Weekly Intelligence Notes #14-01
9 April 2001

WEEKLY INTELLIGENCE REPORT (WIN) #14-01 dtd 9 April 2001

WINs are commentaries on open source intelligence issues and items written, edited, and produced by Roy Jonkers, for non-profit educational use by AFIO members and WIN subscribers. Associate editors Don Harvey and John Macartney contributed articles to this WIN. Opinions expressed are those of the editors or authors providing the basic references listed with each article.

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.


ANNOUNCEMENT: AFIO Symposium "PROTECTING AMERICA'S BUSINESS SECRETS: THREATS AND SOLUTIONS," features an all-star cast of speakers in a one-day super seminar. The place is the Ronald Reagan Center in downtown Washington DC on May 4th, 2001. See details at our Website at www.afio.com, or e-mail us for more information at afio@afio.com.

AFIO Members -- Spread the word to the corporate and business communities! Open to non-members. This is a good one -- useful, practical. Guaranteed. (Jonkers)


SECTION I -- CURRENT INTELLIGENCE

US RECONNAISSANCE FLIGHT SHOOTDOWN SPECULATIONS -- Press speculation abounds, the real story remains to be told. A Taiwan newspaper claims the EP3e was FORCED to land at Hainan. This story from Taipei Times says the claim is based on a Korean military intelligence source familiar with Taiwan's radar and voice monitoring of the entire incident. According to the story, the EP-3 was at low altitude flying in circles around a new, Russian-made Sovremenny-class Chinese destroyer when intercepted. The F-8's flew on the EP-3's wing for a time but with great difficulty because of the low speed -- which may well be what caused the collision. After the collision the EP-3 tried to fly out of the area but was forced instead to land on Hainan by the second fighter which fired warning bursts from its cannon.
            This type of speculation was reported in a slightly different version by a Hong Kong newspaper, which reported Monday (quoting Chinese sources) that after the collision the surviving F-8 requested permission to shoot down the EP-3. The Chinese ground control denied permission. The EP-3, according to this report tried to fly out of the area but was forced by the F-8 to land on Hainan. If these reports are true, the real story is still held within intelligence and buried within US and Chinese Governments in the process of political settlement. (Macartney)
http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/20010403/20010403p2.html
http://news.ninemsn.com./world/story_11201.asp
http://home.wxs.nl/~p3orion/hainan.html

PACIFIC COMMAND ASSESSMENT OF CHINA THREAT-- Admiral Dennis Blair, Commander-in Chief, US Pacific Command, provided a down-to-earth common-sense assessment of the situation in the Far East in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 27th, 2001. He noted that the security balance across the Taiwan Strait is stable, but China's military buildup threatens to tip the scale. But while "China is capable of causing damage to Taiwan . it is not capable of taking and holding Taiwan . The 7th Fleet, in conjunction with the other forces that I can bring to bear, can ensure that China would not be successful in aggression against Taiwan should the decision be made to commit our forces."
            However, he added, certain issues must be addressed to keep the region stable. Each year, the Chinese arsenal that can target Taiwan grows by about 50 ballistic missiles. At present, Admiral Blair noted, the buildup of CSS-6 and CSS-7 missiles is not "militarily significant." But they will become so as their numbers increase and accuracy improves. "There has to be an enhancement of Taiwan's capability." Blair said his recommendation to the administration is based on what his Command deems necessary to maintain a "sufficient defense."
            The United States supports a "One China" policy rather than Taiwanese independence, but it also is committed to the island's self defense under the Taiwan Relations Act. China's view is that the island is a renegade province, but it has agreed not to use military force to resolve its claims. Yet tensions between Taiwan and China persist. (Ed.Note -- tensions appear to be the result of Taiwan's political moves towards independence, and China's attempt to maintain and assert its political claim by a military buildup in the area facing the island). China recently announced a 17.7 percent hike in its defense budget. Admiral Blair said Chinese field commanders and other officials have told him the increase would largely go for personnel and maintenance. A certain amount would go to acquisition, but he does not translate that directly into weapons. The admiral pointed out in this regard that the Chinese are having only mixed success creating an effective combat capability using weapons they purchased from Russia. Integrating training and logistical support with the mother systems is "difficult business," he said.
            Admiral Blair noted that he had told Chinese officials that the "most destabilizing" parts of their buildup are their intermediate- and short-range missiles -- the types China fired into the waters north and south of Taiwan in 1996. The Admiral concluded his testimony to the Senators by saying that Taiwan should not define the entire U.S.-Chinese relationship. "I don't think that a military confrontation between the United States and China is inevitable," he said. "I believe that we should pursue policies which make it less likely rather than more likely." (Jonkers) (DoD Thursday March 29, 2001, American Press Service, Lindda Kozaryn) (http://www.defenselink.mil/news/#News ) (courtesy Tom Hart)

