Checkbook Counterinsurgency

Economic action is considered to be an indispensable aspect to a successful counterinsurgency program.

But you have to make sure that the funding fits as seamlessly as possible with the other two legs of the tripod -- political action and military action.

Simply throwing this kind of money into a situation in which it can potentially be siphoned off by corrupt elements in the Pakistani government and military, or -- more likely -- much less savory types, could work against U.S. interests in the long run.

The fact that the Pakistani people -- due to cultural sensitivities -- will generally not be made aware of the source of the assistance (unlike most U.S. foreign aid programs) is an additional argument against the premise of the endeavor.

The United States plans to pour $750 million of aid into Pakistan's tribal areas over the next five years as part of a "hearts and minds" campaign to win over this lawless region from Qaeda and Taliban militants.

But even before the plan has been fully carried out, documents and officials involved in the planning are warning of the dangers of distributing so much money in an area so hostile that oversight is impossible, even by Pakistan's own government, which faces rising threats from Islamic militants.

Who will be given the aid has quickly become one of the most contentious questions between local officials and American planners concerned that millions might fall into the wrong hands. The local political agents and tribal chiefs in this hinterland on the Afghan border have for years accommodated the very groups the American and Pakistani governments seek to drive out.

A closely scripted visit to the hospital here, used for a pilot project by the United States Agency for International Development, showed the challenges on full display. The one-story hospital here was virtually empty on a recent day.

Local people had no way to get there. Three of the 110 beds were occupied. Two operating tables had not been used in months. Many doctors had left because the pay was too meager and security too precarious, said Dr. Yusuf Shah, the chief surgeon. ...

"Delivering $150 million in aid to the tribal areas could very quickly make a few people rich and do almost nothing to provide opportunity and justice to the region," said Craig Cohen, the author of a recent study of United States-Pakistan relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Yet it is here in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, as the region is formally called, that Washington is intent on using the development aid as a counterinsurgency tool, according to a draft of the Agency for International Development plan given to The New York Times by an official who worked on it. ...

The hostility to almost anything that smacks of foreign influence is such that money from the modest development agency program, administered by the charity Save the Children at the hospital here, was being delivered anonymously, undercutting any potential public relations benefit for the United States.

"We can't do branding," said Fayyaz Ali Khan, the program manager for Save the Children, in an interview in the city of Peshawar. "Usually we say the aid comes from the American people, but here we can't." ...

A senior American official in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, who would not speak for attribution, defended the plan's goals as necessary and achievable. The official said that "Pakistani firms, consulting organizations and nongovernmental organizations" would be the main deliverers of the assistance.

The official said, referring to the international aid agency, that these would in turn be "managed under USAID direct contracts and grants to American and international organizations."

Mr. Cohen, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was skeptical. Almost every potential recipient of the money was suspect in the eyes of the people it was supposed to help, he said. "The notion that there’s going to be $150 million a year to Pakistani nongovernmental organizations who are going to be out in the open seems naïve to me," he said.

Strategic PSYOP in Egypt

An absolute textbook example of Strategic PSYOP:

The guerrilla leader who crafted what became al-Qaeda's guide to jihad is preparing to renounce its extremes, including the killing of innocent civilians, according to his onetime colleagues and his own writings.

Abdul-Aziz el-Sherif, an emir, or top leader, of the armed Egyptian movement Islamic Jihad and a longtime associate of al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, is writing his dissent behind prison walls on Egypt's Nile River.

Such jailhouse "revisions," as they are known here, have helped to widen rifts between al-Qaeda and some of its former admirers and have led to the release of thousands of erstwhile Islamic extremists from Egypt's prisons.

"It will be a challenge to al-Qaeda, from someone from inside, who speaks the same language," said Kamal Habib, a former Islamic Jihad leader imprisoned for 10 years after Islamic extremists assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981. ...

Fawaz A. Gerges, a Middle East scholar at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, said the revisions "pour fuel on a raging struggle within the jihadist community and . . . challenge the narrative offered by Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden." ...

The main body of Sherif's revision is a tract of no more than 100 pages that Egypt's state security forces and state-allied religious scholars are vetting. Publication is expected to lead to Egypt's release of up to 5,000 former Islamic Jihad members and other activists. ...

Sherif's 1980s book, "Basic Principles in Making Preparations for Jihad," became the theological guide to combat for al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups. In it, he labeled as apostates judges, lawyers, soldiers, police and much of the rest of Egyptian society, casting them as legitimate targets for killing.

The concept of jihad itself is much debated among Muslims. Meaning "struggle," jihad is regarded as a duty that most see as a personal and peaceful commitment to carry out the word of God. For Sherif and others, the struggle remains an armed one. ...

As Egypt's security forces jailed thousands of members of Islamic Jihad, the Islamic Group and other organizations, Egyptian state security officials struggled to discredit their religious rationale for armed attacks, said Allam, the former Egyptian state security director.

In the late 1990s, imprisoned leaders of the Islamic Group issued written revisions that Gerges said amounted to unconditional surrender.

(Retired Gen. Fouad Allam, a former Egyptian state security director) and others promoted the revisions by jailed Islamic leaders, arranging theological debates carried in television programs and newspapers and held in public squares and sports arenas. ...

In a letter faxed from Toura to the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper this year, Sherif pointed to what he called the prohibitions in Islamic law against excesses in jihad and offered what analysts saw as a preview of his revision.

He cited Koranic verse: "Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress the limits, for God loveth not transgressors."

His letter said Islam forbids killing people solely on the grounds of their nationality, skin color or sect, and it forbids killing innocents.

Persuading influential Muslim clerics to condemn the actions of Osama Bin Laden has been an important part of the U.S. covert war on Islamist terrorism since 9/11.

The effort here to have one of the most radical exemplars of the Islamist movement redefine jihad is an accomplishment that has been years in the making.

Cyber-Herding Black Sheep

[M]ilitary academics are mulling new ways to challenge [Islamic extremists] in cyberspace.

Web sites aimed at attracting new generations of Islamic militants have multiplied steadily in recent years, and their number is now estimated to be in the thousands. Although tech-savvy extremists are known to attack Western computer networks through hacking and other means, many experts consider the silent spread of easy-to-set-up anti-American propaganda Web sites more dangerous because they are difficult for the military to counteract.

Incoming Army Chief Information Officer Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson said this week that the battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide is raging in full force on the Web — a fact, he added, that the military has to contend with.

Information about concerted efforts by the Pentagon or other government agencies to fight the spread of Islamic anti-Western propaganda sites is difficult to obtain because most activities fall into the realm of secret intelligence operations.

Naval Postgraduate School Professor John Arquilla, an expert and adviser to the Pentagon on information operations and electronic warfare, would speak only in general terms about the military’s approach to the issue. According to the school’s Web site, Arquilla is working on a classified study of deception operations against terrorist networks for Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England.

Arquilla said his goals are finding ways to exploit the widespread Internet use among militant Islamists and to deter extremists from using the Web if their activities in cyberspace cannot be exploited.

Experts say Islamic militants are drawn to the Web because it offers a cheap and quick way of mass communication. Most important, it allows them to act anonymously, the experts say.

Air Force Capt. David Moon, who studies information operations under Arquilla, has proposed a way of using the Web’s culture of anonymity to the military’s advantage. [Moon's paper: Cyber-Herding - Exploiting Islamic Extremists Use of the Internet. pdf. Beware, reading it might make you blush of AOE (acute onset embarassment). -M1]

Moon's work garnered some attention from military leaders at the National Defense Industrial Association’s annual conference on special operations and low-intensity conflict earlier this year. His paper on what he and Arquilla have dubbed cyber herding won first prize in the conference essay competition.

