Pentagon closes controversial intelligence unit

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Monday said it was closing a controversial intelligence office that had raised concerns about domestic spying by the military after the September 11 attacks.

The Defense Department said it had "disestablished" the Counterintelligence Field Activity office, or CIFA, created in February 2002 by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to manage defense and armed service efforts against intelligence threats from foreign powers and groups such as al Qaeda.

Those responsibilities will now be carried out by a new organization called the Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center, overseen by the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency. ...

U.S. extends Mexico truck program despite objections

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Monday extended a test program allowing long-haul trucks from Mexico full access to U.S. highways for up to two years, despite pending legislation in Congress to shut it down.

"We intend this extension to reassure trucking companies that they will have sufficient time to realize a return on their investment, and we anticipate additional participation with this extra time," said John Hill, the Transportation Department's top trucking safety regulator.

Participation has been limited, regulators said, because of political wrangling about the program's future.

Organized labor, highway safety and consumer groups have fiercely opposed the initiative, which was permitted under NAFTA -- the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Trucks from Mexico have historically been confined to U.S. border areas where they offload goods to be trucked by American companies.

Last year, regulators approved a one-year pilot program to allow a limited number of Mexican trucks full access to U.S. roads over congressional objections. American trucks were also allowed to operate in Mexico.

Ten U.S. carriers with 55 trucks and 27 Mexican carriers with 107 trucks have participated in the program as of July without incident, U.S. and Mexican officials said.

They also said vehicles participating in the program meet safety requirements. But officials from U.S.-based unions say disputed safety issues remain unresolved. ....

Terrorism Expert: Karen Hughes Gave Money to Bad Guys

By: Kenneth R. Timmerman

A longtime adviser and close confidant of President Bush funneled millions of dollars in U.S. government grants to radical Islamist organizations, many of whose leaders have been convicted or indicted in terrorism cases in the United States, respected terrorism expert Steven Emerson told Congress last week.

“When Ms. [Karen] Hughes was appointed as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, she set the tone to continue a disastrous policy of outreach with Islamist partners,” Emerson told the House International Relations Committee. ....

The North Virginia-based IIHT “is suspected of being a pivotal cog in the Muslim Brotherhood’s high command in America," according to federal law enforcement records newly released to Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism under the Freedom of Information Act.

Many of the State Department grants championed by Hughes were conducted under the Citizen Exchange Program, but went to U.S.-based Islamist groups or their leaders to sponsor overseas speaking tours.

Since 2004, The State Department has provided $340,000 in taxpayer dollars to the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC), co-chaired by Columbia University professor Rashid Khalili, who served as a spokesman for late Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat at a time when the PLO was still considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

The funding to PARC was “disturbing considering the radical, divisive positions of many of its leaders and the unbalanced views espoused by fellows of the organization,” who consistently blame Israel for violence in the Middle East but not once condemned Palestinian terrorism and extremism, Emerson said.

In addition to the grants to known Islamist organizations, Hughes brought Islamist leaders to Washington, D.C., and personally attended conferences held by anti-American organizations, Emerson said.

The outreach policy championed by Hughes “legitimizes Islamism to the world and sends mixed messages to our allies,” while “sending a terrible message to moderate Muslims who are thoroughly disenfranchised by the funding,” said Emerson.

Citing earlier warnings by Emerson and other experts, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on July 10, demanding that she instruct the State Department to cancel all outstanding grants to radical Islamist groups.

When Coburn learned last year that the State Department was funding radical Islamist entities, he requested a meeting with Goli Ameri, who at the time was the nominee to become the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, the bureau that issues and manages the grants.

“During the discussion of her nomination,” the senators wrote, “Ms. Ameri promised Senator Coburn that the State Department would stop funding these entities once she was confirmed.”

And yet, shortly after Ameri was confirmed, one of the groups cited by the senators and by Emerson for its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood announced that it had just received fresh funding from the State Departtment office that was now under Ameri’s control.

