Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

IG Adds to To-Do List for DHS Intelligence. The absence of a chief intelligence officer at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may delay critical reforms to the department's information security and sharing initiatives, according to various reports.

The DHS inspector general (IG) identified a need to address management and operational issues within the DHS information security management program to prevent the leak of sensitive information.

"The department continues to maintain an effective enterprise-wide information security management program for its intelligence systems," the IG report stated. "Overall, information security procedures have been documented and adequate security controls have been implemented. Nonetheless, management oversight and operational issues remain regarding the effectiveness of the program."

The IG office cited concerns with incomplete plans of actions for information security and the lack of a formal information system security training and awareness program for DHS intelligence officers.

In addition, technical authorities have not been granted to intelligence systems at the US Coast Guard and US Secret Service, said the report, Improvements Necessary in DHS' Security Program and Practices For Its Intelligence Systems.

The IG office reviewed enterprise security and practices for classifying and compartmentalizing top secret and sensitive information, releasing a brief summary of its findings in the unclassified report Tuesday, as required by the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (Public Law 104-347).

The review resulted in specific IG recommendations to the DHS undersecretary for intelligence and analysis - a position that has been vacant under the Obama administration to date.

The White House has nominated former US Army intelligence officer Caryn Wagner to head the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A). The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence cleared the way for her confirmation after a Dec. 1 hearing but the full Senate has not yet voted on her nomination.

In her confirmation hearing, Wagner pointed to poor morale and a lack of training in the DHS intelligence office as priorities she would address if confirmed.

"If confirmed, one of my biggest priorities will be developing and formalizing internal processes for planning, programming and budgeting, performance measurement, and human capital management. I believe that communicating clear mission guidance, implementing fair and transparent processes for hiring, promoting, and rewarding people, and developing a structured and inclusive process for building the budget will go a long way towards improving morale," Wagner told the Senate Dec. 1.

"If confirmed, I also plan to make training a centerpiece of my agenda. I already mentioned the importance of training to building enterprises, but it is equally important for professional development and morale within I&A. If confirmed, I will focus on ensuring that I&A analysts receive the tradecraft training they need," she said.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, urged President Barack Obama, in a Jan. 8 letter, to pressure the Senate to confirm DHS nominees required to implement reforms to homeland security systems after the failed Christmas Day bombing attack on Northwest Flight 253. Thompson identified the appointment of a permanent DHS intelligence chief as one of the confirmations necessary for urgent action on reform to occur. [McCarter/HomelandSecurityToday/13January2010] 

South Korea Jails North Korean Spy for Ten Years. A South Korean court jailed a college lecturer for 10 years after convicting him of spying for North Korea over almost two decades.

The 37-year-old, identified only by his family name Lee, was sentenced after breaching the national security law.

Lee "betrayed the nation and posed a threat to national security by providing military secrets to North Korea while spying undercover for it in the past 17 years," read the ruling of the court in Suweon south of Seoul.

The court also fined Lee 31 million won (28,000 dollars).

Officials said Lee was recruited by the communist North in 1992 while studying at a college in New Delhi. He later visited Pyongyang twice, became a communist party member and received at least 30,000 dollars in funds.

After completing graduate courses at home, Lee worked as a college lecturer and became a member of the National Unification Advisory Council - a status that gave him access to confidential data. He was arrested last year.

Information he passed to the North between 1997 and February 2009 included the location of key government facilities and of US and South Korean military installations, investigators said.

Lee also acquired military knowledge while serving as an information and education officer in the army in 2001, they said.

The two Koreas have remained technically at war since their 1950-1953 conflict. South Korea has jailed numerous spies over the years.

In 2008 a 35-year-old woman who came from the North in the guise of a defector and used sex to secure military secrets was jailed for five years.

North Korea denied she was its agent, calling her "human scum" and describing the trial as a "threadbare charade" orchestrated to heighten tensions.

Seoul's official data shows more than 4,500 people have been exposed as spies for the North since the peninsula was divided in 1948. [AP/13January2010] 

Nicolas Sarkozy to Create School for French Spies. President Sarkozy is determined to create a single French 'intelligence community', based on the US model.

The school - to be based in the Ecole Militaire, near the Eiffel Tower - will admit only senior spy chiefs. Rather than teaching aspiring James Bonds how to kill people with an umbrella, it will be an espionage "staff academy", whose principal role will be to forge a single culture out of competing agencies.

French intelligence and security agencies have often been accused of fighting one another as much as France's enemies.

The first head of the new "intelligence academy" is likely to be named in the next few days. According to Le Monde, the school's chief will be a woman with no previous experience of espionage. She is at present a senior figure in one of the grandes �coles, or elite university-level French colleges.

President Sarkozy is determined to create a single French "intelligence community", based on the US model. His plan for a French equivalent of the US National Security Council - the Conseil de d�fense et de s�curit� nationale (CDSN) - took shape by official decree on Christmas Eve. The CDSN will have an intelligence arm, uniting the chiefs of the six French spying and security agencies, the Conseil National du Renseignement or CNR. The chairman of both bodies will be President Sarkozy.

There will also be, for the first time, a "national intelligence coordinator", Bernard Bajolet, 60, whose task will be to ensure that the half-dozen different intelligence and security agencies cooperate with one another. [Telegraph/13January2010] 

Iran Court Opens Trial of 7 Baha'is on Spy Charges. Seven members of Iran's Baha'i minority went on trial on charges of spying and acting against the country's national security, state media reported.

According to state TV Web site, the charges against them also include cooperating with archenemy Israel, gathering classified documents and ''corruption on earth'' - an Islamic term for crimes punishable with the death sentence in Iran.

Since 1979 when Islamic clerics came to power, the Iranian government has banned the Baha'i religion, founded in the 1860s by Baha'u'llah, a Persian nobleman considered a prophet by the Baha'is.

Islam considers Muhammad as the last of the prophets.

The first hearing in the trial of the seven was held at Tehran's Revolutionary Court, Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told the state IRNA news agency. He added that the trial would continue but did not elaborate.

State media also reported that the seven Baha'is' alleged confessions and evidence gathered against them proves they had shared information and personal views while visiting residences of various western European ambassadors to Tehran. The seven are also accused of harming Iran's image in domestic and international circles.

The international Baha'i community argues Tehran is prosecuting the seven for their religious beliefs. The Baha'i faith is said to have up to 6 million followers worldwide.

The U.S. State Department strongly condemned the trial. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip J. Crowley said the seven were detained for more than 20 months without authorities making public any evidence against them and with little access to legal counsel.

It said reports indicate as many as 48 Baha'is are currently imprisoned in Iran solely on the basis of their religious beliefs.

Iranian security troops raided the homes of several prominent Baha'is in Tehran in May 2008. Six from the group on trial on Tuesday were jailed at the time, while the seventh member was detained earlier, in March 2008, Baha'i officials have said.

Baha'i offices based outside Iran have identified the seven as: Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeed Rezaei, Behrouz Tavakkoli, Vahid Tizfam and Mahvash Sabet.

Also in 2008, Iran sentenced more than 50 Baha'is to prison for proselytizing and distributing propaganda against the country's ruling Islamic clerics, according to judicial authorities. Fifty-one other Baha'i followers were given one-year suspended sentences following their detention in the southern city of Shiraz.  
[AP/12January2010]

DIA Officer Claims He's No Commie. The Defense Intelligence Agency accused an intelligence officer with a decorated military past of "consorting with known Communist agents" in the early '90s and fired him without due process, John Dullahan claims in Federal Court. And he says a simple typographical error contributed to his headaches.

