Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

'98 Embassy Bomber Is Given Life Without Parole. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first former Guant�namo Bay camp detainee to be tried in the civilian court system, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday for his role in the 1998 bombings of two United States Embassies in East Africa.

The nearly simultaneous attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed 224 people and wounded thousands.

Mr. Ghailani, 36, was convicted on Nov. 17 of a single count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property, while being acquitted of more than 280 charges of murder and conspiracy.

But the many acquittals seemed to carry little weight with the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court, who, before imposing the sentence, said that "Mr. Ghailani knew and intended that people would be killed as a result of his own actions and the conspiracy he joined."

The judge rejected the defense's request for a lesser sentence, saying "the very purpose of the crime was to create terror by causing death and destruction."

Mr. Ghailani, in the six years that the government says that he was a fugitive after the attacks, trained in Afghanistan with Al Qaeda, and later became a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. He was captured in 2004 after a 14-hour gun battle with Pakistani authorities.

The Ghailani case had been seen as test of the Obama administration's stated goal of trying Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other detainees in federal court, a plan that was stalled in the face of strong local and Congressional opposition. The jury's verdict seemed only to intensify that debate, with critics pointing to acquittals as evidence of the risks involved in trying such detainees in the civilian system.

But in the end, Mr. Ghailani received the same maximum life sentence, without parole, that he would have faced had he been convicted of all counts; and it seems likely that he will be sent to the so-called Supermax federal prison in Florence, Colo., where other defendants convicted in the same embassy plot are being held.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement that the sentencing "shows yet again the strength of the American justice system in holding terrorists accountable for their actions."

And Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, acknowledged that "this was a difficult case for a number of reasons."

"Our goal all along was to hold Ghailani accountable for his heinous conduct, and, no matter the obstacles, to see to it that he would receive the punishment he deserved," said Mr. Bharara, whose office prosecuted the case.

Relatives of some of the victims spoke in court on Tuesday, describing their loss after the bombings.

"The pain is with me every day; often times it is unthinkable," said Sue Bartley, who lost two family members in the Nairobi bombing: her husband, Julian L. Bartley Sr., who was the consul general; and her son, Julian L. Bartley Jr., a college student working as an intern at the embassy. "That was half of my family."

As the family members spoke for about an hour, Mr. Ghailani, wearing a button-down shirt, remained still, showing no emotion. After the last of the 11 victims spoke, Mr. Ghailani was offered a chance to speak, but declined.

More than 30 victims, many from Africa, had written to the judge before sentencing, most asking that he impose a life term. Judge Kaplan read excerpts from some of those letters.

Mr. Ghailani's lawyers also submitted letters on his behalf, from his mother and other members of his family.

"He treats others with compassion," his sister, Arafat, wrote to the judge, adding, "I just want my brother back."

The government, which had not sought the death penalty in the case, asked for a life sentence on grounds that Mr. Ghailani had played a central role in the preparations for the embassy bombing in Dar es Salaam.

The prosecutors cited his role in buying TNT that was used to blow up the embassy, and the truck that carried the bomb to the embassy site. They said he also had bought gas tanks that were placed inside the truck to enhance the force of the blast, and had fled the day before the Aug. 7, 1998, attacks on a flight to Pakistan with other operatives.

"He took away hundreds and hundreds of lives," a prosecutor, Michael Farbiarz, said to the judge. "In response to that, your honor, you should take away his freedom and you should take it away forever."

Mr. Ghailani's lawyers had argued for leniency, citing what they say was the torture that Mr. Ghailani suffered while he was being detained in a "black site" run by the C.I.A. after his capture. They contended that he had also provided "extraordinarily valuable information and intelligence" while in the agency's custody.

"To our knowledge," the lawyers wrote, "no prior defendant has ever stood before a court of the United States and asked the court to fashion a reasonable sentence by taking into consideration the pattern of torture inflicted upon him by a government-sponsored program."

But Judge Kaplan said that no matter how Mr. Ghailani was treated while in detention, "the impact on him pales in comparison to the suffering and the horror he and his confederates caused." [Weiser&Moynihan/NYTimes/26January2011] 

Ex-CIA Officer Accused of Leaking Secrets Gets Bond. A former CIA officer accused of leaking classified information to a New York Times reporter was ordered released from jail on Tuesday pending a trial set for September.

Jeffrey A. Sterling, 43, of O'Fallon, Mo., who worked for the CIA from 1993 to 2002, is accused of leaking secrets after he was fired from the CIA and the agency refused to settle a racial discrimination claim he made. He is charged in federal court in Alexandria with 10 felony counts, including obstruction of justice and unauthorized disclosure of national defense information.

The indictment does not identify the alleged recipient of the classified information. But U.S. officials and lawyers familiar with the case said the journalist is New York Times reporter James Risen.

The case against Sterling is one of several that have come amid the Obama administration's crackdown on revelations of government secrets to the media.

U.S. District Court Judge Leonie M. Brinkema on Tuesday released Sterling on a $10,000 bond pending trial under the conditions that he stay with friends in Virginia, avoid contact with witnesses in the case except in the company of his attorneys and make an effort to obtain a job. He must undergo a psychiatric evaluation and can't leave the Washington metropolitan area without prior approval.

"The danger posed by the defendant to national security at this point is somewhat reduced because of the number of years he's been away from the job," Brinkema said.

Federal authorities allege that Sterling, who was involved in spying efforts against Iran, shared details of sensitive CIA operations. They included, authorities allege, an effort code-named Merlin that was aimed at degrading Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program by sabotaging materials acquired by Iran.

The New York Times did not publish an article, but details about the Merlin operation appeared in Risen's 2006 book, "State of War."

Edward B. MacMahon Jr., Sterling's attorney, has said his client has "maintained his innocence."

In court papers, MacMahon questioned the strength of the government's case.

"The Government, which presumably has been investigating this case for over six years, does not even provide the Court with a single statement or email from Mr. Sterling to 'Author A' that mentions any of the classified information apparently at issue in this case," MacMahon said. "It fails to provide the Court any intercepted phone call, intercepted letter, intercepted email, a confession or any direct evidence that Mr. Sterling ever provided any classified matter for over six years."

Brinkema set a Sept. 12 trial date. [Glod/WashingtonPost/26January2011] 

Google Comes Under Fire for 'Secret' Relationship with NSA. Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group largely focused in recent years on Google's privacy practices, has called on a congressional investigation into the Internet giant's "cozy" relationship with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration.

In a letter sent Monday, Consumer Watchdog asked Representative Darrell Issa, the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to investigate the relationship between Google and several government agencies.

The group asked Issa to investigate contracts at several U.S. agencies for Google technology and services, the "secretive" relationship between Google and the U.S. National Security Agency, and the company's use of a U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration airfield in California.

Federal agencies have also taken "insufficient" action in response to revelations last year that Google Street View cars were collecting data from open Wi-Fi connections they passed, Consumer Watchdog said in the letter.

"We believe Google has inappropriately benefited from close ties to the administration," the letter said. "Google is most consumers' gateway to the Internet. Nonetheless, it should not get special treatment and access because of a special relationship with the administration."

Consumer Watchdog may have an ally in Issa, a California Republican. In July, he sent a letter to Google raising concerns that White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin, the former head of global public policy for Google, had inappropriate e-mail contact with company employees.

A Google spokeswoman questioned Consumer Watchdog's objectivity. Some groups have questioned the group's relationship with Google rival Microsoft, and Consumer Watchdog's criticisms of online privacy efforts have also exclusively zeroed in on Google, with the group rarely mentioning Microsoft, Facebook and other Web-based companies in the past two years.

"This is just the latest in a long list of press stunts from an organization that admits to working closely with our competitors," said the Google spokeswoman.

But Consumer Watchdog gets no funding from Microsoft or any other Google competitor, said John Simpson, consumer advocate with the group. "We don't have any relationship with Microsoft at all," he said. "We don't take any of their money."

Consumer Watchdog has decided to focus on Google's privacy practices because the company's services serve as a gateway to the Internet for many people, Simpson said. If the group can push Google, "without a doubt the dominant Internet company," to change its privacy practices, other companies will follow suit, he said.

"Google's held itself to be the company that says its motto is, 'don't be evil,' and they also advocate openness for everyone else," he said. "We're trying to hold them to their own word."

Consumer Watchdog, in January 2009, suggested that Google was preparing a lobbying campaign asking Congress to allow the sale of electronic health records. Google called the allegations "100 percent false and unfounded."

In September, Consumer Watchdog bought space on a 540-square-foot video screen in New York's Times Square, with the video criticizing Google's privacy practices.

In April, Consumer Watchdog officials called for the U.S. Department of Justice to break up Google. They appeared at a press conference with a representative of the Microsoft- and Amazon.com-funded Open Book Alliance.

Consumer Watchdog's latest complaints about the relationship of Google and the Obama administration are outlined in a 32-page report.

The paper questions a decision by NASA allowing Google executives to use its Moffett Federal Airfield near Google headquarters. Although H211, a company controlled by Google top executives, pays NASA rent, they enjoy access to the airfield that other companies or groups don't have, Simpson said.

The paper also questions Google contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and other agencies, suggesting that, in some cases, Google contracts were fast-tracked. The paper also questions Google's relationship with the U.S. National Security Agency and calls for the company to be more open about what consumer information it shares with the spy agency.

When asked if other companies, including broadband providers, should disclose what customer information they share with the NSA, Simpson said they should, too.

"I understand the NSA is a super-secret spook organization," he said. "But given Google's very special situation where it possesses so much personal data about people, I think that there ought to be a little more openness about what precisely goes on between the two." [Gross/PCWorld/25January2011]

South Korea Probes Former Spy Chief. South Korean state prosecutors yesterday said they had started an investigation of a former spy chief who may have leaked classified information, Yonhap news agency reported.

Prosecutors said Kim Man-Bok, former head of the National Intelligence Service, was being investigated because of an interview in a Japanese magazine and a book criticizing Seoul's current hard line stance towards North Korea.

The prosecutors' office said the NIS requested an investigation, alleging Kim may have leaked sensitive information he gained while in office under the previous administration.

Kim was spy chief from 2006 until 2008 under late president Roh Moo-Hyun, whom conservatives claim was too soft towards North Korea, continuing the "Sunshine Policy" of engagement of his predecessor Kim Dae-Jung.

In the interview and book, Kim said incumbent President Lee Myung-Bak's administration had transformed the Yellow Sea into a "sea of war," Yonhap said.

Relations between the Koreas have hit a low since Lee took office in February 2008. A naval skirmish in late 2009 was followed by the sinking of a South Korean warship in March 2010, which Seoul blames on North Korea.

North Korea shelled a South Korean island in November last year, killing four people and ratcheting up tensions on the peninsula.

The two Koreas have agreed in principle to hold high-level military dialogue to ease months of tensions.

In December a former South Korean spy was sentenced to seven years in jail for leaking military information to North Korea. [MacauDailyTimes/26January2011] 

German Prosecutors Indict Alleged Chinese Spy for Observing Falun Gong Movement. Federal prosecutors say they have indicted a man for allegedly spying on the Falun Gong movement in Germany for China's intelligence service.

Germany's top prosecutors said in a statement Monday the 54-year-old German citizen, identified only as Dr. John Z., is accused of reporting activities and confidential data from the spiritual group's German section to the agency between 2006 and 2010.

It said the man maintained good contacts within the movement as he was one of the groups' founding members in Germany, and he also had access to most of Falun Gong's email lists, meetings and conferences.

Falun Gong is a spiritual movement despised by China's communist government - apparently out of fear it could threaten the state's authority. [AP/31January2011] 

Israel to Probe Intelligence Failure. The Israeli parliament has called for an investigation into the reason behind the failure of Israeli Intelligence services in predicting the Egyptian uprising in advance.

The call by Knesset members for a probe came on Monday, amid massive public protests in Egypt to oust President Hosni Mubarak.

Earlier, Israeli army Intelligence Chief Aviv Kochavi claimed that Mubarak's government would not be under any threat.