The new funding was awarded as a subgrant to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), “a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organization, [which] was an unindicted co-conspirator in last year’s terrorist financing trial against the Holy Land Foundation," Emerson told Congress.

Despite ISNA’s known ties to terrorist-related entities, Hughes attended the group’s 2005 national conference in Chicago, and “held private meetings with organization leaders and delegates, including representatives of the Muslim Students Association,” another “Muslim Brotherhood-linked group,” Emerson said.

A number of groups that the State Department has funded or collaborated with have links to entities such as al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah, all of which are designated as terrorist organizations by the United States government, Emerson revealed in his testimony.

“The question is: Why should the State Department spend U.S. taxpayer dollars to work with Islamists who actively oppose the foreign policy goals of the United States and subscribe to a supremacist, oppressive ideology?” Emerson said. ....

"I know there are many in our community so desperate for peace that they want us to sweep under the rug the pro-terrorism positions of some groups,” Sherman said. “There are groups in the Islamic world truly dedicated to peace, but we should not blind ourselves to the fact that some are not."

Did Brits miss chance to trace hostages?

LONDON -- Britain's MI6 intelligence service has been accused by the employers of a British IT consultant and his four-man security detail of failing to follow up on a "vital clue" that could have led to their rescue after they were captured from a meeting at the Iraqi Ministry of Finance in Baghdad over a year ago ...

The five men -- who have become known as the "forgotten hostages" -- were grabbed by armed gunmen wearing police uniforms in May 2007 and driven towards the Shia enclave of Sadr City in the Baghdad suburb.

Little has been heard of them since. ...

But it has now emerged that in the weeks following their kidnap, Moore's cell phone still was being used -- the "vital clue" which could have revealed the captives' location, paving the way for an SAS rescue. The SAS has a unit on standby in Baghdad for such missions.

However, during a high level meeting at the Foreign Office doubt was cast as to whether any attempt had been made by MI6 to "pinpoint the mobile phone's location" using the ultra-sophisticated triangulation equipment which MI6 had installed in Iraq after the spate of kidnappings of Western hostages.

The details about the phone -- and the allegation about the failure to locate it -- were made by the employer of Moore's four security men, Garda World.

The company's delegation told David Richmond, the director general for defense and intelligence and the Foreign Office counter-intelligence chief, of their concerns.

The firm said it had examined the cell phone's itemized bill. It highlighted a large number of calls it had discovered, for which it was still paying large bills, charged to Peter Moore's account months after he had been kidnapped.

Some calls appeared to have been made as text messages to numbers Garda World claimed were known to be Shia strongholds in Iraq, while other calls were made to Iran.

GAO: Strengthen African Counter-Terrorism Effort

Federal agencies require better planning for combatting terrorism in Africa

The departments of Defense and State must improve their collaboration in a program designed to combat terrorism in Africa to effectively eliminate terrorist strongholds and to prevent the spread of extremist ideology, according to a report from congressional researchers published Friday.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP), concluding that the agencies involved must develop a comprehensive strategy and priorities for the program, settle disagreements as to when Defense personnel would report to State leaders in support of TSCTP, maintain steady distribution of the program's funds, and measure outcomes of the program based on its goals.

The US government established TSCTP in 2005, spending about $353 million in nine African countries. Almost three-quarters of those funds went to Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. The rest went to Algeria, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia. The US Agency for International Development (USAID), an agency of the State Department, has led the investment effort. ...

Biodefense Labs, Bad for Our Health

By Noah Shachtman

Better late than never, I suppose. For the last five years, some of us have argued that the government's biodefense priorities are screwed up, massively. Research into largely theoretical bio threats has sucked up money from tackling real killers, like tuberculosis. In fact, the biggest threat may be from the proliferation of biodefense labs, packed with largely untrained staffs; an accident or a malicious insider was more likely to cause serious damage than nearly any bioterrorist.

In the meantime, we've seen biolab workers infected in Texas and Boston; disease-ridden mice escaped (twice), and a deadly flu strain accidentally shipped all over the country.

