Interview Raises Questions Over Weapons Of Mass Effect In SD
Al Hallor Is Assistant Port Director With US Customs And Border Protection
10:00 am PST February 11, 2011
SAN DIEGO -- 10News was granted access to San Diego's seaport for a firsthand look at how Customs and Border Protection officers safeguard against weapons of mass effect.
"Given the open waterways and the access to the Navy fleet here, I'd say, absolutely, San Diego is a target," said Al Hallor, who is the assistant port director and an officer with Customs and Border Protection.
10News investigative reporter Mitch Blacher asked, "Do you ever find things that are dangerous like a chemical agent or a weaponized device?"
"At the airport, seaport, at our port of entry we have not this past fiscal year, but our partner agencies have found those things," said Hallor.
Customs and Border Protection officers clear 80 percent of all cargo before it enters the United States. Congress has mandated that they clear 100 percent of cargo imports by 2012. In San Diego, every cargo container is driven through a radiation detector before leaving San Diego's seaport.
"So, specifically, you're looking for the dirty bomb? You're looking for the nuclear device?" asked Blacher.
"Correct. Weapons of mass effect," Hallor said.
"You ever found one?" asked Blacher.
"Not at this location," Hallor said.
"But they have found them?" asked Blacher.
"Yes," said Hallor.
"You never found one in San Diego though?" Blacher asked.
"I would say at the port of San Diego we have not," Hallor said.
"Have you found one in San Diego?" Blacher asked.
The interview was interrupted before Hallor was able to answer the question.
Customs and Border Protection issued this statement after the interview:
CBP has not specifically had any incidents with nuclear devices or nuclear materials at our ports of entry. CBP is an all-threats agency. The purpose of many security measures is to prevent threats from ever materializing by being prepared for them. And, we must be prepared to stop threats in whatever form they do materialize at the border, whether it’s an individual or cargo arriving by land, air, or sea. Regardless of what the contraband or threat is, we’re being smart, evaluating, and focusing in on anything or anyone that is potentially high-risk.
We were able to show you first-hand one example of how we evaluate segment risk, inspect, etc. in the cargo environment by air and sea here in San Diego. This is one portion of the CBP mission, and hopefully gives you some examples of how much has evolved in the past decade, with the new technologies we have at our disposal. This, coupled with document requirements at the border, advanced passenger and cargo information, better information sharing, and many other measures help us to secure the border - and each measure doesn’t work individually or in a vacuum, but rather in the layered security that we were able to demonstrate one facet of.
Local Security Expert Reacts To Interview
Former Secret Service agent and airline security director Glen Winn watched 10News' unedited interview with Hallor and shared his thoughts.
"This person (Hallor) was, I believe, knowledgeable, has a very important position with the Port and the government, and as such has that knowledge," Winn said.
Winn continued, "You posed some very serious questions as to security gaps and discoveries that perhaps have taken place in this area. I want to know how many and where did you find them so if I'm in that area, driving around and I see something that is out of place, I make a phone call."
wmds
Showing posts with label wmds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wmds. Show all posts
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
OBAMA'S WARS: A Couple Thoughts
I am not sure about the degree to which it shows OBAMA in a negative light, so much as it shows others negatively. If you accept the premise - Obama wants out of ther war(s) and everything he does and says is to that end, then what I have read does not show him as misguided, rather his minions are an infighting rabble.
Bob Woodward book details Obama battles with advisers over exit plan for Afghan war
By Steve Luxenberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 22, 2010; 12:11 AM
President Obama urgently looked for a way out of the war in Afghanistan last year, repeatedly pressing his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him, according to secret meeting notes and documents cited in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.
Frustrated with his military commanders for consistently offering only options that required significantly more troops, Obama finally crafted his own strategy, dictating a classified six-page "terms sheet" that sought to limit U.S. involvement, Woodward reports in "Obama's Wars," to be released on Monday.
According to Woodward's meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives.
"This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan," Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. "Everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It's in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room."
Obama rejected the military's request for 40,000 troops as part of an expansive mission that had no foreseeable end. "I'm not doing 10 years," he told Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting on Oct. 26, 2009. "I'm not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars."
Woodward's book portrays Obama and the White House as barraged by warnings about the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and confronted with the difficulty in preventing them. During an interview with Woodward in July, the president said, "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger."
But most of the book centers on the strategy review, and the dissension, distrust and infighting that consumed Obama's national security team as it was locked in a fierce and emotional struggle over the direction, goals, timetable, troop levels and the chances of success for a war that is almost certain to be one of the defining events of this presidency.
Obama is shown at odds with his uniformed military commanders, particularly Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command during the 2009 strategy review and now the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
Woodward reveals their conflicts through detailed accounts of two dozen closed-door secret strategy sessions and nearly 40 private conversations between Obama and Cabinet officers, key aides and intelligence officials.
Tensions often turned personal. National security adviser James L. Jones privately referred to Obama's political aides as "the water bugs," the "Politburo," the "Mafia," or the "campaign set." Petraeus, who felt shut out by the new administration, told an aide that he considered the president's senior adviser David Axelrod to be "a complete spin doctor."
During a flight in May, after a glass of wine, Petraeus told his own staffers that the administration was "[expletive] with the wrong guy." Gates was tempted to walk out of an Oval Office meeting after being offended by comments made by deputy national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon about a general not named in the book.
Suspicion lingered among some from the 2008 presidential campaign as well. When Obama floated the idea of naming Clinton to a high-profile post, Axelrod asked him, "How could you trust Hillary?"
'Can't afford any mistakes'
"Obama's Wars" marks the 16th book by Woodward, 67, a Washington Post associate editor. Woodward's reporting with Carl Bernstein on the Watergate coverup in the early 1970s led to their bestselling book "All the President's Men."
Among the book's other disclosures:
-- Obama told Woodward in the July interview that he didn't think about the Afghan war in the "classic" terms of the United States winning or losing. "I think about it more in terms of: Do you successfully prosecute a strategy that results in the country being stronger rather than weaker at the end?" he said.
-- The CIA created, controls and pays for a clandestine 3,000-man paramilitary army of local Afghans, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. Woodward describes these teams as elite, well-trained units that conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban havens there.
-- Obama has kept in place or expanded 14 intelligence orders, known as findings, issued by his predecessor, George W. Bush. The orders provide the legal basis for the CIA's worldwide covert operations.