Cyber-herding seeks to gradually drive Islamic extremists to Web sites covertly controlled by the U.S. government. To achieve this, the author envisions a sequence of several phases.

First, officials would scour the Internet for extremist Web sites and chat rooms. Next, they would participate in the conversations there posing as militant sympathizers, with the goal of developing a detailed understanding of the site’s clientèle. Then, officials would duplicate the entire body of information from each site and place it on new, U.S.-owned Web sites that bear loose resemblance to the originals.

In what Moon calls the demolition phase, officials would try to remove the original extremist Web sites — either through legal protests with the Web site host or by hacking them — in the hope that extremists will flock to the newly created American-controlled sites, where U.S. officials could discreetly shape the type and tone of the conversations.

Applied to Iraq, for example, cyber-herding could help counteract the widespread perception of American troops there as occupiers, Moon said in a brief interview this week. [Sales pitches are per definition (DSM-V) notoriously delusional in tone and claim so young Moon need not be immediately subjected to a vigorous regimen of psychotropic salvation. -M1]

Questions remain about whether cyber-herding is merely an academic exercise or if the military has taken an interest in putting the idea into practice. Moon and Arquilla declined to comment on that.

Lawmakers also are interested in the issue of Islamic extremist Web sites. Next week, the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute [MEMRI] will host a presentation on the issue on Capitol Hill. The event is sponsored by Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Middle East and South Asia subcommittee, and Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), the panel’s ranking member.
-FCW Excerpt

Showdown Coming Next Week Over NSA CATCH-ALL Document Subpoenas

President Bush has until Wednesday to decide whether the White House will wage a Constitutional war on two fronts, when subpoenaed documents about the scope and legality of the President's warrantless wiretapping program are due to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

If Bush decides to buck the Senate's demands by asserting Executive Privilege, Senator Patrick Leahy -- the the sharp-tongued Vermont Democrat helming the committee, will likely initiate contempt proceedings, as is happening in the House, where the President has prevented testimony in the controversy over the politically-motivated firings of U.S. Attorneys.

Leahy subpoenaed the White House, the Vice President, the National Security Council and the Justice Department on June 27, seeking documents about the legal opinions justifying the spy program, spying agreements with the nation's telecoms and documents related to denying Justice Department investigators security clearances to look into the program.

According to the government's admission, the program, given the tautological moniker Terrorist Surveillance Program by the government, spied on Americans emails and phone calls when the National Security Agency believed that one of the parties to the conversation had links to terrorism and that one end of the conversation was outside the United States.

Given the administration is trying to squash suits against itself and against its alleged telecom partners in the warrantless snooping based on the notion, there's little chance the Administration will give their Democratic foe the documents he wants. Instead, they will likely find another way to re-send the message that Vice Presidet Cheney famously sent Leahy. But how will they do it? Turn over a limited number of almost blank papers? Flat out refuse to testify or give documents, citing executive privilege? A horse head in Leahy's bed? Will someone from the Administration eventually end up in Congress's little known jail cell?

The spying matter is now playing on the big screen both in Congress and the courts.

The president's spying program recently surmounted one legal challenge when an appeals court struck down a lower court decision that the program was illegal, ruling that the journalists and lawyers who sued couldn't prove they were spied on so had no standing to sue.

However, another suit now enmeshed in the Ninth Circuit may be able to evade that Catch-22, since the plaintiffs claim that the government accidentally gave them a document showing they were spied upon without a warrant.

For those of you who like to keep track, ACLU has a illustrated scorecard on who has been subpoenaed and what documents the group wants to see requested. The Administration is likely to signal its intentions prior to Wednesday's deadline, so start your popcorn maker now.

A New GIG In Town

The Global Information Grid (GIG), an open-yet-secure mega-Internet in which all soldiers may have their own IPv6 address, is moving from the concept phase and into the hardware/software development phase (see the figure). In a sense, it's ironic that the defense and intelligence establishment is reinventing what it helped to create in the first place, but the commercial Internet is too vulnerable to be a military asset.

The Internet itself is the offspring of the military's ARPANET. FidoNet, UUCP, and other networks soon followed. Over time, TCP/IP made all of these systems interoperable. That ad-hoc development allowed for too many weakpoints and hidey-holes in the Internet and the World Wide Web, making it unacceptable for battlefield command and control operations. So, it was back to the drawing board.

GENESIS
GIG was born on Sept. 19, 2002 when a directive from the Deputy Secretary of Defense titled "Global Information Grid Overarching Policy" spelled out its definition: "The globally interconnected, end-to-end set of information capabilities, associated processes, and personnel for collecting, processing, storing, disseminating and managing information on demand to warfighters, policy makers, and support personnel."

The paper mandated that the GIG include all owned and leased communications and computing systems and services, software, applications, data, security services, and other associated services like National Security Systems.

Its purpose would be to support all Department of Defense (DoD), national security, and related intelligence community missions and functions—"in war and in peace"—from any operating location: bases, posts, camps, stations, etc. Additionally, it would provide interfaces to coalition, allied, and non-DoD users and systems.

That's the top-level definition from a long document, so naturally, it's nebulous. To brief Congress, the General Accounting office published an assessment, The Global Information Grid and Challenges Facing Its Implementation. Running only 37 pages, it's one of the clearest overviews, summarizing how the GIG is intended to upgrade military operations (see the table). If you download it, scroll down to page 31 for a bibliography of relevant documents (see "Use The Net To Learn More About The Grid,").

The GIG has its roots in the concept of network-centric warfare, which is now more often called network-centric operations. Sources on the Web point to Admiral William Owens' description of a "system of systems" in a 1996 paper for the Institute of National Security Studies as a seminal event. Owens wrote of a potential system of intelligence sensors, command and control systems, and precision weapons for enhanced situational awareness, rapid target assessment, and distributed weapon assignment.

Also in 1996, the Joint Chiefs of Staff released a paper on "full-spectrum dominance." Subsequently, John Gartska, David Alberts, and Fred Stein wrote a book called Network Centric Warfare for the Command and Control Research Program (CCRP) that related a number of business case studies to a new theory of warfare based on a military network.

Toward the end of 2003, John Osterholz, the Pentagon's director of architecture and interoperability, addressed the top Internet hardware companies at an IPv6 Summit. (The GIG was going to use version 6 of the Internet Protocol, with its vastly larger capacity for IP addresses and improved security over IPv4, by sometime this year.) Osterholz said the military wanted to digitize every individual soldier and push data to the "very edges of the network," including sensors, remote platforms, and mobile force structures."

In support of the Pentagon's efforts, the North American IPv6 Task Force announced in October the launch of North America's largest IPv6 pilot network. Known as Moonv6 and taking place across the U.S. at multiple locations, the project is the largest permanently deployed multivendor IPv6 network in the world. The next Moonv6 Project will get under way the week of June 18, focusing on end-to-end secure network demonstrations, including rich media, voice, and software applications. This will hopefully validate real peer-to-peer applications without the need of a central authority.

COMING TO GRIPS WITH REALITY
The early days of the GIG were all about how the grid would transform military operations and make information instantly available across the battlefield. But now, as it gains traction, recent documents freely available on the Web deal with more practical issues.

In 2006, the GAO published DOD Management Approach and Processes Not Well Suited To Support Development of Global Information Grid. The report found DoD's management approaches too decentralized for an effort like the GIG, which depends on a high degree of coordination and cooperation.

The document recommended that DoD rework its leadership, investment decisions, accountability, and interorganization interaction policies. The DoD ultimately concurred.