Tel Aviv is also concerned about the fate of Auda Solomon Trabin, one of its spies, who has been in prison in Egypt for the past eleven years.

Many prisoners have fled or been killed while attempting to escape amid the chaos across Egypt.

Reports suggest Israel is trying to convince its allies to support the embattled Egyptian ruler. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has issued a directive to its ambassadors in the US, China, Russia, Canada and several European countries to rally support for Mubarak.

The diplomats have been told to emphasize the importance of Egypt's stability to their host countries and ask them to curb criticism of President Mubarak.

In a separate development, 400 Israelis fled Cairo on board two planes early Monday. The group waited more than 16 hours at the airport before departing the country. The first group was evacuated from the capital on a special flight on Saturday.

Egypt has been engulfed in one of its worst political crises in decades.

Many countries have advised their citizens to immediately evacuate or stay away from the North African nation.

This is while the people of different countries have shown solidarity with Egyptians in their uprising against the Mubarak government. [PressTVIR/31January2011]

Key Appointments Affirm Pivotal Role of Armed Forces, Intelligence Service. The installation of military men into powerful new roles in the Egyptian government on Saturday reflected a martial style of rule unbroken in Egypt since Gamal Abdel Nasser and his young officers toppled the monarchy in 1952.

The newly designated vice president, Gen. Omar Suleiman, 74, has headed Egypt's intelligence service for 18 years. Along with a new prime minister who is a former air force commander, Suleiman is first among a troika of leaders on whom President Hosni Mubarak is relying in what appears to be an attempt to secure the regime, if not his presidency, after days of protests aimed at his ouster.

U.S. officials have long viewed Suleiman as a likely transitional leader, at minimum, after Mubarak leaves office. In a classified cable released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, a 2007 State Department assessment described Suleiman as a "rock-solid" loyalist to Mubarak who was being groomed, even then, for a more public role.

With army tanks dispatched into the streets, where soldiers sought to calm angry protesters, the changes on Saturday affirmed the pivotal role of Egypt's military and intelligence services in a country whose army has long held citizens' respect, even if its commanders are disliked.

Suleiman is known as a close and trusted adviser to Mubarak, as is Ahmed Shafiq, 69, the newly designated prime minister. Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, 75, who remains in place as the top military commander, isn't seen as a possible successor but likely would be an important figure in ensuring the military's loyalty to a new government.

It was a combination unlikely to appease demonstrators who have been demanding an end to Mubarak's rule entirely.

"I feel today is a disappointment," said Emad Abdel Halim, 31, upon learning Saturday that Mubarak had chosen Suleiman as vice president, the successor's post held by Mubarak when he inherited power from Anwar Sadat. "We don't want him as our next president."

Despite the warm greetings given to demonstrators by soldiers in the street, there were no signs that the generals had abandoned Mubarak, himself a former air force commander. Analysts said it appeared likely that the soldiers had been instructed to avoid the kinds of violent clashes mounted by police who had confronted the protesters with tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition.

"I think Mubarak has huge confidence in Tantawi's ability to keep the army under control," said a retired U.S. military official familiar with Egypt.

But there was some speculation that the military's top brass was still sorting out how to deal with the demonstrators and whether to continue to back Mubarak amid unprecedented calls for his ouster.

"What I'm feeling is there is a conflict inside the Egyptian army, and they did not yet find a solution as to how to sort out what's happened in this country. I believe that some of them are with Mubarak and some are against," said Yousef Zaki, a former leader of Egypt's historic Wafd party. "There is no clear direction."

Along with Tantawi, another top military figure is Lt. Gen. Sami Enan, 62, the army chief of staff, who in his few years in the position has developed good relations with his military counterparts in Washington.

Suleiman is perhaps better recognized in foreign capitals than in Cairo. For much of his time as Egypt's intelligence chief, he worked behind the scenes with the Central Intelligence Agency and intelligence services across the Middle East. In recent years, he assumed a more high-profile role, traveling routinely to Israel to discuss the peace process and attempting to broker a rapprochement between the rival Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah.

The tanks deployed throughout Egypt's major cities offered a reminder of the key role that the military has played in the country's history since the 1952 revolution. Among Egyptians who have felt victimized by domestic security forces, the army is seen as a protector, not only from potential threats beyond Egypt's border but also from the government itself.

"The military and the people we are one!" demonstrators chanted as protesters rode aboard armored military vehicles through the streets of Cairo on Saturday.

With an estimated 480,000 men in arms, Egypt's military is the 10th largest in the world. Yet with a peace treaty with Israel for more than three decades, Egypt hasn't had much to do outside its borders, and the military has as a result focused its energies internally.

"They're not interested in fighting wars," the retired American military official said. "They're interested in the stability of the country." [Zacharia/WashingtonPost/30January2011] 

Makhoul Gets Nine Years in Jail for Espionage. Israeli Arab writer and activist Ameer Makhoul was sentenced to nine years behind bars on Sunday on charges of contacting a foreign agent, conspiring to assisting an enemy in a time of war, and aggravated espionage for Hezbollah, after previously admitting to accusation and signing a plea bargain.

Judges Yosef Elron, Moshe Gilad and Avraham Elyakim addressed the severity of the charges in the sentencing. "Whether the accused operated because of an ideological motive or a material one, we would not expect such a person as the accused to befriend our worst enemy."

The judges added, "There is no need to be verbose about this organization, its fight against the existence of this state, and the desire to harm the State and its citizens without distinguishing between religion, race or nationality."

The judges were also amazed at Makhoul's claims. "The question is how a man of his status, rooted in society and very active both publicly and social, how can such a man commit serious security offenses and ask to see it as 'na�ve' on his part or a 'trap' he fell into."

Makhoul was escorted to court by his wife, daughters and relatives. His brother, former Knesset Member Issam Makhoul, told Ynet: "This is not about harming State security. They are trying to hurt his freedom of expression. This is political persecution against a man who has contributed so much and didn't try to harm the State. He acted according to the law."

Makhoul's wife added: "My husband is being punished severely today for supporting social and political justice. He has been wronged and by his sentencing they are trying to scare the Arabic population in Israel."

Makhoul himself spoke out prior to his sentencing: "Any sentence will be considered in my eyes to be cruel and vindictive against the Arab population and its legitimate battle here and across the world. The court must prove whether they are a courthouse or the Shin Bet, a place of justice or the backyard of the Shin Bet. I've admitted to the charges as part of a forced reality, and I intend to continue my legitimate work for the Palestinian population in Israel."

The State Prosecutor's Office removed the most serious charge - assisting an enemy in a time of war - as a result of the bargain, and charges against him now carry a maximum prison sentence of seven to 10 years.

The state claims that Makhoul's admission has put an end to accusations of political persecution, some of which were voiced by Makhoul's attorneys during his time in detainment.

Makhoul, 52, was arrested in May, and criticism of the manner of the late-night detainment immediately ensued.

The indictment against Makhoul says he met with Hezbollah agents during his travels and, on at least 10 separate occasions, handed them information on the location of Mossad and Rafael facilities. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to gain knowledge of the Shin Bet chief's residence.

In addition, Makhoul was accused of trying to hand over videos of a terror attack attempted in a Haifa mall and in general attempting to enlighten the terror organization on the weaknesses of the Israeli home front.

Makhoul and his family continued to claim the trial was an attempt to settle accounts with an innocent man because of his political activities and that the Shin Bet and police allegedly used wrongful means in order to extract a false confession. [YnetNews/30January2011] 

US Embassy Demands Release of �Unlawfully Detained� Diplomat Who Shot Two Pakistanis. The U.S. Embassy demanded the release on Saturday of an American diplomat who fatally shot two Pakistani men two days ago, saying he was being "unlawfully detained" by Pakistani authorities.

The statement was the first strong indication of the U.S. position on the case, and it signaled a deepening dispute between the United States and Pakistan over an incident that has roiled the public in this sternly anti-American nation.

The embassy said the diplomat, Raymond Allen Davis, shot the men in self-defense and had diplomatic immunity from prosecution. Police in the eastern city of Lahore, where the shooting occurred, and senior law enforcement authorities "failed to observe their legal obligation to verify his status," and Davis's continued detention represented a "violation of international norms" and the Vienna conventions, the statement said.

"The diplomat had every reason to believe that the armed men meant him bodily harm," the embassy statement said. "Minutes earlier, the two men, who had criminal backgrounds, had robbed money and valuables at gunpoint from a Pakistani citizen in the same area."

Pakistani officials have said they are looking into whether Davis qualified for diplomatic immunity. But several Pakistani news reports, citing unnamed officials, have said they did not consider Davis a diplomat. The embassy statement said Davis was assigned to the embassy in Islamabad and was working under a diplomatic passport with a visa that expires in June 2012.

On Friday, Davis told a court in Lahore that he had killed the two Pakistani men in self-defense, saying the men had tried to rob him while he waited at a busy intersection in his car. A second consular vehicle that he summoned for help struck and killed a motorcyclist as it sped to the scene, police said.

A judge ordered the official held in custody for six days for further questioning.

Pakistani officials insisted Friday that the American would receive no special treatment while possible charges of murder and illegal weapons possession are investigated.

"No one will be allowed to breach the law in Pakistan," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told legislators. "The law will take its due course."

The incident has generated enormous media coverage in Pakistan and threatened to strain U.S. relations with the country, a key ally and recipient of U.S. assistance. The deaths are being widely depicted as an illustration of Americans' disregard for ordinary Pakistanis and as a test case of the unpopular central government's capacity to stand up to its U.S. sponsors.

Davis arrived in Pakistan in September 2009 as a "technical adviser" to the consulate in Lahore, according to sources who said his job was to assist in vetting visa applicants. His initial three-month diplomatic visa, listing his birth year as 1974 and a home address in Las Vegas, has been repeatedly extended at U.S. request since then.

The CIA has declined to comment on whether Davis worked for the agency, although Pakistani officials said they do not believe he is an intelligence agent. Under special budget provisions, the State Department has given diplomatic status to hundreds of temporary employees hired in recent years, some of them through contractors, to bolster the ranks of rapidly expanding embassies in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Officials have declined to say why Davis had a gun.

Except for those assigned to the Peshawar consulate, in the northern part of the country near tribal areas, U.S. diplomatic officials are permitted to drive alone in their own vehicles in Pakistan, although many prefer instead to travel with security details. Robberies are fairly common, and Islamist militants stage regular bombings and kidnappings.

The use of security convoys by embassies and the question of whether diplomats should be permitted to carry weapons have been sources of controversy in recent years.

At a news conference in Lahore, Rana Sanaullah, the law minister for Punjab province, said Davis told authorities that he had withdrawn money from a bank shortly before the alleged holdup. Police said Thursday that they recovered two pistols from the dead men, but Sanaullah said he had doubts that Davis shot in self-defense.

A police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case, told The Washington Post on Friday that an autopsy showed both victims had been shot multiple times, including in the back.

Sanaullah said that the Lahore consulate had agreed to a police request to turn the driver of the second vehicle, not a U.S. citizen, over to police.

Demonstrators burned American flags at small anti-U.S. protests in several Pakistani cities Friday. Relatives of Fahim Hussain, one of the men who was shot, stopped traffic in their Lahore neighborhood and placed his body on the street, where protesters gathered to demand justice.

"We will not allow the government to sell the blood of our son," said the victim's father, Shamsad Hussain, 55. "The killer should be hanged."

One government official suggested that the demonstrations, and anti-U.S. media coverage, were being promoted by opposition political leaders whose power base is in the Punjab capital of Lahore. The opposition, headed by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, was put on the defensive with the assassination this month of Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer, an appointee of President Asif Ali Zardari, by Taseer's local bodyguard. [Brulliard&Sahi/WashingtonPost/29January2011] 

UAE Denies Link to Oman Spy Ring. The United Arab Emirates on Monday strongly denied any link to an alleged spy ring uncovered by Oman, a neighboring Gulf country.

