AFIO Weekly Intelligence Notes #21-09 dated 9 June 2009

Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Mysterious 'Chip' is CIA's Latest Weapon Against al-Qaida Targets Hiding in Pakistan's Tribal Belt. The CIA is equipping Pakistani tribesmen with secret electronic transmitters to help target and kill al-Qaida leaders in the north-western tribal belt, in a tactic that could aid Pakistan's army as it takes the battle against extremism to the Taliban heartland.

As the army mops up Taliban resistance in the Swat valley, where a defense official predicted fighting would be over within days, the focus is shifting to Waziristan and the Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud.

But a deadly war of wits is already under way in the region, where tribesmen say the US is using advanced technology and old-fashioned cash to target the enemy.

Over the last 18 months the US has launched more than 50 drone attacks, mostly in south and north Waziristan. US officials claim nine of the top 20 al-Qaida figures have been killed.

That success is reportedly in part thanks to the mysterious electronic devices, dubbed "chips" or "pathrai" (the Pashto word for a metal device), which have become a source of fear, intrigue and fascination.

"Everyone is talking about it," said Taj Muhammad Wazir, a student from south Waziristan. "People are scared that if a pathrai comes into your house, a drone will attack it."

According to residents and Taliban propaganda, the CIA pays tribesmen to plant the electronic devices near farmhouses sheltering al-Qaida and Taliban commanders.

Hours or days later, a drone, guided by the signal from the chip, destroys the building with a salvo of missiles. "There are body parts everywhere," said Wazir, who witnessed the aftermath of a strike.

Until now the drone strikes were the only threat to militants in Waziristan, where the Pakistani army had, in effect, abandoned the fight.

But now, emboldened by a successful campaign to drive militants out of Swat, a region about 80 miles from Islamabad, the army is preparing to regain lost ground in the more remote tribal belt.

It will be a much tougher campaign than in Swat, with the army pitched against a formidable, battle-hardened opponent. Yesterday Taliban fighters ambushed a military position in what could be a prelude to much more intense combat.

For the US military, drones have proved to be an effective weapon against al-Qaida targets, and they are becoming increasingly accurate.

On 1 January a drone-fired missile killed Usama al-Kimi, a Kenyan militant who orchestrated last year's Marriott hotel bombing in Islamabad, a senior official with Pakistan's ISI spy agency said.

It is a high-tech assassination operation for one of the world's most remote areas.

The pilotless aircraft, Predators or more sophisticated Reapers, take off from a base in Baluchistan province.

But they are guided by a joystick-wielding operator half a world away, at a US air force base 35 miles north of Las Vegas.

Barack Obama has approved the drone campaign, which is cheap and limits the danger posed to US troops. But the strikes have many unintended victims. A Pakistani newspaper estimated that 700 people had been killed since 2006, most of them civilians, as a result of drone attacks.

For the tribesmen who plant the microchips and get it wrong, the consequences can be terrible. Last month the Taliban issued a video confession by Habib ur Rehman, 19. "They money was good," he said in a quavering voice, describing how he was paid 20,000 rupees (�166) to drop microchips hidden in a cigarette wrapper at the home of a target.

Rehman said his handler promised thousands of pounds if the strike was successful, and protection if he was caught. The end of the video showed Rehman being shot dead with three other alleged spies. Residents say such executions - there have been at least 100 - indicate how much the drone strikes have worried the Taliban.

In Wana, the capital of south Waziristan, foreign fighters are shunning the bazaars and shops, and locals are shunning the fighters. "Before, the common people used to sit with the militants," said Wazir. "Now they are also afraid."

Paranoid militant commanders are closely monitoring cross-border traffic with Afghanistan, from where they suspect the chip-carrying CIA spies are coming, said Imtiaz Wazir, a resident of Spin Wam village in north Waziristan. "If I go to Afghanistan without any purpose, the militants come to ask why," he said.

A local transporter named Haji Hamid who gave the wrong answer, he said, was found shot dead two months ago, his legs and fingers broken.

The drone strikes are despised across Pakistan, where politicians including President Asif Ali Zardari denounce them as a breach of sovereignty. But behind the scenes his government is quietly colluding with Washington.

A former CIA officer who served in Waziristan in 2006 said that small American teams comprising CIA agents, radio experts and special forces soldiers are stationed inside Pakistani military bases across the tribal belt.

From there, the CIA recruits a network of paid, and sometimes unwitting, informers - known as "cut-outs" - to help identify targets, he added. In most cases they are poor local men.

Ironically, support for the drone strikes is strongest in the frontier, especially among embattled security officials. "They are very precise, very effective, and the Taliban and al-Qaida dread them," said the provincial police chief, Malik Naveed Khan, with undisguised admiration. The strikes have caused friction between the US and the ISI, which would like America to give it control over the new technology. "The problem with the Americans is that the only instrument up their sleeve is the hammer, and they see everything as a nail," said a senior official.

The ISI resents the US for failing to target Mehsud, whose deputy claimed for last week's Lahore attack that killed at least 24 people, including an ISI colonel.

But as the army prepares to attack South Waziristan, with broad public support, the warlord's luck may be running out. Authorities in North West Frontier Province are preparing for up to 500,000 refugees, added to 2.5 million displaced by operations in Swat.

Mehsud faces other challenges, too. Rival militant groups, with army support, are challenging his dominance in South Waziristan.

And he faces the ever-present danger that some visitor could drop a "pathrai" at his doorstep, and bring an American drone with it. [Guardian/31May2009] 

US Fines Israeli Agent in Spy Case. A US court has fined an 85-year-old former army engineer $50,000 after he admitted passing classified documents to Israel.

Ben-Ami Kadish apologized during the hearing. In December, he pled guilty to acting as an unregistered agent of Israel during the 1970s and 80s.

"It was a mistake. It was a misjudgment," he said during sentencing at the court in New York. "I thought I was helping the state of Israel without harming the United States," he said.

Prosecutors had recommended Kadish be spared a prison sentence.

But US District Judge William Pauley raised questions over why the authorities had waited so long to bring charges.

"Why it took the government 23 years to charge Mr. Kadish is shrouded in mystery," Pauley said. "It is clear the (US) government could have charged Mr. Kadish with far more serious crimes."

Kadish reported to Israeli agent Yosef Yagur, who has been linked in court documents to the case of Jonathan Pollard, a US citizen who is serving a life sentence for a 1985 charge of spying for Israel. [AlJazeera/31May2009]

MI6 Tempts Rebel Ex-Spy Back Home. The renegade former MI6 spy Richard Tomlinson has finally come in from the cold.

After more than a decade in exile, where he lived in fear of arrest and extradition to face trial in the UK, Tomlinson has at last buried the hatchet with Sir John Scarlett, chief of MI6.

The deal between the head of Britain's overseas spies and the whistleblower who claimed MI6 had a secret "license to kill" follows a decision to send a mediator to negotiate with Tomlinson in Spain.

As a result, MI6 has agreed to let him return to Britain, unfreeze royalties from his book and drop the threat of charges. It has also apologized for its unfair treatment of him.

In return, the former spy who was sentenced to a year's jail for breaking the Official Secrets Act in 1997, has agreed not to speak to the media or make further damaging disclosures about the shadowy work of his former employer.

Tomlinson, 46, who was born in New Zealand, joined MI6 in 1991. He served in the Soviet operations department at the end of the cold war before being posted to Sarejevo during the break-up of Yugoslavia.

He also worked as an undercover officer against Iran and investigated Tehran's trade in weapons of mass destruction.

The deal, brokered several months ago, marks the end of a bitter battle which began in 1995 when he was sacked without explanation. Malcolm Rifkind, then foreign secretary, ruled that his case could not be heard at an industrial tribunal.

Tomlinson was stung by the apparent injustice . He approached The Sunday Times, which published a series of articles about MI6 dirty tricks.

In 1997, he became the first MI6 agent to be prosecuted for secrets offences since the Soviet spy George Blake in 1961. He admitted breaking the Official Secrets Act after he sent a synopsis of his proposed book on MI6 to a publisher in Australia.

He served five months of a 12-month sentence and then fled to France in breach of his sentencing conditions.

Later he tried to help Mohamed al-Fayed, the Harrods tycoon, with his privately funded investigation into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and Fayed's son Dodi in a Paris car crash in 1997.

Tomlinson claimed that MI6 plotted to kill Slobodan Milosevic, the late president of Serbia, by staging a car crash using a powerful strobe light to blind the driver.

He suggested Diana and Dodi may have been killed by MI6 in the same way, although that claim was dismissed at their inquest.

Last week, Tomlinson was unavailable for comment. His father, David, declined to discuss the matter. Friends of the former spy say, however, that he has already been back to Britain. "He was determined not to give in to them.... He'll probably feel at a bit of a loss now," said one. [TimesOnline/1June2009] 

CIA To Recruit Wall Street Pros, Says Report. The Central Intelligence Agency is recruiting Wall Street executives - former investment bankers, securities analysts and hedge fund managers - to help catch terrorists, according to a story in the New York Post.

The spy agency has advertised for the $160,000 annual salary on Bloomberg Radio, a 24-hour all news radio station. While the same executives may well have been responsible for the current financial crisis, the CIA says they can "use their intelligence for the work of a nation."

The agency say that it needs the executives to track the financial maneuvers of Afghan drug traffickers as well as which economies are more susceptible to manipulation, according to the Post. The interviews are set for June 22 at an undisclosed Manhattan location. The CIA is requesting that resumes be emailed only. [Kentouris/SecuritiesIndustry/1June2009] 

CIA Operative Who Tracked Che Wins $1 Billion in Lawsuit. Gustavo Villoldo, 73, fled Cuba shortly after the revolution. His father, also named Gustavo, was a member of the upper class Cuban society that eventually came to represent all that was corrupt and wrong with society in the eyes of Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

After graduating from the Wharton School of Business, the elder Villoldo returned to Cuba and opened a General Motors car dealership and distribution center. Just before the revolution, annual sales were nearly $15 million, but when Castro rolled into Havana on Jan. 8, 1959, heralding the ousting of Batista, Villoldo's personal fortune (including the dealership, a waterfront family compound, two other homes and a farm) was confiscated. He was branded a Yankee sympathizer and, according to his son, Che Guevara - recently named head of Cuba's Banco Nacional - began harassing Villoldo and his sons. Villoldo was eventually arrested, interrogated and threatened.

"My father became a former shadow of himself," his son testified, "He was a broken man."

On Feb. 16, 1959, the father killed himself at the age of 56 by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills. And this past Friday, a Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Peter Adrien awarded his family more than $1 billion, stating, "What the defendants (i.e. Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and the Cuban government) did was torture this family and tear it apart.''

In a strange twist of fate, after fleeing the island and taking part in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Gustavo Villoldo Jr. became an officer in the U.S. Army, and by direct recommendation of JFK was recruited to work with the CIA. In 1963, he helped the CIA track Guevara in the Bolivian jungle.

"There was a certain amount of satisfaction in burying the man who I felt was responsible for my father's death," he admitted. [Rosario/Latina/1June2009]

US to Retire South Korea-Based U-2 Spy Planes. The United States is planning to retire its fabled U-2 spy planes from South Korea and replace them with unmanned drones, according to an Air Force spokeswoman.

The U-2 has for decades been one of the workhorses in the U.S. Air Force's reconnaissance armada. It achieved international fame when one of its early versions, piloted by Gary Powers, was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960.

Though its role has largely been taken over by satellites, U-2 planes are still deployed to South Korea's Osan Air Base and are believed to play a major part in U.S. operations aimed at keeping an eye on North Korea.

Lt. Col. Rene White, a spokeswoman for the 7th Air Force, headquartered on Osan, said the retirement date has not been set.

Korea is one of the primary overseas locations for U-2 operations. The planes are also believed to fly out of Britain and Cypress, and have been used inside the United States to help assess the impact of natural disasters.

White said the sleek, long-winged planes will be replaced by ultrahigh-altitude unmanned reconnaissance planes, or Global Hawks.

Such drones have played an increasingly important part in surveillance in hotspots such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U-2, designed in the 1950s for the requirements of the Cold War, is a single-seat plane that can fly at extremely high altitudes and speeds and go without refueling for long missions, making it highly suitable for spy missions.

North Korea has long complained of U.S. spy missions over its airspace, and has often slammed the U-2s as a threat to its safety.