Keeping the foxes out of the henhouse is another issue. Thomas Reardon, chief of the Intelligence Division for the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command/9th Army Signal Command, presented "Threats And Risks In Information Technology (IT) Acquisition And Software Assurance" at the 2006 LandWarNet Conference in Fort Lauderdale last August. Much of his talk focused on the "insider threat."

Compromised insiders could be acquisition officials, contracting officials, vendor-selection officials, or program managers. He pointed in particular to potential security problems with the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components of network-centric operations systems. COTS has been a byword in military procurement since Defense Secretary William Perry's memorandum in 1994.

Reardon quoted a 2005 Defense Intelligence Agency report—Asian Telecommunications Companies Pose Potential Threat to US C4I Interests— which warned that foreign ownership of communications infrastructure can create vulnerabilities if the foreign company "can be influenced through direct ties to a potentially adversarial or economically competitive government." Systems administrators control priority information exchange and have the power to "monitor, disrupt, delay, exploit, and deny transit of communications on their networks."

The problem, as he put it, is that DoD policy does not preclude use of foreign commercial vendors. In fact, U.S. companies are becoming increasingly multinational and rely on foreign components and labor for IT products and services.

WHAT ABOUT IRAQ?
But how well can a military network deal with a guerrilla insurgency? The pieces of the military's data network that were in place for Operation Iraqi Freedom in the spring of 2003 successfully directed the almost 300,000 troops engaged in the "shock and awe" assault. From Afghanistan came success stories of drone-directed airstrikes in support of troops involved in skirmishes and against truck convoys.

But does the GIG have anything to do with improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers? Those questions fall under the subject of counter-insurgency, which has been a problem for conventional military forces since biblical times.

The GIG is only a partial bulwark against insurgents. "The people are like water and the army is like fish," Mao Zedong once said in reference to Chinese guerrilla tactics against their Japanese invaders. However, today's insurgents swim in the sea of the Internet. The military hopes the GIG will be a better and more private Internet.
-Excerpt From Electronic Design

The "Al Qaeda in Iraq" Conflation as an Info Op

Some of the more popular liberal bloggers began to complain last week that the White House has been recently conflating the Iraqi insurgent group "Al Qaeda in Iraq" with Osama Bin Laden's "Al Qaeda."

Regulars here have been treated to countless articles on the subject of U.S. military I.O.s in Iraq, of which this official blurring of the proper distinction between our enemies is but one facet.

Calling al-Qaeda in Iraq "the principal threat" to Iraqis, Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, the chief U.S. military spokesman, said the group was the main focus of the U.S. security campaign. Like other U.S. officials in recent weeks, Bergner stressed that al-Qaeda in Iraq is supported by the organization led by Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, an assertion that intelligence analysts have disputed.

"Al-Qaeda senior leadership does provide direction to al-Qaeda in Iraq," Bergner told reporters. "They do establish and provide resourcing and support the network," he added, noting that Zawahiri recently released a video seeking international recruits for the war in Iraq.

Analysts and intelligence officials say that al-Qaeda in Iraq is just one of many Sunni and Shiite organizations fighting for power and against the U.S. occupation, and that al-Qaeda in Iraq is smaller than many other insurgent groups. The analysts say that bin Laden's organization provides more inspiration than direction to Sunni fighters in Iraq.

There is a specific goal -- as there is with all info ops -- to the overweighting of the menace of "Al Qaeda in Iraq." We are attempting to influence the target audience (the "center of gravity" in the Iraq war, the Iraqi people) that we don't view the popular Sunni and Shiite militias as our major concern. We are unable to do much about the sectarian violence anyway, so if we can manage to get a sizable portion of the population to aim their militant opposition to the occupation in the opposite direction of our forces, this will be seen as helpful to the mission.

The major liberal bloggers know nothing about information operations, nor for that matter PSYOP as a military specialty. They assume that the intentional misidentification of "Al Qaeda in Iraq" as Bin Laden's group is solely a cynical ploy by Bushco to gain support for the war.

This assumption is erroneous. U.S. military Information Operations are targeted at foreign audiences. When the narrative bleeds back to the U.S. through the news media, however -- the principals are not unduly distressed.

Would You Like To Swing On a STAR?

The Federal Bureau of Investigations is developing a computer-profiling system that would enable investigators to target possible terror suspects, according to a Justice Department report submitted to Congress yesterday [to the Senate Judiciary Committee].

The System to Assess Risk, or STAR, assigns risk scores to possible suspects based on a variety of information, similar to the way a credit bureau assigns a rating based on a consumer's spending behavior and debt. The program focuses on foreign suspects but also includes data about some U.S. residents. A prototype is expected to be tested this year.

Justice Department officials said the system offers analysts a powerful new tool for finding possible terrorists. They said it is an effort to automate what analysts have been doing manually. ...

STAR is being developed by the FBI's Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, which tracks suspected terrorists inside the country or as they enter. ...

After STAR has received the names of persons of interest, it runs them through an FBI "data mart" that includes classified and unclassified information from the government, airlines and commercial data brokers such as ChoicePoint. Then it runs them through the terrorist screening center database, which contains hundreds of thousands of names, as well as through a database containing information on non-citizens who enter the country. It also runs the names against information provided by data broker Accurint, which tracks addresses, phone numbers and driver's licenses.

The report said access to STAR would be limited to trained users and that data would be obtained lawfully. Results would be kept within the FBI's terrorist task force, the report said.

Taliban Information Operations Evolving

This month, a Pakistani journalist filmed a Taliban "graduation ceremony" for would-be suicide bombers.

The video shows a "graduating class of suicide bombers" ready to travel to the United States and Western Europe to carry out suicide attacks.

The video deviates from usual suicide-bomber propaganda. Normally, such propaganda appears post-mortem, after a suicide attack has taken place, and is congratulatory in nature. It normally takes the form of a eulogy to salute the "martyrdom" of the bomber and is accompanied by a message celebrating the bomber's service to the cause of Allah and Islam.

The videos are designed to celebrate the ultimate sacrifice of the fighter and entice others to follow in his or her footsteps. Whereas traditional propaganda focuses on a single individual or a small group (such as the perpetrators of the September 11, 2001, attacks), this video shows a large number of candidates ready for suicide operations.

In another divergence, the video shows future suicide bombers displaying their enthusiasm for the task ahead. Whereas typical videos attempt to inspire others to become "martyrs", this one is also designed to intimidate and threaten Western officials, promising to unleash an "armada" of suicide bombers striving to strike Western interests in their native countries - unless the occupiers of Afghanistan depart.

The video appears specifically to target Anglo-Saxon audiences, because the ceremony emulates an Anglo-Saxon graduation ceremony. The video displays groups of "students" dressed in white and seated on the ground, while they hear the new Taliban commander, Mansur Dadullah, deliver a fiery "commencement address".

During his address, the crowd listens intently as Dadullah exhorts them to avenge the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's intervention in Afghanistan. Dadullah says, "Listen, all you Westerners and Americans. You came from thousands of kilometers away to fight us. Now we will get back to you in your countries and attack you."

According to a June 18 British Broadcasting Corp report on the video, the "students", organized in six national "brigades" (British, American, Canadian, German, French and Afghan), then take turns pledging future action. The film ends with one student speaking in English, with a heavy South Asian accent, announcing that his team plans to travel to Britain to carry out attacks there.

Although the message in itself is familiar, the new packaging demonstrates the Taliban's changing tactics. During the past two years, rather than launching frontal offensives against NATO, the Taliban have increasingly relied on tactics used by insurgents in Iraq to divide the NATO alliance and weaken its commitment to assisting and supporting President Hamid Karzai's government in Kabul.

