Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Inquiry Finds U.S. Official Set Up Spy Ring in Asia. A senior Pentagon official broke Defense Department rules and "deliberately misled" senior generals when he set up a network of private contractors to spy in Afghanistan and Pakistan beginning last year, according to the results of an internal government investigation.

The Pentagon investigation concluded that the official, Michael D. Furlong, set up an "unauthorized" intelligence network to collect information in both countries - some of which was fed to senior generals and used for strikes against militant groups - while masking the entire operation as a more benign information operations campaign.

The inquiry concluded that "further investigation is warranted of the misleading and incorrect statements the individual made" about the legality of the program, according to Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman.

Reached by telephone on Thursday, Mr. Furlong was angry about the conclusions of the investigation, saying that nobody from the Defense Department ever interviewed him as part of the inquiry.

"This is a lot like kangaroo court justice," Mr. Furlong said.

He said that his work had been approved by a number of senior military officers in Afghanistan, and that he had never misled anyone about what he was doing.

"They only talked to one side, and those are the people running for cover," he said.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ordered the investigation after The New York Times reported on the existence of the network in March. The inquiry was carried out by Michael Decker, a top aide to Mr. Gates for intelligence issues.

The results of the Pentagon investigation are classified, and Defense Department officials gave few specifics about the accusations.

Mr. Furlong, a senior Air Force civilian official, has been barred from his office in San Antonio for several months. The Air Force inspector general is conducting a separate investigation into the matter, to determine whether Mr. Furlong broke any laws or committed contract fraud.

Pentagon rules forbid the hiring of contractors as spies. Military officials said that when Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the top commander in the region, signed off on Mr. Furlong's operation in January 2009, there were specific prohibitions against intelligence-gathering, including hiring agents to provide information about enemy positions in Pakistan.

The contractors were supposed to provide only broad information about the political and tribal dynamics in the region - called "atmospherics" - and "force protection" information that might protect American troops from attack, the officials said.

But some Pentagon officials said that over time the operation appeared to transition into traditional spying activities.

Mr. Furlong's network, composed of a group of small companies that used agents deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan to collect intelligence on militant groups, operated under a $22 million contract run by Lockheed Martin.

One of the companies used a group of American, Afghan and Pakistani agents overseen by Duane Clarridge, a Central Intelligence Agency veteran best known for his role in the Iran-contra scandal. Mr. Clarridge declined to be interviewed.

Officials said that the contractors delivered their intelligence reports via "Hushmail," an encrypted e-mail service, to an "information operations fusion cell" at a military base at Kabul International Airport. There, the reports were put into classified military computer networks and used either for future military operations or intelligence reports.

The contractors continued their work for weeks after Mr. Gates ordered the investigation, sending dozens of reports to the fusion center. The Pentagon finally let the contract lapse at the end of May.

Colonel Lapan said the investigation concluded that Pentagon rules governing intelligence operations needed to be more clearly defined and that "better coordination and de-confliction of both intelligence and information operations is required by staffs at all levels." [Mazzetti/NYTimes/28October2010]

NATO Campaign Having Little Impact on Taliban, Say US Intelligence Agencies. The Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan have been largely unaffected by NATO's campaign, according to assessments by US intelligence services.

The Washington Post reports that the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other US intelligence services are in broad agreement that the Taliban and the Haqqani network, an independent militant group allied with the Taliban, have suffered only minor setbacks due to NATO's campaign.

A senior Defense Department official, who is involved in assessments of the war, told the Post: "The insurgency seems to be maintaining its resilience" and that Taliban elements are consistently able to "reestablish and rejuvenate," sometimes within days of being defeated by US forces. He continued to say that he couldn't see any sign of the momentum shifting.

The assessments say that the Taliban's resilience is due in large part to its ability to find sanctuary in Pakistan, writes the Post. While the CIA has stepped up unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan in recent months, the Defense Department official told the Post, "For senior leadership, not much has changed. At most we are seeing lines of support disrupted, but it's temporary. They're still setting strategic guidance" for operations against coalition forces in Afghanistan.

The US intelligence assessments contrast sharply with the more upbeat takes on the war made publicly by the military leaders overseeing it. Postmedia News reported Tuesday that Canadian Brig. Gen. Dean Milner said he feels NATO's efforts in Afghanistan have prompted insurgents to seek ways to reintegrate into Afghan society. "What we don't have yet - and what I want - is to start reintegration, (but) I am convinced we're getting close," added General Milner.

And US Gen. Ben Hodges told The Christian Science Monitor last week that NATO forces have stabilized Kandahar City, a traditional Taliban stronghold. "The security forces are providing a level of security that is allowing [life in Kandahar City] to take place," Hodges said. "There is a presence of security that is a lot more prevalent and reassuring than at any time in the past."

The US intelligence assessments are likely to add to the international debate over how much longer the US and NATO-led mission there should go on. This year has seen the highest number of foreign troop deaths in Afghanistan since the conflict began, according to a tally by Agence France-Presse. AFP reports that the death of a NATO soldier on Wednesday brings the count this year to 603, and more than 2,170 in total.

The last man to order an end to large-scale military operations in Afghanistan, Mikael Gorbachev, told the BBC that "victory is impossible in Afghanistan," and that he applauds President Obama's plan to remove troops from Afghanistan beginning next year.

Mr. Gorbachev, who as leader of the former Soviet Union ordered Soviet forces out of Afghanistan more than 20 years ago, ending a 10-year war, said that the US really has no choice. "[W]hat's the alternative - another Vietnam? Sending in half a million troops? That wouldn't work." [Bright/CSMonitor/27October2010] 

Korea's FTA Negotiation Strategy Leaked to U.S. The National Intelligence Service is investigating the leak of confidential documents containing Korea's strategy for additional FTA negotiations to the U.S., a senior government source said Tuesday.

The documents contain key information on areas of dispute in the automotive sector between the two sides, including fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions. "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade learned during additional talks with Washington that U.S. officials were unusually familiar with our government's position in terms of automotive environmental regulations and reported the matter to Cheong Wa Dae," the source said. Cheong Wa Dae "felt this was a serious intelligence breach and ordered the NIS to investigate."

Another government source said Seoul found itself at a greater-than-expected disadvantage in the talks due to the leak. Based on its investigation so far, the NIS believes the documents, prepared by the Environment Ministry, were handed over by the Knowledge Economy Ministry to a Korean carmaker and from there found its way to a foreign carmaker. The NIS has apparently found evidence connecting the Knowledge Economy Ministry with the leak.

It appears the Knowledge Economy Ministry "obtained documents regarding acceptable fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emission levels from the Environment Ministry and, either intentionally or by mistake, handed them over to a carmaker," the source said. When asked about the leak, a Knowledge Economy Ministry official said, "I'm unable to confirm anything."

The documents detail the Korean government's overall plans for greenhouse gas and fuel efficiency standards for the automotive industry to be used in negotiations with U.S. officials. They include Seoul's offer to waive environmental regulations for three years for automakers whose annual domestic sales total less than 1,000 units and to ease them for carmakers who sell between 1,000 to 4,500 cars in Korea a year. [CHOsun/27October2010]

Mahoul Espionage Charge May be Dropped in Deal. Haifa district prosecutors and lawyers for Amir Mahoul, charged with spying for Hizbullah, were discussing a possible plea bargain by which certain charges will be dropped, while others will be admitted to by the suspect.

The proposed deal would drop the most serious charge of espionage against Mahoul, but he would plead guilty to other unspecified charges. If the deal is finalized, Mahoul is expected to serve up to 10 years in prison, Israel Radio reported.

Mahoul was charged in May of this year with espionage, assisting an enemy in time of war and maintaining contact with an enemy agent.

The state's indictment charged that Mahoul sent 10 messages to his Hizbullah contacts that included information on the location of the Shin Bet offices in Jalama and Haifa, with their exact addresses, and the locations of the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. plant on the Acre-Haifa highway, Mossad facilities in the center of the country and the Nahshonim military base, which the indictment describes as an American base, and the home address of Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin.

According to a senior security official, Mahoul was also asked by Hizbullah to collect information on the security arrangements surrounding the convoys of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. He did not succeed in this mission, the security official said.

Mahoul is an author and head of Ittijah - The Union of Arab Community-Based Associations, also based in Haifa. [JerusalemPost/27October2010]

Terrorism Suspect Given "Victim" Status by Polish Legal Authorities. The status gives credence to allegations by Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi citizen suspected by the US of involvement in the bombing of the warship USS Cole in 2000, that he was held at an airfield in Poland and subjected to harsh interrogation tactics, including being threatened with an electric drill, by American intelligence officers in 2002.

"Granting 'victim status' means that the prosecutor's office is, to a great extent, convinced of the argumentation that he was rendered and held illegally on the territory of Poland," said Adam Bodnar from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.

The legal move, which allows Mr. Al-Nashiri 's lawyers to view evidence and appeal against decisions, comes as part of a two-year investigation by Polish prosecutors into whether the CIA operated a clandestine camp in Poland as part of its anti-terrorism operations.

Poland's former leaders have always denied the existence of a so-called black-site.

Aleksander Kwasniewski, Polish president in 2002, said "that there were no prisons" although he conceded that US flights had landed at Szymany Airport, the suspected location of the camp, in north-east Poland.

Despite the denial, there is mounting evidence that the US operated a secret base in Poland from December 2002 to the autumn of 2003, and that detainees were subject to torture.

Last month a declassified report by the Inspector General of the CIA revealed that an agent code-named "Albert" used techniques unauthorized by the US justice department on Mr Al-Nashiri in Poland. [Roberts/Telegraph/28October2010]

British Spy Chief Gives First Public Speech By A British Spy Chief Ever. Until 1994 his agency didn't even officially exist. Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, has been in the spy game since before the First World War. In all that time what it did and who was even in it, was cloaked in secrecy. Today, for the first time, a sitting head of the agency appeared in public, and defended secrecy itself, "Secrecy is not a dirty word. Secrecy is not there as a cover-up. Secrecy plays a crucial part in keeping Britain safe and secure."

Sir John Sawers also said that while his agency tries to protect and respect human rights, in the real world, those kinds of questions can have horrific implications.

"Suppose we receive credible intelligence that might save lives, here or abroad. We have a professional and moral duty to act on it. We will normally want to share it with those who can save those lives.

We also have a duty to do what we can to ensure that a partner service will respect human rights. That is not always straightforward.

Yet if we hold back, and don't pass that intelligence, out of concern that a suspect terrorist may be badly treated, innocent lives may be lost that we could have saved.

These are not abstract questions for philosophy courses or searching editorials. They are real, constant, operational dilemmas."

But despite those dilemmas, he said, there are some lines that cannot and should not be crossed.

"Torture is illegal and abhorrent under any circumstances, and we have nothing whatsoever to do with it. If we know or believe action by us will lead to torture taking place, we're required by UK and international law to avoid that action. And we do, even though that allows the terrorist activity to go ahead.

Some may question this, but we are clear that it's the right thing to do. It makes us strive all the harder to find different ways, consistent with human rights, to get the outcome we want."

