Weekly Intelligence Notes #09-04 dtd 29 March 2004

WIN #9-04 dtd 29 March 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.


CONTENTS of this WIN
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SECTION I - CURRENT INTELLIGENCE

          Clarke vs. Bush et al

          EU takes anti-terror measures, but will they be effective?

SECTION II -- CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE

          Iraqi Defector's Tales Bolstered U.S. Case for War

          Deaths of bin Ladin, Zawahiri will not mean war has been won

SECTION III -- CYBER INTELLIGENCE

          Restructured terrorist watch list to be in place by December

          Director Mueller: renovation of FBI computers near completion

          U.S. Trojan Horse said to have caused giant Soviet explosion

          Ukrainian to face trial in California for computer crimes

SECTION IV -- EMPLOYMENT SUPPLIED OPPORTUNITIES

          Urgent need for interrogators, debriefers and Arabic linguists

SECTION V -- BOOKS, SOURCES, AND ISSUES

          America's pioneer cryptographer

          Is terrorists' hatred the West's own bastard child?

          Asian treasure trove

          A little lexicon of current Bureaucratese

SECTION VI -- NOTES, LETTERS, AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

          Hoover Foundation Seminar

          Cicentre's SpyRetreat

          NSA's Hayward to address NIMA luncheon

          AFIO Lunch to honor Col. Kuklinski

          NMIA -- 30th Anniversary Banquet and Awards

          The Office of Strategic Services Society

          AFIO's Night at the Boston Pops


SECTION I -- CURRENT INTELLIGENCE

CLARKE VS. BUSH ET AL -- The dust stirred up by former White House counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke continues to swirl. But such is the nature of WINs readers that they may be expected to have immersed themselves in the ocean of reports and commentary that has followed on Clarke's launch of his book, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror -- and his declaration of war on the Bush administration. What follows are a few points that WINs readers may have missed.

          The subscription e-mail journal of analysis, Stratfor Weekly, commented on March 26, "There is no question but that the intelligence system failed to predict the event [9/11] and that it was supposed to," dryly noting that, "Officials and former officials hurling charges against each other in a public display of disunity does not seem to serve the national interest." 

          The Washington Post made the point on March 27 that both the Bush and Clinton administrations pursued roughly the same policies before 9/11.  

          Stratfor, developed the same point. Up to 9/11 President Bush's policy towards Iraq was a continuation of that begun by his father in 1991 and continued by Bill Clinton during the latter's two terms in office, the Texas based analysts said. This policy was comprised of economic sanctions and U.S. and British air patrols of no-fly zones in the north and south of Iraq. Under Clinton, covert attempts to overthrow Saddam Hussein were mounted.

          In Stratfor's view, it was not Iraq the administration was obsessed with prior to 9/11, as Dick Clarke alleges. It was China. The newly appointed Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, announced that the focus of U.S. defense policy was Asia. It was a crisis in relations with China over its downing of an EP-3 spy plane that caused the Bush administration the most concern, not Iraq.

          Stratfor sees a persistent failure in both the Clinton and Bush administrations to take al-Qaeda seriously. That view was countered by DCI Tenet in his testimony before the 9/11 commission, known formally as the "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." The intelligence community had its eye on Usama bin Ladin and al-Qaeda from the early 1990s, Tenet said.

          The most serious charge that can be made against Bush, in Stratfor's view, is that he did not drastically reshape his administration for war after 9/11 and failed to hold the intelligence community responsible for its failure. He failed to find for the CIA an equivalent of Adm. Chester Nimitz with whom FDR replaced Adm. Husband Kimmel, Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC) at the time of Pearl Harbor.

          In his testimony, Tenet defended himself, the intelligence community, and the presidents he has served. The Clinton administration had "lived through the terrorist phenomenon and wrestled with difficult issues thoughtfully and diligently," Tenet said.  The Bush administration "was working hard before September 11th to devise a comprehensive framework to deal with al-Qaeda, based on the best knowledge that we in the Intelligence Community could provide…."And, during this time, the Intelligence Community did not stand still. You, as the Commission, must evaluate all of this. I, as Director of Central Intelligence, must tell you clearly that there was no lack of care or focus in the face of one of the greatest dangers our country has ever faced."

          Tenet admitted that gaps in security were not closed rapidly or fully enough before 9/11. But, he went on, "We have learned-and are doing better, in an integrated environment that allows us to respond faster and more comprehensively than three years ago. And much more work needs to be done."

