WIN 18-1 dated 7 May 2001

 

WINs contain intelligence-related articles and notes, produced, written, edited by Roy Jonkers based on open source information, and disseminated to AFIO members and subscribers for non-profit educational purposes. Associate editors Don Harvey and John Macartney contribute articles to WINs. Opinions expressed are those of the producer and/or contributors, as noted with each article.

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Warning Notice: Perishability of Links:  WINs, sent weekly to members, often contain numerous webpage links to fast-breaking news, documents or other items of interest; unfortunately, after four weeks many of these websites [especially newspaper and other media sites] remove items or shift them into fee-only archives.  This underscores the benefit of receiving the WINs as they are released.

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SIX NOTEWORTHY ITEMS:

 NOTE 1 = AFIO BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SYMPOSIUM was an OUTSTANDING SUCCESS - thanks to Chairman TOM SPENCER who assembled sterling cast of speakers, organized the whole event, and ran a superb Conference. Attendees more than got their money's worth! A significant, relevant, useful and interesting contribution to the AFIO mission. All honors to Tom!.

 NOTE 2= AFIO NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SYMPOSIUM 2001 will be conducted on Friday 2 NOVEMBER 2001 at CIA Headquarters in McLean, VA - mark your calendars - more information coming! The AFIO CONVENTION and BANQUET will be conducted Saturday, 3 November.

 NOTE 3 = DIRECTORS ELECTION - The most recent Periscope contains a Board of Directors' ballot with a voting deadline of 1 May. Since a number of members did not receive this issue in time to meet the deadline, it is hereby extended to 15 May. In addition, members may vote by email to: afio@afio.com.

 NOTE 4 = AFIO WEBSITE DOWN - it was "hacked into" and taken out for several days. The AFIO site (www.afio.com) has now been restored thanks to a superb effort by Elizabeth Bancroft and the terrific support by Josh Greco.

 NOTE 5 = CORRECTION of late-night typo in last WIN - The prospective new director of the NRO is not Peter Martin, but Peter Smith, former director of Lockheed Martin. (courtesy E. Heineman)

 NOTE 6 = LOST AFIO INTELLIGENCER ARTICLES - John Macartney, editor of AFIO's Intelligencer Journal, inadvertently erased part of his computer hard drive last month. He thinks he has since recovered all work, but it's possible some articles in the queue for our August edition were lost. SO, IF YOU PREVIOUSLY SUBMITTED an article for the Intelligencer's next issue, please check with John by e-mail. <jdmaca@bellatlantic.net>

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SECTION I - CURRENT INTELLIGENCE

CIA INTERNAL REORGANIZATION - CIA Director George J. Tenet and his new executive director, A. B. "Buzzy" Krongard, told CIA employees late last week they had decided to abolish the agency's Directorate of Administration -- so that support personnel would work much more closely with CIA operatives, analysts and scientists. Under the reorganization, scheduled to become effective June 4, the functions of the Directorate of Administration will be centralized in five entities -- information technology, finance, security, global support and human resources. The heads of those entities will join the CIA's Executive Board, where they are meant to be on a par with the leaders of the agency's three primary power centers, the Directorates of Operations (DO), Intelligence (DI), and Science & Technology (DS&T). Krongard, former head of Alex. Brown & Co., a Baltimore-based investment bank, devised the reorganization after embarking on a 30-day review following his appointment as executive director in mid-March. (Jonkers) (Wash Post 1May01, p.21 ///V. Loeb) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25386-2001Apr30.html

CIA RESUMES ROLE IN PALESTINIAN - ISRAELI PROBLEM - Although senior Bush administration officials announced in March that they had pulled the plug on the CIA's high-profile role in the so-called Middle East "peace process," the agency is still arranging talks between the Palestinian and Israeli security services. CIA Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin told the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia last week that the White House had recently asked the agency to convene a couple of meetings between Palestinian and Israeli intelligence officials. "Our role is not to negotiate; it is not to mediate. It is to provide a venue and invite people to come to a meeting hosted by someone who does not have an ax to grind," McLaughlin told Reuters afterward. CIA officials said the agency's renewed involvement did not constitute a reversal by the Bush administration, explaining that the mediator's role it played during the Clinton administration has been substantially downgraded.
            The CIA's involvement began in 1996 when Tenet, then deputy director, met for the first time with Israeli and Palestinian officials after several bombings by the radical Islamic group Hamas. It was formalized in a 1998 document signed at Wye Plantation in Maryland, with the CIA assigned a mediator's role in a security process designed to root out militant Palestinian cells and control weapons smuggling. The CIA's renewed role apparently does not personally involve Tenet, who became a semi-public participant in the peace process under Clinton and traveled to the Middle East at least 10 times. He has no such travel plans in the near future. (Jonkers) (Wash Post 1May01, p.21 ///V. Loeb)