Sadly, there was no mention of 007, Q, or which is his favorite Bond girl. [Stewart/NPR/28October2010]

US Spy Spending Revealed for first Time, Tops $80 Billion. The United States spent $80 billion on spy activities in 2010, the first time the government has officially announced the total tab for intelligence spending.

The amount included $53.1 billion on non-military intelligence programs, a 6 percent boost from the previous year, according to a statement released Thursday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The military spent an additional $27 billion on its intelligence apparatus, said Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan.

No further details were released.

The government is required by law to reveal the total amount of money spent to spy on other nations, terrorists and other groups by the CIA, the National Security Agency and the other agencies and offices that make up the 16-member intelligence community.

While the total intelligence spending has never formally been announced, this is the fourth year the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released the national intelligence budget figure for non-military activities. The intelligence community had resisted efforts to reveal the number, arguing that enemies of the United States could learn valuable information by watching trends in spending.

The amount designated for military battlefield intelligence had remained classified. Last year, however then-Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair revealed to reporters the total cost for all intelligence gathering was $75 billion, and indicated the amount spent on strictly military intelligence was approximately $25 billion.

At the urging of the commission set up to investigate the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Congress passed a law in 2007 mandating public disclosure of the non-military spending number at the end of each fiscal year. Specific details on how much each agency spends and on what remain classified.

The current director of national intelligence, James Clapper, had said at his confirmation hearings this past summer that the budgets for both strategic intelligence and military spying should be officially made public.

The head of the Senate Intelligence committee said it is time to pare down non-military intelligence spending, which has doubled since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

"Given the nation's financial situation, it is my view that the intelligence budget needs to be carefully reviewed and that cuts will be necessary," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat.

The senator indicated there is waste and duplication within the budget and added, "It is clear that the overall spending on intelligence has blossomed to an unacceptable level in the past decade."

Approximately 100,000 people work on national intelligence, with the majority of employees serving at the big four intelligence agencies: the National Security Agency, the CIA, the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

The United States spent $49.8 billion on its national intelligence programs in 2009, $47.5 billion in 2008 and $43.5 billion in 2007, according to the previous reports. [Benson/CNN/28October2010] 

Military Advocates Don't Want Judges Making Pentagon Rules. Pro-military advocates are warning against the dangers of letting federal district court judges start making significant Pentagon policy, saying it would essentially turn the military over to a network of political appointees who could be swayed by various pressure groups.

If a district court judge in one unilateral order can strike down a legal ban on open gays in the military, as did federal Judge Virginia A. Phillips, then such judges also could strike down the prohibition on women in land combat, or rules on wearing a uniform, or requirements for grooming, or even the war against al Qaeda.

Judge Phillips went beyond ruling the gay ban unconstitutional and letting appeals courts weigh in: She ordered the Pentagon to stop enforcing it - worldwide.

"The federal judging is intervening here in a way that I regard as unconstitutional," retired Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak told The Washington Times. "The Constitution says that it's Congress that sets rules and regulation for the armed forces, not some federal judge."

In the 2008 election, Gen. McPeak, a former Air Force chief of staff and Joint Chiefs member, backed President Obama. But he disagrees with Mr. Obama's campaign promise to open the ranks to avowed gays.

"In my judgment, when I was a chief, allowing open homosexuality in our combat units would undermine the cohesion necessary to get the job done, in trying circumstances," he said. "I gave that advice to President Clinton, even though he had run the campaign on the promise to end the situation."

Mr. Clinton's plan to allow openly gay service members ran into stiff opposition from both sides of the political aisle, and he was pressured into signing a bill that turned the ban on homosexuality in the military into a matter of law, instead of a more easily changed military regulation it had been.

As part of the compromise for making the ban a statutory matter, he then ordered what became known as the "don't ask, don't tell" policy to implement the law.

The president's "authority as commander in chief does not extend to usurping the authority of Congress and the regulation of how the services will be administered," Gen. McPeak said.

Elaine Donnelly, who runs the Center for Military Readiness, which supports the ban on gays in the military, is warning the administration that it cannot let one judge set major military policy.

After Judge Phillips' September ruling, Mrs. Donnelly sent out a press release that began, "No Reason to Bow to the 'Supreme Judicial Commander of the U.S. Military.'"

"Her order striking the law suggested that a district judge knows more than members of Congress who conducted 12 legislative hearings and numerous field investigations, followed by hours of floor debate culminating in bipartisan, veto-proof majorities enacting the 1993 law, which federal courts have upheld as constitutional several times," Mrs. Donnelly said.

But Aaron Belkin, who directs the Palm Center, a pro-gay research organization at the University of California at Santa Barbara, said there is no reason the Obama administration cannot view the district court ruling as final, drop its appeal and end the ban.

Mr. Belkin said the administration and military leaders "have concluded that 'don't ask, don't tell' is hurting the military and that a policy of equality would be better for national security, and if the president drops the appeal of the Log Cabin case, then that would be the quickest route to a policy of equality. The president has said clearly he prefers Congress repeal the law, but I'm not sure if that's realistic at this point."

"The district court is not dictating policy," Mr. Belkin added. "The court found that this particular policy both violates service members' constitutional rights and also does so without furthering any government interest...There was quite a bit of evidence that the policy hurts the military."

On the argument that if Congress is to be overridden on a major military regulation, it ought to be the highest court that decides, Mr. Belkin said: "They're ignoring 230 years of legal precedent. The federal courts have the final say on the constitutionality of law and policy, period. There's nothing that says, 'Oh, only the Supreme Court has the final word.' The federal courts have the final word."

There is now a two-track debate.

Judge Phillips order to end the ban is being appealed by the Justice Department.

On the other track, Mr. Obama's legislation to repeal the 1993 law is stalled in the Senate, where Republicans refused to allow the defense bill containing the legislation to reach the floor for debate.

After elections next week, Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, will try again to bring the bill to the floor.

Analysts say two questions remain in the debate: Will Mr. Levin be able to peel away enough GOP votes to win passage? Or will a Pentagon study on gay integration, scheduled to be completed in December, change how senators vote and lead to the defeat of the measure? [Scarborough/WashingtonTimes/27October2010]

Milan Prosecutor Seeks Stiffer Sentence for Ex-CIA Chief Convicted of Italian Kidnapping. An Italian prosecutor has asked for a stiffer sentence for a CIA station chief convicted in the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan.

Twenty-three Americans, including Robert Seldon Lady, then a CIA station chief in Milan, and two Italians were convicted in November for the kidnapping. It was the first conviction anywhere in the world involving the CIA's extraordinary renditions program. All Americans were tried in absentia.

During the appeals trial, prosecutor Piero De Petris asked on Thursday that Lady's initial eight year sentence be increased to 10 years in prison.

He also requested the court overrule the previous decision to acquit two other officials: Jeffrey Castelli, the former Rome CIA station chief, and Nicolo Pollari, the former head of the Italian military intelligence. [AP/28October2010] 

Israel PM Offers to trade Freeze for US Spy. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested to US President Barack Obama to free Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in exchange for extending settlement freeze in the West Bank for 60 days, an Israeli news site reported Saturday.

Inian Merkazi ("Central Issues") quoted sources in Washington saying Netanyahu has already made his suggestion. Jonathan Pollard is serving a life term in an American jail after being convicted of espionage and spying for the Israeli state against its closest ally.

It is widely believed that Obama offered Israel certain guarantees in exchange for extending its partial freeze, which expired 26 September. The PLO has said it will not return to talks without a new announcement.

In an editorial, The New York Times argued Friday in an editorial that the offer, which did not mention Pollard's release, was "very generous - too generous, we believe ... It included additional security guarantees and more fighter planes, missile defense, satellites. Mr. Netanyahu still refused," the paper said. [MannaNews/30October2010]

'Chinese Double Agent' Arrested in Taiwan. A senior military intelligence officer has been arrested in Taiwan for being a double agent for China, Taiwan's defense ministry has said.

The agent allegedly passed significant amounts of intelligence to China, potentially endangering the safety of other spies.

The defense ministry said the agent was a senior officer who had been under investigation for the past four years.

He was arrested on Monday on suspicion of selling state intelligence to China.

The defense ministry declined to give further information, but said it had taken measures to limit the damage caused by the officer.

Taiwanese media has reported that he had given China a list of other spies working on the mainland.

One newspaper quoted an unnamed military source as saying the leaks had compromised important Taiwanese intelligence networks in China and that its agents there were now running for their lives.

The officer was working with a Taiwanese businessman gathering intelligence for Taiwan, according to the reports.

That businessman was later arrested, allegedly tortured, and persuaded by China to not only serve as a double agent, but to convince the senior officer to also become a double agent, the reports said.

The senior officer had allegedly received US$100,000 (�62,000) since 2007, when he began forwarding classified information to the businessman, to pass on to China.

The businessman had also been arrested in Taiwan, reports said.

The case surfaced as relations between former rivals Taiwan and China reached their best in 60 years.

But despite closer economic ties in recent years, distrust between the two remains and China still considers Taiwan its territory.

Dozens of Taiwanese spies have been jailed in China in recent years. Many of them were businessmen recruited to gather intelligence for Taiwan. [Sui/BBC/1November2010] 

Internet Boosting Terror, Says Israel's Top Spy. The transformation of the world into a "global village", the Internet as well as additional technology available to the public has made terrorism more lethal in the 21st century, Israel's intelligence chief has warned.

"The terrorist threat in the future has become more complex. The world has turned into a 'global village' and everything is available to everyone. The world is smaller and broader and technology can cross continents," said Yuval Diskin, chief of Israel's internal security agency Shin Bet.

"Technology has made the world smaller and flatter," Diskin said, adding "The availability of technology that has revolutionized economy and communications has also given rise to many global terror opportunities."

Speaking at the first Israeli Homeland Security International Conference, he pointed out that Google Earth, the Internet and applications that can be downloaded to Apple's iPhone were available for terrorists to use and obtain intelligence that they could not receive before.

Diskin also warned that global Jihadi organizations like Al-Qaida today use chat rooms on the Internet to indoctrinate additional operators and instruct them how to perpetuate terrorist attacks.

He said the 21st century could be best characterized by the fact that terrorists do not feel limited and are ready to carry out "mega terror attacks".

However, the Israeli internal security head asserted that it is possible to fight terror successfully, and even defeat it.

"Success requires a general cooperation between countries and intelligence agencies and the free flow of knowledge, intelligence and homeland security technology, as well as operational cooperation at a high level and the development of a global judicial system," he underlined. [NDTV/2November2010]

US Weighs Options Against Growing Militant Threat in Yemen. US officials on Monday weighed expanding operations in Yemen to hunt down Al-Qaeda extremists, who are blamed for a foiled bomb plot that experts said showed a high degree of sophistication.

The plot, disrupted last week after a crucial tip from Saudi Arabia, put the spotlight on US efforts to help Sanaa battle Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen, amid speculation Washington might opt to step up missile strikes and covert operations.

