AFIO Weekly Intelligence Notes #07-08 dated 18 February 2008

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CONTENTS

Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Section II - TERRORISM

Section III - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Section IV - RESEARCHER NEEDING YOUR ASSISTANCE

Section V - COMING EVENTS

Current Calendar Next Two Months ONLY:

  For Additional Events two+ months or more....view our online Calendar of Events  

Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

IRA Spy Row Deepens. Northern Ireland's Truth Commissioners have been shown three filing cabinets containing details about British state agents working inside the IRA and other republican organizations.

Dr. Robin Eames and Denis Bradley were shown the material during a recent visit to detectives from the Stevens Inquiry in London, which for nearly two decades has been investigating collusion between the security forces and paramilitary groups. The duo, who have been asked to draw up a detailed report on the nature of the Troubles, were said to be 'taken back' by their findings, particularly the extent to which the IRA and Sinn F�in had been infiltrated by the security forces. 

The Church of Ireland Primate and the ex-priest were unavailable for comment this weekend. So far they have refused to comment publicly about any of their findings. However, sources close to their inquiry told The Observer that both men had been shocked about the depth of penetration of the republican movement. 'They have been stunned by how many agents the RUC and MI5 had inside the Provos,' one source said yesterday. 'When they were in London, they were shown three cabinets of files on the use of republican agents alone.'

The revelations regarding spies inside republican organisations comes as the IRA and Sinn F�in absorbs the shock over the Roy McShane affair. The 58-year-old west Belfast republican was revealed on Friday as a long-term MI5 agent inside the IRA. McShane had been a bodyguard and driver for senior Sinn F�in figures, including Gerry Adams. [TheObserver/10February2008] 

US Official "Asked Scholar to Spy on Bolivia." An American scholar on a research trip to Bolivia has accused a US Embassy official of asking him to spy. 

Alex van Schaick says that he was asked to "spy for the US Government". He says the request came from assistant regional security officer Vincent Cooper, who works at the US Embassy in La Paz. He says Mr. Cooper said the US wanted to keep tabs on Cubans and Venezuelans working in Bolivia.

The embassy issued a statement saying "incorrect information" had been given to some people. The US State Department says that any such request would be against policy.

The American network ABC News has reported that this may not be the first time Mr. Cooper has made such a request. They reported he approached US Peace Corp volunteers last year; something the Peace Corp says is against US law. [Reynolds/ABCNews/10February2008] 

Roh Accepts Disgraced Spy Chief's Resignation. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun Monday accepted the resignation of spy agency chief Kim Man-bok, who has been accused of leaking classified inter-Korean documents to the media, presidential spokesperson Cheon Ho-seon said.

Roh's acceptance of Kim's resignation came nearly one month after the chief of the National Intelligence Service offered to step down over the leak of controversial excerpts of his dialogue with his North Korean counterpart in Pyongyang on the eve of the Dec. 19 presidential polls in South Korea. 

In the conversation with Kim Yang-gon, a confidant of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the NIS chief was quoted as saying that Lee Myung-bak would inherit Roh's North Korea policies after winning the presidential election. Kim was suspected of intentionally making his remarks public in Pyongyang in an effort to seek political favors from President-elect Lee.

Roh delayed making a decision on whether to accept the spy chief's resignation, citing the "ambiguous" nature of the leaked document. Legal experts have been divided over Kim's alleged violation of the law governing the protection of classified documents. [Yoo/YonhapNews/11February2008] 

Defense Analyst, Three Others Arrested, Charged With Espionage. Federal agents on 11 February arrested four people on espionage charges, including a Defense Department employee from Alexandria, Virginia, and accused them of passing classified information to China that included details about the Space Shuttle and U.S. military sales to Taiwan.

The DOD employee, Gregg William Bergersen, 51, was charged in U.S. District Court in Alexandria with conspiracy to disclose national defense information. He is a weapons policy analyst at the Arlington-based Defense Security Cooperation Agency. Also charged in federal court in Alexandria were Tai Shen Kuo, 58, and Yu Xin Kang, 33, both of New Orleans.

Court documents said that Kuo obtained classified documents from Bergersen, often in exchange for cash, at a series of meetings across Northern Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina and Las Vegas. Much of the information was about U.S. military sales to Taiwan, the court documents said. Kuo and Kang face up to life in prison if convicted. Bergersen, of Alexandria, faces up to 10 years in prison.

In a separate case also linked to China, a former Boeing Co. engineer was arrested on charges that he stole Boeing trade secrets related to the Space Shuttle and other programs, including the C-17 military transport aircraft and the Delta IV rocket. Dongfan "Greg" Chung, 72, of Orange, Calif., faces charges of economic espionage, obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

It was not immediately clear how much, if any, damage the alleged espionage did to U.S. national security. Justice Department officials are planning to discuss the cases at a news conference this afternoon, and the four defendants are scheduled to appear in federal courts. It was unclear if lawyers for them had been appointed.

But DOJ officials said the cases reflect the determination of China's government to penetrate U.S. intelligence and obtain vital national defense secrets.

"Today's prosecution demonstrates that foreign spying remains a serious threat in the post-Cold War world,'' Kenneth L. Wainstein, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, said in a statement. "The conspiracy charged in this case has all the elements of a classic espionage operation: a foreign government focused on accessing our military secrets; foreign operatives who effectively use stealth and guile to gain that access; and an American government official who is willing to betray both his oath of public office and the duty of loyalty we rightly demand from every American citizen.'' [Markon/WashingtonPost/11February2008] 

FBI Agents Reportedly Interrogated Guantanamo Detainees Separately from CIA. The FBI sent agents to Guantanamo Bay in 2006 to independently verify information the CIA had gotten from "high-value" al Qaeda detainees, but without using harsh interrogation techniques, a government official told CNN on February 12. The official asked not to be named because information about the questioning is classified.

FBI Director Robert Mueller had told agents to stay out of the CIA interrogations because of concern that the way the information was being obtained would not hold up in a court of law, the official said. 

The objective of the FBI agents was to find out about any role the detainees played in the September 11, 2001, attacks and other activities, the government official said. The FBI was seeking the same details the CIA had gotten in previous interrogations, the official said. The captives were read rights similar to Miranda rights by the FBI agents, the official said.

The questioning happened after the detainees had been transferred from CIA custody to a prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the official said.

Five of the men the Pentagon announced it intends to bring charges against are among those high-value detainees. [CNN/12February2008] 

Domestic Access to Spy Imagery Expands. A plan to use U.S. spy satellites for domestic security and law-enforcement missions is moving forward after being delayed for months because of privacy and civil liberties concerns.

The charter and legal framework for an office within the Homeland Security Department that would use overhead and mapping imagery from existing satellites is in the final stage of completion, according to a department official who requested anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Last fall, senior Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee asked the department to put the program on hold until there was a clear legal framework of how the program would operate. This request came during an ongoing debate over the rules governing eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists inside the United States.

The new plan explicitly states that existing laws which prevent the government from spying on citizens would remain in effect, the official said. Under no circumstances, for instance, would the program be used to intercept verbal and written conversations.

