Saturday, May 29, 2010

Ukranians Roll Over for Russia's FSB

Ukraine Ends Counterintelligence Work on Russian FSB Officials - Paper
29/05/201011:57
KIEV, May 29 (RIA Novosti)

Ukrainian counterintelligence services have stopped monitoring Russian Security Service (FSB) officials stationed in Ukraine, a Ukrainian weekly paper said on Saturday.

Relations between Russia and Ukraine have dramatically improved since President Viktor Yanukovych was elected in February on a platform to roll back the pro-Western policies of his predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, and heal damaged ties with Moscow.

"As a gesture of goodwill and to demonstrate new policies, the counterintelligence department ended all work on Russian security services in Ukraine," Zerkalo Nedeli said.

The Ukrainian security services have so far not made an official comment on this report.

A cooperation agreement was signed by the heads of the Ukrainian and Russian Security Services on May 19. The agreement includes a decision to return Russian security service officials to Crimea, where Russia has a naval base. The Russian security services were ordered to leave the territory at the end of 2009.

See: http://en.rian.ru/world/20100529/159209138.htmlSphere: Related Content

Friday, May 28, 2010

Naxalite's Winning?

Are India's Maoist rebels winning the war?

BBC News . . .
Friday's train crash in India has been blamed on "sabotage" by Maoist rebels. It was the latest in a series of rebel attacks after the government launched an offensive against them. The BBC's Soutik Biswas asks whether the rebels are gaining the upper hand.

It is not surprising that Maoist rebels are being blamed for the derailment of an express train in India's West Bengal state, in which 71 passengers were killed.

The police claim they have found posters signed by a local Maoist militia claiming responsibility for removing part of the track, which led to the train skidding off and colliding with a freight train coming in the opposite direction.

West Midnapore district, where the incident happened, is the hotbed of Maoist rebellion in West Bengal, one of the states where the rebels have a presence.

Tribespeople dominate the district, especially the forested Junglemahal region bordering Jharkhand state.

They feel ignored and deprived by the Communist government which has been ruling the state since 1977. Most live in abject poverty. The only visible signs of "development" I spotted during a trip to the area some years ago were cheap liquor shops.

Strong support

Fed up with the state of affairs, Junglemahal's tribespeople even agitated for a separate state.

When neighbouring Jharkhand was carved out as a separate state, their alienation grew and they were quick to welcome to Maoists, who wield most influence in areas which are poor and dominated by tribespeople.

The Lalgarh area in Junglemahal is the rebels' most formidable stronghold.

In February, they stormed a police camp in Lalgarh, killing 24 policemen.

Rebels love to describe Lalgarh as a "liberated zone" where the state has withered away - schools have closed down because teachers are afraid to attend, and policemen have deserted police stations fearing reprisals.

Friday's incident in West Midnapore demonstrates how the rebels are taking the battle to their enemies ever since the federal government launched an offensive in what is known as India's "red corridor" earlier this year.

This comprises 223 of India's 636 districts in 20 states which the government says are "Maoist affected", up from 55 districts in nine states six years ago.

Ninety of these affected districts, the government says, are experiencing "consistent violence."

The rebels have been carrying out attacks with impunity in recent months - two major attacks Dantewada in Chhattisgarh state left more than 100 people dead, including 75 paramilitary troops.

But there are also theories that in this case the Maoist script went slightly awry.

Maoists frequently tamper with railway lines and often these lead to minor derailments; a number of such attempts have been caught well in time. There have been hijackings but no major attacks on civilian transport with such a death toll.

In the past year, Maoists have carried out 32 attacks on railways, mainly in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh - but no major casualties have been reported.

Support for the Maoist cause across India generally will be dented by such an attack, just as it was after the assault on troops in Dantewada.

Following the twin Dantewada attacks, the government said it was reviewing its strategy for fighting the rebels, who have refused to respond to repeated government offers for talks.

Analysts say that the strategy of "clearing, holding and developing" rebel-affected areas evidently inspired by the US strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan is not working.

'Visible retreat'

One reason, they say, is that the surge of security forces and resources on the ground are not sufficient enough to take on the rebels who are spread over a vast swathe of remote mineral-rich forest lands.

The government is now in a "visible retreat" after a spree of rebel attacks, says security analyst Ajai Sahni.

He believes that a lack of adequate forces, training and intelligence is leading to these "disasters".