The Central Intelligence Agency and other spy services managed to prevent the attempted attack after acting on the Saudis' information, but officials remained anxious about Al-Qaeda finding fertile ground in Yemen's impoverished, tribal landscape.

"The intelligence community has been increasing its focus on Yemen and, for obvious reasons, this will continue to be the case," a US official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Wall Street Journal reported that President Barack Obama's administration was considering placing under CIA authority elite "hunter-killer" special operations teams that would operate secretly in the country to track and kill Al-Qaeda leaders.

Shifting to a more covert strategy would allow Washington to move faster against suspected targets and enable Sanaa to deny knowledge of the strikes, but the approach risked triggering a popular backlash in Yemen.

The Pentagon, however, strongly denied the report.

"There is nobody in a leadership position in the Defense Department who's given any serious consideration to the proposal outlined in that article," spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.

The US military currently oversees a 155-million-dollar program to bolster Yemen's counterterrorism campaign, providing helicopters, equipment and training by US special forces - as well as widely reported missile strikes against militants.

"We work very closely with the government of Yemen on our assistance with respect to counterterrorism activities," Whitman said.

But he added: "You're not going to get me to talk about covert operations."

To undermine Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, the United States has dramatically expanded a CIA bombing campaign using unmanned aircraft, and analysts have suggested Obama might opt for a similar approach in Yemen.

Given public resentment of US policies, operations against Al-Qaeda in Yemen are a sensitive subject among US officials, who tend to downplay the American role there.

Some commentators warned against relying on US military assistance in Yemen and urged more development aid to prevent the country from becoming a "failed state."

"Too much attention devoted, for example, to more military assistance, or to allowing the CIA to operate its drone programme in the country, is likely to inflame the internal tensions that attracted Al-Qaeda in the first place," Chris Boucek, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in the Financial Times.

Yemen meanwhile announced a security crackdown on cargo shipments after it appeared the powerful explosives addressed to Chicago area synagogues may have flown on two passenger planes and been intended to blow them up.

A former CIA officer warned that the explosives found last week by authorities in Britain and Dubai reflected an unprecedented degree of know-how among the militants.

"It's too early to panic, but we should seriously start wondering whether the bombs found on airplanes in Dubai and Britain are signs of a new, more dangerous wave of terrorism," wrote author Robert Baer, a former spy.

"These bombs have the hallmark of a higher degree of professionalism than we've ever seen come out of Al-Qaeda. If Al-Qaeda indeed made them, they've teamed up with true professionals," he wrote on Time's website. [DeLuce/AP/1November2010] 

C.I.A. Role Is Faulted in Air Crash Over Peru. Central Intelligence Agency officers involved with a secret counternarcotics mission in the Peruvian jungle routinely violated agency procedures, tried to cover up their mistakes, and misled Congress immediately after a missionary plane was accidentally shot down in 2001, according to a blistering C.I.A. internal report released on Monday.

The declassified 2008 report by John L. Helgerson, then the C.I.A.'s inspector general, documents a culture of negligence and deceit inside the C.I.A. program in Peru. The report also details a pattern of C.I.A. stonewalling that included keeping results of a C.I.A. review of the 2001 downing of the plane from the White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The 2001 episode, which resulted in the killing of an American missionary and her infant daughter, occurred when C.I.A. officers misidentified the missionary plane as a drug-smuggling aircraft and ordered the Peruvian military to shoot it down. The missionary's husband, their son and the pilot survived. Parts of Mr. Helgerson's report were released in 2008, so the broad conclusions of the Peru investigation were already known.

But the full 300-page report paints a detailed portrait of the troubled covert program.

The report concluded that top C.I.A. officers misled members of Congress when they portrayed the April 2001 episode as an anomaly in an otherwise well-run program, and that C.I.A. lawyers repeatedly intervened with Justice Department officials to prevent prosecutions in the case.

The report also said that the spy agency had concealed internal findings from victims of the downing of the plane and their relatives, who had sued the government.

"The U.S. government paid $8 million to the victims based on C.I.A.'s assertion that the missionary shootdown had been an aberration in a program that otherwise had complied with presidentially mandated procedures," the report said.

The C.I.A.'s counternarcotics program based deep in the Amazon forest of Peru was begun by President Bill Clinton in 1994 to assist the Peruvian Air Force, which had the authority to intercept or shoot down planes that did not comply with orders to land.

Mr. Helgerson's investigation found that C.I.A. officers had violated established procedures in most of the 14 downings of planes in Peru before the April 2001 episode.

"CIA officers knew of and condoned most of these violations," the report read, "fostering an environment of negligence and disregard for procedures."

The Justice Department in 2005 declined to prosecute any of the C.I.A. officers involved in the missionary case. But the 2008 inspector general's report found evidence that some C.I.A. officials had deliberately withheld information about the case from federal investigators.

Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment on whether the department had reopened an inquiry into the matter.

The report concluded that the C.I.A. officers' "failure to provide adequate oversight and report violations precluded a policy review and a possible change of course that could have prevented the shootdown of April 2001."

A C.I.A. press release on Monday said that Leon E. Panetta, the spy agency's director, meted out administrative penalties to 16 current and retired officers in December.

In a statement, Mr. Panetta said the spy agency was now "moving forward - focused, as always, on conducting strong, effective intelligence operations to keep America safe."  [Mazetti/NYTimes/2November2010]

Growing Support for CIA Control of Special Forces. Support is growing in the US military and administration of President Barack Obama for shifting to the CIA operational control over elite special forces teams secretly in Yemen, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Citing unnamed officials, the newspaper said the foiled mail bombing plot by suspected Al-Qaeda militants in Yemen has added urgency to an administration review of expanded military options.

Officials said such a shift would allow the United States to strike suspected militant targets unilaterally with greater stealth and speed, the report said.

Allowing US Special Operations Command units to operate under the Central Intelligence Agency would also give the United States greater leeway to strike without the explicit blessing of the Yemeni government, the paper said.

In addition to streamlining the launching of strikes, it would allow the Yemeni government deniability because the CIA operations would be covert, The Journal said.

The White House is already considering adding armed CIA drones to the arsenal against militants in Yemen, the paper said. [AP/2November2010] 

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Sir John Sawers: Profile of MI6 Chief. Sawers, 55, is a career diplomat who has previously been the ambassador to the United Nations, the Foreign Office's political director, and also worked as an envoy in Baghdad and as foreign affairs adviser to former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Born in Warwick in 1955, Sir John attended City of Bath Boys' School, where he became deputy head boy, before studying physics and philosophy at Nottingham and St Andrews universities.

A keen academic, he also attended the universities of Witwatersrand in South Africa and Harvard in the US.

Announcing his appointment, Downing Street referred to him "rejoining" MI6 but gave no further details of his former career as a spy which reportedly began in the late 1970s and involved him serving in Yemen and in Syria.

Between 1999 and 2001 he was involved in the Kosovo conflict and Northern Ireland peace process while he worked as foreign policy adviser to Tony Blair.

He has also worked in the British Embassy in Washington, as an ambassador to Cairo and in South Africa from 1988 and 1991 as apartheid was ending.

Sir John was the UK's special envoy to Iraq from May to July 2003.

He has been a permanent representative to the UN since 2007 and he has a strong relationship with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

The father of three grown-up children is a keen athlete who enjoys hiking, tennis and cycling.

Personal photographs posted by his wife Shelley on Facebook showing Sir John on a beach in swimming trunks were hastily withdrawn shortly after his appointment as MI6 Chief was announced in June 2009.

David Miliband, then foreign secretary, was forced to defend the appointment amid complaints that Sir John's safety had been compromised.

In July this year it was revealed that he received a salary of between �165,000 and �169,999 last year. [Roberts/Telegraph/28October2010] 

Hitler Planned to Hold Out in Austrian Alps, Allied Intelligence Indicated. Allied military intelligence indicated Adolf Hitler had built an underground Alpine fortress to house "the elite of Nazi Germany" in a desperate, final stand in World War II, according to documents released today.

Intelligence reports from 1944 and 1945, the last two years of the war, suggested that leading Nazis would seek refuge from an allied invasion of Germany in a vast underground network of tunnels and caves in a "Nazi National Redoubt" hidden within the Austrian Alps, the secret files published by the U.K.'s National Archives in London showed.

The hideout was believed to have enough capacity, food and munitions to supply about 60,000 men for two years, according to the files. The reports described those who would take refuge there as "war criminals," "Nazi fanatics" and "those with nothing to lose."

History proved the intelligence wrong. As the war approached its climax and Russian troops bore down on Berlin, Hitler remained in the German capital, refusing to flee the city for the south. The Nazi leader committed suicide in his bunker on April 30, 1945, and Germany capitulated a week later.

From their hideout, the Nazis would coordinate resistance groups worldwide, using propaganda, sabotage and bribery, while the Nazis had established specialist training schools to prepare soldiers for mountain warfare, the intelligence indicated.

"The chief importance of the reduit will be as a center for directing the activities of the pro-Nazi and fascist elements in all European countries, and particularly Germany," the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, said in the files.

"A small number of politically minded overoptimists" were relying on ideological and commercial differences between the Allies and their continuing war against Japan to cause the assault on Germany to falter, the document said. Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, was a prime example of those who believed that the redoubt had a chance of success. [Spillane/Bloomberg/28October2010]

ABC Film Looks at Petrov Affair. MARK COLVIN: For decades the names of Philby, Burgess and Maclean have been bywords for treachery, spies for Britain's MI6 who were really double agents for the Soviet Union. But we still don't know the names of the mole or moles who infiltrated Australia's counter-intelligence organization ASIO probably from the early '60s onwards.

ASIO's head at the time Sir Charles Spry is now known to have believed that his organization had been infiltrated. The Hope royal commission of the mid-70s reached the same conclusion. Yet no mole was ever named.

That's one of the revelations in a film to screen on ABC TV on Thursday evening which centers on the life of the ASIO chief Sir Charles Spry. I, Spry, as it's called, also uses extensive access to documents that have become available in the last two years to show that the Petrov affair in which two Soviet diplomats defected to Australia was a genuine intelligence coup not just for this country but for all the Western intelligence agencies.

The film's maker Peter Butt also tracked down a central but profoundly ambiguous figure in the Petrov Affair, a mysterious woman called Lydia Mokras. How did he find her?

PETER BUTT: By scanning ASIO documents I came across a woman by the name of Lydia Mokras. And I expected she would have long since passed away. But in those documents was the name of a person who will remain anonymous who I tracked down living only a few streets away from me.

I called him up. I said I was interested in Lydia. And he told me that she was still alive and he said he could put me in touch with her. And after about two or three months of negotiation she finally gave me an interview and put me right at the heart of the Petrov affair.

MARK COLVIN: We still can't see her face of course although we can see an actress playing her in the reconstructions. She still doesn't want it known that she was this person.

PETER BUTT: Understandably. I think she lives in a tight community and people could misread her role in this affair. She has a very interesting story way back from her time in the Soviet intelligence.

MARK COLVIN: So she was in the KGB before she came to Australia.