[Oooh ooh call CODE PINK, let them know, and Soros, and whats that other leftist org ... MOVEON. Let them all know about Obama's dramataic shift.]
-- A new capability developed by the National Security Agency has dramatically increased the speed at which intercepted communications can be turned around into useful information for intelligence analysts and covert operators. "They talk, we listen. They move, we observe. Given the opportunity, we react operationally," then-Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell explained to Obama at a briefing two days after he was elected president.
-- A classified exercise in May showed that the government was woefully unprepared to deal with a nuclear terrorist attack in the United States. The scenario involved the detonation of a small, crude nuclear weapon in Indianapolis and the simultaneous threat of a second blast in Los Angeles. Obama, in the interview with Woodward, called a nuclear attack here "a potential game changer." He said: "When I go down the list of things I have to worry about all the time, that is at the top, because that's one where you can't afford any mistakes."
-- Afghan President Hamid Karzai was diagnosed as manic depressive, according to U.S. intelligence reports. "He's on his meds, he's off his meds," Woodward quotes U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry as saying.
[This 'diagnosis' is interesting. Assume for a second it is accurate. Karzai went to a doctor while we followed him, and while the doctor evaluated him, prescribed him meds, we watched or listened - on a 'friendly' leader - we spied! Otherwise, how would we know this??? Unless someone within the WH, which loathes Karzai, threw this story in, knowing he would hear of it and flip out. And you can't exactly quiz the intelligence agencies as they would never reveal whether they had or not, any reports attesting to this statement. Win-Win. But I would guess more likely than not, it is not accurate but another effort by the Obama WH to discredit and punish Karzai.]
'The cancer is in Pakistan'
Obama campaigned on a promise to extract U.S. forces from Iraq and focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan, which he described as the greater threat to American security. At McConnell's top-secret briefing for Obama, the intelligence chief told the president-elect that Pakistan is a dishonest partner, unwilling or unable to stop elements of the Pakistani intelligence service from giving clandestine aid, weapons and money to the Afghan Taliban, Woodward writes.
By the end of the 2009 strategy review, Woodward reports, Obama concluded that no mission in Afghanistan could be successful without attacking the al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban havens operating with impunity in Pakistan's remote tribal regions.
"We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan," Obama is quoted as saying at an Oval Office meeting on Nov. 25, 2009. Creating a more secure Afghanistan is imperative, the president said, "so the cancer doesn't spread" there.
The war in Iraq draws no attention in the book, except as a reference point for considering and developing a new Afghanistan strategy. The book's title, "Obama's Wars," appears to refer to the conflict in Afghanistan and the conflicts among the president's national security team.
An older war - the Vietnam conflict - does figure prominently in the minds of Obama and his advisers. When Vice President Biden rushed to the White House on a Sunday morning to make one last appeal for a narrowly defined mission, he warned Obama that a major escalation would mean "we're locked into Vietnam."
Obama kept asking for "an exit plan" to go along with any further troop commitment, and is shown growing increasingly frustrated with the military hierarchy for not providing one. At one strategy session, the president waved a memo from the Office of Management and Budget, which put a price tag of $889 billion over 10 years on the military's open-ended approach.
In the end, Obama essentially designed his own strategy for the 30,000 troops, which some aides considered a compromise between the military command's request for 40,000 and Biden's relentless efforts to limit the escalation to 20,000 as part of a "hybrid option" that he had developed with Gen. James E. Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In a dramatic scene at the White House on Sunday, Nov. 29, 2009, Obama summoned the national security team to outline his decision and distribute his six-page terms sheet. He went around the room, one by one, asking each participant whether he or she had any objections - to "say so now," Woodward reports.
The document - a copy of which is reprinted in the book - took the unusual step of stating, along with the strategy's objectives, what the military was not supposed to do. The president went into detail, according to Woodward, to make sure that the military wouldn't attempt to expand the mission.
After Obama informed the military of his decision, Woodward writes, the Pentagon kept trying to reopen the decision, peppering the White House with new questions. Obama, in exasperation, reacted by asking, "Why do we keep having these meetings?"
Along with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan at the time, they kept pushing for their 40,000-troop option as part of a broad counterinsurgency plan along the lines of what Petraeus had developed for Iraq.
The president is quoted as telling Mullen, Petraeus and Gates: "In 2010, we will not be having a conversation about how to do more. I will not want to hear, 'We're doing fine, Mr. President, but we'd be better if we just do more.' We're not going to be having a conversation about how to change [the mission] . . . unless we're talking about how to draw down faster than anticipated in 2011."
Petraeus took Obama's decision as a personal repudiation, Woodward writes. Petraeus continued to believe that a "protect-the-Afghan-people" counterinsurgency was the best plan. When the president tapped Petraeus this year to replace McChrystal as the head of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Petraeus found himself in charge of making Obama's more limited strategy a success.
Woodward quotes Petraeus as saying, "You have to recognize also that I don't think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It's a little bit like Iraq, actually. . . . Yes, there has been enormous progress in Iraq. But there are still horrific attacks in Iraq, and you have to stay vigilant. You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives."
obama
Bob Woodward book details Obama battles with advisers over exit plan for Afghan war
By Steve Luxenberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 22, 2010; 12:11 AM
President Obama urgently looked for a way out of the war in Afghanistan last year, repeatedly pressing his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him, according to secret meeting notes and documents cited in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.
Frustrated with his military commanders for consistently offering only options that required significantly more troops, Obama finally crafted his own strategy, dictating a classified six-page "terms sheet" that sought to limit U.S. involvement, Woodward reports in "Obama's Wars," to be released on Monday.
According to Woodward's meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives.
"This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan," Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. "Everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It's in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room."
Obama rejected the military's request for 40,000 troops as part of an expansive mission that had no foreseeable end. "I'm not doing 10 years," he told Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting on Oct. 26, 2009. "I'm not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars."
Woodward's book portrays Obama and the White House as barraged by warnings about the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and confronted with the difficulty in preventing them. During an interview with Woodward in July, the president said, "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger."
But most of the book centers on the strategy review, and the dissension, distrust and infighting that consumed Obama's national security team as it was locked in a fierce and emotional struggle over the direction, goals, timetable, troop levels and the chances of success for a war that is almost certain to be one of the defining events of this presidency.