"Unless local capacities for intelligence and operations are enormously augmented, this [offensive] can go nowhere, and lot of lives are going to be lost for no useful purpose," Mr Sahni says.

But the under-equipped local police and intelligence-gathering networks remain Indian security' s weakest link, and there no visible efforts to bolster them.

The government appears to be confused over how the rebels should be tackled - there are differences in the ruling Congress party itself on whether the state should strike hard against it's own people.

Recently federal home minister P Chidambaram requested wider powers to deal with the rebels, saying that he had been given a "limited mandate."

He said the chief ministers of some of the worst affected states have asked for air power to be used against the rebels - a measure that the government has refused to sanction.

Analysts believe that many states are not doing enough to take on the rebels, leading to a "centralisation" of the problem.

"The principal responsibility for dealing with the Maoists remain that of the states; the first responders, the local police stations, have to be strengthened and equipped to deal with the task on their own."

Till that happens, the rebels will be seen to have an upper hand in what promises to be long drawn out and bloody conflict, the like of which India has never seen.
Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/8710747.stmSphere: Related Content

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Interrogation Facility at Bagram

Inside the Secret Interrogation Facility at Bagram

By Marc Ambinder
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) runs a classified interrogation facility for high-value detainees inside Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, defense and administration officials said, and prisoners there are sometimes subject to tougher interrogation methods than those used elsewhere.

Both the New York Times and the BBC reported that prisoners who passed through the facility reported abuse, like beatings and sexual humiliation, to the Red Cross, which is not allowed access. The commander in charge of detention operations in Afghanistan, Vice Admiral Robert Harward, has insisted that all detainees under his purview have regular Red Cross access and are not mistreated.

It has been previously reported that the facility, beige on the outside with a green gate, was operated by members of a Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) group, allegedly outside of Harward's jurisdiction. But JSOC, a component command made up of highly secret special mission units and task forces, does not operate the facility.

Instead, it is manned by intelligence operatives and interrogators who work for the DIA's Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center (DCHC). They perform interrogations for a sub-unit of Task Force 714, an elite counter-terrorism brigade.

Called the "black jail" by some of those who have transited through it, it is a way-point for detainees who are thought to possess actionable information about the Taliban or Al Qaeda.

Intelligence gleaned from these interrogations has often led to some of the military's highest profile captures. Usually, captives are first detained at one of at least six classified Field Interrogation Sites in Afghanistan, and then dropped off at the DIA facility -- and, when the interrogators are finished, transferred to the main prison population at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility.

"DoD does operate some temporary screening detention facilities which are classified to preserve operational security; however, both the [Red Cross] and the host nation have knowledge of these facilities," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesperson. "Screening facilities help military officials determine if an individual should be detained further and assists military forces with timely information vital to ongoing operations." Whitman would not say who ran the facility or provide any details. A DIA spokesperson declined to comment, as did the White House, which referred questions to the Pentagon.

Under a directive issued by the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, those captured on the battlefield can be detained for only 96 hours unless they are deemed to possess intelligence value. In practice, military units can unofficially transfer detainees they pick up to other field units before they arrive at interrogation sites, giving American and Afghan interrogators more time to ferret out useful information.

According to other officials, personnel at the facility are supposed to follow the Army Field Manual's guidelines for interrogations. When he took office, President Obama signed an executive order banning the Central Intelligence Agency and the military from using techniques not listed in the manual. But he has a task force studying whether the expressly manual-approved tactics are sufficient.

However, under secret authorization, the DIA interrogators use methods detailed in an appendix to the Field Manual, Appendix M, which spells out "restricted" interrogation techniques.

Under certain circumstances, interrogators can deprive prisoners of sleep (four hours at a time, for up to 30 days), to confuse their senses, and to keep them separate from the rest of the prison population. The Red Cross is now notified if the captives are kept at the facility for longer than two weeks.

When interrogators are using Appendix M measures, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Gen.James Clapper (Ret.) is the man on the hook. Detainees designated as prisoners of war cannot be subjected to Appendix M measures.

The DCHC is a relatively new organization. It has several branches and has absorbed staff from the the now largely disbanded Strategic Support Branch, which provided CIA-like intelligence services to ground combat units. The DCHC also performs some of the work that the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), which was accused of spying on American political groups, used to do. Many of the staff, civilian and military, as well as many contractors, previously worked with CIFA.