Dullahan, an Irish immigrant who worked his way up the ranks in the U.S. Army to become a politico-military adviser for Eastern Europe to Gen. Colin Powell, says the DIA used three false polygraph tests to fire him, and used "national security" as a pretext.

Dullahan emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1967 to enlist in the Army, he says. He was commissioned as an officer in 1970 and served in Vietnam as an artillery forward observer. He became a U.S. citizen in 1973.

He commanded a U.S. artillery unit attached to a German artillery battalion in 1979 and from 1985 to 1986 served in a U.S. military contingent assigned to the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. He says that "In the course of these duties, officers from seventeen countries - including the Soviet Union - routinely worked and socialized together, a practice understood and approved by military managers, including Dullahan's former supervisor in Jerusalem."

Dullahan claims he played an "important and distinguished role in U.S. military relations" with Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which led to an adviser position to then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell, from 1990 to 1992. Dullahan says Powell awarded him with a Defense Meritorious Service Medal for his work in U.S.-Eastern European military relations.

During this time, he says, the FBI began watching and photographing him while he met his foreign counterparts from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary for visits and working lunches. He says the visits were to "facilitate planning official exchanges and support Department of Defense policy formulation."

In 1990, he says, the FBI told him he was believed to be "consorting with known Communist agents," but took no action against him until the events that led to his termination, which began in late 2008.

In 1997, Dullahan says, he returned to the DIA as a civilian employee, successfully passing a polygraph exam in the process, but in 2008 a different polygraph examiner accused him of meeting "Soviet handlers" while on official trips to Europe, including trips with Gen. Powell.

During his polygraph, he says the "FBI examiner alleged that [his] participation in Ranger, Airborne training, and combat duty (as well as his enjoyment of hang-gliding) demonstrated risk-taking behavior which made him more likely to seek contact with a foreign intelligence service."

Dullahan says the examiner alleged that Dullahan had adopted Communist beliefs through mere association with his foreign counterparts. He says the examiner's supervisor likewise "accused Dullahan of spying for the Soviets," and informed him that "he had 'failed' and was 'in big trouble'."

Dullahan says he was subjected to a second unfair and inaccurate polygraph that prompted FBI agents to ask him about "an unspecified foreign intelligence service 'offer'" referred to in one of Dullahan's letters.

Dullahan claims that he had simply misspelled "officer," so instead of writing that he had traveled to the home of a Soviet officer, the agents read, "I went to the home of the Soviet offer."

He says a third polygraph, this time conducted by a DIA examiner, detected deception, but he says no other details were provided to explain the results.

In February 2009, Dullahan says, he was placed on administrative leave and his clearance was suspended without explanation, actions that Dullahan claims were "a result of the technical results of the polygraph examinations."

In his termination and clearance revocation letter, Dullahan says the only reason cited was "national security" with no explanation. He says a letter from DIA counsel later explained that a rarely used summary dismissal rule had been invoked.

Dullahan says he was offered the option of resigning with a full pension, but chose to clear his name and appeal the decision.

He says he was then promptly terminated.

Dullahan is suing the DIA, the FBI, the Department of Defense and the Office and Director of National Intelligence for violations of the First and Fifth Amendments, the Administrative Procedures Act and unreasonable interpretation of internal regulations.

He seeks $201,000 in damages and a declaration that would clear his name. [Abbott/CourthouseNews/11January2010] 

Terror Suspect's Lawyer Asks for Dismissal of Case. A federal judge in Manhattan was asked to dismiss an indictment against a terror suspect whose lawyer argued that his nearly five-year detention in secret C.I.A. prisons and later at Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, was "perhaps the most egregious violation in the history of speedy-trial jurisprudence."

The judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court, listened as a lawyer for the suspect, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, indicated that he was not challenging the government's authority to decide to detain his client or the wisdom of that decision. The government held Mr. Ghailani to try to obtain intelligence about Al Qaeda.

But the government "cannot have it both ways," said the lawyer, Peter E. Quijano.

Once these decisions are made, he added, "they can't just simply change their mind, their political mind, 57 months later, and say, �You know, that indictment before Judge Kaplan? Let's try it now.' "

The judge did not say when he would rule. The debate over the significance of the delays in bringing Mr. Ghailani to trial arises in a case that is seen as crucial because it could foreshadow a key issue in the prosecution of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the professed organizer of the 9/11 attack, and four other Guant�namo detainees accused in the plot who were recently ordered to New York for trial.

Last spring, Mr. Ghailani became the first Guant�namo detainee moved into the civilian court system. A Tanzanian, he faces charges of conspiring in the 1998 bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa, which killed more than 200 people. He later worked for Osama bin Laden as a bodyguard and a cook, military authorities have said.

A federal prosecutor, Michael Farbiarz, sharply challenged the defense's contention that the delays warranted dismissal of the charges. The United States attorney's office in Manhattan has said in court papers that upon his capture in 2004, Mr. Ghailani was seen as "a rare find," and his "recent interactions with top-level Al Qaeda terrorists made him a potentially rich source of information that was both urgent and crucial to our nation's war efforts."

Mr. Farbiarz suggested in court that Mr. Ghailani had been a fount of valuable information for the authorities - and that the interrogation program did not constitute a violation of the constitutional right to a speedy trial. "Nobody from the government side means to suggest in the slightest that extraordinary times mean that the Constitution gets put on a shelf, not looked at, suspended in some way," Mr. Farbiarz said. "That's not what this case is about in the slightest."

Judge Kaplan will ultimately have to weigh several factors set out by the Supreme Court in assessing the claim, like the length of and the reason for the delay, and the prejudice caused to Mr. Ghailani and his case.

Much in the case is classified, and Mr. Farbiarz, Mr. Quijano and a second defense lawyer, Michael K. Bachrach, all tiptoed delicately around certain details during nearly two hours of spirited debate.

But at one point, Mr. Quijano, who has said that his client was tortured, said Mr. Ghailani had been subjected to "what is euphemistically referred to as enhanced interrogation techniques for 14 hours over a five-day period." Mr. Farbiarz quickly rose for a consultation with Mr. Quijano; the information was apparently not supposed to have been revealed in open court. "I withdraw that statement," Mr. Quijano said.

Both sides acknowledged the weighty issues presented by the case, and the unusual circumstances that had brought the defendant into court. "What would indeed be unprecedented here would be dismissing this indictment on speedy-trial grounds," Mr. Farbiarz argued at one point.

"I think everybody can agree that whatever I do here will be unprecedented," Judge Kaplan responded. [Weiser/NYTimes/12January2010] 

U.S. Diverts Spy Drone from Afghanistan to Haiti. As part of the Haiti relief effort, the U.S. military is sharing imagery from one of its high-end, high-flying spy drones, the RQ-4 Global Hawk.

U.S. Southern Command is sharing the images so that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and relief groups can get a better picture of the situation on the ground.

"Today we're going after another 1,000 images, which will all be unclassified," McCleary quotes Butz as saying. "SOUTHCOM will provide it to whoever needs it."

Sharing imagery from a spy drone may sound like an unusual move, but it's part of a larger push within the Pentagon to declassify and share imagery in stability operations and disaster relief. Back in 2008, former Pentagon chief information officer Linton Wells told Danger Room how he had pushed for combatant commanders to collaborate more freely with NGOs and aid groups. Wells, in fact, oversees a Pentagon-funded project called STAR-TIDES, which tries to encourage the military to tap social networking and trust-building arrangements in disaster response.

