Weekly Intelligence Notes #02-04 dtd 26 January 2004

WIN #02-04 dtd 26 January 2004

Weekly Intelligence Notes (WINs) are commentaries on Intelligence and related national security matters, based on open media sources, selected, interpreted, edited and produced by AFIO for non-profit educational uses by AFIO members and WIN subscribers. Adm Don Harvey and Gene Poteat contributed to this issue.

 

NOTE:  Congratulations to the International Spy Museum for reaching a milestone:  its 1 Millionth Visitor arrived this month.  If you have not visited, you are missing a super educational experience.  The media often plays up the James Bondian glamour side of the holdings, but it is filled with scholarly exhibits that take three hours or more of pleasurable immersion. Add their gift shop filled with books and gadgets you'll rarely see elsewhere, plus several restaurants, and it is easy to make a day of it.  Their upcoming spring exhibition -- The Enemy Within: Terror in America 1776 to Today -- deserves a place on your calendar.  More information can be found at www.spymuseum.org/index.asp or join as a Museum member and stay in-the-know.

 


CONTENTS of this WIN 

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SECTION I -- CURRENT INTELLIGENCE

            DCI Planning to Defend Pre-Invasion Iraqi Intelligence

            Drugs, Afghanistan, and The Security of a Nation

            Ex-Spy Links Iran to Al Qaeda Pre 9/11, Court Told

 

SECTION II -- CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE

            A Few Words on WMD

            Entry Level Intelligence

 

SECTION III -- CYBER INTELLIGENCE

            Don't Infiltrate Yet…We're Not Ready

            Internet Voting

            Online Fraud

            Lie-Detector Glasses

 

SECTION IV -- EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

            Seeking Personnel for Intelligence Information Security

            Intelligence Officer Openings

 

SECTION V -- BOOKS, SOURCES AND ISSUES

            Rep. Holt Introduces Resolution of Inquiry on Plame Leak

            Books by Members Received and/or of Note

 

SECTION VI -- NOTES, LETTERS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

            Researcher Seeks CIA, DIA, INR Officers

            Stasi Documentary

            Internet Quip

 


SECTION I -- CURRENT INTELLIGENCE

 

DCI PLANNING TO DEFEND PRE-INVASION IRAQI INTELLIGENCE -- According to a report from London (rather unusual site but there it is), the intelligence community chiefs are planning to present justification of the intelligence used to underpin the war in Iraq in hearings before Congress scheduled for February and March. As usual the emphasis will be on weapons of mass destruction with a secondary note of rebuttal of the amateur critics of "politicized intelligence."  A senior "US official" has said the DCI intended to provide substantial explanatory detail during the congressional hearings.  He made the telling point, "The (intelligence) judgments were not politicized.  What good would there be in coming up with a bent judgment if you're in the end going to be proved wrong?"  Continuing, the official said, "...the judgments were the best possible judgments, that they were arrived at correctly, for non-political reasons." 

            The London article coupled the report of the DCI's proposed defense with an early January critique by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace of the intelligence community's performance prior to the invasion of Iraq.  It argued: "The intelligence community appears to have overestimated the chemical and biological weapons in Iraq but had a generally accurate picture of the nuclear and missile programmes."  The CEIP assessment is reported to have said that discrepancies in intelligence assessments on Iraq between the publication of the NIE on Iraq in October 2002 and the creation of an intelligence assessment group within DoD "suggest that the intelligence community began to be unduly influenced by policymaker's views sometime in 2002."