Obama is shown at odds with his uniformed military commanders, particularly Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command during the 2009 strategy review and now the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
Woodward reveals their conflicts through detailed accounts of two dozen closed-door secret strategy sessions and nearly 40 private conversations between Obama and Cabinet officers, key aides and intelligence officials.
Tensions often turned personal. National security adviser James L. Jones privately referred to Obama's political aides as "the water bugs," the "Politburo," the "Mafia," or the "campaign set." Petraeus, who felt shut out by the new administration, told an aide that he considered the president's senior adviser David Axelrod to be "a complete spin doctor."
During a flight in May, after a glass of wine, Petraeus told his own staffers that the administration was "[expletive] with the wrong guy." Gates was tempted to walk out of an Oval Office meeting after being offended by comments made by deputy national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon about a general not named in the book.
Suspicion lingered among some from the 2008 presidential campaign as well. When Obama floated the idea of naming Clinton to a high-profile post, Axelrod asked him, "How could you trust Hillary?"
'Can't afford any mistakes'
"Obama's Wars" marks the 16th book by Woodward, 67, a Washington Post associate editor. Woodward's reporting with Carl Bernstein on the Watergate coverup in the early 1970s led to their bestselling book "All the President's Men."
Among the book's other disclosures:
-- Obama told Woodward in the July interview that he didn't think about the Afghan war in the "classic" terms of the United States winning or losing. "I think about it more in terms of: Do you successfully prosecute a strategy that results in the country being stronger rather than weaker at the end?" he said.
-- The CIA created, controls and pays for a clandestine 3,000-man paramilitary army of local Afghans, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. Woodward describes these teams as elite, well-trained units that conduct highly sensitive covert operations into Pakistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban havens there.
-- Obama has kept in place or expanded 14 intelligence orders, known as findings, issued by his predecessor, George W. Bush. The orders provide the legal basis for the CIA's worldwide covert operations.
[Oooh ooh call CODE PINK, let them know, and Soros, and whats that other leftist org ... MOVEON. Let them all know about Obama's dramataic shift.]
-- A new capability developed by the National Security Agency has dramatically increased the speed at which intercepted communications can be turned around into useful information for intelligence analysts and covert operators. "They talk, we listen. They move, we observe. Given the opportunity, we react operationally," then-Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell explained to Obama at a briefing two days after he was elected president.
-- A classified exercise in May showed that the government was woefully unprepared to deal with a nuclear terrorist attack in the United States. The scenario involved the detonation of a small, crude nuclear weapon in Indianapolis and the simultaneous threat of a second blast in Los Angeles. Obama, in the interview with Woodward, called a nuclear attack here "a potential game changer." He said: "When I go down the list of things I have to worry about all the time, that is at the top, because that's one where you can't afford any mistakes."
-- Afghan President Hamid Karzai was diagnosed as manic depressive, according to U.S. intelligence reports. "He's on his meds, he's off his meds," Woodward quotes U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry as saying.
[This 'diagnosis' is interesting. Assume for a second it is accurate. Karzai went to a doctor while we followed him, and while the doctor evaluated him, prescribed him meds, we watched or listened - on a 'friendly' leader - we spied! Otherwise, how would we know this??? Unless someone within the WH, which loathes Karzai, threw this story in, knowing he would hear of it and flip out. And you can't exactly quiz the intelligence agencies as they would never reveal whether they had or not, any reports attesting to this statement. Win-Win. But I would guess more likely than not, it is not accurate but another effort by the Obama WH to discredit and punish Karzai.]
'The cancer is in Pakistan'
Obama campaigned on a promise to extract U.S. forces from Iraq and focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan, which he described as the greater threat to American security. At McConnell's top-secret briefing for Obama, the intelligence chief told the president-elect that Pakistan is a dishonest partner, unwilling or unable to stop elements of the Pakistani intelligence service from giving clandestine aid, weapons and money to the Afghan Taliban, Woodward writes.
By the end of the 2009 strategy review, Woodward reports, Obama concluded that no mission in Afghanistan could be successful without attacking the al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban havens operating with impunity in Pakistan's remote tribal regions.
"We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan," Obama is quoted as saying at an Oval Office meeting on Nov. 25, 2009. Creating a more secure Afghanistan is imperative, the president said, "so the cancer doesn't spread" there.
The war in Iraq draws no attention in the book, except as a reference point for considering and developing a new Afghanistan strategy. The book's title, "Obama's Wars," appears to refer to the conflict in Afghanistan and the conflicts among the president's national security team.
An older war - the Vietnam conflict - does figure prominently in the minds of Obama and his advisers. When Vice President Biden rushed to the White House on a Sunday morning to make one last appeal for a narrowly defined mission, he warned Obama that a major escalation would mean "we're locked into Vietnam."
Obama kept asking for "an exit plan" to go along with any further troop commitment, and is shown growing increasingly frustrated with the military hierarchy for not providing one. At one strategy session, the president waved a memo from the Office of Management and Budget, which put a price tag of $889 billion over 10 years on the military's open-ended approach.
In the end, Obama essentially designed his own strategy for the 30,000 troops, which some aides considered a compromise between the military command's request for 40,000 and Biden's relentless efforts to limit the escalation to 20,000 as part of a "hybrid option" that he had developed with Gen. James E. Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In a dramatic scene at the White House on Sunday, Nov. 29, 2009, Obama summoned the national security team to outline his decision and distribute his six-page terms sheet. He went around the room, one by one, asking each participant whether he or she had any objections - to "say so now," Woodward reports.
The document - a copy of which is reprinted in the book - took the unusual step of stating, along with the strategy's objectives, what the military was not supposed to do. The president went into detail, according to Woodward, to make sure that the military wouldn't attempt to expand the mission.
After Obama informed the military of his decision, Woodward writes, the Pentagon kept trying to reopen the decision, peppering the White House with new questions. Obama, in exasperation, reacted by asking, "Why do we keep having these meetings?"
Along with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan at the time, they kept pushing for their 40,000-troop option as part of a broad counterinsurgency plan along the lines of what Petraeus had developed for Iraq.
The president is quoted as telling Mullen, Petraeus and Gates: "In 2010, we will not be having a conversation about how to do more. I will not want to hear, 'We're doing fine, Mr. President, but we'd be better if we just do more.' We're not going to be having a conversation about how to change [the mission] . . . unless we're talking about how to draw down faster than anticipated in 2011."