The department currently is waiting for federal executive agencies to sign off on the program - called the National Applications Office - and will share the details with lawmakers soon.

Domestic agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Interior Department have had access to this satellite imagery for years for scientific research, to assist in response to natural disasters like hurricanes and fires, and to map out vulnerabilities during a major public event like the Super Bowl. Since 1974 the requests have been made through the federal interagency group, the Civil Applications Committee.

These types of uses will continue when the Homeland Security Department oversees the program and becomes the clearinghouse for these requests. But the availability of satellite images will be expanded to other agencies to support the homeland security mission. The details of how law enforcement agencies could use the images during investigations would be determined in the future after legal and policy questions have been resolved, the official said.

It is possible that in the future an agency might request infrared imaging of what is inside a house, for instance a methamphetamine laboratory, and this could raise constitutional issues. In these instances, law enforcement agencies would still have to go through the normal process of obtaining a warrant and satisfying all the legal requirements. The National Applications Office also would require that all the laws are observed when using new imaging technology.

Requests for satellite images will be vetted even more than they were when the requests went through the Civil Applications Committee. All requests will be reviewed by an interagency group that includes Justice Department officials to ensure civil rights and civil liberties are not violated.

This new effort largely follows the recommendations outlined by a 2005 independent study group headed by Keith Hall, a former chief of the National Reconnaissance Office and now vice president of the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. [AP/13February2008] 

America 'to shoot down disabled spy satellite'. The United States is to shoot down one of its own runaway spy satellites before it enters the Earth's atmosphere next month, the Pentagon has said.

The satellite is carrying hydrazine, a dangerous rocket fuel. The satellite, known as L21, will be knocked out with a modified missile to prevent a leak of a deadly toxic gas from its fuel tank.

The multi-million dollar craft is due to re-enter Earth's atmosphere next month after spiraling out of control shortly after launch in 2006.

Weighing 5,000lb, L21 is fitted with thruster engines which contain a toxic rocket fuel called hydrazine.

Defense officials said they feared that the fuel could kill if it was released into the atmosphere on re-entry.

"What makes this case is a little bit different is the likelihood that the satellite could release much of its 1,000-plus pounds of hydrazine fuel as a toxic gas," said James Jeffries, the Deputy National Security Adviser. Mr. Jeffries added that the decision to shoot it down was taken by the President, George W. Bush, after being told its re-entry could cause deaths.

However, some experts believe the risk is minimal and that the US wants to test out its missile-defence system.

The satellite is also carrying militarily-sensitive imaging sensors which the US would not want to fall into the wrong hands. It is impossible to predict where the satellite will land until it enters the atmosphere.

Shooting down a satellite is particularly sensitive because of the controversy surrounding China's anti-satellite test last year. Beijing shot down one of its defunct weather satellites with a ground-based ballistic missile, prompting criticism from the West and fears of a new threat to US military satellites. Its destruction created hundreds of pieces of debris and a major concern about the US missile strike will be to ensure that the spy satellite is knocked out as efficiently as possible.

The US military will also have to choose a time and a location that will avoid to the greatest degree any damage to other satellites in the sky.

General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the "window of opportunity" for such a mission would open in the next three or four days and would last for seven or eight days. Defense officials said that there would be a second attempt to hit L21 should the first mission fail, although they admitted it would be "next to impossible" to hit it on the second run due to atmospheric disturbances.

America has been able to bring down satellites with missiles since the mid-1980s and in August unveiled a policy document asserting its right to "freedom of action in space". It said it would "deter others from either impeding those rights or developing capabilities intended to do so". [Leonard/Telegraph/14February2008] 

Japanese Panel Calls for More Analysts in Cabinet Intelligence Unit. A Japanese government panel looking to improve the intelligence capabilities of the Prime Minister's Office came up with measures that call for the introduction of intelligence analysts and an expansion of the role of intelligence meetings.

According to the panel, there should be five intelligence analysts in the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office. They should analyze information forwarded to the office from ministries and agencies and draft an intelligence report for the prime minister. Analysts will hold their positions for terms of at least three years, in principle.

Currently, senior officials of the National Police Agency, the Defense Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and the Public Security Intelligence Agency meet every other week to share intelligence information. The Prime Minister's Office receives a report on the meeting via the director of Cabinet intelligence.

Under the new plan, the meeting would be expanded to include the Finance Ministry, the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, the Financial Services Agency and the Japan Coast Guard to gather information from a wider range of fields.

The plan also calls for the inclusion of three assistant chief cabinet secretaries in the high-level meetings of vice ministers that currently take place about twice a year.

They new participants will raise mid- and long-term issues they think the prime minister and other participants should be made aware of. The shape of future information gathering and analysis will then be decided at the meetings after considering the issues raised.

The government's efforts to improve its intelligence-handling capabilities comes in response to criticism that Japan is too dependent on the United States for intelligence gathering, such as information on North Korea's missile program, and has difficulty in making decisions on its own. [Yomiuri/15February2008] 

U.S. Aims To Pare Waiting Time To Receive Security Clearances. The U.S. government, bombarded by complaints from defense contractors and its own agencies about the time it takes for new employees to receive security clearances, says it wants to shave 44 days from the average time it takes to grant a clearance.

The White House's Office of Management and Budget says that government agencies hope by the end of next year to be able to process at least 90% of requested clearances within 74 days. The feat will require the use of more-modern systems, and working through a backlog of 42,000 pending background investigations that have already taken longer than six months.

Clay Johnson, the office's deputy director for management, said in an interview that there is a consensus to fix the system because it makes it harder for government agencies and contractors to hire people. "Nobody wins the way it is now," said Mr. Johnson. Large defense contractors have worked around the often frustrating process by acquiring smaller companies whose employees already have clearances for work that requires access to classified information.

Contractors have complained that the clearance process costs taxpayers money because expensive programs are delayed while employees are sidelined or confined to limited duty. Mr. Johnson said the process still relies on shuffling paper documents and files among agencies that must sign off on certain clearances.

He said the government will need to invest an undetermined amount of money in new technology to allow it to convert the documents to digital files. The government has been working to speed up the process, but progress has been slow. Pentagon employee clearances are typically completed in 104 days, compared with 151 days for outside contractors, the report says.

On average, it took 118 days during the first quarter of fiscal 2008 to investigate and process 80% of security clearances. That pace is off from last year, when it took 106 days for an initial clearance. Mr. Johnson said this was attributed to old cases being purged. [Cole/WallStreetJournal/15February2008] 

Court Denies Canada's Spy Agency Warrant for Foreign Espionage. Canada's spy agency has been denied warrants for overseas electronic intercepts against nine Canadians and a foreigner, the federal court said in a statement. Justice Edmond Blanchard wrote: "I find that this court is without the jurisdiction to issue the warrant sought. Accordingly, the request is denied."

None of the targets were named, and court files were censored, so it is not known if the suspects are linked or separated by motive and country.

Since its inception in the 1980s, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has been largely restricted by law to domestic operations. But its leaders have argued in recent years for permission to carry out overseas espionage, saying their hands are tied if suspects leave Canada and threats to national security are international.