RUSSIAN MOBILE MISSILE SECURITY IMPROVED - U.S. reconnaissance satellites recently detected increased security measures for Russia's road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles. Motorized infantry units are now assigned to guard the nuclear-tipped SS-25 and SS-27 mobile missile brigades. Reports from Russia over the past several years have indicated that the troops in charge of the missiles are poorly (or not) paid and there were fears someone might steal one of the missiles and sell it on the black market. Several years ago CIA allegedly reported that one SS-25 team left their missile unguarded as they stopped in a village to get something to eat. The newly enhanced security for SS-25 and newly deployed SS-27 missiles is being viewed by Pentagon intelligence analysts as a sign Russia's leaders are worried that organized crime groups or terrorists could steal one of the single-warhead long-range missiles.
The SS-25 and SS-27 are the world's only deployed road-mobile ICBMs and its garrisons are scattered throughout Russia. China is also working on a road-mobile missile, the DF-31, which was flight tested twice last year. Tracking strategic missiles is a major mission of U.S. reconnaissance satellites. (Jonkers) (Wash Times, April 20, 2001, Pg. 9 /// B. Gertz & R. Scarborough)

FRENCH SURVEILLANCE DRONE SHOT DOWN OVER SERBIA. An unmanned NATO surveillance reconnaissance plane that disappeared over southern Serbia has been found shot down in the zone separating Kosovo from the rest of Yugoslavia, a NATO spokesman said Thursday. The German-made drone operated by French peacekeepers stationed in northern Kosovo failed to return Tuesday from a mission over the buffer zone, where it was filming images of ground activity, Squadron Leader Roy Brown said. Yugoslav officials blamed Kosovo-Albanian rebels for shooting down the 6-foot-long plane. (Macartney) http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20010426_1318.html 

MACEDONIA UNDER ATTACK - Albanian extremist insurgents infiltrating across the border from Kosovo, in search of a "greater Kosovo" or a "greater Albania," launched a number of attacks along the border in Macedonia. US "peacekeepers" are reportedly making little or no effort to stop the infiltration, allegedly being fully occupied with a single-minded focus on their own "force protection," (for which they are reportedly becoming the laughingstock of other national components of the peacekeeping forces in Kosovo), but possibly still in line with US policy which has favored Kosovo Albanian extremists and terrorists under the previous administration. Other reports indicate, however, that US intelligence from UAV's is being passed to the Macedonian government. The situation is becoming more serious as Macedonia is taking steps to declare martial law. (Jonkers) (News Services, 6 May)

TERRORIST BOMB CHASES IRANIAN DIPLOMATS FROM WESTERN AFGHANISTAN - Iran closed its consulate in Herat, western Afghanistan, and withdrew its diplomats after a bomb exploded in an ancient mosque on Friday, setting off riots during which the Iranian consulate was set on fire and several Shi'ite mosques in the city were attacked. Three years ago a number of Iranian diplomats were killed in Afghanistan. Iran faces hostile states and terrorism or insurgent attacks on both its western and eastern borders. (Jonkers) (Assoc. Press 6May01)

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SECTION II - CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE

ISRAELI HI-TECHNOLOGY WEAPONS EXPORTS TO CHINA - When photographs surfaced of Israel's Python-3 heat-seeking missile on the PLA fighter that harassed the US Navy's EP3e reconnaissance plane, it spurred intelligence analysts to recall various instances of Israeli sales of U.S. know-how to Beijing. As a case in point, obviously, Chinese fighters carry Israel's potent Python 3 air-to-air missile, a weapon developed by Israel based on the venerable Sidewinder missile that the United States sold to the Jewish states decades ago.
In another instance of technology transfer, in 1992, in the immediate aftermath of the Persian Gulf war, US Intelligence allegedly reported that Israel had transferred Patriot anti-missile data to China. Tel Aviv vehemently denied the intelligence report, but Richard B. Cheney, the defense secretary at the time, said he had 'good reason" to believe the Patriot diversion did occur. DIA had compiled evidence substantiating the transfer. In spite of this, a 'special' State Department team said it could find no evidence that Israel, a close ally of Washington and beneficiary of $3 billion annually in U.S. economic and military aid, sold Patriot secrets to China. To this day, intelligence analysts in and out of government continue to stress that the transfer occurred.
Advanced technology from the Patriot, a ground-based anti-aircraft and anti-missile interceptor, may have found its way into China's new advanced surface-to-air missile systems. The PLA may also have used the Patriot data to improve its M-9 short-range missiles aimed at Taiwan, which operates Patriot batteries. The information on the Patriot could have been used to devise means for the M-9 to evade or avoid interception by Taiwan Patriot batteries.
Not long after the Patriot brouhaha subsided, Israel again was denying charges that it illegally exported U.S. technology to the communist regime in Beijing. This time, the suspicions revolved around the ill-fated Lavi fighter, based on the US F-16. After Israel ditched the program at Washington's insistence, intelligence reports said Tel Aviv was selling the F-16 avionics technology to China for incorporation into that country's new F-10 ground-attack fighter. The Congressional Cox report confirmed the suspicion in 1999, stating, "Significant transfers of U.S. military technology have also taken place in the mid-1990s through the re-export by Israel of advanced technology transferred to it by the United States, including avionics and missile guidance useful for the PLA's F-10 fighter."
Most recently a heated debate on the Israel-China connection ensued over Israel Aircraft Industries' planned sale of the Phalcon airborne early- warning radar system. The Clinton administration objected and Israel canceled the sale.
The Reagan administration approved limited arms sales to China for a number of years during the Cold War to offset Soviet military buildups. However, successive White Houses never have condoned (at least based on information in the public domain) the illegal transfer to China of high-technology items that were meant for Israel's use only. (Jonkers) (WashTimes, 23 April 2001, p.1 /// R. Scarborough)

RUSSIA & CHINA vs USA - IN MILITARY EXERCISE SCENARIO . In a February Russian military exercise the scenario had Russia coming to China's aid after China attacked Taiwan and the US intervened. In the exercise, all three belligerents were using nukes. All this from SIGINT according to Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz. (Macartney) http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010430-27574504.htm 

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SECTION III - CYBER INTELLIGENCE

CYBERWAR ARTICLE in FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Cyberspace is becoming the new front line of warfare. As the military, the private sector, and Washington grow increasingly dependent on computers and information networks, they also grow more vulnerable to cyber-attack, says James Adams, chairman of 'Defense', a cyber-intelligence firm. U.S. policymakers and technology entrepreneurs must build a wall of defense-now. [There is a 500 word summary of the May/June FA article at this website. jdmac] 
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/Search/document.asp?i=20010501FAEssay4771.xml

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SECTION IV - BOOKS & SOURCES

BODY OF SECRETS: ANATOMY OF THE ULTRA SECRET NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, by James Bamford, Doubleday, 2001). James Bamford, who wrote a best selling book about the NSA in 1982, The Puzzle Palace, has just published a sequel. His 1982 book was not beloved by intelligence insiders, to say the least, but in terms of the general public the new book is again likely to be educational in terms of the National Security Agency and the nation's SIGINT activities. According to Bamford the contrast between the reception of his book in 1982 and the new one in 2001 is considerable. In 1982 NSA and the US intelligence community were outraged and he was considered almost a traitor. But this time, he is being invited to speak before intelligence audiences, and NSA, which was very much closed-door to him 20 years ago, was open to him. NSA hosted a book signing event for him last week at their Cryptologic Museum. Until recently, Bamford was an investigative TV producer for ABC's World News Tonight. (Unread/ Macartney/Jonkers).

DARK EAGLE: A Novel of Benedict Arnold and The American Revolution, by John Ensor Harr, is coming out in paperback by Penguin. Publisher blurb has "...meticulously researched, a fictionalized story of Arnold's career, his heroism, his military exploits, and his romance with Peggy Shippen, who became his wife and partner in treason." (Macartney)

CIA/DI WEB PAGE- The DI page contains a wealth of documents, studies, organization charts, etc.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/di/index.html

STATE DEPARTMENT REPORT: "PATTERNS OF GLOBAL TERRORISM.
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/index.cfm?docid=2419

INTERVIEW WITH DAVID MURPHY, co-author of Battleground Berlin (1997) and AFIO member, appeared Feb 14 on "Agentura.ru," a non-governmental Russian website devoted to intelligence matters.
http://www.agentura.ru/english/experts/intcia/
http://www.yale.edu/yup/books/072333.htm

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SECTION V - LETTERS

OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE ISSUE - Associate Editor Don Harvey writes in response to Letter by R. Steele (see WIN#17) - I suspect I will never have the opportunity to read Robert's letter to the President and his four books [I had known of only one], so I guess we will never have a debate on unclassified material in the WIN pages. Robert's service under the unparalleled master of intelligence, John Guenther, makes his expertise far more credible in my eyes than any number of books. My own complaint with the intelligence community continues to be its inadequate absorption (i.e. processing) of all sources of incoming data, especially including open source material [Robert's fixation]..

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