Able Danger Blog

Probe of USS Cole Bombing Unravels

2008-05-04T12:38:00.006-04:00

Glad to see someone is still looking into this. New front page story in the Washington Post. Doesn't mention preincident indicators, but it's a start.

Probe of USS Cole Bombing Unravels

Plotters Freed in Yemen; U.S. Efforts Frustrated

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 4, 2008; A01

ADEN, Yemen -- Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials.

Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni who helped organize the plot to bomb the Cole as it refueled in this Yemeni port on Oct. 12, 2000, has broken out of prison twice. He was recaptured both times, but then secretly released by the government last fall. Yemeni authorities jailed him again after receiving complaints from Washington. But U.S. officials have so little faith that he's still in his cell that they have demanded the right to perform random inspections.

Two suspects, described as the key organizers, were captured outside Yemen and are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Many details of their alleged involvement remain classified. It is unclear when -- or if -- they will be tried by the military.

The collapse of the Cole investigation offers a revealing case study of the U.S. government's failure to bring al-Qaeda operatives and their leaders to justice for some of the most devastating attacks on American targets over the past decade.

Dieter Snell back in the news

2008-03-18T22:11:00.004-04:00

As Peter Lance points out here:

As the sex scandal hurricane engulfed Eliott Spitzer last week, one of his closest advisors at the eye of the storm was Dietrich “Dieter” Snell. An ex U.S. Attorney from the same office conducting the prostitution probe, Snell is now defending Spitzer in the “Troopergate” scandal and reportedly raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees for the international law firm he joined last year.

A former Southern District prosecutor who later became Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, Snell is also one of the ex Feds who rewrote history in the Commission’s “Final Report” by relying entirely on the tortured “confession” of 9/11’s purported “mastermind” to pinpoint the origin of the “planes as missiles” plot.

He’s the same investigator who dismissed as not “sufficiently credible” the testimony of a decorated Navy Captain who was part of a secret data mining operation that uncovered evidence of 9/11 hijackers in the U.S. more than a year before the attacks.

A former Deputy Attorney General under “the Sheriff of Wall Street,” Snell is now attempting to quash the subpoenas of investigators probing whether Spitzer misused state troopers to investigate his chief political rival, protecting his ex boss and mentor with a “separation of powers” defense worthy of Dick Cheney.

Lance's column also references an article by Larisa Alexandrovna on the new book by Phil Shenon. Ms. Alexandrovna writes:

Bayoumi moved to London in 2001 and lived there until his arrest immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. Following his release, Bayoumi returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was interviewed in October 2003 by the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, and Senior Counsel Dieter Snell.

Snell did not respond to requests for comment; Zeilkow could not be reached.

According to Shenon, several staff members working under Snell, “felt strongly that they had demonstrated a close Saudi government connection,” based on “explosive material” on al-Bayoumi and Fahad al-Thumairy, a “shadowy Saudi diplomat in Los Angeles.”

Shenon recounts how Snell, in preparing his team’s account of the plot, purged almost all of the most serious allegations against the Saudi government and moved the “explosive” supporting evidence to the small print of the report’s footnotes. (The Commission, pp. 398-399)

Two commission investigators who were working on documenting the 9/11 plot, Michael Jacobsen and Raj De, argued that it was “crazy” to insist on 100 percent proof when it came to al-Qaeda or the Saudi regime. In the end, however, and with a publishing deadline looming, Snell’s caution and Zelikow’s direction buried apparently promising leads.

Zelikow denies explosive charges in new book

2008-02-02T08:51:00.000-05:00

From ABC News:

The former executive director of the 9/11 Commission denies explosive charges of undisclosed ties to the Bush White House or interference with the panel's report.

The charges are said to be contained in New York Times reporter Philip Shenon's unreleased book, "The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation," according to Max Holland, an author and blogger, and generally confirmed by the book's publisher. Although the book is not slated to hit stores until early next month, Holland says he bought a copy of the audio version at a bookstore. (Attempts to purchase the book, in any format, at the Barnes & Noble across the street from ABC News headquarters were unsuccessful.)

9/11 Commission co-chairs Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton hired former Condoleezza Rice aide Philip Zelikow to be executive director, Zelikow failed to tell them about his role helping Rice set up President George W. Bush's National Security Council in early 2001 – and that he was "instrumental" in demoting Richard Clarke, the onetime White House counterterrorism czar who was fixated on the threat from Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, according to Holland's version of Shenon's tome.

"[Zelikow] had laid the groundwork for much of what went wrong at the White House in the weeks and months before September 11. Would he want people to know that?" Shenon writes, according to Holland.

Zelikow denied that was the case. "It was very well-known I had served on this transition team and had declined to go into the administration. I worked there for a total of one month. I had interviewed Sandy Berger, Dick Clarke and most of the NSC staff." He noted he recused himself from working on the section of the panel's report addressing the NSC transition, and that other staffers had held conflicting positions in the Clinton administration.

In his book, Shenon also says that while working for the panel, Zelikow appears to have had private conversations with former White House political director Karl Rove, despite a ban on such communication, according to Holland. Shenon reports that Zelikow later ordered his assistant to stop keeping a log of his calls, although the commission's general counsel overruled him, Holland wrote.

Zelikow told ABC News he was under no prohibition that barred his conversations with Rove, and did not recall asking his assistant to stop logging his calls, although he did speak to her about leaving phone messages in a publicly visible place. "Two other people took my calls as well, and neither have a recollection" of Zelikow asking for calls not to be logged, he said. Further, Zelikow said 9/11 Commission general counsel Daniel Marcus did not raise the matter with Zelikow at the time.

Reached by phone Wednesday afternoon, Marcus declined to confirm or deny the events.

Zelikow flatly denied discussing the commission's work with Rove. "I never discussed the 9/11 Commission with him, not at all. Period."

What's more, the idea of Zelikow and Rove conspiring over the commission's work was unrealistic, the ex-director indicated. "I was not a very popular person in the Bush White House when this was going on. There's a lot of carryover of that to this day."

Holland reports that Shenon discovered some panel staffers believed Zelikow stopped them from submitting a report depicting Rice's performance as "amount[ing] to incompetence, or something not far from it."

"I don't think that staffers will bear that out," Zelikow said. Out of 85 staffers, half a dozen were disgruntled, Zelikow told ABC News. "Under the circumstances, that was a pretty low fraction," he said. "But they all talked to Shenon."

Halfway into the panel's operation, Zelikow told his bosses under oath of the once-hidden ties, Holland's blog says Shenon's book reports. Upon hearing the details, Shenon writes, Marcus concluded Zelikow "never should have been hired," according to Holland.

"That's not right," Marcus said when told of the account. "That's certainly not true."

Shenon directed calls to his publisher, Twelve Books, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group.

Cary Goldstein, a spokesman for Hachette, confirmed the blog's characterization of the book's contents, but said he could not confirm direct quotes.

"It's not a surprise," Goldstein said when asked his reaction to the leak of the book's details before its Feb. 5 publication date. "I think people are really curious to see what the report had looked like if it hadn't been neutered in [the panel's] effort to be unanimous."

Former Rep. Weldon Aide Pleads Guilty

2007-12-09T23:18:00.001-05:00

From the AP:

The one-time top aide to former Rep. Curt Weldon pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to a conspiracy charge as part of a plea agreement.

Russell James Caso Jr., 34, who was chief of staff for the Pennsylvania Republican, acknowledged he intentionally did not report to the House income his wife made for doing work for a nonprofit company tied to Weldon.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Howard Sklamberg told U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. that Caso has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in an investigation. Outside court, Sklamberg was asked after the hearing whether that probe involved Weldon. The prosecutor said he could not discuss the case.

But Weldon's defense lawyer, William Winning, said it would be a "little naive" to think the investigation didn't involve Weldon.

Weldon has not been charged. He used to represent the Philadelphia-area, speaks Russian and led congressional trips abroad before his election loss last year.

He served on the governing body of the nonprofit, which sought to help U.S. businesses operate in Russia and facilitate the flow of trade between the countries, records show.

At Weldon's direction, Caso organized meetings in which Weldon and Caso made presentations to high-level officials in the departments of State and Energy and the National Security Council seeking money for the proposals that Caso's wife, Sherrill Caso, had worked on, court records show.

One proposal sought to facilitate cooperation for joint missile activities and the other sought to reduce the risk of proliferation of biological and chemical weapons from Russia to rogue nations, records show.