Petraeus took Obama's decision as a personal repudiation, Woodward writes. Petraeus continued to believe that a "protect-the-Afghan-people" counterinsurgency was the best plan. When the president tapped Petraeus this year to replace McChrystal as the head of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Petraeus found himself in charge of making Obama's more limited strategy a success.
Woodward quotes Petraeus as saying, "You have to recognize also that I don't think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It's a little bit like Iraq, actually. . . . Yes, there has been enormous progress in Iraq. But there are still horrific attacks in Iraq, and you have to stay vigilant. You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives."
obama
We can - absorb an attack.
"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger."
So said Obama, according to a Bob Woodward account from his just about to be published 'Obama's Wars'.
No, Mr. Obama we cannot accept or absorb. You will be impeached and every Democrat who stands with you will be washed out of Congress. We can not and we will not absorb any attack.
obama
So said Obama, according to a Bob Woodward account from his just about to be published 'Obama's Wars'.
No, Mr. Obama we cannot accept or absorb. You will be impeached and every Democrat who stands with you will be washed out of Congress. We can not and we will not absorb any attack.
obama
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Chavez and Amidinejad sitting in a tree, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes ........
I thought this interesting and worth considering.
First, we should think through the logical and the realistic. Logically, would it make sense to use a civilian airliner to carry weapons, terrorists, nuclear material from one point on the world map to another? Would any government place civilian aircraft in such a perilous condition (subject to shooting down by another government, and or, an accident that would bring the aircraft down on a civilian population on the possible chance the craft was carrying a wmd)? One need consider the government - one that is ruled by the hope that today is the last day we live, a government ruled by a cabal of men who wake each morning dreaming of not waking up the next morning. Wouldn't bother them. A government of religious clerics who, in the later part of the mid-1980s put out a call for all little children to serve their government and Allah, watched as their parents brought them, tens of thousands of children, to be given a token key to wear around their necks, blessed or spit on by the Ayatollah Khomeni and then marched off to clear minefields with their bodies. Would such a government have a problem using an aircraft to ferry agents and wmd's around the globe? No.
Realistically, Iran has little option but to resort to surreptious means of acquiring what it wants. I mean, seriously - what does the average Iranian want in Venezuela? Now before we argue about the businessmen and technology and the ... please, and until 2007 there were no businessmen and no technology, that the flight somehow brought it all together. No - they had to take many flights to get to Venezuela and this cut the flying time (hence, the costs) down considerably.
Be realistic - the two most hated leaders (by their people) on earth, the two greatest haters of the US publicly, the two nations who inspire terrorism and pay for, support, condone terrorist acts - just happened to decide they wanted to have a direct flight. Venezuela and the support for FARC and Iran and hezbollah - please. And before we wonder about US support for ... not relevent to the question, unless you are willing to admit this as fact, to debate whether the US does it also. The US doesn't need to now does it - given our international reach militarily. Iran would not be able to send ships around the globe.
It really is an odd pairing - Chavez and Amindinejad. The people of Venezuela do not like this, nor does the military elite, nor do the elite of Venezuela, nor do the middle class in Venezuela ... who wants their country used by terrorists from Iran to transport nuclear material and or, for shuttling terrorists.
Odd. Chavez finds more reasons each day to be killed off and unlike his hero - Fidel, he will be, for he is not that smart.
And this is the man (Amidinejad) YOU, Mr. Obama wanted to negotiate with. That was back when you were wet behind the ears, I know, back when you had support in the US to make such naive and foolish statements. Amazing.
I would not, with a high level of probability, have a problem with the plane falling off the radar one time; perhaps on another occasion, as it flew across the skies and over the Atlantic, maybe its engines suddenly go out, and back on, and off, and on, forcing the plane to land in Cuba, wherewe watch everyone get off. And the next time the flight heads over the Atlantic it gets hit by lightening 20 times, followed by a swirling vortex of air pushing it down at rapid speeds, until the plane shows terrible signs of wearing and the pilots decide they would rather risk Amidinejad than the skies over the Atlantic. Either that or we shoot it down.
Iran's secret pipeline into the U.S.
August 18, 2010
J.J. Green
wtop.com
WASHINGTON - Iran Air 744 is a bimonthly flight that originates in Tehran and flies directly to Caracas with periodic stops in Beirut and Damascus. The maiden flight was Feb. 2, 2007.
The mere existence of the flight was a significant concern for U.S. intelligence officials, but now a broader concern is who and what are aboard the flights.
"If you [a member of the public] tried to book yourself a seat on this flight and it doesn't matter whether it's a week before, a month before, six months before -- you'll never find a place to sit there," says Offer Baruch, a former Israeli Shin Bet agent.
Baruch, now vice president of operations for International Shield, a security firm in Texas, says the plane is reserved for Iranian agents, including "Hezbollah, the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and other intelligence personnel."
Current and former U.S. intelligence official fear the flight is a shadowy way to move people and weapons to locations in Latin America that can be used as staging points for retaliatory attacks against the U.S. or its interests in the event Iranian nuclear sites are struck by U.S. or Israeli military forces.
"My understanding is that this flight not only goes from Caracas to Damascus to Tehran perhaps twice a month, but it also occasionally makes stops in Lebanon as well, and the passengers on that flight are not processed through normal Venezuelan immigrations or customs. They are processed separately when they come into the country," says Peter Brookes, senior fellow for National Security Affairs at the Heritage Foundation.
The 16-hour flight typically leaves Tehran and stops at Damascus International Airport (DAM), which is Syria's busiest. In 2009, almost 4.5 million passengers used the airport.
After a 90-minute layover, the flight continues the remaining 14 hours to Venezuela's Caracas MaiquetÃa International Airport (CCS). Upon arrival, the plane is met by special Venezuelan forces and sequestered from other arrivals.
"It says that something secretive or clandestine is going on that they don't want the international community to know about," says Brookes, a former deputy assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs and CIA employee.
"The fact that there is a flight is of course of interest, but the fact that not anybody can gain access to this flight or buy a ticket for that flight is of particular curiosity and should be of concern to the United States."