            In addition to the unidentified source's prediction that the DCI will defend the community's performance in testimony in the coming months, one can confidently predict that the myriad of organizations/individuals issuing learned (or totally unsubstantiated) conclusions on the IC's performance can themselves be assessed.  Those opposed to the war will deplore the IC performance or at best conclude the IC was so lacking in conviction as to allow politicians to control the intelligence reporting. The remainder of the commentators will reject the politization charge but judge the performance as uninspired, noting that the rest of the world pretty much agreed with the US pre-war intelligence.  Many, like the CEIP, will hasten to publicize their views early in order to be in the forefront of the pack; a few will even wait until the Kay Iraq Survey Group reports.   [Harvey] [London Financial Times 9 Jan '04 by Mark Huband]

 

DRUGS, AFGHANISTAN, AND THE SECURITY OF A NATION -- For years, the counter-terrorism community has been concerned about the possibility of geopolitically minded transnational terrorists colluding with wealthy, profit-driven, and protection-seeking narcotics producers.  So called "narcoterrorism," while still a relatively benign threat as it relates directly to American security, will not remain forever a nascent or theoretical concept.  Just as the "Narc-FARC" relationship in Columbia has continually proven synergetic to each group irregardless of there divergent ideological foundations, in other parts of the world breeding grounds for this conceptual nexus threaten to create a powerful and sophisticated terrorist force with dangerously expanded potential.  It unfortunately appears as though coalition efforts in Afghanistan -- faced with significant heroine production, persistent remnants of the Taliban/Al Qaeda regime, and a sparse security environment dominated by tribal warlords -- could be facilitating a similar nexus.

            Recently, Dennis Kux, a former State Department South Asia specialist who is a senior policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Harpinder Athwal, a communications manager for Citizens for Global Solutions, traveled to Afghanistan as part of a Council on Foreign Relations and Asia Society Task Force mission.  Their trip, planned around the Dec/Jan. loya jirga grand assembly gathering which ratified Afghanistan's new constitution, led to a report which highlights a grave security concern:

 

·         "A recent trip to Afghanistan convinced us that along with growing insecurity, the drug trade is the single biggest obstacle to a stable Afghanistan."

 

·         "In the past year narcotics accounted for more than 40 percent of the Afghan economy; the UN estimates that Afghanistan's current annual production of 3,600 tons of opium is 75 percent of the world's output."

 

·         "The struggle to produce a democratic constitution to underpin a stable, unified Afghanistan will bear little or no fruit if the narcotics trade continues to flourish. The Afghan drug lords, tied to terrorists and warlords for support and assistance, have a vested interest in a weak government in Kabul….these "narcolords" will use all their power to keep the already fractured and volatile Karzai government unstable."

 

·         "Afghan drug money provides a steady source of finance for groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban.…The terrorists target foreign aid workers and contractors, who are essentially undefended, in an effort to push out all international groups working to reconstruct Afghanistan and secure its future. The peace cannot be won while a reliable source of funding from narcotics continues to put weapons and resources into the hands of warlords and the Taliban."

 

·         "The British, who've had the lead role in dealing with drugs, have achieved little. Their program to pay farmers to eradicate poppy fields has, unfortunately, led to increased poppy production."

 

·         "Drug traffickers and poppy cultivators need to know that the current permissive attitude has changed. There is no time to wait for "crop alternatives" before tackling the problem. The growth of poppies has already been declared illegal, and Kabul should start enforcing the policy with a vigorous eradication program."

 

·         "For the program to be more than mere rhetoric, it is essential that the US military become more actively involved."

 

·         "By sending Zalmay Khalilzad as the new ambassador in Kabul, the US has made a good start with strategy adjustments. The first step has been to accelerate the training of the new Afghan National Army and national police force, and the second was to expand the Provincial Reconstruction Teams with the aim of increasing security across the country. These welcome changes will mean little in curbing the growth of the Taliban and cutting the roots of Al Qaeda - in short, winning the first battle in the war on terror - without a far more vigorous US participation in an antidrug program." 

 

One hopes the focus has not been diverted so substantially by escapades in Iraq and elsewhere that an obvious, strategically-crucial situation such as this is neglected.

(http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0113/p09s02-coop.html)

[Minor] [D. Kux and H. Athwal// Christian Science Monitor, 13 Jan 04]

 

EX-SPY LINKS IRAN TO AL QAEDA PRE 9/11, COURT TOLD -- HAMBURG, Germany - Iran's secret service had contacts with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network ahead of the September 11 attacks on the United States, a German court heard on Thursday.