Court records indicate that Caso's wife did "little work" for $17,500 she received from the company, but that she received $1,500 for editing documents for the firm that were part of the proposals presented to the officials.

Caso, who was Weldon's top aide in 2005 and 2006, could face up to five years in prison. His next court date is May 23.

He was named a vice president this year at Avineon Inc., a technology company that has contracts with the government.

Caso's lawyer, Kelly Kramer, declined comment after the hearing.

Weldon spent 20 years in Congress before losing to Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa. Weldon was vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee at the time of his loss.

Three weeks before Election Day last year, the FBI raided the homes of Weldon's daughter, Karen Weldon, and her business partner, Charles P. Sexton Jr., as well as other locations.

Winning, Weldon's attorney, declined to discuss details spelled out in the court documents.

"I can assure you that we're confident that the congressman did not do anything wrong, and at the end of the day here, his name will be cleared and his reputation will be cleared, and this cloud of suspicion that has been circling around him will be lifted," Winning said.

UPDATE: Here is the press release from the Justice Department.

198 criminals in the House?

2007-12-06T16:48:00.000-05:00

A reader writes:

Don't think for a second that the attack on Russ is not political. From what I know he sought and received permission for his wife to perform the work. He made the simple mistake of forgetting to acknowledge it on his disclosure statement. Disclosure statements get amended all the time, see the attached link.

Lawmakers rush to disclose trips in wake of DeLay furor

Scrutiny of Majority Leader Tom DeLay's travel has led to the belated disclosure of at least 198 previously unreported special-interest trips by House members and their aides, including eight years of travel by the second-ranking Democrat, a review has found.

At least 43 House members and dozens of aides had failed to meet the one-month deadline in ethics rules for disclosing trips financed by organizations outside the U.S. government.

The review of thousands of pages of records covered pre-2005 travel that was disclosed since early March. That's when news stories began scrutinizing DeLay's travel, prompting lawmakers to comb through their files to make sure they had disclosed their travel.

While most of the previously undisclosed trips occurred in 2004, some date back to the late 1990s. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer recently disclosed 12 trips, the oldest dating back to 1997.

Sklamberg files charges against Caso

2007-12-06T11:08:00.001-05:00

That's right, the same Clinton appointee who let Sandy Berger go free with a slap on the wrist has just filed criminal conspiracy charges against Russ Caso, former chief of staff for Curt Weldon. It's with a heavy heart that I have to link to this report:

Ex-Staffer To Weldon Agrees to Guilty Plea

Former congressman Curt Weldon's chief of staff has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy charges for allegedly helping a consulting firm championed by Weldon obtain federal funds and for concealing money the firm paid his wife, according to court papers filed yesterday.

Russell James Caso Jr. and a top official at the unnamed nonprofit consulting firm met repeatedly with Weldon to seek the Pennsylvania Republican's help in obtaining federal funds for the organization's defense projects, according to the court papers.

The "criminal information," a document filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Washington, could not have been submitted without the defendant's permission. It indicates that a plea agreement has been reached. A federal judge has scheduled a hearing Friday on the charges against Caso.

Federal prosecutors make no accusations of wrongdoing against Weldon, a former 10-term Republican from Pennsylvania. A grand jury last year investigated whether he had acted improperly to help clients of his daughter's consulting firm. The firm named in the court papers filed yesterday is not affiliated with Weldon's daughter.

I obtained a copy of the document from District Court web site and sure enough, the prosecuting attorney is none other than Assistant U.S. Attorney Howard R. Sklamberg.

Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States

If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

If, however, the offense, the commission of which is the object of the conspiracy, is a misdemeanor only, the punishment for such conspiracy shall not exceed the maximum punishment provided for such misdemeanor.

Sestak campaigns for Clinton in New Hampshire

2007-11-03T00:33:00.000-04:00

Clinton Supporters Campaign for Clinton in N.H. This Weekend

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 1, 2007

Contact: NH for Hillary Press Office, 603-782-4647

Kathleen Strand, 603-782-4635
nhpress@hillaryclinton.com

MANCHESTER, NH – The New Hampshire for Hillary campaign today announced that former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, Carol Browner, and Pennsylvania Congressman and Afghanistan veteran Joe Sestak, will travel to the Granite State this weekend to discuss Hillary's plans to make real change happen.

On Saturday, November 3, Browner will speak at the “Step it Up” Rally at the Concord State House. On Sunday, November 4, Congressman Sestak will kick-off a canvass and meet with veterans in Nashua before heading to Henniker to attend a town hall meeting at New England College. Sestak will conclude the day with a house party in Peterborough.

Carol Browner served as the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a Cabinet-level position, from 1993 to 2001. She was the longest-serving Administrator in the Agency’s history. In that position, Ms. Browner developed partnerships with business leaders, community advocates, and all levels of government. She is widely known for championing common-sense, cost-effective solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental and public health challenges.

Joe Sestak is serving his first-term as the Representative from Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District, which includes most of Delaware County and parts of Chester and Montgomery Counties. Congressman Sestak spent 31 years serving our nation in the U.S. Navy, rising to the rank of three-star Admiral. Sestak served as the Director for Defense Policy on the National Security Council during the Clinton Administration. After 9/11, he was selected to serve as the first Director of "Deep Blue," the Navy's anti-terrorism unit where he worked to establish new strategies for the Navy to fight the Global War on Terror.

Which ocean was it Afghanistan borders again? Good grief. Well, he does owe the Clintons a favor or two. Not sure he can help her here, though:

FBI Agent Walks on Mob Murders

2007-11-01T20:37:00.000-04:00

From the New York Times:

Prosecutors said they would drop the murder case against a retired Federal Bureau of Investigation supervisor, a law enforcement official said yesterday, after a reporter upended the trial with taped interviews showing that their main witness, a gangster’s mistress, had changed her account and damaged her credibility.

From the AP:

In a stunning finish to one of the worst law enforcement corruption cases in U.S. history, former FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio was cleared Thursday of giving up confidential information that a Colombo family hit man used to kill four fellow mobsters — either rivals or potential rats....

It wasn't until Schiro began testifying this week that the case reached its unexpected conclusion. The key prosecution witness was the lone direct link between DeVecchio and the murders.

Once she finished her first day of testimony, veteran reporter Tom Robbins came forward with tapes made in 1997, when he and fellow journalist Jerry Capeci had interviewed Schiro for a never-published book. The tapes contradicted her sworn testimony against DeVecchio.

Her account "was so disturbingly different, we couldn't sit on it," Robbins said outside court after Thursday's dismissal.

Well, not all of it was so different at least:

Most of our conversations with Schiro were tape-recorded. Some tapes have long since gone missing. Audibility is a problem in others. But the conversation about the murder of Joe Brewster has survived. So has Schiro’s story about another killing, that of Lorenzo Lampasi, a Colombo soldier gunned down by Scarpa and his gang during the crime family’s bloody civil war in the early 1990s....

But if she was scared of him — and she never said so on the stand Monday — Schiro showed no sign of it in 1997. When she talked with us about the FBI agent, she sounded unconcerned. “I was friendly with Lin,” she said at one point. She even put him in lesser crimes, claiming that Scarpa had sometimes passed cash to DeVecchio and, on one occasion, gave the agent a couple of baubles from a jewelry heist....

Last week, at the DeVecchio trial, a prosecution witness named Rey Aviles, who was present at the Halloween shooting, testified that it was Porco himself who told Joey Schiro and his old man about his encounter with the cops.

But Linda Schiro told us in 1997—and testified on the stand this week—that the information came from DeVecchio. “Lin called, he said the kid was going to tell the detectives what happened,” Schiro told us. She remembered that the agent was unusually secretive. Usually, she said, DeVecchio was willing to chat on the home phone with his informant. This time, Schiro said, he insisted that Scarpa call him back from an outside line. “I drove him to the pay phone,” Schiro said. They used what she said was a special, untraceable number to call DeVecchio. “Greg got back in the car and told me that this kid Patrick was going to rat on Joey,” said Schiro.

UPDATE: In response to a reader question, yes all charges were dismissed, and because DeVecchio asked for a bench trial instead of a jury trial he can never be retried. Personally, I suspect he knew about the tapes before the trial and specifically requested a bench trial for that reason. DeVecchio is close to one of the two reporters, Capeci, who he leaked stories to all the time. It would not have taken much for Capeci to give DeVecchio and his lawyers word of the tapes before the trial even started. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that was the case.

