Free Republic

"Clearly I think it was a terrorist act, whether he was connected to another group or not or a formal group is question we'll find out over the next couple of days," said Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit. (Fox News 11/7)

From Lexis Nexis transcript: BECK: Yes, sir. OK. So you have seen this. Do you really, honestly believe that we have come to a place to where those very senior people in the highest offices of the land, Congress and the White House, really will not do the right thing in the end, that they won't see the error of their ways? SCHEUER: No, sir, they will not. Not -- the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it's going to...

In this clip from the Glenn Beck Comedy Hour, former CIA agent (and complete wacko) Michael Scheuer says the only thing that can save America from illegal immigration is for “Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.” Good grief. Beck, of course, nods and agrees with this warped analysis, and says, “Which is why I was thinking this weekend, if I were him that would be the last thing I would do right now.”

In surprisingly good English, the captive quietly answers: 'Yes, all thanks to God, I do know when the mujaheddin will, with God's permission, detonate a nuclear weapon in the United States, and I also know how many and in which cities." Startled, the CIA interrogators quickly demand more detail. Smiling his trademark shy smile, the captive says nothing. Reporting the interrogation's results to the White House, the CIA director can only shrug when the president asks: "What can we do to make Osama bin Laden talk?"

While ex-CIA analyst Michael Scheuer likened Osama bin Laden to figures such as Robin Hood and Saint Francis of Assisi in his 2004 book, Imperial Hubris, one would've assumed that with the publication of The Al Qaeda Reader in 2007, which presents a very different picture of bin Laden, based on his own words, that Scheuer, at the very least, would have stopped depicting the former as nothing more than a man with grievances fighting tyranny and oppression. Yet, according to this article, in his latest book, Scheuer is now presenting Osama's writings as being similar to Thomas Jefferson's! I...

“This is our ethanol”So an exasperated Sen. Barbara Boxer screams that the farm-belt senators better support her regional selfishness in opposing California off-shore drilling against the national interest, in the same manner she went along with the ethanol boondoggle. Odd that she was so brazen in her confessional.Jackson’s N-wordI give some credit to Barack Obama. His ‘hope and change’ mantra drives some to near madness and has proved a wrecking ball of liberal careers. First, in 90 days he destroyed the Clinton political machine, leaving Bill’s past 7-year effort at PC rehabilitation, after Monica and the pardons, in shambles. Now...

TERRORISM MONITOR Volume 2 Issue 1 (January 15, 2004) A RUSSIAN AGENT AT THE RIGHT HAND OF BIN LADEN? By Evgenii Novikov The Arabic television channel Al Jazeera broadcast an audiotape on December 19, 2003, that was said to be from Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the right hand man of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In it, Zawahiri claimed that his group was chasing Americans everywhere, including in the United States. This claim helped raise the terror threat level. But where is Zawahiri, whose head now carries a price of US$25 million? Recent media reports have said that he is...

09/25/2007 - By Michael Scheuer (from Terrorism Focus, September 25) - More than six years after the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden remains free, healthy and safe enough to produce audio- and videotapes that dominate the international media at the times of his choosing (Terrorism Focus, September 11). Popular and some official attitudes in the United States and its NATO allies tend to denigrate the efforts made by their military and intelligence services to capture the al-Qaeda chief. The common question always is, "Why can't the U.S. superpower and its allies find one 6'5" Saudi with an extraordinarily well-known...

Who is to blame for the intelligence disaster of September 11? The sixth anniversary of the attacks is upon us, and the finger-pointing continues unabated. Last month the CIA reluctantly made public a summary of a 2005 report prepared by its Office of Inspector General (OIG) undertaken to determine if any agency employees "should be held accountable" for failing to forestall the worst attack on our homeland in our history. Among others, the report harshly judges the performance of former CIA director George Tenet, and the media have understandably focused on that. But how do other lower-level CIA officers come...

(CBS) "People of America," he says, "lend me your ears." So says the most wanted man in the world, Osama bin Laden, appearing in a new videotape which has surfaced nearly six years after the attacks of September 11, 2001. In it, he rails against Western corporations, neoconservatives, and Democrats in Congress, telling Americans they had voted for Democrats to stop the war, but in his words, the majority party hasn’t made a move worth mentioning. CBS News consultant Michael Scheuer, a former CIA analyst and author of "Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror" and...