A statement by the UAE's foreign ministry said the nation is "shocked and surprised" by the claim and promises to assist Oman in any investigations. The statement was posted by the state news agency WAM.

Oman on Sunday said it dismantled a spy ring linked to the UAE that targeted government and military operations.

Omani authorities have given no other details, but suggested that arrests have been made.

It marks a rare display of tensions between the close allies. [JPost/1February2011] 

DFAT Confirms China Jailed Australian 'Spy' The Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed an Australian man has spent five years in prison in China after being convicted for spying.

James Sun was found guilty of spying for Taiwan in 2006.

His wife says Mr. Sun was not a spy, and the Government has failed to pressure China to release him.

The Department says consular officials pushed to get full access to Mr. Sun's trial, but they were only allowed to attend the verdict hearing.

It says Australian officials have regularly visited him in jail. [ABC/31January2011] 

Former CIA Director Issues New Call For Pollard's Release. Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey today called on President Barack Obama to commute the sentence of Jonathan Pollard. Although Woolsey has in the past called for Pollard's release, his statements today are particularly noteworthy due to the clarity of his comments and his direct call on the President to free Pollard. As the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, Woolsey was privy to Jonathan Pollard's classified file and reviewed all the details of his case.

Woolsey served as Director of Central Intelligence and head of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1993-1995 under President Bill Clinton. In addition, Woolsey has served as Under Secretary of the Navy and as General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services.

In his comments to Israeli television today, Woolsey stated that although the United States has apprehended spies on numerous occasions, the detainees do not serve 25 years in prison. Woolsey said that after reviewing Pollard's case and other similar cases, in his opinion, Pollard should have been released from prison five years ago, which is when Woolsey issued his first public call for a commutation of Pollard's sentence.

Woolsey's comments come in the wake of a similar call for clemency for Jonathan Pollard by Former Deputy Attorney General and Harvard Law Professor Philip B. Heymann, who, like Woolsey, had the opportunity to thoroughly review Pollard's file and is fully familiar with the circumstances of his case.

In addition to Woolsey and Heymann, a wide array of individuals from the national intelligence arena and the legal world have called for Jonathan Pollard's sentence to be commuted, including former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb, former Senator and Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Dennis DeConcini, and Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, who was President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama's law professor at Harvard and remains friends with them today.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also recently sent a letter to President Obama calling for Pollard's release.

In addition, thirty-nine members of Congress recently submitted a "Dear Colleague" letter led by Congressman Barney Frank in support of commuting Jonathan Pollard's sentence. Further, a broad-based interfaith coalition comprised of more than 500 members of the clergy and community leaders recently sent a letter to President Obama, in which they called on the President to commute Pollard's sentence.

Jonathan Pollard, who recently began his 26th year in federal prison, has repeatedly expressed his remorse publicly and in private in letters to many Presidents and others. His health has deteriorated significantly during his two-and-a-half decades in prison.  [TheYeshivaWorld/31January2011] 

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Six Things that Worry the Former Director of the CIA, General Michael Hayden. Retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA, spoke the other day at Johns Hopkins University's Rethinking Seminar about six security concerns that would keep him up at night were he still in the government. All six, he said, have a degree of imminence to them:

No. 1: Proliferation (specifically concerning Iran). Hayden noted that answering questions pertaining to Iranian nuclear capabilities is easier to do than articulating how the Iranian government makes decisions. No one seems to know who or what influences policy. The confusion and mixed messages coming from Tehran surrounding the detention of the three American hikers, two of whom are still being held in Iran, in 2009 underscores the fact that Iran is a fully functioning society with a fully dysfunctional government. 

His scary bottom line: Iran's quest to obtain nuclear weapons is a means to deterring the United States. Attempts to affect their nuclear capability, such as Stuxnet, will simply make them more committed to that quest.

No. 2: China. Hayden was quick to explain that China is not necessarily an enemy, as there are "logical non-heroic policies available to both sides" that can prevent conflicts. However, China's recent international behavior, such as the Chinese fishing boat's collision with Japanese coast guard vessels, can be described as triumphal and akin to that of a teenager whose strength has outstripped his judgment, experience, and wisdom. Several structural problems, including its uneven distribution of wealth, gender imbalance, and environmental disasters, promise to cause growing pains for China as it continues its ascent. Moreover, the legitimacy of the Communist Party governance is based on an unsustainable ten percent GDP growth per year.

His interesting bottom line: China recognizes its structural problems, whereas the United States is quick to overlook them and focus on its strengths.

No. 3: Cyber. Cyber joins land, sea, air and space as the newest domain. This man-made domain, though, is based on technological and entrepreneurial principles that make it inherently insecure. Hayden compared the geography of the Internet to that of the north German plain - inherently indefensible.

His worrisome bottom line: The advantage goes to the attacker in cyber space. Fundamental restructuring is needed to correct cyber space's vulnerabilities.

No. 4: Mexico. Over 28,000 people have been killed since President Calderon initiated his war against the cartels. Currently, the United States' assistance has been through law enforcement agencies. Hayden argued that Mexico's criminal gangs need to be treated as insurgents - even though it is not their aim to overthrow the government - and the successful playbook used in Colombia needs to be applied to Mexico, which is pretty much what Bob Killebrew and Jennifer Bernal recommended in their recent CNAS report. Furthermore, the relationship between Mexican and U.S. intelligence officers need to be recalibrated in order to increase collaboration.

His interventionist bottom line: Mexican drug cartels need to be treated as insurgents and the United States needs to send military assistance.

No. 5: Terrorism. Hayden noted the continuity in counterterrorism efforts between the Obama and Bush administrations, even in such basics as defining it as a global war against al Qaeda and its affiliates. He argued that the dearth of senior al Qaeda leaders caused by targeted attacks in Pakistan stops the organization from committing its signature attacks, in which the operation is complex, the target is iconic and the scale of destruction is massive, such as its attacks on September 11, 2001. While the odds of detecting those high level threats are great, it is difficult to detect lower level threats, such as the attempted Times Square bombing. Furthermore, the nation must shift its focus from killing terrorists, the close fight, to decreasing the production of terrorists, the deep battle. Hayden questioned the lack of programs at colleges dedicated to this issue compared to the plethora of programs dedicated to studying the Soviet Union during the Cold War. 

His nervous-making bottom line: Americans need to prepare for the possibility that less organized and less lethal attacks will succeed in the near future. By failing to realize that there is a trade-off between preventing these lower level attacks and protecting U.S. civil liberties, a minor tactical victory for al Qaeda will turn into a major strategic defeat for the United States when a hysterical response results in the destruction of a security structure that has been relatively good.

No. 6: South Asia (namely Afghanistan and Pakistan). Hayden believes that the United States has a winnable strategy in Afghanistan and needs to stay the course. He argued that the two main things that unify Pakistan are Islam and the fact that it is not India. The unifying principle of Islam becomes more powerful when other elements of statehood appear more fragile.

His AfPak bottom line: America's willingness to commit to at least 2014 in Afghanistan is positive and political and economic stability are needed in Pakistan. [Pfabe/RicksForeignPolicy/25January2011]

Indictment Continues Obama Administration's War on Leaks. New information in the Justice Department's prosecution of a former intelligence-agency official has raised questions about the government's case against him. And these developments shed light on how the Obama administration is prosecuting government employees accused of giving classified information to journalists.

According to a draft federal indictment against Thomas Drake, a former senior official at the National Security Agency, the government contemplated prosecuting him for disclosing classified information to a newspaper reporter and for conspiracy. The indictment, which was never filed, was apparently prepared by a senior Justice Department attorney sometime in 2009. When it was picked up by a new attorney last year, many of the most serious charges were dropped.

Washingtonian obtained a copy of the draft indictment, which also lists three former NSA officials and an ex-congressional committee staffer as unindicted co-conspirators. All of them, along with Drake, had raised concerns about waste and fraud by senior NSA leaders with a Pentagon watchdog in 2002. The draft indictment, which isn't dated, alleges that they coordinated with each other and Drake to reveal secrets to Baltimore Sun reporter Siobahn Gorman. She wrote an award-winning series of articles that exposed allegations of waste and mismanagement on some of the NSA's most important terrorism-related programs.

In April 2010, the Justice Department formally filed charges against Drake, but of the four crimes in the draft indictment, the only one that remains is "willful retention of national defense information." Compared to conspiracy and disclosing official secrets, the retention case is easier to prove in court, legal experts said.

The government accuses Drake of storing classified information about NSA intelligence programs on his home computer. And while the indictment spells out in detail how Drake allegedly gave that information to the reporter, he's not charged with doing so.

The previously undisclosed indictment offers a glimpse into the Justice Department's evolving legal strategy for combating press leaks. The Obama administration has stirred controversy and set records by prosecuting five current and former government employees for mishandling official secrets and giving classified information to journalists or outside groups such as Wikileaks. The news about Drake's case comes on the heels of another indictment of a former intelligence official, Jeffrey Sterling, an ex-CIA officer whom the government accuses of leaking secrets about covert operations against Iran to a book author.

Whistleblower groups and journalists have been increasingly concerned about how aggressively the Obama administration is pursuing leakers and the reporters they contact, but they've had little insight into how prosecutors are pursuing their targets because the government hasn't commented on pending cases. Now, the new information in Drake's case opens a window on the government's strategy. It shows that prosecutors are willing to pursue significant but arguably less sexy charges in order to secure legal victories. Proving that someone disclosed classified information and engaged in a conspiracy puts a greater burden of proof on federal prosecutors, who'd have to show that the accused knew the material he allegedly leaked was classified.

"Retention cases are much easier to prove," said Baruch Weiss, who was a federal prosecutor in New York for 18 years. Prosecuting someone for disclosure could also open a kind of Pandora's Box, forcing the government to reveal even more classified information at trial. Dropping the disclosure and conspiracy charges against Drake "could have been an effort to simplify the case, which in any criminal case is a priority, but especially in cases involving classified information," Weiss said.

The draft indictment against Drake was prepared by Steven Tyrrell, who led the Fraud Section of the Justice Department and left the government in early 2010. William Welch, a career prosecutor and the former head of the Public Integrity Section, which handles public corruption cases, inherited the case. Welch ultimately filed the charges against Drake.

Since the case was being handled by Justice Department headquarters, supervising attorneys and senior officials would have weighed in on the decision of how to charge Drake, said David Debold, who was an assistant U.S. attorney in Detroit for 17 years and is now with Gibson Dunn's DC office. "There tends to be greater oversight and supervision that the cases [from headquarters] have to go though before the line attorneys can take them to the grand jury," he said.

Tyrell declined to comment about the Drake case, as did a Justice Department spokesperson, because it's currently before a federal judge. Welch is now the department's point man on several leak investigations, at least two of which, in addition to the Drake case, have produced indictments.

The official indictment is also notable because it omits any mention of thee former NSA officials, who were described in the draft as unindicted co-conspirators. The government now paints Drake as having acted largely on his own initiative when he allegedly contacted Gorman in 2005 and became her source. The government believes that the former congressional staffer, who oversaw NSA's classified programs for the House Intelligence Committee, introduced Drake to Gorman. She is still described in a background section of the official indictment.

The three former NSA officials and the congressional staffer were known to government investigators as early as September 2002, when they wrote to the Defense Department's inspector general that senior NSA leaders had "defrauded the American taxpayer of hundreds and hundreds of millions" by investing in a computer system known as Trailblazer, which was designed to help the NSA pluck valuable clues on terrorist plots from the billions of phone calls, e-mails, and other electronic signals it intercepts on a regular basis.

The former officials and the ex-staffer believed that a rival program, called Thin Thread, could do a better job and would cost "one-tenth or less than the projected several billions of dollars cost of Trailblazer." They also claimed Thin Thread, which was never fully deployed, was "NSA's only real chance to have averted the 9/11 intelligence failure" by detecting the communications of the September 11 attackers before they struck.

Gorman explored all those themes in her articles, citing anonymous current and former officials. The inspector general completed a report on the allegations in December 2004, but it was never released publicly.