          There are those who believe that Bush, Vice-President Cheney and the neo-conservatives at the Pentagon refused to accept intelligence they did not like, David Kahn, writing on 'How Good Intelligence Falls on Deaf Ears' in the NY Times <www.nytimes.com/2004/03/27/opinion/27KAHN.html> pointed out there is nothing new in leaders behaving this way.  His historical examples range across history from the Athenians in 427 B.C. refusing to believe their vassal state of Mytilene had revolted; the Kaiser's rejection in 1914 of evidence that Britain would not remain neutral if Germany invaded Belgium; Stalin's disregard of reports that Hitler was about to attack Russia in 1941; Hitler in 1944 angrily sweeping off his desk a Luftwaffe photomosaic showing that the Soviet Union had assembled the greatest artillery concentration of all time; Israeli intelligence believing in 1973 that Egypt would not attack, which it did on Yom Kippur; and President Nixon rejecting intelligence reports that the Vietnam war was unwinnable.

EU TAKES ANTI-TERROR MEASURES BUT WILL THEY BE EFFECTIVE? -- On March 25, the European Union named a Dutch political figure to be its first antiterrorism coordinator. The appointment was made and other measures adopted at the EU's two-day Spring summit meeting in Brussels. Among those familiar with the EU's ways, the measures were met with doubts as to how effective they would be.

          Adoption of the counterterrorist measures arose directly from the shock felt throughout Europe by the attacks on Madrid train stations on March 11 that killed at least 190 people. The atrocity is believed to have been the work of al-Qaeda.

          The top EU top official for security and foreign policy, Javier Solana, indirectly admitted that action within the EU has not been up to snuff. There has to be somebody, he said, who always follows up to make sure that everybody complies with agreements they have given. He called on member governments and parliaments to meet their obligations promptly.

          Sergio Carrera, an expert at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, took a skeptical view of Solana's words. The EU lacks competence to check on implementation of the adopted measures. The post of the EU's 'Mr Terrorism' would be of symbolic value rather than of substance, Carrera said.

          The man expected nevertheless to keep and eye on member governments is Gijs de Vries. Born in New York, he has dual Dutch and American nationality. He was a member of the European Parliament for 14 years before becoming deputy interior minister of The Netherlands from 1998 to 2002. De Vries was to begin his new job on March 29. He will report to Solana.

          One measure adopted at Brussels calls on all EU member states to use all instruments at their disposal, including military force, to prevent terrorist attacks on other member states or help them cope with the effects of an attack.

          Ireland currently holds the rotating EU presidency and its prime minister, Bertie Ahern, declared that when the anti-terrorism mechanism is invoked each EU government would choose the most appropriate means to comply with the commitment to EU solidarity. On the basis of past performance, skeptics said, some EU members are likely to display a solidarity deficiency.

          Solana indicated the EU will develop analytical and operational bodies to assess intelligence coming from member states and possibly act on it. But Ahern rejected any idea of setting up a European counterpart to the CIA.

          Prior to the new measures, the EU had already agreed to joint arrest warrants, joint investigation teams, and common action against money laundering. However, implementing them has been slow going. Now the EU leaders have committed their countries to putting all measures into practice by this coming June.

          Other measures the EU has in mind are tightening control of its borders with non-EU states and creating databases on non-EU travelers that would include visa details, photos, and, possibly fingerprints, iris scans, and perhaps even DNA samples.

          The EU also decreed that countries outside the bloc that aspire to close ties with it must make counterterrorist cooperation a priority. In Ahern's bold words:  "The whole principle is that the message has to go out: if you want good relationships from the regions of the world with the European Union, then you must build up -- and the European Union will help you -- your counterterrorism capacity, so that we're all clear that there is not any kind of toleration of anything that is not tough action against terrorism."

          Ahern said that human rights and the rule of law would be respected when carrying out counter-terrorist moves and that the EU would not discriminate against immigrants or minorities in its efforts to eradicate Islamic terrorists in Europe.

          Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation dismissed the EU measures. "The European answer in their 'no-war' on terrorism is more bureaucracy," he told the Washington Times. (RFE/RL, BBC, Washington Times)


 

SECTION II -- CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE

IRAQI DEFECTOR'S TALES BOLSTERED U.S. CASE FOR WAR -- In a lengthy article in the Los Angeles Times of March 28, reporters Bob Drogin and Greg Miller relate how the Bush administration's prewar claims that Saddam Hussein had built a fleet of trucks and railroad cars to produce anthrax and other deadly germs were based chiefly on information from a now-discredited Iraqi defector code-named "Curveball."