Compounding the problem, Canada's wiretapping Communications Security Establishment is barred from eavesdropping on Canadian citizens, creating a fuzzy area not monitored by either the national cryptologic agency or CSIS.

Because of the latest ruling, CSIS "has elected not to move forward with this particular initiative," spokeswoman Manon Berube told the daily Globe and Mail. CSIS had sought permission for a "telecommunications intercept," she explained, and wanted court clarification on this issue.

The US Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's MI6 routinely engage in foreign espionage.

Berube commented: "Those wishing to cause harm to Canada do not restrict their movements to Canada's borders ... when it comes to international terrorism." [AFP/15February2008] 

Interrogator Stands By Methods. Interrogators got intelligence from detainees that helped U.S. troops in Afghanistan attack Taliban fighters last summer, and they did it through casual questioning and not torture, the military's chief interrogator said.

In a rare interview with the Associated Press, veteran interrogator Paul Rester complained that his profession has gotten a bad reputation due to accounts of waterboarding and other rough interrogation tactics used by the CIA at "black sites."

Lawyers for Guantanamo detainees allege their clients have been subjected to temperature extremes, sleep deprivation and threats at the U.S. military base in southeast Cuba.

Looking more like a harried executive than a top interrogator, Rester groused that his line of work is "a business that is fundamentally thankless."

He sat hunched over a table in a snack room inside the building where the top commanders keep their offices. In an attempt to keep personnel from blabbing about intelligence gathering, a poster showed a picture of a hooded gunman and the words: "Keep talking. We're listening" - today's version of the World War II-era admonishment that "Loose lips sink ships."

"Everybody in the world believes that they know how we do what we do, and I have to endure it every time I turn around and somebody is making reference to waterboarding," Rester said. He insisted that Guantanamo interrogators have had many successes using rapport building and said that technique was the norm here.

For security reasons, he would only discuss one of the successes, and that was only because his boss, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby, already had described it in a speech last month. Buzby said several detainees, using poster board paper and crayons, drew detailed maps of the Tora Bora area in eastern Afghanistan.

Rester indicated the interrogators casually asked the detainees about their knowledge of Tora Bora, not letting on that it was tactically important for a pending military strike.

"And it may in fact, since it was five years old, have seemed totally innocuous to the persons we were talking to," Rester said.

Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, a lawyer who represents several detainees, scoffed at Rester's contention that rough treatment at Guantanamo was restricted to just two men.

"There are so many accounts by FBI agents ... and others who personally saw non-rapport-building techniques that Rester's statement is just not credible," he said. [Selsky/AP/17February2008] 

Yemen Sentences Two to Death for Espionage. A Yemeni court yesterday sentenced to death a Saudi who had been stripped of his citizenship and a Yemeni army officer on charges of spying for Egypt. The court in Sanaa, which is in charge of handling terrorism cases, passed the sentences against Hamad al-Dhahouk, a former Saudi soldier of Yemeni origin, and Abdul Aziz al-Hatbani, an officer in the Yemani army.

Dhahouk, 50, whose Saudi citizenship was revoked in 1995, and Hatbani, 45, were both in court to hear judge Mohsen Alwan hand down the sentences. Defense lawyers said they would appeal. The pair, whose trial began last June, had been accused of giving false information to the Egyptian embassy in Sanaa by claiming that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were financing a terrorist cell in Yemen to attack tourists in Egypt with the knowledge of the Yemeni government.

The prosecution accused Dhahouk of passing documents to the embassy containing the false information and demanding money in return. Dhahouk said during interrogation that he had been a soldier in Saudi Arabia but was expelled in 1995 during a visit by Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. He claimed that the Saudi authorities told him "Go with your president" and revoked his Saudi citizenship. [Wong/GolfTimes/17February2008] 

US to Give IAEA Iran Documents. The Bush administration has reportedly agreed to give U.N. inspectors documents supporting claims that Iran was developing nuclear weapons four years ago, according to the New York Times. 

Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is scheduled to release a report on Iran's past nuclear activities, possibly as early as next week. ElBaradei argues that Iran should be allowed to look at the documents that the United States says prove that the country did have a nuclear weapons program that was suspended.

How much of the documentation the United States would allow Iran to examine is unclear, the Times said. It includes information on a laptop computer smuggled out of Iran in 2004 and given to the Central Intelligence Agency.

U.S. President George Bush maintains that a recent National Intelligence Estimate that said Iran has no current nuclear weapons program shows the country is still a threat. Bush and his top advisers argue that the NIE provides the strongest documentation so far that the country was developing weapons and could easily resume its program. [UPI/15February2008] 

Section II - TERRORISM

Al Qaeda Still A Threat To U.S., Intelligence Chiefs Say. When it comes to Al Qaeda's threat to the United States, recent months have brought both good and bad news, according to top US intelligence officials. 

The good news is that the reputation of Muslim extremists may be declining among some in the Islamic world. The brutal attacks on Muslim civilians by Al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq appear to be affecting public opinion outside Iraq's borders.

The bad news is that a new influx of Western recruits - including American citizens - are being trained in Al Qaeda camps in Pakistan. These recruits would be able to more easily enter and move about the US than foreign operatives, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell stated in Congressional testimony. He added that there's no evidence that these recruits have already entered the US, added officials at Senate and House intelligence hearings this week.

So far, the principal terrorist threat within the US are self-radicalized individuals with no contact with any foreign terrorist leaders, FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on February 5.

The FBI rolled up two such native networks last year, he said, one intent on attacking John F. Kennedy airport, the other plotting against New Jersey's Fort Dix.

Europe has been the scene of the most recent attacks by individuals associated with the core Al Qaeda group, such as the bombs that hit the London transport network in July, 2005. "Our great concern is that, while it is happening in Europe, it is one plane ticket away from occurring in the United States," Mr. Mueller.

US security officials and experts outside government have long been concerned that a few Western recruits could give Al Qaeda a flexibility that has eluded it so far. Terrorists with US passports, able to easily melt back into American society, would be difficult for current homeland security measures to detect.

Over the years, the group has lost its Afghanistan training camps, and much of its senior leadership, including key operational planners. But Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants have been able to retreat to the sanctuary of Pakistan's wild border areas, while drawing on a bench of skilled operatives to replace members that have been killed or captured.

"It's an immensely adaptive organization," says William C. Martel, an associate professor of international security studies at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Recruitment of disaffected Americans would fit right in with Al Qaeda's style, says Mr. Martel. But such a move could also backfire on the group's central leadership, he says.

Until now, the Central Intelligence Agency has found the terror group difficult to infiltrate, due to its cellular structure and its reliance on natives from Islamic lands. If Al Qaeda is opening its doors to Westerners, however, it could potentially be more open to penetration by western spies. "It could make it easier for us to understand what they're doing, and why," says Martel.

As to its affiliate group, Al Qaeda in Iraq, this has been a year of major setbacks, with hundreds of its members killed and facilities destroyed.

The brutality of the group's methods has even earned it rebukes from Al Qaeda's top leaders, hiding out in Pakistan. US officials claim that Sunni Muslims throughout the world have been repulsed by the group's attacks on Iraqi Sunni tribes that had switched to aiding the US effort.

