Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Pentagon "To Boost Covert Missions in Middle East." The new order from General Petraeus will expand the range of covert operations.

The Pentagon has ordered an expansion of covert missions by US special operation forces in the Middle East and Central Asia.

The New York Times newspaper said it has seen the copy of a seven-page order by the head of US Central Command, General David Petraeus.

The directive - signed in September - focuses on gathering of intelligence and building ties with local forces.

The US Defense Department has not made any official comment on the report.

According to the New York Times, US troops will carry out special missions in both friendly and hostile nations and Gen Petraeus's order is aimed at making such efforts more systematic and long term.

The paper says the order calls for small teams of American troops - presumably special operations forces - to fill intelligence gaps.

Its goals are to build networks that could penetrate, disrupt, defeat, or destroy militant groups like al-Qaeda, and also prepare the environment for future attacks by American or local military forces.

The paper says the document appears to authorise specific operations in Iran.

The Pentagon has increased its covert operations in recent years.

It has also acknowledged an increase in co-operation with countries like Yemen.

The move may be a response to the concern expressed by many that the threat from militants has migrated elsewhere while the United States has been concentrating on Iraq and Afghanistan. [Childs/BBC/25May2010]

CIA Director Leon Panetta Visits Romania. The Romanian president's office says Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta met top officials to discuss terrorism, counterespionage and internet crime.

Panetta has had talks with President Traian Basescu, the head of the Romanian Intelligence Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service chief.

Romania has been accused of allowing the CIA to set up a secret prison where suspected terrorists were interrogated and possibly tortured. The Romanian government has vehemently denied any complicity. [AP/25May2010] 

Yemen Sentences "Iranian Spies" to Death. A Yemeni court upheld a verdict against two individuals accused of spying on Yemen for Iran, sentencing them to death.

Two members of an alleged Iranian spy cell were sentenced to death and a third was acquitted by a penal court. The two alleged spies were convicted of passing sensitive Yemeni information on the defense, security and economic conditions in the country to Iranians.

The Yemeni government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh accused the Iranians of arming the Shiite Houthi rebel group, which fought Saleh's forces to a standstill last year in the mountains of Saada province along the border with Saudi Arabia. Yemen is predominantly Sunni Muslim.

The rebellion began in 2004 but intensified sharply in August, when Saleh launched an all-out offensive dubbed Operation Scorched Earth against the Shiite tribesmen.

Tehran denied the charges. Iran state-run media last year quoted Abdel Karim al-Ariani, a Yemeni presidential adviser, as saying Tehran "plays no role" in the violence plaguing Yemen. [UPI/25May2010] 

Spy Jailed for Allowing Gay Lover to See German State Secrets. A former German spy and his male lover were found guilty of betraying state secrets and filing fraudulent expense claims during a covert mission to Kosovo.

German authorities were tipped off by the agent's wife after she discovered her husband - named in court only as Anton Robert K - was having an affair with his interpreter.

The 43-year-old lieutenant colonel in the BND was sentenced to two years and three months in prison, while his 29-year-old Macedonian partner, Murat A, was given a suspended 14-month sentence.

The pair met shortly after the spy was sent to the Kosovan capital of Pristina in 2005. He claimed to be a diplomat with the Germany foreign ministry, but his mission was to build a network of sources for the secret service.

Murat A, a bilingual salesman who was born in Germany, was one early contact. He soon became Anton K's translator and then partner after being given security clearance by the BND.

Prosecutors said the lover had been allowed to read classified documents as well as the agent's laptop during bedroom encounters in 2007 and 2008.

The court heard that Murat A, who was connected to organized crime and a foreign spy service, sought to sell the information, though no proof of this was presented at the trial.

The pair were also found guilty of filing fraudulent expense claims worth �14,700 (�12,500).

The crimes came to light at the end of 2007, when the agent argued with his wife in Germany. Looking for evidence of infidelity, the wife discovered her husband had removed her name from his life insurance policy and made his interpreter the beneficiary. Furious, she tipped off the BND.

The two men were recalled from Kosovo on false pretences in March 2008 and arrested in Munich. A judge bailed them after ruling there was not enough evidence to hold them, but they were re-arrested a year later as the inquiry gathered pace.

The two men, who are still a couple, denied all charges and said they were victims of a homophobic witch-hunt by the BND. "We didn't betray the state; the state betrayed us," said Anton K during the six-month trial.

The case is an enormous embarrassment for the BND, which must concede that one of its agents was out of control for years. It has also been criticized for bringing the case to court, potentially putting other contacts at risk, rather than sorting out the problem internally.

"The core of the affair is so ridiculous," Anton K's lawyer, Sascha Jung, told Spiegel. "It's a mystery to us as to why the BND would risk the damage potentially resulting from its actions." [Guardian/26May2010]

CIA Report on Soviet War Shows Futility of Military Effort in Afghanistan. A 2009 report from the CIA's Open Source Works describes how complex social, economic, and political plans utilized by Soviet forces during their decade-long incursion into Afghanistan in the 1980s were ultimately fruitless as "Afghanistan's geographic and ethnic complexity, together with its lack of development, made implementation of these plans difficult even when significant resources were committed." The "For Official Use Only" report titled "Afghanistan: Lessons of the Soviet War" was recently obtained by Public Intelligence along with several other significant documents related to the Afghanistan conflict, including a U.S. Navy translation of the captured 2009 Mujahideen Rules and Regulations booklet distributed by the Taliban.

The report was produced by an "independent CIA unit that draws on the expertise of uncleared analysts with in-country experience and advanced, often native language skills to mine open-source information for new insights on intelligence issues" in late March 2009 and was derived from original accounts by "Soviet, Pakistani, Afghan, and Arab players in the Soviet Union's decade-long war in Afghanistan".

According to the report, many of the problems encountered by Soviet forces, as well as their initial strategies, are remarkably similar to those of U.S. and ISAF forces today. In particular, the problem of establishing a legitimate central government is discussed in great detail, noting the heavy financial support provided by the Soviet government and their attempts to enlist "opposition forces to create a more stable regime". According to a number of sources, the U.S. has recently been in secret negotiations with the Taliban, hoping to achieve greater stability. The CIA report states that this same action was seen by Afghans as a "sign of weakness and pending departure" when the Soviets attempted it. According to the report:

"Incompetence and corruption within the Afghan government, coupled with a dearth of domestic human capital, required the Soviets to take on substantial management responsibilities. This reinforced the perception of the Afghan regime as foreign and weak, further undermining its legitimacy... The constant Soviet presence, rather than building up Afghan capabilities, created a "policy of reliance" as Afghan officials became habituated to waiting for Soviet instruction."

A Soviet general is quoted as saying that he "lamented his 'openness and gullibility' in dealing with the Afghans" because they do not "accept 'outside helpers', no matter how noble their intentions." Sayed Ahmad Gailani, the National Islamic Front leader, is quoted as having told Soviet journalists that "everybody should remember that if anyone attempts to establish control over Afghanistan, we will fight him the same way we fought you."

The report identifies three key lessons to be learned from the Soviet War: Afghanistan's complexities undermined policy plans, attempts to modernize Afghanistan hindered stabilization, and exploiting Afghans' economic self-interest was important to success. Discussion of these lessons emphasizes how Soviet forces were prescient in identifying the major challenges they would face in Afghanistan and in some cases developed robust plans to address them, yet these efforts ultimately failed due to "complexities" that were beyond the control of policy planning. Transcripts of Politburo meetings prior to the invasion indicate the Soviet leadership understood the depth of Afghanistan's economic woes and hoped economic development would win popular support and central government legitimacy, though the Soviets were ultimately not successful in modernizing Afghanistan's economy. According to the report, the Soviets expended substantial financial and human capital trying to build up civilian infrastructure throughout the ten years of conflict, coming to the ultimate conclusion that "any effort, no matter how large, was simply a drop in the bucket: there was little hope for success in Afghanistan's chronically poor, underdeveloped, rural, deeply divided, feudal society."

A particularly disturbing quote from Sergei Akhromeyev, Soviet General Staff Chief in 1986, sums up many of the report's findings quite simply:

"There is no single piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by a Soviet soldier.... no single military problem that has arisen and not been solved, and yet there is still no result." [BeforeItsNews/26May2010]

Cuba Says No Case Yet Against Jailed American. Cuba has yet to open a legal case against a U.S. government contractor from Maryland nearly six months after he was arrested as a suspected spy, the head of the island's high court said.

Alan P. Gross was detained Dec. 3 at Havana's Jose Marti International Airport and has been held without charge at the capital's high-security Villa Marista prison ever since.

Formal charges cannot be filed in Cuba without a judicial accusation and the opening of a court case, so it appears unlikely charges against Gross are imminent even as he approaches a half-year in custody.

It is rare for suspects to be held for extended periods in Cuba without charges or even a case being opened. But Supreme Court President Ruben Remigio said Wednesday that "there still is not a case related to this matter" and he did not know whether prosecutors were working on one.

"The courts receive cases when cases are presented," Remigio added, speaking on the sidelines of an international legal conference in western Havana. "When they aren't presented, we don't have a case."

The general in charge of investigations for the Interior Ministry attended the same event but declined to comment.

Gross, a 60-year-old native of Potomac, Maryland, came to Cuba as part of a little-known program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

President Raul Castro and the speaker of Cuba's parliament allege Gross was distributing banned satellite communications equipment and say his capture proves Washington is still out to topple their communist government.

The U.S. State Department has countered for months that Gross is no spy and should be released immediately.

A Washington-based spokeswoman for his family said they had no comment Wednesday. Gross' wife, Judy, previously said he is a veteran development worker who was helping Cuba's Jewish community use the Internet to communicate among themselves and with similar groups abroad.