SOUTHCOM, in fact, seems to be taking a page from STAR-TIDES. The command has set up two collaborative portals: One that is accessible to partner nations, international organizations, NGOs and academia; a second, designated "for official use only" (i.e., unclassified, but restricted) that is open to users across the Department of Defense. [Hodge/Wired/16January2010] 

Agencies Ill-Armed to Fight US Based Terrorists. America's military and counter-intelligence establishments are ill-equipped to deal with domestic extremist threats, Robert Gates, US defence secretary, said in comments that highlighted US fears about home-grown terrorism.

He was speaking after the conclusion of an internal defense department review into the November shootings at the Fort Hood army base in Texas. Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an army psychiatrist, has been accused of killing 13 people.

"It is clear that as a department we have not done enough to adapt to the evolving domestic internal security threat to American troops and military facilities that has emerged over the past decade," Mr. Gates said at a press conference at the Pentagon.

"In this area, as in so many others, this department is burdened by 20th-century processes and attitudes, mostly rooted in the cold war. Our counter-intelligence procedures are mostly designed to combat an external threat such as a foreign intelligence service."

Concerns about US intelligence gathering have intensified since the Fort Hood killings, chiefly because of the failed Christmas day aircraft attack in Detroit and the murder of seven CIA operatives in Afghanistan by a Jordanian triple agent.

The Obama administration has been slow to characterize the Fort Hood deaths as terrorism - in contrast with its description of the Detroit and Afghan episodes - in spite of criticism from US conservatives. But concerns about violent extremism within the US have also been fanned by several other cases, including the detention of five Virginia-based students in Pakistan and the indictment of David Headley, a Chicago native, on charges of carrying out surveillance work for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

The report said current policies did not give commanders authority to intervene when personnel "make contact or establish relationships with persons or entities that promote self-radicalization". It said that "our commanders need that authority now".

Mr. Gates said he was acting on the report's call for Major Hasan's supervisors to be held accountable for their failings. [Dombey/FinancialTimes/16January2010] 

Intel Community's HR Chief is Optimistic About Performance Pay Revival. Ronald Sanders, the intelligence community's outgoing chief human capital officer, said he believes the stalled pay-for-performance system he helped create will eventually get back on track.

Congress in October suspended the Defense Civilian Intelligence Personnel System until the end of 2010 for all intelligence workers except those at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency - who have been under the system for more than a decade. DCIPS' suspension was included in provisions of the Defense Authorization Act that also killed the Defense Department's National Security Personnel System.

The National Academy of Public Administration is now reviewing DCIPS, and must submit its report to the Office of Personnel Management, Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Defense by June 1.

Sanders said the Obama administration supports his office's efforts to establish a performance management system across all 16 intelligence agencies. He also pointed to a Government Accountability Office report issued last month that said the Defense Civilian Intelligence Personnel System does a good job linking employees' objectives to their agencies' strategic goals, linking employees' pay to their performance and making meaningful distinctions in employee performance. Sanders said he believes the NAPA review will come to similar conclusions.

Sanders ends 37 years of federal service in February. He said he is considering several opportunities in the private and academic sectors. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has not yet decided on a new chief human capital officer.

Sanders was previously associate director for strategic human resources policy at OPM, chief human resources officer at the IRS, and director of civilian personnel management at the Pentagon.

Sanders said one of the biggest mistakes of his career, during his tenure at OPM, was not involving unions and employees when crafting a pay-for-performance system for the Homeland Security Department. Having been shut out of its creation, unions fought that system in court and convinced lawmakers to kill it in 2008. Sanders said he learned his lesson, and began talking to intelligence community employees and managers early on about the personnel system he had in mind.

"That was a painful lesson," Sanders said. "We didn't take the time [for] that months- or sometimes years-long engagement to ensure there was a consensus on the way ahead, and ultimately it foundered." [Losey/FederalTimes/14January2010] 

Intelligence Agencies Reach Out to Scientists to Counter Terror Weapons. The U.S. intelligence community has thousands of qualified personnel who analyze and collect data on weapons of mass destruction, but few experts in the sciences on which these potentially deadly technologies are based, said experts at a recent panel discussion.

The National Counterproliferation Center, which resides in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, has hired a handful of experts to act as liaisons between the intelligence world and scientific community, said Lawrence Kerr, one of the advisers to the center and a holder of a Ph.D in cell biology.

"We have phenomenal analysts, phenomenal collectors, but we have to find ways of talking to the community so we can ask for their help and not threaten their mission," he said at an American Association for the Advancement of Science panel discussion.

The advisers do not analyze or collect intelligence, but seek ways to leverage the expertise that resides in the life sciences community.

"How can we have that understanding within the intel community where it is not resident?" he asked.

Understanding the bio-technology world is particularly important. There are rapid developments, and virtually all the equipment for finding the cures for diseases are "dual use," meaning the technology can be used for good or evil.

The intelligence community was already adept at tracking "things," he said. But since all of this technology is dual use, that no longer works. The challenge is now trying to detect an organization, government or person's intent.

"How do we get inside or next to people whose influence can actually decide the intent of an individual, an organization or a state?" he asked.

Open source material such as academic journals, where the vast majority of biological science knowledge is published, are helpful. It can help narrow down where to look, but it can't give clues to the intent of a nation or organization that may be secretly working on a weapons program.

The game is already over as far as bio-weapons proliferation, Kerr said.

"The globalization of life science enterprise, the constructs, knowledge and expertise of how one would actually turn a biological pathogen into a weapon - that information is already widely spread around the world," he said. [Magnuson/NationalDefenseMAgazine/14January2010] 

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

For Antiterror Chief, a Rough Week Ahead as Hearings Begin. Not long after President Obama was inaugurated, Michael E. Leiter, the man in charge of the agency that is supposed to "connect the dots" to prevent terrorist attacks, took a stroll on the National Mall with a friend. The friend, a New Jersey doctor named Arthur Gross, mused aloud about what a new president feels when he learns of all the threats against the United States.

"I said something like, 'Can you imagine what it must be like to walk into the White House and just be president, you've made all these promises, and somebody has to sit you down and explain the world to you, what the reality is?' " Dr. Gross recalled. "And Michael said, 'Well, who do you think sits him down?' "

The comment - confident to the edge of being cocky, matter-of-fact yet not boastful - was typical of Mr. Leiter, an extremely bright, intensely ambitious 40-year-old who rocketed through a career as a Navy flight officer and Harvard-trained federal prosecutor (including a stint as a Supreme Court clerk) to land a job running the National Counterterrorism Center. He is so meticulous, one friend said, that she once glanced at his computer and noticed only three e-mail messages in his inbox, a sign that the super-efficient Mr. Leiter had already categorized and dispensed with his mail.

Now Mr. Leiter's unblemished r�sum� has suffered its first big black mark - the Christmas Day terrorist plot that his agency failed to thwart - and on Monday, he will begin answering for it on Capitol Hill. As Congress opens a string of hearings into how a Nigerian national nearly blew up a plane bound for Detroit, Mr. Leiter, little known outside Washington policy circles, will be a star witness.

It could be a painful debut. Mr. Leiter has been mentioned as a possible future head of the Central Intelligence Agency, and how he performs might help determine whether he remains on the fast track.

Already, he has suffered the harsh glare of the spotlight, amid news reports citing anonymous sources that he took a ski vacation in the days after the attempted attack. The trip, it turned out, was with his 7-year-old son. The White House publicly defended him, and aides to the president said Mr. Obama called to convey his support.

The vacation flap, though, pales in comparison with the flak his agency is taking for failing to recognize the threat posed by the Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, whose name was on at least one government watch list. Last week, during a private briefing with members of the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Leiter told lawmakers that he was planning changes to the watch list system "to make it more meaningful, not to just have lists for the sake of having lists," said Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, who attended the briefing.