Earlier this week, the North complained in its official media that spy missions increased dramatically last month, when it detonated an underground nuclear device in its second such test. [Chang/AP/2June2009] 

Former CIA Station Chief Challenges Claims that Torture Thwarts Terror Attacks. Milton Bearden, a former Central Intelligence Agency Pakistan station chief who served at the agency for three decades, says claims that the Bush administration's so-called enhanced interrogation techniques saved American lives are likely false.

The retired senior CIA officer also says that the former administration's repeated assertions that attacks were foiled through torture are hurting US credibility abroad, endangering alliances and aiding the cause of would-be terrorists.

Bearden, who formerly headed the CIA's Soviet/East European Division and served as station chief in Pakistan, Nigeria and Sudan, was a key figure in the funding and training of the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. He retired in 1994 but says he has communicated with contacts who agree they've heard of no evidence to support Bush officials' claims.

If the Bush administration had proof of a plot stopped by enhanced interrogation, they would have produced it, Bearden says. "I cannot imagine that the system would not have leaked such a story," he insists. "It would have been leaked in a New York minute."

Former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney publicly defended their harsh interrogation approach last month. However, the techniques approved by Bush administration lawyers in 2002 appear to be prohibited by both the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory.

Bearden is intimately familiar with the countries that some of the most prominent terror suspects have hailed from. He dismisses many of the alleged terror plots which have been made public.

"They dredge up the slapstick plot of the Liberty Seven or the strange Lyman Faris plot which included a blowtorch," Bearden said. "But when asked for something more substantive, the [Bush administration] retreated behind the screen of protecting sources and methods. We are told to trust them."

"When challenged on any aspect of national security," he added, "the standard collection of administration acolytes instantly dredged up the now well known list of interdicted attacks against us."

Vice President Dick Cheney has vigorously defended the interrogation program in recent months. In May, the former VP said the specter of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 caused the Bush administration to respond far more aggressively to avoid any future attacks and claimed that many attacks were thwarted as a result of harsh interrogation tactics.

"Every senior official who has been briefed on these classified matters knows of specific attacks that were in the planning stages and were stopped by the programs we put in place," Cheney insisted.

Bearden argues that since we already know the methods used - in some cases including waterboarding - there should be no reason to hold back on exposing more substantive thwarted plots. He also believes that making claims of a thwarted plot but being unable to lay the "intelligence on the table" is harmful to US national security.

"Ronald Reagan laid his intelligence on the table almost immediately after his retaliatory attack against Tripoli following the Libyan attack of 1986 on the La Belle Disco in Berlin," Bearden said. "Reagan let it be known that we had the Libyan codes and did this before he felt even a twinge of heat from the public or Congress because it was the right thing to do."

Perhaps most significantly, Bearden believes that by making unsubstantiated claims of success in preventing attacks, the Bush administration has actually undermined US alliances with other nations. Bearden and the others he's communicated with have not heard of any significant plots against the United States that were uncovered by the Bush administration's harsh techniques - and that, he says, weakens US standing in the world.

"I have never been able to understand how any responsible leaders could so vehemently stick to the excuse of protecting sources and methods while that very position accounted for a weakening not only of this nation's alliances, but potentially strengthened our enemies," he said.

Two other CIA officers, who have asked to remain anonymous due to their ongoing involvement in covert operations, seconded Bearden's skepticism that any domestic plots of significance were disrupted during the Bush administration.

"Certain officials of the Bush administration would have had no qualms about exposing any of our officers, operational methods and sources of information if it meant scoring political points," said one CIA covert officer, whose focus is the Middle-East, referring to the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. "The fact that [the Bush administration officials] continue to use the protection of sources and methods as a reason for why they can produce no evidence of a serious plot is not believable given what they have already made public."

Another current CIA officer who works the Near East agreed that if any plot had actually been disrupted, someone from the Bush administration would certainly have leaked the proof, noting, "Nothing is sacred to them." [Alexandrapova/RawStory/1June2009] 

Canadian Judge Asks: Can We Trust Our Spies? A Federal Court judge has suggested he does not trust CSIS to investigate itself after the spy agency admitted last week to withholding damaging information about an informant.

The information is related to Ottawa's effort to deport alleged terrorism suspect Mohamed Harkat.

The federal government, through its lawyers, says the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is investigating why the information was not disclosed earlier to the judge or to special court-appointed advocates hearing classified evidence in secret.

That didn't satisfy Justice Simon Noel. He asked lawyers to make submissions by tomorrow about how best to proceed to ensure the "integrity" of the judicial process.

Noel last week ordered the uncensored information, including the identity of the human source, be handed over to the court and the special advocates. The information was produced Monday.

But Noel wondered aloud whether information had been kept from Madam Justice Eleanor Dawson, who in March 2005 upheld the government's original security certificate against Harkat.

A security certificate is an extraordinary immigration warrant that relies on secret evidence and is used to deport individuals deemed a threat to Canada.

"That is a deep concern of mine, not only for the case in the proceeding in front of us but also for the institutions that are at play in the judicial system, including the CSIS," Noel said.

He suggested the government-appointed watchdogs of CSIS - either the Inspector General's office, which reports to the public safety minister, or the independent civilian Security Intelligence Review Committee - may have to investigate what went wrong.

"These are just examples of avenues that could be followed," Noel said, saying he does not believe he has the jurisdiction to go back and investigate fully what happened before another court.

CSIS lawyer Andr� S�guin said Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, who oversees CSIS, promised: "We will cooperate fully and comply exactly with the law."

S�guin suggested it could be "part and parcel" of Noel's inquiry, behind closed doors, and promised a more concrete proposal tomorrow.

That's when the judge is to meet privately with government lawyers and the special advocates, in absence of Harkat or his counsel.

In other developments yesterday, the court heard from Canada Border Services Agency supervisor Jasmine Richard, who tried to defend a sweeping search of Harkat's home on May 12.

The search came just weeks before a scheduled hearing into whether Harkat should be allowed to remain in Canada or deported to his native Algeria, where he claims he would be tortured.

Richard admitted the agency had no factual reason to believe Harkat, who was released from custody in 2005, had breached his strict bail order, but went looking for "possible" evidence of a breach.

Richard led the search, conducted by 16 officers, including Ottawa police and RCMP and three sniffer dogs trained to search for explosives, weapons and currency.

She said she seized Harkat's wife's laptop and personal agendas, his family pictures with Arabic handwriting on them, hundreds of floppy discs, tape cassettes, videotapes, CDs and DVDs because "possibly it could have been evidence of something."

She seized materials written in Arabic because "I have to make sure there's no jihad information."

Harkat's lawyer Matthew Weber challenged the constitutionality of the warrantless search. He said the agency has no "standard operating procedure" for such a search, and suggested Richard went "fishing" for damaging information.

The agency "went well beyond what I consider to be their lawful authority," he said outside court. "If you want to get into a seizure like that, as far as I'm concerned, you've got to go get a warrant."

The federal government contends Harkat, an Ottawa pizza delivery man who was arrested in December 2002, is a sleeper Al Qaeda agent. [MacCharles/TheStar/3June2009] 

Air Force Lags On Sending Spy Planes. The Air Force has failed to deploy new spy planes to Afghanistan and Iraq even though Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made it a priority to rush the aircraft to troops in combat, according to interviews with military officials and documents.

Gates is concerned that the delivery of the planes to Afghanistan will be "out of synch" with 21,000 troops being sent there by President Obama for a summer offensive against Taliban insurgents, said Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman.

The planes are two to three months behind schedule, according to the Air Force. "The bottom line is that Secretary Gates is impatient when it comes to getting war fighters the tools they need to be successful," Morrell said.

The twin-engine spy planes are the backbone of Project Liberty, a program Gates began in July 2008. He directed the Air Force to buy 37 commercial planes and equip them with cameras and sensors to track insurgents. The planes, which carry a crew of four, are intended to complement the Predator and Reaper drones that beam video images of insurgent activity to troops in combat and to commanders worldwide by satellite.

The first plane was scheduled to be deployed April 15, and about four of them by June, Air Force documents show. To date, none has been deployed.

The first plane will be used on a mission before mid-June, said Air Force Brig. Gen. James Poss, director of intelligence for the Air Combat Command. He estimated that 30 of the planes will be in Afghanistan and Iraq within a year.

Similar technology has been used successfully in Iraq for Task Force Odin, Gates told the Senate last month. That task force has helped destroy networks that plant roadside bombs, the top killer of U.S. troops.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called airborne reconnaissance missions "absolutely critical" to protect troops in convoys and allow commanders real-time information from the battlefield. Without them, troops will have to limit operations, he said.

The "bottleneck" has been equipping the planes with improved intelligence-gathering equipment, said Air Force Lt. Gen. John Koziol, director of the Pentagon's Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Task Force. The Pentagon has added three round-the-clock production lines "to speed up the process," he said.

Other complications include ensuring that the planes can communicate with the National Security Agency, the training of crews and the development of tactics for the planes' use by soldiers and Marines, Poss said. "It was a pretty dadgum aggressive schedule that we did from the very beginning," he said. In such a project, he said, "you have to accept some kind of delay."

The first seven Project Liberty planes, with sensors and communication equipment, cost $14.7 million apiece, and the next group of 24 planes will cost $21 million each. There is no cost estimate for the last six planes, according to the Air Force.

Gates has moved decisively to address needs of troops in combat. He made a priority of fielding Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) trucks to protect troops from roadside bombs, pushed for more drone missions and ordered more helicopters to Afghanistan to speed the wounded to hospitals.

Last year, Gates chided the Air Force, saying that getting the service to fly more spy planes was "like pulling teeth." Gates has proposed adding $2 billion in the 2010 budget to expand surveillance programs and has asked for nearly $5 billion in the past two years, Morrell said. [VandenBrook/USAToday/1June2009]

To Disclose Or Not To Disclose: A Fight Inside The CIA. The honeymoon between CIA director Leon Panetta and veterans of the agency's undercover division - the National Clandestine Service - may be coming to an end. The dispute concerns how much access congressional investigators should be given to ultraclassified CIA "operational traffic" regarding the agency's post-9/11 use of "enhanced interrogation" techniques on suspected terrorists, some of which President Obama and many others have called torture. "Operational traffic" refers to cables from the field to CIA headquarters, and they go well beyond the intelligence reports routinely provided to Congress, chronicling in exacting, minute-by-minute detail who did what to whom, and how detainees responded to particular questions and techniques. Panetta favors greater disclosure. But three current and former officials close to the clandestine division worry that his decision could damage morale and make spies risk-averse.

The Senate intelligence committee is conducting a major inquiry into the Bush administration program, and one of the goals is to determine whether harsh interrogations produced important information about Al Qaeda that could not have been obtained any other way. Many Democrats and Republicans have argued over the efficacy of such techniques - but partisans on both sides agree that they can't resolve the debate without total access to the operational traffic. According to officials familiar with the issue, who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive topic, Panetta's instinct was to give Congress what it wanted. But undercover officers warned him that this would break with standard practice, and veteran spies worried that it would chill brainstorming between field agents and their controllers. Aiming to compromise, Panetta signaled to Congress that the CIA would turn over only redacted documents - and that it would take a long time to vet as many as 10 million pages of cable traffic.

Congressional investigators aren't backing down, however, insisting on all of the material without deletions, including names of personnel who participated in harsh questioning, and holding subpoenas in reserve. Obama has promised legal support for any CIA officer caught up in probes. Still, says a former senior agency official, the rank-and-file are "nervous." One former undercover operative said some spies are so despondent they have "lost their sense of mission." "The committee is being given access - with appropriate, agreed-upon safeguards - to the material it needs," agency spokesman Paul Gimigliano said. "The CIA is being transparent with the Congress, true to its word." In fact, negotiations are still in progress, though officials close to the matter said Congress will likely get its way but will have to examine documents at CIA HQ. "If they blow this, if stuff leaks or it all gets turned into a political circus, you can close the book on the current system of intelligence oversight," one intel official warned. "Nobody will trust it."  [Hosenball/Newsweek/30May2009] 

Pentagon Audit Finds Flaws In Clearances. The Pentagon may have issued top-secret clearances last year to as many as one-in-four applicants who had "significant derogatory information" in their backgrounds, including a record of foreign influence or criminal conduct, a little-noticed government audit says.

Flaws in the system for granting clearances to Defense Department staff and contractors pose a risk to national security, and the right tools to measure how well the process works are essential, said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo, California Democrat and chairman of a House intelligence subcommittee that oversees personnel and management issues.