She says her husband brought communications equipment intended for humanitarian purposes, not for use by Cuba's small dissident community.

Satellite phones and other telecommunications materials are outlawed in this country, where the government maintains strict control over Internet access and the media.

Officials from the U.S. Interest Section, which Washington maintains in Havana instead of an embassy, have been granted three consular visits to see Gross in prison, but have been otherwise largely silent on the matter.

Cheryl Mills, chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, raised the case in March during a meeting with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez during a U.N. conference on aid for Haiti.

Also pressing for Gross' release was Craig Kelly, deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, who became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Cuba in years when he came here for immigration talks in February. [Weissert/AP/27May2010] 

CIA Director Panetta Pledges Further Co-Operation With Bulgaria. The head of the Central Intelligence Agency is pledging further co-operation with Bulgaria in its efforts to deal with corruption and enhance security in the Balkan country.

CIA director Leon Panetta held talks Thursday with Prime Minister Boiko Borisov and Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov.

No further details of the talks were available. There was no word about Panetta's visit before his arrival from neighbouring Romania.

Borisov's centre-right government, which came to power last year, has stepped up the fight against organized crime and widespread corruption. Earlier this month, a Guantanamo Bay detainee was transferred to Bulgaria. [AP/27May2010] 

French Secret Service Fear Russian Cathedral A Spying Front. The French secret service has reportedly expressed alarm over plans for a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Paris, fearing it will be used by Moscow as a front for spies.

The go-ahead for the onion-domed cathedral - the first to be built in the French capital in more than a century - by the Eiffel Tower was considered a brilliant diplomatic coup in Russia as at least two other countries were vying for the prized property by the Seine.

But it sparked deep reservations at the Quai d'Orsay, France's foreign ministry, and the DCRI, its MI6, because the building is a stone's throw from a sensitive diplomatic compound.

As well as housing France's supreme magistrates' council, the Palais de l'Alma - Napoleon III's former stables - contains the Elys�e postal service and above all, the 16 private apartments of top presidential aides. Chief among these is Jean-David Levitte, President Nicolas Sarkozy's top diplomatic adviser, who wields more power than the foreign minister, as well as his chief of staff.

French counterespionage was particularly concerned, according to Le Nouvel Observateur, the weekly magazine, as Vladimir Kozhin, the Russian in charge of trying to buy the 8,400 square meter (90,400 sq foot) plot, is a former KGB agent. Mr. Kozhin is head of the hugely powerful Kremlin property department, which has 50,000 employees, an empire of hotels and manages all state property, including Russian churches overseas.

French intelligence concerns were compounded by the fact that it had detected a significant rise in Russian spy activity since the election of President Sarkozy in 2007, reaching heights not seen since the mid-1980s.

Mr. Kozhin is a close associate of Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister and a former KGB officer, who was the property department's number two in the 1990s.

Mr. Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev are said to have considered the construction of the Paris cathedral a key step in regaining control over the Russian Diaspora and legitimizing their administration, as well as a spectacular display of Russian power in western Europe.

Such was the importance of the acquisition that it was reportedly the first subject President Medvedev broached with his French counterpart in December at the Copenhagen climate summit.

According to several sources, after the conversation Mr. Sarkozy immediately phoned his budget minister who a few days later summoned Mr. Kozhin to his office. Ten days later when the various tenders for the plot were examined, Russia's was top of the pile which included bids from Saudi Arabia and Canada - with an above-market offer of 70 million euros (�60 million).

The cathedral, which still needs final planning permission from Paris' town hall, stands to be the first Russian monument built in Paris since the Alexander III bridge in 1896, and is due to be built within the next three years. [Samuel/Telegraph/27May2010] 

Former CIA Officer Says He Was Caught In "Honey Trap." A former CIA spy from Norfolk charged with sexually assaulting women in Algeria claims the Algerian government set him up in what he calls a "honey trap."

Andrew M. Warren says in a court filing that he was the victim of a scheme in which an Algerian female spy made up the sexual assault allegation to compromise his position as the CIA's Algiers bureau chief.

He is accused of slipping drugs into the drinks of two women, on separate occasions, and then having sex with them. Warren claims in court filings that the sex was consensual.

Warren, 42, remains under court-ordered medical watch following a series of bizarre events that led up to his arrest last month at a Norfolk motel. He faces a one-count indictment in the Washington U.S. District Court charging sexual abuse.

Warren now faces new charges filed in the Norfolk U.S. District charging him with assaulting federal agents the night of his arrest as well as illegal firearms charges. A federal grand jury here indicted him on May 21.

The Chesapeake native had been the CIA bureau chief in Algiers until the two women came forward accusing him of sexual assault. He was sent home and eventually fired.

Given the nature of the CIA, many of the court filings are sealed or heavily redacted. But some information about the alleged "honey traps" has been made public in recent filings. In one filing in Washington, Warren says he has a witness who could testify that "the Algerian government had attempted to use a female agent against him."

Another witness would testify that one of the women accusers "was an agent of the Algerian government with the goal of compromising defendant in order to obtain information, money or favors from him." The same witness "would testify that she personally knew Algerian women who acted as 'honey traps' to manipulate American officials."

Warren asked the court to issue subpoenas to force the witnesses to undergo depositions. A judge denied the request, but noted that Warren was free to call those witnesses to testify at his trial.

Warren's arrest last month followed a series of incidents that included allegations of drug use and a police complaint alleging he exposed himself to a neighbor.

When a police officer showed up at Warren's home on Vimy Ridge Avenue in early April, Warren told the officer he was with the CIA - even though he had been fired - and that he had a disguise kit he could use to hide from anyone, according to a prosecutor's court filing.

Warren also said to the officer "it will be different the next time I meet you," which the officer took as a threat, the court filing says. Warren then got in his car and drove off.

When U.S. marshals and special agents with the Department of State Diplomatic Security Service found Warren at a Norfolk motel the night of April 26, he had a gun and drug paraphernalia and tried to run away, according to the new indictment.

During a struggle, Warren tried to reach for his handgun in his waistband, but the authorities subdued him using a Taser, court records say.

The new indictment charges Warren with possessing the gun during a crime of violence as well as being a drug user with a gun. No court date has been set for him here. [McGlone/HamptonRoads/28May2010]

Recording of Israel Spy Eli Cohen Unearthed 45 Years After His Death. Rare recordings of prominent Israeli spy Eli Cohen were unearthed by Army Radio, 45 years after Cohen was hung in Damascus, after his cover as a Buenos Aires-based Arab businessman was blown by Syrian authorities.

Cohen's cover had allowed him to form close relationships with senior Syrian army officers and government officials. He conveyed invaluable information to Israel, warning of a planned Syrian strike on the National Water Carrier and providing information that led to Israel's defeat of the Syrian army in the Six-Day War.

The recordings consist of brief interview Cohen gave to Damascus Radio, playing the part of Syrian businessman Kamel Amin Thaabet, in which he described Buenos Aires and its community of expatriate Syrians.

In the interview, Cohen, who was 42 at the time of his death, discussed the social clubs which Syrians residing in Buenos Aires frequent, describes the Argentinean capital and gave advice as to ways the Syrian government could attract some its wealthier citizens residing abroad.

"There things in Syria which I find more beautiful than I first thought," Cohen can be heard telling his interviewer in the recording obtained by Army Radio, "and some not as beautiful."

When asked which language Syrian expatriates used to communicate among themselves in Argentina, Cohen can be heard to answer that the "expatriates speak Arabic", adding that the "melodies are Arab, the music is Arab, and even news from Syria reaches there".

Cohen's cover was exposed by a sophisticated system Russia had supplied to the Syrians, which enabled them to intercept some of Cohen's transmissions to Israel. After being tortured, he was tried by a military tribunal and was hanged in Al-Marja Square in Damascus.

Cohen's family had repeatedly appealed Syria to return his remains for burial in Israel, but Damascus had rejected those requests, refusing to confirm whether or not it had Cohen's body in its possession. [Haaretz/30May2010] 

Mystery Over Scot Wanted in Mossad Assassination. Interpol has named a Scottish man, Christopher Lockwood, as being suspected of part of an Israeli secret service hit squad who murdered a Hamas official in Dubai in January, but mystery surrounds his identity.

Lockwood, whose photograph was also published on Interpol's wanted list, is the 33rd person named in connection with the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, but was reported to be the only one so far to have used a genuine passport.

The 62-year old was described as being born in Glasgow and according to the Scottish Daily Record, his father is thought to be a Jewish Palestinian who migrated to the UK just after World War One.

But upon checking birth records for 1948, the paper said Tuesday that it found no one of the name Christopher Lockwood, who was born in Glasgow or any other part of Scotland that year.

It also reported that Interpol refused to say if the details, including his birth date of February 23, 1948, they released about Lockwood come from information found on a passport, which could have been forged, or from further intelligence.

The assassination has triggered a diplomatic storm in several European countries, as suspects were found to have been using forged or fraudulently issued passports.

In March, Britain expelled the reported Mossad chief at the Israeli Embassy in London after accusing Israel of forging cloning British passports related to the case.

The then foreign secretary David Miliband said an investigation had discovered "compelling" evidence and told MPs it was "intolerable" for a foreign country to behave in such a way, and the fact that Israel was a close ally added "insult to injury".

With regard to Lockwood, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said she could not comment specifically about the new suspect.

"This is part of an ongoing Emirati investigation into the killing. The UK continues to provide assistance to the Emiratis in their investigations," the spokeswoman said. [GlobalSecurity/30May2010] 

Options Studied for a Possible Pakistan Strike. The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country's tribal areas, according to senior military officials.

Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration's need for retaliatory options, the officials said. They stressed that a U.S. reprisal would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Obama convinced that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes is insufficient.