In addition to speculation about who is aboard, there are significant concerns that the Boeing 747SP airplane might be transporting uranium to Tehran on the return flight. The U.S. government has enacted strong sanctions against Iran because of its nuclear program and there are worries the flight might provide an opportunity to skirt the embargo against materials that might be used for the program.
"Clearly, Iran has been a sponsor of Hezbollah, and clearly Hezbollah profits from this relationship," former CIA Director Michael J. Hayden says.
"It would be too much to say that Hezbollah is a puppet of the Iranian state, but one way of looking at this relationship is that the Iranian state might rely on Hezbollah as a strategic weapon -- its weapon for global reach."
Hayden, now a principle in the Chertoff Group, says the CIA has been aware of the activities for several years.
"Fundamentally, the thing that first and very solidly caught our attention at the Agency was the inauguration of direct air flight between the two capitals. Here was a conduit that people could travel from Iran into the Western Hemisphere, into Latin America in a way that would be very difficult for American intelligence services to detect and to understand.
"Right there at that very simple level, just the direct flight is something that we would be and should be concerned about."
Brookes says the passengers "may not even need visas because they are special passengers. That obviously is of concern because there is no transparency about who the people are coming in and going out of the country. Of course there is concern that these folks may be Iranian special agents."
Beyond concerns about Iranian intelligence flooding the west, Brookes and others worry that Iranian special advisers are schooling the Venezuelan military and may be involved in plans to move Iranian agents inside the U.S.
"It's certainly a possibility. Would the agents that come into Venezuela be able to find their way to the United States? That's certainly possible. You see the drug smugglers today using submersibles to move drugs to the U.S. and other parts of the Caribbean which is a real challenge. So why wouldn't they be able to do the same with persons?"
A U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity says there are concerns about the relationships between Iran and Venezuela, but you have to keep it in perspective.
"The problems both countries face internally, and their own regional priorities closer to home, limit the amount of trouble they can cause together. But it's something you have to watch, whether it's the potential for government-to-government mischief or the possibility of something involving Iran's friends like Hezbollah.
"You can ask what a self-proclaimed Bolivarian socialist has in common with a bunch of theocratic thugs in Iran. The answer is 'not much,' beyond a taste for repression and a shared desire to make life difficult for the United States and its allies."
On Friday, the next flight is expected to take off. While U.S. intelligence may be able to track the flight, there appears to be little more they can legally do to determine what or who is on board.
"American intelligence services have a lot of things on their plate. The fact that I can tell you that we're really interested in that direct flight tells you that it was on our scope -- something that we are sensitive to," Hayden says. "Are we doing enough about it? I would have to say 'no,' because it's a very challenging menu that American intelligence has to deal with."
In a statement, the State Department says, "Nations have the right to enter into cooperative relationships with other nations."
Neither the Iranian nor the Venezuelan governments responded to request for reaction before this article was published.
Iran
First, we should think through the logical and the realistic. Logically, would it make sense to use a civilian airliner to carry weapons, terrorists, nuclear material from one point on the world map to another? Would any government place civilian aircraft in such a perilous condition (subject to shooting down by another government, and or, an accident that would bring the aircraft down on a civilian population on the possible chance the craft was carrying a wmd)? One need consider the government - one that is ruled by the hope that today is the last day we live, a government ruled by a cabal of men who wake each morning dreaming of not waking up the next morning. Wouldn't bother them. A government of religious clerics who, in the later part of the mid-1980s put out a call for all little children to serve their government and Allah, watched as their parents brought them, tens of thousands of children, to be given a token key to wear around their necks, blessed or spit on by the Ayatollah Khomeni and then marched off to clear minefields with their bodies. Would such a government have a problem using an aircraft to ferry agents and wmd's around the globe? No.
Realistically, Iran has little option but to resort to surreptious means of acquiring what it wants. I mean, seriously - what does the average Iranian want in Venezuela? Now before we argue about the businessmen and technology and the ... please, and until 2007 there were no businessmen and no technology, that the flight somehow brought it all together. No - they had to take many flights to get to Venezuela and this cut the flying time (hence, the costs) down considerably.
Be realistic - the two most hated leaders (by their people) on earth, the two greatest haters of the US publicly, the two nations who inspire terrorism and pay for, support, condone terrorist acts - just happened to decide they wanted to have a direct flight. Venezuela and the support for FARC and Iran and hezbollah - please. And before we wonder about US support for ... not relevent to the question, unless you are willing to admit this as fact, to debate whether the US does it also. The US doesn't need to now does it - given our international reach militarily. Iran would not be able to send ships around the globe.
It really is an odd pairing - Chavez and Amindinejad. The people of Venezuela do not like this, nor does the military elite, nor do the elite of Venezuela, nor do the middle class in Venezuela ... who wants their country used by terrorists from Iran to transport nuclear material and or, for shuttling terrorists.
Odd. Chavez finds more reasons each day to be killed off and unlike his hero - Fidel, he will be, for he is not that smart.
And this is the man (Amidinejad) YOU, Mr. Obama wanted to negotiate with. That was back when you were wet behind the ears, I know, back when you had support in the US to make such naive and foolish statements. Amazing.
I would not, with a high level of probability, have a problem with the plane falling off the radar one time; perhaps on another occasion, as it flew across the skies and over the Atlantic, maybe its engines suddenly go out, and back on, and off, and on, forcing the plane to land in Cuba, wherewe watch everyone get off. And the next time the flight heads over the Atlantic it gets hit by lightening 20 times, followed by a swirling vortex of air pushing it down at rapid speeds, until the plane shows terrible signs of wearing and the pilots decide they would rather risk Amidinejad than the skies over the Atlantic. Either that or we shoot it down.
Iran's secret pipeline into the U.S.
August 18, 2010
J.J. Green
wtop.com
WASHINGTON - Iran Air 744 is a bimonthly flight that originates in Tehran and flies directly to Caracas with periodic stops in Beirut and Damascus. The maiden flight was Feb. 2, 2007.
The mere existence of the flight was a significant concern for U.S. intelligence officials, but now a broader concern is who and what are aboard the flights.
"If you [a member of the public] tried to book yourself a seat on this flight and it doesn't matter whether it's a week before, a month before, six months before -- you'll never find a place to sit there," says Offer Baruch, a former Israeli Shin Bet agent.
Baruch, now vice president of operations for International Shield, a security firm in Texas, says the plane is reserved for Iranian agents, including "Hezbollah, the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and other intelligence personnel."