The three former officials who wrote to the inspector general and are described but not named in the draft indictment are William Binney, Kirk Wiebe, and Ed Loomis, all of whom retired from the agency in October 2001. The former committee staffer is Diane Roark. Drake didn't formally sign on to the letter, but he provided information to the investigation while he was still an NSA employee. According to sources familiar with the matter, it was clear to all parties that after the inspector general's report wasn't released, their concerns weren't going to get the attention they'd hoped for through official channels.

Whatever contacts the group may or may not have had with the press, federal investigators apparently suspected some of them of having discussed classified matters with reporters. In July 2007, almost five years after the three former officials and Roark filed their complaint with the inspector general, FBI agents raided their homes, removing documents and in some cases computers. Then, in November, they raided Drake's home in Maryland. According to sources familiar with the case, the FBI thought Drake might be a source for a December 2005 article in the New York Times that revealed a possibly illegal program of electronic surveillance in the United States...an investigation Tyrell also led. But instead of finding evidence that Drake was a source for that story, agents found evidence of his connection to Gorman.

Drake has never been accused of being a source for the Times article. At least one former government official, Thomas Tamm, has said publicly that he talked about the secret NSA program with two Times reporters. Tamm hasn't been indicted. [Harris/Washingtonian/26January2011]

Palestine Papers: MI6 Plan Proposed Internment - and Hotlines to Israelis. The Palestinian Authority's security strategy to crush Hamas and other armed groups on the West Bank was originally drawn up by Britain's intelligence service, MI6, leaked papers reveal.

The strategy included internment of leaders and activists, closure of radio stations and replacement of imams in mosques - the bulk of which has since been carried out.

Two documents drafted by the Secret Intelligence Service in conjunction with other Whitehall departments, which are among the cache given to al-Jazeera TV and shared with the Guardian, are understood to have been passed to Jibril Rajoub, former head of PA security in the West Bank, at the beginning of 2004 by an MI6 officer then based at the British consulate in Jerusalem.

The evidence uncovered by the leaked documents highlights the role British officials and security advisers have played in creating and bolstering the PA administration in the West Bank, which is backed and financed by the US, the EU and most Arab states as it pursues what are now all but moribund peace talks with Israel.

Hamas, which won the Palestinian elections in 2006 and is backed by Iran and Syria, carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel from the mid-1990s and was the target of Israel's attack on Gaza in late 2008. It opposes negotiations with Israel except on a long-term ceasefire and will not recognise it. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller group, has similar positions.

The PA is increasingly the target of domestic and international criticism for authoritarian rule and human rights abuses, including detention without trial and torture.

The British papers, one of which is headed Palestinian Security Plan - Confidential, included detailed proposals for a new security taskforce based on the UK's "trusted PA contacts" outside the control of "traditional security chiefs", a British/US security "verification team", and "direct lines" to Israeli intelligence.

Issues include suicide bombing, weapons smuggling, Qassam rockets and "terror finance". The SIS and other leaked British official documents have been independently authenticated by the Guardian.

In the most controversial section, the 2004 MI6 plan recommends "Degrading the capabilities of the rejectionists - Hamas, PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] and the [Fatah-linked] Al Aqsa Brigades - through the disruption of their leaderships' communications and command and control capabilities; the detention of key middle-ranking officers; and the confiscation of their arsenals and financial resources".

The document adds: "We could also explore the temporary internment of leading Hamas and PIJ figures, making sure they are well-treated, with EU funding" - reflecting a concern to distance the intelligence agency from the PA security organisations' established reputation for prisoner abuse.

The MI6 strategy, which was drawn up to implement George Bush's Middle East "road map" as the second Palestinian intifada was winding down, can then be traced through a sequence of more public Palestinian, EU and British documents and plans, and has now been largely implemented by the US and British-advised PA security apparatus.

The leaked intelligence plan can be seen in retrospect as a blueprint for PA security control of the West Bank, which has become harsher and more extensive since the violent takeover of Gaza by Hamas in the summer of 2007. Hundreds of Hamas and other activists have been routinely detained without trial at a time in recent years and subjected to widely documented human rights abuses.

In a meeting with US official David Hale in September 2009, the PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat is recorded as saying that PA prime minister Salam Fayyad was "doing everything possible to build the institutions. We are not a country yet but we are the only ones in the Arab world who control the Zakat [charitable religious donations] and the sermons in the mosques" - echoing what had been proposed nearly six years earlier by British intelligence.

The former MI6 officer Alistair Crooke, who worked for the EU in Israel and the Palestinian territories, said today that the documents reflected a 2003 decision by Tony Blair to tie UK and EU security policy in the West Bank and Gaza to a US-led "counter-insurgency surge" against Hamas - which backfired when the Islamists won the 2006 elections.

The CIA played the central role in building up PA security forces from the late 1990s, in close co-operation with the Israeli military and intelligence, detailed in the leaked documents. But particularly after the killing of three US officials in the Gaza strip in 2003, British forces played an increasingly active role - though always in close co-operation with their counterpart US agency, according to diplomatic sources.

The sequence of leaked British documents begins with an unmarked but detailed MI6 draft of the security plan, faxed from the Egyptian embassy, at a time when the agency was working closely with Egyptian intelligence; continues with the second more formal paper jointly drafted by SIS, which floats internment; and is then translated into a series of official papers drafted by the Jerusalem consulate's military liaison office, which liaises with British special forces, the SAS and SBS.

The documents confirm that by 2005, British projects under the Palestinian security plan - first drafted and passed to the PA under MI6 auspices - included extensive funding of the most controversial parts of the PA security apparatus, including general intelligence, special forces and preventive security under the heading of "UK-Palestinian projects".

The last in particular has been the subject of repeated and widespread allegations and evidence of torture, including by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. More recently, the British government has denied directly funding the PA's preventive security.

US general Keith Dayton, who, along with a string of British deputies was in charge of building up Palestinian security forces as US security co-ordinator for Israel and the Palestinian territories until last October, is recorded in the leaked Palestinian records as complaining about torture by PA intelligence in a meeting with chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat in June 2009. "The intelligence guys are good. The Israelis like them," Dayton says. "But they are causing some problems for international donors because they are torturing people", adding: "I've only started working on this very recently. I don't need to tell you who was working with them before" - in an apparent reference to the CIA.

In an interview with al-Jazeera, former Dayton deputy US colonel Phillip Dermer described the PA as constituting a "police state" and its security forces as an outsourced "third Israeli security arm".

Many of those now arrested and detained in the West Bank appear to have no connection to any armed group or activity. Records of a May 2008 meeting between Israeli general Amos Gilad and the head of PA security forces, Major General Hazem Atallah, refer to a senior Israel security official identified as "Poly" who asked: "How is your fight against 'civilian' Hamas: the offices, people in municipalities etc? This is a serious threat."

Atallah is recorded as replying: "I don't work at political level, but I agree we need to deal with this" - to which Poly retorts: "Hamas needs to be declared illegal by your president. So far it is only the militants that are illegal."

Another leaked PA security document from 2005, drawn up by a Palestinian official, confirms the central role played by British officials in "unifying Palestinian security efforts" and identifies a former PA senior security figure, Bashir Nafi, as having "strong ties with the British".

Along with Abed Alloun, Nafi was a deputy to Rajoub. Alloun and Nafi were killed in a bomb attack in Amman in 2005. Alloun, a Liverpool football fan, told the Guardian in 2003 he had been flown by MI6 to Britain and taken to see Liverpool play at Anfield and given a ball signed by Michael Owen. [Guardian/25January2011]

Spy Games: Intelligence Agency to Fund Video Games for Spooks. Scientists say video games can increase concentration, help with learning and even improve decision-making skills. Now, in an effort to improve the work of spies, the intelligence community may also resort to using educational games.

The motivation for this gaming pursuit, according to a recent announcement about the program, called Sirius, is that everyone is subject to bias, including spies.

"When an intelligence problem invokes these biases, analysts may draw inferences or adopt beliefs that are logically unsound or not supported by evidence," says the program announcement.

The goal is to help overcome human biases through training with what are called "serious games."

"Some research has shown that Serious Games (video games developed for educational, therapeutic or other serious purposes) can have positive experiential-learning transfer to real world skills or behavior changes," the announcement says. "A Serious Game could provide an effective mechanism for exposing and mitigating cognitive bias."

The work is being sponsored by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, a research arm of the intelligence community. [Weinberger/AOLNews/26January2011] 

Key Military, Intelligence Assets Imperiled in Egypt. U.S. military and intelligence agencies would lose vital air, land and sea assets if Egypt falls into the hands of radical Islamists, as Iran did in 1979, foreign policy analysts say.

The U.S. armed forces are entwined with Egypt's military more than with any other Arab country's. But if Islamists seize Cairo, as the mullahs captured Tehran, this complex relationship unravels.

"Let me count the ways," said Ken Allard, a retired Army colonel and military analyst. "They are our biggest strategic partner in the Middle East. At that point, you've lost your biggest Arab partner. Geostrategically, the mind boggles."

The U.S. Navy would not be able to use the Egyptian-run Suez Canal. The 150-year-old waterway sharply reduces sailing time for Atlantic-based carriers and other warships going from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, and to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Air Force likely would lose overflight rights into the Middle East, and the Army would lose a partner in building the M1A1 tank.

"If you are talking an Iran scenario, these are some of the things that happen first," Mr. Allard said.

Egypt receives more than $1 billion in U.S. military aid each year and uses it to buy tanks, F-16 fighters, Patriot anti-aircraft missiles and other weapons systems.

The region's other U.S. allies sent their militaries to Egypt for an exercise known as Bright Star to practice urban warfare, air assaults and ground operations.

Egypt is the birthplace of the shadowy Muslim Brotherhood, a fraternity committed to replacing secular governments with autocrats who follow Shariah, or strict Muslim law.

Amid the ongoing protests against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the Brotherhood announced that it wants to share power with Mohamed ElBaradei, an opposition leader who is a former head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency." If we lose Egypt to the Brotherhood, it is absolutely devastating," said former Rep. Peter Hoekstra, who led the House Select Committee on Intelligence. "The Egyptians are a key stabilizing force for us throughout the Middle East."

"It raises the basic question of everyday military operations," the Michigan Republican said.

"Do they facilitate our use of the Suez? Do they frustrate, meaning to make it inconvenient, or do they downright make it impossible?"

A radicalized Egypt likely would stop hosting the scores of Egyptian officers who come to the U.S. to attend service schools such as the Army War College. The Pentagon thinking is that decades of training have helped turn out generations of commanders comfortable with civilian rule and human rights.

"Our military has benefited from the interactions with the Egyptian armed forces - one of the most professional and capable in the region," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said during a 2009 visit to Cairo.

"We are always looking for ways to expand these ties through education, training and exercises."

While the Pentagon has worked to foster a professional Egyptian military, Mr. Allard said, he thinks more officers are sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood today than 30 years ago. He said the country's persistently high unemployment and poverty rates have helped the radicals recruit disciples.

"What you've got is a generational situation in the officer corps in Egypt," he said. "If you had a council of colonels, it would probably be a lot more Islamists and have their own grudges against Israel and the U.S. I'm sure there are people in the officer corps, who we do not know their names yet, who have got their own generational grudges. Over time, that has become a much more troubling situation."

The U.S. also has been working with Egyptian forces to stop the smuggling of arms into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

A Cairo run by Islamists likely would end such operations and develop close ties with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group that calls for the destruction of Israel. The importance of Egypt's role was underscored by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Afghanistan, when he testified before a Senate committee as head of the U.S. Central Command.

"Egypt remains a leading Arab state, a stabilizing influence in the Middle East and a key actor in the Middle East peace process," he said. "In recent years, however, the Egyptian government has had to deal with serious economic challenges and an internal extremist threat."

"Egypt has played a pivotal role in the international effort to address worsening instability in Gaza. [The U.S.] continues to work closely with the Egyptian security forces to interdict illicit arms shipments to extremists in Gaza and to prevent the spread of Gaza's instability into Egypt and beyond."

