WIN #9-01
dtd 1 Oct 2001
WINs are commentaries on intelligence-related events
and issues produced by Roy Jonkers for AFIO Members and for WIN
Subscribers, for non-profit educational uses only. RADM Don Harvey and
Dr. John Macartney also contribute articles to the WINs. Opinions
expressed are solely those of the editors and/or authors referenced
with each article.
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SECTION I - CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
COUNTER-TERRORISM 'CZAR' APPOINTED AT NSC --
President Bush named retired Army General Wayne Downing as
Assistant to the President and National Director for Combating
Terrorism, on the National Security Council staff.
Downing wrote a scathing 1996 study of
security lapses by
U.S.
commanders in the
Middle East
after a bomb in June 1996 killed 19 members of the Air Force in a
barracks in
Saudi Arabia
called Khobar Towers
. The report criticized the entire military chain of command
from the Air Force wing commander up to the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, and concluded that the
U.S.
government should stop regarding terrorism as an intermittent problem
and instead begin treating it as "undeclared war against the
United States
."
The National Security Council and the State
Department have prepared a 10-paragraph "Afghanistan Declaratory
Policy" that says the international community "must devote
itself to stabilizing Afghanistan . . . The Taliban do not represent
the Afghan people, who never elected or chose the Taliban faction . .
. We do not want to choose who rules Afghanistan, but we will assist
those who seek a peaceful, economically developing Afghanistan free of
terrorism."
(Jonkers)
(WashPost 30Sep01 //Allen & Ricks) <http://www.washingtonpost.com>
NEW INTELLIGENCE SUPER-CUSTOMER TO BE CREATED --
After the Sept. 11 attacks, the President announced the establishment
of the OFFICE OF HOMELAND DEFENSE and the appointment of Governor Tom
Ridge of Pennsylvania to head it. Recent White House statements have
begun to flesh out the duties and authorities of the OHD (probably to
be referred to as "Odious" by bureaucrats in the 40 plus
federal agencies and departments to be coordinated by the office).
A new HOMELAND SECURITY COUNCIL is being set
up, with Mr. Ridge as chairman and including the attorney general, the
secretaries of defense, treasury, health and human services and
agriculture as well as the directors of the FBI and FEMA. The
counter-terrorism "czar" of the last 11 years, Richard A. Clarke,
will be put in charge of the new Office of Cyber Security. Experts in
bio-defense from HHS will supervise the vaccines and antibiotic
stockpiles now managed by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. The new council will have 100 staff members, comparable in
size to the NSC staff and will be paid for with White House money.
There
will be NO Congressional confirmation or oversight. Mr. Ridge and two
other White House officials will be charged with bringing together all
the available intelligence and all the services necessary to respond
to an emergency or an attack. State and local governments will be
represented in some form on the HSC. An executive order is expected to
be issued setting up the HSC some time before Mr. Ridge takes up his
duties 8 October.
This new White House agency is intended to
have powers to match those of the National Security Council, and is
intended to help coordinate counter-terrorism and prevent a repeat of
the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Ridge is to coordinate federal agencies at
the highest level and is to have some authority, as yet undetermined,
over their budgets. The White House chief of staff has said the
government had a "good track record on reacting to emergencies.
But in intelligence gathering, prevention and defense it's been less
good."
By
all appearances, this planned reorganization is not the usual "In
case of doubt, reorganize, preferably at the top." syndrome.
There have been a number of congressional and executive branch
bipartisan efforts to define a viable approach to homeland defense in
the last several years. Given the fact that Mr. Ridge is a close,
personal friend of the President and the awareness of all concerned
that something had to be done, OHC may well develop the clout and
smarts to pull the sometimes quarreling
two score
or more agencies into an effective posture. Intelligence,
counterintelligence and security will have to figure largely in the
planning and management by the new organization which at the very
least will be an important customer.(Harvey) ( NY Times 28 Sept '01
/// E Becker & T. Weiner; Wash. Post 26 Sept, '01, P. A4 /// E.