"At present, we're basically operating on faith. This shouldn't be a faith-based process," Ms. Eshoo told The Washington Times.

Ms. Eshoo was responding to an audit published last month by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warning one in four top-secret clearances issued by the Pentagon last year had no record of why officials had approved the applicant despite "significant derogatory information" that raised security concerns - most frequently about foreign influence or criminal conduct.

The audit also found that nearly nine in 10 new top-secret clearances last year were granted even though background investigation files on the applicant "were missing at least one type of documentation," most often employment verification.

The Pentagon granted more than 450,000 initial security clearances, and another 180,000 renewals, to military personnel, civilian employees and private contractors last year, based on the results of background investigations conducted by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Auditors reached their conclusions by examining a random sample of 3,500 files on top-secret clearances granted in July last year.

GAO auditors said their report concentrated on top-secret clearances because people with them "have access to information that, if improperly disclosed, could cause exceptionally grave damage to national security."

The risks inherent in granting security clearances to the wrong people are illustrated by the case of Noureddine Malki, a naturalized U.S. citizen who worked as a contract translator for the U.S. military in Iraq. Last year, Malki was sentenced to 10 years in prison and stripped of his citizenship after pleading guilty of lying about his background, biography and even his name in his applications for citizenship and later a top-secret security clearance.

Prosecutors said Malki had taken home classified documents about the insurgency in Iraq, and had been in "unauthorized phone and e-mail contact ... with Sunni sheiks in the Sunni Triangle - individuals from whom the defendant admitted taking bribes," according to a Feb. 7, 2007, pretrial memorandum.

Retired Gen. James Clapper, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, accepted the GAO report and agreed to implement a series of reforms it recommended.

The audit, he said, "provide* an adequate assessment of the department's personnel security program."

Rebecca Allen, deputy director of security for the Pentagon, told The Times that the fact that the rationale for granting a clearance was not recorded did not mean a poor decision had been made. "This appears to be more an issue of documentation," she said.

"We're confident in our risk-management-based approach," she said, adding that adjudicators who decide whether to grant a clearance used "a whole-person concept. They consider favorable and unfavorable information from the past and the present and make decisions on a case-by-case basis."

She said the department had agreed to implement a series of reforms recommended by the audit, including issuing new guidance to investigators about the importance of "more consistently and properly documenting their decisions."

Kathy Dillaman, the OPM associate director in charge of background investigations, said the auditors adopted a "tick-the-box" approach in saying that 90 percent of files were missing documentation.

"Our investigators are trained to find the best sources of information [about applicants] and not just tick the box," she said. For example, she said, some companies would confirm only the dates of employment, in which case investigators would seek other ways to obtain details about a person's work record.

"It's not as black and white" as the audit made it out to be, she said. "There's a fair amount of discretion that has to be applied" by OPM's 6,300 investigators - three-quarters of whom are contractors. "You have to put some common sense in there," she said.

"In every case, a good decision can be made" based on the background investigations OPM passed to the Pentagon, she said, adding that every file was reviewed by experienced staff investigators before it was submitted as part of the agency's quality assurance program.

Ms. Eshoo, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, Texas Democrat and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican, are pushing a bill that would mandate detailed annual reports to Congress on the clearance process.

"We can't afford to go on without a very, very strong handle on who is being allowed in and who should be kept out" of the nation's classified information systems, Ms. Eshoo said. [Waterman/WashingtonTimes/4June2009] 

Former State Department Official and Wife Arrested for Serving As Illegal Agents of Cuba for Nearly 30 Years. A former State Department official and his wife have been arrested on charges of serving as illegal agents of the Cuban government for nearly 30 years and conspiring to provide classified U.S. information to the Cuban government.

The arrests were announced by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Channing D. Phillips, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director for the FBI's Washington Field Office, and Ambassador Eric J. Boswell, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security.

An indictment and criminal complaint unsealed today in the District of Columbia charge Walter Kendall Myers, 72, a.k.a. "Agent 202," and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, 71, a.k.a. "Agent 123," and "Agent E-634," with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government and to communicate classified information to the Cuban government. Each of the defendants is also charged with acting as an illegal agent of the Cuban government and with wire fraud.

The Myers, both residents of Washington, D.C., were arrested yesterday afternoon by FBI agents. They made their initial appearances today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, while serving as an illegal agent of a foreign government carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and conspiracy carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

"The clandestine activity alleged in the charging documents, which spanned nearly three decades, is incredibly serious and should serve as a warning to any others in the U.S. government who would betray America's trust by serving as illegal agents of a foreign government. We remain vigilant in protecting our nation's secrets and in bringing to justice those who compromise them," said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. "These arrests are the culmination of an outstanding counterespionage effort by many agents, analysts and prosecutors who deserve special thanks for their extraordinary work."

"This case demonstrates the care we must take in protecting our nation's valuable secrets, and shows the dedication and perseverance of the men and women investigating this crime who never tired in finding those now charged with betraying our country," said Acting U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips.

"Intelligence services from around the globe continue to steal what information they can from the United States," said Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director for the FBI's Washington Field Office. "Vigilance must be matched with patience to successfully bring their agents to trial. I would particularly like to thank the men and women in my office who worked on this case and who work on other espionage investigations. They work without accolades; silently protecting the safety and security of the United States and its citizens."

Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Eric J. Boswell stated, "The U.S. Department of State is jointly investigating this matter with the FBI, and will continue to aggressively pursue any and all breaches of national security. The Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security works closely with its law enforcement colleagues in the FBI and other agencies to uncover and prosecute any breach of security within its ranks. Any compromise of classified information is a serious threat to the security of our nation, and the State Department will aggressively investigate any such activity to the fullest extent possible."

According to an affidavit in support of the criminal complaint, Kendall Myers began his work at the State Department in 1977, initially serving as a contract instructor at the Department's Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in Arlington, Va. After living briefly in South Dakota, he returned to Washington, D.C., and resumed employment as an instructor with FSI. From 1988 to 1999, in addition to his FSI duties, he performed periodic work for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR).

Kendall Myers later began working full-time at the INR and, from July 2001 until his retirement in October 2007, he was a senior analyst for Europe for INR, where he specialized in intelligence analysis on European matters and had daily access to classified information through computer databases and otherwise. He received a Top Secret security clearance in 1985 and, in 1999, his clearance was upgraded to Top Secret / SCI.

Gwendolyn Myers moved to Washington, D.C., in 1980 and married Kendall Myers in May 1982. She later obtained employment with a local bank as an administrative analyst and later as a special assistant. Gwendolyn Myers was never granted a security clearance by the U.S. government.

According to the affidavit, Kendall Myers traveled to Cuba in December 1978 after receiving an invitation from an official who served at the Cuban Mission to the United States in New York City. His guide while in Cuba was an official with Cuba's Foreign Service Institute. This trip provided the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS) with the opportunity to assess or develop Myers as a Cuban agent, according to the affidavit.

Approximately six months after the trip, the Myers were visited in South Dakota by the official from the Cuban Mission in New York and, according to the affidavit, Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers agreed to serve as clandestine agents of the Cuban government. Afterwards, the CuIS directed Kendall Myers to pursue a job at either the State Department or the CIA. Kendall Myers, accompanied by his wife, then returned to Washington, D.C., where he resumed contract work at the State Department and later obtained a State Department position that required a Top Secret security clearance.

According to the affidavit, during this time frame, the CuIS often communicated with its clandestine agents in the United States by broadcasting encrypted radio messages from Cuba on shortwave radio frequencies. Clandestine agents in the United States monitoring the frequency on shortwave radio could decode the messages using a decryption program provided by the CuIS. Such methods were employed by defendants previously convicted of espionage on behalf of Cuba. According to the affidavit, the Myers have an operable shortwave radio in their apartment and they told an FBI source that they have used it to receive messages from the CuIS.

According to the affidavit, in April 2009, the FBI launched an undercover operation to convince the couple that they had been contacted by a Cuban intelligence officer and to ascertain the scope of their activities for the CuIS. On April 15, 2009, an undercover FBI source posing as a Cuban intelligence officer approached Kendall Myers in Washington, D.C., stating that he had been sent to contact Myers by a named CuIS official in order to obtain information. The FBI source also congratulated Kendall Myers on his birthday and offered him a cigar. Myers agreed to meet the source later that day at a nearby hotel and volunteered to bring his wife along to the meeting.

During the meeting later that day, the couple agreed to meet the source again and to provide information on U.S. government personnel with responsibility for Latin America. According to the affidavit, the couple also made a series of statements about their past activities on behalf of the CuIS, including acknowledging having received coded messages from the CuIS via shortwave radio, meeting CuIS officials in Mexico, and being alert to surveillance. "We have been very cautious, careful with our moves and, uh, trying to be alert to any surveillance," Kendall Myers allegedly told the FBI source.

In subsequent meetings with the FBI source, the Myers allegedly agreed to provide information on the April 17-19, 2009 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as to use specified code words, signals and encryption programs to transmit information via email during future interactions with the source. They also asked the source to "send special greetings...and hugs" to certain CuIS officials.

In addition, the couple allegedly made further statements to the source about their past activities for the CuIS. According to the affidavit, the defendants discussed how they were first recruited by the CuIS and how codes had been used for each of them in messages, including "123" for Gwendolyn Myers and "202" for Kendall Myers. The Myers also stated that they had traveled to meet Cuban agents in Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Jamaica, New York City and other locations.

The Myers also discussed how they had passed information to CuIS agents, with both agreeing that the most secure way was "hand-to-hand." According to the affidavit, Gwendolyn Myers said her favorite way of passing information to CuIS agents involved the changing of shopping carts in a grocery store because it was "easy enough to do."

According to the affidavit, Kendall Myers told the source that he typically removed information from the State Department by memory or by taking notes, although he did occasionally take some documents home. "I was always pretty careful. I, I didn't usually take documents out," he said. According to the affidavit, he also acknowledged delivering information to the CuIS that was classified beyond the "Secret" level. He further stated that he had received "lots of medals" from the Cuban government and that he and his wife had met and spent an evening with Fidel Castro in 1995.

According to the affidavit, the FBI collects high frequency messages broadcast by the CuIS to its agents and has identified messages that it has determined were broadcast to a handler of Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers. Furthermore, the FBI has confirmed trips by the couple to Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Jamaica that correspond to statements made by the defendants. In addition, the FBI has identified emails to the couple in 2008 and 2009 from a suspected representative of the CuIS in Mexico who was allegedly requesting that the couple travel to Mexico.

The affidavit further indicates that an analysis of Kendall Myers' classified State Department work computer hard drive revealed that, from August 22, 2006, until his retirement on Oct. 31, 2007, he viewed more than 200 sensitive or classified intelligence reports concerning the subject of Cuba, while employed as an INR senior analyst for Europe. Of these reports concerning Cuba, the majority was classified and marked Secret or Top Secret, the affidavit alleges. An FBI review of Kendall Myers' State Department security files further revealed numerous false statements by him to conceal the couple's clandestine activities on behalf of the CuIS, the affidavit further alleges.

According to the affidavit, neither Kendall Myers nor Gwendolyn Myers ever provided notification to the Attorney General that either of them was acting as an agent of a foreign government, as required by law.

Finally, the affidavit alleges that Kendall Myers engaged in a scheme to defraud the State Department and the United States by means of false pretenses and caused the U.S. government to lose property, specifically money in the form of salary payments. By not disclosing his clandestine activity on behalf of the CuIS and by making false statements to the State Department about his status, Kendall Myers allegedly defrauded the State Department whenever he received his government salary. Gwendolyn Myers is also criminally liable for this alleged wire fraud scheme.

This investigation was conducted jointly by the FBI's Washington Field Office, and the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Harvey, from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, and Senior Trial Attorney Clifford I. Rones, from the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Department's National Security Division.

The public is reminded that criminal complaints and indictments contain mere allegations and are not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. [PrNewswire/5June2009] 

Nominee Pulls Out as Role at CIA Is Studied. A longtime CIA official chosen by President Obama to be the intelligence chief at the Department of Homeland Security withdrew from consideration after it became apparent that senators examining his nomination planned to scrutinize his role in the agency's interrogation of terrorism suspects.

Philip Mudd, a former deputy director at both the CIA's Office of Terrorism Analysis and the National Counterterrorism Center, was scheduled to appear next week before the Senate as the nominee for undersecretary of intelligence and analysis at Homeland Security.