"Are we reaching a tipping point, where we'll see a decline in this radical [Islamist] behavior? " asked McConnell at the hearing. "We don't know yet. We're watching it very closely."

The group's ability to reconstitute and retain a base of operations in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has been a major setback to counterterror efforts, admit intelligence officials. The FATA has given the group many of the advantages it once took from its bases in Afghanistan. The region has served as a staging area for Al Qaeda attacks in Afghanistan, as well as a base for training operations.

Pakistan remains in political turmoil following the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Its security forces are thought to number many Al Qaeda and Taliban supporters.

Still, Pakistani intelligence officials have shown increasing determination to strengthen their counterterror performance, McConnell said. They have realized the stakes of the struggle, he said, since the number of Pakistani civilians and soldiers killed in 2007 by terrorist attacks equaled the total of those killed in the six previous years. [Grier/ChristianScienceMonitor/8February2008] 

Senior Hezbollah Militant Killed. One of the world's most wanted and elusive terrorists, Imad Mughniyeh, was killed in a car bombing in Syria nearly 15 years after dropping from sight. The one-time Hezbollah security chief was the suspected mastermind of attacks that killed hundreds of Americans in Lebanon and of the brutal kidnappings of Westerners.

The Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah and its top ally, Iran, blamed Israel on Wednesday for the assassination. Israel denied any involvement, but officials made no effort to conceal their approval of his death.

Mughniyeh was also on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists, and the U.S. State Department had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction. He was indicted in the U.S. for his role in planning the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a U.S. Navy diver was killed.

The United States welcomed Mughniyeh's death. "The world is a better place without this man in it," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "One way or the other, he was brought to justice."

"From Beirut to Dhahran, he orchestrated bombings, kidnappings and hijackings in which hundreds of American service members were killed," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in a statement. "Hopefully, his demise will bring some measure of comfort to the families of all those military men he murdered."

The hijacking was the only attack on Americans for which Mughniyeh was charged, but he carried out or directed a series of terrorist spectaculars aimed at the United States and Jewish targets.

Mughniyeh's death was the latest in a series of blows to major terror figures in recent weeks. Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaida leader, was killed in Pakistan in late January by a missile fired from a U.S. drone. This week, Pakistani security forces critically wounded and captured Mansour Dadullah, a top Taliban figure, in a firefight near the Afghan border.

But Mughniyeh, a Shiite Muslim not known to be connected to the Sunni al-Qaida or Taliban, harkened back to an earlier era of terror. A secretive, underground operator whose name was not even known for years, he was one of the first to turn Islamic militancy's weapons against the United States in the 1980s.

Mughniyeh emerged during the turmoil of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, rising to become Hezbollah's security chief, and the dramatic suicide bombings he is accused of engineering in Beirut were some of the deadliest against Americans until al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

He vanished in the early 1990s, reportedly undergoing plastic surgery and moving between Lebanon, Syria and Iran on fake passports. But Western intelligence agencies believe he then took his terror attacks abroad, hitting Jewish and Israeli interests in Argentina, among other places.

One Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said Wednesday that Mughniyeh was linked to the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers near Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, an attack which killed 19 Americans. Mughniyeh continued to head external operations for Hezbollah and was "very active and very dangerous," the official said.

His slaying could raise tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, as well as with the militant group's allies, Syria and Iran. Israel and Hezbollah fought a bloody war in the summer of 2006, and some Lebanese figures close to the Shiite militant group called Wednesday for attacks against Israel in retaliation for Mughniyeh's death.

It could also worsen the turmoil in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is locked in a power struggle with the U.S.-backed government.

Hezbollah called for a huge turnout at Mughniyeh's funeral in south Beirut on Thursday. The same day, government supporters are planning a rally of hundreds of thousands in downtown Beirut to mark the third anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

With fears growing of street violence between the two camps, the U.S. Embassy strongly encouraged American citizens in Lebanon to limit all but essential travel Thursday.

Hezbollah announced on its Al-Manar television that Mughniyeh "became a martyr at the hands of the Zionist Israelis." The station played Quranic verses in memorial and aired a rare, apparently recent picture of Mughniyeh showing a burly, bespectacled man with a black and gray beard wearing military camouflage and a military cap.

Syrian Interior Minister Brig. Gen. Bassam Abdul-Majid said Mughniyeh was killed Tuesday night in a car bombing in the upscale Damascus neighborhood of Kfar Sousse, the state news agency SANA reported.

Witnesses in the Syrian capital said the explosion tore apart the silver Mitsubishi Pajero, killing a passer-by and leaving only the front of the SUV intact. Security forces sealed off the area and removed the body. The Lebanese television station LBC said Mughniyeh was leaving a ceremony at an Iranian school and was approaching his car when it blew up. By Wednesday, the area had been cleared and there was no indication a car bombing had taken place.

The killing is deeply embarrassing to Syria, showing that the wanted fugitive was hiding on its soil. The United States has accused Syria, home to a number of radical Palestinian leaders, of supporting terrorism.

Iran blamed Israel for the assassination, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini calling the bombing "yet another brazen example of organized state terrorism by the Zionist regime."

In the past, when Israel has been fingered , rightly or wrongly, as responsible for attacks on targets beyond its borders, it has generally responded with impenetrable silence, for example over last September's airstrike on an as-yet undisclosed target in Syria.

This time Israel was quick to deny any role, possibly because it could pay a price for public claims. "Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident. We have nothing further to add," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said in a statement.

Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on the border between the two countries in July 2006, sparking an Israeli incursion into south Lebanon and a 34-day war. While Hezbollah has not come forward with evidence that the soldiers are alive, Israel regards them as such until it is proved otherwise and would not want to jeopardize their return.

Mughniyeh might have been killed by a rival group and not by a Western intelligence service, said Eliezer Tsafrir, who was the Mossad's Beirut station chief in 1983 and 1984, the time of the first attacks against U.S. targets in which Mughniyeh was implicated.

"These people make a lot of internal enemies. So it doesn't necessarily have to be Israel or America," Tsafrir said.

But regardless of whether it was behind the attack, experts say Israel may benefit from a perception its Mossad spy agency has recovered its ability to hit top terror targets.

Mughniyeh was born on Dec. 7, 1962 in the south Lebanon village of Tair Debba. He joined the nascent Hezbollah in the early 1980s and formed a militant cell known as Islamic Jihad or Islamic Holy War. The cell was said to be Hezbollah's strike arm, but the group denies any link to it.

He is accused of masterminding the first major suicide bombing to target Americans: the April 1983 car bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people, including 17 Americans. He is also blamed for a more devastating attack six months later, when suicide attackers detonated truck bombs at the barracks of French and U.S. peacekeeping forces in Beirut, killing 59 French paratroopers and 241 American Marines.

He was indicted in the United States for the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, during which Shiite militants shot Navy diver Robert Stethem, who was a passenger on the plane, and dumped his body on the tarmac of Beirut airport. The hijacking produced one of the most iconic images of pre-9/11 terrorism: a photo of the 727's pilot leaning out the cockpit window with a gunman waving a pistol in front of his face.