Planin & B. Graham; Time Magazine 1 Oct, '01, p. 64 // K. Tumulty
CHAIRMAN SEES NO INTELLIGENCE FAILURE .BUT
. Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, speaking on
CBS' "The Early Show," emphatically states that there was no
major intelligence failure by the
U.S.
government in the terrorist attacks on September 11th. Said the
Chairman: "We've got plenty of areas we can improve, but I don't
want anyone to get the idea that there was a great intelligence
failure.. . . It was a combined failure of all our government
protection assets, not having the right information on the right
day.'' Further, he noted that, if it was anything, it was probably a
question of "who would have expected an atrocity of that
magnitude?''
The Chairman ( who will make the keynote
address to AFIO members at the AFIO Symposium on 2 November in
McLean
) noted that the nation needs additional investments in intelligence,
and further also needs to improve such things as border security, the
visa program, and domestic intelligence technology at the FBI. In
terms of Homeland defense, terrorism and security, "There are
many things we can do and are doing that will make it better,'' Goss
said, "But . . . it's never going to be 100 percent.''
In
addition, in spite of the Chairman's firm statements in regard to
"intelligence failure" and the impossibility of a 'zero
defects' capability (absolute security) in an infinitely complex
world, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has
suggested in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that a "fresh
look" be taken at restructuring the CIA and the rest of the U.S.
intelligence community, including establishment of a separate
clandestine service devoted to human intelligence. (Jonkers) (AP, 2
Oct 01)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55479-2001Oct1.html
(Macartney)
Meanwhile... On the Cuban Front. With
the nation's attention riveted on the 11 September horror, the arrest
of a DIA analyst for spying for
Cuba
has been largely over-shadowed. The FBI felt it had to accelerate the
arrest of Ana Belen Montes, a senior
Cuba
analyst for DIA earlier than it preferred because of concerns that she
would pass along classified information about the
US
response to the 11 September terrorist attacks. As a consequence, she
was arrested in late September before surveillance could reveal with
whom she was in contact.
Cuba
, according to government sources, has been known to share information
with
Libya
,
Iran
and others that might be sympathetic to Osama bin Laden.
During
the four-month surveillance, Montes continued to have access to highly
classified material, including the computer site maintained for the
US
intelligence community, Intelink. A court-approved surreptitious entry
into her
Northwest Washington
apartment obtained information from her laptop computer that appeared
to tie her directly to Cuban intelligence. She also was observed
making a series of questionable calls from pay telephones. According
to government sources, continued surveillance might never have
produced a face-to-face meeting between Montes and her contact since
Cuban intelligence avoids meetings, depending instead on coded
telephone messages, computer diskettes and short-wave radio.
According
to the 17-page affidavit, Montes communicated via short-wave radio
with her contacts in the Cuban government, and documents relating to
classified military maneuvers were discovered in her home. Montes, 44,
began work at the DIA in 1985 and her spying activities began in 1996.
Press reports have not given how much compensation she received from
Cuban paymasters or whether her motivation was ideological. It will be
interesting to learn eventually what led her into treason, what caused
her to become an object of suspicion, how long she was active as a
spy, and what could have been done to reveal her activities sooner. (
Harvey
) (WashPost 28 Sep01, p. B3 ///Pincus/Miller; WashTimes 24Sep01, p.
A18)
SECTION II - CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE
BOUNTY HUNTERS CHASE BIN LADEN - British mercenaries
have been trying to trace Osama bin Laden so they can claim the
multimillion-dollar bounty put on his head by the
United States
. A former SAS soldier and a special operations veteran last week
confirmed that private operations have been mounted by British and
U.S.
bounty hunters. There is plenty of incentive. The reward "for
information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction"
of the terrorist mastermind has been increased to $30 million, and
President Bush has made it clear he wants bin Laden "dead or
alive."
The FBI has already
received detailed information on bin Laden's whereabouts "on a
number of occasions" from military "privateers,"
according to a security source.
The
source said a bounty hunter would not need to capture or kill the
terrorist to claim the reward. Intelligence on his future movements or
position would qualify if it led to an official operation that brought
him to justice, meaning a lucky intercept by a freelance computer
hacker or radio ham could qualify for the reward.