          U.S. officials never had direct access to the defector and didn't even know his real name until after the war. Instead, his story was provided by the German Federal Intelligence Service, known as the BND, which repeatedly rejected CIA requests to meet Curveball, saying it needed to protect its source. However, Curveball's file was so detailed that American officials thought it confirmed long-standing suspicions that the Iraqis had developed mobile germ factories to evade arms inspections.

          Curveball's story has since crumbled under doubts raised by the Germans and the scrutiny of U.S. weapons hunters, who have come to see his code name as particularly apt, given the problems that beset much of the prewar intelligence collection and analysis.

          U.N. weapons inspectors asked former exile leader Ahmad Chalabi, a bitter enemy of Hussein, to help search for intelligence supporting their theory. Soon after, a young chemical engineer emerged in a German refugee camp and claimed that he had been hired out of Baghdad University to design and build biological warfare trucks for the Iraqi army.

          Based largely on his account, the shadowy germ trucks, dubbed "Winnebagos of Death" or "Hell on Wheels" in news accounts, became a crucial part of the White House case for war -- including Secretary of State Colin Powell's dramatic presentation to the U.N. Security Council just weeks before the war.

          Citing "eyewitness accounts," he showed what he called highly detailed and extremely accurate diagrams of how the trucks were configured, and warned that they could spew enough anthrax or botulinus toxin "in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people."

          It was only after Powell's speech that the CIA learned the defector was the brother of one of Chalabi's top aides, and began to suspect he might have been coached to provide false information these mobile biological facilities," the official said.

          David Kay, who resigned in January as head of the CIA-led group created to find illicit weapons in Iraq, said that of all the intelligence failures in Iraq, the case of Curveball was particularly troubling. "This is the one that's damning," he said. "This is the one that has the potential for causing the largest havoc in the sense that it really looks like a lack of due diligence and care in going forward." Kay said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that Curveball turned out to be an "out-and-out fabricator."

          DCI Tenet gave the first hint of the underlying problem in a speech at Georgetown University on Feb. 5. "I must tell you we are finding discrepancies in some claims made by human sources" about mobile biological weapons production, he said. "Because we lack direct access to the most important sources on this question, we have as yet been unable to resolve the differences."

          The story of Curveball is now under close review by an internal panel at the CIA, as well as House and Senate oversight committees. All are seeking to determine why so much of the prewar intelligence now appears seriously flawed. (LA Times, DKR)

DEATHS OF BIN LADIN, ZAWAHIRI WILL NOT MEAN WAR HAS BEEN WON -- What impact would the capture of Ayman al-Zawahiri have on America's campaign against Al Qaeda? Milt Bearden, a 30-year CIA veteran and AFIO member has asked in the New York Times Magazine.  Since Sept. 11, 2001, much of Al Qaeda's original leadership has already been captured, killed or dispersed, he writes in a commentary titled, "You Cut the Head, but the Body Still Moves." The two most prominent survivors -- Usama bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri, his No. 2 -- will eventually be killed or captured, Bearden believes, if not during the operation now under way in Afghanistan and Pakistan, then in one that will surely follow.

          America's preoccupation with al-Qaeda and UBL has spawned the hope-driven conviction that when he and Zawahiri are finally neutralized, the war on terror will somehow have been won. That, says Bearden, is, sadly, not the case.  In real terms, he warns, their elimination will mean little to the Qaeda network. The jihadi movement should not be thought of as a hierarchical structure akin to the Comintern, the former international communist organization controlled from Moscow. Nor does it resemble an organization chart for the Gambino crime family. The reality is that the jihadis today have nothing like a central command.  "This is an ideological and spiritual movement rather than a cohesive, quantifiable foe," says Bearden, who served as a senior manager for clandestine operations in the CIA's Directorate of Operations. Thus UBL's death will have little effect beyond establishing his immortality and spurring jihadis to go to even greater heights to harm the United States or its friends. Zawahiri's end will have even less meaning, Bearden believes.