PETER BUTT: It was called the MKVD which was a precursor to the KGB, according to ASIO files. Whether she agrees with what's in the ASIO files is another thing.

MARK COLVIN: And yet she became trusted by ASIO?

PETER BUTT: I think she was always suspected by ASIO as being KGB and the reverse. Petrov actually made an investigation into her. And the KGB said that they'd never heard of her. Whether that was because she had another name or she was operating for them we don't know.

MARK COLVIN: But this suspected KGB agent agreed to let ASIO plant a bug in her flat.

PETER BUTT: Absolutely. I don't think she had much choice. When Sir Charles Spry turned up at her doorstep.

MARK COLVIN: With whisky and oysters.

PETER BUTT: Yes exactly the same fare that Petrov was supplied during his defection, she met him three times. They sat down. They discussed life, the universe and everything including his family. And then finally Spry said, you're friends with certain people, people we're investigating, and we would like to plant a bug in your bedroom - hoping obviously to get pillow talk.

MARK COLVIN: And they didn't.

PETER BUTT: They didn't because the person of interest had a secret life which ASIO had failed to pick up on even though they'd been investigating him for nine years.

MARK COLVIN: So it's a very, very complex landscape. Is ASIO at this period an efficient intelligence agency?

PETER BUTT: Everybody would have a different opinion of that. People within ASIO probably would like to answer, like that question answered themselves.

The Petrov affair was a great boost for ASIO's morale. But after that point things certainly started to disintegrate. And that's what I found during the research of the film.

MARK COLVIN: What happens in the '60s?

PETER BUTT: Well in the '60s there is a major case called the Skripov case which is the first secretary of the Soviet embassy takes on a woman to become their courier, basically picking up parcels from dead letter drops in cemeteries and under stairs at Woolloomooloo. But basically this woman is working for ASIO. And they think they've got a big case to fly ASIO's flag on, another Petrov affair. They're going to capture this guy doing dastardly things.

But the whole case goes wrong. And from that point on people withinside of ASIO start to believe that there is a mole. Why did this case go bad and why are many other cases going bad, right at the last moment? And the royal commission in the 1970s found this too.

MARK COLVIN: So Sir Charles Spry believed there was a mole. Everybody in ASIO believed there was a mole. The Hope royal commission in the mid-70s believed there was a mole. But we still don't know who that mole was.

PETER BUTT: We don't know who that mole was but we do know its effect. It kind of crippled ASIO's counter-espionage abilities. I believe that nothing eventuated of any merit after that point.

MARK COLVIN: Do you think that this mole was feeding stuff back to the KGB?

PETER BUTT: Well look it's still a big question. We don't know. It could have just been an idea that was planted inside of ASIO.

MARK COLVIN: And the KGB archives have closed down again basically.

PETER BUTT: That's right.

MARK COLVIN: Briefly opened after the end of the Cold War.

PETER BUTT: That's right. The Australian desk I guess is still blacked out. We don't know what was in the KGB files that were taken to MI5 near the end of the Cold War. Prime minister Keating I believe actually didn't want those files released. No one knows what's in them.

The Australian newspaper in its editorial many months ago asked for those files to be released or at least told what's in it. It may be to do with the mole. We don't know. But something happened here.

The rest of the world we know about - what happened between the KGB and intelligence services in other countries. But we don't know what happened here in Australia.

MARK COLVIN: Peter Butt, the maker of I, Spry, which screens on ABC1 on Thursday night. And you can hear a 15-minute version of that interview on our website from this evening. [ABC/2November2010]

Britain's M16 Operates a Bit Differently Than CIA. "The most draining aspect of my job is reading, every day, intelligence reports describing the plotting of terrorists who are bent on maiming and murdering people in this country."

Those words, spoken last week, come from the first public speech given by a director of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. Instead of Dame Judi Dench, who plays the role in James Bond films, Sir John Sawers, the real director of the legendary 101-year-old spy service, appeared before the Society of Editors in London. Early in his career, Sawers was an MI6 operative in the Middle East.

It's worth looking at his precise presentation for its similarities and differences with what CIA Director Leon Panetta might say in a similar circumstance.

While the U.S. intelligence community is made up of 16 agencies, including CIA and those in the Pentagon, "three specialized services form the [United Kingdom] intelligence community," said Sawers, 55, a Foreign Service diplomat. He listed MI5, which is a domestic service somewhat like the FBI; and GCHQ, the government's electronic eavesdropping agency, which is much like the Pentagon-based National Security Agency. Each also has the lead in the cyber world. Sawers' own service, like the CIA, operates outside the British homeland, gathering information primarily from human sources.

British Defense Intelligence remains inside its Defense Ministry and under the chief of defense intelligence, normally a three-star general. He coordinates intelligence gathering and analysis for all the military services. Sawers made clear, however, that in Afghanistan his operatives "provide tactical intelligence that guides military operations and saves our soldiers' lives."

Most different from the United States is management of Britain's MI6. Where the CIA "reports" to the director of national intelligence, the agency takes direction from the White House through the National Security Council, although the president, himself, must authorize its covert operations.

MI6 "does not choose what it does," Sawers said. Under a 1994 law, cabinet ministers who make up the British National Security Council "tell us what they want to know, what they want us to achieve ... [and] we take our direction from the National Security Council," which is chaired by the prime minister. Other permanent members are the deputy prime minister, the chancellor of the exchequer, the secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs, the home secretary, the secretary of state for defense, the secretary of state for international development and the security minister.

Individually, Sawers said, "I answer directly to the foreign secretary," unlike the CIA's Panetta. MI6 submits plans for operations to the foreign secretary and "he approves most, but not all, and those operations he does not approve do not happen."

"When our operations require legal authorization or entail political risk, I seek the foreign secretary's approval in advance. If a case is particularly complex, he can consult the attorney general," Sawers said.

The three British intelligence agencies in the next five years "will see us intensifying our collaboration to improve our operational impact and to save money," Sawers said. "Yes, even the intelligence services have to make savings," he added, reflecting another issue in common with the Americans.

Oversight of the U.S. intelligence community is done within both the executive and legislative branches. There is the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, a group of up to 16 members appointed from outside the federal government, who are given assignments by the White House, and there are also inspectors general within the intelligence agencies.

On Capitol Hill, the House and Senate intelligence committees provide oversight but other panels can investigate when intelligence operations fall under their jurisdiction.

In Britain oversight is performed both by members of Parliament and by judges. There is the single Intelligence and Security Committee, now chaired by Conservative Party member Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron. The committee traditionally includes other senior politicians, many of them former ministers. "They hold us to account and can investigate areas of our activity," Sawers said.

In addition, two former judges have full access to MI6 files, as intelligence commissioner and interception commissioner. "They make sure our procedures are proper and lawful," Sawers said.

As with U.S. intelligence, terrorism is central for the British services. "Over one-third of SIS resources are directed against international terrorism," Sawers said, making it "the largest single area of SIS's work." MI6 tries to penetrate terrorist groups.

There are other ways in which the countries' two agencies differ. Like the CIA, MI6 has a website, but while the U.S. agency site is only in English, MI6's is also in Arabic, Russian, French, Spanish and Chinese. Another sign of British sophistication: while the CIA site has games and quizzes for kids, the MI6 site gives short tests to allow potential recruits to assess their analytical and administrative skills.

Sawers spoke of matters that I doubt Panetta would include. Based on his experience in the Islamic world, he spoke out on ways to combat terrorism that fell into the policy field. For example, he talked about countries in the Middle East "moving to a more open system of government ... one more responsive to people's grievances" as one way to curtail the growth of terrorists. He then added this bit of advice to policymakers: "But if we demand an abrupt move to the pluralism that we in the West enjoy, we may undermine the controls that are now in place, and terrorists would end up with new opportunities."

His look into the future was more characteristic of intelligence chiefs. "Whatever the cause or causes of so-called Islamic terrorism, there is little prospect of it fading away soon," he said. [Pincus/WashingtonPost/2November2010] 

Section III - COMMENTARY

Seymour Hersh on the Rhetoric and Reality of 'Cyber War' by Alexis Madrigal. The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh has one of his classic deep investigations in this week's issue. His topic this time is "cyber war," or at least the packet of behaviors by foreign governments that are sometimes classed under that heading.

While the article feels a tiny bit diffuse to me, you can't help but come away from it feeling like the idea we'd battle another country in cyberspace is mostly a useful fiction for the military establishment. If we're at war, they get to control the nation's cyber security apparatus, and all its attendant turf and riches. And bonus: if we are in a cyber war, the less able and likely we are to fight for our civil liberties and privacy online.

The story is well worth your time. I excerpt the incredibly compelling anecdote that begins the piece about a National Security Agency spy plane captured and (apparently) reverse engineered by the Chinese. You'll have to read to the end to find out the surprising coda to the story.

On April 1, 2001, an American EP-3E Aries II reconnaissance plane on an eavesdropping mission collided with a Chinese interceptor jet over the South China Sea, triggering the first international crisis of George W. Bush's Administration. The Chinese jet crashed, and its pilot was killed, but the pilot of the American aircraft, Navy Lieutenant Shane Osborn, managed to make an emergency landing at a Chinese F-8 fighter base on Hainan Island, fifteen miles from the mainland. Osborn later published a memoir, in which he described the "incessant jackhammer vibration" as the plane fell eight thousand feet in thirty seconds, before he regained control.

The plane carried twenty-four officers and enlisted men and women attached to the Naval Security Group Command, a field component of the National Security Agency. They were repatriated after eleven days; the plane stayed behind. The Pentagon told the press that the crew had followed its protocol, which called for the use of a fire axe, and even hot coffee, to disable the plane's equipment and software. These included an operating system created and controlled by the N.S.A., and the drivers needed to monitor encrypted Chinese radar, voice, and electronic communications. It was more than two years before the Navy acknowledged that things had not gone so well. "Compromise by the People's Republic of China of undestroyed classified material...is highly probable and cannot be ruled out," a Navy report issued in September, 2003, said.

The loss was even more devastating than the 2003 report suggested, and its dimensions have still not been fully revealed. Retired Rear Admiral Eric McVadon, who flew patrols off the coast of Russia and served as a defense attach� in Beijing, told me that the radio reports from the aircraft indicated that essential electronic gear had been dealt with. He said that the crew of the EP-3E managed to erase the hard drive - "zeroed it out" - but did not destroy the hardware, which left data retrievable: "No one took a hammer." Worse, the electronics had recently been upgraded. "Some might think it would not turn out as badly as it did, but I sat in some meetings about the intelligence cost," McVadon said. "It was grim." [TheAtlantic/27October2010] 

Federal Workers, Start Your Networking Engines, by Derrick Dortch. Washington is a networking town. No news there. But when you're looking for a job, no matter where you live, networking has to be a big part of your tool kit.

As I've said many times, success is about what you know - and who you know.

With President Obama's hiring reform mandate, networking is about to become even more important in the federal job market. That's because the hiring initiatives include a greater focus on managers and supervisors.