From the New York Times:

Because Mr. DeVecchio had waived his right to a jury trial, the legal concept of jeopardy attached, meaning he could not be retried for the four killings in which he was indicted, a court official said.

NGA moving to Fort Belvoir

2007-10-22T12:52:00.000-04:00

Interesting presentation prepared by Eileen Preisser:

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
New Campus East
Springfield, VA

Eileen Preisser, Program Advocate
New Campus East Program Management Office
March 2007

Approved for Public Release - 07-170

NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL-INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Purpose

•Explain why NGA must build a new campus on Ft Belvoir’s EPG in Springfield, VA

•Provide updated information on how NGA intends to create New Campus East (NCE) at Springfield, Virginia

•Describe the challenges and benefits of NGA’s move to Springfield

Here is the related press release:

UNITED STATES ARMY FORT BELVOIR Public Affairs Office
9820 Flagler Road
Fort Belvoir VA 22060

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RELEASE NO. 060727
July 27, 2006

FORT BELVOIR ‘PREFERRED SITE PLAN’ ANNOUNCED

FORT BELVOIR, VA. -- The U.S. Army announced today that its master planning contractor has recommended a ‘preferred site-plan’ for the realignment of Fort Belvoir. This plan as well as alternative plans will now be analyzed in an environmental impact statement (EIS). The ‘preferred site-plan,’ is intended to achieve requirements of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC).

Under the preferred site plan developed by the Army’s contractor, four major incoming functions would be located in dispersed areas of the existing post, as well as the Engineer Proving Ground (EPG) near Springfield. The functions recommended for EPG siting are the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; elements of the Washington Headquarters Service; and the National Museum of the United States Army.

An expanded DeWitt Army Community Hospital and other agencies directed by the BRAC law are recommended for siting on Fort Belvoir’s South Post.

BRAC 2005 calls for approximately 22,000 additional employees to work at Fort Belvoir by September 15, 2011. Planners estimate that this will require the construction of several million square feet of office space and millions of dollars in new infrastructure at the installation.

“We have listened closely to the concerns of the community during this early phase of the process, and we expect our community outreach will only intensify in the months ahead,” stressed Mr. Keith Eastin, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Environment.

“All of the planning strategies we have examined have been driven in part by concerns over transportation, the environment, and infrastructure,” said Colonel Brian Lauritzen, the installation’s commander, who emphasized that transportation has been a key factor in the Army’s work to date. “At this early stage of the process the Army has benefited enormously from the input we have received from local elected officials, particularly on the transportation question. We look forward to collaborating closely with our partners in Fairfax and Prince William Counties, as well as the Commonwealth of Virginia,” Colonel Lauritzen added.

The Army has determined that the input is sufficient to begin the next phase of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process. During this phase, the environmental impact of the alternatives submitted by the planners will be analyzed. An integral part of this analysis will be the assessment of the impacts to current and planned transportation infrastructure The Army will prepare a draft EIS and make this available to the public for comment early next year.

Visit the project web-site at www.belvoirnewvision.com. For additional information contact Mr. Dave Foster, (703) 697-5344 or Dave.Foster@hqda.army.mil.

John Hamre to chair Defense Policy Board

2007-10-18T07:25:00.000-04:00

Good news from the Pentagon:

DoD News Briefing with Press Secretary Morrell from the Pentagon

In addition today, Secretary Gates named John Hamre to chair the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. Dr. Hamre, who served as deputy secretary of Defense under President Clinton, is now president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Secretary Gates has also named the following new members to the board: former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Peter Pace -- retired General Peter Pace; former Defense Secretary William Perry; former Undersecretary of Defense Peter Rodman; former Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph; and former Deputy National Security Adviser J.D. Crouch. They, along with 18 returning members, will provide the secretary with independent, informed advice on major matters of defense policy. The board will focus primarily on long-range -- or pardon me, long-term enduring issues central to the department's strategic planning.

Hamre was one of the early supporters of LIWA and Curt Weldon's NOAH, later implemented at TTIC and now NCTC:

Mr. Speaker, this was in 1997. I briefed John Hamre. Dr. John Hamre was then the Deputy Secretary of Defense. I said, John, you have got to go down to Fort Belvoir and see this facility; it is amazing. He went down twice. He called me back and he said, Curt, it is amazing what they are doing there. This profiling worked, and they could do it because unofficially some other secret lines were running through Fort Belvoir that the Army could unofficially access. So it really was an official process.

He said, But you know, Curt, I cannot get to where you want to go because the CIA and the FBI will not cooperate and neither will the other agencies. He said, So I have a suggestion for you. Why do you not host a meeting in your office? I will come and you invite my counterparts at the FBI and the CIA....

We did not have that capability before September 11. That is why I stood up on September 11, at 12 p.m. in the afternoon and said, "Today our government failed the American people." Because, Mr. Speaker, we knew what we should have done. We knew what we could have done. And we did not do it.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, I firmly believe that if we would have implemented the NOAH, which John Hamre offered to pay for with DOD dollars, back when we first recommended it, I am convinced we could have stopped or known about and prevented September 11 from ever happening.

Shaffer to testify on Spitzer's license program

2007-10-15T07:48:00.000-04:00

If you were wondering what Tony Shaffer has been up to lately, on Monday morning he will give his expert opinion to the New York State Senate as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies regarding Eliot Spitzer's program to issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. If you had not guessed, he is opposed to it.

Senate Standing Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs
Chair: Senator Vincent L. Leibell
Senate Standing Committee on Transportation
Chair: Senator Thomas W. Libous
Public Hearing: Protecting our State’s Security: A public hearing to examine the security issues, review the impact, and investigate alternatives and legislation concerning the Governor’s proposal to remove statutorily required identity checks on drivers licence applications and issue drivers licenses to Illegal Immigrants.
Place: Hearing Room A, Legislative Office Building
Albany, NY 12247
Time: 10:00 a.m.

We have also obtained a copy of the written testimony he submitted:

Senator Leibell, honorable senators of the great state of New York, thank you for this opportunity to participate in the hearings on this issue of vital interest not only to the people of New York, but also for the people of the United States.

My background is on record with the state – to briefly recap of my Bona fides – I am a senior fellow with the Center for Advanced Defense Studies who has served as an intelligence operations officer for more than 25 years. My counterterrorism career started in the mid 80s where I worked as a counterintelligence special agent with the Army Intelligence New York City Resident Office that worked with the New York City Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). This office supported events such as the Statue of Liberty re-opening during OPSAIL 86. In the late 1990s, while the chief of a Special Mission Task Force, I played a key role in operational planning for the first comprehensive mapping of Al Qaeda as a global threat in an operation called ABLE DANGER – while specific details are disputed, the bottom-line fact of ABLE DANGER is that a significant number of the 9/11 terrorists were identified a full year before the attacks. After the 9/11 attacks, I was in command of a special mission unit focused on counterterrorism operations in Sub-Saharan Africa and completed two combat tours to Afghanistan against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. I have worked undercover multiple times and I am familiar with how easily fraudulent documents can be made to ‘appear’ legitimate.

It is my professional judgment that Governor Spitzer’s plan to issue illegal aliens legitimate New York State driver’s licenses will result in significant security vulnerabilities for the state of New York – and these actions will result in an increased threat for additional attacks to New York state and New York City. I base this assessment on my knowledge obtained during my 25 years of working in the field of intelligence and counter terrorism. This change of policy appears to be illegal under the Federal “Real ID” statute…but if breaking the intent and letter of federal law is not sufficient, I offer the following three points.

My first point – passage of the governor’s plan to allow illegal aliens to legally obtain New York state driver’s licenses will make New York state the preferred location for an ever increasing number of illegal aliens. This will result in illegal aliens coming from all points across our nation - and the world – in effect; the new policy will be a magnet that draws illegals and will likely double or even triple the number residents in the state.

This will produce negative consequences for New York.