Current and former U.S. intelligence official fear the flight is a shadowy way to move people and weapons to locations in Latin America that can be used as staging points for retaliatory attacks against the U.S. or its interests in the event Iranian nuclear sites are struck by U.S. or Israeli military forces.
"My understanding is that this flight not only goes from Caracas to Damascus to Tehran perhaps twice a month, but it also occasionally makes stops in Lebanon as well, and the passengers on that flight are not processed through normal Venezuelan immigrations or customs. They are processed separately when they come into the country," says Peter Brookes, senior fellow for National Security Affairs at the Heritage Foundation.
The 16-hour flight typically leaves Tehran and stops at Damascus International Airport (DAM), which is Syria's busiest. In 2009, almost 4.5 million passengers used the airport.
After a 90-minute layover, the flight continues the remaining 14 hours to Venezuela's Caracas MaiquetÃa International Airport (CCS). Upon arrival, the plane is met by special Venezuelan forces and sequestered from other arrivals.
"It says that something secretive or clandestine is going on that they don't want the international community to know about," says Brookes, a former deputy assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs and CIA employee.
"The fact that there is a flight is of course of interest, but the fact that not anybody can gain access to this flight or buy a ticket for that flight is of particular curiosity and should be of concern to the United States."
In addition to speculation about who is aboard, there are significant concerns that the Boeing 747SP airplane might be transporting uranium to Tehran on the return flight. The U.S. government has enacted strong sanctions against Iran because of its nuclear program and there are worries the flight might provide an opportunity to skirt the embargo against materials that might be used for the program.
"Clearly, Iran has been a sponsor of Hezbollah, and clearly Hezbollah profits from this relationship," former CIA Director Michael J. Hayden says.
"It would be too much to say that Hezbollah is a puppet of the Iranian state, but one way of looking at this relationship is that the Iranian state might rely on Hezbollah as a strategic weapon -- its weapon for global reach."
Hayden, now a principle in the Chertoff Group, says the CIA has been aware of the activities for several years.
"Fundamentally, the thing that first and very solidly caught our attention at the Agency was the inauguration of direct air flight between the two capitals. Here was a conduit that people could travel from Iran into the Western Hemisphere, into Latin America in a way that would be very difficult for American intelligence services to detect and to understand.
"Right there at that very simple level, just the direct flight is something that we would be and should be concerned about."
Brookes says the passengers "may not even need visas because they are special passengers. That obviously is of concern because there is no transparency about who the people are coming in and going out of the country. Of course there is concern that these folks may be Iranian special agents."
Beyond concerns about Iranian intelligence flooding the west, Brookes and others worry that Iranian special advisers are schooling the Venezuelan military and may be involved in plans to move Iranian agents inside the U.S.
"It's certainly a possibility. Would the agents that come into Venezuela be able to find their way to the United States? That's certainly possible. You see the drug smugglers today using submersibles to move drugs to the U.S. and other parts of the Caribbean which is a real challenge. So why wouldn't they be able to do the same with persons?"
A U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity says there are concerns about the relationships between Iran and Venezuela, but you have to keep it in perspective.
"The problems both countries face internally, and their own regional priorities closer to home, limit the amount of trouble they can cause together. But it's something you have to watch, whether it's the potential for government-to-government mischief or the possibility of something involving Iran's friends like Hezbollah.
"You can ask what a self-proclaimed Bolivarian socialist has in common with a bunch of theocratic thugs in Iran. The answer is 'not much,' beyond a taste for repression and a shared desire to make life difficult for the United States and its allies."
On Friday, the next flight is expected to take off. While U.S. intelligence may be able to track the flight, there appears to be little more they can legally do to determine what or who is on board.
"American intelligence services have a lot of things on their plate. The fact that I can tell you that we're really interested in that direct flight tells you that it was on our scope -- something that we are sensitive to," Hayden says. "Are we doing enough about it? I would have to say 'no,' because it's a very challenging menu that American intelligence has to deal with."
In a statement, the State Department says, "Nations have the right to enter into cooperative relationships with other nations."
Neither the Iranian nor the Venezuelan governments responded to request for reaction before this article was published.
Iran
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
WMDs - Perhaps it will be carried out by a 'Nigerian student' - by 2013.
The problem for us is Obama. He does not believe this can happen. It is not in his worldview. islam is peaceful, the bad guys are a few disgruntled students who would change, if only the US hugged them, and gave them coffee and tea rather than bombs and death. When this happens, as it will, if he is still the president, I cannot imagine the mayhem. We will be told not to jump to conclusions, that his administration will find those responsible and bring them to justice.
The problem - tens of thousands of Americans will be dead, and he will want to bring someone to justice.
Of course the Bush administration is not free of responsibility - had they simply ignored the Democrats for the last several years and plowed ahead with intelligence gathering methods, perhaps we would know more. Had Bush ignored the rights of killers, and used whatever methods necessary to extract inform ation when possible, perhaps we would have known more. Had Bush spent more time pushing for the rapid response teams, more satellite coverage of our cities and coasts to analyze whatever we can detect from those tools, perhaps we could have found them while they were planning their evil deeds. I am sure there are other tools we could have been using and should have, rather than to be tied down to hearings and investigations into intelligence gathering methods.
Instead, Americans will die for their failures; and then many innocent Muslims will die as a result of the response to their failures. It never ends.
Al-Qaeda seeks WMD, US unprepared: reports
Jan 26 11:27 PM US/Eastern
Agence France Presse
The United States has not done enough to protect the country against the threat of weapons of mass destruction even as Al-Qaeda appears intent on staging a large-scale attack, reports said.
A bipartisan panel warned that the government had failed to adopt measures to counter the danger posed by extremists using WMD, saying the administration lacked plans for a rapid response to a possible biological attack.
"Nearly a decade after September 11, 2001, one year after our original report, and one month after the Christmas Day bombing attempt, the United States is failing to address several urgent threats, especially bioterrorism," said former senator Bob Graham, chair of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.
He said that Washington no longer had "the luxury of a slow learning curve, when we know Al-Qaeda is interested in bioweapons."
In its "report card," the commission also gave the federal government low marks for failing to recruit a new generation of national security experts and for failing to improve congressional oversight of intelligence and homeland security agencies.
