SpyTalk

Mumbai Latest Proof that Terror World Has Changed Much Since 9/11

2008-11-30T18:34:45Z

If nothing else, Mumbai closes the chapter on the circa-9/11 terror era, at least for Americans.

The period following Sept. 11, 2001 airline hijackings, in fact, looks like the good ol' days, in light of how al Qaeda has metastacized into the hydra-headed terrorism monster we face today.

Back then, with the remains of the Twin Towers still smoldering, the thinking was that all we had to do was roll up our sleeves to make fast work of Osama bin Laden and his gang of cave dwellers. But the fugitive Saudi millionaire's escape into the snows of the Hindu Kush, with the help of the Pakistani army, showed that we were playing in a far more complicated game.

Mumbai puts an exclamation point on it.

Until Mumbai, when it emerged that the terrorists were singling out U.S., along with British and Israeli citizens, most Americans were probably only dimly aware that the beta version of al Qaeda had long been eclipsed by an even more lethal 2.0.

Today, al Qaeda affiliates and wannabees are roiling a crescent-shaped swath of the world ranging from the Philippines across the Indian subcontinent through the Middle East to the westernmost tip of North Africa. Its émigrés have launched attacks from or in Germany, Britain, France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy.

But the terror hasn't really touched Americans in demonstrative numbers. Whether by good fortune or the skills of our counterterrorism warriors, or both, we have escaped the Muslim fundamentalist plague infesting the rest of the world.

Mumbai should make clear that our luck may be running out. Luxury hotels where Americans stay cannot be protected in any meaningful sense.

And another thing: That CIA renditions, Predator missile strikes in Pakistan and more U.S. troops in Afghanistan may not only not solve the problem, they may aggravate it.

Guns are so 2001-2002.

And back then we had the world's goodwill from the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

The Bush administration squandered it Iraq, immeasurably making the challenge more difficult.

We can never get that back.

The election of a very smart black man with Hussein in his name as President of the United States amounts, at this late point, to only a slim chance at a fresh start.

Pakistan Sits Top Spy as Politics Intervenes in Mumbai Affair

2008-11-29T19:39:12Z

The Pakistan government, evidently stung by domestic criticism that it was kowtowing to India, decided against sending its top spy to New Delhi late Friday and instead dispatched a lesser intelligence official.

The change in plans put in stark relief how domestic politics will constrict the latitude the longtime nuclear rivals have to respond coolly to the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

The political pot was being stirred in India as well.

In the wake of Indian accusation that the Mumbai assault was carried out by Pakistan-based Muslim extremists, a top Hindu nationalist showed up in front of television cameras in Mumbai to bash the government's handling of the affair.

Narendra Modi, " arguably India's most incendiary politician," in a New York Times account, said. "The country expected a lot from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but his address to the nation was disappointing."

Indians are going to the polls Saturday in five state elections. National elections are expected to be held next spring.

Pakistani officials had initially said the government was sending its spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, on an unprecedented mission to India "to share and obtain information from investigators there," according to the Times account.

But later Friday the decision was reversed, and a less senior intelligence official was being dispatched in his place, according to reports.

The Islamabad government was "already bending over backwards" to be cooperative and did not "want to create more opportunities for Pakistan-bashing." Pakistan's defense minister, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, told reporters in Islamabad, "I will say in very categoric terms that Pakistan is not involved in these gory incidents."

[I discussed these warnings on the PBS television show WorldFocus.]

Pakistan, Fingered in Mumbai Terror, Dispatches Spy Chief to India

2008-11-28T22:26:58Z

Pakistan, fending off growing evidence that terrorists mounted a seaborne assault from Karachi, said Friday it was dispatching its spy chief to India.

Terrorists suspected of links to Kashmiri separatists have killed at least 150 people, including 22 foreigners, in a wide ranging, coordinated assault on India's financial and movie capital that began Wednesday.

The terrorists' main targets were two luxury hotels and the headquarters of an Orthodox Jewish organization.

Indian officials told reporters two gunmen had been captured who were British citizens of Pakistani origin.

Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee pointed a finger directly at Pakistan, saying: "Based on preliminary information, and prima facie evidence we have, elements of Pakistan are linked to this."

But Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi warned India not to "be jingoist" and said the two nuclear armed countries "are facing a common enemy, and we have to join hands to defeat this enemy."s

According to a SpyTalk source with close connections to top Indian intelligence and security officials, it was "far less likely today than a few years ago" that Pakistani intelligence, which in the past was deeply involved with Islamic Kashmiri separatists, would have been involved in the Mumbai attacks.

[I discussed these warnings on the PBS television show WorldFocus.]

Mukherjee did not specifically charge Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, with complicity in the assault.