NORTH KOREAN MILITARY THREAT -- IS IT, OR IS IT NOT?-- Over the past year, U.S. and South Korean military officials say they have observed a substantial buildup in North Korea's offensive firepower near the 38th parallel. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's regime has increased the number and size of military training exercises, continued the production and deployment of medium-range ballistic missiles and amassed 70% of its active military forces within 90 miles of the 38th parallel. Said General Thomas A. Schwarts, Commander-in Chief of the US-South Korean Combined Forces, speaking before the U.S. Senate's Armed Forces Committee last week, "when I look north, I can see an enemy that's bigger, better, closer and deadlier." Included among these forces, he said, are 700,000 troops, over 8,000 artillery systems and 2,000 tanks.
            Some,. like North Korea expert Selig Harrisson, writing in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, disagree. He proposes that "Pyongyang's forward deployments of tanks and artillery are intended to help deter a U.S. pre-emptive strike, not to prepare for another invasion."
            South Korean defense officials, while acknowledging the buildup, say it remains highly uncertain whether North Korea really poses a greater military threat than it has in the past. "Even on the basis of the same information the understanding and interpretation of the data can vary depending on the perspective," a senior South Korean defense official said last week.
            An interesting case of diverging analyses arguing from the same basic facts. Clearly the potential for a devastating North Korean attack clearly exists. But one must comprehend the North Korean culture and mindset. And factor in potential irrationality (at least in our terms). The future, as always, is opaque. Meanwhile it would be well to listen to General Schwartz (and his intelligence staff) closest to the threat. (Jonkers) (Wall St Journal 2 April 2001 // Solomon & Lachica)

CIA STILL ENGAGED IN MIDDLE EAST DIPLOMACY -- Two weeks ago, the White House announced that CIA would no longer take a diplomatic role in mediating between Israeli and PLO security services -- an arrangement formalized at the Wye River accords in 1998. Now the Washington Post reports that a auto convoy containing PLO senior security officials was fired on in the Gaza strip on Thursday by the Israelis while they were returning from a meeting with their Israeli counterparts at the home of US Ambassador Martin Indyk near Tel Aviv, where, according to the report, "a CIA official presided" at the meeting. (Macartney)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43465-2001Apr5.html


SECTION II - CONTEXT AND PRECEDENT

SPACE AND INTELLIGENCE TO MOVE UP IN PENTAGON HIERARCHY -- Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is preparing to create an important new Pentagon office, the 'Under Secretary for Space, Information & Intelligence (SI2).' The office will absorb the lower level Asst Sec Def for Command, Control, Communications, Computers & Intelligence (C4I). Albert Smith, a Lockheed executive VP, is leading candidate to be nominated for the Under Secretary post and be dual-hatted as the new Under Secretary of the AF for SI2. (Macartney) http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring-200146212013.htm

CIA ANALYST SUICIDE -- Rick Yannuzzi, CIA Deputy National Intelligence Officer for strategic and nuclear programs, died 3 April 2001 in his home, an apparent suicide. It caught his colleagues by surprise and led to speculations as to the reason. Yanuzzi, a 23- year veteran of the agency, apparently had been one of a number of employees questioned about a month ago by the CIA Inspector General as part of an internal investigation instigated by a CIA manager who complained that her privacy rights had been violated. Employees had apparently sent anonymous letters to the CIA leadership protesting the cash bonuses and promotion (to SIS super grade) she received in spite of an incident in which she had choked a subordinate during a workplace outburst in September 1998, for which she received a Letter of Admonishment. In response she asked the IG to investigate whether her personnel file had been accessed without authorization. The apparent total thus far in this alleged tale: one promotion seen by unhappy colleagues as undeserved and under a choking- incident cloud, and one good man tragically dead. CIA Director George Tenet called Yanuzzi a highly respected and admired agency official. (Jonkers) (WashPost 6April01, p. A19) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45714-2001Apr5.html