"Obviously it's had a real impact on him; there's no doubt this is - devastating is too strong a word - but professionally, and with his obligations to the country, it went wrong and it went wrong on his watch," said Mr. King, who is also the senior Republican on the Homeland Security Committee.

The impression from members of both parties, Mr. King said, "was that he was being very straight with us. He realizes what went wrong, what has to be done. He made no attempt to give excuses."

Mr. Leiter declined, through a spokesman, to comment. But in an interview with National Public Radio, which was conducted shortly before the Christmas Day attempt and was broadcast earlier this month, he spoke of the difficulties of his job.

"We're not going to stop every attack," he said then. "Americans have to very much understand that it is impossible to stop every terrorist event. But we have to do our best, and we have to adjust, based on, again, how the enemy changes their tactics."

Mr. Leiter took an unusual path into the intelligence business. He volunteered with the Fire Department in Englewood, N.J., where he grew up, and at one point thought of becoming a New York City police officer, friends said. But he went on to an academic career that mirrors Mr. Obama's own, graduating from Columbia University (the president's alma mater) and Harvard Law, where he, like Mr. Obama, was elected president of the law review.

He spent six years in the Navy between college and law school; after law school, he clerked for Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the Supreme Court. He was at the court on Sept. 11, 2001, watching on television as the World Trade Center collapsed. He had attended his senior prom and been sworn into the Navy there. "It hit very close to home for me," he told NPR.

In 2004, while working as a federal prosecutor, Mr. Leiter joined the staff of a commission, appointed by President George W. Bush, to examine intelligence failures leading up to the war in Iraq. That led to a series of jobs in the intelligence world, and in 2008, Mr. Bush appointed him director of the counterterrorism center.

Mr. Obama kept him on - no surprise to Bush officials, said Juan Zarate, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Bush. "Michael wasn't political," Mr. Zarate said.

The center was created in 2004 as part of the post-Sept. 11 reforms, to analyze and integrate information from 16 different government agencies and departments - the C.I.A., the F.B.I., the Pentagon and others, each with its own culture and history. Running it is a job that requires a keen ability to navigate turf battles. Rick Nelson, a former colleague and domestic security expert, said Mr. Leiter "came into it with clear thinking, with a freshness and an eagerness to cut through the bureaucracy."

And Mr. Leiter won the admiration of his staff, Mr. Nelson said, when in August 2008 he very publicly took on a congressman, Representative Brad Miller, Democrat of North Carolina, who had criticized his agency. The two engaged in a pointed exchange of letters on the editorial page of The New York Times - a rare example of Mr. Leiter being undiplomatic.

"I have to say, it left a bad taste in my mouth," the congressman said in an interview. "He was very sensitive to criticism."

Mr. Miller, though, seems to be the exception; other lawmakers involved in intelligence and domestic security affairs count themselves as Leiter fans. They include Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California; Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine; Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California; and Mr. King.

Still, as this week's hearings unfold, Mr. King predicted a difficult road ahead for the counterterrorism chief, if not from lawmakers, then from his own colleagues. "He's in a very rough business, the intelligence business, and a lot of people in that business do a very good job of going after the enemy," Mr. King said. "But they also do a good job of going after their own." [Stolberg/NYTimes/16January2010]

Think Different, CIA. What's wrong with American intelligence? That question became tragically urgent at the end of last year, first with the failed attempt to blow up Northwest Flight 253, and then the deadly suicide bombing that killed seven CIA officers in eastern Afghanistan.

These events put intelligence at the top of the national agenda and have been followed, predictably, by an outcry that our intelligence system needs to be overhauled. Leaders and critics, from the president on down, are calling for a host of solutions: more people on no-fly lists, tighter control of visas, more thorough airport screening, better tracking of suspects. In sum, the thinking goes, we need to gather more information, then work harder to connect the dots.

Those impulses are understandable, but they miss the most important problem. From studying many individual cases, and conducting detailed post-mortems of US intelligence failures in the cases of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the 1979 Iranian Revolution, I have found that many common assumptions about why our intelligence fails are misguided. The problems with our intelligence system aren't primarily problems with information. They are problems with how we think.

To try to build a perfect intelligence system - one that will never miss a terrorist, that intercepts every dangerous e-mail - is an impossibility. We face skilled adversaries who are trying to deceive us. Hiding is often easier than finding. If people are often surprised to discover that their own spouses have been cheating on them, how could we expect governments to have a perfect understanding of what others are doing?

The problem isn't usually - or at least isn't only - too little information, but too much, most of it ambiguous, contradictory, or misleading. The blackboard is filled with dots, many of them false, and they can be connected in innumerable ways. Only with hindsight does the correct pattern leap out at us, and to fix what "broke" the last time around only guarantees you have solved yesterday's problem.

Far more important, and useful, is to address the flaws in how we interpret and use the intelligence that we already gather. Intelligence analysts are human beings, and many of their failures follow from intuitive ways of thinking that, while allowing the human mind to cut through reams of confusing information, often end up misleading us. This isn't a problem that occurs only with spying. It is central to how we make sense of our everyday lives, and how we reach decisions based on the imperfect information we have in our hands. And the best way to fix it is to craft policies, institutions, and analytical habits that can compensate for our very understandable flaws.

Humans have survived and evolved by being able to quickly make sense of the massive amounts of information that our eyes and ears receive. We excel at perceiving patterns and making up stories that bring the coherence that we need in order to act. Organizations do the same things on a larger scale. This isn't a bad thing - without powerful filtering mechanisms and shortcuts, we would be lost. But these intuitive ways of thinking also lead us into traps. The first and most important tendency is that our minds are prone to see patterns and meaning in our world quite quickly, and then tend to ignore information that might disprove them. Premature cognitive closure, to use the phrase employed by psychologists, lies behind many intelligence failures.

For example, in the summer of 2001, the United States gained an intelligence windfall when it intercepted a shipment of aluminum tubes bound for Iraq. It is now clear that they were to be used in rockets, but in part because the first CIA official to analyze them was an expert in centrifuges, he and the organization immediately concluded that they were designed for uranium enrichment - and thus Saddam must have been actively pursuing nuclear weapons. This "finding" remained a centerpiece of intelligence arguments until the post-war survey discovered the truth. If the pattern hadn't imposed itself so quickly, and the CIA had been able to keep an open mind about the meaning of those tubes, analysts might have made better use of other information that pointed to different conclusions.

Second, people pay more attention to visible information than to information generated by an absence. In a famous Arthur Conan Doyle story, it took the extraordinary skill of Sherlock Holmes to see that an important clue in the case was a dog not barking. The equivalent, in the intelligence world, is information that should be there but is not. In another example from Iraq, in 2002 the CIA made vigorous efforts to uncover evidence of WMD programs, interviewing informed Iraqis outside the country and even sending people into Iraq to talk to their relatives who were scientists and technicians. No credible reports came in to confirm that Saddam was working on weapons of mass destruction, and so the analysts felt they had nothing to report. But they were missing another kind of evidence they were generating: If Iraq really did have active WMD programs, then such extensive interviews should have provided at least some confirming evidence. Its absence, they should have realized, was important information in itself.

Third, conclusions often rest on assumptions that are not readily testable, and may even be immune to disproof. Intelligence noted that the evidence for Iraq's WMD programs was only scattered and sketchy, but assumed that this was the result of an extensive deception program by Saddam. This was not an unreasonable assumption - Iraq did engage in a lot of deception - but this line of reasoning also made the programs' existence impossible to disprove. Neither analysts nor policy makers understood the extent to which their views rested on a belief that no new information could dislodge.