If al-Qaida does launch an attack inside the U.S., as the U.S. government suggests, "it will be much bigger than 9/11." This prediction of a nightmarish terror attack comes from Michael Scheuer, the retired CIA veteran who headed the agency's secret unit dedicated to capturing Osama bin Laden. In an exclusive NewsMax interview, the 22-year CIA veteran and bestselling author of "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror," argues that while our government in Washington has talked a "good talk" about security, America remains seriously vulnerable. Despite the clear and present danger, Scheuer cites the federal...

rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/ter/ter_wj041507_scheuer.rm Michael Scheuer, Former Head of CIA’s Bin Laden Unit (1996-99) Michael Scheuer, Former Head of CIA’s Bin Laden Unit (1996-99), describes Al-Qaeda’s Worldwide Influence. 4/15/2007: WASHINGTON, DC: 28 min.

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay. Abd al-Hadi was taken into CIA custody last year, it emerged from US intelligence sources yesterday, in a move which suggests that he was interrogated for months in a “ghost prison” before being transferred...

It is rare to get an insider's perspective on the emergence of al-Qaeda. It is also rare to get a glimpse of the world of spies and agents. To provide both is incredibly unusual. Omar Nasiri - not his real name but one chosen to protect his identity - says he spent seven years working as an agent for European intelligence services and as an al-Qaeda operative, part of the time in the UK. He provides a unique insight into how al-Qaeda was far more organised, coherent and determined in the 1990s than was appreciated at the time. Jihad militants...

Preview and analysis for Weekend Talk Shows, 9-30 and 10-1-06 It's week four (or 297, depending on how you figure it) of the WOB (war on Bush) and all things "Republi-fascist," as the drive by media might style what they're doing.  We've had a week of spin like we haven't seen since... well, since Clinton was in office.  All the old hateful and hate filled faces were back on the screaming head shows pulling their electrically powered rapid fire mouths back out of storage and plugging them in for one more go around of lies, screaming lies and videotape.  And...

Michael Scheuer, former head of the "bin Laden desk" at the CIA, was interviewed on the John Gambling radio show on WABC radio (NYC) this morning.Here are a few points Scheuer made, as well I can remember (there is no transcript of the interview yet as far afaik): 1. Clinton was presented with a near perfect opportunity to kill bin Laden around December 23 or 24, 1999. (IIRC on the dates.) Clinton refused to pull the trigger in that instance NOT because he was afraid of human collateral damage, Scheuer says, but because Clinton was afraid shrapnel would hit a...

CBS terrorism analyst Michael Scheuer on the hunt for Usama Bin Laden and the possibility of an attack "greater than 9/11" From Heartland, September 9 2006: Link to QuickTime Video (Clip about 1 minute long)

Via the ABC News blog “Political Punch� comes this message from Michael Scheuer on The Path to 9/11 controversy. “This morning we received an email from Michael Scheuer, former chief of the Osama bin Laden Unit at the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center (and the previously “Anonymous� author of “Imperial Hubris�) who is clearly no fan of either the Bush nor the Clinton Administrations — nor the 9/11 Commission. He writes the following: “This whole business over ABC’s movie is amazing. Now Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and a pack of political whores who pass themselves off as ‘historians’ have come out four-square for...

In response to an article published at NewsBusters and The American Thinker, I have received two e-mail messages from Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA that used to head up “Alec Station,” the Counterterrorist Center’s Osama bin Laden unit. (Update: Scheuer is the individual regularly referred to in the 9/11 Commission report as "Mike".) His name might ring a bell as the previously anonymous author of the books Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America. In his writing as...

This is an expansion on debg's summary of Adam Gadahn's Al Qaeda videotape, available for download at http://www.lauramansfield.com/j/nnnnmn-1.rm. debg: He spent a long time saying we are ignorantGadahn did indeed spend a long time calling us "ignorant." After Zawahiri's introduction, he also accused us of "rapturously applause" when Israel wages war, of assenting to our governments' "atrocities in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the Muslim world." He also accuses us of "voicing our approval" of the so-called desecration of the Koran at Gitmo, and of our "yellow press and tele-evangelists insulting the 'Prophet' Muhammad [piss be upon him - my...