IRANIAN MISSILE POSTURE POSSIBILITIES -- A recent ITAR-TASS news account has reported that Iran is to finalize soon its purchase of Russian-built self-propelled or trailer-mounted versions of the surface-to-air SA-15 Gauntlet and its hard-to-jam, long-range surface-to-air missile cousin, the SA-20. The SA-20 is still operational in Russia, China and Cyprus and has a range of up to 100 miles against aircraft and some of the slower ballistic missile reentry vehicles. The SA-15 defends the longer range SA-20 sites against low-flying aircraft, cruise missiles and a range of guided weapons. The SA-20 radar can spread a signal pulse over a broad bandwidth, vary the waveform and change polarization of the signal, leading some US EW specialists to believe that current US equipment could not jam some of the radars associated with this category. (Ed. Note: if the missile is in Cyprus, it cannot be too secret, and everybody interested should know all about it. /RJ).
            Reportedly, Iran wants the missiles to defend its Bushehr nuclear complex and other strategic installations against air attack. It has three nuclear power plants and two R & D laboratories near Isfahan and Tehran, where work is also being done on Russian-built SS-4 missile components. Iran's latest longer-range, surface-to-surface missile, Shahab-4, can carry a one-ton payload for a 1,200-mile range. In addition, Western intelligence agencies believe Iran is working to develop longer-range ballistic missiles and nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. An added concern is the proposed Indian/Iranian joint production of combat aircraft and missiles. Primary interest is centered on the possible sale of India's new Agvi-2 ballistic missile, with a 1,500-mile range designed to carry a 45-kiloton nuclear warhead. Perhaps more immediately, the proposed cooperation could conceivably include Iranian acquisition of Agni-1, which has a range capability of 1,000 miles. Detailing of these sorts of possibilities in the immediate future underlines the US intelligence communities' ranking of "proliferation" in the top range of threats to US and allied interests worldwide. (Harvey) ( Aviation Week 26 Mar '01, p. 32 // D. Fulghum; Chicago Sun-Times 4 Apr '01, p. 32 by UPI)


SECTION III - CYBER INTELLIGENCE

CYBER ATTACKS ON MILITARY SERVICES -- The US Army, Navy and Air Force combined suffered 715 cyber attacks last year, according to a report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) released last week. The Navy reported the most attacks, 387, with the Army slightly behind at 299. The Air Force suffered only 29 attacks in 2000. According to the report, 'Information Security -- Challenges to Improving DOD's Incident Response Capabilities.' issued last week by the General Accounting Office (GAO), Congress' investigative arm, the US military's ability to defend against cyber attacks is hampered by a dearth of coordination among the armed services, and a poorly implemented alert system. It found the Defense Department lacks a coordinated approach to ensuring that its systems are patched against the latest software vulnerabilities, and to conducting security assessments.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/8/18137.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/8/18138.html
(Levine 4 April 01)
 
FBI STRUGGLES WITH HIGH TURNOVER OF EXPERTS -- FBI Director Louis Freeh said Wednesday. "There's a bull market" for skilled FBI cyber-crime workers." In order to keep workers in the agency, he said, "we basically rely on people's patriotism." That can be difficult when agency employees earning $50,000 to $55,000 interact every day with former FBI workers now making six figures in the private sector, he said.
Fortunately for the agency, the number of qualified applicants continues to far outnumber the job vacancies. The number of criminal cases involving computer technology is growing exponentially, Director Freeh said, and the top challenge facing the FBI in working against cybercrime is maintaining the balance between protecting personal privacy and enforcing laws. He said the same constitutional balance between privacy and the necessity of a government to stop crimes should apply to the electronic age.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0401/040501td.htm   (Levine 4 April 2001)