Foremost, will be security – while the intent of the governor’s plan is to use “legitimate” passports as the basis for issuing licenses, there are inherent and significant problems. Assuming that all passports are “legitimate” (many of which will not be legitimate), the more illegal aliens who arrive, the more administrative pressure builds for the New York law enforcement officials to verify the authenticity of their passports– which I will address as separate problems in later testimony. With the added influx of illegals, there will be no possible way, with New York’s limited resources, to do reasonable “due diligence” on every illegal immigrant wanting a drivers license. There will likely be a “creeping diminution scale” of acceptable “legitimate” passports – and a high likelihood that illegal aliens, with or without passports, will select New York as their planned domicile due to its “illegal friendly” laws…inevitably, New York State will become one large “illegal alien sanctuary state”. Even in the best circumstances eventually with this large influx of illegals will overwhelm state resources. Unless New York State is prepared to increase its law enforcement resources significantly through additional funding and re-allocation of resources, there is no foreseeable way that Governor Spitzer’s program can be deemed “secure”. If past performance is any indication of future behavior, to deal with the inevitable backlog, bureaucrats under pressure to clear their numbers will push state law enforcement officials to take shortcuts which will result in shortened or bypassed security checks. This breakdown in security will open the door for a terrorist to slip through – and any smart terrorist organization will know to “flood” their operatives into the system knowing that several will get through. The terrorist organizations we are dealing with, especially Al Qaeda, is well funded, motivated and sophisticated. They are clever adversaries who will watch, identify, and exploit the vulnerabilities of the system – and the vulnerabilities of Governor Spitzer’s plan will be obvious. It will not take them long to identify and exploit this breakdown in security.

Let us not forget that a good number of the 9/11 hijackers had legitimate Virginia State drivers licenses that allowed them to move freely within the United States and enhanced their ability to plan and conduct the attacks. The State of Virginia has fixed its laws to preclude this from happening again – it is unconscionable that the very state that suffered the worst losses from the 9/11 attacks would willingly re-open this vulnerability and willingly provide a venue for smart terrorists to penetrate our security.

Another consequence that will add to New York State’s loss of security will be an influx of the criminal element. As with any population movement, there will be a percentage of criminals imbedded in the population. This was observed recently in New York’s neighbor to the south - in the brutal murder of 3 promising high school kids in Newark, New Jersey by illegal aliens – Newark is a sanctuary city…and with that status comes the inevitable presences of gangs, such as MS-13, who preys on the immigrant population with a culture of violence. That culture of violence will inevitably creep out of the immigrant community and menace the law abiding citizens of New York as it did in Newark. With an ever greater percentage of illegal aliens coming to New York, there is a statistical inevitability of more violent crime. Add the ability for an illegal to get a driver’s license and now the flood gates are open.

New York’s tax payers need to understand all aspects of Governor Spitzer’s new policy. They need to understand that this influx of illegals will require them to pay a hefty tax bill.

Tax payers will have to pick up the tab on additional security checks and the labor cost to perform those checks – resources that must be either diverted from their current security missions or new job positions need to be created if there is to be any hope of screening the illegals for fraudulent documents and terrorists and criminals hidden within their ranks.

On top of the increased security and administrative costs are the cost of social services that will have to be provided to the illegals as they move into the state. We are talking about immigrants who are unable to provide for their own healthcare and/or social wellbeing. There is a certainty that both medical and welfare programs will be more heavily burdened by the expansion of the illegal alien population.

Lastly, looking at the trends of most states with significant illegal alien populations, the criminal justice system will be flooded by the criminal cases generated by a good number of these illegal individuals. This will increase the case loads of the courts, and with convictions, it will rapidly increase the number of inmates in the state penal system. The use of public defenders, additional crimes and cases added to already heavily burdened legal system, along with increased use of jails and prisons to house suspects and convicts will all add to the drain of the public coffers, and require the already heavily taxed citizens of New York State to pay even more in taxes.

My Second Point – the inevitability of passport fraud and the inability of the New York law enforcement community to identify all “illegitimate” passports will lead to another 9/11 type incident. While the governor’s plan calls for the need for a “verified” passport, it does not take into account the ease with which foreign passports can either be obtained through illegal means, or counterfeited outright.
Does the Governor Spitzer’s plan to ask for additional resources to do overseas, in-depth investigations to verify the origins and legitimacy of the foreign passports, and will he be able to ensure that each individual shown on the passport is a real person who is from the country he or she purports?

Implied in the Governor Spitzer’s wish to change policy is the need to build foreign passport expertise within the state’s law enforcement system. Will there be funding available to create a staff of passport experts? Will the New York State Police be able to travel to foreign countries to verify and interview people to confirm the source of an individual’s passport?

Legitimate passports of many countries, such as in Sub-Sahara Africa and some European nations, can be obtained quite easily by terrorists and criminals. It has been noted in multiple news magazines over the last few years the ease with which criminals from Nigeria obtained third country passports for the purposes of committing financial fraud against U.S. citizens. The knowledge of how to obtain a third country legitimate passports for illegal use will be an issue New York State law enforcement officials will be obligated to deal with under Governor Spitzer’s policy. I would argue that such expertise to evaluate the validity of each and every passport of every illegal alien wanting a New York state license will not be within the expertise of the New York State Police anytime in the near future. Plus – while some passport fraud may be detected by New York State law enforcement, what becomes of an illegal alien who is discovered using an fraudulent passport (in light of Governor Spitzer’s comment that he will not perform the federal government’s work regarding illegal aliens).Does the alien get released so he or she can simply try again? And how do you detect passport fraud if the passport is issued by a sovereign country in a way that is legitimate to the legal system of that country, but, in the eyes of U.S. law would be fraudulent? How do you detect the intent of an illegal alien by simply examining his or her passport?

Plus, looking at the “worst case” scenario, once an individual using a false, doctored or illegal passport obtains a New York State drivers license, has he or she has effectively achieved “legitimate” status – and de facto U.S. citizenship? By creating this policy, Governor Spitzer is opening a path for the worst law breakers in the world – terrorists and criminals – to obtain legitimate status as citizens of New York State and the United States.

With the authority to create policy comes the necessity to maintain responsibility. In this case Governor Spitzer’s intent to change the policy, without careful study and contingency planning to address and mitigate all security risks is clearly irresponsible. The implementation of the policy to provide illegal aliens driver’s licenses requires “a willing suspension of disbelief”, to quote a New York State Senator, that this policy is in the best interest of the people of New York State and of the nation.

My third point –bringing people in “from the shadows” – for what purpose? Governor Spitzer claims that by implementing this program, the New York State insurance premiums will drop 34% because more people will be “covered”. Based on what study or detailed assessment is this based? Is someone going to guarantee the people of New York this cost savings? Has there been a polling of the major insurance companies to verify this claim?

I have outlined the security issues, unintended consequences and costs so far in my testimony – but let me now examine the so called benefits of this policy. Essentially, Governor Spitzer is telling the people of New York that the creation of security vulnerabilities, added cost of infrastructure and services to support the ever expanding illegal population of New York is worth saving on car insurance. Is this a fair trade-off?

The one “security plus” that the governor and his staff proclaim to be the best reason for implementing the policy: the ability to “track” people. Yes – as the governor points out, this change will bring people out of the shadows and give them access to New York State’s vast social services (medical, schools, welfare, etc) and a fast pass to legitimate access to all the states in the union – and allow them access to move, at will, all across the country and obtain employment. But wait – how does this “help track” these people? Governor Spitzer, to justify the program has already stated that he would “not do the work of the INS (I think he meant ICE since INS has not existed for several years) – so if you are not willing to help ICE now, why would the governor be more willing to help ICE after implementation of his policy? It appears that Governor Spitzer’s appears to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

What I see here is illegals gaining access to other states and exporting the state of New York’s security problem, like a virus, to all other states of the union. The theory is, according to the governor’s staff public comments, that the illegals will be “tracked”…if so how? With whom and how will information on the illegal be shared? What state agency will be tasked and held accountable to track them? What will be the legal basis for tracking them? Will they follow federal law and deport the illegals once they are identified? Probably more ““willing suspension of disbelief”.

Each citizen of this nation has fundamental expectation of privacy and protection from unreasonable search and seizure. So how will this new group, with legitimate driver’s licenses, be legally scrutinized any more than you or me? The answer is clear – they will not – and they will be given the same access and freedoms that you and I enjoy as law abiding citizens of this country.

The bottom-line of my testimony is this:

There are predictable security consequences and unintended consequences that will result from the implementation of the governor’s policy to provide illegal immigrants with legitimate New York State driver’s licenses – none of which are being addressed by Governor Spitzer at this point as far as I can determine.
Once an illegal has a driver’s license, this makes them a threat to not only New York, but every other state in the Union.

Plus – it is important for the people of New York to have a clear understanding of the financial burden both the implementation of the minimal security requirements and new drain on social services will bring them in taxation.