In the 1980s Mughniyeh was also believed to have directed a string of kidnappings of Americans and other foreigners in Lebanon. The hostages included The Associated Press's chief Mideast correspondent Terry Anderson, who was held for more than six years until his release in 1991; and CIA station chief William Buckley, who was tortured by his captors and killed in 1985.

"I can't say I'm either surprised or sad (by his death). He was not a good man, certainly, the primary actor in my kidnapping and many others," Anderson told the AP on Wednesday. "To hear that his career has finally ended is a good thing, and it's appropriate that he goes up in a car bomb."

Anderson was the last American hostage freed in a complicated deal that involved Israel's release of Lebanese prisoners, Iran's sway with the kidnappers, Syria's influence and, according to an Iranian radio broadcast, promises by the United States and Germany not to retaliate against the kidnappers.

But Edward Djerejian, who was U.S. ambassador to Syria at the time and was involved in negotiations through the Syrian government on hostage releases, said he had "no knowledge of such a deal" promising not to retaliate. "When I was in government we made no deals," he told the AP.

Giandomenico Picco, an Italian diplomat working at the time as a special assistant to U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, said he was certain but never able to confirm that the hooded man he met in the slums of Beirut to finalize the deal was Mughniyeh.

Mughniyeh's trail of terror was believed to continue into the 1990s.

Israel accused Mughniyeh of involvement in the 1992 bombing of its embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina in which 29 people were killed.

Argentine special prosecutor Alberto Nisman also accused Mughniyeh in the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center, an attack which killed 85 people. Prosecutors said Iranian officials orchestrated the attack and entrusted Hezbollah to carry it out.

The Khobar Towers bombing came two years later. Faris bin Hizam, a Saudi journalist who closely follows Islamic groups, said Mughniyeh flew to the kingdom days before the bombing and met the group that carried out the attack.

Former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke said that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah refused a personal plea from President Clinton to help capture Mugniyah in 1996, according to ABC News.

Clarke, now an ABC News consultant, said in an interview that U.S. intelligence learned that Mughniyeh was aboard a flight from Sudan that was scheduled to stop in Saudi Arabia.

"We appealed to the Saudis to grab him when the plane landed, and they refused," Clarke said. Instead, he said, "the Saudis refused to let the plane land and it continued on to Damascus."

A monitor answering the phone at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington late Wednesday night said officials were not available for comment.

Mughniyeh spent his final years moving between Lebanon, Iran, Syria and Turkey, and used as many as 47 different forged passports, bin Hizam said.

His last public appearance was believed to be at the funeral of his brother Fuad, who was killed in 1994 by a booby-trapped car in Beirut. In 2006, Mughniyeh was reported to have met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Syria.

Mughniyeh's body was brought to south Beirut in the afternoon and was laid in a refrigerated coffin, wrapped in Hezbollah's yellow flag.

His father Fayez, a south Lebanese farmer, as well as Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheik Naim Kassem, and other Hezbollah officials received condolences at the hall from allied Lebanese politicians and representatives of militant Palestinian factions. Though bitter rivals of Hezbollah, some pro-U.S. politicians including Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri offered written condolences. [Karam/AP/13February2008] 

NYPD Poaching Counter-Terrorism Hires from Federal Government. The NYPD is expanding its already robust counterterrorism operations with new hires plucked from Washington's federal intelligence community. The NYPD Intelligence Division has hired 10 men and women who will increase its ranks from 20 to 30 within the next year, top NYPD brass said. The department's Counter Terrorism Division also plans to add five more civilian analysts, doubling its number of experts. The NYPD hasn't had a problem recruiting the nation's best, the brass said.

"What they say is, 'This is where the action is,'" Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

The civilian analysts have been hired from the federal government, foreign policy think tanks and graduate programs that once only funneled experts to the feds, officials said. Some of the new hires have been poached and others have sought jobs with the NYPD, a police source said.

"We need this knowledge base," Kelly said. "We need their experience."

One of the analysts working with the Intelligence Division, who asked to be identified only as Anthony, was born and raised in Little Italy and left a job with a major consulting firm in the Washington area to return to New York City. The 28-year-old, who earned a graduate degree from Johns Hopkins University, was working as a consultant with Deloitte & Touche on Iraq reconstruction and homeland security. He had been living about five blocks away from Ground Zero on 9/11 when two jet planes crashed into the twin towers, he said. "I saw everything," he said. "It got me into this field."

Another analyst, Rebecca, 30, graduated from Harvard Law School in 2005 and studied military contracting at the Kennedy School of Government. She has been with the NYPD for about a year and works in trend spotting, looking at "big threats elsewhere but also at homegrown threats," she said.

Senior NYPD intelligence analyst Mitch Silber said the department is seeing an increased number of "individuals who have experience in Washington's intelligence community who want to join us."

"Some people are a little disillusioned with D.C.," he said. "There's an idea that New York is a little more entrepreneurial." The new hires and analysts already working with the NYPD come from the CIA, military intelligence and the National Security Administration, among other areas, officials said.

While the NYPD's rank-and-file recruiting has been undercut by the department's paltry $25,100 starting salary, the analysts are civilian employees - and their salaries can be negotiated on an individual basis. [Moore/NewYorkDailyNews/17February2008] 

Section III - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

A Key Gap In Fighting Terrorism, by Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence. One of the most critical weapons in the fight against terrorists and other foreign intelligence threats - the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) - has not kept up with the technology revolution we have experienced over the past 30 years. We are on the brink of bringing this 20th-century tool in line with 21st-century technology and threats. The Senate has passed a strong bill, by an overwhelmingly bipartisan margin, that would modernize FISA and do the right thing for those companies that responded to their country's call for assistance in its hour of need. It would also protect the civil liberties we Americans cherish. The bill is now before the House of Representatives.

For almost two years, we have worked with Congress to modernize FISA and ensure that the intelligence community can effectively collect the information needed to protect our country from attack - a goal that requires the willing cooperation of the private sector. Unfortunately, there were significant gaps in our ability to collect intelligence on terrorists and other national security threats because the 1978 law had not been modernized to reflect today's global communications technology.

The Protect America Act, passed by Congress last August, temporarily closed the gaps in our intelligence collection, but there was a glaring omission: liability protection for those private-sector firms that helped defend the nation after the Sept. 11 attacks. This month, I testified before Congress, along with the other senior leaders of the intelligence community, on the continuing threats to the United States from terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets. We stated that long-term legislation that modernized FISA and provided retroactive liability protection was vital to our operations. The director of the FBI told the Senate that "in protecting the homeland it's absolutely essential" to have the support of private parties.

This is not news. Senior intelligence leaders have repeatedly testified that providing retroactive liability protection is critical to carrying out our mission. We are experiencing significant difficulties in working with the private sector today because of the continued failure to address this issue. As we noted before the House, if we do not address liability protection we "believe it will severely degrade the capabilities of our Intelligence Community to carry out its core missions of providing warning and protecting the country."

The Protect America Act was scheduled to expire Feb. 1, but Congress passed a 15-day extension to give itself the time lawmakers said was necessary to complete work on legislation to modernize FISA and address liability protection. President Bush signed that extension, but the law will expire tomorrow unless Congress acts again.

