Director of National Intelligence et al (IC) – Page 10

2012/05/112012/05/11

Marcus Aurelius: British Agent, American Leak, Who’s on First?

09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Articles & Chapters, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, IO Deeds of War

Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius

British secret agent was al-Qaeda mole who cracked new ‘underpants' bomb plot

A British undercover agent infiltrated al-Qaeda, volunteered to be a suicide bomber and smuggled out the latest version of the deadly underpants bomb, it can be disclosed.

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CIA launches inquiry into media leaks over ‘underpants' double agent

US spy chief James Clapper has ordered an inquiry into leaks to media outlets that exposed how the CIA foiled an al-Qaeda plot using a spy who infiltrated the terror group, officials said Wednesday.

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Phi Beta Iota: There are three levels here. First, it is most likely the leak came from the White House, deliberately, and the IC investigation is mostly for show–and to make the subtle point that their investigation cannot cover the White House (if we had a proper national counterintelligence capability and the FBI had integrity, this would not be happening). Second, as we found in Central America and elsewhere, the White House runs its own intelligence and covert action operations without regard to the secret intelligence chain of command, and we have no doubt that John Brennan is playing a double game (pun intended). Third and last, if this is real, and we are inclined to think that it is not, it should be said that the British can be very very good, and the UK has the most target-rich environment on the planet for recruiting penetrations — it also has the most extremist penetrations of legitimate groups. Just as the Soviets nailed every recruited emigree sent back in after WWII, we suspect that the extremists have a better grip on their own community than the Brits do. In terms of evaluating the integrity of the British, we remind one and all that they supported the White House on all the lies about Iraq, and even went so low as to plagarize an unclassified paper from the Moneterey Institute of International Relations (MIIR), a desperate move made necessary in their eyes because they had no secret sources and had no real knowledge. On balance, this smells.

2012/04/282012/11/05

Marcus Aurelius: Admiral Lyons Blasts US Intelligence Community – No Improvement Since 9/11 — Could It Even Be WORSE? With Comment by Robert Steele

Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, IO Impotency, Military, Policies

UPDATED 2 November 2012 to add 450-ship Navy and other military implications of intelligence with integrity

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Admiral Lyons Blasts US Intelligence Community – No Improvement Since 9/11 — Could It Even Be WORSE? With Comment by Robert Steele”

2012/04/282012/04/28

Marcus Aurelius: CIA Panetta Memo on Presidential Authorization of Bin Laden Hit

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call

As posted at http://cryptocomb.org/cia-memo-panetta.jpg.

Phi Beta Iota: This may well be authentic, but it is highly suspect. A signed Presidential finding is needed for such a project, one does not undertake such initiatives without that written document, nor accept a phone call from a lesser aide as a substitute–nor should JSOG be doing anything without that written finding, certainly not on the verbal word of the CIA Director. We continue to believe that CIA created an Oswald situation, a patsy, for JSOG to kill and dump without credible forensic evidence. There is uncertainty as to whether Obama actually authorized the mission–it may have been done against his wishes as the placeholder president. We continue to believe that former Assistant Secretary of State Dr. Steve Pieczenik has it right — Bin Laden died in 2001. Our only certainty is that the truth is quite distant from the “Bin Laden Story” as told to date.

Bin Laden Show 14: Dr. Dr. Steve Pieczenik Nails It–Bin Laden Died of Marfan in 2001–Reiterates (Has Proof) 9/11 Was a Cheney-Led Stand-Down False Flag Operation. Indictment?

Bin Laden Show 08: History from 2001 Updated

Bin Laden Show: Entries 01-79 UPDATED 24 March 2012

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Intelligence (Most)

cia-memo-panetta — Click on Image to Enlarge

2012/04/21

Marcus Aurelius: NSA Declassifies Top Secret Umbra Report on Berlin Tunnel

Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Intelligence (government), IO Impotency

Certainly worth a read. As time goes by, but only retrospectively, long after everyone has retired or died, accountability in terms of cost versus gain will eventually come to the fore.