"I know that this position will require the full cooperation with Congress and I believe that if I continue to move forward I will become a distraction to the president and his vital agenda," Mudd said in a statement.

Obama accepted Mudd's withdrawal "with sadness and regret," the White House said.

Mudd, currently a senior counterterrorism official at the FBI, faced an increasingly charged political atmosphere on Capitol Hill about the CIA's interrogation program. Mudd's nomination was to be taken up by both the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which by law has jurisdiction over his confirmation, and by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has authorization responsibility for his department.

Over the Memorial Day recess, Mudd met with senior staff members of the Homeland Security panel whose interest was primarily how he would handle issues of intelligence sharing with state and local police units. When, near the end of a two-hour session, they went over Mudd's CIA positions from 2001 to 2005, it became apparent that questions about harsh interrogations, renditions and allegations that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had links to al-Qaeda would have to be explored, according to a person at the session who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

"Since he was deputy director of the counterterrorism center, he was going to be asked whether interrogation produced useful intelligence, and if it didn't, why didn't he stop it?" the source said.

As a result of that session, Mudd's Homeland Security Committee hearing date was pushed to June 9, which was five days after he was scheduled to appear before the Senate intelligence panel.

John O. Brennan, Obama's first pick to head the CIA, also withdrew from consideration after questions were raised by some of the president's liberal allies about Brennan's involvement with the interrogation program. Brennan is now the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, a position that does not require Senate confirmation.

Former colleagues of Mudd's expressed dismay at the decision.

"If the White House, Justice and the senior leadership on the seventh floor at Langley is formulating this policy, a guy supposed to implement counterterrorism policy is now held accountable for those policies? That's foolish," said Roger W. Cressey, a counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations who worked with Mudd on the National Security Council. "You're absolutely undercutting the ability of the government to do its job when people like him get caught in this undertow. This guy is an apolitical career civil servant, a true subject-matter expert."

Republicans described Mudd as the victim of retroactive hand-wringing by some Democrats.

"Mudd's nomination is the latest political casualty of a terror-fighting program no one in Congress objected to until it became politically risky," said Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the intelligence committee, in a statement. [Pincus/WashingtonPost/5June2009] 

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

A Closer Look at the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces. Protecting America against terrorist attack are the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces, or JTTFs, our nation's front line fighting terrorism. They consists of small cells of highly trained, locally based, passionately committed volunteers. They also have professional investigators, analysts, linguists, SWAT experts, and other specialists from dozens of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies from all over the U.S.

According to the FBI, when it comes to investigating terrorism, they do it all: chase down leads, gather evidence, make arrests, provide security for special events, conduct training, collect and share intelligence, and respond to threats and incidents at a moment's notice.

This massive organization within the U.S.Government operates the task forces based in 106 cities nationwide, including at least one in each of the FBI's 56 field offices. A total of 71 of these JTTFs have been created since 9/11; the first was established in New York City in 1980.

Today, the JTTFs include more than 4,400 members nationwide - more than four times the pre-9/11 total - hailing from over 600 state and local agencies and 50 federal agencies (the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. military, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Transportation Security Administration, to name but a few).

The FBI claims that the benefits of JTTFs are many and overcome many of the critics who say the feds don't share enough information with other law enforcement organizations, nor have enough linguists, as well as other shortcomings in their war on terror. The feds indicate this will overcome many of their most ardent critics. The feds say JTTF currently provides a one-stop shopping for information regarding terrorist activities. They now are the enablers that share intelligence across many agencies. They create familiarity among investigators and managers before a crisis. And perhaps most importantly, they pool talents, skills, and knowledge from across the law enforcement and intelligence communities into a single team that responds as a coordinated force according to an FBI statement.

The FBI claims they have already contributed more than they can share with the public, as some of their efforts can be stated and much they cannot. The FBI points to the fact that they have been instrumental in breaking up cells like the "Portland Seven," the "Lackawanna Six," and the Northern Virginia jihad. They've foiled attacks on the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey, on the JFK International Airport in New York, and on various military and civilian targets in Los Angeles. They've traced sources of terrorist funding, responded to anthrax threats, halted the use of fake IDs, and quickly arrested suspicious characters with all kinds of deadly weapons and explosives. Chances are, if you hear about a counterterrorism investigation, JTTFs are playing an active and often decisive role.

The National Joint Terrorism Task Force, or NJTTF, was established in 2002 to manage the burgeoning Joint Terrorism Task Force program - the number of task forces almost doubled overnight, from 35 pre-9/11 to 56 soon after 9/11 (50 more have been established since then). Of course, JTTFs have been around since the 1980s, starting in New York and Chicago.

Originally located at FBI Headquarters, the NJTTF moved to the multi-agency National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), where it performs its mission while also working with NCTC personnel to exchange information, analyze data, and plan anti-terrorism strategies.

The coordination of JTTF's forces efforts are largely through the interagency National Joint Terrorism Task Force, working out of FBI Headquarters, which makes sure that information and intelligence flows freely among the local JTTFs and beyond.

A new national anti-terrorism strategic approach is currently being elaborated upon by the United States government. Its overarching goals are to: (1) defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life as a free and open society, and (2) create an environment inhospitable to terrorism worldwide. The approach seeks to the enhance the existing National Strategy for Combating Terrorism by beefing up the ideological component in the war on terror. Inherent here is widespread recognition that the United States will need to increasingly engage in the realm of ideas in conjunction with ongoing efforts to protect and defend the homeland and efforts to attack terrorists and reduce their capabilities.

A modern trend in terrorism is toward loosely organized, self-financed, international networks of terrorists. Another trend is toward terrorism that is religiously - or ideologically - motivated. Radical Islamic fundamentalist groups, or groups using religion as a pretext, pose terrorist threats of varying kinds to U.S. interests and to friendly regimes. A third trend is the apparent growth of cross-national links among different terrorist organizations, which may involve combinations of military training, funding, technology transfer, or political advice.

Terrorists have been able to develop their own sources of financing, which range from charities to illegal enterprises such as growing, producing and trafficking in narcotics, extortion, kidnapping and smuggling drugs and humans.

The Taliban and Al-Qaeda, according to some government reports, make millions from taxing poppy crops and other illegal activities.

Bin Laden's Al Qaeda depends on a formidable array of fundraising operations including Muslim charities and wealthy well-wishers, such as the Saudis and other Arabic countries and seemingly legitimate businesses world-wide. This includes banking connections in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere, as well as various smuggling and fraud activities. Furthermore, reports are ongoing of cross-national links among different terrorist organizations.

Colombia's FARC is said to make hundreds of millions annually from criminal activities, mostly from taxing or participating in the narcotics trade.

Money is a powerful motivator. Rewards for information have been instrumental in Italy in destroying the Red Brigades and in Colombia and Mexico in apprehending drug cartel leaders. A State Department program is in place, supplemented by the aviation industry, usually offering rewards of up to $5 million to anyone providing information that would prevent or resolve an act of international terrorism against U.S. citizens or U.S. property, or that leads to the arrest or conviction of terrorist criminals involved in such acts. This program contributed to the 1997 arrest of Mir Amal Kansi who shot CIA personnel in Virginia, and possibly to the arrest of Ramzi Yousef, architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, in 1995. The bounty for the capture of Osama bin Laden and his aide Ayman al Zawahiri has been raised to $50 million.

On November 25, 2002, the President signed the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-296), consolidating at least 22 separate federal agencies, offices, and research centers comprising more than 169,000 employees into a new cabinet level Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The creation of the new department, charged with coordinating defenses and responses to terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, constitutes the most substantial reorganization of the Federal government agencies since the National Security Act of 1947 which placed the different military departments under a Secretary of Defense and created the National Security Council (NSC) and CIA. P.L. 107-296 includes provisions for an information analysis element within DHS, many of the envisioned tasks of which appear assigned to the Administration's Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) which was activated May 1, 2003.

In the 107th Congress, the controversial USA PATRIOT Act, was enacted on October 2001 (P.L.107-56), and renewed in March 2006, gave law enforcement unprecedented increased authority to investigate suspected terrorists, including enhanced surveillance procedures such as roving wiretaps; provided for strengthened controls on international money laundering and financing of terrorism; improved measures for strengthening of defenses along the U.S. northern border, and authorized disclosure of foreign intelligence information obtained in criminal investigations to intelligence and national security officials.

According to the feds, here's the final-and most important-thing you should know about these JTTFs: They are working 24/7/365 to protect you, your families, and your communities from terrorist attack. [Webster/Rightsidenews/1June2009] 

Is the Hacking Threat To National Security Overblown? Is hacking a real threat to the United States or is it just the latest overblown threat to national security, whose magnitude is being exaggerated in order to expand government agencies' budgets and powers?

That's the question asked by Threat Level editor Kevin Poulsen at a panel in Computers, Freedom and Privacy in Washington, D.C. And it's important because the government is spending billions of dollars on computer security, and President Obama is elevating cyber-security to a national priority, using language that makes even security experts wince.

Amit Yoran, a former Bush Administration cybersecurity czar, argues the answer is easy.

"Is hacking a national security threat?" Yoran said. "The one word answer is yes."

As proof, Yoran pointed to stories about the denial-of-service attacks in Estonia, attacks on government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and the recently reported breach of defense contractor computers that let hackers get at information on the Joint Strike Fighter.

"Cyber 9-11 has happened over the last ten years, but it's happened slowly so we don't see it," Yoran said.

Poulsen called the threat of cyber-terrorism "preposterous," citing the long-standing warnings that hackers would attack the power grid - despite the fact that it has never happened. And he argued that calling such intrusions national security threats means information about attacks gets classified unnecessarily.

"If we can't publicly share info that the attackers already have - since it's about them - then we are doing far more harm than good," Poulsen said, arguing that classification makes it impossible for the security community at large to analyze or prepare defenses for such attacks.

Moreover, he pointed out the Joint Strike fighter example involved only unclassified information.

But security expert Bruce Scheiner said there are going to be cyber-attacks that actually affect the real world, even though the risk is currently overblown.

"Remove the word cyber. Its just a new theater," Scheiner said. "Of course there is espionage, and as data moves online, there is cyber-espionage. But is it a real threat?"

Schneier's answer is yes, but not as big a threat to infrastructure as natural disasters or bad code.

"We have to be robust against hackers and Murphy," Schneier said, referring to Murphy's law.

Dr. Herb Lin, a cyber-attack expert at the National Research Council, called the scoffing naive, saying he could imagine hackers getting into classified command-and-control systems, for one.

But he lamented that much of the current dialogue is about cyber-war and cyber-terror, when the largest threat is in cyber-espionage - which is not considered an act of war.

"We can see why the press and government agencies talk about cyber-terror and cyber-war," Lin said, referring ostensibly to page views and budgets, respectively. "But we don't consider spies inside the United States to be an attack on the United States."

Yoran did admit that cyber-terrorism was improbable, but stuck to his point that there are significant national security threats from hackers.

Lin says the government needs to think about getting its own cyber-attack capability.

"Passive defenses alone are not sufficient," Lin said. "You have to impose costs on an attacker and maybe the only way to do that is a cyber-attack yourself. The good guys have always had some sort of offense too."

Lin was dumbstruck by Poulsen's dismissal of the examples that the government, including President Obama, have used as evidence that there is a massive cyber-security threat - specifically Obama's recent description of a November USB thumb-drive virus attack as one of the biggest cyber-attacks against the U.S. military.

"Why is something that is an obvious threat not considered a threat to national security?" Lin asked.

"The point is that the way you frame these issues matters," Schneier explained.

In fact, they do matter - since now the government is pouring billions of dollars into cyber-security for its own networks, and possibly the general public's net - a far change from the government's relative indifference to such issues until about two years ago.

Indeed, even Amit Yoran, who quit his post in the Bush Administration as cyber-czar in October 2004 after having gotten little support during his one-year tenure, admitted his job might have been easier, and he might not have quit, if cyber-attacks had the media attention then that they do now. [Wired/1June2009] 

Fallen CIA Operative Remembered as Energetic and Inspiring Figure. Every weekday morning, Mitch Wenzel of Monroe, N.Y., honors the memory of his son: He painstakingly wraps the very tefillin used by Gregg Wenzel, who passed away at the young age of 33 in Ethiopia.

On Monday, the nation also got an opportunity to honor the man when CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed that the attorney from suburban New York was really a covert operative who dedicated his life to protecting the United States.