            Two members of Germany's Federal Criminal Police told a court in Hamburg a former Iranian spy had informed them of the contacts and had also said he tried to warn Washington about the attacks in mid-2001, but that the CIA had not believed him.  The police officers were speaking at the trial of a Moroccan accused of aiding the September 11 attacks.  The Iranian, identified only by his cover name Hamid Reza Zakeri emerged as a surprise witness, postponing the verdict which had been expected to clear the defendant. His credibility is under scrutiny by the presiding judges.  For complete Reuters story visit: http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp?type=worldNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4190057

[PJK] [Jan Schwartz/Reuters 22Jan04]

 


 

SECTION II -- CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE

 

A FEW WORDS ON WMD -- The Germans were first to use chemical weapons by gassing Allied troops during WW-I, the forerunner of today’s even more deadly sarin nerve agents used by Saddam Hussein against Iranians and his own people; and the Aum Shinrikyo terrorists released in the Tokyo subway in 1995. 

            Knowing the dangers to its own people, Japan set up the first biological weapons facility in Manchuria before WW-II, using Chinese human Guinea pigs, and later on, American prisoners of war.  Russia entered the war near the end, overran the laboratory, took the technology and set up a similar facility in Kazakhstan.  When Ken Alibek, head of the facility defected, we learned the Soviets had continued Anthrax production long after signing the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1972. 

            WMDs have now proliferated to those who do not wish us well.  Nuke production, even for small ones, requires vast resources and large facilities with tell tale, detectable signatures.  Chemical and biological weapons, on the other hand can be produced in a one-room laboratory, with no detectable signatures -- bathtub gin technology yields the ultimate terrorists weapon for killing Americans.  Stopping terrorism will be a far more important investment than going to Mars.  [Poteat]

 

ENTRY LEVEL INTELLIGENCE -- Interested observers reading a few weeks ago of the capture of Saddam Hussein along with some $750,000 walking-around money, if they had thought about the money for a moment, would have assumed that US intelligence probably had garnered a useful piece of intelligence data.  Knowing that understanding of the financial network that allowed Hussein to acquire so much American currency could be valuable to US authorities and that the cash was likely to be sequentially numbered,  these observers could further have assumed the trail of the currency from the United States Mint to Hussein would be a simple, entry level matter. They would have been wrong - and wrong for one of the reasons that has figured repeatedly in the criticism of the failures of the intelligence community - the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing.

            All US currency is printed by the Mint to the order of one of the 12 banks of the Federal Reserve system and goes into circulation through a purchasing bank that has an account at the Fed.  The Federal Reserve Bank keeps a record that identifies the purchasing bank and when the bills are found all together, that means the bank delivered them to a single known customer bank or bank chain.  The bills movement to Iraq perhaps passed through the Cayman or Channel Islands to banks in Abu Dhabi or Dubai, but each bank in the chain can produce the identity of the customer to which it gave the bills.  Despite all the UN sanctions against Iraq, it is possible that no laws were broken in the movements of the currency, but it would be at least interesting to know which banks or individuals collaborated in moving US cash to the tyrant of Iraq.  It would also possibly shed some light on a channel that could be available to al Qaeda terrorists.

            Unfortunately, the identification of the collaborators, witting or unwitting, cannot be started because the Federal Reserve Bank will not permit regional banks to reveal the identity of the purchasers of large blocks of US currency.  No law just policy.  Yet in this day and age of payroll services and electronic payments, there are few legitimate uses outside the banking system for very large orders of hundred-dollar bills.  Apparently the Fed has always resisted placing American banks under obligation to reveal skullduggery regardless of the crime.  Banks are not, the Fed insists, law enforcement agencies.

            It could be speculated that if the Fed had been subjected to the torrent of criticism for not sharing data promptly that the intelligence community has received, it would perhaps feel impelled to modify its policy.  Of course, even then there would still be the problem of ACLU shrieks of privacy violation.