The "Azzam" Threat: A prelude to Future Jihad in AmericaOver at the Counterterrorism Blog the ever-insightful Walid Phares has posted a preliminary explanation and analysis of the new videotape from Azzam the American, aka Adam Yehiye Gadahn. A few choice details: [...] In short, the “Azzam” video reconfirms clearly, in an English language that academic translators won’t be able to distort, that al Qaeda’s movement worldwide and in the United States is seeking total annihilation or conversion of the enemy: American and other democracies. 4) Argumentation tactics: The “speech writer,” emulating many commentators on al Jazeera or al Manar, hopes...

Six Questions for Michael Scheuer on National Security Posted on Wednesday, August 23, 2006. By Ken Silverstein. Sources Michael Scheuer served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004; he served as the chief of the bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He is the formerly anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America. I met him for breakfast last week at an IHOP in the Virginia suburbs outside of Washington. Over...

What if there are ten million and one? Religion of Peace Update from CNN, with thanks to Doug: Michael Scheuer, who once headed the CIA's bin Laden unit, says bin Laden has been given permission by a young cleric in Saudi Arabia authorizing al Qaeda to "use nuclear weapons against the United States ... capping the casualties at 10 million." "He's had an approval, a religious approval for 10 million deaths?" I asked him. "Yes," Scheuer responded.

Agent who led Bin Laden hunt criticises CIA Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Saturday July 8, 2006 The Guardian (UK) The man who led America's hunt for Osama bin Laden has said the CIA was wrong to disband the only unit devoted entirely to the terrorist leader's pursuit - just at a time when al-Qaida is reasserting its influence over global jihad. Shutting down the Bin Laden unit squandered 10 years of expertise in the war on terror, said Michael Scheuer, who founded the unit in 1995 and arguably knows more about Bin Laden than any other western intelligence official. He...

President Bush is wrong when he says we will not run from Iraq. He is whistling past the graveyard, hoping something good turns up. Sadly, nothing will. Why? Well, we will be beaten in Iraq and elsewhere because we refuse to accept reality and act with the brains or military ruthlessness reality requires. Domestic political requirements ruled the way the wars were fought; Republicans and Democrats made war plans with an eye toward staying in office. They seem to care nothing for soldiers and Marines killed in wars in which they lack the moral courage to use the force needed...

As a professional intelligence officer, the last people you want to report to are generals and diplomats. And if General Hayden comes to the CIA, we’ll have Mr. Negroponte [a career diplomat] as head of the community, and a general as the head of the CIA. They are not particularly good at taking bad news to the president, in the experience of most intelligence officers. So General Hayden is not the right choice. I also think that it kind of beggars the imagination in the sense that every one of the commissions that investigated 9/11 or Iraq said that we...

The US and its Arab allies must expect an increase in attacks on their oil infrastructure in the next phase of the war by al-Qaeda targeting the US economy, the former Central Intelligence Agency official who was responsible for hunting down Osama bin Laden warns on Monday. Writing for the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington security think-tank, Michael Scheuer says Mr bin Laden's intention to bankrupt the US economy by driving up world oil prices is very likely to lead to attacks inside the US by al-Qaeda, its allies or unrelated groups. Houston's gas refineries, oil import facilities and ship canal...

The United States deliberately passed up repeated opportunities to kill the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, before the March 2003 US-led invasion of that country. The claim, by former US spy Mike Scheuer, was made in an interview to be shown on ABC TV's Four Corners tonight. Mr Scheuer was a CIA agent for 22 years - six of them as head of the agency's Osama bin Laden unit - until he resigned in 2004. Mr Scheuer claims that a July 2002 plan to destroy the camp lapsed because "it was more important not to...

The CIA'S war against the Bush administration is one of the great untold stories of the past three years. It is, perhaps, the agency's most successful covert action of recent times. The CIA has used its budget to fund criticism of the administration by former Democratic officeholders. The agency allowed an employee, Michael Scheuer, to publish and promote a book containing classified information, as long as, in Scheuer's words, "the book was being used to bash the president." However, the agency's preferred weapon has been the leak. In one leak after another, generally to the New York Times or the...