Some have claimed that expiration of the Protect America Act would not significantly affect our operations. Such claims are not supported by the facts. We are already losing capability due to the failure to address liability protection. Without the act in place, vital programs would be plunged into uncertainty and delay, and capabilities would continue to decline. Under the Protect America Act, we obtained valuable insight and understanding, leading to the disruption of planned terrorist attacks. Expiration would lead to the loss of important tools our workforce relies on to discover the locations, intentions and capabilities of terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets abroad. Some critical operations, including our ability to adjust to dynamic terrorist threats that exploit new methods of communication, which sometimes requires assistance from private parties, would probably become impossible. And the difficulties we face in obtaining this essential help from private parties would worsen significantly if the act expires or is merely extended without addressing this issue. Without long-term legislation that includes liability protection, we will be delayed in gathering - or may simply miss - intelligence needed to protect the nation.

These circumstances can be avoided. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, after an in-depth review of our operations, recognized on a bipartisan basis the importance of providing liability protection to those who assisted our nation in a time of great need. The committee's report stated that "without retroactive immunity, the private sector might be unwilling to cooperate with lawful government requests in the future without unnecessary court involvement and protracted litigation. The possible reduction in intelligence that might result from this delay is simply unacceptable for the safety of our Nation." We in the intelligence community agree. We urge Congress to act to ensure that we do not again have gaps or lapses in gathering intelligence necessary to protect the nation because of an outdated law or a failure to shield private parties from liability for helping to protect the nation. [McConnell/WashingtonPost/15February2008] 

Section IV - RESEARCHER NEEDING YOUR ASSISTANCE

GRU INVOLVEMENT IN MISSILE CRISIS - A Swedish researcher/AFIO member is seeking information if there are any records/sources of GRU involvement in Cuba during the build-up to the Cuban Missile crisis? The KGB was supposedly close with Raul and Che from the Mexico years, and even more so with Fidel after he took power in 1959. It has been suggested the GRU started sending people to Cuba in 1962 and followed up with a GRU General going there during October to take charge of GRU components of the operation. Please send suggested readings, documents or pointers to those who might have further info to: Roger Älmeberg to rogalmeberg@mac.com.

Section V - COMING EVENTS

EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

Thursday, 21 February 2008, 12 noon – 1 pm – Washington, DC – author debriefing and book signing – Pete Earley author of Comrade J, at the Spy Museum. From 1997 to 2000, a man known as Comrade J was working in the U.S. as the highest-ranking operative in the SVR – a successor agency to the KGB. He directed all Russian spy action in New York City, and personally oversaw every covert operation against the U.S. and its allies in the UN. Comrade J recruited spies, planted agents, manipulated intelligence, and influenced American policy – all under the direct leadership of Boris Yeltsin followed by that of Vladimir Putin. He was a legend in the SVR: known as the man who kept the secrets. Then in 2000 he defected and turned the tables on Mother Russia – for two years he had acted as a double agent for the FBI. In Comrade J, Earley gives an account of this extraordinary spy. Free, no registration required.

22-23 February 2008 - Baltimore, MD - 3rd International Conference on "Ethics in the Intelligence Community", Sponsored by: International Intelligence Ethics Association and Johns Hopkins University School of Education, Division of Public Safety Leadership. Intelligence ethics is an emerging field without established principles for resolving the ethical problems confronting the intelligence community. Intelligence work has no theory analogous to "just war" theory in military ethics. Consequently, a focus of this conference is to provide a forum in which the application of ethical theories to intelligence problems can be discussed and a theory of “just intelligence” developed. This conference is co-sponsored by The International Intelligence Ethics Association and Johns Hopkins University, School of Education, Division of Public Leadership.
The conference will be held at The Johns Hopkins University-Mt. Washington Conference Center, in Baltimore, Maryland. The conference is open to all relevant disciplines, including political science, history, law enforcement, philosophy, international relations, theology, and to representatives of all legitimate stake-holders in intelligence ethics, including government, the press, and non-governmental organizations.
The 2-day conference begins on Friday morning, February 22nd and ends on Saturday afternoon, February 23, 2008. Attendees will be provided all meals during this time. The conference will consist of academic papers and panels, in a traditional lecture format with audience discussion. Privacy Policy: All presentations and discussions are on a “not for attribution” basis. No recording devices (cameras, audio recorders, etc.) that can capture images and sound are permitted.
A sample of the topics at the conference include:
• Torture & Ticking Time-Bombs: Empirical Research Regarding Moral Judgments
• Can Just War Theory Contribute to a Normative Framework for Intelligence Ethics? National Security vs. Social Security
• The Utility And Practicality Of A Code Of Ethics Specifically Addressing The Officer-Agent Relationship (i.e., HUMINT) And Could Such A Code Be Meaningful Or Useful In Real Operational Settings?
• A Professional Ethics Review Board for the Intelligence Community: Is it possible?
• Accountability vs. Politicalization: An Ethical Difference - With Case Studies
• Developing a Moral Framework for Making Complex Ethical Judgments For the Intelligence Professional
• Individual Rights vs. Collective Rights: A Moral Dilemma In Intelligence During National Emergency Situations?
Conference Location: Mt. Washington Conference Center, 5801 Smith Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21209; Information/Directions: http://www.mtwashconfctr.com/home.html
Registration till December 31, 2007 - Registration fee covers 3 meals on Friday and 2 meals on Saturday
$ 370 Conference Registration. Late Registration after January 1, 2008 Registration fee covers 3 meals on Friday and 2 meals on Saturday $ 395 Conference Registration
A limited number of suites are available at the conference center Suites, $150.00 a day [check in is Thursday, Tax and gratuities included] Mail To: International Intelligence Ethics Association (IIEA), P.O. Box 23053, Washington, D.C. 20026. Further information available from: conference2008@intelligence-ethics.org

Saturday 23 February 2008, 11:30 am - Seattle, WA - The AFIO Pacific Northwest Chapter hosts a meeting at the Museum of Flight. The cost for the meeting will be $15 which will cover tea, juice and coffee.
The meeting will be offered in three parts:
Part 1: Welcome and Socializing – Starting at 11:30pm
Part 2: Starting at 12:30pm
Our AFIO guest speaker is retired USAF Major Loody Christofero.
Major Christofero has a fascinating history having flown in WW2 in the China, Burma, India theatre of operations. He has a wealth of exciting stories having flown 73 missions in a C46 Commando across “The Hump” the Himalayan mountains. It was the only way to get supplies into China to support the Chinese troops fighting the Japanese. Major Christofero was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, two Air Force medals and a Presidential Citation.
Part 3: At 2:00pm
At 2 pm we have arranged for our members and guests to adjourn to the to the main theatre to hear a presentation:
Vietnam Panel: “The Tet Offensive 40 Years Later”
On the Vietnamese Lunar New Year of 1968, the North Vietnamese forces launched a country-wide offensive known as the “Tet Offensive.” While it was a military disaster for the communists, news of the offensive led to widespread disaffection with the war among the American public. Forty years after this historical turning point, meet several of the men who served in uniform during this controversial conflict, both on the ground and in the air. The panel will include Colonel James Carlton who flew B-52s and then OV-10s over South Vietnam, Capt. Jonathan Hayes who flew F-4s over North Vietnam, and noted author Kregg Jorgenson who volunteered as a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) with H Company – 75th Airborne Rangers.
Again, the cost for the meeting will be $15 which will cover tea and coffee, payable in advance, which covers all of the above.
All ROTC friends are also asked to join for this event. The cost for ROTC members will be $5 payable at the door.
Please let me know as soon as possible if you will be attending and with how many quests.
fd@cromwellgroup.us or 206 729 9700