Pakistan's decision to send Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the director general of the ISI, will mark the first time one of its chiefs has been known to visit India, its longtime nuclear-armed rival, but recently both sides' intelligence services have been meeting with an idea toward quelling points of tension

It was not immediately clear, however, when General Pasha would leave for India.

Islamists Had Warned of Mumbai Attacks

2008-11-26T22:39:15Z

UPDATE (12:50 am EST Friday): With Indian authorities still battling to root out terrorist attackers, fears grew that casualties would rise past the 119 known dead and 300 wounded. At least dozens of people, perhaps many more, remained trapped in the hotels, but the number held hostage was unknown.

Indian commandos, meanwhile, stormed a Jewish center where gunmen were holding a number of people hostage. In a development freighted with dangerous implications, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went on television and said the attacks probably had "external linkages," clearly fingering its nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan.

The Islamic terrorists who claimed responsibility for Wednesday's Mumbai bombings warned two months ago they were targeting the city, home to India's financial services and movie industries.

The warning came in September, following Islamic extremist attacks in other cities.

"The Indian Mujahideen, which has claimed responsibility for the Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Jaipur blasts killing at least 130 people in a span of four months, has now threatened to carry out attacks in Mumbai," reported the Deccan Herald, part of a quality newspaper group based in Bangalore, on Sept. 15.

The group accused Mumbai's antiterrorism squad of harassing Muslims and said in an email that "it was closely watching the ATS," the Herald reported.

[I discussed these warnings on the PBS television show WorldFocus.]

A heretofore unknown group calling itself Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attacks in e-mail messages sent to Indian news organizations. Authorities have not confirmed the identity of the attackers.

But Rohan Gunaratna, an international terrorism expert, told CNN Wednesday that only the Indian Mujahideenhad the resources to carry out the plan.

The head of Mumbai's antiterrorism police was killed in Wednesday's attacks.

The claim of Islamic militants will undoubtedly prompt Indian officials to point a finger at Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, for complicity in the attacks. The ISI has supported Islamic rebels in Kashmir for decades, despite official denials.

American security officials also blame ISI elements for supporting the Taliban in the Pakistani tribal areas that also host al Qaeda, likewise a Sunni Muslim terrorist organization.

But Hindu extremists cannot be ruled out for the Mumbai bombings, either.

Last summer Indian authorities initially blamed Muslim terrorists for a seris of bombings that would eventually kill 145 people.

But in October, police arrested Hindu militants for the attacks.

"It is too early to tell with any precision who is behind these attacks," Tom Jocelyn granted at The Weekly Standard. "The smart money is on the multi-headed hydra of terrorist and extremist groups based in Pakistan and Kashmir."

"Indeed, Pakistan's intelligence service has waged a proxy war against India using terrorists for decades. The two nuclear powers have avoided a large-scale exchange, but the Pakistani ISI has repeatedly sponsored or aided terrorist groups targeting civilians in India. For example, Indian authorities were quite vocal in blaming Pakistan for the July 11, 2006 train bombings, which killed more than 200."

A leading suspect for coordinating the attacks is Abdul Subhan Qureshi, also known as Tauqeer, a Mumbai-educated member of the Indian Mujahideen credited with masterminding several of the previous attacks. London's Guardian newspaper said Wednesday.

He's also been called "India's Osama bin Laden."

"Reports from India's intelligence agencies claim he has been able to use his expertise as a computer engineer to stay one step ahead of his pursuers and to coordinate attacks."

ATS chief Hemant Karkare, two senior police officers and at least 80 others have been killed in the ongoing attacks. Over 240 have been wounded so far.

A witness told Indian television that gunmen in Mumbai looked for British and U.S. passport holders in the city's posh hotels.

"They wanted foreigners, " he told a local television station, according to Reuters.

Iran's Economy in 'Shambles,' Trade Expert Says

2008-11-25T23:07:50Z

Victor Comras, a longtime State Department diplomat and trade expert, argues that plunging oil prices and chaos in the international finance system could force Iran back to the bargaining table over its nuclear program.

Economic sanctions have also begun to show results, Comras said, as reports surfaced that the Bush administration was forcing Israel to stand down from plans to attack the Islamic republic.

"Iran's economy is already in shambles," Comras wrote for the widely read Counterterrorism Blog Tuesday.

"The downturn in the price of oil has left Iran's government with serious budget shortfalls and significantly reduced its ability to support and subsidize its extensive ongoing energy sector and other infrastructure projects," he said.

"It has also significantly reduced the profit incentives that previously enticed foreign businesses and banks to compete for Iran's business, even when that meant irritating their American relationships.