The CIA, too, would lose a valuable partner. It operates a robust station at the U.S. Embassy as well as classified bases. The two governments exchange information on terrorism suspects.

Egypt is a hotbed of radical groups and thought. Violent cells that spun off from the Muslim Brotherhood were responsible for the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and the massacre of European tourists in Luxor in 1997.

Mr. Mubarak has used his internal security apparatus to launch periodic crackdowns on Islamists.

One of the first acts by Muslim Brotherhood allies in the current crisis was to storm prisons and release accused terrorists, some of whom belong to Hamas.

"The biggest threat is that rather than having an ally in Mubarak, who has helped keep a lid on radical jihadists in Egypt at this pivotal crossroads, you may have a government that facilitates radical jihadists throughout the region and as a potential export location to other parts of the world, primarily into Europe," Mr. Hoekstra said.

"What I worry more about, rather than impacting our ability to collect intelligence, it opens up a whole new avenue of where we would need to collect intelligence," the congressman said. "If it becomes a base, and you've got a government in Egypt that tolerates it rather than having a government that may have worked with us to collect intelligence against radical jihadists, you'll now potentially have a government that not only supports these folks, but is now a barrier to us collecting information on them." [Scarborough/WashingtonTimes/31January2011] 

Section III - COMMENTARY

A Case for Accountability. A court hearing this month in Manhattan turned on a subject that has mostly been missing in the legal response to former President George W. Bush's abusive detention policies: some measure of accountability.

The focus of the hearing before Judge Alvin Hellerstein of Federal District Court was not torture itself but the Central Intelligence Agency's deliberate destruction in 2005 of dozens of videotapes made three years earlier showing the brutal interrogation of high-level terrorism suspects, including the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding. At the time, the agency had been ordered by Judge Hellerstein to preserve the tapes.

They were part of the evidence being sought in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act seeking details of prisoner mistreatment. Their destruction was seen as so egregious that the Bush administration felt compelled to order a special investigation when it was disclosed.

In November, the special prosecutor handling that investigation, John Durham, decided against bringing criminal charges against any C.I.A. official. No details of his decision were provided, leaving it unclear why those involved were not charged with any crime.

Now Judge Hellerstein is grappling with a way to respond with appropriate firmness to the flouting of his order. At the Jan. 14 hearing, he wondered aloud about the value and appropriateness of civil contempt sanctions. But he also expressed a desire for a resolution that recognizes the gravity of the action by C.I.A. officials and makes a recurrence less likely.

The C.I.A.'s decision to destroy the tapes - rather than submit them to the judge for a decision on whether to order their public release - was a serious affront to the court and the rule of law. A contempt order is not a perfect remedy, but it would at least provide some official acknowledgment that what the C.I.A. did was wrong. The agency's lawyer suggested the government pay the A.C.L.U.'s legal fees. That would be deeply inadequate. [NYTimes/26January2011] 

Captain Jack's Not All Right. When fifteen South Korean commandos rescued a South Korean merchant ship held by Somali pirates on January 21st, they did so using technology as well as skill. The used jammers to blind the ship's radar and radio. In any event, the commandos were quickly aboard the 11,500 ton tanker, and just as quickly subdued the dozen pirates (killing eight and taking five prisoner). One of the pirates shot and wounded the captain of the ship during the rescue, but the other twenty crewmen were unharmed.

Another bit of technology was more useful for training other commandos, and enlightening the folks back home. Each commando had a wireless vidcam on his helmet, and another on his weapon. This video was streamed back to headquarters in South Korea, as well as the South Korean destroyer the commandos had come from.

A few hours before the South Korean operation, and a thousand kilometers to the west, Malaysian commandos recaptured another ship held by pirates. The Malaysian ship the pirates had seized was quickly cleared of pirates, with three of them wounded and 20 taken prisoner. In both cases, commandoes, of the same nation as the ship captured by pirates, were available for these raids.

Most shipping companies, because they have insurance to cover the cost of ransoming the ship and crew, will not authorize such raids on captured ships. Most navies, especially European ones, prefer not to attempt such rescues, because of the bad publicity arising from any deaths (even of pirates.) But in nations with sailors being held captive, fighting the pirates, and freeing those captives, is big news.

Thus an increasing number of these raids are taking place. French and American commandos have undertaken these operations to free their countrymen, and several ships have been cleared of pirates after the crew barricaded themselves in "safe rooms" after disabling the ships engines. In some of these cases, the pirates have abandoned such ships before marines or commandoes could show up.

Back in Somalia, two pirate gangs holding South Korean sailors, moved their captives and threatened to kill them in revenge for the pirates killed by the South Korea commandos. This was all theatre for the media. The pirates know that escalating the killing is bad for business. If the pirates kill captives, they provide an incentive for foreign troops to come ashore. On the South Korean side, the raid on the hijacked ship was risky, because a lot of deaths among the captive crew would have been bad news back home. But success provides a big morale boost for South Koreans in general, who are somewhat demoralized because of the two North Korean arracks in the last year. South Korean special operations troops are well trained, and the risk of failure was low. The ransom of a South Korean tanker last year, for $9 million, created a furor in South Korea, where many saw this high payment as just encouraging the pirates. Thus the recent commando rescue was very popular.

The growing number of commando attacks on captured ships is partly a reflection of the pirates going farther afield (often to the coast of India) in search of prey, and partly growing anger at the inability to shut the pirates down. The Somali exist solely because no nation is willing to send troops ashore to shut down the Somali coastal towns that serve as bases for the pirates, and provide anchorages for the captured ships. For thousands of years before, this was how piracy was controlled, by finding and destroying ports the pirates operated from. But no one is willing to get involved fighting the Somalis, who are unable to govern themselves, and proved a major headache when occupied by French, British and Italian colonial governments in the 19th and 20th centuries. Of the three colonies established in the Somali territory, only Djibouti (run by the French from 1994-1977, and acquired by negotiation more than conquest) is still enjoying self-rule. The rest of Somalia, especially the southern part, has always been lawless and chaotic. Most nations believe it's preferable to pay one percent more (about $5 billion a year for insurance and security) to operate merchant ships near the East African coast, than it is to pacify Somalia.

It's not that Somalis are difficult to defeat, it's just that the Somalis keep fighting. If not against foreigners, than against each other and neighboring countries. In such situations, even commandoes are not the answer. [StrategyPage/27January2011]

From Bullets to Megabytes. Stuxnet, the computer worm that last year disrupted many of the gas centrifuges central to Iran's nuclear program, is a powerful weapon in the new age of global information warfare. A sophisticated half-megabyte of computer code apparently accomplished what a half-decade of United Nations Security Council resolutions could not.

This new form of warfare has several implications that are only now becoming apparent, and that will define the shape of what will likely become the next global arms race - albeit one measured in computer code rather than firepower.

For one thing, the Stuxnet attack highlights the ambiguous boundaries of sovereignty in cyberspace. Promoting national security in the information age will, from time to time, cause unpredictable offense to the rights and interests of innocent people, companies and countries.

Stuxnet attacked the Iranian nuclear program, but it did so by maliciously manipulating commercial software products sold globally by major Western companies. Whoever launched the assault also infected thousands of computers in several countries, including Australia, Britain, Indonesia and the United States.

This kind of collateral damage to the global civilian realm is going to be the norm, not the exception, and advanced economies, which are more dependent on advanced information systems, will be at particular risk.

What's more, offensive and defensive information warfare are tightly, insidiously coupled, which will significantly complicate military-industrial relations.

The expertise needed to defend against a cyberattack is essentially indistinguishable from that needed to make such an attack. The Stuxnet programmers are reported to have exploited proprietary information that had been voluntarily provided to the American government by Siemens, that German company that makes data-and-control programs used in nuclear power facilities - including Iran's.

Siemens did this to help Washington build up its ability to fend off cyberattacks. Will Siemens and other companies think twice next time the American government calls? Probably. Whether it's true or not, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, the United States is now in the business of offensive information warfare, along with China, Israel and Russia, among others.

It's not hard to imagine, then, the splintering of the global information technology industry into multiple camps according to their willingness to cooperate with governments on security matters. We can already see this happening in the telecommunications industry, where companies promote their products' resistance to government intrusion. At the same time, other companies might see an advantage to working closely with the government.

Stuxnet also raises sticky and perhaps irresolvable legal questions. At present there is no real legal framework for adjudicating international cyberattacks; even if victims could determine who was responsible, their governments have few options outside of diplomatic complaints and, perhaps, retaliation in kind. An international entity that could legislate or enforce an information warfare armistice does not exist, and is not really conceivable.

A similar question exists within the United States. Under American law the transmission of malicious code is in many cases a criminal offense. This makes sense, given the economy's reliance on information networks, the sensitivity of stored electronic data and the ever-present risk of attack from viruses, worms and other varieties of malware.

But the president, as commander in chief, does have some authority to conduct offensive information warfare against foreign adversaries. However, as with many presidential powers to wage war and conduct espionage, the extent of his authority has never been enumerated.

This legal ambiguity is problematic because such warfare is far less controllable than traditional military and intelligence operations, and it raises much more complex issues of private property, personal privacy and commercial integrity.

Therefore, before our courts are forced to consider the issue and potentially limit executive powers, as they did after President Harry Truman tried to seize steel plants in the early 1950s, Congress should grant the White House broad authority to wage offensive information warfare.

By explicitly authorizing these offensive operations in appropriate, defined circumstances, a new statute would strengthen the president's power to provide for the common defense in cyberspace. Doing so wouldn't answer all the questions that this new era of warfare presents. But one thing is sure: as bad as this arms race will be, losing it would be even worse. [Richard A. Falkenrath, a principal of the Chertoff Group, an investment advisory firm, is a former deputy commissioner for counterterrorism for the New York Police Department and deputy homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush.] [Falkenrath/NYTimes/27January2011] 

What should the CIA do in Egypt? The ghost of the 1979 Iranian revolution is very much on the minds of veteran intelligence officials as Egypt explodes in street protests.

Most historians agree that the CIA was largely in the dark when anti-American students, radical Islamists and mullahs ignited street protests in Tehran because the U.S.-backed shah had forbidden the CIA to have contact with opposition groups.

The CIA can't let that happen again in Egypt, intelligence veterans say - and it probably isn't.

Former CIA director R. James Woolsey says agency officials' main mission in Egypt today is "to make sure that they are getting information from all factions where they don't already have relationships and that they are not making the same mistake they did under the shah - talking only to regime-approved people."

"Hopefully," echoes Jeffrey White, a former chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency's Middle East intelligence division, "the CIA has contacts within the opposition or else is working to make them."

There are "lots of important intelligence questions to be asked about their leadership, motivation, intentions, organization [and] external influences," said White, a defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"The CIA's response should be to perform its usual missions of collecting information about, and providing assessments on, events in countries important to US interests, as is the case with both Egypt and Yemen," said Paul R. Pillar, who retired in 2005 as the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia. "Anything beyond that in which the CIA might become involved would not be the 'CIA's response' but instead something done at the behest of policymakers."

"For now, we need to walk on both sides of street, stay close to the government and work the opposition hard for new sources and contacts," added a senior former CIA operations official, speaking only on background because he conducts extensive business in the region.

"The priority is collection and analysis about what's going on," said Richard K. Betts, a frequent consultant to U.S. intelligence agencies and director of the International Security Policy program at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

"Our capacity to shape events by more active measures, such as covert action to support moderate elements of the opposition, is probably minimal, and more likely to backfire than to control events," added Betts, author of "Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledge and Power in American National Security."

"Popular revolutions can hardly ever be contained or channeled effectively by foreign forces," he said.

"The agency's work is pretty much over, as no part of the U.S. government can do much to influence the situation, unless [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton makes things worse by continuing to speak as if we are supporting the demonstrators," said Michael Scheuer, a former head of the CIA's Osama Bin Laden unit. "Ditto for Yemen."