nsa-operation-regal

Phi Beta Iota: There are two forms of accountability, neither of which is achievable today. The first is as mentioned above, cost-benefit analysis. General Tony Zinni has nailed it with his assessment that today's $80 billion a year community produces “at best” 4% of what a major commander needs — General Mike Flynn documented results even worse than that for Afghanistan. The other form of accountability has to do with laxity in counterintelligence and operations security. NSA biggest dirty secret for the past 50 years is that the Soviets captured core crypto machines in Viet-Nam, and then got the key cards from penetrations of the US Navy. The raw fact is that secrecy is used to hide fraud, waste, and abuse 90% of the time. Best quote on the latter point:

“Everybody who's a real practioner, and I'm sure you're not all naive in this regard, realizes that there are two uses to which security classification is put: the legitmate desire to protect secrets, and the protection of bureaucratic turf. As a practitioner of the real world, it's about 90 bureaucratic turf, 10 legitimate protection of secrets as far as I am concerned.”

Rodley B. McDaniel, then Executive Secretary of the National Security Council, on page 68
C3i: Issues of Command and Control (NDU Press, 1991)

2012/03/252012/03/25

Marcus Aurelius: CIA Counter-Terror Drone Boss – Cognitive Dissonance in Spades + RECAP

Director of National Intelligence et al (IC)

Tough to only have a hammer when you really need a fly swatter.

Washington Post
March 25, 2012
Pg. 1

The CIA's Enigmatic Al-Qaeda Hunter

Convert to Islam has led spy agency's renewed assault on terror group

By Greg Miller

For every cloud of smoke that follows a CIA drone strike in Pakistan, dozens of smaller plumes can be traced to a gaunt figure standing in a courtyard near the center of the agency’s Langley campus in Virginia.

The man with the nicotine habit is in his late 50s, with stubble on his face and the dark-suited wardrobe of an undertaker. As chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center for the past six years, he has functioned in a funereal capacity for al-Qaeda.

Roger, which is the first name of his cover identity, may be the most consequential but least visible national security official in Washington — the principal architect of the CIA’s drone campaign and the leader of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In many ways, he has also been the driving force of the Obama administration’s embrace of targeted killing as a centerpiece of its counterterrorism efforts.

Colleagues describe Roger as a collection of contradictions. A chain-smoker who spends countless hours on a treadmill. Notoriously surly yet able to win over enough support from subordinates and bosses to hold on to his job. He presides over a campaign that has killed thousands of Islamist militants and angered millions of Muslims, but he is himself a convert to Islam.

His defenders don’t even try to make him sound likable. Instead, they emphasize his operational talents, encyclopedic understanding of the enemy and tireless work ethic.

“Irascible is the nicest way I would describe him,” said a former high-ranking CIA official who supervised the counterterrorism chief. “But his range of experience and relationships have made him about as close to indispensable as you could think.”

Critics are less equivocal. “He’s sandpaper” and “not at all a team player,” said a former senior U.S. military official who worked closely with the CIA. Like others, the official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the director of CTC — as the center is known — remains undercover.

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Phi Beta Iota: A decent man and committed professional trapped in a pathologically twisted system. Deja vu.

2012/03/242012/03/24

Mini-Me: The Bin Laden Show Goes on the Road Part II

08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, IO Impotency

How al-Qaeda tried to control the media

THE David Ignatius

Washington Post, 20 March 2012

Among the last known images of Osama bin Laden is a video seized at his compound the night he was killed, which shows the al-Qaeda leader hunched before a television screen studying a video of himself. It’s testimony to bin Laden’s obsession with the media side of his war against the United States.

This modern face of bin Laden’s jihad comes through clearly in a 21-page letter from his media adviser, a U.S.-born jihadist named Adam Gadahn. The letter is undated, but it appears to have been written after November 2010, in the last six months of bin Laden’s life.

Gadahn wrote much as if he were a media planner corresponding with a client. He included suggestions about the timing of video appearances after the 2010 U.S. midterm elections and use of high-definition video, and made snarky evaluations of major U.S. networks.

As I wrote last week, Gadahn hated Fox News (“falls into the abyss”); he liked MSNBC but complained about the firing of Keith Olbermann; he had mixed feelings about CNN (better in Arabic than in English) and made flattering comments about CBS and ABC. Basically, he wanted to play them all off to al-Qaeda’s best advantage. He also mentioned print journalists, most prominently Robert Fisk of The Independent of Britain. He cites three Americans (“Brian Russ,” “Simon Hirsh” and “Jerry Van Dyke”), though it’s uncertain whom he meant.