"During months of rigorous training, Gregg stood out as a leader for his talent and for his intellect, but also for his great sense of humor and a great penchant for fun," Panetta said at the memorial service at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., noting that Wenzel - who as a public defender in Miami, attended services at a local Chabad-Lubavitch center - was among the first cadets to join the clandestine service after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"He helped unite the class," added Panetta, "and kept its spirits high in the toughest moments."

One of six fallen operatives whose identities were finally revealed this week, Wenzel was driving the streets of Addis Ababa in July 2003 when another vehicle served into his path, killing him and his passenger, a high-ranking Ethiopian official. Obituaries at the time identified Wenzel as an employee of the U.S. State Department and attributed the crash to a drunken driver, who still has not been found.

Mitch Wenzel, who has attended each annual memorial service for fallen officers since 2003, told the New York Daily News that the actual circumstances of his son's passing remain murky.

Several times since Wenzel's death, the father had lobbied the CIA and other agencies to reveal his son's true profession, most recently in a Dec. 18 letter to departing President George W. Bush.

"I asked President Bush to do a mitzvah for our family before he leaves office," said Wenzel.

At the ceremony, Mitch and Gladys Wenzel received a replica of a star displayed in their son's memory on a wall in Langley. Today, there are a total of 90 stars, each commemorating an officer who died in the line of duty. Many remain anonymous.

Mitch Wenzel, left, wore tefillin to a 2006 memorial ceremony for fallen CIA operatives presided over by the then-director of the agency Porter Goss.

The parents, who saw Wenzel graduate from Monroe-Woodbury High School in 1987 and move south after university, said that he spread his love and passion for Judaism and Jewish learning among the many people he knew.

"Gregg was born on the 18th [of the month], which is chai in Hebrew," a word meaning "life," said Gladys Wenzel. It "was so appropriate for Gregg, who knew how to live life to the fullest."

In 2004, when Rabbi Pesach and Chana Burston opened Chabad-Lubavitch of Orange County in Goshen, N.Y., the Wenzels established the Gregg David Scholarship Fund for children to attend the center's Hebrew school. The scholarship, noted the parents, was a fitting example of their son's philosophy: "Take time every day to help someone. It is the little acts of random kindness that, in the end, make a bigger difference."

Pesach Burston, who attended the Virginia ceremony at the Wenzels' invitation, told Panetta that the fallen officer was an inspiration to many in Orange County.

"I got to know Gregg after he passed away," said the rabbi. "I got to know him through the wonderful things that the Wenzel family do for so many in Gregg's memory. His soul must be so proud."

Responded Panetta: "We all are." [Runyan/Chabad.org/3June2009] 

El Paso Man Collected Evidence at Nazi Concentration Camp Buchenwald. At 91, retired Army intelligence officer Albert Rosenberg is still haunted by the list of airmen he found at the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany near the end of World War II.

Now he is looking to the White House for help in what may be the last mission of his life.

In April 1945, Rosenberg was a lieutenant in a special unit that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower ordered to collect evidence at Buchenwald, which had recently been liberated by Allied soldiers.

When Rosenberg learned that President Barack Obama would visit the site of the concentration camp Friday, he remembered recovering a list of 321 airmen with the U.S. Army Air Forces and the British Royal Air Force - men captured by the Nazis and held at Buchenwald.

With these fliers still on his mind, Rosenberg on May 21 sent a copy of the list to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He included a handwritten note of explanation and a copy of his military identification.

As of Thursday, he still had not heard anything back from Washington.

"What became of these fliers, we could not determine in 1945," Rosenberg wrote to Emanuel. "It can be assumed that many may have perished or moved in death transports to the interior of Nazi-held territory."

Rosenberg was a commanding officer of Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, an intelligence unit that reported to Eisenhower. On April 11, 1945, U.S. forces discovered the Buchenwald concentration camp, which had been abandoned by Nazi guards in the waning days of the war in Europe.

Soon after, Eisenhower dispatched Rosenberg to the camp to gather evidence and to take testimonies from 20,000 former prisoners who remained there. An estimated 250,000 people were thought to have been held captive at Buchenwald during its existence.

"Our orders were - because of General Eisenhower's firsthand encounter with what those places looked like - to investigate what really happened in that particular camp," Rosenberg said Thursday in an interview at his El Paso apartment. "The allied governments wanted to know what happened in those camps."

Rosenberg and his unit took written testimonies from hundreds of concentration camp survivors. They found that prisoners from 13 countries - some high-ranking government officials, others soldiers - were dehydrated, starving and suffering from disease.

Though the Nazis bombed the concentration camp's administrative building as they abandoned Buchenwald, Rosenberg's unit was able to recover documents unintentionally left behind, he said.

"Among my papers that I have kept, I came across typewritten pages that were part of our original report, which lists the name, rank and serial numbers of American pilots who had been shot down during the war by the Nazis and who had been prisoners at the concentration camp," Rosenberg said. "They no longer were at the camp. I have no idea what happened to them."

Rosenberg said he hoped that Obama's visit to the old concentration camp would refocus some attention on the list he found.

The findings of the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force unit were presented to the U.S. government in a report in 1945. The report was quickly classified because many of the surviving prisoners were communist government officials from Italy and France. If publicized, the report could have stymied U.S. cooperation with those countries, Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg never learned whether the Buchenwald report was declassified. But he learned that the original copy of the report was kept at a National Archives depository in Virginia, in box 149, before a fire in the 1970s destroyed it.

All copies of the report were thought to have disappeared until Rosenberg resurfaced with his. In 1995, the testimonies and evidence he collected were translated from German to English and published in a book, "The Buchenwald Report," by David Hackett.

"For decades people had been looking for that report," Rosenberg said.

For Rosenberg, who taught at UTEP after his military career, Buchenwald represents a painful gap in his knowledge.

"... I do not know, have the families of those prisoners, American fliers, ever been identified? Did they survive? I don't know." [Meritz/ElPasoTimes/7June2009] 

Section III - COMMENTARY

Role of Spies in a Democracy, by Ntsiki Sandi. The current debate on secret services in our dispensation shows the maturity of our democracy. Not so long ago such a discussion would have been considered treason.

Both free and undemocratic societies use secret services to protect themselves against internal and external threats. Intelligence can make an immense contribution to guide the debate without compromising their operations.

Phillip Knightly in The Second Oldest Profession: The Spy as Patriot, Bureaucrat, Fantasist and Whore, says espionage agencies can turn embarrassments into advantage.

In an unprecedented act of audacity, the former director of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, stunned the British public in 1994. She gave a talk on BBC on the role MI5 and MI6 played to defend England.

The use of espionage to protect commercial and diplomatic interests is a universal practice. Whereas espionage is the second oldest profession, it was only at the beginning of the last century that it was institutionalized. Throughout history, espionage and prostitution have complemented each other in opportunistic ways. As far back as the Old Testament, Joshua sent two spies into Canaan before he invaded the land (Joshua 2: 1-24). The woman who accommodated his spies and gave them intelligence is counted amongst the heroes of faith (Hebrews 11: 30-31).

Through the use of Delilah, the Philistines uncovered the secret about the strength and invincibility of Samson (Judges 16: 15-22). Gordon Thomas, in The Secret History of Mossad, says Gideon saved the Israelis with a very small army against the Medians because he had better intelligence than them.

The formation of MI5 and MI6 in England was followed by a proliferation of similar organizations in Europe. It is said that when Treasury proposed to reduce the expenditure on secret services in 1920, Winston Churchill, in a secret letter to Prime Minister Lloyd George, criticized the plan as an act of "utmost imprudence." In a world of "extreme unrest and changing friendships and antagonisms" it was vital that England had access to good and timely information.

Our Constitution enjoins security services and their members to act in accordance with the law. They may not perform a manifestly illegal order and they are required to be politically neutral and nonpartisan. The Intelligence Services Act empowers the National Intelligence Agency to identify possible threats to the security of the Republic and its peoples by gathering, correlating, evaluating and analyzing domestic intelligence.

But as Galen Strawson says, in his review of Secrets by Sissela Bok, "secrecy corrupts individuals and institutions; it invites concealment of negligence and malpractice and can become pathological." It can also spread dangerous gossip (my addition).

The Constitution prescribes civilian control and Parliamentary oversight of secret services.

In Russia, the KGB started as a small defense unit to counteract the Mensheviks following the 1917 Revolution. It soon amassed an edifice of power and influence in Russian politics. For example, Yuri Andropov and Vladimir Putin came from the KGB. Andropov was KGB head for 15 years before becoming the chair of the Communist Party. He reformed the KGB into a sophisticated modern secret service organization.

In America, the CIA was only established in 1947 and became equally influential, in foreign policy in particular. US President Jimmy Carter came into office ambivalent about the CIA but he soon realized that an effective intelligence capability was vital to national security. Unwarranted restraints on intelligence gathering techniques were removed and the CIA was allowed to act without authority if "special circumstances" existed.

But the destabilization of Nicaragua landed the US government in the International Court of Justice which declared that its actions constituted violations of international law.

James Risen, in The State of War (2006), claims that both before and especially after September 11 intelligence gathering authority has been abused. He asserts that although the CIA had overwhelming evidence that Saddam Hussein had no nuclear weapons programme it never informed George Bush. Also, no conclusive evidence linked him to the attack. Richard Butler, the UN special investigator, only had a suspicion ( Saddam Defiant: 2000).

Until Gordon Winter wrote Inside Boss about South Africa's Bureau of State Security (Boss) very little was known about the agency and its machinations. Nakedly ruthless and relatively lacking in sophistication, it could not even detect that black discontent was so high that an explosion was imminent. When the 1976 uprisings broke out around Bantu education the State was taken by surprise. It blamed agitators. Severely compromised by the 1978 Information Scandal, Boss was finally abolished. Then came the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and the State Security Council. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report contains a catalogue of the crimes that were committed as the police State became one of de facto military rule. The rule of law was further subverted and security forces were eternally trapped in the conflict.

Under Neil Barnard, the intelligence services were modernized. Finding a political settlement became the priority and the first meeting with the ANC was held in Switzerland in 1989. In his autobiography Armed and Dangerous, Ronnie Kasrils acknowledges the historic role played by the NIS under Barnard. In his autobiography The Last Trek, former President FW de Klerk refers to the intractable problems concerning security and intelligence issues during the historic negotiations.

Secret services are therefore vital institutions to address the problems of the day, such as crime and including potential sources of instability. As long as they act in accordance with the Constitution and the law, they should never be seen as a perversion of democracy. [Sandi/Dispatch/1June2009] 

Section IV - BOOK REVIEWS, JOB ADVERTISEMENTS, OBITUARIES AND COMING EVENTS

Book Reviews

The Increment, by David Ignatius, reviewed by John Weisman. David Ignatius' latest espionage novel, "The Increment," has been compared to John Le Carre's seminal "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold." And indeed, there are superficial thematic similarities between the two. But to me, the book whose thesis most resembles Mr. Ignatius' novel is Patrick Seale's 1992 nonfiction work "Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire."

Mr. Seale posits that Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist responsible for, among other atrocities, hijacking an Egyptian airliner, assassinating Jordanian, British, UAE, Kuwaiti and PLO officials, and staging simultaneous attacks on the Vienna and Rome airports in December 1985 in which 16 people were killed and 60 were injured, was an agent of Israel's Mossad intelligence organization.

Mr. Seale's source for this hypothesis was none other than Salah Khalaf, better known as Abu Iyad, Yasser Arafat's chief of intelligence. "Every Palestinian who works in intelligence is convinced that Israel has a big hand in Abu Nidal's affairs" is how Mr. Khalaf put it to Mr. Seale during an interview in Tunis in the summer of 1990. "Abu Nidal," Mr. Seale's book concludes, "is a professional killer who has sold his deadly services certainly to the Arabs and perhaps to the Israelis as well. His genius has been to understand that states will commit any crime in the name of national interest." Including allowing unsavory allies to commit murder, terrorism and other crimes.

Mr. Ignatius' novel is based on a similar premise. His book's unsavory ally, Al-Majnoun ("the crazy one") is permitted to do what he does because while he works as an assassin for the Iranians as well as other shadowy groups, he also works - unbeknownst to all - as an agent of MI6. Mr. Ignatius, incidentally, loosely bases Al-Majnoun on a real, now-deceased Lebanese killer named Imad Mugniyeh. Mr. Mugniyeh, assassinated in Damascus in February 2008, was the Shia terrorist involved in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut and the subsequent kidnapping and murder of CIA Beirut station chief William Buckley.