[Harvey] [NYTimes 14 Jan '04, Martin Mayer (guest scholar at Brookings Institution)]

 


 

SECTION III -- CYBER INTELLIGENCE

 

DON'T INFILTRATE YET…WE'RE NOT READY - TERROR LISTS REMAIN DISPARATE -- A consolidated database for a single terrorist watch list is still not operational, and one lawmaker blames the delay on a lack of leadership. Officials at the FBI-led Terrorist Screening Center, responsible for consolidating a dozen terrorist watch lists, are testing a database application but missed the Dec. 1, 2003, deadline to have the center and merged list completed, according to Rep. Jim Turner (D-Texas), ranking member of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.  [Sulc] [Levine Newsbits 15 Jan 04]

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0112/web-terror-01-13-04.asp

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0104/011304c1.htm

 

INTERNET VOTING - A GROWING HOT ISSUE THAT MAKES PRIOR FL ABSENTEE BALLOT MESS CHILD'S PLAY FOR FRAUD -- Pentagon stands behind Internet voting system for troops and U.S. citizens in other countries. Developed by the Pentagon, the program is seen as vulnerable to attacks and experts recommend it should be scrapped. But the Pentagon backs the system, and plans to test it Feb. 3 in South Carolina's primary election, reports the Associated Press.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0104/012204cdam1.htm

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,62012,00.html

http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,89290,00.html

 

ONLINE FRAUD - FTC: ID Theft Remains Top Complaint -- For the fourth year in a row, identity theft topped the list of consumer complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission, according to data released today by the agency. - http://www.washingtonpost.com/

 

• Avoiding Identity Theft: A Primer: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40992-2003Oct17?language=printer (washingtonpost.com, 12/5/03)

 

Also see:

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5145486.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38420-2004Jan22.html

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4029541/

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-01-22-complaint_x.htm

http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/cybercrime/story/0,10801,89299,00.html

Consumers deluged as fake e-mails multiply http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3784331/

 

LIE-DETECTOR GLASSES, OR NEW PACKAGING FOR VOICE-STRESS ANALYZERS -- A peek at the future of security.  EE Times reports from Portland, Ore that it may not be long before you hear airport security screeners ask, "Do you plan on hijacking this plane?" A U.S. company using technology developed in Israel is pitching a small voice analyzer that fits in eyeglasses and, say the inventors, can tell whether a passenger is a terrorist. The technology, developed by mathematician Amir Lieberman at Nemesysco in Zuran, Israel, for military, insurance claim and law enforcement use, is being repackaged and retargeted for personal and corporate applications by V Entertainment (New York).  "Our products were originally for law enforcement use -- we get all our technology from Nemesys-co -- but we need more development time [for that application]," said Dave Watson, chief operating officer of parent V LLC ( http://www.vworldwide.com/ ). "So we decided to come out sooner with consumer versions at CES." The glasses use green, yellow and red color codes to indicate a "true," "maybe" or "false" response. At its CES booth, V Entertainment analyzed the voices of celebrities like Michael Jackson to determine whether they were lying. 

            The heart of Nemesysco's technology is a signal-processing engine that reports to use more than 8,000 algorithms each time it analyzes an incoming voice waveform, to detect levels of emotional states simultaneously from the pitch and speed of the voice.  For more on how it works, availability and applications:  http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20040116S0050

[PJK] [EE Times]

 


 

SECTION IV -- EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

[IMPORTANT: AFIO does not "vet" or endorse these inquiries or offers. Reasonable-sounding inquiries and career offerings are published as a service to our members, and for researchers, educators, and subscribers. You are urged to exercise your usual caution and good judgment when responding or supplying any information.  Lately however, AFIO has been receiving an unusually large number of requests for job postings.  As a result, we will be -- temporarily -- expanding our "Employment Opportunities" section.  Additionally, so that AFIO may better ascertain the viability of this service, we would ask that members referred to or hired for any of these postings mention AFIO as the original referring entity.]