The media guidance was among the documents taken from bin Laden’s compound the night of May 2. It was made available to me, along with a small sample of other documents in the cache, by a senior Obama administration official.

Gadahn’s memo shows an organization struggling to stay on the media offensive despite devastating U.S. attacks. It’s partly aspirational, with dreams of jihad, but there’s a core of sharp self-criticism that makes clear Gadahn, like his boss, understood that al-Qaeda was losing its war.

Gadahn even worried that al-Qaeda’s reversals in Iraq and elsewhere represented “punishment by God on us because of our sins and injustices.” Like bin Laden, he was deeply upset that al-Qaeda’s affiliates had killed so many Muslims and listed 13 operations that showed “the tragedy of tolerating the spilling of [Muslim] blood.”

Gadahn is an intriguing figure whose life story would seem far-fetched if sketched by a Hollywood screenwriter. He was born Adam Pearlman in 1978, grandson of a California doctor who had served on the board of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. Gadahn converted to Islam when he was 17, migrated to Pakistan at 20 and then disappeared in March 2001 into al-Qaeda’s world. In 2006, he was indicted by the United States for treason.

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Phi Beta Iota: This gets sillier and sillier – including the built-in throw-away lines to explain what is probably typically ignorant US “covert operations” fiction. Most likely possibility at this point: young Adam was recruited early as a Mossad sleeper agent in the USA, and sent toward jihad generally. However, if Al Qaeda was in any way a fully-funded CIA/Safari Club operation as some claim (hybrid opportunist cross-over is more likely) then Adam could have been one of the few truly deep case officers developed or a joint Mossad/CIA puppy. We tend to doubt this “evidence.” Ignatius has zero credibility with us. At this point, anything he claims to accept is in our judgment false flag across the board and an illegal covert action / propaganda operations against the U.S. public. Ignatius is not ignorant — he is polished, professional, and deeply read. This is an ethics issue.

2012/03/24

Marcus Aurelius: Spy of the Month – Made in USA, Bought in China

02 China, 03 Economy, 04 Education, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Government, Law Enforcement

Counterintelligence Briefing Center

Spy of the Month: March 2012

Glenn Duffie Shriver

Naïve, young college student or disloyal American ready to spy for the People’s Republic of China (PRC)? Glenn Duffie Shriver, aka Du Fei, was a student at Grand Valley State University (GVSU) in 2001 when he decided to attend a study abroad program known as “China Summer School” in Shanghai, China. He enjoyed his time in this country so much, he spent his junior year studying at East China Normal University in Shanghai, where he developed a strong interest in Chinese culture and became proficient speaking Mandarin Chinese. After graduating from GVSU in 2004 with a degree in International Relations, Shriver returned to Shanghai to continue his language studies and to seek employment. Desperate for money, he responded to an advertisement to write a political paper on U.S.-China relations regarding North Korea and Taiwan. He met with his contact, Amanda, several times and was paid $120 for his paper. Amanda praised Shriver for his work, offered to introduce him to friends of hers by the name of Mr. Wu and Mr. Tang, and encouraged him to build a close relationship with them.

Shriver has admitted that he realized his new “friends” were PRC intelligence officers, and that he understood when they asked him to apply for positions in the U.S. government or law enforcement that they were expressly interested in classified material.

So in April 2005, Shriver applied for a job as a foreign service officer for the U.S. State Department as suggested by his “friends.” He took the Foreign Service Exam in Shanghai, and although he did not pass, PRC intelligence officers paid him $10,000 for his efforts and his “friendship.” One year later, Shriver made a second attempt at passing the Foreign Service Exam, but again failed. However, this attempt earned him a shocking $20,000.

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Phi Beta Iota: One wonders why he was not doubled back, since US clandestine efforts in China are virtually non-existent. This is interesting at multiple levels. With 22.4% unemployment in the USA (not the false statistic the government offers of under 9%) and with both young graduates and senior professionals at closer to 40% unemployment, the question has to be asked: what part of our failure to provide for the general welfare, as called for in the preamble to the US Constitution, combined with the complete lack of civic duty instruction and practice across 24 years of study, can be blamed for this young man's vulnerability?