The presidential memorandum states: "Managers and supervisors with responsibility for hiring are to be more fully involved in the hiring process, including planning current and future workforce requirements, identifying the skills required for the job, and engaging actively in the recruitment and, when applicable, the interviewing process."

Indeed, there has always been some involvement from managers and supervisors in the hiring process, but now it's being ordered by the president. That's good news for federal job seekers and federal employees trying to make career moves.

It means that if you can get your resume in the hands of a manager and they are impressed, it could open the door to an interview and possibly a job.

Your federal career success tool kit should include more than an online resume that you use to apply on USAJOBS, AVUECENTRAL and so on. You also need a "Targeted Networking Resume," as well as what I call a "Targeted Presentation Style Resume" for when agencies ask that a resume be faxed, e-mailed, snail mailed or hand-delivered.

Your targeted networking resume should be a two- to four-page resume geared toward the agencies of your interest. It should include your relevant success stories, skills, experience and education. Use this resume strategically in your federal job search.

If you are in a big city, there is no excuse not to network. There are too many opportunities to do so. I know some people are not comfortable with networking, but you must do it.

Get involved in associations tied to your career interests. Many will have government employees, and some have groups that specifically represent federal workers.

If you are interested in the intelligence field, for example, the Association of Former Intelligence Officers has great programs and speakers from agencies and companies focused on intelligence. There is also the National Military Intelligence Association and the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals. That's just a few. Most have memberships for students and other interested individuals.

Also, use your college or university alumni database to seek out those already working in your interested field. Then use your networking resume and a letter to get in contact. Your alma mater may even have an alumni career counselor on staff to help.

Don't forget social networking, of course. Sites such as GovLoop.com and GovCentral.com are great. They aren't the only places, but they are two of the more popular ones.

Still, there's nothing like face-to-face contact. Attend events where federal agency representatives are speaking. Check agency Web sites for event announcements. You'll find feds speaking everywhere, from think tanks to college campuses. Give your targeted resume to recruiters at career fairs. I know many people hate career fairs, but the right strategy and the right self-marketing materials can yield results.

Networking is about building good relationships. It's not about forcing yourself on anyone. It's not always easy to hand over a resume to an unsuspecting person. But you can't be afraid to do so if an opportunity presents itself. Of course, you have to be the judge of when it's appropriate. If there is a window to give your resume to an official, then do it. If not, get contact information and send it later.

Build the relationship. Let the person know you are interested in government service or moving to another agency. Then ask if you could sit down with them to get their advice. Attach your resume as a point of reference.

Given the fact that managers and supervisors are now required to be more involved in recruitment, it could be very helpful if they are impressed with you. Federal agencies will soon receive their appropriation dollars so many will be trying to fill positions quickly. This is the perfect time to implement your networking strategy.

Get on it! [Dortech/WashingtonPost/27October2010] 

Afghan Peace Solution, by Arnaud de Borchgrave. America's 17 intelligence agencies have spent more than half a trillion dollars - more than $500,000,000,000 - since 9/11, most of it on the global war on terror, and the Obama administration still believes that if Taliban supremo Mullah Mohammad Omar Akhund were to return to power in Kabul, al-Qaida would be back too - "in a heartbeat." And this despite much evidence to the contrary.

Recent weeks have produced a number of reports about "negotiations" between some Taliban elements and the Kabul government as well as with U.S. and NATO intermediaries. There were contacts but no negotiations and none of the Taliban participants was authorized to speak on behalf of the reclusive and secretive Mullah Omar, in hiding since the U.S. invasion collapsed his regime in October 2001.

Judging from Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke's appearance on Fareed Zakaria's "GPS" program this past Sunday, there is still little knowledge of what has been in the public domain since June 14, 2001.

UPI consultant Ammar Turabi, a Pakistani-born American, and this reporter sat cross-legged on the carpeted mud floor of Omar's Spartan adobe house on the west end of Kandahar and listened to the reclusive war leader's list of complaints about Osama bin Laden.

The world's most wanted terrorist - and the scion of a wealthy Saudi family - was expelled from Sudan under Western pressure in 1996 and decided to return to the country of his wartime exploits against the Soviet Union. Omar, still consolidating his civil war victory, was paid handsomely by bin Laden, who then began setting up terrorist training camps. But it soon became apparent that bin Laden was overplaying his hand.

The 1998 terrorist bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania had been planned while bin Laden was living in Khartoum. But the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden harbor was clearly planned from Afghanistan.

The $10,000 authorization for the Aden attack - which killed 17 U.S. sailors and caused $250 million worth of damage to the $1 billion warship - was found in Kabul when it was liberated.

The ideological and personality differences between the two leaders have long been misunderstood. Taliban is an indigenous movement made up of mostly ethnic Pashtuns, midwifed by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency to put an end to the civil war and fill a vacuum left by the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan in February 1989.

Mullah Omar consolidated his power with the title of Amir-ul-Mumineen (Supreme Commander of the Faithful) in the "Islamic Emirate" of Afghanistan, a medieval theocratic dictatorship and pitiless inquisition that deprived women of all rights - except to stay home to cook and take care of the children and to go to market covered head to foot in a burqa.

Omar and his immediate entourage made clear to Turabi, a multi-linguist, and me that any fatwa issued by bin Laden declaring jihad, or holy war, was "null and void." He explained bin Laden hadn't completed his 12 years of mandatory Koranic studies to qualify for the position of mufti.

The Afghan supreme leader also told us bin Laden isn't allowed any contact with the media or foreign government representatives. And bin Laden himself had finally sworn fealty to Omar in a statement published in April 2001, two months before our trip - "Amir-ul-Mumineen is the ruler and legitimate Amir who is ruling by the Shariah of Allah."

Bin Laden, the ambitious global braggadocio, was not what Mullah Omar the recluse had in mind. Some intermarriage between the two families was arranged. Between the two leaders, it was a shotgun wedding. Omar resented the worldwide publicity bin Laden was getting from invited foreign journalists, including CNN's Peter Bergen, from 1996 through 1999, and warned him to cut it out.

The one-eyed, 6-foot-6, five times wounded guerrilla leader against the Soviet occupation made clear to us the Taliban regime would like to "resolve or dissolve" the bin Laden issue. In return, he expected the United States to establish a dialogue to work out an acceptable solution that would lead to "an easing and then lifting of U.N. sanctions that are strangling and killing the people of the Emirate."

Afghanistan , according to Omar's entourage, has suggested to the United States (via the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan) and to the United Nations that international "monitors" keep bin Laden under observation pending a resolution of the case, "but so far we have received no reply."

Aides said they had also informed the United States they were putting bin Laden on trial for his alleged crimes and requested that evidence be presented. The court allegedly sat for 30 days without evidence being presented against bin Laden. It extended its hearing for another 10 days, according to the same aides, to give the U.S. side time to act. But nothing materialized, said the aides.

Bin Laden, for his part, swore on the Koran he had nothing to do with the terrorist bombings in Kenya, Tanzania and Aden and that he isn't responsible for what others do who claim to know him.

All our interlocutors kept telling us "the Koran forbids the taking of the lives of women, children and old people in strife, conflict and war." Omar said the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which the United States says bin Laden ordered, are "criminal acts and the perpetrators are criminals and should be so judged."

It would be interesting to know whether U.S. President Barack Obama ever read what Mullah Omar had to say three months before 9/11. In his interview with Zakaria last Sunday, it became clear Holbrooke hadn't. Unknown, too, is the Saudi link with Omar.

The diplomatic magician who engineered the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords ending the Bosnia war knows from personal experience nothing was possible without the hated Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. This time change Dayton for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. And the late Milosevic for Mullah Omar. Add Pakistan and remove Afghan President Hamid Karzai. And you may get a peace deal that would enable 44 nations involved in Afghanistan to go home.

This is a direct message to this reporter from Mullah Omar. [UPI/deBorchgrave/25October2010]

The CIA And The Encrypted Enterprise, by Jon Oltsik. The international horse show wasn't the only event in Washington DC this week. I participated in the Virtualization, Cloud, and Green Computing event in our nation's capital this week. One of the guest speakers was Ira "Gus" Hunt, CTO at the CIA. If you haven't seen Gus speak, you are missing something. He is very strong on the technical side and extremely energetic and entertaining.

Gus focused on cloud computing activities at the CIA (I'll blog about this soon) but I was intrigued by one of his slide bullets that referred to something he called the "encrypted enterprise." From the CIA's perspective, all data is sensitive whether it resides on an enterprise disk system, lives in a database column, crosses an Ethernet switch, or gets backed up on a USB drive. Because of this, Hunt wants to create an "encrypted enterprise" where the data is encrypted everywhere at all layers of the technology stack.

The CIA is ahead here but ESG hears a similar goal from lots of other highly regulated firms. When will this happen? Unfortunately it may take a few years to weave this together as there are several hurdles to overcome including:

1. An encryption architecture. Before organizations encrypt all their data, they have to understand where the data needs to be decrypted. For example, remote office data could be encrypted when it is sent to the corporate data center but it needs to be decrypted before it can be processed for large batch jobs like daily sales and inventory updates. There is a balancing act between data security and business processes here demanding a distributed intelligent encryption architecture that maps encryption/decryption with business and IT workflow.

2. Key management. Most encryption products come with their own integrated key management system. Many of these aren't very sophisticated and an enterprise with 100s of key management systems can't scale. What's needed is a distributed secure key management service across the network. Think of something that looks and behaves like DNS with security built in from the start. The Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) effort may get us there in the future as it is supported by a who's who of technology vendors including EMC/RSA, HP, IBM, and Symantec, but it is just getting started.

3. Technical experience. How should I encrypt my sensitive Oracle database? I could use Oracle tools to encrypt database columns. I could encrypt an entire file system using Windows EFS or tools from vendors like PGP. I could buy an encrypting disk array from IBM, or I could combine EMC PowerPath software with Emulex encrypting Host-based Adapters (HBAs). Which is best? It depends upon performance needs, hardware resources, and financial concerns like asset amortization. Since there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution here, the entire enterprise market is learning on the fly.

A lot of the technical limitations are being worked on at this point, so the biggest impediment may be based upon people and not technology. We simply don't have a lot of experience here so we need to proceed with research, thought, and caution. To get to Gus Hunt's vision of the "encrypted enterprise," we need things like reference architectures, best practices, and maturity models as soon as possible. Look for service providers like CSC, HP, IBM, and SAIC to offer "encrypted enterprise" services within the next 24 months. [NetworkWorld/29October2010]

What We Can Learn From Saudi Intelligence, by Max Fisher. In late 1979, several hundred armed members of a messianic Islamic cult stormed the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, seizing Islam's holiest site and hundreds of hostages for a siege that lasted two weeks. The cult's brutal terrorist method and its extreme conservative ideology, many tenets of which would later become founding principles of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, marked the beginning of a dangerous new genre of security threat. Though the U.S. considered the gunmen to belittle more than a passing fringe, the Saudi monarchy and its lavishly funded General Intelligence service immediately recognized the siege as a turning point and would spend the next three decades developing one of the world's most sophisticated and effective counterterrorism programs.