 

SEEKING PERSONNEL FOR INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION SECURITY AND ASSURANCE PROJECT -- Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems, in the Washington DC Metro area, in support of IC contracts has an immediate requirement for engineering IT support in this arena. All persons applying must have an active Top Secret clearance based on a current SSBI. SCI Access is highly desirable, Poly a plus. Persons without current TS clearance should not apply. Submit resumes to ARLamb@raytheon.com (and mention AFIO referred you) or call 703.390-8613.

 

INTELLIGENCE OFFICER OPENINGS -- United Placements (UP) is a job placement firm for Classified Professionals seeking better opportunities. In order to "unite intelligence officers with secure careers," United Placements is handling the following positions that are currently available for immediate interviews. 

 

To Contact UP:

Phone: 901.762.6000

Fax: 901.763.1505

Website: www.unitedplacements.com

 

Posted-January 26, 2004:

 

Title: (6 openings) CI Analysts/Lead Specialist-Defense Analysis

Top Secret/SCI minimum clearance Required

Location: Arlington, VA

Labor Type: Direct Hire / Full-time-Salary- $75K - $85K

Job Description:

Counterintelligence Analyst - Conducts independent all-source threat research and analysis to fill analytical requirements and intelligence gaps in the areas of foreign intelligence, force protection/terrorism, technology transfer and threats to critical infrastructure. Produces finished current and strategic intelligence reports to support Dept of Defense counter intelligence requirements. Prepares written and oral reports and briefings. As subject matter expert, consults on policy, analytical, operational and investigative issues.

Job Qualifications:

Strong intelligence or counterintelligence operational, investigative or analytical experience. Experience in analyzing foreign intelligence and terrorism/force protection threats. Bachelor's degree with over 11 years counter intelligence or intelligence analysis. Complete CI analytic or related analytic training. Strong writing and briefing skills a must. Familiarity and previous use of analytic tools and exposure to new analytic methodologies.

Send Resumes to resumes@unitedplacements.com (and mention AFIO referred you).

 

Title: ISSO-Lead Specialist Security

Top Secret/SCI minimum clearance Required

Job City: TBD

Labor Type: Direct Hire / Full-time-Salary- $75K - $85K

Job Description:

The Lead Specialist-Security is responsible for the implementation of US Government security policies and procedures for the processing and transmission over national security information over trusted systems and networks. The ISSO prepares computer security plans for sponsor approval and implements these plans at the contractor location. Coordinates with the contract sponsors to obtain plan approvals and accreditations. Reviews computer audit trails; establishes data sanitization procedures; and monitors the introduction of computer hardware, firmware, and software in closed security areas. Reports to the company program security manager and coordinates with the IT staff for the configuration and management of computer systems and networks processing and storing nationsl security data. Ensures that sponsor reviews and inspections result in above satisfactory security ratings.

Job Qualifications:

Must be experienced in USG computer systems security policies and procedures and well-versed in DCID 6/3 and NISPOM Chapter 8 information security standards. Able to successfully pass a USG-conducted special background investigation and obtain a USG-granted security clearance and SCI accesses. Requires good oral and written communications skills. A baccalaureate degree and/or at least 3 years of information security experience is required. Familiar with DOD, SCI, and Special Access Program (SAP) security requirements. Send Resumes to resumes@unitedplacements.com (and mention AFIO referred you)

 

Title: Intel Analyst 5

Top Secret/SCI minimum clearance Required

Job City: Herndon, VA

Labor Type: Direct Hire / Full-timeSalary- $75K - $90K

Job Description:

Large Defense Company is looking for a self motivated team player that's ready to hit the ground running. Provide research and analysis services for industry, infrastructure, technology, country/area, biographic, and targeting and vulnerability studies. Identifies new data resources in multiple mediums. Collect/ fuse/analyze data using a combination of standard intelligence methods and commercial business operating procedures. Integrate the latest text-filtering, extraction, and visualization tools on a wide range of electronic data and maintain relational databases. Review and edit finished studies and present briefings. Lead a team in planning and implementing research and analysis projects. Work closely with Customer and other team members to determine requirements, evaluate methods, recommend best solutions, and successfully complete projects. More... (www.unitedplacements.com)