Within the realm of legal immigration is a “vetting” process. Individuals and their families are examined by a process in a systematic way. While this is not a full proof system, a great deal of information is learned about them in the process of becoming a citizen. Even ICE’s green card process requires an individual wishing legal resident status to provide significant information about their background – information that is verifiable…while not the perfect system, this system is far better and more robust than that Governor Spitzer proposes in which de facto legal resident status will be bestowed on them by simply presenting a passport that may or may not be legitimate.

If this policy is implemented, it will reward criminal behavior – and encourage more of the same. My family came over from Spain on the Lusitania just prior to World War I – and worked their way through the American legal immigration system. I appear before you now as a second generation American.

I urge the New York State Senate to examine closely Governor Spitzer’s intent to modify policy as to allow for the issuance of drivers licenses to illegal aliens, and prevent implementation of this flawed policy unless all direct and indirect consequences of the policy can be identified and mitigated.

Anthony Shaffer
Senior Fellow
Center for Advanced Defense Studies

Data mining at the CIA

2007-10-15T06:48:00.000-04:00

Interesting story I stumbled across from 2003:

By Bill Powell
October 13, 2003
FORTUNE Magazine

In the DO, Tenet eliminated old rules constraining agents from recruiting "unsavory" characters. Meanwhile, some internal walls have tumbled down. Jami Miscik now boasts about how many analysts from her directorate work in tandem with DO and sci-tech agents abroad, including several currently in Iraq. Increasingly, those analysts in the field can access data that used to be available only at headquarters. The CIA also laid so much broadband fiber in Iraq during the war, says Bobby Brady, deputy chief information officer, that videoconferencing is easier there than in Virginia.

In October the Agency will start using a data-mining program called Quantum Leap that's "so powerful it's scary," says Brady. It enables an analyst to get quick access to all the information available--classified and unclassified--about virtually anyone. Civil libertarians, not surprisingly, are unhappy, and even Brady says that in the wrong hands, "This could be Big Brother."

But Quantum Leap will be an extremely useful tool at the new Terrorist Threat Integration Center run by John Brennan, a 23-year CIA veteran. TTIC went into business just four months after President Bush announced its formation last February. It draws on personnel from the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security in the hope that next time, the government will be able to "connect the dots."

Here's another interesting story from October 2003:

According to Congressional testimony and news reports, The Matrix (which stands for ""Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange"") creates dossiers about individuals from government databases and private-sector information companies that compile files on Americans' activities for profit. It then makes those dossiers available for search by federal and state law enforcement officers. In addition, Matrix workers comb through the millions of files in a search for ""anomalies"" that may be indicative of terrorist or other criminal activity.

While company officials have refused to disclose details of the program, according to news reports the kind of information to be searched includes credit histories, driver's license photographs, marriage and divorce records, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and the names and addresses of family members, neighbors and business associates.

Raising even more issues, the Matrix is operated by a private company, Seisint Inc. of Boca Raton, Florida. Ironically, the company's founder was forced to resign after information about his own past came to light: according to Florida police, he was formerly a drug smuggler who had piloted multiple planeloads of cocaine from Colombia to the U.S.

Video tribute to USS Cole crew members

2007-10-12T17:05:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Vi Adkins for the link:

The heroes who died in this monstrous al-Qaeda terrorist attack are:

Monique Francis, 19
Seaman Tim Gauna, 21
Signalman Seaman Recruit: Louis Gunn, 22
Ensign Andrew Triplett, 30
Petty Officer 3rd Class Ronchester Santiago, 22
Seaman Craig Wibberley, 19
Electronics Warfare Technician First Class, Kevin Shawn Rux, 30
Seaman Recruit Lakiba Nicole Palmer, 22
Hull Maintenance Technician 3rd Class, Kenneth Eugene Clodfelter, 21
Engineman 2nd Class Marc Nieto, 24
Electronics Warfare Technician 3rd Class, Ronald Scott Owens, 24
Electronics Technician 1st Class, Richard Costelow, 35
Fireman Apprentice Patrick Roy, 19
Engineman Fireman Joshua Parlett, 19
Fireman Gary Graham Swenchonis, 26
Seaman James Rodrick McDaniels, 19
Operations Specialist 2nd Class Timothy Lamont Saunders, 32

Seven Years Ago Today

2007-10-12T09:59:00.000-04:00

Important post from Jane Novak over at the Jawa Report:

On October 12, 2000 two Yemeni suicide bombers rammed an explosives-laden dingy into an American destroyer, the USS Cole. Seventeen US service members were killed and forty-nine injured. The destroyer had been invited by the Yemeni government to refuel in the port of Aden.

In the light of historical perspective, several facts have become clear. Intelligence warnings generated prior to the attack were never forwarded to the commander of the Cole. The investigation afterwards was marred by turf wars within the US government, leaving links between the Cole bombing and the attacks of 9/11 unexplored. The Yemeni government worked diligently to limit the scope of the US investigation. Almost all the Yemenis involved in the Cole bombing are free today. The involvement of some Yemeni officials in the bombing is documented; however, the scope of that involvement is not.

Military commander and presidential half brother, Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar recruited fighters for bin Laden in the 1980’s and set up training camps in Yemen. Thousands of Yemenis at all levels were active in the Afghan conflict. After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, the Yemeni regime welcomed thousands of both Yemeni and non-Yemeni “Afghan Arabs” back to Yemen. Many of these hard core Islamists were militarily deployed in defense of the regime during its civil war in 1994 against Southern Socialists. As a result, many Afghan Arabs and other Islamic militants who fought in 1994 against “apostate” socialists are today ensconced in high level government positions. Others were absorbed into the military and security forces.

Through the 1990’s, both Osama bin Laden and Aiman Zawaheri traveled in and out and around Yemen on many occasions, often meeting religious leaders and prominent persons. Bin Laden delivered sermons in Yemeni mosques and purportedly held a six hour meeting with Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar in Sana’a airport in 1996.

Bin Laden made a deal with the Yemeni government in 1999, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. After Al-Qaeda operative Tawfiq (Khallad) bin Attash was arrested in Yemen, Bin Laden contacted a Yemeni official and bargained for Attash’s release. The Yemeni regime released Attash and promised not to confront al-Qaeda. In exchange, Bin Laden pledged not to attack Yemen. This pattern of negotiation continues today.

White House denies leaking Al-Qaeda video

2007-10-09T15:21:00.001-04:00

From the AFP:

The White House on Tuesday denied being the source of a leak involving an Osama bin Laden video that a private intelligence firm said had sabotaged its secret ability to intercept Al-Qaeda messages.

Asked if the White House was the source of the leak, spokeswoman Dana Perino said: "No, we were not ... We were very concerned to learn about it."

The SITE Intelligence Group said it lost access that it had covertly acquired to Al-Qaeda's communications network when the administration of President George W. Bush let out that the company had obtained a bin Laden video early last month ahead of its official release, the Washington Post said.

"Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless," SITE founder Rita Katz told the newspaper.

Sandy Berger advising Hillary Clinton

2007-10-08T13:57:00.000-04:00

From Examiner.com:

WASHINGTON - Sandy Berger, who stole highly classified terrorism documents from the National Archives, destroyed them and lied to investigators, is now an adviser to presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Berger, who was fired from John Kerry’s presidential campaign when the scandal broke in 2004, has assumed a similar role in Clinton’s campaign, even though his security clearance has been suspended until September 2008. This is raising eyebrows even among Clinton’s admirers. “It shows poor judgment and a lack of regard for Berger’s serious misdeeds,” said law professor Jonathan Adler of Case Western Reserve University, who nonetheless called Clinton “by far the most impressive candidate in the Democratic field.”

Adler told The Examiner that it is “simply incomprehensible to me that a serious contender for the presidency would rely upon him as a key foreign policy advisor.”

He added: “If Senator Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee, at some point she will begin to receive national security briefings that will include sensitive information. At such a point, continuing to keep Berger on board as a key advisor, where he might have access to sensitive material, would be beyond incomprehensible.”

The Clinton campaign declined to comment.

Berger has admitted stealing documents from the National Archives in advance of the 9/11 Commission hearings in 2003. The documents, written by White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, were a “tough review” of the Clinton administration’s shortcomings in dealing with terrorism, Clarke’s lawyer told the Washington Post.