Another common error is to believe that the adversary sees the world as you do - a failing that is especially strong when the adversary's beliefs are strange or extreme, but can also happen when the adversary has tactical goals that you hadn't expected. Saddam's view that it was more important to bluff Iran by pretending to have active WMD programs than to avoid an American invasion by coming clean was bizarre, and no observers seem to have grasped it. In other cases, intelligence believes that an adversary must be stymied because it has no obvious path forward - but this very situation gives the adversary incentives to seek alternative strategies, and intelligence is often slow to appreciate this. The United States was taken by surprise at Pearl Harbor partly because it knew that Japan understood that it could not win an all-out war - and overlooked the possibility that Japan would therefore follow a different approach of striking such a sharp blow against the United States that it would be willing to suffer a limited defeat and accept a negotiated settlement. Israel was similarly surprised when Syria and Egypt attacked Sinai in October 1973 - their intelligence knew that Egypt could not throw Israel out of the peninsula. What they missed was that instead of being deterred by the strength of the Israeli army, Egypt's president, Anwar Sadat, decided to seek a more limited military victory that would shake up Israel, bring in the United States, and lead to fruitful negotiations. Our minds are, then, very good at forming a coherent picture, but less good at challenging it, questioning its assumptions, and coming up with alternative explanations. We are quick and often assured, but we are not self-correcting.

If there are flaws in the way that we think, then gathering more and more information isn't a solution. What our intelligence system really needs is ways to avoid becoming trapped by the natural tendency to leap to conclusions and stick with them. This is true in other fields as well, which is why so much of professional and scientific training is designed to reduce the errors made by fallible people using weak information.

If individuals cannot avoid jumping to conclusions, there are ways for organizations to make up for this. They can systematically solicit the views of people with different perspectives, for example, or use devil's advocates who will challenge established views.

To compensate for the tendency to rely on implicit understandings, intelligence analysts can be pushed to fully explain their reasoning, allowing others if not themselves to probe the assumptions that often play a large and unacknowledged role in their conclusions.

To better recognize the significance of absences, analysts can learn to think explicitly about what evidence should be appearing if their beliefs are correct. Gaps do not automatically mean that the established ideas are wrong, but they may signal a flaw in the prevailing thesis. Analysts can also be trained to consider, explicitly, what evidence could lead them to change their minds - not only alerting themselves to the possibility that the necessary information might be missing, but also providing an avenue for others to find evidence that might overturn established views.

Analysts should think more broadly and imaginatively about how adversaries are likely to respond, especially when it appears as though they have few alternatives and may be pushed into tactically surprising acts.

As the inevitable changes to our intelligence are debated and put into place, we need - all of us, from voters to CIA analysts to the president - to avoid the easy temptation to assume the future will be just like the past. One of the failures of intelligence before the 1991 Gulf War was the fact that we underestimated the Iraqi WMD programs. Twelve years later, overestimating those programs didn't fix the problem; it only created new ones. The reality is that we have to learn to live with errors - just not as many as we have been committing. 

[Robert Jervis is a professor of international politics at Columbia University and a consultant to the intelligence community. His book, "Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War," will be published by Cornell University Press in March.] [Jervis/BostonGlobe/17January2010] 

Section III - COMMENTARY

Leon Panetta: Don't Blame Poor Tradecraft for CIA Deaths. The horrible news Dec. 30 that a suicide bomber had taken seven American lives in Afghanistan may have been for some a stark reminder that we are at war. But the men and women of the CIA, whose colleagues these seven were, needed no reminder.

The main lesson from this attack is that, like our military, CIA officers are on the front lines against al-Qaida and its violent allies. They take risks to confront the enemy, gathering information to destroy its networks and disrupt its operations. This is a vicious foe, one that has struck our country before and is determined to do so again.

As an agency, we have found consolation in the strength and heroism of our fallen colleagues and their families.

We have found no consolation, however, in public commentary suggesting that those who gave their lives somehow brought it upon themselves because of "poor tradecraft." That's like saying Marines who die in a firefight brought it upon themselves because they have poor war-fighting skills.

This was not a question of trusting a potential intelligence asset, even one who had provided information that we could verify independently. It is never that simple, and no one ignored the hazards. The individual was about to be searched by our security officers - a distance away from other intelligence personnel - when he set off his explosives.

Our officers were engaged in an important mission in a dangerous part of the world. They brought to that mission their skills, expertise and willingness to take risks. That's how we succeed at what we do. And sometimes in a war, that comes at a very high price.

The CIA cannot speak publicly about its major victories - the plots foiled, the terrorists neutralized. In the past year, we have done exceptionally heavy damage to al-Qaida and its associates. That's why the extremists hit back. And it is all the more reason why we intend to stay on the offensive.

The safety of our officers is critical. If we find lessons from Forward Operating Base Chapman that will make us even stronger in what will always be a deadly battle, we will, of course, apply them. But let's be clear: When you are fighting terrorists, there will be risks.

We constantly adapt and refine the tools we use to accomplish what is, under the best circumstances, an exceptionally complex and difficult mission. No one should mistake the remote spots of South Asia for the capitals of Cold War Europe. In a very different environment, against a very different enemy, our tradecraft is tailored to a battlefield. In the barren landscape outside Khost, Afghanistan, things such as "safe" houses - a staple of traditional espionage - are not easily found.

Our focus now is on these seven American heroes and those wounded beside them. They knew the value of their work against terrorism and did it with talent, energy and a full appreciation of the risks involved. In the days since this tragedy, many family members have told me that, in Afghanistan, their loved ones were where they wanted to be. They were no strangers to hardship. If the CIA was not in that rugged outpost and many more like it, obtaining information that could save American lives, the agency would not be doing its job.

On the day our fallen returned to Dover Air Force Base on their long journey home, the CIA's senior staff meeting began with a moment of silence. It was followed by a powerful commitment to continue our aggressive counterterrorism operations. We do more than mourn those taken from us. We honor them, in part by pushing forward the work they did, work to which they were absolutely devoted. Their colleagues form a deep bench of expertise and courage, and they are committed to playing their vital role in this war we must win. [Panetta/WashingtonPost/15January2010] 

Washington Times: Obama's Havoc to the Intel System. President Obama blamed "the system" for failing to stop al Qaeda's Christmas Day bombing plot. The weakness with that excuse is that Mr. Obama fails to connect the dots between the systemic failure and his administration's year-long record of destroying the morale of the intelligence community.

The intelligence process works in large part because of trust. A reliable sense of confidence must exist between superiors and subordinates, agents and sources, and the intelligence community and policy makers. Without trust, people will not take the risks needed to do their jobs successfully.

Mr. Obama has destroyed this sense of trust. On his watch, the intelligence community has suffered a year of body blows. He made great theater of signing an executive order closing the terrorist detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In April, the president authorized the release of the so-called "torture memos" on enhanced interrogation techniques used against detainees, and suggested that Congress establish a bipartisan review panel to look into the authorization of extraordinary interrogation methods.

Mr. Obama said, "for those who carried out ... these operations within the four corners of legal opinions or guidance ... provided from the White House, I do not think it's appropriate for them to be prosecuted." He then authorized Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to begin an investigation, even though career prosecutors at the Justice Department already had examined the circumstances and found no CIA violations of law.

Disputes arose with Congress over the extent to which members had been briefed on the enhanced interrogation program, in particular what Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it. The speaker at one point accused the CIA of lying, though she eventually - predictably - had to backpedal. In July, Congress castigated the CIA for allegedly concealing "significant actions" from Congress related to a plan to assassinate terrorist leaders that was not even implemented. Considering the Obama administration has made targeted killings by drones the centerpiece of its counterterrorism strategy, this charge seemed gratuitous and hypocritical.