"Iran's cost of doing business is soaring, and the stepped up measures adopted by the U.S. Treasury Department, and the US campaign to dissuade financial dealings with Iran, are now actually having a significant impact! More and more Western banks are reducing their Iran exposure and pulling out of the Iran marketplace. Even non Western banks in Dubai are beginning to view triangular transactions with Iran more cautiously. These factors may serve to enhance the chances of engaging Iran in a more constructive dialogue on its nuclear program than previously."

Read the rest here.

Walker Spy Memoir Has 'Nothing New,' Author of Book on Case Says

2008-11-25T20:08:49Z

It's not every day that a traitor writes a memoir.

Kim Philby, the notorious Soviet agent in the senior ranks of the British secret service, did. But that was from the safety of his Moscow apartment.

John Walker ranks himself above Philby, not to mention American turncoats Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen and Jonathan Pollard, in a new memoir, "My Life as a Spy."

And he may be right. A chief warrant officer in the Navy, in 1968 Walker began selling the Russians communications codes that allowed Moscow to track U.S. warships, including nuclear submarines. Eventually, he dragged his wife, brother, son and best friend into the scheme.

Walker was arrested in 1985, the so-called "Year of the Spy," and is serving a life sentence at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, in Springfield, Mo.

Why did he do it?

"I cannot classify myself as a visionary or idealist, but just a simple citizen who became angry by the government lies," he writes.

"I did conclude that the US system of government was broken, so I felt justified in breaking some rules in order to help save it.... Why did I feel responsible or qualified to end the pattern of perpetual war? I cannot answer my own questions. But then, my insane stunt seemed to have worked. By the admission of both the US and the USSR, I provided the most extensive intelligence ever to the Soviets.

"With my material in hand, the Soviet government eventually realized the US planned no attack upon them, so my actions have contributed greatly to the Soviet Union's decision to end the Cold War."

Or so he says.

I figured my friend Pete Earley would be in a good position to evaluate Walker's claims. A former reporter at The Washington Post, Earley is the author of "Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring," the definitive work on the case, which became a New York Times bestseller and much-watched TV miniseries.

Here's what he had to say.

"If nothing else, John Walker Jr. is consistent.

"More than 20 years ago when I interviewed him, he argued that Time magazine and other U.S. media regularly revealed top secrets and damaged our nation's security, so why should he be blamed for damage he did by selling the KGB classified information for nearly eighteen years?

"After making the same tired excuse of, "We were not at war with the Soviet Union" and the "Cold War is a game played by politicians and generals," Walker explains that he simply decided to cash in and do what anyone with any sense was doing.

"He takes delight in bragging how "K-Mart had better security than the U.S. Navy," and proudly describes how his policy of K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid - enabled him to steal the keylists and schematics for every major code machine used by the U.S. military and deliver them to our enemies during the height of the Cold War.

"Just as he did in his jail house interviews with me, he blames his alcoholic and emotionally distraught wife, Barbara, for driving him into the KGB arms, and claims that he was simply trying to help out his hapless brother, Arthur, his hollow best friend, Jerry Whitworth, and his own dim-witted son, Michael, by drawing them into what became our nation's most damaging spy ring.

"In a mean-spirited final chapter, he claims his brother Arthur would have gone free if he had not cowed to his wife and had insisted that they sell their house to pay for a better defense team, concluding that Arthur has only himself to blame.

"The only new revelations in this autobiography are a sympathetic portrait that he attempts to draw of himself by claiming his life would have been markedly different - though nevertheless just as exciting - if he had married better.

"He also drops names, such as the great Soviet Cold Warrior, Gen. Boris Solomatin, and former KGB great and Soviet leader, Yuri Andropov.

"Walker makes it sound as if they sought him out personally for advice when, in fact, during our interviews, he chuckled when I asked him if he knew any of his KGB handlers, explaining that he had no idea who they were and stating that one didn't ask for resumes when committing treason. At the time, he had no idea who Andropov was and, in his own words, he explained that he did not see himself as an intelligence source, but simply as a thief.

"'Look, I don't know why people make such a big deal of me committing espionage,'" he told me. "'If I had worked in a bank, I would have stolen money. If I had access to drugs, I would have sold them.'"

Earley says Walker thinks he did us a favor.

"In what has to be the most revealing rationalization of all, Walker explains that his treachery actually did the U.S. a huge favor. By sharing vital military secrets with the KGB, Walker argues that the Kremlin realized just how badly it was losing the arms race and how pitiful Soviet forces would be if challenged by the U.S. It was one of the key reasons, he insists, the Cold War ended."

"My Life as a Spy" was published to little notice on Oct. 28.