Defense officials said that the White House is kept appraised of the methods used by interrogators at the site. The reason why the Red Cross hasn't been invited to tour it, officials said, was because the U.S. does not believe it to be a detention facility, classifying it instead as an intelligence gathering facility.

A Defense official said that the agency's inspector general had launched an internal investigation into reports in the Washington Post that several teenagers were beaten by the interrogators, but Whitman disputes this.

When the Obama Administration took over, it forbade the DIA from keeping prisoners in the facility longer than 30 days, although it is not clear how that dictum is enforced. It is also not clear how much Congress knows about the DIA's interrogation procedures, which have largely escaped public scrutiny.

"In all our facilities the standard is humane treatment and all DoD detention facilities are required to be compliant with Common Article III, The Detainee Treatment Act, the Executive Order signed by the President last year, and the DoD Detainee Directive and the Army Field Manual," Whitman said.

Although the CIA's enhanced interrogation program was investigated and a Justice Department prosecutor is currently reviewing those files, the Defense Department's parallel activities have been given little scrutiny. To this day, the Department denies the existence of a "special access program," codenamed "Copper Green," which allegedly authorized military interrogators to use extremely harsh methods, including the infliction of sexual humiliation, on high-value terrorists.

Only about 200 military and civilian personnel were aware of Copper Green's existence before it was disclosed by the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh. The CIA's program, known internally by the acronym "GST," has been discontinued. Although "Copper Green" was disbanded, the Defense Department's detainee affairs section has set up a new special access program under which the rules for battlefield interrogations are established. It is classified Top Secret.

Bagram is in the middle of a major expansion, and the DIA facility is being renovated, officials said.

Harward, a former special operations squadron commander, has said he hopes to turn the base over to the Afghan military by 2011.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/05/inside-the-secret-interrogation-facility-at-bagram/56678/

Inside the Secret Interrogation Facility at Bagram - International - The AtlanticSphere: Related Content

Friday, May 7, 2010

U.S. Soldier Opiate Abuse Skyrockets

Original Pentagon email record stated:
Question: Any and all reports on US military members returning to the U.S.
from Afghanistan & requiring rehabilitation or other treatment for opium (and/or derivatives) use.

Answer: Based on enrollments figures from the Army Substance Abuse Program
(ASAP) counseling program, below data represents the total number of all Army Component Soldiers who were enrolled in ASAP counseling with a primary enrollment basis of Opiates Misuse:

2004: 89
2005: 135
2006: 122
2007: 170
2008: 353
2009: 529

*Note: The above enrollment figures with a basis of Opiates Misuse is for the total Army, the ASAP does not have the granularity to break out above enrollment data by those Soldiers who deployed and returned from Afghanistan.

* * *

Number of Soldiers Seeking Opiate Abuse Treatment Skyrockets
Judson Berger ~ FOXNews.com, May 06, 2010

The number of American soldiers seeking treatment for opiate abuse has skyrocketed over the past five years, at a time when the U.S. military has been surging forces into the heart of the world's leading opium producer.

The number of American soldiers seeking treatment for opiate abuse has skyrocketed over the past five years, at a time when the U.S. military has been surging forces into the heart of the world's leading opium producer.

Pentagon statistics obtained by FoxNews.com show that the number of Army soldiers enrolled in Substance Abuse Program counseling for opiates has soared nearly 500 percent -- from 89 in 2004 to 529 last year. The number showed a steady increase almost every year in that time frame -- but it leaped 50 percent last year when the U.S. began surging troops into Afghanistan. Army troop levels in Afghanistan went from 14,000 as of the end of 2004 to 46,400 as of the end of 2009.

The Army did not break down the opiate-use data to show how many of the soldiers had been deployed to Afghanistan or what specific opiates they were using; opiate drugs include morphine, codeine and heroin.

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. Army spokesman, said the military has been monitoring the uptick and is "concerned about it." He said the numbers reflect use not only of heroin, but of prescription drugs, that the abuse may not be "directly correlated to previous deployments," and that the increase could reflect an increase in reporting abuse -- not just drug use itself.

But the abundance and accessibility of heroin in Afghanistan surely account for part of the jump, said Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, an Army Reserve officer who served in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2004.

Shaffer said heroin abuse had "started to get out of hand" when he was in the country. He said a "black market" existed where troops on U.S. bases would trade goods to local Afghans in exchange for heroin.