These and other events helped drive morale in the intelligence community to new lows. Mr. Obama's actions have created a climate that punishes risk-taking and ensures that dots go unconnected. CIA Director Leon Panetta warned last May, "If they start to use these issues as political clubs to beat each other up with, that's when we not only pay a price but this country pays a price." We now have intelligence agencies whose unofficial mottos are "stay in your lane," and "cover your rear."

Mr. Obama should be seeking ways to repair the breach, restore trust and make good on the promises he made to intelligence operatives to support them in their dangerous professions. Instead, he brandished a new stick. On Thursday, the president announced he has directed the heads of intelligence agencies to institutionalize "internal accountability reviews" to be monitored by the White House. These ominous-sounding punitive processes may become death panels for intelligence careers.

There is an old saying in intelligence circles: Big operation, big risk; small operation, small risk; no operation, no risk. The president's proposed "solution" to the failures of the intelligence system will reinforce a climate of mistrust in which it will be difficult to take the risks necessary to make the system work. And next time we may not be so lucky.  [WashingtonTimes/11January2010] 

Let's Take Bureaucracy Out of Intelligence, by John Bolton. Although the U.S. intelligence community (IC) has been stung by failures relating to the Christmas terrorist attack, these failures are symptomatic of far larger problems. In analyzing the ongoing Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs, both the IC and policy makers are guilty of politicizing intelligence, exactly the behavior harshly criticized during the Bush administration.

Now, however, the politicization threat dwells inside the IC, especially in the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) bureaucracy. Policy officials move in and out of intelligence jobs as if those jobs were interchangeable, carrying all their existing policy biases. Even worse, intelligence officers increasingly disdain to hide their philosophical proclivities, which have colored their intelligence analysis in years past. And, like generals refighting the last war to correct their mistakes, the IC is reacting against charges it overstated the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction by understating the threat of Iranian and North Korean weapons programs. So much for the wall of separation between policy and intelligence.

Ill-concealed policy preferences dominated the now-discredited 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear weapons program. So eager were the NIE's drafters to forestall the use of force against Iran that they distorted the intelligence, ignored contrary evidence, and overstated their conclusions.

We are still paying the price for this bureaucratic insurrection, as information emerges about Iran's extensive efforts to conceal its nuclear program. Recent reports, for example, show that Qom is far from Iran's only hardened underground enrichment facility. So much is unknown about Iran's progress that the administration's confident estimates about the time available to engage in fruitless negotiations work in Tehran's favor.

Similarly, A.Q. Khan, proliferation's pre-eminent entrepreneur, reportedly believes that Pyongyang's clandestine uranium-enrichment began earlier and made more progress than many previously acknowledged. This and other new information, as recently explained by South Korea's foreign minister, runs counter to the biases of officials who have tried to minimize the risk from Pyongyang to justify six-party talks. Instead, it suggests that the North's repeated pledges to end its nuclear weapons program have been utterly worthless.

The Christmas terrorist attack demonstrates that we need more effective communication and analysis within the IC. Achieving this goal does not require more centralization of authority, more hierarchy, and more uniformity of opinion. The IC's problem stems from a culture of anonymous conformity. Greater centralization will only reinforce existing bureaucratic obstacles to providing decision makers with a full range of intelligence analysis.

The problem is often not the intelligence we collect, but assessing its implications. Solving that problem requires not the mind-deadening exercise of achieving bureaucratic consensus, but creating a culture that rewards insight and decisiveness. To create that culture we should abolish the DNI office and NIEs.

Eliminating the DNI should be accompanied by reversing decades of inadequate National Security Council supervision of the intelligence function. The council is an awesome instrument for presidential control over the IC, but only if the national security adviser and others exercise direction and control. Sloughing off responsibility to the bureaucracy embodying the problem is a failure of presidential leadership, and unfortunately gives us exactly the IC we deserve.

Contemporary NIEs (and other IC products) reflect the bureaucracy's lowest-common-denominator tendencies and should be abolished. Each intelligence agency should be able to place its analysis of data into a competitive marketplace of classified ideas - this will help determine which is the superior product.

Finally, the real debatable issue is often not intelligence or analysis, but the inescapably political judgment of how much risk to our national security we are willing to tolerate. Today, the Obama administration's level of risk tolerance for potential terrorists and proliferators is far too high. Changing that doesn't just mean fixing the IC. It means fixing the White House. [Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad" (Simon & Schuster, 2007)]. [Bolton/WallStreetJournal/10January2010] 

Section IV - BOOKS, CALL FOR PAPERS, RECRUITMENT, LETTERS TO THE EDITORS, RESEARCH REQUESTS AND COMING EVENTS

Books

New Book on Virtual Worlds Describes Using Avatars to Fight Terrorism. Henley-Putnam University professor Edward M. Roche, Ph.D., J.D. has announced the release of his new work, Virtual Worlds Real Terrorism, a revealing look at Virtual World technology and its contribution to combating terrorism.

Virtual Worlds are 3-D Internet installations in which participants are represented by an "avatar" that they control. The newly released book takes a look into the use of this new medium as a platform for terrorism, criminal conspiracy, and espionage, and presents a blueprint for police and other government intelligence operations in this new environment.

"As an intelligence collection platform, Virtual Worlds allow law enforcement officials to penetrate dangerous organizations in ways we could not have imagined in previous decades," said Roche. "Professionals educated in Virtual World technology and terrorism are becoming a critical part of the intelligence landscape."

Based on review of scientific literature, development of case studies, as well as experimentation, Virtual Worlds shows how criminal and terrorist organizations can use Virtual Worlds to conduct their activities, including operation of large fund-raising operations. Roche covers the rise of Virtual Worlds in the People's Republic of China, the Middle East, and elsewhere. He envisions a world in which teams of intelligence and law enforcement professionals, including those disabled from duty, use Virtual Worlds to be on constant lookout for emerging threats. Dr. Roche's book is particularly fascinating because it explores this subsection of the intelligence community that represents the future of counterterrorism in this country," said Michael Corcoran, PhD, Henley-Putnam University president and former U.S. Secret Service agent. "We are thrilled about the book launch and pleased to have Ed's unique and specialized expertise on Virtual Worlds available to our students."

Virtual Worlds Real Terrorism can be purchased at http://www.barracloughltd.com and will become available on Google Books and Amazon.com later this month.

Edward M. Roche is the Director of Scientific Intelligence for Barraclough Ltd (http://www.barracloughltd.com). With more than 30 years of corporate experience in the IT sector, he had conducted a wide range of research projects involving information technology, telecommunications, virtual worlds, national security, political economy and industrial policies for technopolae and microelectronics. He is a member of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA), the Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO), FBI InfraGard and has provided expert advice to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Roche performed research of Virtual Worlds for the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). He worked for more than 25 years studying information technology in multinational enterprises and served as Chief Research Officer for Gartner Group.