Job Qualifications:

Successful candidate shall have an undergraduate degree (BA or BS) and must have a graduate degree in finance or business. The candidate must possess 10 or more years in intelligence issues with two or more years experience in reporting, analysis, and finished intelligence production. The candidate must have at least three years of experience in counter-terrorism. The candidate must also possess excellent writing and research skills, and in-depth knowledge of the reporting and finished intelligence production processes. A writing sample may pe required. Familiarity and some experience various ADT tools (e.g. Word, Excel, Lotus Notes, etc.) and Internet research experience are also important attributes. Send Resumes to resumes@unitedplacements.com (and mention AFIO referred you).

 


 

SECTION V -- BOOKS, SOURCES AND ISSUES

 

REP. HOLT INTRODUCES RESOLUTION OF INQUIRY ON PLAME LEAK -- Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and several colleagues introduced a "resolution of inquiry" to request that the Bush Administration provide Congress with "all documents...relating to the disclosure of the identity of Ms. Valerie Plame as an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency during the period beginning on May 6, 2003, and ending on July 31, 2000." See http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=7821

            Ms. Plame's formerly clandestine status was leaked to columnist Robert Novak last summer, in what some alleged to be an act of retaliation directed at her husband, Amb. Joseph Wilson, a Bush Administration critic. See the introduction of House Resolution 499 on January 21 here:   http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.RES.499:

            According to Time Magazine, a grand jury has been convened to pursue the Plame leak investigation.

See:  http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,581456,00.html

[Holt] [Aftergood/Secrecy News, 23Jan04] [Time]

 

BOOKS BY MEMBERS RECEIVED AND/OR OF NOTE:

 

"The Reader of Gentleman's Mail - Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Intelligence" by David Kahn [Yale Univ Press, March 2004, 0-300-09846-4, $30 HC]. A colorful, controversial cryptologist, Yardley [1889-1958] established the first codebreaking agency in 1917 and helped the US win a major diplomatic victory in 1921. "David Kahn has turned a complex subject - cryptology - and a complex individual - cryptologist Herbert Yardley - into a fascinating, very readable study of the influence of American morality on spying and codebreaking. Yardley, a hero in advancing American codebreaking, was cast out onto the street when the Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson's famous pronouncement, 'Gentlemen do not read each other's mail,' closed down Yardley's codebreaking operations in 1929.  In Kahn's term, Yardley then became a 'rotter' in writing a book about our codebreaking in order to make a buck for himself. In time, though, the book had the effect of advancing our ability read the Japanese codes, a key to our winning WWII. This is an intriguing read bout the kind of intrigue that permeates the world of intelligence." -- prepub review by former DCI Adm Stansfield Turner, USN(Ret).

 