"It sounds like it kind of went way beyond that," he said after learning about the statistics. "It's inevitable. ... It's available. It's right there."

Shaffer, who now works with the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, said the availability of the product combined with high stress levels from multiple tours of duty amounts to a dangerous mix that can lead to hard drug abuse.

As a potential measure of Army stress levels, suicides have steadily climbed in recent years. The Army reported there were 160 possible suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2009, up from 140 the year before.

The opiate-use statistics were first obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch, which requested them through a Freedom of Information Act inquiry and provided them to FoxNews.com. The Army confirmed the authenticity of the report.

Chris Farrell, director of investigation with Judicial Watch and a former Army intelligence officer, said he sought the data to see what kind of impact Afghanistan's locally produced drug supply may be having on U.S. troops.

"This whole situation detracts, obviously, from mission readiness," he said, noting that actual hard drug use is probably far higher than the numbers show. "It's a public interest issue."

David Rittgers, a former Special Forces officer who served in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2004, said he didn't see opiate abuse among U.S. forces while he was in the war zone, though it was "rampant" in the Afghan forces. But he said the abuse of drugs ranging from painkillers to heroin could also occur after soldiers return home from deployment and have trouble readjusting to life in the States.

"This is an outlet, just as alcohol abuse is an outlet," said Rittgers, who is a reserve JAG officer and clarified that he is not a Pentagon spokesman.

While the number of soldiers seeking treatment has risen dramatically, urinalysis drug tests in Afghanistan do not reflect the trend. According to the Army data, soldiers tested positive for heroin use just twice in the past three years.

Western forces have given mixed signals about how heavily they are targeting opium drug production in Afghanistan, a major source of funding for the Taliban. The DEA said last month that opium seizures rose 924 percent in 2009. But recent reports have said the military is focusing far more on fighting the Taliban than in cutting off the opium supply at the source.

While some say going after opium farming worsens relations between Western forces and the local population, others say eradication is critical.

Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the former U.S. drug czar, said during a speech to the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers last year that the military risks exposing its troops to drug abuse problems if it doesn't destroy the opium crops.

"I'd be astonished if we don't see soldiers who find 10 kilograms of heroin and pack it up in a birthday cake and send it home to their mother with a note that says, 'Don't open this package until I'm home,'" he said, according to an article on the speech in the Palm Beach Post

See:

FOXNews.com - Number of Soldiers Seeking Opiate Abuse Treatment Skyrockets


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Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Blueprint for CIA's Future Unveiled

CIA Director Leon E. Panetta Unveils Blueprint for Agency’s Future

April 26, 2010


In remarks this morning to the Agency workforce, Director Leon E. Panetta unveiled CIA 2015, his blueprint for the organization’s future. CIA 2015 is an aggressive plan that builds on outstanding work done since 9/11. Its goal is to ensure that the Agency continues to act decisively on today’s national security challenges—such as terrorism, the proliferation of dangerous technology, cyber threats, and the actions of rogue states—while pivoting more easily toward emerging priorities.

“There’s something I’ve often said about government, but it applies to every organization,” said Director Panetta. “We govern either by leadership or by crisis. Leadership means making tough choices and planning ahead. That’s why we’re taking a hard look at future challenges, and what we want our Agency to look like five years from now. It’s our responsibility to get out in front of any problems, and CIA 2015 will help us do that.”

Director Panetta outlined CIA 2015’s three pillars. The first is investing in people. The CIA will recruit, train, and retain a highly talented and diverse workforce with the strengths to tackle any mission that arises. Bolstering the Agency’s foreign language capabilities is essential to that objective. The plan doubles the number of clandestine officers—and triples the number of analysts—enrolled in language training.

The CIA will enhance its use of more flexible and innovative deployments overseas—including new approaches to cover—paving the way for even better intelligence collection. More co-location of analysts and operators at home and abroad will both enrich the information provided to policymakers and lead to even more operational success in the field. This sort of fusion has more than proved its value over the years, and has been key to victories in counterterrorism and counterproliferation, among other disciplines.

The second pillar is investing in technology to extend the CIA’s operational and analytic reach and become more efficient. Agency personnel must be able to operate effectively and securely in a rapidly changing global information environment. The plan boosts the CIA’s potential for human-enabled technical collection and provides advanced software tools to help Agency officers tackle the huge volume of data they encounter in their work.