Even
before bin Laden's rise to infamy, bounty hunters were regular
visitors to
Afghanistan
. In the early 1980s, William Lindsay-Hogg led a quasi-official team
of mercenaries and British special forces as part of a successful
effort to arm and train Afghan fighters who were resisting the Russian
invasion. David Tomkins, who took part in the mission, said the men
were paid thousands of dollars to steal examples of the Russian AK74,
a military assault rifle, from Soviet troops. Tomkins said the unit
also grabbed ammunition, filters for gas masks and Russian military
papers. Ironically bin Laden, then a military leader in the region,
benefited from this raid as he too was fighting the Russians. When the
Russians pulled out, yet more bounty hunters moved in. They were
tempted by a $10 million US reward offered by the administration of
former President George Bush in 1992 for the return of Stinger
shoulder-fired missiles that had been supplied by the West to the
Afghans during the Russian war. Some 100 Stingers, probably mostly
non-operational, remain in the hands of bin Laden and the Taliban.
Anybody
considering taking up the FBI's offer should be aware that bin Laden
has responded in kind. In 1998, bin Laden issued a bounty of $10,000
US to his followers for every American killed. (Jonkers)
(
Calgary
Herald
,
Canada
, 30 Sep 01) //D. Leppard) (PJK)
http://www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/story.asp?id=ED5D4A88-43D7-4CF3-B272-0B5B8D765567
Al-QAIDA THREATENS MUSLIM GOVERNMENTS -- One of the
reasons that the U.S. drive for a coalition against terrorism has been
supported by many Middle East governments is that they are also
targeted. This was reflected in three days of court testimony earlier
this year by Jamal Ahmed Fadl, a former mid-level operative in the
Qaida network. He said that the organization advocated a destabilizing
brand of Islamic fundamentalism in a number of Middle Eastern and
Central Asian regimes, at the same time that it declared a jihad on
the
United States
.
During
his testimony in federal court last February he described Qaida's
assistance to groups working against governments in
Algeria
,
Syria
,
Chechnya
,
Turkey
,
Jordan
,
Eritrea
,
Tajikistan
, the
Philippines
and
Lebanon
. The strategy is that, if the
US
leaves the area, current Muslim regimes will collapse and bin Laden
and his crowd will be able turn them into fundamentalist Islamic
states.
Although
Fadl mentioned working with Iraqis who were members of Qaida, he did
not identify any group in
Iraq
that opposed President Saddam Hussein. He testified repeatedly about
bin Laden's criticism of the Iraqi dictator, sometimes for attacking
Muslims and killing women and children, but most importantly for not
believing "most of Islam" and for setting up his own
political-religious group, the Ba'ath.
Fadl's
testimony was an important piece of the case against bin Laden and 21
other defendants in the August 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania (Jonkers)
(Intl Herald Tribune, 1Oct01 & Wpost Service /W. Pincus) (http://www.iht.com)
(T. Hart)
EBOLA-STYLE VIRUS SWEEPS AFGHAN FRONTIER -- An
outbreak of a highly contagious disease, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic
Fever (CCHF), that causes patients to bleed to death from every
orifice, was confirmed yesterday on Pakistan's frontier with
Afghanistan. At least 75 people have caught the disease so far and
eight have died. An isolation ward has been set up in the regional
hospital at Queta in
Baluchistan
, on the border with
Afghanistan
. An international appeal for help has been launched.
CCHF
has similar effects to the Ebola virus. Both viruses damage arteries,
veins and other blood vessels and lead to the eventual collapse of
major organs. As one doctor put it, a patient suffering from
hemorrhagic fever "literally melts in front of your eyes".
Dr Akhlaq Hussain, the hospital's medical superintendent, said:
"The first cases came in June. There were a number of deaths, but
at first we did not know what was the cause." A number of blood
samples were sent to
Pakistan
's national virology testing centre in
Islamabad
. "When the results came back we knew we were dealing with
Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever." The first known case of the
disease was among Russian soldiers serving in the
Crimea
in 1944 and then among villagers living near the Congolese city of
Kisangani
in 1956. Not until 1969 were scientists able to isolate the single
virus common to both. The virus is widely distributed in the blood of
sheep, cattle and other mammals across eastern Europe,
Asia
and
Africa
. It can be passed to man by a species of tick, Hyalomma marginatum,
common in the same areas.