From Sept. 11, 2001, when we discovered what the Saudis had known for years, through this week's foiled mail bomb plot, the U.S. has relied heavily on Saudi Arabia's unrivaled intelligence network. There is much we can learn from Saudi counterterrorism practices. While the Saudi government has proven a consistently reliable ally in the fight against al-Qaeda - after all, Osama bin Laden declared he was against the Saudi royalty long before he turned his attention to the U.S. - there's no telling what the future could bring. It's time for U.S. counterterrorism to catch up. Fortunately, we have a good model to follow.

There are three Saudi counterterrorism tools that stand out as especially successful. The first is probably the most obvious but most difficult to replicate: Foreign language speakers who, to put it bluntly, aren't white. U.S. intelligence agencies, owing to understandable concerns about foreign infiltration, have long preferred hiring U.S.-born American citizens over immigrants or foreign nationals, who are frequently used as short-term assets or sources but less commonly integrated into the agency as a whole. But white faces stand out in places like the Middle East, and most American universities teach formal Arabic rather than the many local dialects more commonly used. U.S. intelligence agencies will have to start fielding agents who can blend in and who speak the local language or dialect.

Second is the Saudi program of terrorist rehabilitation, which seeks to reintegrate terrorists back into society by way of counseling, job training, and even financial assistance. The program, which I explored more fully in 2009, not only neutralizes individual terrorists but also seeks to roll back the social causes of their entire movement. Reformed terrorists, once they return to their communities, serve as walking - and, sometimes, proselytizing - arguments against terrorist radicalization or recruitment. Sending a suspected terrorist to Guantanamo or Bagram risks angering his community and inspiring even more militancy.

The third tool, though it has proven invaluable for Saudi counterterrorism, would go against many of the core operating principles of the U.S. intelligence community: don't kill or capture every terrorist we find. Rather than eliminating them one by one, the Saudis monitor suspects, often for years. Sometimes they even work with them, seeking to turn an individual from an enemy into an informant.

This Saudi methodology has proven so much more effective at counterterrorism than the American system because it understands terrorism as a permanent phenomenon - something to be monitored rather than eradicated - and because it prioritizes infiltrating terrorist networks above seizing individual terrorists. At the heart of the American approach is the assumption that terrorism can be eliminated outright. If we could just seize enough al-Qaeda officers or shut down enough funding streams or launch enough drone strikes, the thinking goes, threats could be ended forever. But this approach has proven self-defeating. Extreme Islamic terrorists are ultimately guided by abstract ideology, and though specific networks can be eradicated, the ideas behind them cannot.

In the U.S. model, when we locate a terrorist cell, we capture or kill its members. This only ensures that, another cell will pop up in its place, except this time we won't have as much intelligence on it. In the Saudi model, the network is left preserved so that it can be monitored or one of its members can be turned. In this way, the Saudis not only neutralize that one cell, but any other cells or individuals it comes into contact with. This is how Saudi General Intelligence may have been able, according to sources speaking to the New York Times' Robert Worth, to do what the U.S. has failed to do despite billions of dollars in intelligence spending: infiltrate al-Qaeda itself.

Some central aspects of the Saudi counterterrorism program are not suited for American values or laws. Domestic surveillance is widespread in Saudi Arabia, especially online, and dissidents are regularly jailed without cause or due process. The Kingdom, after all, is an authoritarian monarchy of a severe style no Western nation has endured since before the enlightenment. These are not practices to which the West could or should return. But there is no reason that the Saudis' better ideas could not be built into the already robust U.S. justice system.

The U.S. present enjoys the staunch support of Saudi intelligence for a variety of reasons: we have a common enemy in al-Qaeda and similar groups; the U.S. defends Saudi Arabia with arms sales, a large, in-country U.S. military presence, and the extension of the U.S. nuclear umbrella, to act as a regional bulwark against Iran; and, of course, our oil-fueled economic intertwinement. But the future is uncertain, especially in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia's oil, the exact reserves of which are a closely guarded secret, could run out. U.S.-Iran relations could normalize. Any number of unforeseeable changes could complicate U.S.-Saudi relations. While the Saudi General Intelligence have carried the day in halting this latest, Yemen-based plot against the U.S., reliance on foreign intelligence to protect American national security is neither sustainable nor especially wise in the long-term. [Max Fisher writes primarily about foreign affairs and national security. He previously produced the Atlantic's Food Channel and has written for The New Republic and Conde Nast Traveler.] [Fisher/TheAtlantic/2November2010] 

How to Keep Terrorism Grounded, by Stephen R. Heifetz. Last week our country averted a disaster. Good work by American and foreign intelligence officials pinpointed explosives hidden in packages shipped in Yemen and bound on airplanes for the United States. But we cannot rely on getting such timely, accurate intelligence - it often is simply unavailable - and the episode highlighted a number of problems with our system for screening inbound air cargo.

The Department of Homeland Security has established very good "risk rating" systems to prevent dangerous goods from entering the country. The problem is that these systems are used only for cargo on ships, not for that arriving by air.

For oceangoing cargo, importers and shippers are required to provide substantial data on every container: the country of origin, the location where the container was packed, the seller, the buyer, where on the ship the container is stored and so forth.

The Department of Homeland Security, through its Customs and Border Protection agency, uses this data to generate a risk rating, and any package with a high rating gets substantial additional scrutiny. Sometimes this includes a physical search by foreign security personnel under the guidance of American officials, and in all cases it occurs before the ship even leaves the foreign port. Any package from trouble-ridden Yemen would be seen as a risk and likely would be a target for additional scrutiny.

So why is there no similar system in place for air cargo? There are two parts to the answer: one has to do with Congress and the other with the Department of Homeland Security.

In 2007, Congress passed a law requiring, within three years, physical screening - X-rays, dogs and the like - for all cargo on passenger planes. But the law did nothing to increase security on all-cargo flights like those operated by U.P.S. And while it didn't explicitly ban the use of risk rating, Congress clearly didn't want any shortcuts - it wanted every package checked physically. In effect, lawmakers made the perfect the enemy of the good.

Homeland Security officials had a tough challenge in meeting the Congressional mandate, but in large part they succeeded: by August of this year, 100 percent of cargo on passenger flights within and from the United States was being physically screened. However, only about 65 percent of cargo on passenger planes arriving in the United States from abroad is now subjected to some physical screening, and the percentage is far lower on all-cargo flights.

Some officials insist that we will have 100-percent physical screening for inbound air cargo within a few years. But that is wildly optimistic - we lack authority to force foreign countries to conduct the physical screening mandated by Congress, and many of these countries lack the resources to do it.

And even if we could compel adherence to our screening requirements, that would still not address cargo-only flights, which were untouched by the 2007 law. Given that nearly three-quarters of air cargo is moved by all-cargo flights, a physical screening system for them may not be feasible even inside the United States.

The only practical way to increase the security of inbound air cargo is to rely on a risk rating system rather than a physical screening system. It simply makes sense to decide which packages and flights are most likely to be dangerous, and focus on them. Besides, the information collection and analysis would not even require building new infrastructure or imposing our rules on foreign soil. Homeland security officials already collect electronically most of the data needed for risk analysis of air cargo.

Critically, however, the officials who get this data are from Customs and Border Protection, while the people Congress assigned to handle air cargo screening are from the Transportation Security Administration. The T.S.A. has understandably focused on the physical screening requirements in the 2007 law, because that's what our lawmakers wanted and that's what its employees are trained to do with air passengers and luggage.

Let's hope that last week's close call will convince T.S.A. officials and Congress that universal physical screening is a long way off, and that in the meantime we need a risk-assessment system for air cargo modeled on the one Customs uses for ship-borne containers.

It would take courage for the Homeland Security Department to tell Congress, "We've got to do things a bit differently than you may have had in mind - we're going to use this well-tested risk-rating model." But it would significantly enhance national security. [Stephen R. Heifetz, a lawyer, was the deputy assistant secretary for policy development at the Department of Homeland Security from 2007 to March 2010. [Heifetz/NYTimes/2November2010]

Section IV - LETTERS TO THE EDITORS, OBITUARIES, JOBS, INFORMATION REQUESTS AND COMING EVENTS

Letters to the Editors

Today's Headlines Torn from the Pages of a Vietnam-War Spy Novel By Mark T. Hooker. The title for The New York Times article on Director Panetta's briefing about the investigation of the suicide bombing at the CIA base in Khost reads "Officer Failed to Warn C.I.A. Before Attack." The after-action report on the Khost bombing revealed that a CIA officer in Amman failed to pass on warnings about the bomber from the Jordanian service, because he suspected that the Jordanian source of the information was jealous of the case officer handling Balawi, and might have been trying to scuttle the operation.

The New York Times article concludes that, "Some of these failures mirror other lapses that have bedeviled the sprawling intelligence and antiterrorism community in the past several years, despite numerous efforts at reform."

"The past several years" is longer ago than it at first seems. The scenario leading to the intelligence failure of Khost is essentially the same as the one in an underappreciated novel of the intelligence war in Vietnam on the eve of the Tet Offensive in 1968. Former CIA officer John Cassidy published A Station in the Delta over thirty years ago in 1979. In this novel, a CIA Provincial Officer has predictive information about the upcoming Tet Offensive, but his boss at Region refuses to release the report because the information contradicts what they are hearing from a high-level source being run by the Station in Saigon, and because the boss has a certain personal animosity toward the Provincial Officer. The devastation of the Tet Offensive proves the Provincial Officer right and the Station source a part of a disinformation campaign.

Cassidy calls sitting on information "the cardinal intelligence sin." (p. 184) Cassidy's Provincial Officer continues that, "It's the history of the intelligence business. We never seem to have the effect we ought to have, and half the time it's because we don't have the information, and the rest of the time it's because we've got information and nobody believes it." (p. 307) When the ROIC finally sees the information, he tells the officer who sat on it, 'You've got all the elements necessary here for the customer to study the information and judge for himself. And yet you interposed your own judgment that it is false, and stopped it cold. . If the information turns out to be true, you're going to spend the rest of your career running errands in headquarters, unless they decide to fire you." (pp. 310-311)

It might be time for those working in Afghanistan to dust off a copy of A Station in the Delta, and see what other parallels and lessons it has for the unconventional war being waged in a country with a non-European culture and a difficult, less-commonly-taught language, where the insurgents are supplied and safe-havened from across the border of a neighboring country (Cambodia/Pakistan).

Institutional memory is not just made up of official histories. Somerset Maugham's novel Ashenden (1928) and Compton Mackenzie's novel Water on the Brain (1933) were both once used as training manuals for those new to intelligence work. The time might be right to add Cassidy's novel to the list.

Obituaries

William Broe, Former High-Level CIA Official, Dies at 97. William V. Broe, 97, a CIA officer who rose to become chief of operations in the Western Hemisphere and oversaw the agency's covert missions to destabilize the government of Salvador Allende, Chile's Marxist president, died of congestive heart failure Sept. 28 at a nursing home in Hingham, Mass. He was a resident of North Scituate, Mass.