The findings came as a former CIA officer wrote in a report that Al-Qaeda's leaders have been working methodically since the 1990s to secure weapons that could inflict massive bloodshed.
Although other extremists had looked into obtaining such weapons, Al-Qaeda "is the only group known to be pursuing a long-term, persistent and systematic approach to developing weapons to be used in mass casualty attacks," wrote Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, who led the CIA's WMD department.
He acknowledged that the failure to find WMD in Iraq had damaged the US government's credibility and had spread skepticism about the threat posed by Al-Qaeda getting its hands on nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
"That said, WMD terrorism is not Iraqi WMD," he wrote in the report released by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
He argued that intelligence on Al-Qaeda's activities was much more extensive and reliable than the information about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs.
His report said Al-Qaeda's efforts to develop biological and nuclear weapons were not "empty rhetoric" and that the group's leaders appeared to have ruled out smaller-scale attacks with simpler devices.
"If Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants had been interested in employing crude chemical, biological and radiological materials in small-scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have done so by now," he wrote.
In a "highly compartmentalized" operation, Al-Qaeda had pursued parallel tracks to try to secure the destructive weapons, building a biological lab and separately acquiring strains of anthrax bacteria before the attacks of September 11, 2001, the report said.
The anthrax was apparently never successfully placed in a weapon and scientists working at a lab in Afghanistan had to flee when US-led forces invaded after the 9/11 attacks, it said.
In 2003, US officials feared that Al-Qaeda was on the verge of obtaining atomic weapons after intercepting a message from a Saudi operative referring to plans to secure Russian nuclear devices.
The sensitive intelligence was passed on to Riyadh and the Saudi government then arrested Al-Qaeda suspects in a major crackdown.
But US officials were never sure if the nuclear plot was disrupted or merely pushed underground.
The former CIA officer also said Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in 2003 had called off plans for a chemical attack on New York's subways "for something better," a cryptic remark that remains a mystery.
The bipartisan commission on the WMD threat, created by Congress, had said in its initial report in December 2008 that it was "more likely than not" that a terror attack using weapons of mass destruction would be carried out somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.
terrorism
The problem - tens of thousands of Americans will be dead, and he will want to bring someone to justice.
Of course the Bush administration is not free of responsibility - had they simply ignored the Democrats for the last several years and plowed ahead with intelligence gathering methods, perhaps we would know more. Had Bush ignored the rights of killers, and used whatever methods necessary to extract inform ation when possible, perhaps we would have known more. Had Bush spent more time pushing for the rapid response teams, more satellite coverage of our cities and coasts to analyze whatever we can detect from those tools, perhaps we could have found them while they were planning their evil deeds. I am sure there are other tools we could have been using and should have, rather than to be tied down to hearings and investigations into intelligence gathering methods.
Instead, Americans will die for their failures; and then many innocent Muslims will die as a result of the response to their failures. It never ends.
Al-Qaeda seeks WMD, US unprepared: reports
Jan 26 11:27 PM US/Eastern
Agence France Presse
The United States has not done enough to protect the country against the threat of weapons of mass destruction even as Al-Qaeda appears intent on staging a large-scale attack, reports said.
A bipartisan panel warned that the government had failed to adopt measures to counter the danger posed by extremists using WMD, saying the administration lacked plans for a rapid response to a possible biological attack.
"Nearly a decade after September 11, 2001, one year after our original report, and one month after the Christmas Day bombing attempt, the United States is failing to address several urgent threats, especially bioterrorism," said former senator Bob Graham, chair of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.
He said that Washington no longer had "the luxury of a slow learning curve, when we know Al-Qaeda is interested in bioweapons."
In its "report card," the commission also gave the federal government low marks for failing to recruit a new generation of national security experts and for failing to improve congressional oversight of intelligence and homeland security agencies.
The findings came as a former CIA officer wrote in a report that Al-Qaeda's leaders have been working methodically since the 1990s to secure weapons that could inflict massive bloodshed.
Although other extremists had looked into obtaining such weapons, Al-Qaeda "is the only group known to be pursuing a long-term, persistent and systematic approach to developing weapons to be used in mass casualty attacks," wrote Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, who led the CIA's WMD department.
He acknowledged that the failure to find WMD in Iraq had damaged the US government's credibility and had spread skepticism about the threat posed by Al-Qaeda getting its hands on nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
"That said, WMD terrorism is not Iraqi WMD," he wrote in the report released by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
He argued that intelligence on Al-Qaeda's activities was much more extensive and reliable than the information about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs.
His report said Al-Qaeda's efforts to develop biological and nuclear weapons were not "empty rhetoric" and that the group's leaders appeared to have ruled out smaller-scale attacks with simpler devices.
"If Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants had been interested in employing crude chemical, biological and radiological materials in small-scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have done so by now," he wrote.
In a "highly compartmentalized" operation, Al-Qaeda had pursued parallel tracks to try to secure the destructive weapons, building a biological lab and separately acquiring strains of anthrax bacteria before the attacks of September 11, 2001, the report said.
The anthrax was apparently never successfully placed in a weapon and scientists working at a lab in Afghanistan had to flee when US-led forces invaded after the 9/11 attacks, it said.
In 2003, US officials feared that Al-Qaeda was on the verge of obtaining atomic weapons after intercepting a message from a Saudi operative referring to plans to secure Russian nuclear devices.
The sensitive intelligence was passed on to Riyadh and the Saudi government then arrested Al-Qaeda suspects in a major crackdown.
But US officials were never sure if the nuclear plot was disrupted or merely pushed underground.
The former CIA officer also said Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in 2003 had called off plans for a chemical attack on New York's subways "for something better," a cryptic remark that remains a mystery.
The bipartisan commission on the WMD threat, created by Congress, had said in its initial report in December 2008 that it was "more likely than not" that a terror attack using weapons of mass destruction would be carried out somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.
terrorism
Friday, July 18, 2008
Russian help for Iraq before US invasion?
(the good news is all these documents referenced here are being compiled by the Iraqis. One day they will ALL be released)
Did Russian Ambassador Give Saddam the U.S. War Plan?
Iraq Archive Document Alleges Russian Official Described Locations, Troops, Tanks and Other Forces Before Operation Iraqi Freedom Began
March 23, 2006
Following are the ABC News Investigative Unit's summaries of seven documents from Saddam Hussein's government, which the U.S. government has released.