          Bearden cites the case of Che Guevara who was tracked down and killed in Bolivia in 1967. But his communist dream didn't die there. His myth continued to inspire revolutionary movements in Latin America and beyond. His death was considered a romantic, almost glamorous denouement.  It may be that in death both UBL and Zawahiri can achieve more real power than they ever wielded while alive, Bearden concludes. (NYTimes, cjlaclair, DKR) <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/21/weekinreview/21bear.html>


SECTION III -- CYBER INTELLIGENCE

RESTRUCTURED TERRORIST WATCH LIST TO BE IN PLACE BY DECEMBER -- A restructured terrorist watch list should be in place by Dec. 4, according to Donna Bucella, director of the FBI-led Terrorist Screening Center. Compiling the list, which has already been delayed multiple times, is complicated because the center is combining information from several sources that use different criteria for adding individuals to their terrorist databases, Bucella said. At least 12 agency lists are being combined for the center's database. Bucella testified on March 25 before a joint hearing of the House Judiciary Committee's Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee and the House Select Committee on Homeland Security's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Subcommittee.

          Designed to keep track of travelers considered to be potential terrorists, the watch list will be queried electronically by other law enforcement agencies. The database will only include names and physical identifiers to help authorities recognize individuals. "We are not the record holder for every agency," Bucella said. Center officials have met with contractors, but there is no timetable for soliciting bids on building the database, she said. Jim Turner (D-Texas) said delays in restructuring the list are unacceptable as there is no technological barrier to doing the job. "Someone could still slip through the cracks because the government has no ability in real time to check a name against every available watch list," said Turner, ranking member of the House select committee and a vocal critic of the Bush administration's handling of the terrorism lists.

          The FBI, not the Homeland Security Department, oversees the center because FBI employees already had the necessary security clearances when the center was created, Bucella said. "It's been a challenge to get the proper background clearances," she said. "The FBI has a large group of individuals who already have those clearances." But FBI and DHS officials are working together on the list, she said. (<www.FCW.COM>, <www.Newsbits.net>, DKR)

DIRECTOR MUELLER SAYS FBI COMPUTER RENOVATION NEAR COMPLETION --  Director Robert Mueller says renovation of the FBI's antiquated computer systems two-years behind schedule and $120 million over budget, will be completed this summer.  However, congressional investigators and some lawmakers question whether the bureau can run the new system, the Washington Post reported. Before the overhaul, begun in November 2000, many of the FBI's computer systems were 30-year-old hand-me-downs from other government agencies, according to the Post. Few of the bureau's 56 field offices had Internet connections, and its networks could not even transmit a digital photo.  After 9/11, Mueller said it became clear the upgrade did not go far enough in moving large amounts of investigative information into new digital databases that could be accessed throughout the FBI. This component, known as the Virtual Case File, has been the subject of the most recent round of delays and is considered critical to the FBI's ability to quickly share information. <www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28415-2004Mar26.html>

U.S. TROJAN HORSE SOFTWARE SAID TO HAVE GIANT SOVIET EXPLOSION -- A recently published book, At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War, detailed the use of a Trojan horse embedded in U.S. software stolen by the Russians to wage economic war against the Soviet Union. Now its author, Thomas C. Reed, has dismissed Russian allegations that the book's revelations are rubbish.

          According to Reed, a former secretary of the Air Force and special assistant to President Reagan, the Reagan administration faced a choice in 1981 when it gained access to an agent in the KGB technical intelligence directorate and discovered that Soviet theft of American technology had been massive. "In essence, the Pentagon had been in an arms race with itself," Reed said in a phone interview with Wired News. Rather than arrest everyone they could to try to close the operation down and halt further espionage, DCI William Casey and National Security Council staffer Gus Weiss cooked up a better plan: They turned into hackers.

          "(Soviet operatives) stole stuff, and we knew what they were going to steal," Reed said. "Every microchip they stole would run fine for 10 million cycles, and then it would go into some other mode. It wouldn't break down, it would start delivering false signals and go to a different logic." The most spectacular result of this hacking, according to Reed, was a massive explosion during the summer of 1982 in the controversial pipeline delivering Siberian natural gas to Western Europe.

          Soviet spies stole software needed to operate the pipeline, not knowing that "it had a few lines of software added that constituted a Trojan horse," said Reed. "They checked it out, it looked fine, and ran just fine for a few months. But the Trojan horse was programmed to let it run for four or five months and then the pumps and compressors are told, 'Today is the day we are going to run a pressure test at some significantly increased pressure.'"  "We expected that the pipeline would spring leaks all the way from Siberia to Germany, but that wasn't what happened," Reed said. "Instead the welds all blew apart. It was a huge explosion. The Air Force thought it was a 3-kiloton blast."