6 March 2008 – San Francisco, CA – The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts Joe P. Russoniello, U.S. Attorney, Northern District of California. Mr. Russoniello will speak on how the U.S. government prosecutes terrorism cases. The meeting will be held at United Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94116 (between Sloat and Wawona). 11:30 AM no host cocktails; noon - luncheon. $25 member rate with advance reservation; $35 non-member rate or at door. RSVP to Mariko Kawaguchi (please indicate meat or fish) no later than 5PM 2/27/08: mariko@cataphora.com, (650) 622-9840 X608 or send a check to P.O. Box 117578 Burlingame, CA 94011.

10 -11 March 2008 - Laurel, Maryland - 2008 Unrestricted Warfare Symposium at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) is jointly sponsored by JHU/APL and the University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). It is also co-sponsored by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy), the Department of State, and the National Intelligence Council. For 2008, the theme of integrating strategy, analysis, and technology to counter adversaries utilizing unrestricted warfare approaches. The focus will be on the DoD Campaign Plan for the War on Terrorism: Integrating Strategy, Analysis, and Technology in Support of the U.S. War on Terror Campaign. I am thrilled that Admiral Eric Olson, USSOCOM, has agreed to give the keynote address. Over the two days we will have four other featured speakers [Dr. Thomas Mahnken, ODUSD(Policy); Prof. Bruce Hoffman, Georgetown University; Dr. Stephen Flynn, Council on Foreign Relations; and Prof. Peter Feaver, Duke University], five roundtable panels, and a panel of senior-level government representatives responsible for various aspects of the War on Terror Campaign.
2008 registration details can be found at the symposium website: http://www.jhuapl.edu/urw_symposium/.

Thursday, 13 March 2008, 3:00 PM - Reston, VA - The Washington Area Chapter of the International Association for Intelligence Education hosts a speaker on Intelligence Analysis. This first in a series of interviews by this group will be with Robert Clark (author of “Intelligence Analysis: A Target-Centric Approach”) interviewed by Marilyn B. Peterson. Location: The Forum, 1892 Preston White Drive, Reston, VA 20191. To register: Bill Spracher at 202-231-4193 or William.Spracher@dia.mil. Non-members are welcome and refreshments will be provided by i2, Inc.

Thursday, 20 March 2008, 6:30 pm – Washington, DC -“The Bomber Behind the Veil: Muslim Women and Violent Jihad”– Farhana Ali, Rand Corp. policy analyst, at the Spy Museum. Beware the mujahidaat. Farhana Ali, an international policy analyst with the Rand Corporation, is one of the few researchers focused on these Muslin female fighters. She has charted an increase in suicide attacks by Muslim women since at least 2000, in new theaters of operation, including Uzbekistan, Egypt, and Iraq. These attacks are arguably more deadly than those conducted by male jihadists, in part due to the perception that women are unlikely to commit such acts of horror, and when they do, the shock or “CNN factor” of their attacks draws far greater media attention. She discusses their place in Islamic history, their psychological profile, and the likely shelf-life of this disturbing trend. Tickets: $20. Visit http://www.spymuseum.org for tickets.

26-28 March 2008 - Raleigh, NC - The Fifth Raleigh Spy Conference at the NC Museum of History - Not to miss. Topic: CIA’s Unsolved Mysteries: The NOSENKO Case, Double Agents and Angleton’s Wilderness of Mirrors features top experts in counterintelligence to discuss unresolved issues from the Cold War: 

“Wilderness of Mirrors” is the theme for the fifth annual Raleigh Spy Conference, an internationally acclaimed event that draws top experts in the field of intelligence to Raleigh each year. The 2008 conference will be held March 26-28 at the North Carolina Museum of History in downtown Raleigh.

Association of Former Intelligence Officers president Gene Poteat says of the Raleigh conference:

“In Washington, it's difficult for the public to comprehend important intelligence and terrorism issues since everything is partisan and politically charged. Outside Washington, there are few voices for the public to hear, and those heard are often wrong or media-driven. Few are able to explain to the public what really has happened, and is happening, in intelligence, counterterrorism and national security - important issues, which, throughout history, have spelled the survival or loss of this or other nations.

“The annual Raleigh Spy Conference is a rare opportunity to hear it straight, with an unusual ‘insider's’ perspective and knowledge. Each year this conference opens that door to share remarkable insights and stellar speakers with the public. If one claims a scintilla of world-affairs knowledge, it cannot be true unless the annual Raleigh Spy Conference is on your calendar.”

Conference founder and Raleigh Metro Magazine editor and publisher Bernie Reeves says of the event: “This year’s conference will present intelligence operatives and experts to discuss the effect of moles, double agents and deception operations during the Cold War and the unsolved questions that continue today to cause disagreement and dissension.”

“Many of these questions remain from the monumental battle between the Soviet Union and the United States,” he adds, “when the wheel of history often turned to the will of moles burrowed inside intelligence and other government agencies. It was indeed a ‘wilderness of mirrors’ that continues today to cast a confused image of history.”

Pete Bagley, the former chief of CIA's Soviet bloc counterintelligence division, will appear at the 2008 conference. According to Reeves, Bagley will discuss his controversial new book on KGB defector Yuri Nosenko entitled Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries and Deadly Games. Nosenko’s mysterious references to Lee Harvey Oswald, his inconsistent recall and the suspicion he was a KGB plant sent to discredit other defectors kicked off 40 years of unresolved internal strife at CIA.

Other speakers include:

-- David Robarge, Chief Historian for CIA and expert on controversial counterintelligence chief James Angleton, will discuss the dissension created at CIA by the former chief of counterintelligence due to his obsessive hunt for a Soviet mole.

-- Brian Kelley, the wrong man in the Robert Hanssen spy case, and former counterintelligence officer for CIA, will use examples of defectors and double agents he draws on as case models for courses he teaches to train espionage agents.

-- Jerry Schecter, former bureau chief for Time magazine in Moscow during the Cold War, later a spokesman for the National Security Council, and a respected expert and author of books on Cold War espionage, will discuss important cases of defectors and double agents in the heat of the Cold War.

-- David Ignatius, former foreign editor - now columnist for the Washington Post – and author of espionage fiction, is respected in the "community" for his insights on the impact of defectors and double agents on the craft of espionage.