The
doctor said: "It would seem there is a reservoir of the virus in
Afghanistan
." There are fears of an epidemic if millions of refugees flee
across the frontier into
Pakistan
. "The virus is carried by domestic animals, and if they come in
large numbers with large numbers of animals we can expect many more
cases." (Jonkers)
(10/04/01/Tim Butcher) ( PJK)
INTERNET LANGUAGE APPEALS -- Subscribers to internet
servers in
Central Asia
and
Afghanistan
have received email adverts for American citizens who can speak Farsi,
Pashto, Dari, Turkmen and Uzbek, all languages of
Afghanistan
and
Central Asia
. Other languages needed are Urdu, spoken in
Pakistan
, and Arabic. "
US
citizenship required for secret security clearances, positions are
also available for non-US citizens," reads an email from
Worldwide Language Resources. "Positions available for language
instructors, interpreters, translators, analysts, human intelligence,
area experts, liaison elements, transcription technicians and
interceptors," the email says. "Current or previous security
clearance highly desirable."
Another US-based
organization, All World Language Consultants, wants Uzbek linguists
who "must have been granted or be able to obtain a minimum of a
Department of Defense security clearance with no felony record".
Former CIA agents are
cited to have said that in the past seven years Western intelligence
organizations have failed to penetrate any of the extremist groups
which have joined al-Qa'eda, the global network led by bin Laden.
According to the article's author in
Lahore
, now we know why: the organizations do not have people who even speak
the languages used by the terrorists. (Jonkers)
(UK/Telegraph
29/09/01
//Ahmend Rashid/Lahore)
SECTION III -
CYBER INTELLIGENCE
Virus exploits fears over war on terror -- Adestructive
virus, which tries to exploit anxiety generated by approaching
military action, has been released on the Internet.
Vote, a mass mailing virus that affects
only Windows PCs, normally comes in an email with the subject line
"Fwd: Peace Between America And Islam !", inviting users to
"vote" on peace by clicking on an attachment, which in
reality contains malicious code. If a user open the attachment
(normally called WTC.EXE), the virus attempts to delete files
associated with the user's anti-virus program, overwrite HTML files
and download Trojan horse files from the Internet. Worse still, it
attempts to format a user's hard disk when a user next tries to
reboot. (Levine's Newsbits 25 Sep01)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/21863.html
Bush defends expanded wiretap, detention powers.
President Bush defended Tuesday his administration's request for
expanded wiretap and detention powers, saying they were vital to the
war on terrorism. Bush used a brief appearance at FBI headquarters in
Washington to lobby for his proposed anti- terrorism package, which
has run into opposition among Democrats and Republicans on Capitol
Hill who fear it would curb U.S. civil liberties. (Levine 25 Sep01)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/tech/083976.htm
National ID card idea kindles old debate Oracle
Chief's Proposal Raises Constitutional, Feasibility Issues. Oracle CEO
Larry Ellison's call this weekend for a national ID card system has
ignited a raging debate over an issue that has simmered in the United
States since the 1930s.
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/front/docs/idcards25.htm
http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47073,00.html
Terrorists and steganography: Guess what? Osama
Bin Laden uses steganography. According to nameless "U.S.
officials and experts" terrorist groups are "hiding maps and
photographs of terrorist targets, and posting instructions for
terrorist activities, on sports chat rooms, pornographic bulletin
boards and other Web sites." (Levine/25/09/01)
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,5859,2814256,00.html
SECTION IV -
BOOKS & OTHER SOURCES & REFERENCES
BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY, by William Burroughs, Farrar,
Straus & Giroux, October, 2001. When a Chinese fighter collided
with an American EP-3E Aries II reconnaissance plane on April 1, 2001,
it was merely the most recent incident in a long string dating back to
the end of WWII. Burrows (author of "Deep Black"), a
professor of journalism at New York University and founder and
director of its Science and Environmental Reporting Program, uses a
host of personal interviews among his many sources, and details for
the first time the secret American reconnaissance
missions against the Soviet Union, China, North Korea and North
Vietnam. (Macartney)
ONE PAGE COMMENTARY, "Crushing Terrorism and
Protecting America: Common Sense and Public Strategy" by Robert
Steele, suggests that a new balance is needed between capabilities for
traditional war ($250B), special operations including
counter-terrorism and crime fighting ($50B), peacekeeping operations
including diplomacy and economic assistance ($50B) and home front
defense ($50B).
