The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Interview With Admiral Mullen by Fareed Zakaria, CNN Transcript and YouTube
Interview with General Patraeus by Christine Amanpour, CNN Story
There's ‘Work To Be Done,' 9/11 Commission Chairs Say (Lee Hamilton, Thomas Kean)
The war of new words: Why military history trumps buzzwords (Willam F. Own)
Let's Take Bureaucracy Out Of Intelligence (John Bolton)
Beating the Dead Terrorist Horse (Victor Davis Hanson)
Wall Street Journal Reuel Marc Gerecht January 8, 2010 [safety copy of entire piece below the fold]
Amid the Hysteria, A Look at What al-Qaeda Can't Do
TIME Magazine By Peter Beinart Monday, Jan. 18, 2010
National Journal By James Kitfield Saturday, Jan. 9, 2010 [Subscription]
Hidden behind walls of top-secret classification, senior U.S. government officials meet in what is essentially a star chamber to decide which enemies of the state to target for assassination. There is no single master list, but all names pass through an elaborate, multi-agency vetting process that ends at the level of the National Security Council and ultimately requires presidential approval.
Overwhelm. Divide. Spread. Bankrupt. Diversify: Al Qaeda's new grand strategy
Washington Post By Bruce Hoffman January 10, 2010
London Sunday Times By David Leppard and Hala Jaber January 10, 2010
Continue reading “Journal: What Al Qaeda Et Al Can and Cannot Do”
Terrorism Fight Requires Intelligence Accountability (Senator John Kerry)
Frankly, we don’t need more commissions or bureaucracies. We do need intelligence professionals and their managers who are committed to a new culture of quality, cooperation, and accountability.
Two attacks highlight counterterrorism's bureaucratic bog (David Ignatius)
Talking to veteran counterterrorism officers, I hear a common theme that unites these two disastrous lapses: The CIA has adopted bureaucratic procedures that, while intended to avoid mistakes, may actually heighten the risks. In the words of one CIA veteran, “You have a system that is overwhelmed.”
But those standard agent-handling rules have been violated routinely, in Iraq and now Afghanistan, because senior officials have concluded it's too dangerous outside the wire. “At least 90 percent of all agent meetings are conducted on bases,” estimates one CIA veteran. The agency wants to protect its people, understandably — but the system actually works to increase vulnerability.
The Khost tragedy shows that the CIA needs to take the counterintelligence threat from al-Qaeda more seriously. Intelligence reports over the past year have warned that groups linked with al-Qaeda were sending double agents to penetrate CIA bases in Afghanistan.
The brave CIA officers serving overseas deserve a better system than this.
CIA Director Leon Panetta should use these searing events to foster a culture of initiative and accountability at a CIA that wants to do the job — but that needs leadership and reform.
Holes For The CIA To Close (David Ignatius)
A replay of long-standing criticisms of CIA's short-tours, lack of memory, refusal to take counterintelligence seriously, and general ineptitude outside the Embassy cocktail circuits.
Confusion Grows Over How Bomber Infiltrated CIA Base (Los Angeles Times)
A CIA inquiry is focused on two main questions: why the bomber was not more thoroughly screened and where he received the training and explosives used in the attack.
Deja Vu Stories
U.S. Saw A Path To Qaeda Chiefs Before Bombing
Suicide bomber who attacked CIA post in Afghanistan was trusted informant from Jordan
James S. Chanos built one of the largest fortunes on Wall Street by foreseeing the collapse of Enron and other highflying companies whose stories were too good to be true.
Now Mr. Chanos, a wealthy hedge fund investor, is working to bust the myth of the biggest conglomerate of all: China Inc.
As most of the world bets on China to help lift the global economy out of recession, Mr. Chanos is warning that China's hyperstimulated economy is headed for a crash, rather than the sustained boom that most economists predict. Its surging real estate sector, buoyed by a flood of speculative capital, looks like “Dubai times 1,000 — or worse,” he frets. He even suspects that Beijing is cooking its books, faking, among other things, its eye-popping growth rates of more than 8 percent.
Phi Beta Iota: We agree with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore when he says that demography, not democracy, will shape the future. While the other seven demographic powers (Brazil, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Wild Cards such as Turkey) will be extraordinarily influential as well, China is the only one that is:
Continue reading “Journal: The Chinese Crash or the Chinese Solution?”