Monday Afternoon Quarterback

2008-11-24T19:53:46Z

JACK'S BACK. Everybody watch "24" last night? For the vicariously torture-deprived, Season VII's two hour debut didn't disappoint: Bauer got his ear seriously singed by a demonic African warlord in the first hour. But that wasn't half as nausea-inducing as what's next for our counterterrorism hero: Being rendered into political pigskin and dragged before a congressional committee investigating his less sensitive interrogation techniques. Fingernail biter: Will our friend James Jay Carafano, who showcased cast members at a Heritage Foundation extravaganza in June 2006, get a cameo? . . .

SPEAKING OF TORTURE: With so much else going on in the spook world, not to mention the economy, I'd forgotten about the Justice Department's investigation of the CIA's destruction of its interrogation videotapes until it popped up near the bottom of Sunday's Washington Post story on possible Bush administration pardons. Federal prosecutor John Durham has been working on that for almost a year now, without any announced results. The CIA official who reportedly ordered the tapes' destruction, Jose A. Rodriguez, retired in 2007 and last month joined National Interest Security Company, a government contractor in Fairfax, Va., with the responsibility to "improve the current value of intelligence and create new intelligence capabilities that integrate technology into new concepts of operations."

INGRATE, REDUX: When last seen in these parts, Iraqi exile leader Ahmed Chalabi was serving up phony defectors to the New York Times in a campaign to justify toppling Saddam Hussein. Some suspect Chalabi was acting on behalf of Iran, to get rid of its major nemesis, and has continued to do its bidding in Baghdad. So imagine our surprise when we found Chalabi's byline yesterday in ... The New York Times telling the U.S. to get out of Iraq. In "Thanks, but You Can Go Now," the Iraqi Zelig writes that "there are still those in Washington's corridors of power who want to reduce Iraq to being an American puppet state, like Jordan or Egypt, nations governed through a corrosive mix of covert intelligence and military support spoon-fed to a permanent oligarchy." He should know. Years back, the portly master intriguer fled Jordan after being charged with looting a bank. But "What was the Times thinking?" wonders Aram Roston, author of The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi . . .

THE BULGARIAN CONNECTION: One of these days Bulgaria is just going to fly apart from corruption. Today an official there was denying a report in Sunday's Washington Post accusing the former Soviet satrap of shipping arms to Iraqi Kurdistan, which seems well on the way toward its dream of autonomy, if not independence, from Baghdad. "Such a transaction is impossible," deputy economy minister Yavor Kuyumdjiev told Bloomberg's Elizabeth Konstantinova. "We have one of the of the strictest arms export control procedures in the European Union."

But close observers of the fledgling democracy are tempted to say, "So what?" Gangsters with tentacles in the Sofia government can make anything happen there, including murder. Bulgaria "has several Soviet-era arms plants producing assault rifles, guided missiles and radio devices," Bloomberg reported. "The country was criticized by the U.S. in the mid-1990s for illegal arms sales to Africa." But Kuyumdjiev suggested the problem lies elsewhere. "Bulgaria has no control over what happens to an arms shipment after it reaches Baghdad," he said.

CIA Coverup Followed Another Spy Flight Mystery in Colombia

2008-11-20T20:25:01Z

Revelations that the CIA misled Congress and the Justice Department about the 2001 downing of a Peruvian plane carrying American missionaries could shake loose still-secret details about another crash in the area two years earlier.

On July 23, 1999, a U.S. Army surveillance plane went down under mysterious circumstances in the mountains of Colombia near the Ecuador border.

The Defense Department's official investigation said that Army pilot Jennifer Odom lost her way in the darkness amid the high Andes. But in the weeks leading up to her doomed flight, Odom had confided to her husband, an Army colonel, that she and the crew of intelligence technicians in the back of her plane, who were supposedly eavesdropping on narcotraffickers, had been "lit up" by radar missiles in the jungle.

As I wrote for Salon.com in July 2000, that led the couple to suspect that the intelligence crew were not targeting drug kingpins, as she had been led to believe, but Marxist guerrillas fighting the Colombia government. Over time, the two became indistinguishable.

But the reason for covering up important details about her death, her husband, Col. Chuck Odom, told me, was that the U.S. was far more deeply involved in Colombia's civil war than publicly acknowledged, with "hundreds of Special Forces people running all over the country."

And there were other sinister factors in the mystery: Jennifer Odom reported to Col. James Hiett, the top U.S. counter-narcotics official in Colombia.

It would later emerge that Hiett and his wife had been corrupted by the drug lords. He was helping her launder the proceeds of her cocaine smuggling through the U.S. embassy with the help of his chauffeur.

All this was unknown to Jennifer Odom, who had been planning her surveillance flights with Hiett.