"No Backup - My Life As A Female FBI Agent Battling Kidnappers, Terrorists, and the Destructive Culture that Handcuffs the Bureau" by Rosemary Dew and Pat Pape [Carroll & Graf, 0-7867-1278-3, 302 pp, index, endnotes, bibliography, $25.00 HC]  "In the FBI, there's a pack-of-wild-dogs mentality. You either belong to the pack or you're torn apart by it," says Dew, in this angry, burn-the-bridges, insider look at her experiences as female and agent in the pre-1990 Bureau.  She ran with the pack for years, but found the nips, growls and bites growing as she rose through the ranks.  Dew did more than suffer in silence [up till now], she also received eight commendations and became the seventh woman to be named a supervisor at FBI-HQ, working undercover criminal cases, counterintelligence, and counterterrorism assignments. She supervised the Bureau's response to the Achille Lauro hijacking; and signed the arrest warrant for Leon Klinghoffer' kidnapper, Abu Abbas. Through all that, however, she tells of being treated with disdain, sexually harassed, denied opportunities and privileges quickly bestowed on male agents, and found the Bureau to be rife with destructive practices. Of interest, her descriptions of internal communications failure which she pins to pre- and post-9/11 botched cases; cover-ups (the promotion of senior officials involved in Ruby Ridge) and falsifications at the lab. She suggests the Bureau is a dysfunctional family which fostered the environment where someone like Robert Hanssen can work and thrive -- but a look at Rick Ames at CIA, and John Walker in USN makes one question that position. After describing the pathology, she offers a mode of treatment - a blueprint for reform to avoid what she sees are clear warnings of how Bureau failings that affect national security are passed from generation to generation of FBI agents, unless reforms are quickly & firmly put into place. "A scathing insider portrait." -- Kirkus Reviews.  Dew is an AFIO member who, since leaving the Bureau in 1990, has led info security, antisub warfare and software development programs and served on Presidential advisory committee on info tech and national security. She is a trained chemical weapons inspector. Co-author Pat Pape is a Dallas-based writer/new reporter and TV anchorwoman.

 

CRESCENT EAGLE -- A novel by Joe Fontana [Companion Publications at http://www.allied-bethesda.com/, 0-9668626-1-9, November 2003, 486 pp].  "Lawyer/writer Fontana adds a new and credible ingredient to the international thriller: the role of big-time lawyers in the dirty work of arms smuggling and other nefarious deeds. As a lifelong thriller buff, I've found that credibility is essential to moving a story along. Fontana slyly hints that his story is based on an actual CIA operation aimed at bedeviling arms dealers, and the boys down at the pool hall tell me he is dead on-target. A splendid read." -- Joe Goulden, author The Super Lawyers and AFIO member.  "Fontana discloses how the anti-terrorist war plays out in the real world of intelligence operatives and 21st century spycraft. The icing on the cake is Fontana's great writing talent, which wraps the whole shebang up in a sensitively told story of a man coming to terms with his place in a world that's more complicated than any cold warrior would like to admit." --Gus Russo, investigative reporter and author.  "Murder, mayhem, Mystery skillfully woven into a compelling and timely story. The protagonist faces profound ethical choices, stark dangers and deep emotions as he navigates the murky waters of international business conspiracy."  --Jim Barry, retired senior CIA analyst.

 


 

SECTION VI -- NOTES, LETTERS, AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

 

RESEARCHER SEEKS CIA, DIA, INR OFFICERS -- "I am seeking the input of officers from the CIA, DIA or INR who have detailed knowledge of US covert action or intelligence activity in Chile in the period of 1964-1976.  Knowledge of CIA-State Department relations on this topic will be very helpful as well.  I am a PhD Candidate at Cambridge University, UK (currently based in DC) and have an award-winning article published by the CIA’s own journal.  I am not chasing any conspiracy theories, but rather trying to write a fair story of a very misunderstood period in US national security history.  Your input will help write the history properly.  Please contact Kristian Gustafson at kcg23@cam.ac.uk or at 202-368-4772, night or day.  Please leave a message if I cannot answer.  Alternately, write me at 1329 E Street NW, Washington DC, 20002-5429."

 

STASI DOCUMENTARY -- Andrea S. writes, "Sunday's WP Arts Section reviewed a new, German-made film, The Burning Wall, www.theburningwall.com which may be of interest to old, Cold War, AFIO members. It is an award-winning, docu-story about the East German STASI which waged psychological warfare against its own citizens/dissenters as well as Western intelligence services.

            The Burning Wall is playing at the Avalon Theatre in Chevy Chase www.theavalon.org (review, map & directions) for one week only -- last performance on Thursday, Jan 30th at 4:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.  Tickets: $9.00.  Parking on nearby side streets."  For screenings outside the DC area visit www.theburningwall.com.

 

INTERNET QUIP: If Saddam Hussein was pulled from a spider hole, does that make him an Iraqnid?  [TonyM]

 


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