To that end, the Taliban have increased their attacks on coalition and Afghan security forces significantly. They also have emulated several of the egregious tactics of Iraq's Sunni insurgents (such as suicide bombings, improvised explosive devices and kidnappings). ...

The "graduation video" appears to complement the Taliban's new tactics and is designed to raise greatly the cost of staying in Afghanistan for Western governments. If attacking their citizens in Afghanistan is not enough to make Western countries withdraw, then threatening to attack their homelands is the next logical step.

By disturbing the peace in Western countries, the Taliban may be hoping to provoke a stern public reaction against the NATO presence in Afghanistan. Whether the Taliban are actually capable of dispatching an armada of suicide bombers to Western Europe and North America remains to be seen. Regardless, the video makes their intent clear, and the recent terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom should incite governments to take their threat seriously.

The video can be seen at YouTube.

Putin's Pestiferous Decembrists

Poet/Sniper/Stalin-, Karadžić-, Bukowski-fan /rabid Anti-Putinite Eduard Limonov pens a piece for the Exile (bottom of the post) that amusingly intersects with the Times Online piece immediately below.

Litvinenko, Lugovoi, Berezovsky, and now Zharko and Limonov. As if the names themselves weren't confusing enough. Enjoyski. -M1


RUSSIAN officials announced yesterday that a criminal investigation had been opened into allegations by a former tax police officer that he was recruited as an informant by MI6 with the help of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent who died of polonium poisoning in London last year.

Vyacheslav Zharko is said to have turned himself in to the FSB, the successor to the KGB, 10 days ago and confessed to having worked for British intelligence since 2002. He claims that he was introduced to MI6 officers by Litvinenko during a trip to London in that year.

Zharko said he met his British handlers regularly in Turkey, Finland and Cyprus and supplied them with analytical reports on Russia's economy and politics. In return, he claims, he was paid about £60,000. He estimates that MI6 spent an additional £150,000 on expenses.

"I needed money so when Litvinenko told me that I could earn easy cash by collaborating with British intelligence I agreed," Zharko, 36, told The Sunday Times in his first interview with a western newspaper. "I saw myself as a consultant. I began to worry after Litvinenko's death because I feared I'd be sucked into something too dangerous. That's when I turned myself in."

The FSB, which has investigated Zharko, backs his claims but will not prosecute him for espionage, saying that he did not reveal any state secrets and had come forward voluntarily. His testimony comes a month after Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer named by the Crown Prosecution Service as the prime suspect in the death of Litvinenko, accused MI6 of trying to recruit him.

Russia has refused to extradite Lugovoi, who met Litvinenko on the day he was poisoned, to face trial in Britain and the Kremlin has angrily rejected accusations that it was behind the murder. Like Zharko, Lugovoi, who has protested his innocence, claims British intelligence sought to recruit him with Litvinenko's help.

The dispute has also provoked a propaganda battle between MI6 and the FSB, two former foes that, officially at least, are partners in the fight on terrorism. British investigators are believed to suspect that Litvinenko, a former FSB officer who fled to Britain and was granted asylum, and who became a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was killed by his former employer.

The FSB rejects the claim and is now hitting back, using Zharko's testimony to highlight allegations of secret MI6 operations in Russia. "For months we've been accused of killing Litvinenko," said an FSB source.

"The Brits have been waging an information war against us and now we are responding in kind. We have gone public with Zharko's story because it proves that Britain is actively spying against Russia and that Litvinenko was in cahoots with MI6." Zharko claimed he had first met Litvinenko through Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian tycoon and opponent of Putin.

Berezovsky has been granted asylum in Britain. A former tax police officer in St Petersburg, Zharko had turned to Berezovsky for help in 2000 when an investigation he had led into a rival tycoon was threatened for political reasons. According to Zharko, Berezovsky — who at the time had fallen out with the tycoon under investigation — used his influence to keep the investigation open.

In 2002 Zharko left the tax police but stayed in touch with Berezovsky who by then had fled to Britain after falling out with Putin. It was during a trip to London five years ago that the billionaire, who according to Zharko knew him under the false name of Vladislav Petrov, put him in touch with Litvinenko. In turn, Litvinenko introduced Zharko to several British "friends", who claimed to be business consultants but who later revealed themselves as MI6 officers and told him they were interested in recruiting him as an informant.

"They agreed to pay me €2,000 [£1,355] a month," Zharko said. "I was told I shouldn't travel to London any more because Berezovsky's entourage was closely watched by Russian intelligence. I was supplied with a mobile phone I was to use to make contact with them, but only outside Russia.

"Litvinenko led them to believe that I'd worked in Russian intelligence so they thought I was a good catch." According to Zharko, during his years of secret work for MI6 he had several meetings in the West with a total of four undercover British handlers. He talked fondly about one of the MI6 agents.

"We spent many nights drinking together and he once told me how he had photographed some secret documents in the toilets of a Moscow restaurant," he said.

Zharko said that at first his British handlers had been interested in information on several Russian companies. Then they asked him to compile a series of analytical reports on the political situation in Ukraine in the run-up to the country's Orange revolution and were also interested in information on any FSB operations against western non-governmental organisations working in Russia.

Zharko claims he supplied his case officers with information he compiled only from open sources. His final meeting with his handlers took place last November in Istanbul, a few days after Litvinenko's death, he said. He last spoke to them on the phone in June.

It is not the first time the FSB has publicly claimed to have exposed an MI6 operation. Last year it leaked footage of four diplomats posted at the embassy, allegedly downloading secret data from a transmitter concealed in a fake rock left in a Moscow park.

"We are in the middle of an information battle," said a British diplomat who was based in Moscow. "Relations were hard enough before the Litvinenko case. They've since taken a sharp turn for the worst. Expect more salvos to be fired."
-Excerpt Times Online

AND


On June 15, the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda have published an interview with Andrei Lugovoi, who is suspected by British police to be the executor of Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko's story was a headliner for the world media for the last eight months and is a still a headliner. Exotical weapons used for killing - radioactive polonium - as well as personalities of both the victim (Litvinenko) and the suspected killer (Lugovoi), ex-FSB officers both, keeps interest of media boiling.

For me, nonetheless, it was a shocking surprise to discover that my name was pronounced by the sinister Mr. Lugovoi. During the interview, he said that political killing is in stage of preparation for "some man, who has already obtained the image of a fighter against existing Russian authorities, he is destined to become a sacred martyr. For example, so-called oppositional candidates to presidency. They should hire themselves an enormous security troop... Edward Limonov, Mikhail Kasyanov... I think against them something is in preparation."

Lugovoi attributed the intention to kill me or Mikhail Kasyanov, or both, to Boris Berezovsky. He attributed the killing of Litvinenko also to Boris Berezovsky. As I have no reason whatsoever to suspect London-based businessman Mr. Berezovsky to kill me, I took Lugovoi's threat as a threat of Russian secret services to kill Edward Limonov or (and) Mikhail Kasyanov. A few days ago, we discussed Lugovoy's threat with Kasyanov. We both agreed that through Lugovoi we received threat from those who have killed Litvinenko. (I would say, from Government, from Kremlin, from FSB - the executor.) I smiled, Kasyanov was smiling too, but I have to admit that the man who sent us the threat is the most sinister man in entire world, maybe after Bin Laden. So, it is serious. I am cool, but it is serious.

I should take into consideration that Lugovoi's interview was checked out by FSB experts. Hundred percent it was. Lugovoi could not pronounce his threats without permission from his superiors and his final supervisor, President Putin. Otherwise Lugovoi would be given to British for trial.