Hiett was under investigation, but according to later reports he was being tipped off by the investigators. Until then-U.S. Customs Director Ray Kelly (now chief of the NYPD) blew the whistle, the Army was planning to dispose of the case quietly.

Their arrest five months after Odom's death left her family wondering whether Hiett or other U.S. officials responsible for sensitive drug interdiction missions could be trusted.

"Jennifer briefed Hiett on her mission on July 14," her grief-stricken mother, Janie Shafer, told me. "Nine days later the crew was dead."

Chuck Odom, who has struggled to get to the bottom of the case for almost a decade, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

In the Peru case highlighted today by Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the CIA recklessly downed at least 10 aircraft suspected of carrying narcotics over the South American country.

The Washington Post's Joby Warrick reported:

"As part of a joint U.S.-Peruvian anti-drug program that began in the mid-1990s, CIA officers helped Peruvian air force pilots identify aircraft suspected of carrying illegal drugs through the country's airspace. The program had succeeded in bringing down numerous suspected planes when, in April 2001, a Peruvian pilot mistakenly shot into a small plane carrying U.S. missionaries. Two of the Americans on board, Veronica 'Roni' Bowers and her infant daughter, Charity, were struck by bullets and killed. The pilot, although wounded, managed to land the plane. Bowers's husband and their 6-year-old son were not injured."

According to the agency's inspector general, CIA managers covered up the problems and knowingly gave false accounts to government officials investigating whether agency employees committed crimes, Hoekstra said.

"These are the most serious and substantial allegations of wrongdoing I've seen in my time on the committee," said Hoekstra, whose western Michigan district was home to two of the Americans killed in the 2001 incident.

A CIA spokesman said agency director Michael V. Hayden is looking into the matter.

Update: Fran Townsend Says She's Available for an Obama Post

2008-11-19T20:03:21Z

Former Bush White House homeland security advisor Frances Fragos Townsend said Wednesday she would serve in the Obama administration if asked.

Townsend, who spent 13 years in the Justice Department before joining the Bush administration in 2001, was effusive this week in her praise of Eric Holder, Obama's putative nominee for attorney general.

Townsend worked under Holder during the last, frantic days of the Clinton administration, when the White House asked the Justice Department to quickly vet a pardon for fugitive financier Marc Rich.

Republicans have long singled out Holder for his role in the pardon, but Townsend effectively kaboshed that this week.

Holder "got a last-minute phone call" from the Clinton White House to vet Rich, Townsend told CNN, where she is a contributor.

"He was put in a horrible position," Townsend said, adding that Holder was being criticized unfairly in the Rich matter.

She called him "a great choice," for attorney general. "He's just a stellar guy .. a tremendous, tremendous start for the new administration."

"In a time of war with these difficult legal issues, he is going to have many, many tough issues to face. But they couldn't have picked a person better suited or more qualified to address them."

In a brief interview Wednesday, Townsend noted that she was "a career civil servant" before joining the Bush administration, starting as a prosecutor in New York in 1985, at one point working for Assistant U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani.

In 2001, he joined the Bush administration, first as chief of intelligence for the Coast Guard, then White House homeland security advisor.

"I'm a patriot and enjoyed serving in government and for the American people," she said by telephone Wednesday, adding that she never gave partisan speeches for the administration, "nor did President Bush ask me to."

As for an appointment in the Obama administration, "it would depend on what department or agency," mentioning that a job in homeland security might be a good fit.

"If they think my experience or participation could help in any way, I'd say, 'Sure, call me.'"

"I wouldn't foreclose any idea they had," she said.

"It's an historic time."

Since she resigned her White House post a year ago this month, Townsend has been a senior advisor to Thomas J. Donahue, the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Congress, which helped raise campaign money for John McCain.

New Book Scores Political Pressures on CIA

2008-11-18T20:10:09Z

A new book by veteran intelligence writer John Diamond describes a CIA that went into downward spiral following the collapse of the Soviet Union, reaching a nadir when it served up bad intelligence justifying the invasion of Iraq.

"Political pressure -- from the right during the Reagan years over the scope of the Soviet threat, from the left during the Clinton years over CIA ties with repressive Latin American regimes -- constantly threatened to distort the intelligence used by the government to shape its foreign policy," Diamond writes in "The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. Intelligence from the End of the Cold War to the Invasion of Iraq," according publisher Stanford University Press.

Diamond contends that a series of intelligence lapses (both real and alleged) in the decade following the Soviet collapse led "to a 'culture of failure'...a fatal cycle of error, criticism, overcorrection, distraction, and politicization that undermined the quality and quantity of information provided to decision-makers who compounded these failings with major misjudgments of their own."