"Planning has been reinvigorated in the wake of Times Square," one of the officials said.

At the same time, the administration is trying to deepen ties to Pakistan's intelligence officials in a bid to head off any attack by militant groups. The United States and Pakistan have recently established a joint military intelligence center on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, and are in negotiations to set up another one near Quetta, the Pakistani city where the Afghan Taliban is based, according to the U.S. military officials. They and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding U.S. military and intelligence activities in Pakistan.

The "fusion centers" are meant to bolster Pakistani military operations by providing direct access to U.S. intelligence, including real-time video surveillance from drones controlled by the U.S. Special Operations Command, the officials said. But in an acknowledgment of the continuing mistrust between the two governments, the officials added that both sides also see the centers as a way to keep a closer eye on one another, as well as to monitor military operations and intelligence activities in insurgent areas.

Obama said during his campaign for the presidency that he would be willing to order strikes in Pakistan, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a television interview after the Times Square attempt that "if, heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences."

Obama dispatched his national security adviser, James L. Jones, and CIA Director Leon Panetta to Islamabad this month to deliver a similar message to Pakistani officials, including President Asif Ali Zardari and the military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani.

Jones and Panetta also presented evidence gathered by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies that Shahzad received significant support from the Pakistani Taliban.

The U.S. options for potential retaliatory action rely mainly on air and missile strikes, but could also employ small teams of U.S. Special Operations troops already positioned along the border with Afghanistan. One of the senior military officials said plans for military strikes in Pakistan have been revised significantly over the past several years, moving away from a "large, punitive response" to more measured plans meant to deliver retaliatory blows against specific militant groups.

The official added that there is a broad consensus in the U.S. military that airstrikes would at best erode the threat posed by al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and risk an irreparable rupture in the U.S. relationship with Pakistan.

"The general feeling is that we need to be circumspect in how we respond so we don't destroy the relationships we've built" with the Pakistani military, the second official said.

U.S. Special Operations teams in Afghanistan have pushed for years to have wider latitude to carry out raids across the border, arguing that CIA drone strikes do not yield prisoners or other opportunities to gather intelligence. But a 2008 U.S. helicopter raid against a target in Pakistan prompted protests from officials in Islamabad who oppose allowing U.S. soldiers to operate within their country.

The CIA has the authority to designate and strike targets in Pakistan without case-by-case approval from the White House. U.S. military forces are currently authorized to carry out unilateral strikes in Pakistan only if solid intelligence were to surface on any of three high-value targets: al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Taliban chief Mohammad Omar. But even in those cases, the military would need higher-level approval.

"The bottom line is you have to have information about targets to do something [and] we have a process that remains cumbersome," said one of the senior military officials. "If something happens, we have to confirm who did it and where it came from. People want to be as precise as possible to be punitive."

U.S. spy agencies have engaged in a major buildup inside Pakistan over the past year. The CIA has increased the pace of drone strikes against al-Qaeda affiliates, a campaign supported by the arrival of new surveillance and eavesdropping technology deployed by the National Security Agency.

The fusion centers are part of a parallel U.S. military effort to intensify the pressure on the Taliban and other groups accused of directing insurgent attacks in Afghanistan. U.S. officials said that the sharing of intelligence goes both ways and that targets are monitored in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In the Peshawar fusion cell, which was set up within the last several months, Pakistanis have access to "full-motion video from different platforms," including unarmed surveillance drones, one official said.

The fusion centers also serve a broader U.S. aim: making the Pakistanis more dependent on U.S. intelligence, and less likely to curtail Predator drone patrols or other programs that draw significant public opposition.

To Pakistan, the fusion centers offer a glimpse of U.S. capabilities, as well as the ability to monitor U.S. military operations across the border. "They find out much more about what we know," one of the senior U.S. military officials said. "What we get is physical presence - to see what they are actually doing versus what they say they're doing."

That delicate arrangement will be tested if the two sides reach agreement on the fusion center near Quetta. The city has served for nearly a decade as a sanctuary for Taliban leaders who fled Afghanistan in 2001 and have long-standing ties to Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.

U.S. officials said that the two sides have done preliminary work searching for a suitable site for the center but that the effort is proceeding at a pace that one official described as "typical Pakistani glacial speed." Despite the increased cooperation, U.S. officials say they continue to be frustrated over Pakistan's slow pace in issuing visas to American military and civilian officials.

One senior U.S. military official said the center would be used to track the Afghan Taliban leadership council, known as the Quetta shura. But other officials said the main mission would be to support the U.S. military effort across the border in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where a major U.S. military push is planned. [Miller&Jaffe&DeYoung/WashingtonPost/28May2010] 

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Killing Snowflakes. Recently, Taliban in Pakistan executed two suspected spies, using explosives. They attached explosives to the men, and blew them up in front of local villagers. Normally they just shoot people, slit their throats, or behead them. But these are desperate times. Uncertainty is a powerful weapon, and it's terrifying the Taliban. The people must stop supplying information to the infidels. But in the Pakistani tribal territories, near the Afghan border, Taliban and al Qaeda leaders continue a seemingly futile hunt for the spies who are telling the Americans where the big shots are. In last two years, over a hundred Hellfire missiles, launched from Predator and Reaper UAVs, have wiped out a large (about half) chunk of the terrorist leadership. In the trade, this is known as a "decapitation" (just kill the leadership) strategy.

In response, the Taliban and al Qaeda have seized and executed over a hundred local men (and a few women), for being American spies. Most of these victims were innocent. They were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and looked suspicious to the wrong people. Some of those killed may have been spies, but most likely for other tribes, or Pakistani or Afghan intelligence services. Lots of people hire informants in the tribal regions. Some locals are working for the Americans, but it appears that the UAV targeting information comes from a variety of sources. Some of them are electronic, some are the video from the UAVs overhead, and some from the Afghan, Pakistani and tribal spies.

The U.S. has arrangements with all three sources to obtain needed data. Rewards, gifts or "bonuses" are provided as needed. The tribal informants will rat out an al Qaeda leader if the guy has committed some harm to the informant's tribe. Al Qaeda has a long history of such bad behavior, and the tribesmen never forget. When the Americans come by, offering cash for the opportunity to settle some tribal grudge with an al Qaeda big shot, who can pass up such a deal? Same drill with Taliban leaders, who also tend to be tribal leaders, and all tribes have feuds with other tribes, as well as internal disputes.

There are other ways to find terrorist targets in the tribal territories. One of the more powerful methods involve the use of databases and data mining software. The U.S. has been collecting information on the tribes (in general, as well as individuals) for decades, and has acquired and developed software that can sort out who is who, and who is out to get who, in the tribal territories. The U.S. Army Special Forces has lots of operators (more than the CIA or State Department) who speak the local languages and can organize and run the informant networks to find the targets. The CIA has also hired private contractors to run informant networks in the territories. Thus selected targets usually have confirmation coming from a variety of sources.

You have to be careful that some guy, who just wants to get a Hellfire to take out a personal enemy, doesn't con you. This rarely happens, mainly because there are usually multiple intel "indicators" putting the cross hairs on the terrorist leader you really want. Thus you need Special Forces involved, as these are guys who not only speak the language, but understand the culture. The data mining software is also culturally aware, with special filters for different tribes and cultures (the Arab tribes of Anbar don't play by the same rules as the Pushtun tribes of Waziristan).

The pattern analysis has reached the point where combinations of activities caught by the vidcams, electronic surveillance and informants on the ground, often indicates where terrorists are. Closer scrutiny often identifies individuals, or known terrorist groups. Then the Hellfires are put to work. So, in the end, the al Qaeda and Taliban efforts to find the people who are spying on them is futile. It's not individual spies that are providing the deadly information, but a collection of live, and machine, operatives. Going after that with guns is like trying to kill a blizzard with an AK-47. You will kill some snowflakes, but you still get buried. [StrategyPages/24May2010] 

Cambridge Spy Anthony Blunt Admitted "I Should Have Been Shot." Anthony Blunt, the Cambridge spy, admitted shortly before his death that he had made a mistake for which he should have been shot, it has been disclosed. Blunt originally fooled MI5 into believing he had nothing to do with a covert ring the Soviets dubbed the "Magnificent Five" which included Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, and John Cairncross.

He was persuaded to confess in 1964 in return for an absolute assurance that no action would be taken against him and was finally publicly named by Margaret Thatcher in November 1979.

Even then Blunt told the world that he "acted according to my conscience" although he accepted that what he had done was "totally wrong."

But a new edition of the official history of MI5 reveals that Blunt later made a more fulsome admission, telling a confidant: "I made a terrible intellectual mistake and should have been shot for what I did."

Professor Christopher Andrew, the book's author, who was given unrestricted access to MI5's files, said: "Over the next few years some of the enormity of his betrayal gradually sank in."

The person who Blunt spoke to wishes to remain anonymous and the information was passed to Prof Andrew by Rear-Admiral Nicholas Wilkinson, one of the Cabinet Offices' official historians.

Blunt had served in MI5 during the war and handed over deciphered secrets from the Enigma code breakers to the Soviets.

After the war he went on to be an art historian at the Courtauld Institute and Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures.

When Donald Maclean began cracking up in 1951 and was threatened with exposure, Blunt helped deliver messages that aided his flight to the Soviet Union with Guy Burgess.

When suspicion fell on Blunt, who had been at Cambridge with the other two men and once lived with Burgess, William Skardon, one of MI5's key interrogators reported back that he thought Blunt had told him everything he knew and added: "I left with the strong impression that the overwhelming loyalty of one homosexual for another will be a bar to a successful examination of this man until these inhibitions are broken down and the obsessions removed from his mind. Whether I am the best person to conduct this psychoanalytic exercise, time alone will show."