By FSB's, by President Putin's logic, by the logic of Mr. Lugovoi, Mr. Berezovsky is guilty by only the fact that Putin, the FSB and Lugovoi have pointed at him. However, every smart man, and even some dummies, understand that Mr. Berezovsky is not a nuclear powered country. He is not a secret service with its enormous resources. Mr. Berezovsky has a goal not to convince Russian citizens. His goal is to prepare the ground for possible false explanation of political killing (or killings). Sure, it is a blatant lie, but when the corpse of an oppositional politician will be found, the explanation will be ready within hand distance: Berezovsky.

Lugovoy is not tried, but details of investigation of Litvinenko's murder didn't leave much doubt about his guilt. The traces of polonium spread over the London routes of Mr. Lugovoy have convinced millions of Brits and Russians: Lugovoy is not for nothing accused of killing. And now that very man, sinister like no one else, is warning Komsomolskaya Pravda readers and world public opinion as to who will be the next victims! It might be a menace, but pronounced by such a man, it is a highly believable menace.

I sleep well. I have good appetite and have no signs of paranoia. But it is a second time for last months that I am receiving death threat. First one was corresponded to me by my lawyer Sergey Beliak, and sent by unfriendly deputy of the State Duma, who was rather happy with message he transmitted. "Say to your client that his elimination is decided in highest places, among high ranking officials of state," he said.

There is no need for exclamations of my emotions. I don't see a need for indignation. I knew from the beginning that I have started a political war against murderers and criminals. A la guerre come a la guerre, as said the French. No Strasbourg Court or United Nations can save my life in Russia. I will do my job. I have no fear.

The Motive of the "Doctors' Plot"

Professor Cole clearly isn't talking to the right "counterterrorism officials."

Counterterrorism officials have expressed astonishment that physicians and medical personnel appear to have been behind the recent terror plots involving car bombs in Britain. Physicians swear the Hippocratic oath to do no harm, and are in a caring profession aimed at healing, not killing.

Elements in the intelligence community understand precisely why it was exclusively medical professionals who participated in the amateur hour of terror attempts in England and Scotland.

It is a variation of the same reason that mostly Saudi hijackers were chosen for the 9/11 attacks.

There was no operational reason that physicians had to carry out the half-assed attempted vehicle-born attacks. Yet there was a valid reason that doctors were given this task.

Muslim doctors were -- until the botched attacks -- among the last trusted members of their religion in the eyes of infidels. These upstanding exemplars of their faith are generally reluctant to support the Islamist agenda. That is why they had to be discredited by the Muslim fanatics.

Assimilated medical professionals stand in the way of the Islamist goal of promoting strife between followers of the one true religion and the rest of us.

People usually have positive opinions of their chosen doctor, based upon personal interaction with the individual. Suspicion of dark motives would naturally poison a previously good relationship. Muslim doctors in Europe and the U.S. will now suffer from insinuations of treachery.

After the recent events in Great Britain, there will be less tolerance of Muslims -- even the societally acceptable "good" Muslims -- in Western countries.

This is the motive of the "Doctors' Plot."

Synchronicity of Refused Refugees and Surging Soldiers: Oil Law Up

The Iraq that considers, signs, and ratifies the so-called Iraq Oil Law must be perceived as an Iraq with reasonably sufficient legitimacy in the eyes of the international community, lest the divvying up of the targeted petro-spoils of war that will come of the ramrodded legislation be peskily challenged down the road and denuded of convenient legal justifications for rallying further force to its defense.

Part and parcel of the frantic legitimizing and normalizing efforts at play (see the Surge) are the public diplomacy thrusts being directed at managing perceptions of Iraq as a reasonably stable and sovereign state.

Sorry, refugees. Nothing personal but you've just been swept up in the maelstrom of something both you and our troops have little say, sway, or pending dividends in; deep business.

Shit out of luck and jolly-well fucked.
-M1

Sweden, the top European destination for refugees from Iraq, will tighten its asylum rules and forcibly deport Iraqis who are denied permission to stay, immigration officials said Friday.

The announcement marked an abrupt change in the relatively lax immigration rules that had made Sweden a safe haven for thousands of Iraqis fleeing the chaos in their homeland.

The Swedes stood out among Europeans for their welcoming attitude to refugees fleeing the bloodshed in Iraq. More than 18,000 Iraqis have arrived in Sweden seeking asylum since 2006, the highest number recorded in Europe.

About 80 percent of asylum applications by Iraqis were approved in Sweden last year, but immigration officials said that number would drop as more stringent rules are enforced.

Previously granted asylum based on the general turmoil in their homeland, Iraqis now must show that they face specific threats of violence if they are sent back, Sweden's Migration Board said.

Previously granted asylum based on the general turmoil in their homeland, Iraqis now must show that they face specific threats of violence if they are sent back, Sweden's Migration Board said.

[C]ritics questioned why the Swedish authorities so suddenly decided to reinterpret existing asylum laws. Vandvik, of the ECRE, said the decision was disappointing, but not unexpected.

European governments are bracing for a massive increase in the ranks of Iraqi asylum-seekers, because refugees in Europe remain a fraction of the nearly 4 million people displaced since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Half of those are trapped inside Iraq, having fled their homes and possessions to avoid daily suicide bombings, roving death squads, abductions and other forms of sectarian violence. The other 2 million have found refuge in neighboring countries, mainly in Syria and Jordan, making Iraqis the largest group among asylum seekers worldwide.
-Excerpt, International Herald Tribune

AND

Soon, she may have to pick up again, if immigration authorities deport her to Iraq - the country she fled after being raped, she says, by a gang member with ties to one of Saddam Hussein's sons.

Muhamed, who last month lost her bid to stay in this country in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, would be one of the very few people the U.S. government has sent back to Iraq in recent years.

Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the Department of Homeland Security "is still trying to develop a procedure" with the Iraqi government on deportations and is reviewing the issue case by case.

The situation confronting Muhamed is two-edged, observers say.

Sending someone to a country at war, especially when the U.S. is involved, is "extremely troubling," said Kareem Shora, national director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Shora said his organization has spoken with the White House about granting Iraqis so-called temporary protected status, meaning they could legally stay in the U.S. until the situation changes in Iraq. But no decision has been made on the proposal, he said.

But not deporting Muhamed to Iraq also could pose problems, because it would mean that the federal government is admitting that the situation in Iraq is dangerous, which runs contrary to the notion that the U.S. military is building a safe democracy, said David Leopold, a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and an expert on immigration from the Mideast.

Muhamed's erratic course started with what could be described as a government-sponsored rape.

Though she was Sunni, Saddam's religion, she would not join the former Iraqi leader's Baath party. She says a member of a gang linked to Odday, one of Saddam's sons, raped her.

Michael A. Newton, acting associate clinical professor of law at Vanderbilt University of Law and an expert on Iraq, said the former Iraqi leader used rape to terrorize his country's citizens for at least a decade beginning in the 1980s. Members of Saddam's government even had business cards that read, "security rapists," Newton said.

Muhamed now speaks slowly because of Bell's palsy brought on by stress. Sitting on a leather sofa in her neat house with Iraqi beads and cloths draped on a coffee table, she refers to the rape obliquely at first - "Something happened." Then she offers piecemeal details.
-Excerpt, Las Vegas Sun

It's Hard Out Here For A Whistleblower

From Daniel Ellsberg:

On the day that Scooter Libby's prison sentence was lifted by President Bush, Mordechai Vanunu was sentenced to prison, again, in Israel. In both cases, the underlying offense was the same: speaking to journalists. In each case, the nominal charges were otherwise. For Libby, it was lying under oath about the circumstances, thereby obstructing justice. For Vanunu, it was breaking a restriction laid upon him when he emerged from prison three years ago, after serving an earlier full sentence of 18 years, also for speaking to journalists: he was ordered not to speak, at all, to journalists or foreigners. Like a free man, he did both, openly and repeatedly.