Today, The New York Times echoes what we've been saying. All it took was the suicide of Army biodefense scientist Dr. Bruce Ivins, a suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks. "Has the unprecedented boom in biodefense research made the country less secure by multiplying the places and people with access to dangerous germs?" the paper of record asks.

More people in more places handling toxic agents create more opportunities for an accident or intentional misuse by an insider ...

There also is insufficient federal oversight of biodefense facilities to make sure the laboratories follow security rules and report accidents that might threaten lab workers or, in an extreme case, lead to a release that might endanger the public ...

In effect the government may be providing the tools that a would-be terrorist could use ...

... Apart from the threat from insiders, some public health experts believe money being used to study obscure pathogens that are not a major disease problem could be better directed to study known killers like influenza or AIDS.

"Partly in response to this criticism, government officials now often talk about how strengthening the systems necessary to respond to a terror attack would also prepare the country for a natural epidemic like avian flu," the paper notes. About time.

UPDATE: "Several years ago I would have pooh-poohed the idea that highly trained and vetted scientists would present such a risk," biochem blogger Bugs n Gas Gal says. "But for at least the last couple of years I’ve felt that the expansion of biodefense labs is related not to research need but to homeland defense money. If you build it they will come, and a couple of them might be frakking nuts. Do we not now have enough investment in the study of the most dangerous, but least likely threats?"

Under Attack: Fox News Cameraman Helps Rescue Marine Injured by IED

Video -- the FoxNews Cameraman -- "I went, grabbed the sergeant out of the shotgun seat, pulled him out."

POSITION PAPER: A path to citizenship

How the candidates view immigration reform, with analysis by the AJC editorial board

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/04/08

John McCain says

> "Border security" is his highest priority, and he supports more guards and high-tech surveillance.

He voted for the 2006 measure that adds 700 more miles of fence line between the U.S. and Mexico.

> Wants a path toward legalization for the estimated 12 million immigrants now in the country unlawfully. His plan, like Obama's, would require those applying for legal status to pay fines, clear criminal background checks and pay back taxes owed to federal and state authorities. It must also include a provision encouraging immigrants to learn English.

> Supports a greatly expanded guest worker program.

> Co-sponsored the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act of 2007, which would allow states to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrant students for public colleges and universities.

QUOTE: "What do you do with the 11 million people who are already here? Make them earn citizenship because they have broken our laws. My friends, that's not amnesty. Amnesty is forgiveness. We're not forgiving anything."

Barack Obama says

> Require those applying for legal status to pay fines, clear criminal background and medical checks and pay any back taxes. Would include a provision for learning English.

> Toughen penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants.

> Create a mandatory new system for verifying employment eligibility.

> Create a new guest worker program but require that immigrant workers be less dependent on employers to stay in the country.

> Grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

> Voted yes on a 2006 border security measure that adds 700 more miles of fence line between the U.S. and Mexico.

> Co-sponsored the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act of 2007, which would allow states to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrant students at public colleges.

QUOTE: "We've got 12 million undocumented workers who are

already here, many of them living their lives alongside other Americans. Their kids are going to school. . . . It's absolutely vital that we bring those families out of the shadows."

The Journal-Constitution says

> Both candidates offer sound, comprehensive approaches to dealing with illegal immigration. Their positions vary only in degrees of emphasis and essentially encompass the provisions of the failed Senate effort in 2007 to enact major changes in the nation's immigration policies.

> McCain, who had been one of the most reasoned voices in the Senate for years on the issue, has been pushed to the right by Republican hardliners in the House who were hypercritical of his efforts. In the race for the GOP nomination, his opponents also hammered him for his position on immigration. The result is that now he is more likely to emphasize the need for border security than to raise the issue of providing a path toward citizenship for those illegal immigrants already here. To his credit, he has not backed off on that basic requirement of comprehensive reform.