Blunt escaped untainted himself and was knighted five years later after refusing to defect to the Soviet Union.

He apparently told Yuri Modin, his Soviet controller in London: "I know perfectly well how your people live and I can assure you it would be very hard, almost unbearable, for me to do likewise."

Blunt's role was only exposed after Kim Philby, the former station officer for MI6 in Washington and the spy ring's most senior member, fled to the Soviet Union from Beirut in 1963 when he was identified as the "third man."

The following year a US informant, Michael Straight, revealed that Blunt had tried to recruit him as a Soviet spy when he was at Cambridge.

MI5 officer Arthur Martin went to see Blunt at the Courtauld Institute and according to MI5's records, reported: "He sat and looked at me for fully a minute without speaking. I said that his silence had already told me what I wanted to know. Would he now get the whole thing off his chest?"

John Cairncross had already confessed, leaving Blunt the last to admit to being a member of the spy ring, but some in MI5 still believed they had got the wrong men and the truth was only revealed by the Soviet double agent Oleg Gordievksy in 1982.

Blunt's autobiography, released by the British Library last year after it was donated anonymously, revealed that he had considered suicide but instead turned to "whisky and concentrated work."

It also disclosed that Blunt had become disillusioned with communism.

He wrote: "What I did not realize is that I was so na�ve politically that I was not justified in committing myself to any political action of this kind. The atmosphere in Cambridge was so intense, the enthusiasm for any anti-fascist activity was so great, that I made the biggest mistake of my life." [Gardham/Telegraph/29May2010]

Bomber Drops Flowers In Memorial Day Tribute To Fallen CIA In Afghanistan. Memorial Day celebrations in New York on Monday included a B-17 bomber flying over the Atlantic to drop flowers in honor of seven dead agents of the Central Intelligence Agency.

A bomber from the American Airpower Museum, escorted by other historic aircraft, dropped flowers in the waters near the site of the World Trade Center. The flight paid tribute to seven operatives who died Dec. 30 in Afghanistan.

The attack at a forward operating base in Khost province was the deadliest against the CIA since the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut. It also came a week after a failed plan to bomb a Northwest Airlines plane bound for Detroit on Christmas Day by a Nigerian who has been linked to al-Qaeda.

CIA Director Leon Panetta expressed gratitude in his Memorial Day message over the weekend for the "countless expressions of gratitude and sympathy throughout America" since the attack in Khost. "Tributes like [the B-17 flight] celebrate not only the CIA heroes known to the American people, but those whose names and accomplishments must remain secret," Panetta added.

The U.S.-led war in Afghanistan is now in its ninth year. President Barack Obama announced his decision last December to deploy 30,000 more soldiers to the war-torn nation and begin drawing down forces in 2011. [AP/30May2010] 

Section III - COMMENTARY

Former CIA Officer on Iran: Brazil and Turkey are Vital Checks and Balances, by Graham E. Fuller. If Washington thinks it now faces complications on getting United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran, that's not the half of it. A greater obstacle is the subtle change introduced into international power relationships by the actions of Brazil and Turkey that has accompanied it.

These two medium-size powers, Brazil and Turkey, have just challenged the guiding hand of Washington in determining nuclear strategy towards Iran. They undertook their own initiative to persuade Iran to accede to a deal on the handling of nuclear fuel issues. Not only was that initiative entirely independent, it moved ahead in the face of fairly crude American warnings to both states not to contemplate it - even though it closely paralleled one offered to Iran last year that fell through, mainly due to Iranian maneuvering and its fundamental distrust of Washington's intent and blustering style.

Adding insult to injury, Brazilian President Luiz In�cio Lula da Silva and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan both had the temerity to actually succeed in their negotiations with Iran while Washington was publicly predicting their certain (and hoped for) failure.

Are the Iranians simply engaging in another con game, playing for time - a maneuver at which they excel? Or has something more profound taken place?

First, it is not only the terms of the deal that matter, but the messengers and atmospherics. Washington for decades has dealt with Iran - almost always indirectly - with considerable truculence and belligerence as the background music to "negotiations." This is business as usual - the world's sole superpower demanding others to agree to its strategy of the moment.

When Mr. Lula and Mr. Erdogan came to Tehran, the game was entirely different. It wasn't the content so much as the negotiators, the venue, and the atmospherics. Tehran did not feel this time that it was acceding to superpower pressure, but to a reasoned and respectful request by two significant peer states in the world with no record of imperialism in Iran. In one sense, the deal was almost bound to succeed. What Iran wants as much as anything in this world is to blunt US dominance of the international order, and especially its ability to dictate terms in the Middle East.

If Iran is to yield at all on nuclear policy, what better device than to accede to two respected and successful states that were themselves defying Washington's wishes in even attempting negotiations? If Tehran had refused that offer, it might have torpedoed the very concept of independent alternative, non-American efforts in international strategy. It made all the sense in the world for Iran to say "yes" this time to this combination of approach.

The same goes for China and Russia. After the Lula-Erdogan success, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton immediately proclaimed her own success at garnering Russian and Chinese support for enhanced sanctions against Iran - a stunningly insulting response to the remarkable accomplishment of Brazilian and Turkish negotiation. These states are, after all, immensely important to US regional and global interests. To blow them off like that was a major blunder, not just in terms of Iran, but in broader global strategy. The rest of the world has surely taken further negative note that Washington's game remains depressingly familiar.

But do we really believe Clinton has in fact garnered Russian and Chinese support? Just as Tehran had every incentive to accept a proposal from "equals," offered with respect instead of bluster and threats, so too Russia and China have every reason to welcome this initiative from Brazil and Turkey. Yes, the terms of the agreement do matter somewhat, but what is far more important for them is the slow but inexorable decay of US ability to deliver international diktats and to have its way. This is what Chinese and Russian foreign-policy strategy is all about. Neither of these countries will, in the end, permit the US hard-line approach to win out over the Brazilian-Turkish one in the Security Council, even if the Brazilian-Turkish deal requires a little tweaking. Russia and China champion the emergence of multiple sources of global power and influence that chip away at dying American unipolar power.

China and Russia, of course, represent the alternative polarity in the emerging struggle to end American hegemony in international affairs. But of greater moment, they now witness the political center in international politics shifting away from Washington as well. These two countries that defied American wishes are not just some Third World rabble-rousers scoring cheap points off the US. They are two major countries that are supposedly close friends of the US. This makes the affront even crueler.

These events are profound signs of the times. The problem with unipolar power is that without checks and balances it invariably becomes subject to error and foolishness. On occasion, Americans actually believe in checks and balances when it comes to our own Constitution. Microsoft may be a great corporation, but nobody wants it to have a monopoly on IT.

Similarly in the world, international checks and balances are valuable safety valves. When Washington moves into its fourth decade of paralysis and incompetence in handling Iran, still unable even to speak to it - just as it cannot bring itself to talk to Cuba after 50 years - it has exacerbated the problem, strengthened Iran and the forces of radicalism in the Middle East, polarized emotions and, worst, failed in all respects. Shouldn't the world welcome the actions of two significant, responsible, democratic, and rational states to intervene and help check the foolishnesses of decades of US policy? That is what checks and balances are all about and why the center is shifting.

And, who knows? "Rogue states" - a term beloved in Washington in reference to recalcitrant countries that don't toe the Washington line - may more readily come to accede to new approaches free of the old imperial techniques of interventionism and ultimatums. Meanwhile, the US is rapidly running the risk of becoming its own "failed state" in terms of being able to exercise competent and effective international leadership since the fall of the Soviet Union. [Graham E. Fuller is the former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA and author of numerous books on international politics, including the forthcoming "A World Without Islam."] [Fuller/ChristianScienceMonitor/24May2010]

Los Angeles Times - An Intelligence Chief Who Gets It. Given the threat posed by terrorists, it would be comforting if counterintelligence did not suffer the turf wars that seem to bedevil most presidential administrations. But the forced resignation of Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair last week seems to stem not from his effectiveness, or lack of it, in keeping the homeland safe but from the fact that he alienated the White House and misconstrued his mandate.

Blair, a retired admiral, was the third intelligence director, a position created at the behest of the 9/11 Commission. The commission envisioned the director as the president's chief intelligence advisor and the official responsible for managing "the national intelligence program and oversee[ing] the agencies that contribute to it." In practice, that mandate shrank considerably. The director's chief responsibility these days is to coordinate intelligence-gathering.

Given that, one might think that Blair's dismissal was a reaction to the intelligence failures that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged would-be Christmas Day bomber, to board a plane for the U.S. After all, Blair's departure follows a scathing report about "systemic failures across the intelligence community which contributed to the failure to identify the threat." But that report is hardest on the CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center, whose director is not being fired.

The causes of Blair's departure seem to be more mundane: conflict with CIA Director Leon E. Panetta over who would choose intelligence officials at U.S. embassies; the lack of a close, personal relationship with President Obama; and a grandiose notion of his position that reflected the 9/11 Commission's definition but not the more circumscribed role established by Congress.

It's questionable whether the position was necessary in the first place. But it exists, and at a minimum it has the responsibility for ensuring, as the saying goes, that dots are connected. It could acquire new importance if Obama follows the Senate Intelligence Committee's suggestion and entrusts the director with the task of reviewing the roles of counter-terrorism analysts throughout the intelligence community.

In replacing Blair, Obama should first and foremost decide on the contours of the position. Will the new director have operational responsibilities? If not, that should be made clear to Blair's successor, as should his role, if any, in personally briefing and advising the president. It may be that Blair's successor should concentrate on counter-terrorism, as opposed to the myriad other activities of the intelligence community. In any event, both the person and the mission should reflect the president's preferences. Otherwise, Blair's successor also will be marginalized. [LATimes/25May2010]

The Politics Of National Intelligence, by Marc Ambinder. President Obama's intelligence cabinet may propose major changes to the nation's intelligence structure, prodded by Congress and a series of public embarrassments that led to the firing last week of Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair.