          Former KGB agent Vasily Pchelintsev, who was reportedly head of the KGB office in the area of the 1982 blast, told the English-language Moscow Times in a recent interview that what Reed had written was rubbish. Pchelintsev said the only explosion that occurred in Siberia that year came in April, not during the summer, and was near the city of Tobolsk in the Tyumen region. A government investigation blamed the explosion -- which was not disclosed in public until after Reed's book appeared -- on construction violations, Pchelintsev said.

          "I have the greatest respect for Russian old-timers trying to piece together the shards of history," Reed responded. "I do not know Vasily Pchelintsev, and his use of the word 'rubbish' is a little strong, but if he really was there 25 years ago, in Tyumen, he may have access to some pieces of the story. "On the other hand, the KGB is hardly a repository of factual reporting, and the findings of any 'government commission' from the Soviet era should be discarded prima-facie. Protection of 'state secrets' was their mission, not truth or accuracy."

          "Weiss was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit by the U.S. government, the French Legion of Honor by that nation's government," Reed said. "Weiss published the Farewell Dossier story within channels, specifically the CIA's Studies in Intelligence in 1996. In 2000, an expanded version was published in the Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies. During the years that followed there was every opportunity for the intelligence community to take issue with his account. To my knowledge, no one did." (Wired News <http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,62806,00.html>, Newsbit. net, DKR)

UKRAINIAN TO FACE TRIAL IN CALIFORNIA FOR COMPUTER CRIMES -- A Ukrainian man wanted for alleged multimillion dollar computer crimes is to be extradited from Thailand to face trial in California.  Maksym Kovalchuk from Ternopil in Ukraine, was charged in 2000 in San Jose, CA, with trafficking counterfeit goods, copyright infringement, money laundering and possession of unauthorized credit card information. He was arrested on May 20, 2003, in Bangkok. He was 25 at the time.

          Kovalchuk allegedly sold counterfeit software from companies such as Microsoft Corp., Autodesk, Adobe and Macromedia through various Web sites. The retail value of the original products would have totaled $3 million, authorities said. Kovalchuk faces 20 years imprisonment and a $500,000 fine if convicted of money laundering, the most serious charge he faces. (AP, Newsbits.net, DKR)


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.]

INTERROGATORS, DEBRIEFERS, AND ARABIC LINGUISTS NEEDED ASAP -- Defense Recruiters, LLC, is urgently seeking interrogators, debriefers and Arabic linguists to support the DIA in Baghdad. Candidates must be clearable to SECRET (active clearance is highly desirable) and must have completed training in one of the following:

US Army 97E (Interrogator)

US Army 97B (Counterintelligence agent),

US Marine Corp 0211 (Interrogator) or

US Marine Corp 0251 (Counterintelligence).

Defense Recruiters' client will accept as many candidates as it can supply. Training in D.C. is scheduled to begin the first part of April. Contact Defense Recruiters. Toll free: 1.866.205.1257, local: 602.263.7805,

fax: 602.234.7937, http://www.defenserecruiters.com.


SECTION V -- BOOKS, SOURCES, AND ISSUES

AMERICA'S PIONEER CRYPTOGRAPHER -- David Kahn, The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail: Herbert O. Yardley and the Birth of American Codebreaking, Yale University Press, 318 pp. $32.50.  At the time of World War I when governments were increasingly transmitting message by radio, Herbert Yardley set up and ran the first U.S. agency to intercept foreign messages and break codes. By the time he died in 1958, aged 69, Yardley had made a good number of enemies but left an influential legacy of intelligence gathering. In David Kahn, a well-known intelligence scholar, Yardley has found first biographer. Kahn considers his subject, "the most colorful and controversial figure in American intelligence."

          Yardley came to Washington in 1914 from the Midwest to become a clerk at the State Department and so was introduced to diplomatic cables and codes.  Wondering why the United States did not have an agency of its own to read and decipher foreign messages, he set out to become a cryptographer. In April 1917, he persuaded the U.S. Army to set up such an agency and was given a commission, eventually attaining the rank of major. At the age of 28, he was running MI-8, the section of military intelligence that dealt with cryptography.