But whereas Libby had passed classified information, and Vanunu had served his earlier sentence for doing the same, in this instance Vanunu was not charged with revealing any secrets. The transcripts or published accounts of his conversations being available, it was open knowledge that what he had mainly talked about was the truth of his personal convictions about nuclear weapons: that they should universally be abolished, Israel's among them.

Perjury, with the intent and effect of obstructing justice (successfully, as it happens, in Libby's case) is an ancient, established crime under virtually any system of justice. Vanunu's act of speaking his mind freely is not, under existing international human rights law. Nor is it a domestic crime in other democratic societies. These were not conditions of parole, as frequently misstated. Vanunu was not paroled from prison for his earlier conviction, but served his full sentence of 18 years, 11 and a half of them in solitary confinement. Therefore, under most systems of criminal justice, he should have been subject to no further restrictions or requirements.

What, then, was the legal status of the restrictions that he has now been sentenced for violating? The answer is that the Israeli law under which his speech and movement are restricted is an unmodified relic of the British Mandate period in Palestine, i.e., a colonial regulation. Nothing like it exists in any other democracy in the world. It is as if the young United States had reenacted the British oppressions and restrictions that lead to the revolution, the ones that were condemned in the Declaration of Independence and banned in the Bill of Rights. Vanunu mordantly reflected on hearing his new sentence that perhaps his appeal should be to the queen of England. ...

There is no question that the information Vanunu revealed to the press in 1986 – primarily, that Israel, which has never signed the Nonproliferation Treaty nor opened its nuclear operations to any international inspection, had been for some time a nuclear weapons state, with an arsenal larger than that of Britain and perhaps larger than that of France – was regarded as secret in Israel and his revelation was illegal. On the other hand, no other nuclear weapons state had kept this status secret from its own people and the world: again, with the exception of South Africa, which revealed its earlier secret arsenal at the same time it disbanded it, along with apartheid. Moreover, by 1986 this program (aside from the scale Vanunu revealed, which was a surprise even to CIA) was a secret almost exclusively from those Israelis and others (including, officially, the American government) that chose to believe Israel's ambiguous and deliberately deceptive denials.

In any case, it was information that Vanunu's fellow citizens deserved urgently to have had long before, in time to reach an informed, democratic judgment and influence on their country's policy. In my opinion, Mordechai Vanunu did what he should have with the information he acquired. I hope that I would have done the same in his position. His readiness to accept the personal risk that his truth-telling actually entailed – that he would suffer a long prison sentence (and the longest time in solitary confinement known to Amnesty International, which defined it as a human rights violation) – is deserving of worldwide admiration, and, I hope, emulation. His continued restriction and persecution after serving his sentence, his new return to prison for six months on a pretense of preserving 25-year-old secrets that he has yet to reveal (and which the restrictions do not protect), are illegal and outrageous.

As for Libby, I have no strong opinion on whether his sentence of 30 months in prison was, as President Bush judged in commuting it, excessive. As Bush undoubtedly knows in more detail than we do, Libby was only carrying out, routinely, the wishes and orders – manifestly illegal as they were – of his bosses. If this were confirmed by the congressional investigation that should be forthcoming on the deceptions and violations of law and the Constitution that led us into war (and may do so again in Iran), it should lead to impeachment and then to criminal prosecution of Richard Cheney and/or George Bush. But a damper on such an effort is the now-certainty that conviction of either Cheney or his superior would be nullified by presidential pardon. It may not be true, as Richard Nixon declared, that "If the president does it, it is not illegal." But whatever "it" is, if done or ordered by the president or vice president, it appears to be unpunishable. As in Israel, rules suited to an older imperial system, not a republic, are in force.

Pandering To That Pesky Base - Two Turkish Tales

In this warm night in Ankara, the bets are open at the terraces of both the popular and fashionable cafés and restaurants of the capital. The gambling now is not on the "if" but on the "when" of the first Turkish shot on Iraqi land. But the excitement, if any, is not shared by the shopkeepers, hotel owners and restaurateurs around the country. The clicking of rifle triggers and that of cash registers have never been in harmony. For them, the war can wait.

The button of the stopwatch counting down the invasion of Northern Iraq by the Turkish army was probably pressed on Tuesday, at an impromptu meeting between Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The two men have, in theory, scheduled meetings on Thursdays, which are often not maintained, as they do not see politically eye-to-eye. The surprise meeting on Tuesday has sparked speculation that the assault is near. Cynics, however, say this is just another coup de theatre, which aims at shaking from the shoulders the United States and Iraq, who are clearly opposed to military action against the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) on Iraqi soil.

False alarms have been almost a routine since the beginning of this year, when the General Staff of the armed forces energetically requested the government's approval to move into Northern Iraq in large numbers in order to avenge the weekly casualties by the army in Eastern Turkey, caused by PKK armed militants stationed in refugee camps and villages in Iraq.

The Turkish army has been drawing plans since last year for a "total clean-up" of that region, but the government has avoided responding clearly. A wait-and-see strategy has prevailed within the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the ruling political formation.

Other events this week corroborate the growing belief that the incursion is near. The U.S. ambassador to Ankara on Monday had to publicly reject in dismay allegations by the Turkish press that his government has been selling weapons to PKK members. The United States, as well as the EU and Turkey, consider this organisation a terrorist one.

General Yasar Buyukanit, head of the General Staff, speaking on Tuesday at a security conference in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, criticised the international community for what he claims was lack of foreign understanding for the situation and cooperation with Turkey to "combat Kurdish terrorism" in Iraq directed against his country.

Gen. Buyukanit came out of a short period of silence on the subject, to which he had retreated after Prime Minister Erdogan had in late June declared that he did not plan to allow in the short-term massive military action in the neighbouring country. In Antalya, however, he was outspoken.

"While we maintain our struggle against this terrorist organisation," said Buyukanit referring to the PKK, "and expect international cooperation in this struggle, we are having difficulty understanding some positions and attitudes that we face. These attitudes not only disappoint us but contradict the basic notion that combating terrorism requires better cooperation."

More indicative, perhaps, of the signs of an impending incursion into Iraq by Turkish forces is the recent escape of a small group of PKK members who fled a refugee camp in North Iraq and crossed the border to Turkey to seek asylum.

At a press conference this week, organised by local authorities, they claimed that large numbers of Turkish Kurds were fleeing the region in anticipation of a Turkish advance, and that Turkish artillery was abundantly shelling PKK combatant positions.

There is suspicion, however, among observers that the escape and revelations may have been orchestrated by Turkish security services, within the context of psychological warfare, either to incite PKK activists in Northern Iraq to abandon the region, or to prepare the Turkish opinion for future events. Either way, such incidents and information from "beyond the enemy lines" are typical of pre-intervention activity and carry a message or a warning.

The meeting on Tuesday between the two Turkish leaders also indicates that Erdogan is in a situation where he has either to comply with the military, supported by and supporting Sezer, or face the consequences of his moderate approach to the handling of the Kurdish problem.

Not that long ago, on Jun. 13, the Prime Minister rebuked insistence by the military to cross the border into Iraq. This was consistent with earlier statements of intent to build productive relationships with political chiefs in Northern Iraq rather than punish their constituents for their support to the PKK.

"Steps to improve relations with the regional Kurdish administration might be taken in Northern Iraq, why not; as long as it brings peace and calm and paves way for positive developments. If every step we are to take will bring calm for us and for them, we are game anytime," Erdogan told Hurriyet, a national newspaper, Feb. 15.