Diamond, who written about the CIA for the Associated Press, the Chicago Tribune and USA Today, also has several news breaks in the book, including:

-- How a deliberate undermining of the CIA was critical to the neo-conservative push for the defense build-up in the 1970s and 80s, national missile defense in the 1990s and the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

-- How the chance arrest by Pakistan of a suspect, Mohammed Sadeeq Odeh, in the U.S. embassy bombing in Kenya tipped off bin Laden and caused al-Qaeda to change its plans for a leadership meeting, rendering the Clinton administration's retaliatory strike an embarrassing miss.

-- How the Iraq/WMD failure, one of the most consequential in CIA history, stemmed from one of the Agency's most notable successes. The great misjudgment prior to the Iraq invasion was the failure -- by the White House, Congress, and the CIA itself -- to even consider the possibility that this combined effort to disarm Iraq had, in fact, succeeded.

Monday Afternoon Quarterback

2008-11-17T19:54:37Z

THE CLINTON BUBBLE: Hillary Clinton's name was run up the nominations flagpole last week, and already it's looking like the Star Spangled Banner in the red rockets' glare. Notwithstanding that no less than President-elect Obama himself declined to rule out Clinton as his secretary of state last night, there's growing skepticism that Hillary's husband would accede to a confirmation process that would spotlight his messy finances, re-ignite rumors of sexual dalliances, and raise the specter of his ego hovering over State like the Met Life blimp at a World Series game. What surprises me, though, is how little comment has been directed at (1) Hillary's lone, tumultuous stint as a CEO of a major corporation: her campaign; and (2) the public relations style of her Senate office staff, who have been compared to Nixon's White House Dobermans. Both factors fly in the face of basic Obamanomics: No drama queens, and -- for now, at least -- transparency in governance.....

PARDON ME: "Speculation is rampant," Newsweek's Mike Isikoff and Mark Hosenball report, that "allies" of I. "Scooter" Libby, the Dick Cheney aide who was convicted of lying to investigators about his role in leaking the true identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, will ask President Bush to pardon him. But that's not much of a surprise, is it? Bush has already commuted his Libby's sentence. And there's a family precedent for wiping the slate clean for officials involved in intelligence shenanigans. On Christmas Eve, 1992, his father pardoned six figures involved in the Reagan-Bush administration's Iran-contra, arms-for-hostages scandal: Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger; National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane; former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams; and three CIA officials: Clair George, the former head of the CIA's clandestine services, Duane Clarridge and Alan Fiers. Interestingly, Iran was in the background of the most notorious pardon in Bill Clinton's exit: Marc Rich, the fugitive businessman who was doing business with the Islamic terrorist regime. With a pardon, Libby theoretically could pursue the return of his $250,000 fine, which he paid with a cashier's check drawn on his $5 million defense fund. But it's hard to imagine many Republicans carrying that banner when they have so much else on their minds. Plus, does Libby need it? The conservative Hudson Institute took care of him with a cushy fellowship, and the erstwhile lawyer will be eligible for reinstatement to the bar in 2012....

HOMELAND WRECKERS? With former DHS Inspector General Clark Kent Irvin co-chairing the Obama transition project at the management-challenged Homeland Security Department, the President-elect may well be presented with some radical suggestions for change. Don't be surprised if they include resetting two of its components to their pre-9/11 status, FEMA and the Secret Service, who were doing fine, thank you very much, until the politically expedient department was created in 2002....

WHAT'LL YOU HAVE BARACK? At the end of a hard day's work, President Obama could do worse than turn to James B. Steinberg, one of his top national security advisors, for a cold beer and an understanding ear. Long before he became one of Washington's most respected foreign policy hands, the affable Steinberg did a stint as a bartender at Columbia Station, a popular joint in D.C.'s funky Adams Morgan neighborhood. Steinberg had just graduated from Yale Law in 1978 and was studying for, well, the bar. It turned out to be good training: Steinberg went on to work for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Armed Service Committee, Jimmy Carter's Justice Department, and for Bill Clinton as deputy national security advisor, among other high posts. Currently, when he's not serving up foreign policy ideas to Obama, he's dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University Of Texas, Austin.

CIA Chief on Transition Danger: 'No Chatter' from Qaeda Right Now

2008-11-13T23:17:51Z

Considerable anxiety has been expressed about the possibility of al Qaeda taking advantage of the handoff of security agencies from the Bush administration to the incoming Obama team.

But according to CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, all's very quiet on the Western front.

For the moment.

Hayden, who headed the eavesdropping National Security Agency before taking the CIA job, said Thursday there had been "no increased chatter" about plots picked up by U.S. intelligence, according to my CQ colleague Tim Starks, who covered Hayden's appearance at The Atlantic Council of the United States, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

"We do not see any real or artificial spike" in that chatter as a result of the election, Hayden said in answer to a question after his speech.