          At the end of the war, Yardley next persuaded the Army, and the State Department, to support a permanent Cipher Bureau that came to be known as the American Black Chamber. In 1929, however, Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson uttered his famous words, "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail" and closed down the bureau. Out of a job and with his income from property dealing dried up by the Depression, Yardley wrote a book to make some money.

          As well as his personal experience, he drew on numerous documents he had retained illegally and when The American Black Chamber, as the book was titled, appeared in 1931, it created a sensation. In the years that followed, he sold "Yardleygrams" to magazines, wrote pulp spy fiction, made and marketed secret ink, had a radio show and spent time in Hollywood, ran a restaurant in Washington and was hired as a codebreaker by China and Canada.

          The year before he died, he brought out another book, The Education of a Poker Player. It is considered a classic of its kind.  Yardley was accused of treason, which he hotly denied. Indeed he was not a traitor, he did not sell secrets. But he did betray the government's trust by publishing The American Black Chamber. (Washington Post, DKR)

IS TERRORISTS' HATRED OF THE WEST THE WEST'S OWN BASTARD CHILD? -- Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit, Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies, Penguin Press, 176 pp., $21.95. Gary Rosen, writing in Books of the Times on March 17, reminds us, as do the authors of this volume, that suicide attacks on American targets were carried out by young men who were hardly strangers to the West. University educated and relatively well to do, most of them were quite worldly, but that very worldliness led them to despise the United States, to see Americans as corrupters, comfort-loving cowards, spiritual eunuchs. Boarding the planes that they would turn into deadly missiles, they embraced the prospect of martyrdom in a holy cause.

          But these particular suicide pilots were kamikazes, what the Japanese called Tokkotai, or special attack forces, writes Rosen who is managing editor of the monthly Commentary.  For Buruma and Margalit, the parallels with 9/11 are not accidental. As they see it, imperial Japan and al-Qaeda are variations on one historically tenacious, deeply anti-liberal theme. Occidentalism, as they call it, is not a full-blown ideology but rather a cluster of prejudices: a way of demonizing and inciting violence against the bourgeois West. It is the shared parlance of Maoists and Nazis, Baathists and the Khmer Rouge, 19th-century Slavophiles and today's jihadis. And paradoxically, it too, they argue, is a creature of the West, the bastard child of Enlightenment rationalism and freedom.

          Buruma, who is a distinguished observer of Asia, and Margalit, a professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, trace the often surprising pathways by which exposure to the West has been transformed into hatred of Western societies. The most valuable contribution Occidentalism makes, however, is to set out in detail its ugly lexicon. As the authors show, the fiercest opponents of bourgeois democracy have diverged much more in the alternatives they propose -- rule by the Volk, the vanguard, the community of true believers -- than in the images and metaphors they use to describe their common enemy. To the Occidentalist imagination, the modern West comes to life as a collection of weak, complacent merchants, slaves to comfort who know nothing of self-sacrifice; or as a cold, mechanical, ruthlessly efficient mind, crushing every higher ideal in the name of commercial and technological advance. In the eyes of the Occidentalist, the modern West is a problem whose only remedy lies in the redemptive power of revolutionary violence.

          Rose finds Occidentalism fails to draw any serious practical conclusion from its tale of cross-contamination, the spread of bad ideas. Buruma and Margalit's portrait of the West's enemies, they insist, is not meant to serve as ammunition in a global war against terrorism. What is so glaringly absent from this work, says Rosen, is any notion of how our Western ideas, if not our arms, might be used to counter the violence and propaganda of the Occidentalists. (EB.DKR, NY Times)

ASIAN TREASURE TROVE -- Richard J. Ellings and Aaron L. Friedberg, editors, with Michael Wills, Strategic Asia 2002-03: Asian Aftershocks (Seattle, The National Bureau of Asian Research, 430 pages. $24.95, paper). It has become widespread for strategic analysts to name the landmass between the Mediterranean and the Pacific as the most likely theater of major conflict in the coming decades. Those who share this view or just wish to understand what is going on will find Strategic Asia 2002-03 a treasure trove. It is a masterful collection of surveys of the countries and regions of Asia, produced by able scholars, analysts and strategists with the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili (USA Ret.), as the project's senior advisor.