Mr. Broe was an FBI special agent before joining the fledgling CIA in 1948. He held many assignments in the Far East as he worked his way up the organizational ranks. He was station chief in Toyko before becoming chief of the Western Hemisphere division in 1965.

He held that job for seven years, during which time the division conducted clandestine operations in South America. Many of its efforts were a response to government concerns about the possible spread of communism and Soviet influence.

In March 1973, Mr. Broe made headlines after his "unprecedented" appearance before Senate investigators looking into CIA activities in South America. Specifically, the investigators were interested in the agency's alleged collaboration with International Telephone and Telegraph to interfere in Chilean political affairs.

ITT had worked actively against Allende's election in 1970, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund political opposition. Once Allende was in power, the conglomerate feared its business interests in Chile would be nationalized.

Mr. Broe's testimony marked the first time an active clandestine agent of the CIA spoke on the record for a Senate investigation.

In his testimony, Mr. Broe said that he had met multiple times with ITT Chief Executive Harold Geneen and Senior Vice President Edward Gerrity under direct orders from CIA Director Richard Helms.

Mr. Broe, Geneen and Gerrity discussed employing a coordinated plan between the telecommunications conglomerate and the spy agency to create fiscal instability in Chile.

"There was a thesis," Mr. Broe told the Senate investigators, "that additional deterioration in the economic situation could influence a large number" of voters to push Allende out of office.

The ITT executives also offered to provide the CIA with funding to support an Allende presidential opponent, but Mr. Broe reportedly turned them down.

Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst at the National Security Archive at George Washington University and author of a 2003 book on Chile called "The Pinochet File," said in an interview that Mr. Broe was deeply "involved in operations to thwart" Allende's presidency.

Kornbluh said the CIA's connection and collaboration with ITT was one of the spy agency's biggest blunders because it set in motion the use of corporate money to fund covert U.S. foreign policy.

President Nixon - whose blunt instructions to the CIA on the Chilean situation were to "make the economy scream," according to multiple sources - authorized a number of crippling economic sanctions against the South American country.

The CIA spent millions in Chile on clandestine activities to sow dissension against Allende, including covert funding to one of Chile's widely read newspapers, El Mecurio, to plant stories and propaganda.

After Mr. Broe left his position as Western Hemisphere chief, and after his testimony on ITT, a bloody military coup in late 1973 toppled Allende and installed Gen. Augusto Pinochet in power.

Allende reportedly killed himself instead of surrendering to the military, which had assaulted the presidential palace in an air and ground attack.

In addition to his work in Chile, Mr. Broe also kept his eye on Fidel Castro's Cuba. Kornbluh said one of Mr. Broe's "biggest victories on the Cuban revolution" was the CIA-assisted effort to track down and execute Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Bolivia in 1967.

Mr. Broe spent his last year at the CIA as inspector general and helped prepare and review documents during the Watergate investigation. He retired in 1973.

Mr. Broe was never charged with any wrongdoing for his CIA work. Helms, who also was a witness before the Senate committee, was convicted of perjury for failing to testify fully about the CIA's covert role in Chile. Helms was fined $2,000 and received a suspended two-year prison sentence.

William Vincent Broe was born Aug. 24, 1913, in Amesbury, Mass. He was a 1939 biology and chemistry graduate of Bowdoin College in Maine. In 1942, he joined the FBI, where he specialized in counterintelligence.

In retirement, Mr. Broe served as a treasurer of his church in Cohasset, Mass., and planted roses in his garden.

His wife of 45 years, Jean Causer Broe, died in 1988. Survivors include four daughters, Barbara Burk of Marshall, Va., Kristine Broe of North Scituate, Susan Parmelee of Solon, Ohio, and Bonnie Broe of Scituate Harbor, Mass.; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. [Shapiro/WashingtonPost/26October2010] 

Information Request

Iran's Revolutionary Guard. I am an AFIO member who is writing a book about Iran's Revolutionary Guard (aka the IRGC) and seek to interview, either for attribution or as unnamed source, intelligence officers who have worked operations or cases against the IRGC and Lebanese Hezbollah or other Iranian sponsored groups either overseas or within the United States. Please contact Steve O'Hern at steve.ohern@gmail.com.

Coming Educational Events

EDUCATIONAL EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

MANY Spy Museum Events in November with full details are listed on the AFIO Website at www.afio.com. The titles for some of these are in detail below and online.

1-4 November 2010 - New Orleans, LA - USGIF GEOINT Symposium: A New Era of GEOINT

The U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation event will feature the following speakers: DNI Jim Clapper; VCJCS GEN Hoss Cartwright; USec DHS I&A Caryn Wagner; D/NGA Tish Long; D/NRO Gen (Ret) Bruce Carlson; D/DIA LTG Ron Burgess; DD/NSA Chris Inglis; DUSD(I) Lt Gen Craig Koziol;
DUSD(I) Kevin Meiners; ADDNI Dawn Meyerriecks; J5 USCYBERCOM Maj Gen Suzanne Vautrinot
Over 3,000 attendees and 220 exhibitors are expected, with 100,000 sq ft of exhibit space. The Intelligence Event of the year.
For full information and to register: http://geoint2010.com/

Tuesday, 2 November 2010, 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - Attack on Mumbai: A New Paradigm for Terrorism? - a program at the International Spy Museum.

"One of the gunmen seemed to be talking on a mobile phone even as he used his other hand to fire off rounds." — Nisar Suttar, eyewitness, November 2008
On 26 November 2008, ten highly trained and disciplined men used covert intelligence and off-the-shelf technology to terrorize and immobilize the city of Mumbai, killing 166 people and wounding over 300. The attackers were able to effectively overwhelm the Mumbai police and Indian security forces utilizing integrated tactics, superior weaponry, and sophisticated covert communications that provided their Pakistani handlers with "real time" command and control as events unfolded. This change in tactics has presented a challenge for the West: how can we find ways to defend against similar attacks in the future? H. Keith Melton, renowned intelligence historian, technical advisor to American intelligence agencies, author of Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to Al-Qaeda, and International Spy Museum board member, has thoroughly researched the planning and technology behind the attack. Using videotape of the surviving attacker's confession and intercepts of terrorist voice communications during the assault, he will offer a strategic overview of the attacks and explore the tactical phases, and the use by the terrorists of "commercial off-the-shelf" (COTS) technologies and the Internet. Tickets: $12.50 per person. Seating is limited. Register at www.spymuseum.org

Thursday, 4 November 2010, Noon - 2 pm - Washington, DC - John Bessette on "Diggers, Doughboys, & Brits: The US 27th Division in the First World War" at the Returned Services League of Australia, Washington Chapter.
John Bessette is a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, having flown as a navigator and served as an intelligence officer in the Pentagon and in NATO assignments. He also had a civilian career as an intelligence analyst, retiring from the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1996. His hometown New York National Guard company was at the heart of the battles described in this talk.
Where - Amenities Room, Embassy of Australia, 1601 Massachusetts Ave NW.
NOTE: Valid ID required.
Charge - $15.00, including buffet lunch and sodas. Alcoholic beverages- $2.00 each.
RSVP NLT noon on Wednesday November 3, to David Ward on 202-352-8550 or via e-mail at dmpward@wwdb.org
Attire : Business casual
Parking: There is no parking at the Embassy. There is paid public parking behind and under the Airline Pilots Association (17th and Mass) and at 1500 Mass Ave NW.

On Friday, November 5th, The Institute of World Politics and the Center for Advanced Defense Studies will co-sponsor a book lecture for Operation Dark Heart: Spycraft and Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan - and the Path to Victory with author Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer (Ret). 
The event will be held at The Institute of World Politics, and will begin at 6:00 PM. A reception will follow. Books will be available for purchase at the event. 
Please RSVP to kbridges@iwp.edu by October 29th.

Tuesday, 9 November 2010, 5:30 - 7 pm - Norfolk, VA - AFIO Hampton Roads Speaker's Forum "The Role of an Intelligence Analyst in Busting Colombian Drug Trade"

Guest Speaker: Victor Rosello Army Capabilities Integration Center, TRADOC, Fort Monroe Retired US Army Colonel 06, Military Intelligence.
Location: Tabb Library in York County, Main Meeting Room. Directions or Questions: AFIOhamptonroads@cox.net

10 November 2010, 11:30 am - Scottsdale, AZ - "Islamic Fundamentalism and Extremism" is topic at AFIO Arizona Luncheon Meeting. Special Agent Kim Jensen of the Phoenix FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force will discuss Islamic Fundamentalism and Extremism at this special luncheon being held by the Arizona Chapter. The event runs from 11:30 a.m. and ends at 2 p.m. The event is being held at: McCormick Ranch Golf Club (7505 McCormick Parkway, Scottsdale AZ 85258 ~ Phone 480.948.0260) Our meeting fees will be as follows: $20.00 for AFIO members; $22.00 for guests. For reservations or questions, please email Simone sl@4smartphone.net or simone@afioaz.org or call and leave a message on 602.570.6016.

Saturday, 13 November 2010, 11am - 3pm - Orange Park, FL - North Florida Chapter meets to discuss Iran and Nuclear Power in the late 1970s. Mr. Roger C. Nichols, discusses his observations of Iran during its turbulent time in the late 1970s where he served on behalf of Westinghouse Atomic Power Division. In 1978 he was in Iran as the country manager for
Power Systems to implement sales and construction of nuclear power plants for the Government of Iran. However, the program was terminated in late 1988 due to the departure of the Shah and the return of the Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran and to power.
Chapter Event takes place at the Country Club at Orange Park, Florida.
RSVP to Quiel at qbegonia@comcast.net or call 904-545-9549. before the 1st of November

13 - 20 November 2010 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL - SPYCRUISE to Grand Turks, Turks & Caicos; San Juan, PR; St. Thomas, USVI; and Half Moon Cay, Bahamas - with National Security Speakers Discussing "Current & Future Threats: Policies, Problems and Prescriptions."

SPYCRUISE�: A National Security Educational Lecture/Seminar Series. The CI Centre and Henley-Putnam University are sponsoring a new SpyCruise�, November 13-20, 2010. Join them on the Holland American MS Eurodam as they set sail from Ft. Lauderdale, FL to the Grand Turks, San Juan, St. Thomas and Half Moon Cay in the Caribbean. Speakers include former DCI’s Porter Goss and Gen. Michael Hayden plus many others. AFIO member and retired CIA operations officer Bart Bechtel continues his role as the “SpySkipper.” For more information about this year’s SpyCruise�, go to: http://spytrek.com/spycruise.html. RESERVATIONS: www.DFunTravel.com or call 1-888-670-0008.
Fees for an eight day cruise: $1,199 inside cabin; $1269 Ocean View Cabin; $1449 Verandahs; $1979 Suites. Price includes program, taxes, port charges and gratuities. Colorful brochure here.