On the other hand, Hayden said, "We don't know what we don't know."

Hayden also said he'd stay on in the Obama administration if asked, Starks reported.

"If asked to stay, I think both of us would seriously consider it," Hayden said of himself and Mike McConnell, the National Intelligence Director.

But Hayden also said both understand they "serve at the pleasure of the president" and that it was important there be a "personal relationship" between the president and his intelligence chiefs.

During the campaign, Obama repeatedly argued that the Iraq invasion was a mistake, because the main front against terrorism is in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

On Thursday, Hayden sounded like he was getting with the program.

"Today, the flow of money, weapons, and foreign fighters into Iraq is greatly diminished, and Al Qaeda senior leaders no longer point to it as the central battlefield," Hayden said in his formal remarks.

As for al Qaeda, the terrorist organization has suffered "serious setbacks" but is adapting, Hayden said, and its safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas "remains the most clear and present danger to the United States today."

Obama National Security Transition Leader Close to Petraeus

2008-11-13T20:09:38Z

Sarah Sewell may be coming to Washington from the lofty yards of Harvard, but she's well known in the capital's military corridors of power.

The Obama transition team yesterday named Sewell, on the faculty of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the university's Kennedy School of Government, as a team leader for the change of personnel at national security agencies.

But Sewell, a former Pentagon official in the Clinton administration, is also a close associate of Gen. David H. Petraeus, credited with turning around the situation in Iraq, mainly by crafting an alliance with Sunni tribal leaders against al Qaeda in Iraq, known as the Awakening.

In fact, Sewell forged a Pentagon-Harvard partnership that led to the creation of a new counterinsurgency doctrine, not just in Iraq, but other regions fighting off insurgencies.

To top off the program, she wrote the introduction to its defining project, the celebrated Counterinsurgency Field Manual, whose Forward was written by none other than Petraeus.

"The Sewell foreword ... really rocks," wrote one fan, military analyst Thomas Barnett wrote.

Sewell emphasized how the accidental deaths of civilians, a regular occurrence lately in Afghanistan, can set back U.S. counterinsurgency efforts.

"If one innocent civilian is killed it diminishes the goodwill of a whole family, a community, and a tribe," she wrote.

And it helps the enemy recruit.

"In this context killing the civilian is no longer just collateral damage. The harm cannot be easily dismissed as unintended. Civilian casualties tangibly undermine the counterinsurgent's goals."

Whatever one's take on her forward, Sewell's appointment suggests that Petraeus, now CENTCOM commander, is going to be around for a long while.

Iran in South America: How Much a Threat?

2008-11-12T21:03:57Z

Remember Iran?

Not much has been heard about it lately. The not-so-long-ago urgent issue faded under the blinding media coverage of the campaigns, elections and, of course, the implosion on Wall Street. The little time devoted to foreign affairs seems to be centered on what to do about Afghanistan.

But John Kiriakou, the former CIA officer last seen wringing his hands over the efficacy of water boarding, says the incoming administration needs to pay prompt attention to "Iran's Latin American Push."

Writing in the Los Angles Times, Kiriakou went beyond the usual singling out of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales as Iran's reputed agents in the hemisphere.

Kiriakou sugggested that Paraguay's new president, Fernando Lugo Mendez, is also palling around with terrorists.

"Then there's Paraguay's new president, Fernando Lugo Mendez, who was lauded in the Iranian media as 'an enemy of the Great Satan' after naming Hezbollah sympathizer and fundraiser Alejandro Hamed Franco as the country's new foreign minister. Hezbollah -- which is Iranian funded and supported -- already has a well-documented presence in Paraguay, and the U.S. State Department has banned the minister from entering the United States or from flying on a U.S. airline."

But former Washington Post and NPR editor John Dinges, who has written three books on Latin America, says Kiriakou, who served as a CIA interrogator in Pakistan, is off the mark.

"The president of Paraguay is a former Catholic bishop and hardly an extreme leftist," says Dinges, now a tenured journalism professor at Columbia University.

"He is applauded all over Latin America as doing for Paraguay what Vicente Fox did for Mexico: break more than a half century of one-party rule in Paraguay.

"I'm not familiar with his foreign minister pick. But have we entered a world in which a country's foreign minister can be branded a Hezbollah sympathizer and on that basis banned from international travel?"

Dinges also said Kiriakou needs to crank back his telescope to get a wider context on Iranian moves in Latin America.