A professor of Intelligence Technology at Henley-Putnam University, he is part of the university's diverse and experienced faculty comprised of seasoned professionals with extensive hands-on experience in military, law enforcement, counterterrorism and intelligence.  [PRWeb/13January2010] 

Call for Papers

Iranian Intel. AFIO members: Do you have experience or knowledge of contemporary Iranian Intel? We are working with Georgetown University Press on a peer-reviewed, edited volume dealing with intelligence structures, process, and culture outside of the Anglo-American-European mainstream, titled "Intelligence Elsewhere". We have a series of authors, many practitioners included, writing on such topics as Japan, China, South Africa, Pakistan, and others. Our editor has indicated the need to have someone write on Iran, but alas we can find no one qualified to do so. Could you help us fill that gap with a 5,000-word essay? Please contact Dr. Kristian Gustafson at kristian.gustafson@brunel.ac.uk. References from within the US intel community as to our bona fides can be supplied on request.
Dr. Kristian C. Gustafson, CD, MA, Lecturer, Centre for Intelligence & Security Studies, Brunel University (room MJ 116), www.BCISS.org, Phone: +44 (0) 1895 265 436, Mobile: +44 (0) 7910 185 969

Recruitment

Executive Recruiter Seeks Sr MI Officers. I am an Executive Recruiter, and former member of the Intel community. I am currently seeking four (4) senior Military Intelligence Officers, location immaterial, for a major government consulting firm that is building a new MI business unit. These positions pay very well and offer the career enhancement of working with one of the most prestigious firms in the world. Should you know of someone who might be appropriate, I would most certainly like to speak with them. 
Larry McCracken, Vice President, Human Capital Management, GOLDEN KEY GROUP, LLC, Office: 703-815-0102 Ext: 201, Mobile: 215-872-4844,lmccracken@goldenkeygroup.com

Letters to the Editors

UAV's Are Not Drones.  Somehow we need to "help" ourselves and the news media. We gotta stop calling UAVs drones.

They are not drones. UAVs have all the attributes of an airplane. They have wings, tails, control surfaces, landing gear in most cases, and a pilot. And they come back to fly again and again.

Drones usually do not come back. They are used as targets and have been since WW II. RadioPlane built drones years and years ago. Northrop bought them in the 1960s and their UAV program began.

The pilots come in two brands, dependant upon the mission. Some are Military pilots. Some are civilians who hold an active FAA ticket. In most cases that FAA Pilot's license must be kept active in order to fly UAVs.

No more drone names for the Predator, etc.

F. Eugene Barber
Las Vegas

Research Requests

Trying to Locate Viktor Belenko. An AFIO member is looking for Viktor Belenko. Will an AFIO member in contact with Viktor please contact the AFIO office at afio@afio.com.

Coming Events

EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

MANY Spy Museum Events in January and February with full details are listed on the AFIO Website at www.afio.com. The titles for some of these are as follows:

• Wednesday, 20 January 2010; 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - Defector: Igor Gouzenko and the Start of the Cold War at the International Spy Museum
• Thursday, 21 January 2010; 12 noon – 1 pm - Bioterror in the 21st Century: Emerging Threats in a New Global Environment at the International Spy Museum
• True Lies/True Lives: Famous Spies of the 20th Century - Wednesdays in February and the first Wednesday in March; 10:15 am
  Location: International Spy Museum, Washington, DC
• Wednesday, 3 February 2010; 10:15 am - Washington, DC - Aldrich Ames: High Pay for High Crimes - at the International Spy Museum
• Thursday, 4 February 2010; 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - The Counterfeiters at the International Spy Museum
• Wednesday, 10 February 2010; 10:15 am - Washington, DC - John Walker: The Ring Leader at the International Spy Museum
• Wednesday, 17 February 2010; 10:15 am - Washington, DC - Oleg Penkovsky: The Heroic Spy
• Thursday, 18 February 2010; 12 noon – 1 pm - Washington, DC - The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State at the International Spy Museum
• Wednesday, 24 February 2010; 10:15 am- Washington, DC - Robert Hanssen: The Anonymous Spy
• Wednesday, 3 March 2010; 10:15 am - Washington, DC - Ana Montes: Cuba’s American Mole at the International Spy Museum
  

Thursday, 21 January 2010, 1130 hours - Denver, CO - The Rocky Mountain Chapter of AFIO holds a meeting on "Have Helicopter, Will Travel.";  Dr. (COL USA, MC, Retd) Ed Kerkorian, a senior medical officer in Viet Nam era speaks on "Have Helicopter, Will Travel." Event occurs at the USAFA Falcon Club. Cost: $10 RSVP to Tom Van Wormer, RMC, AFIO Treasurer, robsmom@pcisys.net
or 719 481 8273

21 January 2010, 12 - 2 pm - The Los Angeles AFIO Chapter hosts business meeting.
Place: the LMU campus in room 302. The January business meeting will not host a speaker nor will lunch be provided, the focus of the meeting will be to tabulate the results of the chapter elections for the officers and focus on establishing chapter goals for the upcoming year 2010. The January meeting is open to chapter members only, no guests. Replies to Vincent Autiero afio_la@yahoo.com

Thursday, 21 January 2010, 1130 hours - Denver, CO - The Rocky Mountain Chapter bimonthly meeting features: "Have Helicopter, Will Travel." Dr. (COL USA, MC, Retd) Ed Kerkorian, A Senior Medical Officer in Viet Nam Era speaks on "Have Helicopter, Will Travel." Cost: $10. RSVP to Tom Van Wormer, RMC, AFIO Treasurer at robsmom@pcisys.net or call 719 481 8273

26 January 2010 - Arlington, VA - The Defense Intelligence Forum meets at the Alpine Restaurant, 4770 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22207. This event is open to members of all IC associations. The speaker will be John Moore, who will speak on the Middle East after One Year with President Obama. He will cover the peace process, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and the on-going battle with Islamic terrorists. Mr. Moore was the Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia, and Terrorism, DIA's senior expert for the region. He was twice awarded the Director of Central Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal. He has been a witness at the International Court of Justice in the Hague. To encourage candor at this forum, there may be no media, notes, recordings, or attribution. Pay at the door with a check for $29 per person payable to DIAA, Inc. Social hour starts at 1130, lunch at 1200. Make reservations by 15 January by email to diforum@verizon.net. Give names, telephone numbers, email addresses, and choices of chicken, veal, or salmon. Pay with a check. THE FORUM DOESN'T TAKE CASH.

Tuesday, 09 February 2010, 1130 hrs - Tampa, FL - The AFIO Suncoast Chapter will hold its Spring meeting and luncheon on "Psychology of Terrorism" at the MacDill AFB Officer’s Club.

Dr. Borum topic is “Psychology of Terrorism and Radicalization”. Randy Borum, Psy. D., serves on the Defense Science Board Task Force on Understanding Human Dynamics in Military Operations; provides support for US Special Operations Command and the Joint Special Operations University (combating terrorist networks); and served on the NSF Review Panel for Social/Behavioral Research on National Security. Additional background information can be found on the USF web site, http://www.usf.edu/Faculty-Staff/.

A full Luncheon, Lasagna and fresh garlic bread, with normal salad, rolls, dressing of choice, coffee and tea -- and in preparation for everyone enjoying forthcoming Valentine Day, dessert will be Red Velvet Cake, will be served for the usual $15, all inclusive. We will have the wine and soda bar open at 1100 for those that wish to come early for our social time.

Check-in registration will commence at 1130 hours, opening ceremonies and lunch at noon, followed by our distinguished speaker Randy Borum from the College of Behavioral Sciences at USF.Reply ASAP, with your name and any guests accompanying you, to: Bill Brown at billbrown1@tampabay.rr.com; Donwhite@tampabay.rr.com; or Gary Gorsline at garyg@x-link.info

Your check payable to 'Suncoast Chapter, AFIO' (or cash) should be presented at time of check-in for the luncheon. Additionally, just a reminder that this years dues, $10, are do from those who have not already paid. Should you not have 'bumper stickers' or ID card for access to MacDill AFB, please so state in your response. Be sure to include your license number, name on drivers license and state of issue for yourself and for any guests you are bringing on base. And don't forget, all of you needing special roster gate access should proceed to the Bayshore Gate entrance to MacDill AFB (need directions, let us know). The main gate will send you to the visitors center and they will not be able to help you get past security, unless you are just asking for directions to the Bayshore Gate.