Mark Lowenthal, the CIA's assistant director for analysis and production from 2002 to 2005, agreed about the limits of covert action.

"I do not see any role per se for the [intelligence community] other than tracking what is going on and giving the policy makers enough intel to make proper choices," he said.

"I would be hard put to think of a covert action. Now, you might want to put out discreet feelers to some folks in the opposition, just to get in touch, sound them out, find out their intentions, etc. But you have to be careful not to [anger] the powers that be."

Lowenthal added, "But I would make this approach via diplomats, not intelligence [agents]."

In any event, Lowenthal said, "overt is better than covert, if at all available."

All emphasized that any new or major CIA initiative in Egypt - or elsewhere in the region - would be undertaken at the direction of the White House.

"Rule No. 1: the Intelligence Community does not create or have policies," said Lowenthal. "It carries out activities to support policy makers. So, there can be no 'CIA response' to Egypt and Yemen."

A major fear among policymakers is that the Cairo protests could open the door for the country's largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, to take power.

Two years ago, Emile Nakhleh, the former head of the CIA's political Islam strategic analysis program, said the United States should be reaching out to the Brotherhood in Egypt, as well as Hamas and Hezbollah, to "find common ground on daily issues, including issues of education, economics, commerce, health services, and community services."

"To engage the Islamic world, the U.S. needs expertise - cultural, political, and languages, said Nakhleh, author of "A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America's Relations with the Muslim World," in an interview with Harpers blogger Ken Silverstein.

"The CIA was the first government agency that recognized this and systematically began to assign resources to acquire expertise on the Islamic World. This started before 9/11," he also said. "The Agency's directors in the Analytic section saw this challenge many years ago and proceeded to allocate resources to begin the process. But the bad news is that the CIA remains the only entity in the U.S. government that has cultivated this expertise."

Nakhleh could not be reached for comment Friday.

"I would think that all of our officers across the Near East are spending a good amount of time on the streets trying to gauge the public mood and [assess] the chances of any more dominoes," said Scheuer, who has just authored a new biography of Osama Bin Laden.

"For myself, I hope that each [CIA chief of station] and/or the ambassador are writing commentaries for Washington to disabuse them of the idea that any of this unrest is going to lead to secular democracies in the region. We are either going to get either more ruthless dictatorships or - if they fall - a year or two of chaotic governments with patinas of democracy until the Islamists take over," Scheuer said. [Stein/WashingtonPost/30January2011] 

Section IV - OBITUARIES AND COMING EVENTS

Obituaries

Nestor D. Sanchez, 83; CIA Official Led Latin American Division. Nestor D. Sanchez, 83, a retired CIA officer and Defense Department official whose early intelligence career involved clandestine operations in Latin America, died of congestive heart failure Jan. 18 at his home in Buckeystown, Md.

Mr. Sanchez retired from the CIA in 1981 after three decades of service. Most of his time at the agency involved top-secret covert actions, including bloody 1954 coups in Guatemala and a 1960s plot to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Mr. Sanchez was also closely connected to former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, a onetime CIA paid informant.

In his later career, Mr. Sanchez was a deputy assistant secretary of defense for Latin American affairs during the Reagan administration. He specialized in providing Central American countries with U.S. military aid and funding.

At the time of his retirement, Mr. Sanchez was said by federal investigators to have been linked to illegal U.S. arms deals to the so-called "contras," anti-Sandinista rebels who were fighting the left-wing government in Nicaragua.

In the ensuing scandal, which came to be known as the Iran-Contra affair, Mr. Sanchez said that he was aware of the arms shipments but that he didn't know their origin. He was never accused of wrongdoing.

Mr. Sanchez joined the CIA in 1952. His first assignment for the agency was as a field intelligence officer during the Korean War, where he recruited defectors to infiltrate North Korea.

A New Mexico native and fluent Spanish speaker, Mr. Sanchez was sent to Central America to help engineer the 1954 coup against the left-leaning Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman.

Beginning in the early 1960s, Mr. Sanchez sharpened his focus on CIA operations in Cuba.

"It is obvious that the Soviets and Cubans are attempting to spread the malaise of Marxism to other countries, especially in Latin America," Mr. Sanchez once said, defending U.S. actions against the small tropical country. "They would impose dictatorships, economic decline and human suffering on the people."

Mr. Sanchez worked as the case officer in charge of Rolando Cubela, a Cuban CIA asset. Cubela was an officer in the Cuban army who had become disenchanted with Castro's leadership. At one point, Cubela asked Mr. Sanchez to provide him with a high-powered rifle equipped with a silencer and zooming scope.

Instead, on Nov. 22, 1963, Mr. Sanchez gave Cubela a hypodermic syringe filled with poison and camouflaged as a writing pen. But the assassination attempt never took place, and CIA officials later suspected that Cubela was a double agent.

Mr. Sanchez later worked in Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia and Spain before retiring from the CIA as chief of the Latin American division.

From 1981 to 1987, Mr. Sanchez served as a senior official in the Department of Defense. An ardent anti-communist, he advocated for millions of dollars in Defense funding to aid the development of Latin American armies, especially in El Salvador.

"We understand the concern of those who remember the specter of Vietnam that the war in El Salvador is being 'Americanized,' " Mr. Sanchez said in 1983. "But Vietnam was 10,000 miles away. El Salvador is a contiguous region right at our doorstep. San Salvador is closer to Washington, D.C., than is San Francisco."

Nestor Daniel Sanchez was born July 28, 1927, in Magdalena, N.M. He grew up on a cattle ranch.

He was 1950 graduate of the New Mexico Military Institute and later received a master's degree in geopolitics from Georgetown University.

From 1955 to 1959, Mr. Sanchez was posted to Morocco under State Department cover, where he oversaw intelligence gathering operations from a small base in Casablanca. During his time there, Mr. Sanchez married Joan Russell, a fellow CIA employee working undercover in Casablanca. She died in 2008.

Survivors include four sons, John Sanchez of Crofton, Patrick Sanchez of Philadelphia, Tom Sanchez of Williamsburg and James Sanchez of McLean; two sisters; seven grandchildren; and one great-grandson. [Shapiro/WashingtonPost/26January 2011]

Tun Ibrahim Ismail. Tun Ibrahim Ismail, who died on December 23 aged 88, was a Special Operations Executive officer who pulled off a daring 10-month triple-cross while a prisoner of the Japanese during the Second World War; he later went on to be head of Malaysia's armed forces.

Ibrahim was in charge of the only all-Malay team in SOE's Force 136, which aimed to recapture Malaya from the Japanese in 1944-45. British colleagues, led by Col Christopher Hudson, considered him so "extraordinarily keen" to get into action that they agreed to send him on a mission about which most had grave doubts.

Operation Oatmeal was designed to infiltrate a sabotage and observation team on to the western coast of Trengganu, some 14 hours' flying time from Force 136's base in Ceylon. One attempt to get ashore safely had already been aborted, and by the time Ibrahim and his three men set off on the night of October 30 1944, the Japanese were on high alert for potential spies.

The four-man team, which included two wireless operators, was then reduced to three, as one man fell sick on the Catalina flying boat that was delivering the party to the drop zone. Things went from bad to worse when the remaining three were unable to kayak to the Malayan mainland, as planned, and had to wade ashore on the Perhentian Islands, 10 miles off the coast.

They were left with little option but to appeal to the local chief, or "Batin", for help, and Ibrahim and his two men were provided with a boat to get to the mainland. On arrival there, however, they were quickly detained by the Japanese, and understood that they had been betrayed.

Ibrahim was on the end of "some slaps and kicks" but, when he and his team members - Mohamed Zin bin Haji Jaffar and Yahya bin Haji Mohamed - were left alone for a moment, they agreed to "twist the story and chance that things would work out well".

During a month of interrogations, the three gradually managed to convince their captors that they were not trusted by the British and were keen to work for the Japanese. The price of any slip-ups was made clear every morning when, through the bars of their cell, they watched Japanese officers practise their "head-chopping drill".

Back at base, it was clear that something had gone wrong, and when the Oatmeal team suddenly got back in contact without transmitting the security check "MY BOOTS ARE GREEN", it was obvious that the men had been captured.

In fact, Ibrahim had been captured complete with his codebook, detailing such security procedures. But he managed to convince the Japanese that this printed material was a ruse to deceive potential captors and that he had memorised the genuine security checks.

By mid-November the Oatmeal team was being used to "double cross" Force 136, with the Japanese keen to lure other spies into their snare. In Ceylon, meanwhile, SOE was aware that they now had a perfect conduit for feeding the Japanese misinformation.

This triple-cross was masterminded from India by a group of intelligence officers that included Col Peter Fleming, brother of the Bond author Ian. To gain time, they first demanded that the Oatmeal team travel to Penang, 300 miles away through jungle, in order to "investigate U-boat activity".

By this time Ibrahim and his men had been transferred from their cell to a room in the secret police headquarters. Such was their status among the Japanese that they were once, Ibrahim reported, invited to a dinner party at the house of the OC.

Having "crossed" the jungle (in fact the Japanese flew their prize intelligence assets to Penang), the three men bolstered their credentials with their captors by requesting that a "contact" be parachuted in to assist them. Naturally, no new spy could be dropped into the hands of the Japanese, so this contact was "taken ill" just before departure and, in August 1945, supplies were sent instead. "The Japs could not believe that their dream of fooling the British would come true and were quietly congratulating each other," Ibrahim noted.

So delighted was one Japanese officer that, as he watched the supply drop drift to earth, he failed to notice a 10ft deep pigtrap near the drop zone and fell in. "Luckily for him there were no bamboo spikes," Ibrahim recorded.

In fact it was the Japanese who were being fooled. Not only was the shipment missing all its vital components (due to a "packing error"), but the Oatmeal team had quietly been feeding their captors information that the land assault on Malaya would occur on the Isthmus of Kra, 650 miles to the north of where the invasion forces of Operation Zipper were due to come ashore.

In the event, Oatmeal received a message on August 17, before Operation Zipper was put into action, confirming Japan's unconditional surrender following the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Ibrahim was immediately concerned that "the Japs might just bump us off", and had regretfully to inform his captors that his religion would not permit him to commit hara-kiri with them. Eventually the Oatmeal members were released and made contact with British forces which had landed without opposition in early September.

"It really was incredible," Ibrahim noted in his mission report, "the way the Japs, from private up to general, swallowed everything we told them. But we had to revise our story every night. It was a terrible strain on our nerves."

Ibrahim Ismail was born on October 19 1922 in Johor, a state now in southern Malaysia. After attending the Dehra Dun military academy he was commissioned into the Indian Army following the Japanese invasion of Malaya. From there he was recruited into Force 136, which was to prove something of a nursery for future Malaysian leaders. Others there included Captain Abdul Razak Hussein (later Malaysia's second prime minister); Captain Hussein Onn (its third prime minister); and Mohamad Ghazali Shafie (a future foreign minister).

Postwar, Ibrahim joined Johor's local army before serving with the Royal Malay Regiment (RMR) from 1951. He rose to the rank of battalion commander with 6 RMR and drew on his experience with SOE to help combat his country's communist insurgency. He also served during the Confrontation with Indonesia following Malaysian independence.

In the wake of Sino-Malay race riots in Kuala Lumpur in May 1969, parliament was suspended and Ibrahim joined the National Operations Council, which governed until the restoration of parliamentary rule in 1971. By that time he had been appointed Chief of the Defence Forces, a position he held until 1977, when he retired in the rank of full general. It had not been a relaxing run-up to retirement, as the region was engulfed in the fallout from the Vietnam War and the threat of communist insurgency. Ibrahim had also had to help organise Malaysia's strategy towards Vietnamese refugees.

In 2000 Ibrahim Ismail was appointed a Grand Commander of the Order of the Crown of Malaysia, which conferred on him the honorific title "Tun".

With his wife, Toh Puan Zakiah Ahmad, he had four children. [Telegraph/31January2011]

Norman A. Jones, CIA Officer. Norman A. Jones, 82, a career CIA officer who specialized in Soviet economics and later started a Falls Church hardwood company, died Jan. 6 of a brain aneurysm at his home in Irvine, Calif.