Robert, I had lunch with an old friend, Herb REDACTED, a retired intelligence officer and military judge (Air Force). The subject of OSS and your role in the IC came about, and my friend sent me a very interesting, brief, story about the open source back channel in the Cuban Missile Crisis I want to share with you. You may well be aware of this, given your knowledge of history, but I wanted you to have this in case it, or my friend Herb, has potential utility to your initiatives. Perhaps the current environment, in DC, will result in a change in policy and effectiveness in the IC. In his note to me, he is commenting about the paper I presented at OSS '94, as a result of your gracious invite. I still tell people about the role you have played in bringing the intelligence community into the limelight, open source into greater adaptation. – REDACTED
Great to visit with you in Tampa-
Your OSS presentation is not simply impressive, it recognizes and highlights a very real and valuable component of intelligence currently as well as in those long distance days when I was immersed in the discipline. It was an open intelligence source that was the first indication that the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was resolved.
It's a rather long story but to offer a brief synopsis: A Reuters News Service correspondent posted to The Kremlin was close to Khrushchev (Big K), close enough to be the only correspondent to gain a private audience during the crisis. On Oct. 27th (I think it was) Big K. told the Reuters' fellow that: “I will do anything to prevent the world's destruction over Cuba.” The reporter then asked incredulously: “Mr. President, do you really mean ‘anything?” The reply was: “Yes, I will not be the cause of the death of millions of Soviet citizens and radiating the world.”
In the USAFE Command Room in Wiesbaden, we intelligence wennies had every news service and major newspaper teletype machine known to mankind for open source material. Apparently the reported took a fast cab ride back to his office and put the conversation on the wire. We had a method of verification, used it and confirmed the fact that he had placed the story on the wire. Presuming it accuracy, we passed it on the Situation Room at the White House. In mere moments we (in the intel. Secure office) received a secure red phone (secure with those punched IBM cards) call from the WH (MacGeorge Bundy on the other end) asking me (since I picked up the phone) was the wire story accurate. I answered yes and handed the phone to Brig. General Julius Gibbons ( CoS for Intel. USAFE) and he spoke to RFK.
Within minutes the deal between JFK and Big K made in Washington was announced. But they knew the deal was to get closed by the USAFE report a few minutes earlier. And don't overlook the excellent ploy hatched by RFK to ignore Big K's second letter that he was forced to write by his military goons.
The play-by-play version is suitable for a beer or two, it's a little longer.
Thus, your open source presentation was well appreciated as an old intel wennie.
Continue reading “Journal: Open Source Vignette From Cuban Missile Crisis”
Mind-reading systems could change air security
By MICHAEL TARM Jan 8, 2010
CHICAGO (AP) – A would-be terrorist tries to board a plane, bent on mass murder. As he walks through a security checkpoint, fidgeting and glancing around, a network of high-tech machines analyzes his body language and reads his mind.
Screeners pull him aside.
Tragedy is averted.
As far-fetched as that sounds, systems that aim to get inside an evildoer's head are among the proposals floated by security experts thinking beyond the X-ray machines and metal detectors used on millions of passengers and bags each year.
Continue reading “Journal: Mind-Reading Systems Instead of Human Minds”
By IAN LIVINGSTON, HEATHER MESSERA, MICHAEL O’HANLON and AMY UNIKEWICZ January 2, 2010
In 2009, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan dominated American military and foreign policy. Which themes emerged over the last year?
In Iraq, 2009 was the year of relatively smooth transitions.
In Pakistan, 2009 was the year of the offensives.
In Afghanistan, 2009 was the year of decisions — by President Obama, of course, by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and by the Afghan people as they re-elected Hamid Karzai as president.
Phi Beta Iota: Although a puff piece in some ways, since it is well-known that Karzai is massively corrupt and the election was so fraudulent as to remind one of Idi Amin's elections, the statistics are indeed looking good, especially in Iraq. Our concern is that the US will finally de-occupy Iraq only to create new occupations in Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia. Neither CIA nor JSOC is actually up to the challenge of global operations without blow-back, the US has no strategy and no Whole of Goverment capability for waging peace so as to calm the context in which we do one man – one bullet operations, so on balance, we are very concerned.
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