The rationale for his decision in June not to authorise the invasion was that the problem was not really PKK presence in Northern Iraq but that of PKK armed activists within his country. "There are 500 terrorists in Iraq; there are 5,000 terrorists inside Turkey. Has terrorism inside Turkey ended for us to think about an operation in Northern Iraq?" he asked.

He was quick to add that the figures he gave were just for the purpose of illustrating where the real issue was.

But Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems to have his back against the wall now -- unless he has lured the President and the opposition on to his turf, a competence at which he excels. On the face of things, Sezer may have put Erdogan before an ultimatum. Either the Prime Minister authorises the invasion or it can be launched without his approval.

Sezer, as President, is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Article 92 of the Turkish Constitution provides that the President may decide to order the armed forces to take action if the country is attacked while Parliament is in recess.

Parliament is indeed in recess, and the country suffers weekly attacks from Iraq-based guerrillas. The President has therefore free hand to act. Erdogan however, either because he got the message or, likely, because he saw a political opportunity, has been swift to accommodate the hawks and steal the initiative.

It would seem that he is planning to call for an extraordinary parliamentary session to seek approval for cross-border action. This may lead to a "yes" or a "no", but in any event, the people will have decided -- and the military and the President will have (M1's emphasis)to abide by such decision.

([T]he timing for the green light to move into Iraq remains unclear. Launching the operation before the elections -- actually, a few days or hours before Jul. 22 -- could increase Erdogan's popularity. At the same time, it could lead to a postponement of the elections, due to a national emergency, an outcome favourable to CHP and probably sought by Sezer.)
-Hacked Excerpt From IPS

And on the related topic of the Turkish incursion into Iraq last month that maybe wasn't:

Yes, it is an incursion which is not; because it is an incursion featuring messages on many wavelengths. For example, it reflects military frustration over recently increased PKK attacks. But it may also be reflecting a military desire “to go for domestic consumption” at a time when an increasingly angry Turkish electorate prepare to vote and when Mr. Erdoğan's government is being accused of being the lackey of the Kurds' cross-Atlantic allies. But there is more.

The incursion which is not is probably so finely-balanced so as not to be “large enough” to (militarily) antagonize the Iraqi Kurds and their American partners and/or to (politically) antagonize the European Union which actually is no longer a Turkish concern.

But it is “large enough” to give a message to frustrated Turkish crowds: “Your heroic army is doing what needs to be done when your poor prime minister still talks about ‘the right time' and his poor government cannot raise a finger to confront the Kurds' Atlantic allies.”

More messages:

… that the men in uniform are more sensitive to coffins wrapped in the Crescent and Star than the men in dark suits; and that the military dares to confront ‘western powers' when the government cannot.

...that it's the generals who decide if additional Turkish troops should enter Iraq to counter Kurdish terrorism, not the government or the lawmakers who care more about their election chances than terror victims…

...that sometimes the U.S. Ambassador to Ankara may have to directly contact the General Staff, not the government (the Foreign Ministry), to understand what is going on at the Iraqi border…

...that sometimes the government cannot govern… Is the military HQ an ambassador's usual first point of contact?

The incursion which is not is probably next to nothing in operational terms: It cannot badly hurt the PKK. It may even be counter-productive as the battle there may go in the wrong direction and/or it may spark possible future retaliation in the form of more PKK terror.

But in terms of psychological warfare, the operation may serve to help test U.S. (and Iraqi Kurdish) limits; and, given the likely way it will be covered in the national press, it may have (political) repercussions – in a way not so pleasant for Mr. Erdoğan's government.
-Excerpt From Turkish Daily News

UNMOVIC Now Historical Footnote

Scott Ritter on the elimination of the United Nations Monitoring and Verification Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC):

While it is difficult to predict the future, what can be said with absolute certainty is that the passing of UNMOVIC represents far more than a political stain on those who claim to embrace global nonproliferation but in reality smother it. The political aspects of the aggregate of failure which combined to sink UNMOVIC have been underscored above. The true tragedy of UNMOVIC’s demise rests not with bad policy, but rather with the loss of irreplaceable technical expertise. I do not refer to the library of inspection data derived from the 16-year disarmament saga in Iraq; this data is tainted by the political corruption of the inspection process. What I lament is the passing of potential, both realized and future, represented by the proactive work of some of the world’s greatest nonproliferation minds.

For the past seven years, UNMOVIC, led by the intrepid Russian weapons inspector Nikita Smidovich, has built an unprecedented program of training of international weapons inspectors. The qualification standards certified through this comprehensive training process has led to the creation of a cadre of international experts in the field of nonproliferation. Smidovich created a network of training opportunities in facilities in Canada, Argentina, Switzerland, Germany, Russia and Britain, to name a few. The hundreds of inspectors who have completed this training stood ready to go anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice to investigate whether a given manufacturing process was legitimately utilized or instead covertly diverted for illegitimate use. This inspection capability far exceeded anything the world would ever need in Iraq, and had great potential for pre-emptive application in any number of proliferation trouble spots, from Iran to North Korea and beyond. For an annual cost of a few million dollars, the inspection potential created by Smidovich and others, operating under the umbrella of UNMOVIC, had the potential to prevent conflicts costing untold billions.

This capability is now forever lost with the demise of UNMOVIC, proof positive that the real problems confronting the world’s collective peace and security continue to be undermined by an American administration willing to exact any price in order to win cheap political points. Americans rightly measure the cost of the Iraq war in terms of dead and wounded American service members. Some even spare a thought for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties. But scant few will reflect on the potential harm done to future generations of Americans, and others around the world, as we bid a silent farewell to meaningful arms control.

Ritter exaggerates a bit, the IAEA remains a potentially useful cudgel against uninvited aspirants seeking to join the international nuclear clique. And -- as was the case with UNMOVIC -- if offending nations refuse to allow access, there are limits as to what an inspection regime can accomplish.

The Relativity of Eavesdropping

Britain may have more CCTV cameras per head than anywhere else in the world but when it comes to electronic surveillance the country is way behind Italy, the Netherlands and even Sweden.

Official figures have revealed UK law enforcement agencies and other government bodies made 439,000 requests to monitor telephones and email addresses in a 15 month period between 2005 and 2006, leading to comments that Britain led the world in spying on its citizens.

The UK figures might sound high but are dwarfed by interception statistics from other countries. According to figures from German scientific think-tank the Max Planck Society, Italy leads the world with 76 intercepts per 100,000 head of population, shortly ahead of the Netherlands (62), and with third-placed Sweden some way back (33). Germany comes in fourth with 23.5 intercepts per 100,000 head of population with England and Wales trailing on six intercepts per head of population.

The Netherlands came up with a standard for IP interception and championed a framework for electronic surveillance when it held the EU presidency in 2004, so it can be seen as an evangelist for technology its ready to apply on its own populace. Corruption inquiries are perceived as the reason why Italy tops the global wiretap league.

Electronic surveillance levels in US are roughly on par with those of the UK. Based on a Department of Justice intercept report to Congress, 1.2m requests to tap telephones and email addresses were made in 2005, the last year for which figures are available. Most involved requests to obtain historic lists of telephone calls with only 48,000 requests looking for real-time call data and 2,600 involving the interception of communications.

These official figures exclude so-called warrantless domestic wiretaps approved by the Bush Administration and also exclude the NSA's related and diligent efforts as part and parcel of CATCH-ALL.