From FoxNews.com:

The New York Democrat's campaign downplayed the fact, saying Monday that Berger is an informal, unpaid adviser to the campaign, something ascribed to many people associated with the campaign. Berger has been a longtime friend of both Clintons.

"He has no official role in the campaign," spokesman Blake Zeff said.

Aides to the New York Democrat were unapologetic about Berger's advisory role, noting he is not a central figure but has valuable and welcome input that he is providing voluntarily.

But Hoekstra took issue with the idea of letting someone convicted in connection with that sort of crime even voluntarily advise the campaign.

"Sandy Berger had a high position within our national security apparatus once before. He abused that position. He took top secret materials. He took them home, and we still have not really discovered or know what was in the documents or why they were so important for him to take them," Hoekstra said.

"It's clearly an indication that Sandy Berger is on the way back. That even though he abused the office that he held before and the privilege that he had before that there's a way for him to get back in and become a part of the national policy-making within the United States of America," he added.

Ware: Not enough evidence to convict Wuterich

2007-10-07T18:32:00.000-04:00

From a copy of Ware's recommendations:

Finally, although I believe the Government will fail to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that SSgt Wuterich committed any offenses other than dereliction of duty, due to the serious nature of the charges, I recommend referral to a general court-martial.

Would Watergate have blown over today?

2007-10-07T00:34:00.000-04:00

Carl Bernstein sure thinks so:

Watergate would not have played out the same way today because Congress no longer performs its oversight role, said Carl Bernstein, one of the journalists famous for uncovering the story.

“The difference with today is that the system did its job. The press did its job. The court did its job. The Senate committee did its job,” Bernstein said Saturday. “There’s been great reporting on this president. But there’s been no oversight. We have a Democratic Congress now and there’s still no oversight.”

Bernstein also said that “35 years of ideological warfare” could also change how the public would react to such a scandal.

“We live in a very different atmosphere today,” Bernstein said. “With Watergate, eventually the people of this country looked around and decided Nixon was a criminal president. I’m not sure the same chain of events would have taken place today.”

Good news for Mark Zaid's client Wuterich

2007-10-04T16:23:00.000-04:00

Officer: Drop Marine's murder charges

SAN DIEGO - An investigating officer has recommended that the Marine at the center of the biggest prosecution of U.S. troops in the Iraq war should not stand trial on murder charges, a defense attorney said Thursday.

Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, 27, of Meriden, Conn., is charged with the unpremeditated murder of 17 Iraqis in Haditha in 2005. The former squad leader allegedly directed his Marines in an assault that left 24 men, women and children dead.

Lt. Col. Paul Ware recommended that Wuterich should be tried for the lesser offense of negligent homicide in the deaths of five children and two women, said Neal Puckett, Wuterich's attorney.

Ware reviewed evidence against Wuterich in a preliminary hearing known as an Article 32. His recommendation is nonbinding, and the final decision about whether Wuterich should stand trial rests with Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the commanding general overseeing the case.

If Mattis accepts the recommendation for Wuterich and a similar one for one of his corporals, which appears likely based on past practice, no one will face murder charges in the biggest case involving civilian deaths in Iraq.

"We're both very pleased and also not surprised, given how the other cases have gone," Puckett said. "There has never been any inkling that any of these Marines lost control or went on a rampage."

Ware also recommended dropping charges of making a false official statement and telling a squadmate to do the same, Puckett said.

If tried and convicted of murder, Wuterich would face a maximum sentence of life in prison. Puckett said negligent homicide carries a maximum sentence of three years for each count.

By my count, he's still facing a maximum sentence of 21 years.

New Updated Edition of Triple Cross

2007-09-29T14:56:00.001-04:00

From PeterLance.com:

In October, 2007 HarperCollins will publish a new updated edition of Peter Lance’s groundbreaking investigative book on al Qaeda master-spy Ali Mohamed. With new material on the DeVecchio murder trial set to start in Brooklyn, October 1st, you can pre-order the book The Toronto-Sun called “a chilling account of a killer who slipped through the hands of a daft justice system... Triple Cross chronicles one of the most vicious spies of our time.”

Investigating possible FBI election interference

2007-09-29T11:12:00.000-04:00

From Bill Gertz at the Washington Times:

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III ordered an internal investigation into whether bureau agents interfered with midterm congressional elections by disclosing a corruption probe that undermined the re-election bid of Republican Rep. Curt Weldon weeks before the Nov. 7 vote.

The internal probe was disclosed in a Senate Judiciary Committee report containing the FBI's written answers to questions posed by committee members.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, asked why FBI agents searched the office of Mr. Weldon's daughter and a business associate three weeks before the elections.

The publicity from the raid contributed to the Pennsylvania Republican's defeat and led to the election of retired Navy Vice Adm. Joe Sestak, a former Clinton administration national security official.

Mr. Grassley said in his questions to the FBI that the timing of the raid "left the FBI open to criticism and speculation about whether there was an attempt to influence an election." He also wrote that after the investigation was disclosed in the press, the FBI was forced to conduct the searches to prevent the destruction of evidence.

"It appears that the FBI would not have executed these search warrants until after the election except for the fact that someone — possibly an employee of the Justice Department or FBI — leaked the fact of the investigation to the media," Mr. Grassley said.

Asked if the FBI knows the identity of the person who made the disclosure or is investigating the matter, the FBI said that "an internal review of this matter is being conducted at the request of Director Mueller."

Mr. Weldon declined to comment on the probe, but a person familiar with the former congressman's thinking said he believes the Justice Department and FBI deliberately sought to sabotage his re-election bid by disclosing the probe in the press within days of the election.

Mr. Weldon suspects that careerists and Democratic Party sympathizers in the Justice Department worked covertly with former Clinton administration officials to defeat him and to elect Mr. Sestak, according to the person.

Mr. Weldon had played a key role in several high-profile investigations of the Clinton administration, including its role in a 1996 illegal transfer of missile technology to China, the 1990s loss of nuclear secrets to China, and the investigation of Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger, who in April 2005 pleaded guilty to illegally removing classified documents from the National Archives related to counterterrorism efforts....

A Justice Department spokesman said the internal probe is being handled by the U.S. attorney for Delaware, Colm F. Connolly. Mr. Connolly had no immediate comment. An FBI spokesman declined to discuss the status of the probe and referred questions to the Justice Department.

Interestingly enough, he's just been offered a promotion:

Connolly on track for federal judgeship

Posted Saturday, August 11, 2007

Two of four candidates nominated to fill the vacant U.S. District Court judgeship in Wilmington told The News Journal Friday they believe U.S. Attorney Colm F. Connolly is on track to become the next federal judge from Delaware.

The White House has started a background investigation on one of the four attorneys nominated to fill the vacant judgeship, an aide for Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., said Friday.

"The congressman's office was contacted by the White House yesterday letting him know that a background investigation was going to begin on one of the nominees," said Jeff Dayton, Castle's district director. "They did not say which nominee."

Neither the White House nor Delaware's congressional delegation would comment on whose background was being investigated, but nominees Andrea L. Rocanelli and Richard A. Forsten said they had been informed by the White House that background investigations were not being conducted on them.

"It was an honor to have my name submitted by Congressman Castle," said Forsten, who is legal counsel to the Delaware Republican Party and an attorney at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney. He added that based on reports he has heard, Connolly is the person who will be nominated by President Bush.

The background investigation, which takes four to five weeks, takes the process a step closer to the president submitting a name to the Senate for confirmation.

The nominee would replace Judge Kent A. Jordan, who left the Delaware district in December for the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Business as usual at the State Department

2007-09-28T16:53:00.000-04:00

Anyone still think I was wrong about Condi Rice?

Dear Mr. Krongard:

I am writing to you about an exceptionally serious matter: reports that your senior staff has threatened officials that you could fire them if they cooperate with the Committee's investigation into your conduct.

On September 18, 2007, I wrote to you requesting your assistance with an Oversight Committee investigation into your actions as State Department Inspector General. In that letter, I described allegations from seven officials in your office that you interfered with on-going investigations in order to protect the State Department and the White House from political embarrassment. I requested various documents related to the investigation, and I informed you that Committee staff would be conducting interviews of several officials in your ofÍice.

Two of the individuals who came forward were John A. DeDona, the former Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, and Ralph McNamara, the former Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Investigations. They told my staff that they had resigned after you repeatedly halted or impeded investigations undertaken by their office. The other individuals who contacted my staff asked that their identities not be revealed because they feared that you would retaliate against them.