          In addition to chapters on the United States, China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Islam and Asian security, there are maps and statistical charts and figures, as well as chapter endnotes and an index. Those seeking up to date, authoritative information on Asia are not likely to find any single volume better than this work. (Parameters, DKR.)

A LITTLE LEXICON OF CURRENT BUREAUCRATESE -- AFIO members are a savvy crowd, not least in their ability to handle Bureaucratese, the dialect widely employed by Washington public servants and their interlocutors inside the Beltway.  But there may be WINs readers who could use help in understanding some of the terms currently being employed.  Happily, Rebecca Corbett thoughtfully provided a useful little lexicon, "Give Him a Tasking and Caveat the Report," in the March 28 New York Times Magazine. It was culled from the reports put out by National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

          Thus the puzzled may learn that 'rendition and disruption' means to disrupt terrorist activity by catching terror suspects outside the United States and sending them to the United States or a third country for prosecution. It should not be confused with 'pre-emption and disruption' which, to paraphrase and emend Ms Corbett, means encouraging foreign intelligence services to investigate, detain, and harass suspects who cannot be brought to justice in the United States or a third country.

          'Asset' is a term longed used by those living in and around Langley, VA. It refers to a person employed to spy and help conduct intelligence operations. Another familiar word, 'proxy,' means someone you get to do your work for you, notably fighting, as with the Afghan Northern Front that fought the Taliban regime.

          Corbett draws a fine distinction between 'antiterrorism' and 'counterterrorism.' The former refers to providing protection from terrorist assaults and is thus defense in nature. The latter is activities that are on the offensives, such as gathering intelligence and disrupting terrorist networks to prevent attacks.

          'Actionable intelligence' is a phrase very much in fashion at this time. It means information sufficiently precise to allow military force or covert action against a target. 

          'Asymmetric threat' derives from the long used phrase 'asymmetric warfare' which meant the apparently weak and underarmed, like David, taking on the apparently powerful and well-armed, like Goliath. So an asymmetric threat is one posed when people using, say, home-made bombs, look like they are going to take on powerful, conventional military forces. (NY Times Magazine, DKR)


SECTION VI -- NOTES, LETTERS, AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

23 APRIL - HOOVER FOUNDATION SEMINAR -- The J. Edgar Hoover Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing financial assistance to needy students concentrating in the fields of law, forensic sciences, and law enforcement studies, will hold an inaugural seminar to announce plans to form the J. Edgar Hoover Center for Law Enforcement. It will be held on April 23, 2004 from 10am to 4 pm at The Supreme Council of Scottish Rite Freemasons located at 1733 Sixteenth Street Northwest, Washington, D.C.  Registration will commence at 9am and presentations will begin promptly at 10am. A buffet lunch will be served.

          Speakers will include Cassandra Chandler, Assistant Director in Charge of the Office of Public Affairs of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, William Webster, former director of the FBI and the CIA, syndicated  news commentator, Cal Thomas, and Kenneth Ramsey, Sheriff of Kane County, Illinois and the President of the FBI National Academy Associates. There also be a panel discussion featuring four prominent journalists and moderated by Charles Lewis Washington Bureau Chief of the Hearst Newspaper Corp.

          There is no charge or obligation for attendance or lunch. The seminar  is open to current and former Special Agents of the FBI, members of the FBI National Academy Associates, spouses, guests, and interested current or retired professionals from the business, government and academic communities. To register please telephone 843-785-5678 and ask for “Diane.” Or e-mail your registration to dkrswoodslaw@hargray.com. Please ensure that you include your full name, current telephone number, and mailing address. We will mail final agenda information and seminar details to you in early April.

25-30 April - CICENTRE'S SPYRETREAT -- An espionage-themed luxurious Retreat & Conference. The retreat is at the five-star Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, VA, and is modeled on CiCentre's popular (and always sold out) SpyCruises. Some space remains for this one, so do not delay. Explore the presentations and panel discussions from international intelligence professionals, authors, and historians (and register) at <http://spytrek.com/>. While the CiCentre events are renown for providing more fascinating, insider info per-day than some grad school intelligence courses, by holding this at the Homestead, you -- and accompanying family members or SOs -- can also enjoy a vacation of luxury among pristine golf courses, pampering spas, exquisite restaurants, and a variety of outdoor activities. Reservations should be made ASAP by calling Spy Trek at (1-866-SPY-TREK). Visit The Homestead Resort <http://www.thehomestead.com/> to see all the amenities.