> Obama has not played a major role in immigration reform efforts in recent years, letting other Democrats, such as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), take the lead on the subject. But his votes have consistently been in support of comprehensive reform measures.

> The 2006 measure calling for building 700 miles of new fences between the U.S.-Mexico border that both Obama and McCain supported was political theater after House Republicans blocked more comprehensive reform. About half the illegal immigrants coming into the country cross the border legally with valid paperwork that eventually expires. The money spent on building new fences would be more effectively used tracking down these illegal immigrants quickly once their documents expire.

> The nation needs an expanded guest worker program, but Obama is correct in his concerns about linking such an expansion directly to employer sponsorship. The risk is that employers can exploit guest workers with lower wages than what they might pay native-born workers for the same job, or that it would create a permanent underclass of temporary workers.

> The DREAM Act, providing in-state tuition for illegal immigrant students who graduate from American high schools, rewards assimilation and hard work and ought to be enacted. The more education these students can get, the better off economically they and their families will be.

> Obama's wrong about granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. A license to drive is not a right, it is a privilege extended by the states. The 9/11 Commission, after in-depth study of the issue, recommended that states stop issuing driver's licenses to those in the country illegally. Plus, granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants complicates the identity-verification process.

POSITION PAPER: An occasional series on the issues driving the 2008 presidential campaign

(Female) Suicide Bombers

Last week four more Iraqi suicide bombers struck, leaving the mainstream media dumbfounded. Anchors from Atlanta to New York asked pundits: "What do you make of this?" "What could the motivation be?" "Who put them up to it?"

After five years of a war filled with attacks of this nature, you wouldn't expect the media to be so shocked and awed, but there was one critical factor that had the anchors stumbling: all four suicide bombers were female. ...

Al-Qaeda MIT scientist in custody in Afghanistan!

Think for a minute about the fact that someone linked to Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and other high-level jihadists was an MIT-trained neuroscientist. What is being done now to make sure that this sort of thing will not happen again? What can be done? Plenty -- but no one of influence is even discussing the issue.

"Pakistani scientist alive, in custody: FBI linked her to Al Qaeda in Hub," by Farah Stockman for the Boston Globe, August 3 (thanks to Miss Kelly):

WASHINGTON - Five years after her disappearance, an MIT-trained Pakistani neuroscientist accused of belonging to an Al Qaeda cell based in Boston, is alive and in custody in Afghanistan, her family's attorney said yesterday.

"It has been confirmed by the FBI that Aafia Siddiqui is alive," said Elaine Whitfield Sharp, a lawyer for Siddiqui's family, who said she spoke to an FBI official on Thursday. "She is injured but alive, and she is in Afghanistan."

The news sheds some light on one of the most intriguing local mysteries in the war on terrorism. ...

Fatah Terrorist Guided by Dolphin in Murder of Gail Rubin

Fatah Terrorists Who Participated in a 1978 Attack Commanded by Dalal Al-Maghrabi Claim They Were Guided by a Dolphin and Describe the Murder of US Journalist Gail Rubin

Gunmen flee violent siege dressed as women

AFFA, Israel – Hamas terrorists were in for a surprise yesterday when Palestinian gunmen from a rival group tried to escape a Hamas siege by dressing as women.

"The next war may well bury Western civilization forever"

He didn't envision the form it would take, but Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn knew what the stakes would be. And he said:

Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.

Think about that in the context of the Organization of the Islamic Conference's attempts to compel the UN to outlaw all criticism of Islam, and the international riots against the Muhammad cartoons that led up to these attempts. ...

MESSAGE MACHINE; Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand

...A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.

''It was them saying, 'We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,' '' Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. ''This was a coherent, active policy,'' he said.

As conditions in Iraq deteriorated, Mr. Allard recalled, he saw a yawning gap between what analysts were told in private briefings and what subsequent inquiries and books later revealed.

''Night and day,'' Mr. Allard said, ''I felt we'd been hosed.''