<http://www.oss.net/Papers/white/CommonSenseandPublicStrategy.doc>
HPSCI's INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION REPORT FOR FY2002:
see www.FAS.org
USAMA BIN LADEN'S AL'QAIDA: PROFILE OF A TERRORIST NETWORK,
Potomac Institute of Policy Studies, 2001
<http://www.potomacinstitute.org/pubs/binLaden.htm>
See also related reports in pdf and pps
formats on various terrorism subjects and responses, including one on
"Anticipated response from a terrorist Anthrax release".
http://www.potomacinstitute.org/projects/cbt/apls.htm
( Greg O'Hara www.nbcnco.com )
CHEMBIO WEAPONS AND WMD TERRORISM NEWS -- Issues
covered by the listserv include: CBW state programs; chemical and
biological nonproliferation treaties and verification measures;
demilitarization and destruction of chemical and biological weapons;
sub-state incidents involving CBRN (chemical, biological,
radiological, nuclear), including threats, hoaxes, intentional
contaminations, poisonings or agent release; threat assessment,
national and international policies and legislation. The email
listserv is distributed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. If you
would like to subscribe to this free service, please email chembio-terror@miis.edu
with the subject heading "subscribe" and your email address
in the message body. (Wayne Livermore)
AFGHANISTAN TALIBAN HOME PAGE
http://www.azzam.com/
AFGHANISTAN NORTHERN ALLIANCE HOME PAGE
http://www.afgha.com/
INSIDE AL-QAEDA. [
Compton
]
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/misc/janes010928_1_n.shtml
ISRAELI SPECIAL FORCES HOME PAGE.
http://www.isayeret.com/main/guide.htm
NEW VARIANTS OF BLACK HAWK SPECIAL OPS HELICOPTER.
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/misc/mh60heli_nse.shtml
CIA FLOODED WITH APPLICANTS
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19694-2001Sep24.html
http://www.cia.gov/cia/employment/jobpostings/info_man.htm
http://www.cia.gov/cia/employment/jobpostings/daso.htm
US INTELLIGENCE NEEDS LINGUISTS AND ANALYSTS.
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jid/jid270901_1_n.shtml
TWO TERROR ATTACKS THWARTED SINCE SEPT 11.
http://library.northernlight.com/EE20010927040000051.html?cb=0&dx=1006&sc=0#doc
INTELLIGENCE SHARING WITH THE EU.
http://www.stratfor.com/home/0109212330.htm
RESERVE COLONEL GETS LIFE SENTENCE FOR ESPIONAGE.
http://www.miami.com/herald/digdocs/025921.htm
STRATFOR War Plan Analysis <http://www.stratfor.com/home/0109282120.htm
SECTION V -
LETTERS
RE: AFGHAN OB -- Walt J. writes -- Ref WIN 36 Afghan
order of battle article listing 8,000 Pakistani volunteers --
Pakistani brigades are not volunteers. They are regular forces,
controlled by ISI, seconded by generals who run Pakistani Army (and
Pakistan). They assisted in combat operations against the Rabbani
Government to put Taliban in power. Policy and program began with
Islamic Fundamentalist General-President Zia ul Haq. Principal
architect of Taliban support was Major General Hamid Gul, Director of
Inter Services Intelligence during late eighties.
Ed. Response:
Good point. Yes, in the article, the Pakistan ISI-controlled Army
"volunteers" should have been in quotation marks.(RJ)
RE: NICE SPIES -- B. G. writes In the
WIN 38-01 there is an Editor's Note that says the central bureaucracy
doesn't trust the Chiefs of Station as all sources must be vetted
through the central bureaucracy. This was so when I joined in 1955 and
remains so, to the best of my knowledge. It's not because the
"central bureaucracy" (wow, do you know how to pick a loaded
term) doesn't trust the
COS
; of course the CIA leaders do, otherwise those women and men wouldn't
be COS. It's because there is always information available at HQS
which must be checked--info from other sources not available in the
field; info from other Govt agencies; info from old files. The
Deutch-induced added restriction on "unsavory individuals"
does risk having the negative effect written about in the WIN (and I
criticized this in a 1997 academic paper).
Ed. Response:
Appreciate the comment. The sole focus of the Ed. Note was on the
"unsavory individual's" limitations, requiring central legal and
political (PC?) scrubbing beyond the usual central vetting and the
judgments of meeting operational requirements by the
COS
. Your excellent comment corrects any who might have misinterpreted
the Ed Note.
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