28 April - NSA DIRECTOR HAYDEN TO ADDRESS NMIA LUNCHEON -- Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, USAF, Director, National Security Agency, will be the speaker at the next luncheon in the Intelligence Transformation series of the Potomac Chapter of the National Military Intelligence Association (NMIA).  The Capitol Club Chapter of the Association of Old Crows (AOC) is co-sponsor of the event at which General Hayden, who is also Chief, Central Security Service at Fort Meade, will speak about how he envisages transformations in his area of responsibility.  The luncheon is set for Wednesday, April 28, at the Koran Ballroom, Ft. Myer Officers' Club, Arlington, VA. There will be a no-host reception from 11.30 to 12 noon, then a buffet lunch and remarks until 1.30.  To attend, RSVP to Lori Tugman (ltugman@mindspring.com or 703-921-1800) by Friday, April 23.

30 APRIL - AFIO LUNCHEON DETAILS - RYSZARD KUKLINSKI: PATRIOT & SPY -- An espionage classic as told by his CIA case officer, the intelligence analyst, and the reporter who knew him. A HUMINT Colloquium at the AFIO SPRING LUNCHEON, FRIDAY, 30 April 2004. Three presenters who knew him firsthand: Benjamin Weiser, New York Times reporter and author of the just-published, "A Secret Life" (Public Affairs); Jim Simon, the CIA Analyst; and David Forden, the CIA Case Officer called "Daniel" provide, "a rare look at a single human intelligence operation...which reflected every aspect of the intelligence process." Time:  10:30 a.m. for badge pick-up. Weiser speaks at 11 am; lunch at noon; all three panelists at 12:45 to close at 2 pm. $30/person - current AFIO members and their guests, only. >

Reserve right away with Visa, MasterCard or AMEX via email to afio@afio.com, by fax to 703.991.1278, or by voice to 703.790.0320. Weiser's just-released "A Secret Life" ... is an "epic spy story -- uplifting, inspiring, and amazing in its factual detail" will be on sale, along with other newly released intelligence books.  Intelligence Officer review of Weiser book is on AFIO website at: <>   

SUNDAY, 16 MAY 2004 - THE NATIONAL MILITARY INTELLIGENCE ASSOCIATION WILL BE CONDUCTING THE THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY AND AWARDS BANQUET -- on 16 May 2004 at the Sheraton Premiere Hotel, Tysons Corner, VA. A reservation form is available on their website at <http://www.nmia.org>  

29 MAY - THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES SOCIETY -- forerunner to CIA -- will holds its 62nd anniversary reunion dinner on May 29, 2004 at the luxurious Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC. Several hundred OSS veterans, their families, and distinguished guests are expected to attend the banquet -- part of a weekend celebration -- that will observe the founding of OSS in June 1942. During the weekend, guests will also attend the dedication of the National World War II Memorial. AFIO members are invited to attend the "business-attire-or-better" banquet and celebration at an all inclusive cost of $150/person. Contact OSS Society President Charles Pinck at 202-207-2915 or via email at <osssociety@aol.com>

19 JUNE - AN EVENING OF SPY MUSIC DETAILS - AFIO'S NIGHT AT THE BOSTON POPS -- Filling up fast. June 19, 2004 at Symphony Hall, Boston, Massachusetts. Conductor Keith Lockhart leads Boston Pops Orchestra in an exciting evening full of surprises including James Bond spy themes. The event begins at 6 o'clock with a pre-concert hors d'oeuvres reception and a glamorous sultry-spy fashion show by Boston's renowned Yolanda.  Register NOW online at

<>

<> before event sells out. For more information on event, contact Event representative, GaryW at <WassinRichland@aol.com>


 

WINs are protected by copyright laws and intellectual property laws, and may not be reproduced or re-sent without specific permission from the Producer. Opinions expressed in the WINs are solely those of the editor(s) or author(s) listed with each article. AFIO Members Support the AFIO Mission - sponsor new members! CHECK THE AFIO WEBSITE at https://www.afio.com/ for back issues of the WINs, information about AFIO, conference agenda and registrations materials, and membership applications and much more! (c) 2004, AFIO, 6723 Whittier Ave, Suite 303A, McLean, VA 22101. afio@afio.com; Voice: 703 790-0320; Fax: 703 991-1278 AFIO WINs are produced each week in Memory of WINs founder/AFIO Exec Director, Roy Jonkers.