He had been a longtime Falls Church resident and moved to Irvine in 2004.

In 1960, Mr. Jones joined the CIA after six years with the National Security Agency, where he was a cryptologist. At the CIA, he helped prepare the president's daily intelligence briefing.

Mr. Jones received the Intelligence Medal of Merit.

Norman Anderson Jones was born in Bartlesville, Okla. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in history from Kansas State University in 1950 and 1952, respectively. He received a doctorate in Russian history from Georgetown University in 1959.

Mr. Jones served in the Air Force during the Korean War.

He was fluent in Russian and taught the language part time at a University of Virginia satellite school in Northern Virginia and at George Mason University.

After he retired from the CIA in 1980, Mr. Jones started Colonial Hardwoods, a Springfield wood supply and manufacturing company, which he ran for 10 years.

Mr. Jones was a longtime pilot, having received his license when he was 14.

Survivors include his wife of 59 years, Janet Messenheimer Jones of Irvine; four children, Mark Jones of Boston, Cherie Jones of Washington, Kevin Jones of Overland Park, Kan., and Eric Jones of Irvine; a sister; and six grandchildren.  [Smith/WashingtonPost/30January2011]

Major Arthur Singletary, USMC(Ret), 69 of Mayo, passed away late Friday evening, January 7, 2011 at the Malcolm Randall Veteran's Affairs Medical Center in Gainesville. A native of Mayo, Fl., Major Singletary was a son of the late Dewey and Ollie Herrin Singletary. He returned to live in Mayo in 2006 with his wife Nancy, having moved from White Post, VA. He was a graduate of Taylor County High School class of 1959. After high school he joined the United States Marine Corps and served for 26 years until his retirement in 1986. During his career in the Marine Corps, Major Singletary served as a counter intelligence officer. He served five years during the Vietnam Conflict. He enjoyed working on his family genealogy. Major Singletary was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and attended the branch in Branford, Fl.

Major Singletary is survived by his wife, Nancy Brown Singletary, Mayo, two sons, David Scott (Karen) Singletary, Halladay, UT and Arthur (Kristen) Singletary, Jr, Fairfax, VA, one daughter, Barbara Ann DeLaCruz, Lexington, SC. Also surviving are one brother, Emory (June) Singletary, Perry, Fl, seven grandchildren, Daniel Tanner (Heather) Singletary, Norfolk, VA, Austin Kelly Singletary and Emily Erin Singletary both of Oak City, UT, Aspyn Bailey Singletary, Brigham City, UT, J.C. DeLaCruz and Brian DeLaCruz both of Lexington, SC and Justin David Singletary, Fairfax, VA, one great grandchild and four aunts, Dorothy Hines, Steinhatchee, Evelyn Webb, Steinhatchee, Deloris (Royce) Morgan, Day, Fl and Margaret Ducksworth, Mayo.

Funeral services for Major Singletary were conducted on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 11:00 AM at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Branford Branch. Interment followed with military honors at Woodlawn Cemetery in Perry, Florida. Visitation with the family was from 6-8:00 PM Tuesday evening January 12, at the funeral home. [SwaneeDemocrat/18January2011]

Coming Educational Events

EDUCATIONAL EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

MANY Spy Museum Events in February and March 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.

Wednesday, 2 February 2011, 6 pm - Las Vegas, NV - Lawrence Marino on "Are You A Target?" at AFIO Las Vegas Chapter Meeting.

Lawrence L. Marino, OCP, NSO OPSEC Manager, Security Awareness Supervisor, PAI Corporation
Contractor to the Nevada Site Office addresses the Roger E. McCarthy Las Vegas AFIO Chapter at Nellis Air Force Base Officers' Club. (Guest names must be submitted along with their birth date to me by 4:00 p.m., Thursday, January 27th. Please join us at 5 p.m. in the "Robin's Roost" bar area for liaison and beverages
OPSEC? OPSEC? We don't need no stinking OPSEC! There are many reasons you may be thinking this. Perhaps it's because you are retired or haven't dealt with intelligence information or classified in many years. Maybe it's because OPSEC only protects unclassified bits of information and all you've ever dealt with is SCI or codeword. Maybe it's because no one has ever really explained what OPSEC is really designed to do. I suggest that it may even be because you simply don't care about OPSEC or know what it can do to help you. Either way, we're gonna talk about OPSEC and what it can do for you regardless of which stage your career is in. You and I both know that each of you reading this and each of you present at this presentation is a target. The question now is; what can we do about it?
Mr. Marino is currently the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, Nevada Site Office Operations Security (OPSEC) Manager, where he dedicated 33 years to OPSEC, Intelligence Analysis, Communications Security and training.
Mr. Marino currently serves as President of the Operations Security Professionals Association (OSPA) Training Academy and is a current member of the OSPA Board of Directors and a past member of the OPSEC Professionals Society (OPS) Board of Directors. He is also the Chair of the Department of Energy Security Awareness Special Interest Group Steering Committee, President of his local Toastmasters Club and an OPSEC Certified Professional (OCP).
Dinner: You are welcome to arrive early and join us in the "Robin's Roost" bar area, inside the Officer's Club. The Robin's Roost has an excellent, informal dinner venue along with a selection of snacks. Water will be provided during the meeting, but you may also purchase beverages and food at the bar and bring them to the meeting. Once again, please feel free to bring your spouse and/or guest(s) to dinner as well as our meeting, but remember to submit your guest(s) names to me before the stated deadline above.
RSVP: If you are planning to attend the AFIO meeting on Wednesday, February 2, provide your name and birth date to Mary Bentley, Event Coordinator, at BentleyM@nv.doe.gov asap. Your info must arrive before 4 p.m., Thursday, January 27, 2011, to be included on Nellis access list. If you have guests, provide their name and DOB.
LOCATION: The Officers' Club at Nellis Air Force Base. All guests must use the MAIN GATE located at the intersection on Craig Road and Las Vegas Blvd. Address: 5871 Fitzgerald Blvd., Nellis AFB, NV 89191 Phone: 702-644-2582.

Wednesday, 2 February 2011, 10:15 am - Washington, DC - "China's Mole" at the International Spy Museum - Chinese-Americans Filching American Secrets

Former FBI Washington Field Office squad supervisor, Ivian C. Smith, author of Inside: A Top G-Man Exposes Spies, Lies, and Bureaucratic Bungling in the FBI, Smith will take you inside the case that revealed the CIA's leading Chinese linguist, Larry Chin, had been a spy for more than 30 years. Part of the Spy Museum's THE SPIES WITHIN: UNDERCOVER IN THE USA series. WHERE: International Spy Museum: 800 F Street, NW, Washington, DC. Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station
TICKETS: $112 for all four programs on Feb 2, 9, 16, and 23. (must be purchased through the Smithsonian). To register or for more information, visit www.spymuseum.org

Monday, 7 February 2011, 6:30pm - Washington, DC - "Sex(pionage): Spies, Lies, and Naked Thighs" at the International Spy Museum
Anna Chapman "had a libido worthy of a James Bond femme fatale."—New York Post, 5 July, 2010
As Valentine's Day approaches, some lovers plan sensual dinners while others prepare to search their paramours' computer hard drives. Romantic surprises aren't always a good thing! And if you have something to hide you might just find yourself the victim of one of the oldest tricks of the trade: sexpionage. From ancient intrigues to Anna Chapman, spies, counterspies, and terrorists often conduct their undercover activities under the covers! International Spy Museum Board Member, retired FBI supervisory special agent, and owner/founder of the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, David G. Major will reveal how seduction is used as a tool to attract and manipulate assets, to coerce and/or attempt to coerce and compromise targets, and to control spies in both reality and fiction. Major will tell all about the spies who stop at nothing to get their man—or woman! Guests will enjoy a Zola Choctini as they gather essential knowledge for any questionable or suspicious relationship.
Tickets: $25.00 per person, 18 and older only. Register at https://www.spymuseum.org

Tuesday, 8 February 2011, 5:00-6:00 p.m. - Hampton Roads, VA - The AFIO Chapter meets to plan 2011 events and other business. Location: Tabb Library in York County. Main Meeting Room.
We will discuss chapter plans for the year and other business matters. Nonmembers are welcome.
Please rsvp: Melissa Saunders mwsaunders@cox.net
Directions to Tabb Library, York County
From Norfolk take I-64 West. Merge onto US-17 North via Exit 258B toward Yorktown. Follow US-17 North approximately 2.2 miles to Victory Blvd/VA-171 East. Turn right onto Victory Blvd/VA-171 East. Turn right at the next traffic light onto Hampton Hwy/VA-134 South. Turn right at the next traffic light onto Long Green Blvd. Tabb Library is on the immediate right. It is across the street from the Victory YMCA.
From Williamsburg take I-64 East. Merge onto Victory Blvd/VA-171 East via Exit 256B. Follow Victory Blvd/VA-171 East approximately 2 miles. Turn right onto Hampton Hwy/VA-134 South. Turn right at the next traffic light onto Long Green Blvd. Tabb Library is on the immediate right. It is across the street from the Victory YMCA.

Tuesday, 8 February 2011, 11:30 am - Tampa, FL - AFIO Suncoast Chapter luncheon features Florida State Rep. Kevin C. Ambler.

Kevin C. Ambler (R) has served in the Florida State House of Representatives, District 47. District 47 is located in Northwest Hillsborough County. Representative Ambler attended Cornell University on a four-year Air Force ROTC scholarship where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in economics in 1983. Upon graduation, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force. In 1986, he received his J.D. from Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles, California. Soon after, he was appointed as an Air Force judge advocate and assigned to the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, where he served for nearly 5 years in several positions including Chief of Claims, Chief of Legal Assistance, Chief of Military Justice and Chief of the Civil Law division. During this same time, he also was appointed by the U.S. Attorney General as a Special Assistant United States Attorney and was responsible for prosecuting criminal cases in federal court against civilians arising on MacDill AFB. Later, his responsibilities expanded to defending the United States in federal court in medical malpractice and personal injury cases arising under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Representative Ambler entered private practice and transferred to the Air Force Reserves in 1991. During his first year as a reservist, he was awarded the Harmon Award by the Air Force Judge Advocate General as the Most Outstanding Reserve Judge Advocate in the U.S. Air Force. Representative Ambler's other military decorations include the Air Force Achievement Medal, two Air Force Meritorious Service Medals, and two National Defense Services Medals.
Location: MacDill AFB Officer's Club.
Please RSVP no later than January 31st with the names of any guests to afiosuncoastvp@aol.com or mfshapiro@att.net or call (813) 995-2200 or visit on web at www.suncoastafio.org. Refer to the information "To attend our Meeting" for important details. Check-in at 1130 hours; opening ceremonies, lunch and business meeting at noon, followed by our speaker,
We have maintained the all-inclusive cost at $15. The cash wine and soda bar will open at 1100 hours for those that wish to come early to socialize.