The Pentagon defended its relationship with military analysts, saying they had been given only factual information about the war. ''The intent and purpose of this is nothing other than an earnest attempt to inform the American people,'' Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said.

It was, Mr. Whitman added, ''a bit incredible'' to think retired military officers could be ''wound up'' and turned into ''puppets of the Defense Department.'' ...

Palestinians donate $29,500 to Obama

JERUSALEM – Palestinian brothers inside the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip are listed in government election filings as having donated $29,521.54 to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign. The donations would violate election laws, including prohibitions on receiving donations from foreigners and guidelines against accepting more than $2,300 from one individual during a single election, Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission, ...

Spanish police discover al-Qaeda internet handbook

Madrid - Spanish police have discovered an internet handbook for al-Qaeda's European cells on the use of remote-controlled bombs against international troops in Lebanon and Afghanistan, the radio station Cadena Ser reported Monday.

The eight-page handbook dating from early July contained detailed instructions on how to stage non-suicide bombings using auto-piloted light aircraft and cars.

The instructions included three different ways to set off aircraft bombs by remote control.

It was the first time that police detected such detailed instructions for al-Qaeda cells, including advice on how to avoid being detected, Cadena Ser reported.

The methods were believed not to have been used in attacks so far.

Obama plans to grab oil company profits

Sen. Barack Obama announced today an "emergency economic plan" he wants enacted by this fall that would use oil profits to give every "middle-class" American family $1,000.

The full text of the plan is highlighted with subheads that read, "Take a Portion of the Windfall Profits from Big Oil and Put $1,000 in the Pockets of Working Families" and "Forcing big oil companies to take a reasonable share of their record breaking windfall profits and use it to help struggling families with direct relief."...

University researchers firebombed, animal rights activists blamed

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. -- Firebombs were intentionally set on a porch and in a car belonging to two UC Santa Cruz researchers in separate incidents early Saturday in what police have classified as acts of domestic terrorism. ...

Professors and researchers at the University of California campuses at Berkeley and UCLA have also been targeted recently, including firebombs in Los Angeles. More recently in Berkeley, nine hooded protesters showed up in front of a toxicology professor's off-campus home, scrawling "killer" in chalk on the doorstep and shattering the window of the home, and a window in a neighbor's home who scattered the protesters with a garden hose. ...

Police prepare terror attack warning for restaurants and cinemas

Restaurants, cinemas and theatres will get police warnings to prepare for terrorist bombings amid fears of "mass casualty" attacks in British town centres.

OMB: Agencies Would Lie About IT Project Risk

Government Executive has three stories (here, here and here) regarding the congressionally described “Dismal State of Information Technology Planning in the Federal Government.” ...

Gitmo interrogators shift focus to prison activity

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — Interrogators at Guantanamo Bay are asking detainees primarily about activity inside the U.S. military prison, the mission commander said, revealing a shift in focus from the wider fight against terrorism.

The information gleaned from detainees is most important to preventing them from hurting themselves or attacking guards, said Navy Rear Adm. David Thomas, the top officer at the detention and interrogation center. ...

Qinetiq in talks to buy US intelligence adviser

Qinetiq, the UK defence technology group, is in talks to buy a privately held company that provides top-level advice to US intelligence services, in a move that will give it access to the heart of the lucrative US defence market.

The company is expected to confirm early this week that it is buying Dominion Technology Resources (DTRI) for about $100m. DTRI provides a range of consulting services and technology expertise to a number of government intelligence services and other classified customers.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

Unmanned aircraft deal signed - Jul-15

Investor test on Qinetiq stake sale - Jun-29

Qinetiq’s bomb disposal robot stars - May-28

Qinetiq begins to realise promise - May-28

Qinetiq purchases Australian groups - Jan-02

MPs berate team in Qinetiq deal - Dec-04

Under the proposal, DTRI’s founders are expected to remain with Qinetiq in an advisory role, enabling the British company to capitalise on their contacts among the US intelligence community. The American market is typically difficult to enter for foreign contractors. ...