Like Mr. Ignatius' Al-Majnoun, Mr. Mugniyeh was thought to have had multiple plastic surgeries to help him hide in plain sight. Unlike the fictional Al-Majnoun, Mr. Mugniyeh never worked for MI6, but for Force 17, Black September and Tehran. Those similarities aside, Mr. Ignatius also develops a couple of themes he worked into the core of his previous novel, "Body of Lies."

In both books, the CIA is in decline; a largely toothless shell of an organization in which careerists, risk-averse bureaucrats and politically ambitious backstabbers have, like some insidious pandemic, caused many of CIA's most capable officers to resign or retire. And in both books, the CIA is the victim of its own naivete when it comes to dealing with other intelligence services. In "Lies," the wily Jordanian intelligence chief, Hani Salaam, runs circles around CIA supergrades who are so caught up with the alleged brilliance of their Rube Goldbergian operations they cannot see the strategic forest for the tactical trees.

Mr. Ignatius' current hero is Harry Pappas, an earnest, experienced, field-wise case officer who is chief of Persia House, more formally known as the CIA's Iran Operations Division. "Harry," writes Mr. Ignatius, "was a big man in what had become a little institution." Harry Pappas, who was Baghdad station chief at the same time his young son, a Marine, was killed in Iraq, also understands that Persia House is a joke, a Potemkin Village intelligence operation.

Is Iran developing nuclear weapons? Probably. How close are they? Harry has no idea. After all, he has no agents in Iran; no assets anywhere close to Tehran's nuclear program. Harry - indeed, the whole U.S. government - is blind when it comes to Iran. In fact, instead of practicing the CIA case officer's holy trinity of Spot, Assess, Recruit, Harry, like so many others in CIA's clandestine service, is reduced to checking the Internet for "virtual walk-ins," foreigners who contact the CIA's public Web site.

Then an e-mail from one of those virtual walk-ins, someone who calls himself Dr. Ali, lands on Harry's desk. Harry realizes that the information being offered comes from someone involved in Iran's nuclear-weapons program. How to exploit this unexpected development? Harry, an experienced field hand, wants to go slowly. Harry's colleague and CIA adversary, Arthur Fox, wants to take the information straight to the White House - now.

But then Harry is a former soldier who first came to the CIA as a paramilitary officer. Harry understands that recruitment is a long and involved process. Fox, who runs CIA's Counter-Proliferation Division, is a self-important, tough-talking political animal, "one of those intelligence officers who had never run a big operation, never recruited an agent whose life was on the line." But Fox is a Princeton man who has friends at the White House. And he, like the poll-conscious politicos, is looking for a reason to take military action against Tehran.

Dr. Ali, argues Fox, has just provided the smoking gun. Except he hasn't. In fact, no one knows who Dr. Ali is, what he has access to, or is able to explain the underlying significance of his proffered materials. To answer these questions, Harry must go hat in hand to his old friend Adrian Winkler, MI6's chief of staff. MI6 has assets in Tehran; CIA has none. Adrian Winkler also has access to paramilitary assets, operators from Britain's SAS, SBS, and 14 Intelligence Company who do off-the-books jobs - snatches, assassinations and the like - for MI6. These assets, known as The Increment, become a vital element in Harry's search for Dr. Ali.

Mr. Ignatius is one of those rare writers who understands the gestalt of the intelligence community - gets its culture and its modus vivendi spot on. He also draws an accurate picture of life at Langley these days - a life in which real operators are rapidly becoming extinct through micromanagement, risk aversion, political correctness and congressional grandstanding. He also catches another aspect that others miss: Harry Pappas, for all his good intentions, is handicapped because he is an earnest, honest soul. Harry is a handshake-deal guy. Which makes him as Jamesian as Christopher Newman, the feckless protagonist of Henry James' "The American."

As such, Harry operates at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with the sophisticated, corrupt European and Middle East practitioners of realpolitik in which lives don't count for very much, bribery and kickbacks are a way of life, and ethics is a subject for schoolbooks. Our very Americanness, Mr. Ignatius seems to be saying, too often puts us at a disadvantage in the Wilderness of Mirrors. He is correct.

Now comes the downside. While Mr. Ignatius is brilliant at dealing with the gestalt of intelligence, he underwhelms when it comes to writing action scenes. The climax of the book, a covert operation in Iran, is flaccid and unconvincing. Mr. Ignatius obviously knows very little about weapons, or about how top-tier units operate. He doesn't provide them with the correct kit, or with the sorts of sterile weapons to which they have access. It is a shame, because the rest of the book is artfully and carefully crafted. Which is why "The Increment" is a welcome, if imperfect, read. In a world where so much spy fiction is junk, it's refreshing to come across a book that enlightens as well as entertains, peopled with believable characters who breathe real air and bleed real blood. [Weisman/WashingtonTimes/7June2009] 

Job Advertisements

President, National Defense Intelligence College.  The National Defense Intelligence College is pleased to announce its search for a President and invites applications and nominations for the position. 

The National Defense Intelligence College, established in 1962 in the Department of Defense, is the flagship intelligence education and research institution in the U.S. national intelligence community. The College's Bachelor of Science in Intelligence degree and Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence degree are authorized by the United States Congress. The College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and is a member of the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area. The College, as part of the Defense Intelligence Agency, is located at the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center, on Bolling Air Force Base in Washington D.C., with graduate centers at the National Security Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The College's Center for Strategic Intelligence Research guides classified and unclassified research and is the home of the NDIC Press. The Center for International Engagement guides the College's outreach to other nations. The Center for Science and Technology Intelligence engages in future-focused education, analysis, and research on foreign science and technology developments. The College is educating and guiding research on intelligence and national security issues in an era of cyber-space globalization in which the formerly dominant challenges of understanding adversarial capabilities and intentions have been joined by a far broader spectrum of intelligence challenges. Its students and research fellows develop new ideas, concepts, and solutions for some of the most challenging current and future intelligence problems. An overview of the College and its programs may be found at www.ndic.edu.

The President serves as the chief executive officer of the College responsible for managing the NDIC academic affairs and establishing policy and providing guidance to further the academic programs. The President determines NDIC organizational structure; maintains academic accreditation with the Middle States Commission; cooperates with other Intelligence Community and Defense educational entities; and establishes policies to maintain academic freedom and responsibility. The ideal candidate will be a strategic academic leader with demonstrated experience and commitment to excellence in leading both graduate and undergraduate academic programs, a record of achievement in leadership positions in the field of national security, to include service in the Armed Forces, the Intelligence Community, or the Homeland Security Community; a record of scholarship, research, and professional achievements tailored to the responsibilities of the CEO of a regionally accredited institution of higher learning ; a record of success operating in positions of leadership in one or more complex organizations, and a record of success operating externally with other organizations, and ; an advanced degree, preferably an earned doctorate.

TO APPLY: Do not apply for this job online. For additional details and instructions about the application process visit http://www.dia.mil and review the application requirements associated with this vacancy listed under the Executive Positions section of Vacancies. This is a Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service (DISES) position with a salary range of $117,787 to $177,000. Candidates must be U.S. citizens who possess or are able to qualify for a security clearance.

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Call for Papers: 2009 IIHA Annual Conference "Intelligence & Democracies". The interaction between intelligence and democracy is as old as democracy itself. Intelligence services play an important role in the democratic form of government, whether in stabilizing security and conflict prevention, in assisting decision-makers, or in playing key roles in conflicts. The roles of intelligence services, activities and information in democracies will form the main theme of the 2009 Annual Conference of the International Intelligence History Association (IIHA), which will be held at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, on 18-20 October 2009. The conference will be held jointly with the BESA Center for Strategic Studies and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. We are seeking original and relevant papers on topics relating to the conference theme, including but not limited to the following topics:

- The roles of intelligence services in democracies
- Intelligence, democratization and political transitions
- Intelligence and decision-making in democracies
- Intelligence services and the media
- Intelligence operations in or for democracies
- Intelligence and popular culture
- Counter-Intelligence and democracy
- Intelligence and regime change
- as well as any other topic relating to the conference theme.

'Learning from History' Panel: A special panel at the conference will focus on the work of official and unofficial historians of intelligence services, examining what can be learned for the future from service histories and past performance. Is it ancient history or practical lessons? Are there universal principles which could be gleaned from the study of intelligence histories which are relevant for the future too? This panel will include official service historians from different countries to discuss the role of intelligence histories in improving intelligence for the future. We welcome paper proposals for this panel too.

The deadline for paper proposals is 10th July 2009. Paper proposals (1 page) should be sent together with your CV or personal details to:  Jens Wegener, Executive Director of the IIHA, at exec_director@intelligence-history.org

OBITUARIES

Robert D. Singel: CIA Official Monitored Missile Development. Robert D. Singel, 89, a retired chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's geophysics branch, died May 15 of cardiac arrest at Tall Oaks at Reston, an assisted living facility. He was a longtime Great Falls resident.

During World War II, Mr. Singel spent two years at sea as a senior officer with the Coast and Geodetic Survey (now part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), where his job was to locate and mark submarines that had been torpedoed by German submarines. He then became a Navy aviator, flying mostly photo reconnaissance missions. He also flew photographic mapping missions with the Coast and Geodetic Survey until he joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1950.

As chief of the CIA's geophysics branch, Mr. Singel relied on his background in geology and seismology to locate and determine the intensity of nuclear explosions. He also monitored foreign missile development and established intercontinental intelligence connections. Before the invention of satellites, his work was essential to missile targeting.

In addition, he was involved with the development of the U-2 spy plane, used for intelligence flights over the Soviet Union. He also discovered that the Soviet Union was recovering significant tonnages of germanium at a time when Bell Laboratories was only beginning to experiment with germanium as semiconductor material for transistors and other electronic devices.

Mr. Singel worked in all four directorates of the CIA, though the bulk of his work was in the directorate of military and science intelligence. He also served as an inspector in the office of the inspector general. He served two tours of duty as a civilian with the Air Force as the director of ELINT, a group charged with signals collection and the coordination of electronic intercept activities.

He was awarded the Medal of Merit by the CIA.

After retiring in 1975, Mr. Singel was a consultant for the next 17 years with 30 aerospace firms. He was a founder and president of the Security Affairs Support Association, a government industry support group.

Robert Duane Singel was born in Eau Claire, Wis., and received his undergraduate degree in geology from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1942. He received a master's degree in business administration from George Washington University in 1951.

He was a member of Great Falls United Methodist Church and was a Boy Scout leader and PTA leader in Great Falls and at Langley High School.

Survivors include his wife of 65 years, Jeanne Parks Singel of Great Falls; four children, Nancy Greif of Durango, Colo., Sally Wilson of Sterling, Scott Singel of Charlottesville and Dan Singel of Mount Solon, Va.; nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. [Holley/WashingtonPost/31May2009] 

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Bernard Barker - Watergate 'Plumber' Was a Hero to Exiles. Bernard Leon Barker was a hero to many, first as a World War II flier and prisoner of war, later as a CIA operative working to overthrow Fidel Castro. But he is best remembered as a White House ''plumber:'' one of the burglars whose break-in helped topple a U.S. president.

He died Friday at the Veteran's Administration Medical Center in Miami at 92.

His only child, Marielena Harding of Miami Lakes, said the cause was lung cancer. He had been living in Westchester with his fourth wife, Dora Maria Barker.

Barker - nicknamed ''Macho'' as an infant - was a prot�g� of the late E. Howard Hunt, the CIA mastermind who planned the Bay of Pigs and Watergate operations.

The former failed to oust Castro in 1961. The latter forced President Richard Nixon out of office in 1974.

Conspiracy theorists have long implicated Barker in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who sanctioned the Bay of Pigs invasion then withdrew air support, dooming the mission.

''It's not true,'' his daughter said. "But he always suspected that Castro was involved.''

Barker organized a Cuban exile force in Miami known as Brigade 2506 for the overthrow attempt. It landed on a beach southeast of Havana on April 17, 1961, under heavy fire, and sustained massive losses.

Barker flew with Jos� Mir� Cardona, who was to have become provisional president in the event that Fidel Castro was overthrown, Harding said. Defeated but uninjured, Barker and Cardona returned to Miami.