Tuesday, 8 February 2011, 7:00pm - Washington, DC - "Secret History of History - Espionage in the Civil War" at the International Spy Museum During the Civil War both sides used resources to conduct intelligence operations that would give their side an advantage. Despite the often disorderly nature of many of these efforts, significant successes included the use of Union codes which protected critical communications, and both sides effectively using agents to gather and report information.
• Clayton D. Laurie, Historian, Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA, Moderator
• Ann Blackman, author of Wild Rose: Rose O'Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy
• Ken Daigler, former Case Officer in the Clandestine Service, CIA, and author of Black Dispatches: Black American Contributions to Union Intelligence During the Civil War
• Donald E. Markle, author of Spies and Spymasters of the Civil War
The Spy Museum in partnership with the National Archives presents this program.
Free! No reservation required. Directions available at www.spymuseum.org

9 February 2011, 8:30 am to 12:30 pm- Miami, FL - FBI's INFRAGARD Invites AFIO Members to Security Seminar on Awareness, Preparedness and Reaction to Violent Attacks.
In light of the tragic event in Tucson on January 8, 2011, THE Infragard will be hosting a special seminar/meeting on the topic: Awareness, Preparedness and Reacting to Violent Attacks.
Focus of the discussions and presentations will be: 1) The Threat, Implications and Needs. 2) Awareness: Educating and Training our Minds to Analytical Visualization. 3) PREVENTION: Avoidance and Mitigation 4) Private and Public Sectors 5) Panel and audience participation
Location: Florida International University (FIU) MAIN CAMPUS, Miami (Location College of Business Special Events Center)
The College of Business Complex is located closest to the 8 St & 112 Ave entrance. Please come in through the 8 St & 112 Ave entrance, make a right onto University Drive and follow the road until they reach PGP (Panther Parking Garage) on their right hand side.
Date: February 9th 2011 - Time: 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM
8:30-9:00 AM: Registration; 9:00-9:15 AM: Introductions; 9:15-10:30 AM: Joe Pinon's Presentation; 10:30-10:50 AM: Refreshments Break; 10:50-11:00 AM: FBI Recruitment; 11:00-12:00 AM: Dr. Lori Butts' Presentation; 12:00-12:30 PM: Questions and Answer to the Panel; 12:30 PM: Adjournment
RSVP as soon as possible to Agent Nelson Barbosa, Nelson.Barbosa@ic.fbi.gov, (954) 553-0341

Wednesday, 9 February 2011, 10:15 am - Washington, DC - "Israel's Controversial Spy" at the International Spy Museum - Jewish-Americans Stealing Secrets for Israel

Ron Olive, author of Capturing Jonathan Pollard, and the assistant special agent in charge of counterintelligence in the Washington Naval Investigative Service office when Pollard was arrested, will take you behind the scenes of this case and the ongoing controversy surrounding Pollard's imprisonment. Part of the Spy Museum's THE SPIES WITHIN: UNDERCOVER IN THE USA series.
WHERE: International Spy Museum: 800 F Street, NW, Washington, DC. Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station
TICKETS: $112 for all four programs on Feb 2, 9, 16, and 23. (must be purchased through the Smithsonian) To register or for more information, visit www.spymuseum.org

Thursday 10 February 2011, noon - 2 pm - Washington, DC - Richard Kirkland on Tales of a Korean War MASH Pilot at The Returned & Services League of Australia (Arrive early as Kirkland's briefing will start at around 12:15).

Richard C. Kirkland flew 103 combat missions in P-38 and P-47 fighters with the famed "Flying Knight" squadron in the southwest Pacific during World War II. He flew one mission with Charles Lindbergh who was teaching fuel economy during the war. After World War II, Richard participated in the atomic bomb test "Operation Greenhouse." During the Korean War he flew 69 helicopter missions rescuing downed airmen from behind enemy lines and evacuating wounded to the 8055 MASH. After his military career he was a demonstration pilot for Hughes Aircraft where he later served in a management capacity. He documented his amazing experiences in sketches and paintings. After his retirement, these were published in magazines and five books. Richard C. Kirkland is a true aviation pioneer. * http://www.nasm.si.edu/events/eventDetail.cfm?eventID=2391&hp=u
Where –Amenities room, Embassy of Australia, 1601 Massachusetts, Ave NW * Valid ID required. Charge - $15.00, including buffet lunch and sodas. Alcoholic beverages- $2.00 each.
RSVP by noon on Wednesday February 9, 2010, to David Ward on 202-352-8550 or via e-mail at dmward1973@gmail.com
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

11 and 12 February 2011 - Orange Park, FL - The AFIO North Florida Chapter hosts FBI SAC Jax, James Casey, including tour of Jax FBI Field office

Wednesday, 16 February 2011, 10:15 am - Washington, DC - "The Cuban Sympathizers" at the International Spy Museum - Pro-Castro-Americans Stealing Secrets for Cuba

Discover what made Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers spurn their well-connected lives in DC to systematically betray their country until their arrest in June of 2009. Robert Booth, retired State Department diplomatic security agent and CI Centre faculty member shines light on this intriguing case. Part of the Spy Museum's THE SPIES WITHIN: UNDERCOVER IN THE USA series.
WHERE: International Spy Museum: 800 F Street, NW, Washington, DC. Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station
TICKETS: $112 for all four programs on Feb 2, 9, 16, and 23. (must be purchased through the Smithsonian). To register or for more information, visit www.spymuseum.org

Thursday, 17 February 2011, noon – 1:00 pm - Washington, DC - "Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage" at International Spy Museum
"Wild Bill" Donovan was a World War I hero with a Medal of Honor to prove it, a millionaire Wall Street lawyer, and a prominent Republican. Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt chose this brilliant yet disorganized visionary to be his spymaster, head of the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Veteran journalist Douglas Waller has written a compelling biography of William Donovan. He describes Donovan's reckless nature: how he needlessly risked his life on foreign battlefields and engaged in extramarital affairs that emboldened his enemies in Washington. Waller also recounts the OSS's daring operations overseas and the vicious political battles that Donovan had to fight with Winston Churchill, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Pentagon. Donovan's plans to continue the OSS after the war were defeated, yet the CIA rose like a phoenix from the OSS's ashes.
Free! No registration required! Join the author for an informal chat and book signing. Directions at www.spymuseum.org

Wednesday, 23 February 2011, 10:15 am - Washington, DC - "The Russian Illegals" at the International Spy Museum - Russian-Americans Stealing Secrets for Russia

Get the inside story on the June 2010 roundup of ten Russian "deep-cover" spies—from sexy agent Anna Chapman to stylish young Mikhail Semenko. International Spy Museum historian and former CIA analyst, Mark Stout will reveal the latest information on the investigation, the spy swap, and the damage done. Part of the Spy Museum's THE SPIES WITHIN: UNDERCOVER IN THE USA series.
WHERE: International Spy Museum: 800 F Street, NW, Washington, DC. Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station
TICKETS: $112 for all four programs on Feb 2, 9, 16, and 23. (must be purchased through the Smithsonian). To register or for more information, visit www.spymuseum.org

24 February 2011 - Arlington, VA - Col. Lang on "The Islamic World Today" - at luncheon of Defense Intelligence Forum

The group meets at the Pulcinella Restaurant, 6852 Old Dominion Drive, McLean, VA. Colonel W. Patrick Lang, USA (Ret), will speak on The Islamic World Today. Colonel Lang is a retired Army Military Intelligence, Special Forces, and Foreign Area officer. In his last active duty assignment, he was Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia, and Terrorism. Following retirement, he became the first Director of the Defense HUMINT Service. He was the first Arabic Language professor at West Point. He served ten years as an executive for a company operating in the Middle East and South Asia. He is a consultant for television and radio, including The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. He wrote Intelligence: the Human Factor, a definitive text on human intelligence collection operations, and several novels based on Confederate secret services in the Civil War.
Registration starts at 1130, lunch at 1200. Reserve by 18 February by email to diforum@verizon.net. Give names, telephone numbers, email addresses, and choice of chicken cacciatore, tilapia puttanesca, lasagna, sausage and peppers, or fettuccini portabella. Pay at the door by check for $29 per person. Make checks payable to DIAA, Inc. WE DON'T TAKE CASH! If you don't have a check, have the restaurant charge your credit or debit card $29 and give the restaurant's copy of the receipt when you check in.

Friday, 25 February 2011, 6 - 8 pm - Washington, DC - 10th Anniversary of the Arrest of FBI Agent Robert Hanssen - presentation by Brian Kelley, CIA

Institute of World Politics Professor Brian Kelley, a retired CIA officer who knew and worked with Hanssen, will provide the intimate details about the "story behind the story" relative to the investigation of the FBI traitor.
Using the actual video clips taken of the arrest of Hanssen, along with salient clips from the movie Breach and from a 60 Minutes story which document the events leading to Hanssen's arrest, Professor Kelley will walk the audience through the complex case of the bizarre traitor focusing on Hanssen's lack of operational "tradecraft" coupled with salient investigative issues which took this investigation down the wrong path for many years. In addition to his talk, Mr. Kelley will introduce some special guests who were connected in various ways to the investigation.
RSVP and Location: The Institute of World Politics, 1521 16th Street NW, Washington, DC. Please RSVP to kbridges@iwp.edu.

Friday, 11 March 2011, noon - 1 pm - Washington, DC - " The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-life Spy Story" by Robert Baer at the International Spy Museum.

Robert Baer was known inside the Agency as perhaps the best operative working the Middle East—a man who'd been "in the life" so long that friends and family had mostly become casualties, no longer interested in taking his calls. Dayna Williamson was a newcomer—a young Agency talent who was determined to make it as a spy and as a gun-wielding "shooter," even as she found herself losing touch with everyone who mattered to her. When they were sent on a mission together, the last thing either expected happened: they fell in love. Join Dayna and New York Times bestselling author Robert Baer as they share their unlikely romance, their attempt to leave their old lives behind, and how they are applying their intelligence background to timely issues today from Hizballah to Pakistan." Free! No registration required! Join the author for an informal chat and book signing. Further information at www.spymuseum.org

Thursday, 17 March 2011, 11:30 am - Colorado Springs, CO - The Rocky Mountain Chapter presents the Consul General of Australia to talk about the great floods of Queensland.  

Significant flooding occurred in many areas of Queensland during late December 2010 and early January 2011, with three quarters of the state declared a disaster zone.  “Our economy will take a hit, wiping almost 2 percentage points of forecast growth," said Treasurer Andrew Fraser.  The flooded area is the size of Texas and New Mexico together.  Now Tropical Cyclone Yasi is suppose to hit land on 3 Feb 2011 at 5:48 am Mountain Time as a CAT-5 storm in the middle of the flooded area.  Winds for Yasi have been clocked at 175 miles per hour. To be held at the new location AFA... Eisenhower Golf Course Club House.  Please RSVP to Tom VanWormer at robsmom@pcisys.net

24 March 2011 – San Francisco, CA – The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts Captain Jeff Kline, U.S. Navy, ret.; Senior Lecturer, Navy Postgraduate School, speaking on "Piracy on the High Seas" with special emphasis on the Somali pirates. 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 a check made out to "AFIO" to: Mariko Kawaguchi, P.O. Box 117578 Burlingame, CA 94011

28 March - 1 April 2011 - San Diego, CO - Bicoastal Counter-Terrorism Summit at SDSU by The HALO Corporation The 2011 Bicoastal Counter-Terrorism Summit (BCTS) has been created to meet the critical needs of Security Professionals and Law Enforcement personnel. Throughout the Summit, Law Enforcement and Security Professionals will share and exchange information, ideas, and intelligence and engage in exercises based on factual scenarios. For further information contact www.thehalocorp.com

Tuesday, 29 March 2011, 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - "Who's Watching Whom: Spying and Social Media" at the International Spy Museum

"You are opening the floodgates to a torrent of data, which your adversary can ... sift and turn into intelligence."—Paul Strassman, former Pentagon director of defense information, July 2010
Much has been made of Anna Chapman, the Russian illegal, and her use of Facebook to search for contacts and information. But how effective is social media as a vehicle for intelligence gathering and manipulation? This expert panel will reveal what online identities and social media can do that actual operatives and organizations can't. Judge Shannen L. Rossmiller (Ret.) is credited as America's first online operative in the War on Terror. Since 9/11, the cyber-spy has been responsible for more than 200 cases of actionable intelligence and extremist captures – most of them overseas and in conjunction with the FBI made through her adoption of online alter egos who proclaim allegiance with terrorist groups. Thomas Ryan, co-founder of Provide Security, created the fictional Robin Sage, a cyber femme fatale, who quickly wormed her way into the confidence of security professionals who should have known better. The experiment was conceived to expose weaknesses in the nation's defense and intelligence communities. Jack Holt, senior strategist for emerging media at the Department of Defense, joins in to reveal the challenges and opportunities that social media presents for us all.
Tickets: $15.00 per person. Register at www.spymuseum.org

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

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