Special Guest M. Stanton Evans, columnist, editor and author of the new book Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies is a surprise addition to this year’s conference. According to Reeves, Evans used previously classified FBI and governmental files to “upend the McCarthy myth and turn the tables on the real guilty parties. “The Evans book is new and is causing comment”, says Reeves. “Although the McCarthy Era is not part of the conference subject matter, we feel the new book is of great interest to our audience as it deals with penetration of the US government by Soviet operatives.”

The Raleigh Spy Conference was founded “to bridge the gap between intelligence and current history,” according to Reeves. “The calculus of modern events is intelligence. We don’t really know what happened until someone declassifies something”.

Reeves first conceived the Raleigh Spy Conference after it was revealed in the late 1970s that the British were reading the German code during World War II, altering the accepted history of the most dramatic event in human history. 

Today, says Reeves, “after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992 and the brief opening of the Comintern Archives, the CIA and NSA announced that the US had been decrypting and reading messages from Moscow to Soviet agents in the US government.  Add to these revelations the proliferation of books and articles by former intelligence officers from both sides of the Cold War, and you realize the actual history of the era requires a fresh examination”.

The first Raleigh Spy Conference in 2003 featured speakers on Cold War politics and included KGB major general Oleg Kalugin and Cambridge intelligence scholar Chris Andrew. In year two, speakers presented information on the connection of intelligence and terrorism, featuring experts on al-Qaeda and Hamas. The third year, top Cold War experts offered sessions on the fast-moving topic of Cold War scholarship, featuring Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes. Last year, the conference focused on Fidel Castro and the future of Cuba at the moment Castro fell ill and turned the reins of government over to his brother Raul.

C-SPAN-TV has broadcast several sessions and C-SPAN Radio has broadcast the entire Raleigh Spy Conference. BBC, CBS radio, other national and area media have covered the conference extensively. Recaps of previous conferences are available at http://www.raleighspyconference.com. The website also contains the 2008 schedule, speaker biographies, registration forms and other events and information.

Tickets to the three-day event are $250 for the general public, $175 for seniors, and $145 for teachers, students and members of the military and intelligence community. Early registration is available by calling Jennifer Hadra or Dan Reeves at 919-831-0999. For more information, go to http://www.raleighspyconference.com

Friday 4 April 2008, 5:30 PM - AFIO Metro New York Chapter Spring meeting features exclusive report by Lt. General Robert J. Elder, Jr. Commanding General of the 8th Air Force, the U. S. Cyber Command on "What we're doing about these cyber attacks on our country – Defending the nation TODAY."
In May 2001, Chinese hackers took down the White House Web Site for almost three hours. According to AIR FORCE Magazine, since then, the attacks originating from servers in China have grown in sophistication and intensity.
Just a year ago, the Naval Network Warfare Command acknowledged that Chinese attacks had reached the level of a campaign-style force-on-force engagement.
Last April 26th came the first full-blown cyber assault resembling an act of war. A controversy over moving a bronze statue of a Russian soldier from the center of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, ended with a massive, coordinated assault on Estonia's cyber institutions. Many commercial and government web sites were shut down.
On Friday, April 4th, General Elder will reveal the remarkable story of how the newly-established U.S. 8th Air Force is using the electromagnetic spectrum first, as cyber defense, then to conduct cyber missions such as defeating remotely triggered IED's in Iraq, conducting electronic warfare, halting terrorist use of the Global Positioning System and satellite communications and preventing jamming.
Location: The University Club, Fifth Ave at 54th St. Reservations are required and are limited by available space. They will be accepted in the order they are received until room capacity is reached. Admission is $45 to cover meeting costs. Meeting begins at 6:00 PM
TO RESERVE: Jerry Goodwin, 646-696-1828 or by email: afiometro@yahoo.com

7 - 11 April 2008 - Boston, MA - The International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts (IALEIA), and the Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU), will be co-hosting the 2008 Annual Conference in Boston. The conference takes place at the Park Plaza Hotel. This is the only event of its kind for law enforcement intelligence, serving an international audience, and is a "must attend" conference. The training will be first-rate and the opportunities to foster professional relationships with colleagues and peers from around the world will be extraordinary. To register on line, or for more information about the conference, please go to
http://leiu-homepage.org/events/index.php For hotel information and registration, please go to:
http://www.starwoodmeeting.com/StarGroupsWeb/booking/reservation?id=0707030645&key=5C3A5

Wednesday, 16 April 2008, 6:30 PM - Washington, DC - Spy vs. Spy: FBI and KGB Secrets from the Cold War - Event held at International Spy Museum."I was beginning to like these guys."-Oleg Kalugin on the FBI surveillance team observing him in Miami, December 1968. Once they worked against each other. Now Oleg Kalugin and David Major are colleagues and friends. In this unique evening the former KGB acting Washington station chief and FBI director of counter-intelligence retrace their exciting careers and how they intersected. They book-ended the espionage career of John Walker-Kalugin supervised the notorious spy and it was to Major's office that the traitor was brought after his arrest. From surveillance to recruitment, all will be shared. As columnist Jack Anderson once wrote, Kalugin's "undercover activities were known to the FBI, but only the State Department knows the reason he is still here." Now that the dust has somewhat settled on their overlapping cases, this is your chance to hear both sides of the story from FBI successes and snafus to KGB plots and procedures.
Location: International Spy Museum, 800 F St NW, Washington, DC, Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station. Tickets: $20; Advance Registration required. Tickets are non-refundable and do not include admission to the International Spy Museum. To register, call Ticketmaster at 800.551.SEAT or the Museum at 202.393.7798; order online at ticketmaster.com; or purchase tickets in person at the International Spy Museum.

Thursday, 17 April 2008, 12 Noon - 1 pm - Washington, DC - The Terrorist Recognition Handbook - A Manual for Predicting and Identifying Terrorist Activities - event held at the International Spy Museum. Terrorists can come from any background, any age group, either gender, and yet somehow they must be identified and neutralized. As an internationally recognized expert, author, and educator on the Iraq insurgency, Jihadist tactics and Al Qaeda's global organization, Malcolm Nance has studied the telltale characteristics of terrorist operations and developed an intelligence-based approach to observing and analyzing behavior for warning signs. In The Terrorist Recognition Handbook he uncovers the terrorists' means, methods, organization, and motivations. He identifies the key steps that every terrorist group will always follow, and how and why groups use and choose their weapons. Join Nance for an eye-opening look at terrorism as the sum of its parts rather than as an incomprehensible force.
Location: International Spy Museum, 800 F St NW, Washington, DC, Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station. Tickets: Free. No registration required

17-19 April 2008 - London, UK - The German Historical Institute in London hosts "Keeping Secrets" conference. The German Historical Institute in London is hosting a conference entitled "Keeping Secrets:  How Important was intelligence to the conduct of international relations from 1914 to 1939." Among the scholars expected to speak are Zara Steiner, General William Odom, Christopher Andrew, Ernest May, Paul Kennedy, Gerhard Weinberg, Mark Lowenthal, Richard Aldrich, Georges-Henri Soutou, and David Kahn. The conference will take place at the institute in central London from 17 to 19 April. For further information write Karina Kurbach at <kurbach@ghil.ac.uk>

For Additional Events two+ months or greater....view our online Calendar of Events

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