For examples of rather mundane vendors making a buck by providing turn-key solutions for governments to hack into your life, take a peek at SS8 Networks , AQSACOM, and Bivio.
-Hacked & Addended Excerpt From The Register

Black Vs White: Special Operations Dialectic

Winning hearts and minds is quite another thing when you're coming in to appropriate the essential resources and assets of a country from its cognizant population. White Ops/Indirect Warfare in all honor, even the most resourceful of such soft efforts can't convince a pillaged victim to lean back and enjoy being taken for a shifty ride. Bigger plays than SOFs can dream up are needed to truncate the lethal fallout of such covetous raids.
-M1


Army Gen. Bryan "Doug" Brown cut his teeth in special operations when U.S. troops were still slogging through Vietnam and catchphrases like "winning the hearts and minds" first entered public consciousness.

The phrase, not always popular in current military circles, lives on in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a debate that's as old as the military, Brown and special operations generals like him are today fending off critics who say they are too enamored of simply shooting bad guys and not winning over enemies through other, less dramatic means.

Brown, chief of Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base, said recently that he doesn't think those critics fully understand his command's mission.

"We're working hard on winning the hearts and minds, " Brown said. "I don't know if 'hearts and minds' is the right phrase to use for what we're trying to do. But we're certainly working hard on the indirect form of warfare."

The debate is gaining renewed urgency as Brown retires later this month and hands the SOCom reins to his deputy, Vice Adm. Eric Olson, who some think will more fully embrace the concept of indirect warfare.

Direct warfare, so-called "black" operations, involve the commando raids favored in Hollywood movies. Critics of direct warfare say the less flashy indirect warfare, or "white" operations, can be more effective in eliminating terrorist breeding grounds and winning over a populace.

Those missions might involve anything from providing humanitarian aid to building roads and schools and convincing a population that U.S. forces have good intentions at heart.

SOCom is "overly focused on ... direct action, on rappelling out of helicopters, kicking down doors, and capturing or killing bad guys, " military historian Max Boot told Congress last year.

"Making real progress, " he said, "will require accomplishing much more difficult, less glamorous tasks such as establishing security, furthering economic and political development, and spreading the right information to win over the populace."

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld turned special operations forces into a "giant killing machine, " Douglas Macgregor, a former Army colonel and defense critic, recently said.

Macgregor anticipates a return to fundamentals under Olson.

"The emphasis will be on, 'If you have to kill someone, then for God's sakes, kill the right people, ' " Macgregor said. "In most cases, you're not going to have to kill people and that's the great virtue of special operations. That's been lost over the last several years."

But Brown and other generals bristle at the notion they neglect "white" operations. Inside SOCom, Brown said, everybody is on the same page.

"Most of the friction I hear about I read in the press, " Brown said. "In reality, I think ... sometimes there's some confusion with some people who aren't paying attention (who think) special ops forces are doing only direct action."

Brown said almost every special operations mission involves some element of indirect action, especially when special forces act as combat advisers to the Iraqi or Afghan army.

"It takes long patience, " Brown said. "It's about changing people's minds. ... And those out there who say you do too much direct action need to step back and take a look at it. It's a balance of them both. Direct action protects the homeland and buys time for the indirect piece to work."

Brig. Gen. John Mulholland Jr., who recently took the helm at Special Operations Command Central, also based at MacDill, said too much is made of the distinction between black and white operations.

Often, there is a combination between the two, he said, that is lost to outsiders.

"It's almost a false analogy, " Mulholland said recently. "It's not one or the other. It's how you blend all of our nation's capabilities to achieve a certain effect on the battlefield. The discussion is much more nuanced than people like to make it."

Some lawmakers have floated the idea of creating an unconventional warfare command within SOCom that would presumably allow military leaders to better direct resources to indirect missions.

Brown said his staff is still studying the notion. But he sounded less than enthusiastic.

"I would warn folks not to put all of our forces in little boxes and limit their capability, " Brown said. "I would hate to do anything with any of our forces that drew a box around them and limited their flexibility."

The phrase "winning the hearts and minds" is commonly used in the political debate about Iraq's future. But with the phrase's historical ties to what some saw as a hapless policy in Vietnam, not all military leaders like it.

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., chair of the House Armed Services subcommittee on terrorism and unconventional threats, questions whether indirect warfare would work in the Middle East.

"Winning hearts and minds is one thing when you're coming into a relatively stable place where there's a minor insurgent problem, " he said. "It's very hard to do those things in the environment that exists in Iraq."
-St. Petersburg Times

CRS Report: Information Operations, Electronic Warfare, and Cyberwar: Capabilities and Related Policy Issues

Here's a copy of the new 17 page (pdf) CRS Report for Congress: Information Operations, Electronic Warfare, and Cyberwar: Capabilities and Related Policy Issues.

Not much new, except a short discussion of the new USAF Cyber Command.

Happy Independence Day.

Domestic Political Cyberwar in Russia

A political battle is raging in Russian cyberspace.


Opposition parties and independent media say murky forces have committed vast resources to hacking and crippling their Web sites in attacks similar to those that hit tech-savvy Estonia as the Baltic nation sparred with Russia over a Soviet war memorial.

While they offer no proof, the groups all point the finger at the Kremlin, calling the electronic siege an attempt to stifle Russia's last source of free, unfiltered information.

The victims, who range from liberal democrats to ultranationalists, allege that their hacker adversaries hope to harass the opposition with the approach of parliamentary balloting in December and presidential elections in March.

Some independent experts agree.

"A huge information war awaits Russia before the elections," said Oleg Panfilov of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.

The groups claim the attackers use vast, online networks of computers infected with malicious software — whose owners probably aren't aware they are involved — to paralyze or erase targeted Web sites.

Stanislav Belkovsky, a political analyst believed to have close ties to Kremlin insiders, said a senior associate of President Vladimir Putin is leading the cyber assault. The government denies it and insists it has nothing to do with the onslaught. The Kremlin said hackers could easily forge Internet Protocol addresses registered to government offices.

Belkovsky, founder of the Moscow-based National Strategy Institute, said the Kremlin is upset that it has been unable to control the political content of online media. "The Kremlin can't just tell their editors to remove an unwanted publication," he said.

The attacks are similar to assaults — sometimes a million computers strong — unleashed in April and early May against Web sites in Estonia. Officials there say waves of attacks crashed dozens of government, corporate and media Web sites.

The cyber warfare included computer-generated spam and so-called Distributed Denial-of-Service, or DDoS, attacks. It erupted during violent protests by ethnic Russians against the decision to move a Soviet-era Red Army monument out of downtown Tallinn, the Estonian capital.

The DDoS attacks involve a flood of computers all trying to connect to a single site at the same time, overwhelming the computer server that handles the traffic. Estonian authorities claimed they traced the attacks to Kremlin IP addresses.

Outside experts say blocking this type of Web assault is difficult or impossible because the host server has no way of distinguishing between legitimate and bogus requests for access.

Government security services have long been suspected of engaging in hacking. In 1999, an unidentified hacker in Moscow penetrated U.S. Defense Department computers for more than a year, copying classified naval codes and data on missile systems. The Kremlin denied involvement. ...

Mainstream media have also come under cyber-assault, especially when they carry information likely to draw the attention of the government.

Kommersant's Web editor, Pavel Chernikov, said the major daily newspaper's site was attacked in early May. He called it retaliation for publishing a transcript of the interrogation of Boris Berezovsky — a self-exiled oligarch who lives in London — by Russian investigators.

While British prosecutors have identified a former KGB agent living in Moscow as the prime suspect in the murder of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, Russian authorities have focused on Berezovsky, Putin's political foe.

On the same morning, the Web site of Ekho Moskvy, a liberal Moscow radio station where criticism of Kremlin policies can often be heard, was brought down by a DDoS attack.

The United States — especially the government sector — was the target of more than a half of DDoS attacks worldwide, according to Symantec. The FBI recently arrested several DDoS hackers as part of "Operation Bot Roast" sting.

Nothing of the kind is happening in Russia.