Today, I am writing to express my grave concern with the tactics your office has reportedly used in response to my request. This week, several current employees in your office -- including two who have agreed to go on the record -- informed the Committee that your senior staff attempted to coerce them not to cooperate with the Committee's inquiry and threatened their jobs and careers.

The two officials who agreed to go on the record about the threats are Special Agent Ron Militana and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Brian Rubendall. Both currently work in the investigations division of your office. Both are career federal investigators. Just last week, you referred to Special Agent Militana as "one of my best investigators" in a statement you released.

In addition to describing the threats he received, Special Agent Militana kept contemporaneous notes of these interchanges, which he has now shared with my staff.

Special Agent Militana and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Rubendall report that on September 25, 2007, one week after I sent my letter, your congressional affairs liaison and an attomey in the Counsel's office approached them about the Committee's invitation to be interviewed. They were taken into the offrce of the Deputy Inspector General, where your congressional liaison told Special Agent Militana and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Rubendall that they wanted to discuss their upcoming interviews.

At this point, according to Special Agent Militana, your congressional liaison told them they could suffer retaliation based on their cooperation with the Committee's investigation. According to Special Agent Militana, she stated: The majority are not friends. The minority staff has been helpful. They advise that you should never do a voluntary interview in a million years.

When Special Agent Militana questioned her statement, the congressional liaison told him: "You have no protection against reprisal. You have no whistleblower protections. Howard could retaliate and you would have no recourse."

The attorney informed Special Agent Militana and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Rubendall that although they might have some civil service protections against termination, he concurred with the congressional liaison. Special Agent Militana said that when he pressed the issue, the congressional liaison stated: "Howard can fire you. It would affect your ability to get another job."

Special Agent Militana and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Rubendall stated that at the end of this session, they felt angry that such threats were being used against them. Assistant Special Agent in Charge Rubendall informed my staff that as career investigators who deal with whistleblowers, they were shocked by the brazenness of these tactics.

They ultimately concluded that this activity was inappropriate and should be reported to the Committee.

Special Agent Militana and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Rubendall are not the only current employees to raise these concerns. Other employees have also reported that the congressional liaison and the attomey told them that if they appear before the Committee, you could take unspecified legal actions against them based on their statements.

I am appalled by these reports. As an Inspector General, you hold a position of special trust within the federal government. Your office is supposed to be an example of how to protect whistleblowers, not an example of how to persecute them. It is unclear whether you directed your senior staff to engage in these activities or whether they took matters into their own hands. In either case, the threats against Special Agent Militana, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Rubendall, and others are reprehensible.

You should be aware -- and you should advise your staff -- that Congress has passed civil and criminal prohibitions against threatening and tampering with witnesses, retaliating against whistleblowers, and providing false information to Congress.' If Special Agent Militana's and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Rubendall's accounts are true, some or all of these provisions may be implicated.

The Committee will not tolerate any intimidation of potential witnesses. I direct you to instruct your staff, including your congressional affairs liaison and attorneys, to suspend all communications (other than those necessary to collect responsive documents) with employees the Committee is planning to interview. I also warn you against any further efforts to intimidate witnesses or prevent truthful communications with Congress.

If you have any questions about this matter, you should contact me personally.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman
Chairman

Should Sestak be relieved from duty?

2007-09-23T10:49:00.000-04:00

One Philadelphia area Democrat thinks so. Ouch!

Revisiting the Cole

2007-09-22T14:15:00.000-04:00

Scott Malensek has done a great deal of research on the bombing of the USS Cole and provided me with copies of dozens of documents which he received through FOIA requests. I believe these documents prove the warning Able Danger provided regarding the Port of Aden, combined with the available intelligence on an impending Al Qaeda attack against a USS warship in the Middle East by a kamikaze boat, should have been more than enough to thwart the attack. First, the crew member statements:

From the first statement above:

1MC announcements: Possibility of direct action against the ship

This info was put out at an OPS/Intel Brief about two months ago.

From the second statement above:

In regards to Yemen, the ship planned on getting in and out as soon as possible. Generally speaking, we were briefed that Bin Laden made a statement that he was going to have two suicide bombers, in a boat, bomb a USS in or around the Persian Gulf, in the year 2000.

From the third statement as shown:

While in the Adriatic we received a threat brief from ISC(SW) [Redacted] that U.B.L. had promised an attack against a US ship in the C6F or C5F AOR. The brief stated the ship would be steaming independently and the attack would most likely be with a kamikaze boat.

The NCIS report on the attack confirms their accounts, but not conclusively:

From pages 80 and 81 of the NCIS investigation:

On 17 August 2000, LT [Redacted] (Force Protection Officer) conducted a "Med-Arabian University" brief exclusively on Force Protection, covering the following topics: the Naval Criminal Investigative Service Counter-Intelligence structure; "spot Reports" and "Blue Darts"; Threat Levels; THREATCONS; international terrorist incidents from 1980-1999; the East Africa American Embassy bombings in 1998; and terrorist Usama bin Laden.

"Blue Darts" are time-sensitive reports to warn unit and installation commanders of an imminent terrorist attack against their unit or installation. "Spot Reports" are time-sensitive reports in response to specific Force Protection/terrorist threats and are tailored to alert potentially affected Department of the Navy assets.

Additionally, a "Med-Arabian University" briefing covered the "Current Terrorist Threat" in both the EUCOM and Commander-in-Chief, United States Central Command Areas of Reponsibility. A slide entitled "Summary of DoD Terrorist Threat Levels U.S. Central Command" listed Yemen as having a HIGH Threat Level.

Several crewmembers of USS COLE (DDG 67) stated that one of the "Med-Arabian University" briefings cited intelligence reports warning of possible terrorist attacks against United States warships operating in the FIFTH and SIXTH Fleet Area of Responsibilities by one of Usama bin Laden's groups (This Finding of Fact reflects crewmembers' recollection of what was briefed, not the actual content of the messages).

Now, this is significant because the intelligence about a threat against a warship in the Middle East, combined with the threat information uncovered by Able Danger regarding the Port of Aden, should have been more than enough to send a "Blue Dart".

Two articles, in the New York Times two days after the bombing and Newsweek three weeks later, describe the exact same intelligence report.

From the New York Times on October 14, 2000:

The United States received a general warning of a possible attack on an American warship last month, senior defense officials said here today, but the warning lacked detail and did not specify the country in which to expect the attack.

"It was a question of how directly you could tie it to a certain place," one of the officials said. Since the warning, reported by an intelligence source in the Arab world, was not specific enough, "it got put on the shelf."

From Newsweek on November 6, 2000:

Two weeks before a pair of suicide bombers hit the USS Cole, a popular satellite TV channel in Qatar broadcast an ominous message from Osama bin Laden. With the camera rolling, bin Laden's top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, warned darkly that it was time to "take action" against the "iniquitous and faithless" U.S. forces in Yemen, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden, clad in tribal Yemeni dress and sporting a traditional dagger, looked on approvingly. Was the Saudi militant unleashing his terror operatives? Was he claiming responsibility in advance for the strike against the Cole? As U.S. investigators weighed these questions last week, an equally unsettling one hung in the air: did they overlook other clues that might have foiled the attack that killed 17 American sailors?

...Consider some of the traffic that preceded the Cole attack. In mid-September, a few days before bin Laden's broadcast, the CIA issued a secret warning. Agency reports feared that terrorists were likely to attack a Sixth Fleet warship in the Mediterranean using a small, bomb-laden boat--precisely the tactic used against the Cole. Another warning, issued Oct. 11, identified bin Laden as the possible sponsor of an imminent attack on U.S. or Israeli targets in several Middle East countries, including Yemen. But the first warning did not mention Yemen--it does not border the Mediterranean--and the second said nothing about an attack on a U.S. Navy ship. A third, from the National Security Agency, was sent out on Oct. 12, four hours after the Cole was blown up.

Considering the US had no troops in Yemen other than for embassy protection, the Port of Aden - where twenty-three USS warships had refueled in the last eighteen months - seems like an obvious focus.

That September 22, 2000 video was even covered on CNN:

On the tape bin Laden vows to work to obtain the freedom of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence in a U.S. federal prison. He was convicted in 1996 of conspiracy in a plot to blow up the United Nations, kill Egypt's president and bomb vital highway tunnels in New York.