Obama asked members of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) to determine whether the national intelligence director's position has enough statutory and budget authority to complete its core mission, and whether the directorate that houses the position, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, has grown too quickly and lost its focus.

According to one intelligence official and several outside consultants, the PIAB has been asked to consider whether the next DNI needs to be incorporated into the executive office of the president and given a West Wing office. PIAB's members could recommend small changes, like a modest expansion of the DNI's authority to distribute money throughout the intelligence community, or more dramatic ones, like a structural overhaul that would fulfill the September 11 Commission's vision of intelligence reform, which envisioned a White House-based national intelligence director with direct authority overall all aspects of domestic, foreign and defense intelligence.

Speaking in Washington today, John Brennan, the president's assistant for counter-terrorism, said that the review was meant to "optimize" the DNI position's ability to "orchestrate" the activities of the 16 agencies in the community.

There will be institutional and political resistance to any change, but several key senators, including the chair and ranking members of the intelligence committee, have signaled a willingness to support a larger overhaul, provided the right candidate to lead it is put forth.

The White House was unhappy when "senior administration officials" confirmed reports that Gen. James Clapper (ret.), the current undersecretary of defense for intelligence, was the leading candidate for the job. That Clapper is more likely to get the job is true, but it has not been communicated to other potential replacements, including some of his colleagues in the Defense Department.

And Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Senate intel committee chair, told reporters she was worried about the militarization of intelligence and would view a Clapper nomination with a skeptical eye. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, told Newsweek that Clapper was too aloof and disdained Congressional oversight. (This is a complaint that is echoed by many in Congress, some of whom aren't terribly impressed with Clapper's lack of human intelligence experience and the work he did as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.)

Some senior military officials are quietly lobbying for the administration to ask Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, currently the chief of intelligence for Gen. Stanley McChrystal's Afghanistan mission, to be the director or his principle deputy. But Flynn has generated friction with the Central Intelligence Agency over covert operations in Afghanistan, and has vocally opposed the agency's strong relationship with Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai. Though Karzai is alleged to be a major drug trafficker interested in consolidating his power, he provides most of the intelligence for the U.S. in the Khandahar region.

The scuttlebutt at CIA headquarters in Langley suggests the promotion of CIA director Leon Panetta to a strengthened DNI position, but associates say that Panetta has no intention of leaving the CIA, whose morale and direction he believes he has helped to turn around.

Obama's closest advisers believe that the caterwauling about the DNI lacking authority is misplaced. They note that revisions to the executive order that charters the community, 12333, expanded the DNI's power, and that the DNI can move money around more easily than many people seem to think. He or she can fire the heads of the agencies, subject to the President's approval. Indeed, the DNI's staff might be too large, diluting the office-holder's ability to devote his or her attention to matters of intelligence coordination and what's known in the industry as "deconflicting."

The 9/11 Commission envisioned a DNI with a staff no larger than 500 people. As of today, it has more than 2,000 employees. The answer, these advisers believe, lies in finding a leader in whom the President trusts. (That is one reason why both Panetta and Sen. Chuck Hagel, a PIAB co-chair, were approached about the job.) From the perspective of the DNI, Adm. Dennis Blair never had the president's full backing, which made making the difficult decisions even more difficult. Given the importance of counter-terrorism to current intelligence priorities, Blair often felt as though Brennan had more direct decision making authority than he did. Brennan could, for example, encourage the CIA to undertake, or modify, covert actions. What he did so, the CIA would know he had the direct backing of the President. Blair, by contrast, often found himself fighting against the scope of proposed CIA actions that had already been vetted by the National Security Staff.

A final variant of a reinvigorated DNI would turn the position into a - wait for it - czar, with a small staff, who coordinates conflicts among executive agents and who be more or less a problem-solver. This person would not testify before Congress. He or she would not make public appearances. He or she would remain in the shadows. [Ambinder/TheAtlantic/26May2010] 

The Truth About Drones: They Are Inspiring Homegrown Terror, by Fawaz Gerges. Failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad says he was driven by anger over dozens of unmanned drone attacks that he witnessed during his most recent five-month visit to his home in Pakistan. That seems a plausible enough motive, particularly since he joins a growing list of homegrown U.S. terror suspects who have cited the escalation of U.S. military operations on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in general, or in the drone attacks in particular. They include U.S. resident Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan immigrant who pleaded guilty in a plot to bomb the New York subway system; Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S.-born army psychiatrist, charged with fatally shooting 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, last year; and the five American Muslims from Virginia, accused of plotting attacks against targets in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

So why isn't the Obama administration listening? It has so far been unable, or unwilling, to acknowledge the link between the drone attacks and the rising incidence of homegrown terror. Instead, the administration has accused the Pakistani Taliban of directing and probably financing the Times Square plot, even though Shahzad has said he went to the Taliban for help, not the other way around. Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, dismissed the reports that Shahzad was motivated by the drone strikes and, instead, said that the suspect was "captured by the murderous rhetoric of Al Qaeda and TTP that looks at the United States as an enemy."

The Obama team has its rationale for drone attacks. It stresses that the drone attacks have degraded the capabilities of the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda, without putting U.S. troops in harm's way on Pakistani soil. What this calculus ignores is the damage drone attacks inflict on America's reputation in the Muslim world and the "possibilities of blowback," about which the CIA, which leads the drone war, has rightly warned.

The war on the AfPak border has replaced Iraq as the main source of homegrown radicalization. Qaeda's effort to find and recruit terrorists has been replaced by a bottom-up flow of volunteers, a flow that is currently very weak, and extremely difficult to track. What these individuals had in common was that they were radicalized online, typically by coverage of the AfPak battles.

The most controversial element of those battles is the use of CIA Predator drones on targets in Pakistan. The CIA currently wages a 24/7 Predator campaign against the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Pakistan, drone attacks are Obama's weapon of choice. He has expanded the use of drones to include low-level targets, such as foot soldiers. According to an analysis of U.S. government sources, the CIA has killed around 12 times more low-level fighters than mid-to-high-level Qaeda and Taliban leaders since the drone attacks intensified in the summer of 2008.

In the first four months this year, the Predators fired nearly 60 missiles in Pakistan, about the same number as in Afghanistan, the recognized war theater. In Pakistan, the pace of drone strikes has increased to two or three a week, up roughly fourfold from the Bush years. Although drone strikes have killed more than a dozen Qaeda and Taliban leaders, they have incinerated hundreds of civilians, including women and children.

Predator strikes have inflamed anti-American rage among Afghanis and Pakistanis, including first or second generation immigrants in the west, as well as elite members of the security services. The Pakistani Taliban and other militants are moving to exploit this anger, vowing to carry out suicide bombings in major U.S. cities. Drone attacks have become a rallying cry for Taliban militants, feeding the flow of volunteers into a small, loose network that is harder to trace even than shadowy Al Qaeda. Jeffrey Addicott, former legal adviser to Army Special Operations, says the strategy is "creating more enemies than we're killing or capturing." The Obama administration needs to at least acknowledge the dangers of military escalation and to welcome a real debate about the costs of the drone war. Because clearly, its fallout is reaching home. [Gerges is a professor of Middle Eastern politics and international relations at the London School of Economics, University of London. He is author of Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy.] [Gerges/Newsweek/30May2010] 

Section IV - RESEARCH REQUESTS, BOOKS, OBITUARIES AND COMING EVENTS

Research Requests

ARTWORK BY INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS. The SOHO Journal, published in New York, will be running a photo essay in their summer edition on artwork by intelligence professionals. Here is preliminary information: http://www.sohojournal.com/content/art-intelligence. If you appreciated artwork, and/or an artist with your own finished pieces to share with the SOHO Journal, please contact them at the web address above.

Books/Reading

Government Booklet Warning Britons to Watch Out for Russian Spies Republished. A Government booklet warning prominent Britons to be on their guard against Russian spies is being made available to the public for the first time in more than 40 years.

"Their Trade is Treachery" was published by the Central Office of Information in 1964.

The advice came after the resignation of Secretary of State for War John Profumo following a relationship with Christine Keeler who was also linked to Yevgeny Ivanov, a senior naval attach� at the Soviet embassy in London.

The scandal prompted concerns about the risk of sensitive information being passed to Russia.

The leaflet warned enemy intelligence services would exploit a person's weaknesses and use ''unashamed'' blackmail against their target.

''On the whole, guile, patience, and enticement are employed by enemy Intelligence Services operating in Britain when recruiting agents,'' the book said.

''Defects of character are sought, venality, idealism, and innocence are exploited.

''Let us, then, watch the Russian Intelligence Service at work. Here we will see it in its most crude, brutal, and sordid form. Here we will see blackmailers at work, unashamed, unabashed, and inhuman.''

The book features true case studies of spies and their victims.

Their Trade is Treachery is published by Beautiful Books on June 18, priced at �8.99. [Telegraph/28May2010]

AlQaida's Mother of All Spy Manuals. "The spy shall not be concerned about any of his friends. If he knows about the existence of an important target at a certain place and time, and he relays information about this to his commanders who have decided to carry out an attack there - for example to blow up a hotel where the target is lodging - it is to be expected that the spy will be inclined to tell one of his journalist friends to avoid going there. In doing so, he will reveal that the operation is about to occur."

This instruction, actually, has a precedent in the life of the Prophet Mohammed. But Sami al-Matiri, who is known as Abdullah al-Hajj, cites it at length in his instruction manual for people working for Al-Qaida.