"What is going on is competition for trade and influence in Latin America. Tehran, just as China and others, are taking advantage of the U.S. inattention over the past decade to fill the role of counterweight to the United States that used to be played by the Soviet Union. Countries like Venezuela and Bolivia want alternatives to trade and investment, and Iran is eager to break out of the U.S. quarantine."

But Kiriakou, who served as a CIA counter-terrorism official from 1998 through 2004. says the focus needs to remain tightly on Tehran.

"The real danger here doesn't have to do with an arcane diplomatic battle over who has more friends in Latin America," he wrote in the Los Angles Times.

"The problem is visa-free Iranian travel and the potential creation of a terrorist base of operations in the United States' backyard. If anyone with an Iranian passport may enter Bolivia without a visa or any further documentation, the country will soon be open to covert officers of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, its Islamic Revolutionary Guard, which the State Department recently declared a terrorist organization, and the Quds Force, an Iranian military group whose mandate is to spread Islamic revolution around the world."

But here again, Dinges says Kiriakou needs to take a deep breath.

"This is a lot of huffing and puffing from a [former] counterterrorism official, in which otherwise benign international activities are portrayed as tantamount to preparations for terrorist acts," he said by e-mail.

"But if you look at the actual activities Iran is engaged in in these countries, it is a stretch to see them as anything but normal diplomatic and economic relations.

"It is an enormous stretch to say that a gas factory in Bolivia together with loosening visa restrictions is setting the stage for Hezbollah terrorism directed from Latin America," he said.

And so it goes.

At some point in the new administration, I suppose Washington will start paying attention to Latin America again. I suspect President Obama and his national security team will look at the region as a piece of the puzzle they face in the Middle East.

The Spy Game Meets the Great Mentioner

2008-11-11T23:24:31Z

The Great Mentioner is busy, busy, busy these days, feeding the media frenzy for names of people "under consideration," as they say, for top positions in the Obama administration - including the spy agencies.

The Wall Street Journal's estimable Siobhan Gorman weighed in Tuesday with her own interesting mentionables to lead the CIA and the National Intelligence Directorate, making the point that none of them could be accused of palling around with terrorists.

Bill Ayers, in other words, is not on the list.

"Most of those being discussed as candidates for director of national intelligence and director of the CIA have staked out a middle ground between safeguarding civil liberties and aggressively pursuing nontraditional adversaries," wrote Gorman, singling out former CIA official John Brennan as a leading candidate to return to the spy agency as its boss.

"Mr. Brennan is a leading contender for one of the two jobs, say some advisers. He declined to comment on personnel matters. Gen. James L. Jones, a former North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander; Thomas Fingar, the chief of analysis for the [national] intelligence director; Joan A. Dempsey, who served in top intelligence and Pentagon posts; former Rep. Tim Roemer of Indiana, who served on the 9/11 Commission; and [California Democratic Rep. Jane] Harman have also been mentioned. Ms. Harman has also been cited as a potential secretary of homeland security."

Liberals would swoon over Fingar, I suspect. As head of State Department intelligence in the first Bush administration, he was the only intelligence official who called it right on Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. And he oversaw the writing of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program that many credit - or blame - for blunting what seemed like an imminent Bush administration attack on Iran.

None of the others mentioned are likely to upset Obamamaniacs too much, either.

But Brennan shouldn't be a slam dunk, caution some intelligence insiders, who say Brennan's operational dossier is too thin for the post.

Brennan got the Terrorist Threat Analysis Center (now the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) up and running after 9/11, they acknowledge, but he wouldn't have gotten the job if he hadn't been then-CIA Director George Tenet's executive assistant. He has no counterterrorism field experience.

One CIA official who absolutely should be back in Washington running something, say some, is David Cohen, who left Langley after 9/11 to join the NYPD as Deputy Director for Intelligence.

Cohen hates publicity. The NYPD's hiring statement was brief:

"From 1995 to 1997, Cohen directed the CIA's Directorate of Operations, where he oversaw the agency's worldwide operations, managed the CIA's global network of offices and personnel, and maintained agency relationships with foreign intelligence and security services. From 1991 to 1995, Cohen was deputy director of the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, where he guided the agency's analysis program, which reviewed every political, economic, and military assessment prepared by the CIA for the President and his senior national security advisors. Cohen's career at the CIA was marked by his leadership in combating global terrorism, international organized crime, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."

One intelligence insider said Cohen should replace Charlie Allen as chief of Information and Analysis (IA) at the Homeland Security Department. When Allen came to DHS in 2005, he'd already spent a half century at CIA.

"Cohen has built the best homeland security Intel organization in the country" at the NYPD, this person said, "much better than DHS/IA and comparable with both the DI and DO [the CIA's directorates of Intelligence and Operations] but at a localized level."

Many would agree.