PRESIDENT'S CAUTION ON E-MAIL -- President Bush, citing privacy, has sworn off e-mail as a form of communication. The President said that he used to exchange e-mails with a wide circle of family and friends, but that has come to a halt now that he is in the White House. "I used to be an avid e-mailer, and I e-mailed to my daughters or e-mailed to my father, for example, and I don't want those e-mails to be in the public domain,'' the President said last Thursday. He said he does not e-mail out of concern his private communications could be subject to freedom of information laws and could be made public.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/reuters_wire/1053059l.htm
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/164171.html
(Levine 4 April 01)


SECTION IV - BOOKS AND SOURCES

ORIGINS OF THE PACIFIC WAR AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MAGIC, by Keiichiro Komatsu,  St Martin's Press, 1999. 484 pp. The author of this controversial book argues that mistakes in translating MAGIC intercepts in the fall of 1941 led the US to believe, mistakenly, that Japan was moving towards war when in fact they were seeking a diplomatic solution. To buttress his case, he demonstrates that a number of important Japanese messages were indeed mistranslated. At the same time, Tokyo misunderstood what Roosevelt and the American government wanted. (Macartney)
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=11566985221877


SECTION V -- LETTERS

EP3e ARTICLE PUBLISHED -- AFIO member Michel Stedman, a member of the NE Chapter Board, published article "The Standoff with China" on editorial page of the Boston Globe 4/6/00. With reference to the EP3e landing in Hainan, China, it includes this quote from a recently retired Air Force brigadier who commanded one of the largest US airbases in the world and asked to be unnamed,

''For the first 10 minutes, the crew would have been busy making sure they weren't going to die. Another five minutes before they realize they're going to land in China. Then they might have had 10 minutes to destroy what they could before they were on the ground .... surrounded by armed military personnel who may have been firing warning shots over their canopy ... That wouldn't leave them much time to get rid of all that equipment and material.''

RE: USSR COLLAPSE ESTIMATES -- MGen Ted Atkeson wrote in reference to the WIN #13 remarks about the collapse of the USSR:

"I don't believe anyone matched Judy Shelton with her book, The Coming Soviet Crash, published by Free Press in 1989 -- but the work started in 1984! Most astounding was Judy Shelton's finding that the official Soviet budget revenues throughout the late 1970s and the 80s never added up correctly. The leadership simply ran a deficit every year, but altered the totals to indicate an annual surplus of around 5%. The mystery is why they didn't falsify the subcategories to at least make the total report look good. Apparently nobody bothered to check the arithmetic -- or was smart enough to keep his mouth shut if he did. Most of the time the apparatus was running a deficit of about 20%. Her research indicated that the problem may have existed as early as 1940. It was a colossus running on empty."

RE: BRITISH INTELLIGENCE CONFERENCE - Ralph W. writes --

"Some of your AFIO members may be interested in the following-- The Public Record Office is staging a two-day conference on intelligence ("The Missing Dimension") at Kew, Surrey, on 29 and 30 June. Speakers include Richard Aldrich ("Cold War Intelligence"), John Ferris ("The British Experience with Signals Intelligence, 1892-1945") , Yigal Sheffy "British Intelligence and its impact on operations and policy during the First World War") and Eunan O'Halpin ("Small states and big secrets: explaining British Sigint alliances, 1939-43"). The cost is GBP 80.00 for two days and 45.00 for one (concessions GBP 60 and 45). A booking form and full program are at-
http://www.pro.gov.uk/events/conferences/missing-dimension.htm


AFIO MEMBERS -- YOUR MISSION: SPONSOR A NEW MEMBER!

SPONSOR FIVE AND GET A PRIZE!

=================================

For comments, contact the editor Roy Jonkers at  afio@afio.com 
For back issues of the WIN, check the AFIO Website  www.afio.com 
For AFIO Website requests/comments, contact   afio@afio.com   

Back to Top

About AFIO | Chapters & Chapter Activities | Membership | Corporate | Weekly Intelligence Notes | Event Schedule | Bulletin Board | Legislative | Careers | Donations | Book Reviews | Search | AFIO Store | | Other Intel Sites | Home Page

AFIO Central Office
6723 Whittier Avenue, Suite 303A
McLean, Virginia 22101-4533
Telephone: 703 790 0320 | Facsimile: 703 790 0264
Email: afio@afio.com