The third pillar is to achieve a new level of agility in maintaining the Agency’s global presence and surging for emergencies. The Agency will transform its support platforms around the world and consolidate certain business functions. Director Panetta commended the Agency’s tradition of minimal bureaucracy, a key ingredient in its responsiveness and impact. “When we’re told to get a job done, we can do it,” he said. “But we can’t take anything for granted. As good as we are, we can be better. As capable as we are, we can do more. As smart as we are, we can be tougher.”

He closed by paying tribute to the men and women of the CIA. Noting the bravery that Agency officers so often show—including in situations overseas like natural disasters that go beyond their intelligence charter—Director Panetta said, “You reflect not only America’s strength, but its ingenuity and decency, too.”

“During the course of my career, I’ve come to appreciate the people who truly focus on doing what’s right for the nation. I’m honored to lead this Agency and to be part of its amazing mission. My goal is to build on the strengths of the CIA and keep it the very best intelligence agency in the 21st century. Every generation has dedicated itself to the American dream of giving our children a better life. The test of our success is whether we can give our children a safer world.”

The Director’s session with employees, held in the Headquarters Auditorium, was also broadcast to CIA personnel in the Washington area and overseas.



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Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Operation Mincemeat and Spycraft in World War Two

Pandora’s Briefcase
It was a dazzling feat of wartime espionage. But does it argue for or against spying?
by Malcolm Gladwell

On April 30, 1943, a fisherman came across a badly decomposed corpse floating in the water off the coast of Huelva, in southwestern Spain. The body was of an adult male dressed in a trenchcoat, a uniform, and boots, with a black attaché case chained to his waist. His wallet identified him as Major William Martin, of the Royal Marines. The Spanish authorities called in the local British vice-consul, Francis Haselden, and in his presence opened the attaché case, revealing an official-looking military envelope. The Spaniards offered the case and its contents to Haselden. But Haselden declined, requesting that the handover go through formal channels—an odd decision, in retrospect, since, in the days that followed, British authorities in London sent a series of increasingly frantic messages to Spain asking the whereabouts of Major Martin’s briefcase.

It did not take long for word of the downed officer to make its way to German intelligence agents in the region. Spain was a neutral country, but much of its military was pro-German, and the Nazis found an officer in the Spanish general staff who was willing to help. A thin metal rod was inserted into the envelope; the documents were then wound around it and slid out through a gap, without disturbing the envelope’s seals. What the officer discovered was astounding. Major Martin was a courier, carrying a personal letter from Lieutenant General Archibald Nye, the vice-chief of the Imperial General Staff, in London, to General Harold Alexander, the senior British officer under Eisenhower in Tunisia. Nye’s letter spelled out what Allied intentions were in southern Europe. American and British forces planned to cross the Mediterranean from their positions in North Africa, and launch an attack on German-held Greece and Sardinia. Hitler transferred a Panzer division from France to the Peloponnese, in Greece, and the German military command sent an urgent message to the head of its forces in the region: “The measures to be taken in Sardinia and the Peloponnese have priority over any others.”

The Germans did not realize—until it was too late—that “William Martin” was a fiction. The man they took to be a high-level courier was a mentally ill vagrant who had eaten rat poison; his body had been liberated from a London morgue and dressed up in officer’s clothing. The letter was a fake, and the frantic messages between London and Madrid a carefully choreographed act. When a hundred and sixty thousand Allied troops invaded Sicily on July 10, 1943, it became clear that the Germans had fallen victim to one of the most remarkable deceptions in modern military history.

The story of Major William Martin is the subject of the British journalist Ben Macintyre’s brilliant and almost absurdly entertaining “Operation Mincemeat” (Harmony; $25.99). The cast of characters involved in Mincemeat, as the caper was called, was extraordinary, and Macintyre tells their stories with gusto. The ringleader was Ewen Montagu, the son of a wealthy Jewish banker and the brother of Ivor Montagu, a pioneer of table tennis and also, in one of the many strange footnotes to the Mincemeat case, a Soviet spy. Ewen Montagu served on the so-called Twenty Committee of the British intelligence services, and carried a briefcase full of classified documents on his bicycle as he rode to work each morning.

MORE . . .
Operation Mincemeat and spycraft in World War Two: newyorker.comSphere: Related Content