Bin Laden also vows to work for the freedom of "all our prisoners" in the U.S., Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

From a Pentagon news briefing on October 19, 2000:

Q: On September 22nd, Osama bin Laden and members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad went on Qatar TV -- it was probably a tape, not a live shot -- but there was a tape played of Osama bin Laden and Egyptian Islamic Jihad officials making pretty specific threats against American forces, and specifically threatening attacks on ships. Now, there are some within the administration who said they were unaware of these bin Laden threats. Did the Pentagon, did CENTCOM, did the U.S. Navy, did the Cole, get any kind of threat assessment or warning as to the threats being made Osama bin Laden and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad?

Bacon: Well, that's precisely the type of question that the various panels will look at. And I think rather than rifle shoot at questions like that, it's better to look at the whole pattern.

That's one of the reasons Secretary Cohen is setting up this Cole Panel. It will look at the full panoply of intelligence factors that were available, whether intelligence reached the right people at the right time, whether the information was as accurate as it could be, whether there was a proper distinction between general threats and specific threats. These are the type of questions they'll be looking at. Rather than try to answer these questions piecemeal, I think it's better just to let the panel do its work and try to release a complete report as soon as possible.

Of course, the panel did nothing of the sort, but what would you expect? As it is, warnings of an attack were available from sources besides Osama.

From the New York Times on October 20, 2000:

American intelligence officials said yesterday that they received reports in late May that a militant Egyptian Islamic group was in the final stages of preparing a terror attack against American targets and that they passed on the warning to all American posts and foreign governments in the Middle East.

The group said to be preparing the attack was the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a faction of which is closely associated with Osama bin Laden, the Saudi financier who tops the United States list of most-wanted terrorists. The Jihad and Mr. bin Laden's organization, Al Qaeda, or ''the base,'' have come under scrutiny by American and Yemeni officials as possible culprits in the bombing last Thursday of the American destroyer Cole in Aden, Yemen, an attack that killed 17 sailors....

American officials said the administration had received two separate warnings about a possible terrorist attack against American forces. The first, in late May, warned that the Egyptian Islamic Jihad was in the final stages of preparing an attack against American forces. The second, received in mid-September, warned about a possible attack against an American warship, but did not specify where or when.

From the Complete 9/11 Timeline:

July 2000: CIA Learns Al-Qaeda Related Group Plans to Attack US Naval Ship

A CIA informant reveals that a militant group based in Sidon, Lebanon that is affiliated with bin Laden is planning to attack a US naval ship somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean, probably off the coast of Lebanon. [Miniter, 2003, pp. 215] This is a probable reference to Asbat al-Ansar, the only group that fits such a profile. [US Department of State, 5/21/2002] The CIA and Defense Department discount the threat, pointing out the US is not deploying ships near Lebanon. However, counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will later say he was alarmed by the warning because it showed increased ambitions for al-Qaeda in going after hardened military targets. [Miniter, 2003, pp. 215] Al-Qaeda will successfully bomb the USS Cole several months later in Yemen (see October 12, 2000).

August-Early October 2000: FBI Notices Increased Al-Qaeda Telephone Activity in Yemen before Cole Attack

The FBI and other US intelligence agencies have been monitoring an al-Qaeda communications hub in Sana’a, Yemen, since the attacks on US embassies in East Africa, and have used it to map al-Qaeda’s global network (see Late August 1998 and Late 1998-Early 2002). In the run-up to the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, the FBI notices that there is increased telephone activity to and from the Sana’a hub. One of the messages says that bin Laden is planning a “Hiroshima-type event” (see (August 2000)). [PBS, 10/3/2002]

Late Summer 2000: Informant Says Al-Qaeda to Attack US Warship

According to PBS, an Egyptian informant warns US intelligence that al-Qaeda will attack an American warship. [PBS, 10/3/2002] The FBI also notices increased telephone activity by al-Qaeda in Yemen around the same time (see August-Early October 2000). The USS Cole is attacked in the autumn of this year (see October 12, 2000).

A quote from Kie Fallis in "Breakdown" by Bill Gertz:

"I obtained information in January of 2000 that indicated terrorists were planning two or three major attacks against the United States," he said. "The only gaps were where and when."

...As September ended, the DIA and the rest of the intelligence community - the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research - received extremely solid information, supported by several sources, that an attack was imminent.

"I went to my supervisor, and he told me there wasn't going to be a warning issued," Mr. Fallis said.

...For Mr. Fallis, the "eureka point" before the Cole bombing in determining an impending terrorist attack came from a still-classified intelligence report in September 2000, which he will not discuss. But after the bin Laden video surfaced that same month, Mr. Fallis said, he "knew then it would be within a month or two."

Another excerpt from "Breakdown" by Bill Gertz:

The National Security Agency, which conducts electronic eavesdropping around the world, received an intelligence intercept about terrorists planning for an attack against the United States. On the day the Cole bombing was carried out, NSA produced a top secret intelligence report warning that terrorists were planning an attack on an American target in the Middle East. But the NSA report was not dispatched until several hours after the bombing. The report, according to officials who were familiar with the top secret intelligence, stated that unidentified terrorists were involved in "operational planning" for an attack on U.S. or Israeli personnel or property in the Middle East. One official said the warning was specific as to an attack in Yemen. Congressman Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican and a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, agreed that the NSA report was specific. He investigated the NSA warning and told me that the warning "related specifically to Yemen." But other officials claimed the NSA's intercept was more general and referred to the Persian Gulf region. Either way, it was accurate. The intercept stated that a member of a terrorist group had been tracked to Dubai and Beirut and was planning terrorist operations.

Now back to Able Danger. You might recall the New York Post scoop:

September 17, 2005 -- WASHINGTON — Members of a secret Pentagon intelligence unit known as Able Danger warned top military generals that it had uncovered information of increased al Qaeda "activity" in Aden harbor less than three weeks before the attack on the USS Cole, The Post has learned.

In the latest explosive revelation in the Able Danger saga, two former members of the data-mining team are expected to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee next week that they uncovered alarming terrorist activity and associations in Aden weeks before the Oct. 12, 2000, suicide bombing of the U.S. warship that killed 17 sailors.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, the Defense Intelligence Agency's former liaison to Able Danger, told The Post that Capt. Scott Phillpott, Able Danger's leader, briefed Gen. Peter Schoomaker, former head of Special Operations Command and now Army chief of staff, about the findings on Yemen "two or three weeks" before the Cole attack.

"Yemen was elevated by Able Danger to be one of the top three hot spots for al Qaeda in the entire world," Shaffer recalled.

Shaffer and two other officials familiar with Able Danger said contractors uncovered al Qaeda activities in Yemen through a search of Osama bin Laden's business ties.

The Pentagon had no immediate comment.

Of course, they never testified in the Senate, but there was some related testimony in the House.

From the House Armed Services Committee on February 15, 2006:

SHAFFER: My understanding -- and this is not my direct knowledge, but information I received from Captain Philpot -- they discovered information about two weeks before the Cole attack, about the 1st of October, that there was activities of interest within the Port of Aden in Yemen. That information was researched by the intelligence analysts, and two days before the attack, was briefed to General Schoomaker, the commander of Special Operations Command.

WELDON: Do you know what happened to it?

SHAFFER: I know that one of the individuals who was integrated within the Able Danger element at Garland, Texas, was a CENTCOM intelligence representative. It is my understanding that information was provided from Captain Philpot to the CENTCOM intelligence representative, at which time Captain Philpot requested they do something with it, they take action on it.

As expected, General Chope had a slightly different view:

CHOPE: Sir, in the days preceding 12 October 2000, which was the day the Cole was attacked in Aden harbor, one of the intelligence analysts assigned to the Able Danger effort began to get what he calls gut feel that things were going awry in Yemen; he didn't have any hard intelligence.

He asked then Commander Scott Philpot if that could be briefed at a high level briefing that took place on 10 October, during a VIP visit to the Garland facility, and it was.

To the best of our knowledge, and through the course of our interviews, that information was not of actionable quality. It was not of predictive quality. It was a general feel and a general beginning of bad things, for lack of a better way to put it, in Yemen in general, sir.

Leave it to a general to fit the word "general" in the same sentence three times. Two bombers in a kamikaze boat, directed by Bin Laden to bomb a USS warship steaming independently, somewhere in the Middle East at the same time that Yemen as a whole, and the Port of Aden specifically, are tagged as having a high threat of a terrorist attack. Generally speaking, not sending a "Blue Dart" sounds like negligence to me.