16 November 2010, 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - AFRICAN WARS: A Defense Intelligence Perspective - Book Signing at DACOR. DACOR and Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training invites members to a book signing reception for William G. Thom on publication of his book: African Wars: A Defense Intelligence Perspective. Event takes place at 1801 F St NW, Washington. RSVP 202-682-0500 x15 or email prog.coord@dacorbacon.org. Parking $$ available at garages on 18th street. Very limited meter parking on street.

Wednesday, 17 November 2010, 5 pm - by voice conference - The Miami-Dade Chapter of AFIO hosts their Annual Meeting and Elections by telephone conference. These Elections will be for Officers and Directors. The Elective Officers are President, President-Elect, Secretary and Treasurer. All officers and directors must be members of the National organization and be current in dues. All officers must also be directors. There will be no less than 9 directors. We are giving this notice in advance for the 2011 year ( starting January 1, 2011), so that you can be thinking about your role in the leadership for next year. Current President Tom Spencer will not be standing for election either as an officer or a director, since it is time for a change. Please consider becoming an active member of the chapter for a few years, starting 2011. To participate, contact Tom Spencer at trsmiami@aol.com or at 305-790-4715 for details.

18 November 2010, 12:30-2:30pm - Los Angeles, CA - AFIO L.A. Area Chapter Meeting features Deputy Sheriff Jerry Shultz on "CIA and the Phoenix Program."Guest speaker retired Deputy Sheriff Jerry L. Shultz, will speak to us about his nine years in Vietnam and his current responsibilities as a recruiter for the California State Military Reserve. Jerry served four combat tours in Vietnam in the Army and remained in Vietnam for five more years. He was on loan to the CIA for the Phoenix program run by MACV/CORDS and will share with us his experiences in that highly controversial and highly classified project. Meeting will take place on November 18, 12:30-2:30 PM at the LMU campus, refreshments will be served, please RSVP via email AFIO_LA@yahoo.com by no later than November 12, 2010.

Thursday, 18 November 2010, 11:30 am Colorado Springs, CO - The Rocky Mountain Chapter presents Vice President William D. Kappel, Applied Weather Associates, Monument, CO who will speak on Global Warming. Both science and intelligence have to work with incomplete and sometimes contradicting data. How can a valid conclusion be reached with reasonable confidence? The sample topic we will examine is global warming, specifically if it is human induced. A topic, that is controversial, has lots of scientific data and opinion, is either very important for future world stability and security if true but not perceived as true now, or for unnecessary large economic disruption if not true but perceived as true now. To be held at the new location AFA... Eisenhower Golf Course Club House. Please RSVP to Tom VanWormer at robsmom@pcisys.net

Thursday, 18 November 2010, 6:30 pm - "Uneasy Alliance: The CIA and ISI in Pakistan" at the International Spy Museum

"CIA and ISI operatives depend on each other for their lives…" - so says an anonymous senior ISI official, December 2009
As the U.S. hunts down Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, the CIA appears to be working closely with the Pakistan Intelligence Service (ISI). But the two services have a long and rocky history with frequent betrayal by ISI members saying one thing, and aiding the Taliban behind-the-scenes. While the ISI has helped with the capture of Afghan Taliban leaders, some they have released Taliban figures they caught on their own. What is the future of this relationship? Are the CIA and ISI endgames compatible? Join this panel of experts as they explore what's opinions of what's happening on the ground in Pakistan and a few predictions for the future: Farhana Ali, senior lecturer, AFPAK Team, Booz, Allen & Hamilton; Seth Jones, RAND analyst and author of Counterinsurgency in Pakistan; and Shuja Nawaz, director, South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council of the United States.
Fee: Tickets: $12.50 To register, visit www.spymuseum.org

20 November 2010, 2 pm - Kennebunk, ME - The Maine Chapter of AFIO hosts Dr. Ali Ahmida of the Political Science Department, University of New England, speaking on what it means -- to him --to be a practicing Muslim, the significance of the Quran and the practice of Shari'a law. Dr. Ahmida was born in Waddan, Libya. He received a B. A. from Cairo University in Cairo, Egypt and an M. A. and Ph. D. in political science from the University of Seattle, in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Ahmida is an internationally recognized scholar of North African history and politics with a specialty in political theory, comparative politics, and historical sociology. He has authored a number of books as well as many articles and book reviews and has lectured in various U.S., Canadian, European, Middle Eastern and African colleges and universities. Dr. Ahmida lives in Saco, Maine, with his wife and two children. The meeting is open to the public and will be held on November 20, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. at the Community Center, 9 Temple Street, Kennebunkport, ME. For information call 207-967-4298.

Wednesday, 1 December 2010, 6 pm - Las Vegas, NV - "UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities" the topic covered by Dr. John Alexander at AFIO Las Vegas Event. The Roger E. McCarthy, Las Vegas Chapter Meeting will feature John B. Alexander, Ph.D. speaking on "UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities." The event takes place at the Nellis Air Force Base Officers' Club
(Guest names must be submitted to Mary Bentley along with their birth date by 4:00 p.m., Tuesday, November 23rd
For over half a century the intelligence community frequently has been linked to UFOs. This presentation will provide an insider's look at the myths and realities that abound. For many years, Dr. Alexander directed an ad hoc, multiagency study of the subject. Participants, all of whom held TS/SCI clearances, included military officers, IC members, and defense aerospace industry engineers. The investigation led him to many of the most senior officials in the IC as well as the director of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Dr. Edward Teller, Skunk Works president Ben Rich and many others. What they learned was not what they expected. This presentation includes hard and compelling evidence that supports some cases while equally eviscerating many of the popular myths of the true believers and fallacious arguments of skeptics/debunkers. The presentation is based on his book of the same title with foreword by Jacques Vallee, and introduction by aerospace legend Burt Rutan scheduled for release in February, 2011. For further information or to make reservations, email BentleyM@nv.doe.gov or call me anytime at 702-295-1024. We look forward to seeing you!

2 December 2010 - San Francisco, CA - The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts W. Michael Susong, on Global Electronic Crime.
Michael Susong is Director of Information Security Intelligence at Pacific Gas & Electric Company and former CIA Operations officer on the State of the Art of Electronic Crime and Cyber Warfare. The presentation will give a non-technical overview of the global electronic crime players, their tools, techniques and tactics. RSVP and pre-payment required. The meeting will be held at UICC, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco (between Sloat/Wawona): 11:30 AM no host cocktails; noon - luncheon. $25 member rate with advance reservation and payment; $35 non-member. E-mail RSVP to Mariko Kawaguchi (please indicate pot roast or fish): afiosf@aol.com and mail check made out to "AFIO" to: Mariko Kawaguchi, P.O. Box 117578 Burlingame, CA 94011

5 December 2010, 6pm - 9 pm - McLean, VA - NMIA/NMIF Fund-raising Tribute Dinner to NMIA's LTG James A. Williams, USA(Ret).

Fund-raising dinner honors Gen. James Williams with Lifetime Achievement Award for his service to NMIA, the U.S. Army, the nation, etc. Funds raised by event will be used to hold future NMIA/NMIF fund-raising banquets, and to establish an endowment for the National Military Intelligence Foundation so association can continue in the future, and also to give some funds to universities for scholarships. Event fees: 8 guests + advertisement for $7,500; 6 guests + advertisement for $5,000; 4 guests + advertisement for $3,000; 2 guests + advertisement for $1,500; 1 guest + advertisement for $300. $125 for all others. USGov personnel for $100. Checks of any amount welcome to National Military Intelligence Foundation.
RSVP with payments by November 4 to: NMIF Dinner, PO Box 6844, Arlington, VA 22206. Inquiries and replies to William.Arnold@sosiltd.com

8 December 2010 - Ft Lauderdale, FL - The FBI's Infragard invites AFIO members [at no fee] to its conference at Nova Southeastern University. Topic: What makes an effective information security program for a small organization? This program promotes: . Awareness of the importance of need for IT security; . Understanding of IT security vulnerabilities and corrective measures. The interactive discussion will focus on those information security risks facing all small organizations and how those risks can be identified and managed.
Topics will include: . How your data is vulnerable; . What you can lose through an information security breach; . Practical steps to protect your operations; . How to use information security vendors and consultants; . How to evaluate tools and techniques based on your needs
FBI's INFRAGARD conference takes place at Nova Southeastern University. Morning session is about The Convergence of Physical and Information Security. The Afternoon conference is a Computer Security Workshop For Small Organizations.
To attend, contact FBI SA Nelson Barbosa to register at: nelson.barbosa@ic.fbi.gov or call 305-787-6130.
More information at http://www.infragardsfl.org/meetings.html
Location of event: Nova Southeastern University, The Carl DeSantis Building, 3301 College Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 33314
*****AM Session: 10 AM - Noon - Speaking about The Convergence of Physical and Information Security
*****PM Session: 1 PM - 5:00 PM - Computer Security Workshop For Small Organizations: Sponsored by The Small Business Administration
(SBA), National Institute of Standards and Technology(NIST) and InfraGard

Thursday, 9 December 2010, 10:00 am – Washington, DC - Yolande Collected Intelligence on Egypt for Israel - Spy Museum Event.
Yolande Gabai (de Botton), a beautiful, sophisticated Jewish woman from Alexandria, risked her son's life and her own collecting intelligence in Egypt undercover as a reporter for the Palestine Post. Yolande was a courageous woman who loved Egypt and the Arab world, yet fought for the creation of an independent State of Israel.
DISCUSSION WITH SPECIAL GUEST Dan Wolman, Director.
Israel, 2010, video documentary 62 minutes English and Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Dan Wolman DC Premiere
Free! No Registration Required. More information at www.spymuseum.org

Monday 13 December 2010, 5:30 pm - New York, NY - "Status of US Intelligence Capabilities" by former CIA Officer Aris Pappas, is theme of NY Metro Chapter Meeting
Speaker: Aris Pappas, CIA 32 years - Over this period he was an Analyst, Managed Operations, and held other Senior Positions. Now a Senior Director with Microsoft Corporation. Topic: "Status of Our Intelligence Capabilities"
Registration 5:30 PM Meeting 6:00 PM.
Cost $40. Includes three course buffet dinner, cash bar.
Location: Manhattan "3 West Club" 3 West 51st Street
Advance Reservations Required: Email afiometro@yahoo.com or telephone Jerry Goodwin 347-334-1503.

Tuesday, 14 December 2010, 5:30 - 7:30 pm - Hampton, VA - "The Role of an Intelligence Analyst in Busting Colombian Drug Trade" at AFIO Hampton Roads Chapter Speaker's Forum. Victor Rosello speaks to the chapter on "The Role of an Intelligence Analyst in Busting Colombian Drug Trade"
Event location: Army Capabilities Integration Center, TRADOC, Fort Monroe
Retired US Army Colonel 06, Military Intelligence
Tues. 14 DEC, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Tabb Library in York County. Main Meeting Room. For more information or directions contact mwsaunders@cox.net

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

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Weekly Intelligence Notes (WINs) are commentaries on Intelligence and related national security matters, based on open media sources, selected, interpreted, edited and produced for non-profit educational uses by members and WIN subscribers. 

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