The documents discuss Osama bin Laden, weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda and more.
The full documents can be found on the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office Web site: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm.
Note: Document titles were added by ABC News.
"U.S. War Plan Leaked to Iraqis by Russian Ambassador"
Two Iraqi documents from March 2003 -- on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion -- and addressed to the secretary of Saddam Hussein, describe details of a U.S. plan for war. According to the documents, the plan was disclosed to the Iraqis by the Russian ambassador.
Document written sometime before March 5, 2003
The first document (CMPC-2003-001950) is a handwritten account of a meeting with the Russian ambassador that details his description of the composition, size, location and type of U.S. military forces arrayed in the Gulf and Jordan. The document includes the exact numbers of tanks, armored vehicles, different types of aircraft, missiles, helicopters, aircraft carriers, and other forces, and also includes their exact locations. The ambassador also described the positions of two Special Forces units.
Document dated March 25, 2003
The second document (CMPC-2004-001117) is a typed account, signed by Deputy Foreign Minister Hammam Abdel Khaleq, that states that the Russian ambassador has told the Iraqis that the United States was planning to deploy its force into Iraq from Basra in the South and up the Euphrates, and would avoid entering major cities on the way to Baghdad, which is, in fact what happened. The documents also state "Americans are also planning on taking control of the oil fields in Kirkuk." The information was obtained by the Russians from "sources at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar," according to the document.
This document also includes an account of an amusing incident in which several Iraqi Army officers (presumably seeking further elaboration of the U.S. war plans) contacted the Russian Embassy in Baghdad and stated that the ambassador was their source. Needless to say, this caused great embarrassment to the ambassador, and the officers were instructed "not to mention the ambassador again in that context."
(Editor's Note: The Russian ambassador in March 2003 was Vladimir Teterenko. Teterenko appears in documents released by the Volker Commission, which investigated the Oil for Food scandal, as receiving allocations of 3 million barrels of oil -- worth roughly $1.5 million. )
Did Russian Ambassador Give Saddam the U.S. War Plan?
Iraq Archive Document Alleges Russian Official Described Locations, Troops, Tanks and Other Forces Before Operation Iraqi Freedom Began
March 23, 2006
Following are the ABC News Investigative Unit's summaries of seven documents from Saddam Hussein's government, which the U.S. government has released.
The documents discuss Osama bin Laden, weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda and more.
The full documents can be found on the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office Web site: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm.
Note: Document titles were added by ABC News.
"U.S. War Plan Leaked to Iraqis by Russian Ambassador"
Two Iraqi documents from March 2003 -- on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion -- and addressed to the secretary of Saddam Hussein, describe details of a U.S. plan for war. According to the documents, the plan was disclosed to the Iraqis by the Russian ambassador.
Document written sometime before March 5, 2003
The first document (CMPC-2003-001950) is a handwritten account of a meeting with the Russian ambassador that details his description of the composition, size, location and type of U.S. military forces arrayed in the Gulf and Jordan. The document includes the exact numbers of tanks, armored vehicles, different types of aircraft, missiles, helicopters, aircraft carriers, and other forces, and also includes their exact locations. The ambassador also described the positions of two Special Forces units.
Document dated March 25, 2003
The second document (CMPC-2004-001117) is a typed account, signed by Deputy Foreign Minister Hammam Abdel Khaleq, that states that the Russian ambassador has told the Iraqis that the United States was planning to deploy its force into Iraq from Basra in the South and up the Euphrates, and would avoid entering major cities on the way to Baghdad, which is, in fact what happened. The documents also state "Americans are also planning on taking control of the oil fields in Kirkuk." The information was obtained by the Russians from "sources at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar," according to the document.
This document also includes an account of an amusing incident in which several Iraqi Army officers (presumably seeking further elaboration of the U.S. war plans) contacted the Russian Embassy in Baghdad and stated that the ambassador was their source. Needless to say, this caused great embarrassment to the ambassador, and the officers were instructed "not to mention the ambassador again in that context."
(Editor's Note: The Russian ambassador in March 2003 was Vladimir Teterenko. Teterenko appears in documents released by the Volker Commission, which investigated the Oil for Food scandal, as receiving allocations of 3 million barrels of oil -- worth roughly $1.5 million. )
Charles Duelfer: A Lot of Material Left Iraq and Went to Syria
In 2004, after no WMDs were found, the US established a commission to figure out what happened and if they existed or not. That commission, a bi-partisan commission - concluded that "a lot of materials left Iraq and went to Syria."
Materials - could be anything from gold to wmds, and there is no certainty what was in these trucks, other than 'materials'.
See the Duelfer report: Iraq Survey Group
(I will endeavor to scan and paste the article. It is not within the original sources archives any longer - dated from October 16, 2004)
Iraq
Duelfer
Materials - could be anything from gold to wmds, and there is no certainty what was in these trucks, other than 'materials'.
See the Duelfer report: Iraq Survey Group
(I will endeavor to scan and paste the article. It is not within the original sources archives any longer - dated from October 16, 2004)
Iraq
Duelfer
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Dirty bombs: Coming to a City near You!
What to expect when it happens.
Henry Kelly testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 6, 2002 on the threat of radiological attack by terrorist groups. This excerpt is taken from the text of his written testimony, based on analysis by Michael Levi, Robert Nelson, and Jaime Yassif .
Dr Kelly discusses more than dirty bombs - all are important, but pay attention to the seriousness of such an attack. We are unable to deradiate buildings - consequently, we would end up demolishing most!! Hundreds of billions, trillions.
Now imagine if it happened in New York.
And for fun - Fallout Calculator: choose your city, size, wind direction and speed, and then sit back and enjoy.
Happy Days
stupid
mentally
retarded
fools
Henry Kelly testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 6, 2002 on the threat of radiological attack by terrorist groups. This excerpt is taken from the text of his written testimony, based on analysis by Michael Levi, Robert Nelson, and Jaime Yassif .
Dr Kelly discusses more than dirty bombs - all are important, but pay attention to the seriousness of such an attack. We are unable to deradiate buildings - consequently, we would end up demolishing most!! Hundreds of billions, trillions.
Now imagine if it happened in New York.
And for fun - Fallout Calculator: choose your city, size, wind direction and speed, and then sit back and enjoy.
Happy Days
stupid
mentally
retarded
fools
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