Matiri is a Kuwaiti citizen who began his career as a leftist in the movement known as Democratic Center; he later changed his spots and embraced radical Islam. He was convicted of the murder of an American citizen in Kuwait in 2002, and after spending a few years in prison was released and became a prominent Al-Qaida commander in the Arabian Peninsula. According to documents obtained by Haaretz, he is in charge of coordinating Al-Qaida activities in Palestine.

Matiri's instruction manual for intelligence agents is part of a series of documents he has written. These include pointers on explosives, building an organization and recruiting agents. There are also explanations about Islam's enemies.

In his writings, Matiri comes across as someone who knows what he is talking about. He cites studies and conclusions from the experiences of other intelligence agencies, and he discusses methods used by Al-Qaida.

Thus, for example, in the chapter on codes, Matiri says the code word for Al-Qaida's retreat from Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2001 was an expression in colloquial Egyptian Arabic meaning "to assemble the public." This was a mistake, writes Matiri, because Western intelligence services have many people who know various languages and dialects, including Egyptian, Yemenite and Iraqi. In the event, the convoy from Kandahar was exposed and bombarded.

He also tells about a far more successful experience. Ramzi Binalshibh, who helped coordinate the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, and Mohamed Atta, who was responsible for the whole operation, had a close relationship. They understood each other by the merest hint. The two conversed in German via a chat program on the Internet; the conversation is quoted in full in the instruction manual.

Mohamed Atta writes to his "Darling Jenny" (Binalshibh ) that the first semester will begin in three weeks, that there is no change and there are a number of encouraging ideas. "Two schools of higher education and academics, and the summer will no doubt be hot," he writes. "I want to discuss a number of details with you. There are 19 certificates for individual studies and four exams. Give my regards to the professor."

Here Matiri explains that Atta was sending general information about the modus operandi as it had been planned in advance. The language used prevented the plan from being discovered.

Later, another conversation took place between Atta and Binalshibh, in which more precise details were given.

Atta: "Somebody asked me a riddle I can't solve and I am contacting you so you can solve it for me."

Binalshibh: "Is this the time for riddles, Mohamed?"

Atta: "You are my friend and no one but you can solve it."

Binalshibh: "Okay, tell me the riddle."

Atta: "Two sticks and between them the police and the shape of a bagel from which a stick is hanging. What does it mean?"

Here the conversation ends and Matiri explains its meaning. The two sticks are the number 11, the police are the slash between them and the shape of a bagel from which a stick is hanging is the number 9. This yields 9/11, both the number for calling the police and the date set for the attacks. Only a deep understanding between the two men could have produced a coded conversation like this, to which every spy must aspire, says Matiri.

Matiri covers a variety of topics in the 42 pages of his instruction manual, among them advice on how the religious spy can get out of uncomfortable situations. He suggests that "Jewish meals" be ordered on airline flights - kosher meals that do not contain pork. They are marked with the letters U or K.

One of the most difficult issues is collecting the names and job descriptions of the enemy's intelligence officers. To overcome this problem, Matiri suggests that spies join human rights organizations and even establish such groups to gather testimonies from people who have been interrogated or tortured by enemy intelligence officers. They should be asked to give the names of these officers, so the spy can build up his file.

As an example of a successful operation, Matiri discusses the activities of a certain spy who gained the trust of the Arab Commission for Human Rights in Paris. He learned its ways and established a branch in a country where he hoped to gather intelligence.

Matiri says that after collecting the names of foreign intelligence officers or interrogators, one has to choose carefully the best officer from whom to extract information. It's important to choose low-ranking people or those with financial problems. "We prefer mainly blacks, Hispanics or members of other minorities because they are the ones who understand what discrimination means in America," he writes.

Matiri distinguishes between short-term and long-term spying, giving several examples from what he calls the activities of the Mossad, including Israeli operations in the 1950s in Egypt. He also discusses what he knows about operations by Islamic organizations.

Thus, for example, he writes about the Moscow theater siege in 2002, in which about 50 Chechen fighters held about 850 hostages. (Many of them were killed when Russian special forces broke into the building ). Before the siege, the Chechen commander had his people established a catering company; they even took the trouble of obtaining the franchise to open a cafeteria in the theater. They were thus able to bring in bombs and explosives and become familiar with its halls and corridors.

But to gather intelligence that is not aimed at a specific attack, the agent must also to create a fictional persona.

"When one of us sets out for an espionage action in Israel, it is important that his first step be to create a background story under commercial or cultural cover among the Jewish diaspora in Morocco, Egypt or the United States. In that way he will be able to obtain 'roots' for the new persona However, creating a background is not enough. The good spy must know how to dress, speak and adapt himself to the environment in which he is operating," Matiri writes.

"A businessman is not going to live in a poor neighborhood and a student cannot own a luxurious villa and a fleet of cars. Student dormitories are more appropriate for him. In general, it is desirable that spies not live in poor neighborhoods because the inhabitants usually sit outside on the sidewalks and see who is coming and going. They spot new people immediately. But in wealthy neighborhoods, the neighbors do not know one another, and this is what is needed in intelligence work."

Matiri also suggests establishing an academy at which people from radical organizations would study espionage work and learn how to use the intelligence operative's "tools." He cites the Mossad, where he says veteran spies teach young spies how to operate. In his othis should be the working method for radical organizations. [Haaretz/29May2010] 

Obituaries

Maurice J. Williams, Directed United Nations Food Aid, Dies at 89. Maurice J. Williams, who coordinated American disaster-relief efforts and then led a United Nations agency dedicated to relieving world hunger while warning repeatedly that not enough was being done to achieve that goal, died on May 10 in Bethesda, Md. He was 89 and lived in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The cause was complications from a fall, his son Jon said.

Mr. Williams, an expert in international development policy, was director of the United Nations Food Council from 1978 to 1986. An arm of the General Assembly, the agency was established in 1974 to coordinate food programs of other United Nations agencies and national governments. Under Mr. Williams, the council concentrated on helping developing countries formulate strategies for food production, nutrition and disaster preparation.

The council was formed shortly after the first World Food Conference was held in Rome. That meeting, at a time when famine was threatening swaths of Africa and Asia, led to a United Nations pledge to eradicate hunger and malnutrition.

Five years later, although the sense of global crisis had dissipated because of improved crop yields, Mr. Williams warned, "It is not possible to be optimistic or complacent in the face of evidence which indicates that there are probably more hungry and malnourished people in 1979 than the 450 million to whom the 1974 conference directed its attention."

Mr. Williams was no less concerned in 1984. "There is still famine in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa," he said then. "You still have hungry people on marginal land in parts of Asia and Latin America. In the slums of their cities people still go to bed hungry every night, unable to earn enough to buy food that is available."

Mr. Williams retired from the World Food Council in 1986; 10 years later its functions were taken over by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program.

His leadership of the council was the culmination of nearly four decades of public service, including many missions abroad during famines and other disasters.

Mr. Williams was an international economist with the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1950s. He was director of the United States Agency for International Development's aid programs in Iran and Pakistan from 1963 to 1967 and deputy administrator of the agency from 1970 to 1974.

When an earthquake devastated much of Managua, Nicaragua, in December 1972, President Richard M. Nixon sent Mr. Williams to administer American aid efforts there. He had previously coordinated American disaster relief in Peru, the Philippines, six drought-stricken West African countries and for the newly independent Bangladesh after the India-Pakistan war in 1971.

Maurice Jacoutot Williams was born in New Brunswick, Canada, on Nov. 13, 1920, one of two children of Alfred and Yvonne Theberge Williams. His father, an American citizen, was a salesman.

Mr. Williams' studies at Northwestern University were interrupted by World War II. Stationed in London from 1943 to 1946, he rose to captain in the Army. He received his bachelor's degree from Northwestern after the war and went on to earn a master's degree in economics from the University of Chicago in 1949.

Besides his son Jon, Mr. Williams is survived by his second wife, Joan Dunn Williams; two other sons, Peter and Stephen; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. His first wife, the former Betty Bath, died in 2005. [Hevesi/NewYorkTimes/26May2010] 

Sam Rickard. Mr. Samuel Harmer Rickard III, age 85, of Potomac Falls, VA, passed away peacefully on Thursday, May 20, 2010 after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. Born on July 10, 1924 in Atlantic City, NJ, Mr. Rickard was the eldest son of the late Samuel Harmer Rickard, Jr. and the late Ada Thomas Rickard. Mr. Rickard is survived by his loving daughter, Kristin Rickard Spak of Leesburg, VA, and two brothers, John G. Rickard of Lewisville, NC, and Donald C. Rickard of Pagosa Springs, CO. He is also survived by four grandchildren: Brian T. Spak of Leesburg, VA; Nicholas M. Spak of Boulder, CO; Samuel T. Rickard of Gaithersburg, MD; and Jessica L. White of Ashburn, VA; as well as two great-grandchildren.

Mr. Rickard was predeceased by his beloved wife of 54 years, Elaine Lonnquest Rickard, in January of 2010; by his son Samuel Lonnquest Rickard in March, 2007; by his brother David Thomas Rickard in July, 2009; and by his son-in-law, Michael Robert Spak in January, 2010.

Mr. Rickard led a remarkable life of distinguished public service, serving his country both in the military in World War II, and then in a long-term career with the Federal Government. As the son of Baptist missionaries, Mr. Rickard spent his formative years growing up in Burma, where his father was Head of the English Department and then President of Judson College in Rangoon from 1925-1941. Mr. Rickard and his three brothers attended Woodstock School in Mussoorie, India during much of that time. There, he excelled as a student and became a championship swimmer, among numerous other achievements. At the beginning of World War II, the Rickard family was forced to flee Burma in advance of the Japanese invasion in 1941, leaving all of their possessions behind and making a harrowing journey out of the country on foot to Assam, India, before returning to the United States. The route that they traveled out of Burma was largely through uncharted jungle terrain and eventually became part of the vital transportation network used to supply Allied forces fighting the Japanese in Burma during World War II.

