of others ahead of their own. That is heroism defined." Mueller and Carlson died while tracking terrorists near Shkin, Afghanistan, last 25 October. Both saved the lives of others during an ambush.
Tenet also praised Mike Spann and Helge Boes, as “two other remarkable young men who died fighting a pitiless enemy in a remote, rugged place." Spann was killed in November 2001 in a prison uprising at Mazar-e Sharif. Boes died in February 2003 when a grenade detonated prematurely during a live-fire training exercise in Afghanistan.
Mueller, 32, of San Diego, was a veteran of Navy special operations. Members of his family were among those in attendance at today's ceremony. Carlson, 43, of Southern Pines, North Carolina, served for two decades in the Army and had extensive special operations experience. He went by the nickname "Chief" in deference to his heritage as a member of the Blackfeet Nation of Montana.
Tenet also used the occasion to mark the 30th Anniversary of the Memorial Wall. First conceived as a small plaque to recognize those from the CIA who died in Southeast Asia, the idea quickly grew to a memorial for Agency employees who died in the line of duty. The first 31 stars were placed on the wall in 1974. Today, there are a total of 83, including the three added in March 2004 to honor Mueller, Carlson and another officer whose name cannot be publicly acknowledged.
The event was not open to the public in order to allow currently serving undercover personnel the opportunity to attend the ceremony honoring their fallen colleagues. Photos and text can be viewed at (http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/press_release/2004/pr05212004.html)
MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR OPERATIVE WHO NEVER WAS --Ten people attended the memorial service in Miami for Roger Merriweather Greever, some of the women in mourning veils. It was not a bad turnout for a man who never died, never was born, and lived only briefly, The Miami Herald reported 22 May. In Greever's obituary, carried in The Herald on 19 May, he was described as a marine, cold warrior and patriot, said to have died while working in Ras al-Khaima, one of the United Arab Emirates. He was 74 and left no known relatives, the obit said.
The memorial followed the next day at Coconut Grove's Plymouth Congregational Church. ''Such a sad occasion,'' remarked a smiling man in a blue blazer and bright tie. A black and white mug shot accompanied the obituary notice, showing a face with a protuberant chin. Database searches turned up no such man in Florida or in the nation, for that matter. But the obituary had been paid for by one Bruce Berckmans of Coconut Grove.
Berckmans, The Herald reported, lives in a neighborhood of tall shade trees and big houses, down a hidden driveway, in a rambling ranch house with a pool out back and a banyan tree in front. He was tall, white-haired, unstooped with a brushed mustache. He wore orange-tinted glasses that made it impossible to read his eyes. Greever and he had been friends, he told the daily, although not terribly close ones. He said his having worked for the CIA were old rumors put out by unreliable sources, though it was true he had worked for a time in Mexico City, in the late 1960s. The company made light bulbs and electrical switches, he said, and he did security consulting. He and Greever met in the early 1960s in the Middle East. There were rumors Greever was CIA. Greever had visited Miami occasionally in the '80s and '90s, taking hotel rooms there in the winter. Greever died peacefully, said Berckmans. He arranged the memorial service because he was afraid nobody else would.
Berckmans said he and Greever both graduated from Princeton University, both served in the Fifth Marines in Korea, both worked for large security companies and both liked orchids and dogs. Princeton confirmed there was a Berckmans in the class of '52, but no Greever. Berckmans' house contained dozens of photographs and in them Berckmans resembled Greever, the same protuberant chin. Nonsense, said Berckmans. ``If you'd seen me then, you'd realize I'm not this guy.''
After the memorial service, there was a reception at the Biscayne Bay Yacht Club and Berckmans and started telling Greever stories. Berckmans recounted a story about the time his friend and the head of station in Mexico City set out one cold night, their target the chief of secret services for Cuba at the time. A big, menacing fellow, he had been suddenly recalled to Havana. The station head wanted to recruit him before he left. The Cuban swung on his follower, drew a pistol and pointed it at his mouth. There were more Greever stories, about grenades in restaurants in Morocco, KGB cadre attached to touring arts groups, a Cuban coder in Indonesia.
One of the mourners finally asked: Was Greever the alias Berckmans used when he was in the employ of the CIA? ''Yeah, that's pretty fair,'' Berckmans said. He wanted to kill this character off for good. He wanted his friends to watch, and to know how he'd spent his life, The Herald article concluded.
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