''When it was obvious there was not be a free Cuba, [Barker] became.... a real-estate broker and he was doing quite well,'' Harding said.

A decade later, Hunt resurfaced in his life, proposing an assignment in Washington.

'Howard sent a little note to him saying, 'If you're still the same Macho that I always knew......,' '' Harding said.

Barker, with Frank Sturgis, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez and James McCord, was caught breaking into Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. They were working for the Special Investigations Unit of the Nixon White House, paid by the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP).

They were called the ''plumbers'' because they had been hired to plug information leaks from the White House to its enemies.

In 1997, Barker told The Miami Herald that Hunt, who died in 2007, "said this would put us in a situation in which we can later ask for help for the freedom of Cuba.''

The five who broke into the Watergate, along with Hunt and CREEP general counsel G. Gordon Liddy, pleaded guilty to wiretapping, planting electronic surveillance equipment and document theft. They faced 40-year sentences.

Barker served nearly 18 months at the Federal Correctional Institute in Danbury, Conn., and Eglin Air Force Base in Pensacola.

After his release in 1974, he worked as a Miami building inspector, but was fired for slacking on the job. He then became a zoning consultant. In 1983, Barker was charged with perjury in connection with alleged payoffs to city Zoning Board members. He was acquitted at trial.

Bernard Barker was the son of Americans living in Cuba. He is thought to have been the first person from Cuba to enlist in the U.S. Army after Pearl Harbor.

A bombardier on a B-17 Flying Fortress, he was shot down over Germany in early 1944 and held as a prisoner of war for nearly 18 months.

In July 1945, he married Clara Elena Fern�ndez, the daughter of a prominent Havana newspaper publisher. Still in the U.S. Air Force, he was sent to Jamaica, where Marielena was born in 1947.

Barker joined the Cuban national police, then the FBI and, after Fidel Castro took power, the CIA. He moved his family to Miami in 1960.

Her father lived two lives, Marielena said: ''one before Watergate, one after.'' The first, she said, was ''normal family life.'' The second: "disaster for everyone around him...."

"My mother put together a very large group where every Cuban who knew my father gave the deed to their houses for collateral for the bonds.''

His role in the Bay of Pigs made Barker a hero in the exile community. His Watergate role made him a celebrity of a different kind.

''Everywhere he went in Miami, women chased him,'' his daughter said. He left his wife, who died last year, and remarried three times.

Barker lived quietly in a house that his daughter owns. He spent his days doing crossword puzzles, ''walking around on his walker,'' listening to Cuban music and playing solitaire on his computer - which has no Internet access.

He outlived all the men who broke into the Watergate except Martinez, who lives in Miami. [Brecher/MiamiHerald/6June2009]

Letters to the Editors

Air America Member and Former Legal Counsel seeks Retirement Bill Support, by Gary Bisson.

Note: The views expressed herein are solely those of the author, Gary B. Bisson, a former Air America Assistant Legal Counsel in Taipei and Bangkok. They are not intended to reflect the views on this legislation of the Air America Association nor AFIO, of which I am a member, nor any Senate or House staff.

On May 21, 2009, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) and Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (D-NV) introduced legislation (S. 1126 and H.R.2577) intended to be the first step to granting Federal retirement benefits to the remaining Air America U.S. national employees or their surviving spouses. The legislation, designated the "Air America Veterans Act of 2009," requires the Director of National Intelligence to submit a report to Congress, within 180 days of enactment, on the advisability of providing such benefits for services when Air America or an associated company was owned or controlled by the U.S. Government. 

According to the recent CIA publication, "Air America: Upholding the Airmen's Bond," distributed at the recent University of Texas Dallas Symposium Acknowledging and Commemorating Air America Rescue Efforts During the Vietnam War, the ownership periods involved are from July 10, 1950, when CAT Incorporated was organized under laws of the State of Delaware, through May 11, 1975, when all operations ceased except for corporate windup. [1]

As chronicled in the recent CIA publication cited above, Air America was a corporation "owned and controlled by the U.S. government," a so-called "proprietary corporation" authorized under Presidential authority, and owned and operated (through its holding companies) by the Central Intelligence Agency to support government operations during the Cold War, mainly in the Far East. This support included flights conducted in numerous countries such as Vietnam and Korea, beginning in 1950 and continuing through the 1970s. The company employed several hundred U.S. citizens, primarily pilots, and at least 86 were killed in action while operating aircraft for the government.

Historical Basis for Federal Retirement Credit: As noted by Senator Reid in a "Dear Colleague" letter seeking co-sponsorship of S. 1126, employees of government-owned corporations are Federal employees and as such Air American employees were entitled to retirement benefits under the Civil Service Retirement System in effect in the l950-1975 period. Additionally, under prior Civil Service Commission administrative case law governing the period in question, to be considered a Federal Employee for purposes of entitlement to retirement and other benefits one must have been (1) engaged in the performance of a Federal function under authority of an Act of Congress or an Executive Order; (2) appointed or employed by a Federal officer; and (3) under the supervision and direction of a Federal officer. Bisson, Statutory Limitations on Contracts for Services of Government Agencies, Brooklyn Law Review. Vol. 34, Number 2. (Winter 1968) at p. 212-213.

Air America's operations were conducted by the CIA in strictest secrecy, and the government ownership of the company was never acknowledged in this period and was not known to the public. Only a select number of company employees were aware of who they really worked for as access to this knowledge required a top secret clearance. Thus, Air America was not included in the list of Government corporations in 31 U.S.C. 9101. Historically, Executive Branch employees were engaged either by means of formal appointments or by individual (personal) services contracts with a government agency or corporation. Air America personnel could not be formally appointed or directly contracted by the Agency as this would require revealing the CIA ownership. Such employees were hired under individual personal services contracts with Air America and its associated companies.

Air America Employee Retirement Claims Litigation: In the 1970s and 1980s, some Air America employees sought retirement credit through individual claims with OPM, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and ultimately through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, where they were joined and finally dismissed because they had no documents showing they had been "appointed" into the Civil Service. Watts v. OPM, 814 F.2nd 1576 (1989). The Watts case was preceded and controlled by similar holdings of the Federal Circuit, in Horner v. Acosta, 803 F.2nd 687 (1986), and the U.S. Court of Claims in Baker v. U.S, 614 F.2d 263 (1980). 

Air America's U.S. national employees were employed under the authority of a Federal Officer, engaged in the performance of a Federal function, the prosecution of the War in South East Asia, and under the supervision and control of a Federal Officer, ultimately George A. Doole, Air America's Managing Director, then a Super Grade employee of the CIA. The Watts case actually conceded this to be the case. However, the Baker and Acosta cases (five and 11 years after Air America services were performed) added an additional legal criterion to the case law definition of credited Federal employment, namely that these individuals be formally appointed in the civil service. 

In 1985, OPM revised its Federal Personnel Manual to state that individual service contracts would not be recognized for retirement credit purposes. The OPM revision was made retroactive, thus preventing the employees from receiving retirement credit for services performed prior to that change. This OPM action was criticized by Congress when it gave retirement credit to a number of contract employees of the U.S. Navy, and others, affected by the Acosta and Baker cases, in legislation somewhat similar to what Air America employees are seeking. In connection with this action, which was taken in Public Law 100-238, House Report 100-374 stated:

"While OPM's action may be appropriate as a matter of law [a point which this author disputes], individuals who performed service prior to this policy change should be able to rely on published OPM instructions and prior administrative actions granting credit for such service. OPM's actions in denying this credit have been extremely unfair, particularly in view of the apparent inconsistent administration of the policy in the early 1980's and the fact that it took four more years from the time OPM began denying retirement credit until it changed its publicly available instructions." (p. 25).

O.S.S. Proprietary Corporations Credited Service: Confirming the statement Senator Reid made in his "Dear Colleague" letter, following World War II, employees of O.S.S. proprietary corporations, with no formal civil service appointments, were granted civil service credit for their wartime services. There is a record to this effect in the National Archives. This information was presented to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and apparently ignored, in a joined case to the Watts case, Hickler vs. OPM.

The Legislative Remedy: Without any other remedy available to them, Air America employees are thus compelled to seek relief through legislation. The ultimate goal of the pending legislation - from the author's personal and historical view - is remedial in nature: correcting judicial and administrative mistakes by the Federal Circuit and OPM. The company was not listed as a Government corporation in 31 U.S.C. 9101 because its ownership was guarded by its top secret status. For the same reason, its employees could not have directly received individual personal services or appointments with the CIA. Their U.S. Government service was totally performed during a period when OPM administrative case law and administrative regulations on credited service for Federal retirement purposes did not require a formal appointment document. The injustice here is compounded when it is realized that of the estimated 508 employees, or their widows, who have been denied benefits, 86 of them were killed while flying in support of CIA and DOD operations, beginning with flights over Communist China, Korea and Dien Bien Phu in the early 1950s through the end of the Vietnam War. As memorialized in the famous photograph by Hubert Van Es, the last UH-1 helicopter rescuing personnel in 1975 from the Saigon apartment rooftop of the CIA Station Chief's building was operated by these same Air America pilots.

The recently introduced Senate and House versions of the "Air America Veterans Act of 2009" requires a report to be filed by the Director of National Intelligence on the advisability of providing Air America retirement benefits. The report is to take into consideration certain required elements including the opinions of the Director of Central Intelligence on any matters provided in the report which the Agency considers appropriate. The support of CIA and other Intelligence officials is being sought so that a favorable and prompt report is presented to the Congress. Support from the Intelligence community, active and retired, will assist the Congress in correcting this injustice. Even with a favorable report of the Director of National Intelligence, further legislation is required to actually provide retirement benefits to the affected beneficiaries.

Report Element Considerations. Section 3(a) of the "Air America Veterans Act of 2009" lists various elements to be included in the Director of National Intelligence's advisory report, including: retirement benefits previously granted to Air America employees, the employee contributions made, and an assessment of the difference between the retirement benefits received and what would have been received, if such employment were credited as Federal Service for purposes of Federal retirement benefits. Section 3(b)(4)(B) states that if further legislative action is deemed advisable, a proposal for such action and an assessment of its costs must also be included. 

The Air America Retirement Plan vs. U.S. Government Retirement Plans. Air America established an Air America Retirement Plan... Commencing in 1969, as a member of the Air America legal staff, I participated in the plan until I left Air America on September 30, 1974 to join the USAID General Counsel's Office. I had six and a half years of service and received in all two lump sum payments, rather than an annuity, totaling $11,805.68, and representing 100% of my and Air America's contributions into the plan.

I then worked 20 years for USAID, retiring from the Senior Foreign Service in 1994, with 26 years of recognized U.S. Government Service. My Air America employment, if credited as U.S. Government service, would increase my Foreign Service Retirement annuity by 13%. In 16 months at my current monthly annuity rate, I would exceed the Air America lump sum payment. There is simply no true equivalency when comparing the Air America retirement lump sum plan to existing Federal retirement annuity plans.

Legislative Proposal and Cost Assessment. If the Director of National Intelligence approves further legislative action granting Federal retirement benefits for Air America service, a legislative proposal and cost assessment are to be submitted in the report. 

Senator Reid has previously drafted quite adequate legislation to this effect on October 4, 2005 in Senate Amendment 2007 to H.R. 2863 of the 109th Congress, the Department of Defense Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act. This would serve as an excellent starting point for any Director of National Intelligence legislative proposal. That Amendment would have granted retirement benefits under the Civil Service Retirement and Disability System (CSRDS) for employees (or their surviving spouses) who had at least five years of Air America service, without the requirement for such individuals to make deposits into the fund. Individuals currently receiving Federal retirement benefits could apply to OPM to have their annuities re- computed based on their years of Air America credited service.

With respect to costs for legislation such as S.A. 2207, it may be useful to note that CSRDS is funded by matching employer/employee contributions - currently 7� % of an employee's salary. In 1975, when Air America was being dissolved, the Church Committee noted that it had up to $25 million in assets which would be returned to the Treasury (Church Committee Report, Book I: Foreign and Military Intelligence, at p. 239). The late Lindsey Herd, the last Air America Comptroller, personally advised me that in the mid-1970s, he deposited an Air America check for $20 million into the U.S. Treasury. The remaining Air America assets, I have been advised, were retained by the CIA to cover contingent liabilities related to Air America operations, and that some were used by the Agency to share (along with E-Systems, Inc.) in the cost of settling Air-Sea Forwarders, Inc. vs. Air Asia, litigation which was discussed at length in the National Law Journal, March 2, 1992 issue (Vol 14, No. 26).