After returning to the U.S. in 1942, Mr. Rickard enrolled at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA, but interrupted his studies to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He served his country as a decorated pilot in the South Pacific from 1942-1945, attaining the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, and was honorably discharged in 1946. Mr. Rickard subsequently completed his education at Bucknell, where he was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and played varsity soccer, graduating with a degree in Political Science in 1949. He completed additional graduate coursework at Georgetown University before joining the Foreign Service in 1950. Ironically, Mr. Rickard's first diplomatic assignment abroad was to Rangoon, Burma.

Mr. Rickard married Elaine Lonnquest Rickard in December of 1955. The couple had two children and served in numerous other overseas assignments, including India, Jerusalem, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, over the course of Mr. Rickard's distinguished 34-year Foreign Service career. Mr. Rickard became a specialist in South Asia and the Middle East, but also served in a number of other executive assignments before retiring from government service in 1984. He returned to work as a State Department contractor from 1989-1995.

Mr. Rickard and his wife were long-time residents of Chevy Chase, Maryland, but moved to Virginia in 2006 so that they could be closer to their daughter. They resided at Morningside House of Leesburg from 2006-2009 before moving to The Johnson Center at Falcon's Landing in Potomac Falls, VA in 2009. Mr. Rickard maintained a lifelong interest in travel and international affairs and was known for his sharp intellect, his sense of humor, and his devotion to his family.

Funeral services will take place on Saturday, June 5th, 2010 at the Loudoun Funeral Chapel, 158 Catoctin Circle, SE, Leesburg, VA. The family will receive guests from 11 am until 12 noon, with services immediately following at noon.

Interment and Columbarium services with military honors will be held at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia on Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 3 p.m. Mr. and Mrs. Rickard will be inurned together at that time. Those wishing to attend the services at Arlington should arrive at the Administration building by 2:30 pm.  [LoudounFuneralChaplel/20May2010]

Coming Events

EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

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

• Thursday, 5 August 2010, noon - Washington, DC - "Silent Sentry: The Untold Story of the National Security Agency" - at the International Spy Museum
• Wednesday, 11 August 2010, 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - "Uneasy Alliance: The CIA and ISI in Pakistan" - at the International Spy Museum

Wednesday, 2 June 2010, 6:00 p.m. -- Las Vegas, NV - the AFIO Las Vegas Chapter meets to hear Fred Barber on "The Roman Empire & The New Rome"
Fred Eugene Barber's presentation takes the audience through 2700 years of history in about an hour, so hang on to your chairs. He starts with the founding of Rome, through its conquest of the Mediterranean world, its holding of power, its conversion to Christianity and its collapse into countries most often under new owners. As the vacuum is filled by former Roman colonies as Roman lands are leaving the empire, Mr. Barber gives a brief explanation of how and who filled the vacuum spots, concentrating a bit on the Byzantium and the world of the Arabs and Turks, and how this has affected us here in the New World. Spain, a former Roman province, becomes part of this story because the Arabic peoples controlled and lived in Spain for over 500 years.
Barber is not a professional speaker, but has a passion for history, especially as to how it has affected his America of today. He is a firm believer in the old adage: History repeats itself....and as Rome fell, so might....
Event location will be at The Officers' Club at Nellis Air Force Base. All guests must use the MAIN GATE located at the intersection on Craig Road and Las Vegas Blvd. Address: 5871 Fitzgerald Blvd., Nellis AFB, NV 89191 Phone: 702-644-2582. (Guest names must be submitted to BentleyM@nv.doe.gov or at afiolasvegas@gmail.com by 4:00 p.m., Monday, May 24th. Join us at 5 p.m. in the "Check Six" bar area for liaison and beverages.
If you plan to bring a guest(s), please RSVP with names by 4:00 p.m., Monday, May 24th. Entrance to the Base self and guests cannot be guaranteed if I don't have their names (unless they already have military ID to enter the base).
Dinner: You are welcome to arrive early and join us in the "Check Six" bar area, inside the Officer's Club. The Check Six has an excellent, informal dinner venue along with a selection of snacks. Water will be provided during the meeting, but you may also purchase beverages and food at the bar and bring them to the meeting. Once again, please feel free to bring your spouse and/or guest(s) to dinner as well as our meeting, but remember to submit your guest(s) names to me be the stated deadline above.
Questions? Email afiolasvegas@gmail.com or call 702-295-1024. We look forward to seeing you!

Friday, 4 June 2010, 8:30 am – 4 pm - Raleigh, NC - The North Carolina FBI Citizen's Academy Alumni Association presents Training: Human Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery - Tools for an Effective Response
Location: St. Matthew African Methodist Church, 1629 Bennett Street, Raleigh, North Carolina 27604 Cost: $35 per person
Please RSVP as soon as possible via either email or mail. You may either pay at the door or mail your check.
Checks payable to : NC FBICAAA
E-MAIL registrations, send to : tammy.caaa@gmail.com
MAIL registrations: ATTN: Tammy Montanez, NCDOT 1507 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1507
Questions? Call Tammy at 919-368-5914
Walk-ins are welcome with registration and payment at the door

7 -11 June 2010 - San Diego, CA - Bicoastal Counter Terrorism Summit by Halo Corporation. Monday Warrior Mindset $200; Tuesday: Active Shooter Campus, Corporate and House of Worship Safety $200; Wednesday: Maritime Security and Port/Border Awareness $200; Thursday: Americas Deadliest Threat $200; Friday: Islamic Literalist Ideology $200. California Responders these training courses are eligible for the use of Homeland Security. Grant Program SHSP, UASI, LETPP. Homeland Security Grant funds may cover the cost of Registration, Travel, Lodging and Per Diem
If you would prefer to pay by check, please make payable to: The HALO Corporation, 501 West Broadway, Suite A‐331, San Diego, CA 92101
www.thehalocorp.com 619-881-9125

Tuesday 15 June 2010, 5 p.m. - Newport News, VA - AFIO Norman Forde Hampton Roads Chapter Meeting features LTC Joe Leporati on Disaster Relief in Haiti
US Naval Lieutenant Commander Joe Leporati will speak about his experience with disaster relief as part of the US military's "Operation Unified Response" in Haiti
LCDR Leporati is a US Naval aviator and strategic planner whose early Naval experience included Helicopter Aircraft Commander and Functional Check Pilot positions in helicopter missions in the Mediterranean Sea, Arabian Gulf and Africa. He left the Navy in 1999; after the 11 Sep 2001 attacks, he joined the Navy Reserve and was voluntarily recalled to active duty. LCDR Leporati served as Safety Officer onboard USS KEARSARGE, deploying twice in support of OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM. He was awarded the Chief of Naval Operations Safety Award for his efforts.
In 2004 - 2005, LCDR served US Fleet Forces N3 Global Force Management as Assistant Aviation Operations Officer. In that role, he participated in USN's humanitarian assistance in Haiti, as well as relief efforts to Hurricane Katrina victims. He authored the Airborne Use of Force Concept of Operations, placing US Coast Guard gunners on Navy helicopters to prosecute "Go Fast" drug running vessels in the US Southern Command. In Mar 2006, LCDR Leporati reported to the Multi National Forces Iraq Joint Personnel Recovery Center, where he fused intelligence, conducted diplomatic efforts and coordinated operations to recover missing US Service members, US citizens and others in Iraq. After Iraq, he served as Joint Forces Staff College instructor on the Joint Command, Control and Information Operations School faculty.
LCDR Leporati transfered to the Information Warfare Officer community in 2008 and was appointed Director of the Fleet Information Operations Center Texas. As FIOC Director, he led 200+ sailors conducting direct support, analysis and production, and cyber operations in support of Joint Interagency Task Force South, 4th Fleet and US Southern Command. LCDR Leporati was temporarily supporting Carrier Strike Group-1 aboard the USS Carl Vinson in January 2010 when it was re-routed to Haiti for earthquake disaster relief. In Mar 2010, LCDR Leporati reported to the NIOC Norfolk Planning Directorate and is assigned to the Information Operations Planning Team for US Southern Command.
His military decorations include the Bronze Star, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with two gold stars, and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with one gold star. He is a Joint Qualified Officer. LCDR Leporati holds both a Master of Business Administration Degree and a Master of Arts Degree in Diplomacy.
Location: Christopher Newport University Library, Newport News (Room # tbd)
Free and open to the public.
Please rsvp: Melissa Saunders mwsaunders@cox.net

16-17 June 2010 - Independence, Missouri - CIA/Harry S. Truman Library/Woodrow Wilson Center Co-Host Conference "The Korean War, the Armistice, and the Search for Peace on the Korean Peninsula." Event falls on 60th Anniversary of The Korean War. Registration on AFIO website will open in mid-April. Announcement of CIA document release including special booklet/CD handouts to attendees, includes roundtable discussion – Invasion and Intervention: What the U.s. Intelligence Community Knew and Who They Told - chaired by Clayton Laurie, with 3 other historians; Reception at Truman Library. CD-ROMs containing the newly released documents will be distributed at the press conference and the conference.
From the Central Intelligence Agency: Approximately one thousand declassified documents from four series in the agency's records relating to the Korean \Var have been digitized and described by the agency's Historical Documents Division. The four series are (1) Korean Daily Reports; (2) National Intelligence Estimates; (3) Special Intelligence Estimates; and (4) Foreign Broadcast Information Service reports. About half of the documents have never been released before; the other half have been released in part, but are now being either fully released or with newly released information included.
Registration handled by the Truman Library. To view agenda: http://www.trumanlibrary.org/koreanwar2010.html
To Register for event: [Word Document] http://www.trumanlibrary.org/korea/KoreanWarRegistration2010.doc
or [PDF form] http://www.trumanlibrary.org/korea/KoreanWarRegistration2010.pdf