10 February 2010 - Scottsdale, AZ - The Arizona Chapter of AFIO meets to hear Randy Parsons, Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration Federal Security Director Randy D. Parsons was appointed as the Federal Security Director overseeing Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and seven other Arizona airports in 2009.
Mr. Parsons retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2005 after twenty years of service. His last assignment was as the Special Agent in Charge for the Counterterrorism Program in the Los Angeles office. Mr. Parsons led four Joint Terrorism Task Forces and directed the operational readiness of personnel and systems for crisis preparedness and response. He practiced law prior to entering the FBI, is a former university professor and police officer.
He was a Vice President for the AECOM global consortium of companies providing architectural, design and engineering services to diverse critical infrastructure clients. Mr. Parsons founded Global Strategic Solutions, LLC in 2007, providing consultation and guidance for strategic policy, planning and development within a variety of risk environments to governmental and private sector clientele.
This event is being held at: McCormick Ranch Golf Club (7505 McCormick Parkway, Scottsdale AZ 85258 ~ Phone 480.948.0260) Our meeting fees will be as follows: • $20.00 for AFIO members• $22.00 for guests. For reservations or questions, please email Simone sl@4smartphone.net or simone@afioaz.org or call and leave a message on 602.570.6016.
Arthur Kerns, President of the AFIO AZ Chapter, president@afioaz.org.

15 - 17 February 2010 - Heidelberg, Germany - The United States European Command Director for Intelligence is using this convention outfit to arrange an Intelligence Summit.
The website for this event managers is https://www.ncsi.com/eucom09/index.shtml

13 February 2010 - Orange Park, FL - The North Florida Chapter will meet for its quarterly luncheon at the Country Club of Orange Park starting at 11:00 am.Guest speaker will be Dr. Christopher Stubbs, whose unique subject will be "Spooks & Geeks: The Perspective of an Interested Citizen Scientist."  For further information about the Chapter or the upcoming meetings, please contact Chapter Secretary Quiel Begonia at qbegonia@comcast.net or 904-545-9549.

24 February 2010, 9 am - 5 pm - Ft Lauderdale, FL - The FBI/INFRAGARD has invited AFIO Members to the FEBRUARY 24, 2010 Conference on Counterterrorism measures at Nova Southeastern University.

If you plan to attend, please RSVP to AFIO Miami Chapter President, Tom Spencer, at TRSMIAMI@aol.com. Provide your AFIO National member number, address, phone number. Your information will be provided to the FBI for assessment. Their decision of which members can attend is final. AFIO bears no responsibility for costs or arrangements made in anticipation of attending this Infragard/FBI event based on the decisions of their security personnel. If available, bring your government issued ID. Infragard is the public/private partnership of the FBI. You can get more information on Infragard at www.infragard.net.
Please respond to Tom Spencer no later than February 10, 2010 via email.
Location: NOVA Southeastern University , Knight Lecture Hall, Room # 1124
3301 College Ave, Ft. Lauderdale, Fl 33314
Abbreviated AGENDA
09:00 - 09:30 AM - Registration and coffee
09:30 - 10:00 AM Welcoming Remarks - Carlos "Freddy" Kasprzykowski, InfraGard South Florida Chapter President; Eric S. Ackerman, Ph.D., NSU Assistant Dean and Director of Graduate Programs; SA Nelson J. Barbosa, InfraGard Coordinator/FBI Miami
10:00 - 11:00 AM - Stephanie M. Viegas, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Coordinator, Miami FBI Field Division Will give an overview on how the FBI responds and coordinates WMD threats and related cases.
11:00 - 11:15 AM - Break
11:15 -11:30 AM - FBI employment needs - SA Kathleen J. Cymbaluk, Miami FBI Recruiter. This presentation will discuss current hiring needs of the FBI and
requirements on how to qualify and apply.
11:30 - 12:30 PM - Christopher L. Eddy, Supervisory Intelligence Analyst. The use of Intelligence Information in the FBI. This presentation will discuss how intelligence is collected, analyzed, and pushed to the right people at the right time and place and how vitally important it is to the security of our nation and its interests.
12:30 - 01:45 PM - LUNCH (Food court available on campus)
01:45 - 02:45 PM - Gun Running from Broward and Palm Beaches Counties
SSA Mark A. Hastbacka; This presentation will touch on IRA gun running operation in the above counties from a Counter terrorism investigation point-of-view.
02:15 - 03:15 PM - FBI Extraterritorial Responsibilities: Focus Iraq ASAC Scott A. Gilbert, FBI Miami. This presentation will focus on FBI activities in the International
Terrorism Organizations (ITO) and in the Middle East in general, with specific focus on IT and kidnapping investigations.
03:15 - 03:30 PM - BREAK
03:30 - 04:30 PM - Overview of Current Terrorism Trends: South Florida
SIA Vincent J. Rowe. This presentation will focus on terrorism trends in the South Florida
territory.
04:30 - 05:00 PM - Conclusion

Wednesday, 10 March 2010, 6:30 p.m. - Washington, DC - A "Weapons of Mass Disruption Program from Cold War to Cyber War" featuring Gail Harris, Naval Intelligence Officer - at the International Spy Museum

WHAT: “I decided to be unorthodox."—Gail Harris
When Gail Harris was assigned by the U.S. Navy to a combat intelligence job in 1973, she became the first woman to hold such a position. By the time of her retirement, she was the highest ranking African American female in the Navy. Her 28-year career included hands-on leadership in the intelligence community during every major conflict from the Cold War to Desert Storm to Kosovo. Captain Harris was at the forefront of one of the newest challenges: cyber warfare, developing intelligence policy for the Computer Network Defense and Computer Network Attack for the Department of Defense. Harris, author of A Woman's War: The Professional and Personal Journey of the Navy's First African American Female Intelligence Officer, will share her unique experience providing intelligence support to military operations while also battling the status quo, office bullies, and politics. She’ll also offer her perspective on the way intelligence is used and sometimes misused.
WHERE: International Spy Museum, 800 F St NW, Washington, DC, Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station. TICKETS: $12.50. Advance Registration required. Tickets are non-refundable. To register: order online; or purchase tickets in person at the International Spy Museum.

Friday, 12 March 2010 – San Francisco, CA – The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts Michael Rinn, Vice President/Program Director for the Missile Defense Systems Division at The Boeing Company. He will be discussing the Airborne Laser Program. RSVP required. The meeting will be held at United Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco (between Sloat and Wawona). 11:30 AM no host cocktails; noon - luncheon. $25 member rate with advance reservation and payment; $35 non-member. E-mail RSVP to Mariko Kawaguchi (please indicate chicken or fish): afiosf@aol.com and mail check made out to "AFIO" to: Mariko Kawaguchi, P.O. Box 117578 Burlingame, CA 94011

13 March 2010, 10 am to 1 pm - Coral Gables, FL - AFIO Miami Chapter hosts talk on FUTURE WARS by Dr. John Alexander.
Please save the date. Dr. John Alexander, author of Future Wars, will be leading a presentation and discussion.
Event to be held at the Hyatt Coral Gables. For further information contact chapter president Tom Spencer at trsmiami@aol.com

18 March 2010, 11:30 am - Colorado Springs, CO - AFIO Rocky Mountain Chapter hears Bryan Cunningham on "National At Risk." Talk to occur at the Air Force Academy, Falcon Club. Markle Foundation's Bryan Cunningham speaks on "Nation at Risk." Cunningham is with the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age. RSVP to Tom Van Wormer at robsmom@pcisys.net

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

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