The $20 million deposited in the Treasury in the mid-1970s was more than sufficient to cover all required contributions for eligible U.S. personnel, plus the Agency's matching contribution, had they been deemed eligible at that time. Actuarially, CSRDS is an adequately funded Federal Retirement system. The matching contribution formula is sufficient to cover all withdrawals from the system, including any withdrawals for Air America benefits, if CSRDS is given credit for the $20 million Air America deposited in the Treasury.

[1] CAT Incorporated's name was changed to Air America, Inc. on March 26, 1959; CAT Incorporated had been a subsidiary of a holding company, Airdale Incorporated. Airdale's name was later changed to the Pacific Corporation.

Postscript: The CBO has now estimated the cost of the Air America Veterans Act to be between $500,000 to $1,000,000 (which I believe to be the estimated cost of the Air America employees contribution into  the CSRDS Fund plus the Agency's matching contribution -the cost formula set for in my article above)

Comments to Gary B. Bisson can be sent to him at gbbisson@att.net

COMING EVENTS

EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

Wednesday, 10 June 2009, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. - Annapolis Junction, MD - The National Cryptologic Museum Foundation Spring Cryptologic program features Professor Kristie Macrakis, on her book "Seduced by Secrets: Inside the STASI's Spy Tech World."

Professor Macrakis, an authority on German espionage, teaches the History of Science and the History of Espionage at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. She studied in divided Germany for several years, and returned to reside in Berlin for a year after receiving her Ph.D. in the History of Science from Harvard University. Besides the aforementioned book, which has been described as "more fascinating than fiction," Professor Macrakis also wrote Surviving the Swastika: Scientific Research in Nazi Germany and Science under Socialism: East Germany in Comparative Perspective. She is also author of an acclaimed magazine article, "The Case of Agent Gorbachev," which appeared in American Scientist and was reprinted in AFIO's Intelligencer.
The program is followed by lunch and includes a book signing and opportunity to purchase Macrakis's latest book.
Location: L3 Conference Center located at 2720 Technology Dr, Annapolis Junction, MD 21076 in the Rt. 32 National Business Park. Cost: $25. Please register by 3 June to cryptmf@aol.com Send payment to NCMF PO Box 1682, Ft Meade, MD 20755

13 June 2009 - Boston, MA - AFIO Boston Pops Committee commemorates the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. Join AFIO Boston-based members at Symphony Hall for a special Boston Pops Concert celebrating our nation’s triumphant achievement. Historic footage of the lunar landing provided by NASA will accompany a program of stirring patriotic music including Holst’s The Planets. Honor one of America’s proudest moments in space exploration with a spectacular Pops concert.  The AFIO Pops Committee has relocated the event back to Boston for our seventh annual Pops social event. Conductor Keith Lockhart will lead the Pops at Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue Boston, MA 02115. Join other AFIO members and friends in the Hatch Room lounge located behind the orchestra level for a social hour before the performance begins. For tickets, call Symphony Hall Charge at 888-266-1200 or online at www.bso.org. Tickets sell from $18.00 to $85.00 and are now on sale.  After purchasing your tickets, please contact Gary at wassinmaryland@aol.com  so I can add your name to the list to look for at the 1 hour social prior to the concert. Ticket prices for attending this concert does not include a gift to AFIO however the Association of Former Intelligence Officers relies greatly upon the generosity of members, corporations, foundations, and the general public who understand and wish to encourage sound intelligence policy and education in the United States.  These gifts allow AFIO and its chapters to carry out important activities in the areas of education, advocacy, seminars, publications, and conferences. Please help by making a financial donation to AFIO. Tax receipts will be issued for donations of $100 or more (does not include Pops ticket cost).  All gifts to AFIO are tax deductible.  AFIO is an IRS approved 501(c)(3) charity. We request this be done separately if you are able to contribute to AFIO. Gifts may be made here.

Sunday, 14 June 2009, 4:00pm - St. Charles, IL - AFIO Midwest Chapter has a two speaker meeting. We will have two speakers do a combined presentation. One speaker is a former Lt. Col USAF who was Chief of Counter Intelligence and Deputy District Commander in Ankara, Turkey (81-82) who was assigned to Office of Special Investigations. He is now currently Director of Security at Northrup Grumman in Rolling Meadows, IL. The other is a former FBI Special Agent. Both will discuss the interrelationships amongst the US intelligence agencies. St. Charles Place Restaurant 2550 E. Main Street, St. Charles, IL. Telephone number 1-630-377-3333. For more information regarding meals and to confirm your attendance, please contact Angelo Di Liberti ASAP at 847-931-4184.

25 June 2009 - Los Angeles, CA - AFIO L.A. Area Meeting Notice to hear Sheriff Jeff Blatt. Jeffrey J. Blatt, deputy sheriff (res) with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, assigned to the Emergency Operations Bureau, will address the on-going militant Islamic insurgency in Southern Thailand. Deputy Blatt will review the historic causes of the insurgency, ideology, recruitment, tactics and attacks, Thai counterinsurgency operations, as well as the potential for regional escalation. Deputy Blatt is the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department's liaison on the ground in South East and South Asia.
Meeting will take place 6/25/09 at 12:30 PM on the campus of Loyola Marymount University in the Hilton Business building with lunch provided for $15, payable at the door. Please RSVP via email, by 6/19/2009 for your attendance: AFIO_LA@yahoo.com

Saturday, 27 June 2009 - Northampton, MA - AFIO New England hosts Summer Meeting to hear Ilana Freedman on counterterrorism.
Our speaker will be Ilana Freedman, the CEO & Founder of Gerard Group International, an internationally respected expert in counter-terrorism preparedness. She is a highly regarded analyst and a prolific writer. She has framed the mission at the Gerard Group to provide leading edge programs to prepare and protect American interests and those of its friends and allies from the impact of terrorist attacks. She has put together a team of leaders in the field from around the globe to provide the blue-ribbon service that defines the Gerard Group. Her interactive presentation will cover Intelligence issues facing the US and the Globe. Please join us for a most interesting presentation.
Location: This 2009 Summer meeting will be held at the Hotel Northampton, 36 King St, Northampton, MA 01060. A full description of services as well as directions to the hotel, are available on-line at http://www.hotelnorthampton.com.
Our Saturday schedule is as follows 1100 - 1200 Gathering & Registration, 1200 Luncheon followed by our Keynote Speaker with adjournment at 1430.
Cost: Paid in advance the cost of the luncheon is $20 per person. Unsold seats will be available at the door for $25 each. This registration form only-not the announcement-should accompany your check made payable to AFIO/NE and received by June 17th.
Address questions to afionechapter@gmail.com Or send registration to Mr. Arthur Hulnick, 216 Summit Avenue # E102, Brookline, MA 02446

7 July 2009, 07:30 - 08:45 a.m. -- Arlington, VA -- The National Intelligence Education Foundation holds breakfast meeting featuring LTG, Chief of Intel Staff/ODNI

This is a Post-Graduate breakfast lecture. Details and registration at: http://www.niefoundation.org/events/event_details.asp?id=62233

16 July 2009 - Boston, MA - CIRA New England Chapter hosts luncheon meeting. The New England Chapter of the Central Intelligence Retirees Association [CIRA] will feature a Pinkerton CI Operations director. Event will be at Hampshire House. For more info contact Dick Gay, VP CIRA/NE, 207-374-2169

20 - 24 July 2009 - Alexandria, VA - Espionage Investigations and Interviewing Techniques - Course 518
This course is designed to provide an introduction to the complexities of and the decision making processes associated with investigating and prosecuting espionage cases in the United States in the 21st Century.
The course examines the psychology of espionage and the basis for opening espionage investigations. It explains the evolution of key legal and policy decisions associated with prosecuting espionage cases.
The course provides tools for conducting successful counterintelligence interviews.
These tools include a self assessment of the interviewer's behavioral skills; counterintelligence interviewing techniques; detecting deception during interviews; questioning techniques; and practical exercises in interviewing espionage suspects.
This course provides espionage investigators in the US national security community a deeper understanding of the status of counterespionage today, and their individual roles in the protection of our nation's most vital secrets, plans, and programs. (5 days)

AGENDA

Monday, 20 July 2009, 8:00a-4:00p - Alexandria, VA - Day 1 of 5 - at the CI Centre, Professor Connie Allen
Seminar Introduction and Objectives; The Psychology of Espionage; Anatomy of Espionage; Anatomy of a Sting

Tuesday, 21 July 2009, 8:00a-4:00p - Alexandria, VA - Day 2 of 5 - CI Centre Professors John Martin and Connie Allen
Legal Issues: Understanding past espionage cases which established case law for espionage violations and how these individuals have been exposed; Corroboration: Kampiles; Agent of a foreign power: 1941 case; How long can you talk with a suspect: Pelton; The John Walker case and others; Failures and mistakes encountered during espionage investigations: Cook, Smith, and Koecher cases

Wednesday, 22 July 2009, 8:00a-11:00a - Alexandria, VA - Day 3 of 5 - CI Centre Professor Tawfik Hamid Interviewing an Islamist Terrorist/Extremist Who Belongs to a Jihadist Group or Al-Qaeda Style Organization;

11:00a-4:00p CI Centre Professor Sue Adams: Counterintelligence Interviewing Techniques; Self Assessment for Interviewers - DISC Behavioral Styles; DISC Behavioral Styles and CI Interviewing Techniques: Rapport Building Skills

Thursday, 23 July 2009, 8:00a-4:00p - Alexandria, VA - Day 4 of 5 - CI Centre Professor Sue Adams
Detecting Deception During Interviews: Nonverbal Clues to Deception, Verbal Clues to Deception; Deception and Questioning Techniques

Friday, 24 July 2009, 8:00a-4:00p - Alexandria, VA - Day 5 of 5 - CI Centre Professor Sue Adams
8:00a-4:00p Interviewing Suspects: Theme Development for Espionage Suspects; Interview Plans: Interviewing Suspects; Practical Exercises

TO REGISTER FOR THIS SPECIAL COURSE: A client has allowed us to open up available seats to individuals who hold a current SECRET clearance to attend their running of this course the week of 20-24 July 2009 at the CI Centre in Alexandria, VA. The cost of this five-day course for government attendees is $2,618.70 per person; for corporate attendees is $3,045 per person. To register, fill out this form, or contact Adam Hahn at 703-642-7454.

1 August 2009 - Viera (Melbourne), FL - The AFIO Florida Satellite Chapter luncheon will feature Captain Richard P. Jeffrey USN Retired, Pearl Harbor survivor. Captain Jeffrey’s account of the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 was video-taped by the U.S. National Park Service and is now an Oral History in the archives of the USS Arizona Memorial in the harbor at Pearl where it may be viewed by visitors. Captain Jeffery is a U.S. Navy Academy Class of 1939 graduate. He is a survivor of the 7 December 1941, Pearl Harbor attack, having been an Ensign aboard the Battleship USS Maryland. Later he served on General Eisenhower’s Headquarters Supreme Commander Allied Forces staff in Europe.
The luncheon takes place at the Indian River Colony Club. For further information or reservations contact George Stephenson, Chapter President gstephenson@cfl.rr.com (321 267-6292) or Donna Czarnecki DonnaCZ12@AOL.com Chapter Treasurer.

13-16 October 2009 - Las Vegas, NV - AFIO National Symposium - Nellis AFB, Creech AFB. Details and registration forthcoming.

AFIO 2009 Fall Convention in Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada
13 October to 16 October, 2009
Cold Warriors in the Desert: From Atomic Blasts to Sonic Booms

Presentations on the testing of atomic weapons, airborne reconnaissance platforms, and more. Onsite visits to Nellis Air Force Base - Home of the Fighter Pilot, the U.S. Department of Energy's Nevada Test Site - the former on-continent nuclear weapons proving ground, and Creech Air Force Base - the home of the Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (currently deployed for combat missions in the Middle East, yet piloted from Creech).

Details and registration forthcoming.
Harrah's Hotel Registration is available now at: Telephone reservations may be made at 800-901-5188. Refer to Group Code SHAIO9 to get the special AFIO rate. To make hotel reservations online, go to: http://www.harrahs.com/CheckGroupAvailability.do?propCode=LAS&groupCode=SHAIO9
Special AFIO October Symposium Las Vegas rates are available up to Friday, September 11, 2009.

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

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