Thursday, 17 June 2010 - Washington, DC - OSINT 2020: The Future of Open Source Intelligence

Keynote Speaker: Mr. Dan Butler, Assistant Deputy Director for Open Source, Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), hosted by LexisNexis
1:00 – 3:00 P.M. (Doors open at noon), National Press Club, Washington, D.C., No Charge. Seating may be limited. RSVP at www.lexisnexis.com/osint
The program will include keynote remarks by Mr. Dan Butler, Assistant Deputy Director for Open Source, Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), followed by a "perspectives" discussion with leading experts among our group of distinguished attendees. The discussion will be based on the future of OSINT as a recognized discipline in strategic and tactical national security decision-making.
OSINT 2020 Panelists:
*Mr. Alexander Joel, Civil Liberties Protection Officer, ODNI
*Mr. Doug Magoffin, Chief, Defense Intelligence Open Source Program Office
*Mr. Kevin O'Connell, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University and President/CEO of Innovative Analytics and Training
*Dr. Mark Gabriele, Booz Allen Hamilton
*Mr. Kenneth Rapuano, Director of Advanced Systems & Policy, The MITRE Corporation
About the OSINT Round Table hosted by LexisNexis
The OSINT Round Table was created to make a public space for discussion about the government's needs for Open Source Intelligence in order to facilitate relationships between government officials and private sector leaders. We seek to foster an increasingly responsive open source intelligence infrastructure that meets the needs of national security decision makers.
No Charge. Seating may be limited. RSVP at www.lexisnexis.com/osint

19 June 2010 - Kennebunk, ME - The AFIO Maine Chapter features lawyer Suzanne Spaulding speaking on "Solving Current National Security Issues." Suzanne Spaulding, who is currently Principal, Bingham Consulting Group, Bingham McCutchen LLP, is an authority on national security . She served as director of two congressionally mandated commissions, the National Commission on Terrorism, chaired by Amb. Paul Bremer, III, and the Commission to Assess the Organization of  the Federal Government to Combat the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction chaired by former CIA Director, John Deutch.  She has been quoted regularly in media outlets around the country.  She was minority staff director for the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  Previous legislative experience includes legislative director and senior counsel for Sen. Arlen Specter.  She also worked for Rep. Jane Harman.  She was assistant counsel at CIA and  is immediate past chair, American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security.  Ms. Spaulding is currently a member of AFIO's National Board. The meeting will be held at the Kennebunk Free Library, 112 Main St., Kennebunk at 2:00 p.m. The public is invited. For information call 967-4298.

Monday, 21 June 2010, 6 p.m. - New York, NY - The AFIO NY Chapter meets to hear Jack Devine discuss "The True Story of Charlie Wilson's War"

Speaker: Jack Devine, 32 year veteran of the CIA. Was Acting Director of the Agency's operations outside the US with authority over thousands of employees in very sensitive missions among many other worldwide assignments. Recipient of the CIA Meritorious Officer Award, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal and several other meritorious awards.
Topic: (1) Afghanistan: Where we are, (2) Charlie Wilson's War: The inside story of what actually happened
Where: University Club 9th Floor, Registration 5:30 PM Start 6:00 PM
$40./person; only $20./person, students & military. No reservations required.
Questions to Jerry Goodwin, Chapter President, 347-334-1503 or email him at afiometro@yahoo.com

22 June 2010 (Rescheduled from 25 May) - Arlington, VA - The Defense Intelligence Forum meets to hear Keiswetter on Political Islam.

The DIF meets at the Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery, Ballston Common Mall, Arlington, VA. The speaker will be Allen L. Keiswetter, who will speak on Political Islam. Mr. Keiswetter, a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer, is a Scholar at the Middle East Institute and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland. He has also taught courses on Islam and the Middle East at the National Defense Intelligence College and the National War College. In the Department of State, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Director of Arabian Peninsula Affairs in the Near East Bureau, and Director of the Office of Intelligence Liaison in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. His postings abroad include Riyadh, Sanaa, Khartoum, Baghdad, Tunis, Beirut, Brussels and Vietnam. The Defense Intelligence Forum covers topics of current interest. It is open to members of all Intelligence Community associations and their guests.
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 for you and your guests by 15 June by email to diforum@verizon.net. Give names, telephone numbers, email addresses, and choices of Pasta, Grilled Salmon, Grilled Sirloin, or Lemon Chicken. Pay with a check. THE FORUM DOESN'T TAKE CASH!

25-26 June 2010 - Great Lakes, IL - The Midwest Chapter of AFIO will host its annual conference at the Great Lakes Naval Station. The conference will include a full days worth of speakers on Friday the 25th. Saturday the 26th will include a day trip to Waukesha, WI to tour the Cold War Museum and former Nike Missile Site, and then lunch at the Safe House, a spy themed museum in Milwaukee, WI. Saturday's return trip will include dinner and a speaker. On Sunday 27 June there will be a trip to the Cantigny First Division Museum (Wheaton, IL) for a museum tour and bring your own meal picnic.
Registration is $10 per person. Hotel reservations can be made by calling the Navy Lodge at 1-847-689-1485 for 24-27 June. Room rate is $65 per night total (no tax). Hotel reservations should be made no later than 7 June 2010. Please remember to mention that you are with the Midwest AFIO Chapter. For more information and to confirm your attendance, please contact Angelo Di Liberti ASAP at 847-931-4184. Also state whether you plan to attend the trip to Cantigny as we will need to contact the Museum curator with a final head count.

Thursday, 15 July 2010, 11:30 am - Colorado Springs, CO - The Rocky Mountain Chapter hears Tim Murphy on R&D Platform Usage in Intelligence. The Chapter presents an expert on Special Ops whose firm is doing an R&D intelligence platform for the Intelligence community. Retired Air Force Col. Tim Murphy who is also a graduate of the Air Force Academy. To be held at a new location the AFA Eisenhower Golf Course Club House. Please RSVP to Tom VanWormer at robsmom@pcisys.net.

HOLD THE DATE - 17 - 20 August 2010 - Cleveland, OH - AFIO National Symposium on the Great Lakes - "Intelligence and National Security on the Great Lakes"

Co-Hosted with the AFIO Northern Ohio Chapter at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Cleveland, OH. Includes presentations by U.S. Coast Guard on Great Lakes security; Canadian counterparts to explain double-border issues; National Air/Space Intelligence Center; Air Force Technical Applications Center; Ohio Aerospace Institute. Cruise on Lake Erie.
Spies-in-Black-Ties Dinner and Cruise on Lake Erie. Online Reservations to be taken here, shortly.

6 - 7 October 2011 - Laurel, MD - The NSA's Center for Cryptologic History hosts their Biennial Cryptologic History Symposium with theme: Cryptology in War and Peace: Crisis Points in History.

Historians from the Center, the Intelligence Community, the defense establishment, and the military services, as well as distinguished scholars from American and foreign academic institutions, veterans of the profession, and the interested public all will gather for two days of reflection and debate on topics from the cryptologic past. The theme for the upcoming conference will be: “Cryptology in War and Peace: Crisis Points in History.” This topical approach is especially relevant as the year 2011 is an important anniversary marking the start of many seminal events in our nation’s military history. The events that can be commemorated are many.
Such historical episodes include the 1861 outbreak of the fratricidal Civil War between North and South. Nineteen forty-one saw a surprise attack wrench America into the Second World War. The year 1951 began with the fall of Seoul to Chinese Communist forces with United Nations troops retreating in the Korean War. In 1961, the United States began a commitment of advisory troops in Southeast Asia that would eventually escalate into the Vietnam War; that year also marked the height of the Cold War as epitomized by the physical division of Berlin. Twenty years later, a nascent democratic movement was suppressed by a declaration of martial law in Poland; bipolar confrontation would markedly resurge for much of the 1980s. In 1991, the United States intervened in the Persian Gulf to reverse Saddam Hussein’s aggression, all while the Soviet Union suffered through the throes of its final collapse. And in 2001, the nation came under siege by radical terrorism.
Participants will delve into the roles of signals intelligence and information assurance, and not just as these capabilities supported military operations. More cogently, observers will examine how these factors affected and shaped military tactics, operations, strategy, planning, and command and control throughout history. The role of cryptology in preventing conflict and supporting peaceful pursuits will also be examined. The panels will include presentations in a range of technological, operational, organizational, counterintelligence, policy, and international themes.
Past symposia have featured scholarship that set out new ways to consider out cryptologic heritage, and this one will be no exception. The mix of practitioners, scholars, and the public precipitates a lively debate that promotes an enhanced appreciation for the context of past events. Researchers on traditional and technological cryptologic topics, those whose work in any aspect touches upon the historical aspects of cryptology as defined in its broadest sense, as well as foreign scholars working in this field, are especially encouraged to participate.
The Symposium will be held at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory’s Kossiakoff Center, in Laurel, Maryland, a location central to the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas. As has been the case with previous symposia, the conference will provide unparalleled opportunities for interaction with leading historians and distinguished experts. So please make plans to join us for either one or both days of this intellectually stimulating conference.
Interested persons are invited to submit proposals for a potential presentation or even for a full panel. While the topics can relate to this year’s theme, all serious work on any aspect of cryptologic history will be considered. Proposals should include an abstract for each paper and/or a statement of session purpose for each panel, as well as biographical sketches for each presenter. To submit proposals or form more information on this conference, contact Dr. Kent Sieg, the Center’s Symposium Executive Director, at 301-688-2336 or via email at kgsieg@nsa.gov.

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

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