02/28/2006 - By Michael Scheuer (from Terrorism Focus, February 28) - Conventional national militaries train, think, and fight according to their doctrine. To date, however, America and the West have not sufficiently appreciated that al-Qaeda, too, is fighting the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan according to a doctrine of its own. That doctrine has been developed from the group's experiences during the Afghan war against the Red Army, and has matured through each of the insurgencies in which bin Laden's fighters have since been involved, from Eritrea to Xinjiang to Mindanao. In presenting their doctrine, al-Qaeda's strategists also have tipped...

Volume 3, Issue 4 (January 31, 2006) The Significance of Bin Laden's New Audio Statement By Michael Scheuer On January 19, 2006, al-Jazeera Television broadcast a new statement by al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. The statement was bin Laden's first since October 31, 2004. The U.S. government announced that the voice on the tape almost certainly is that of bin Laden (Bloomberg, January 20, 2006). Al-Jazeera speculates that the tape was recorded in December 2005 (al-Jazeera, January 20, 2006). As always, bin Laden was calm and dispassionate, reminding the American people and the West that the mujahideen cannot be deterred,...

"Spying on Americans: Is it the right approach to fighting the war on terror?" The event is sponsored by Americans for an Informed Democracy. When: January 24 (Tuesday), 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. Where: The Elliott School of International Affairs, 1957 E Street, NW, Washington, DC (near Farragut West and Foggy Bottom) Featured Speakers: Michael Scheuer, Author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and former chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit Nihad Awad, Executive Director, Council on American-Islamic Relations Clifford D. May, President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, former New...

The former chief of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit says bin Laden’s “truce” offer comes from a long-established Muslim tradition of warfare -- sending a clear signal to the United States that an al Qaeda attack is more than likely. Twenty-two-year CIA veteran Michael Scheuer, who wrote “Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror,” says bin Laden has offered his final warning before launching his next strike. “Warning your enemy before you attack him is very much a tradition in Islam from the prophet to the times when Saladin was fighting the Crusaders, he would...

"It turns out that renditioning was activated by President Bush's predecessor. In an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit, Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, said he developed the practice for none other than William Jefferson Clinton."

Ex-CIA Big: Bill Clinton Authorized Extralegal Interrogations The man who ran the Central Intelligence Agency's Bin Laden desk during the 1990s is accusing President Clinton's of giving the CIA carte blanche to circumvent U.S. law and interrogate terrorist suspects in any way the agency saw fit - a directive that led to the establishment of secret CIA prisons on foreign soil. "We asked the president what we should do with the people we capture," recalled Michael Scheuer, who headed up the agency's Bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, in an interview Wednesday with the German newsmagazine Die Zeit. Scheuer...

The US Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) controversial "rendition" program was launched under US president Bill Clinton, a former US counter-terrorism agent has told a German newspaper. Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who resigned from the agency in 2004, has told Die Zeit that the US administration had been looking in the mid-1990s for a way to combat the terrorist threat and circumvent the cumbersome US legal system. "President Clinton, his national security adviser Sandy Berger and his terrorism adviser Richard Clark ordered the CIA in the autumn of 1995 to destroy Al Qaeda," Mr Scheuer said. "We...

The CIA's controversial program of having terrorist suspects captured and questioned on foreign soil began under President Bill Clinton, a former US agent says. Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who resigned last year, told yesterday's issue of the German newspaper Die Zeit that the US administration had been looking in the mid-1990s for a way to combat the terrorist threat and circumvent the cumbersome US legal system. "President Clinton, his national security adviser Sandy Berger and his terrorism adviser Richard Clark ordered the CIA in the autumn of 1995 to destroy al-Qaeda," the newspaper quoted Mr Scheuer...

The CIA's controversial "rendition" program to have terror suspects captured and questioned on foreign soil was launched under US president Bill Clinton, a former US counterterrorism agent told a German newspaper. Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who resigned from the agency in 2004, told Thursday's issue of the newsweekly Die Zeit that the US administration had been looking in the mid-1990s for a way to combat the terrorist threat and circumvent the cumbersome US legal system. "President Clinton, his national security advisor Sandy Berger and his terrorism advisor Richard Clark ordered the CIA in the autumn of...

If we die as a nation, Lincoln once said, it will be an act of national suicide. And so it seems we are. The media, led by The Washington Post, and Congress, led by Arizona Sen. John McCain, are moving America to disaster's brink by intentionally destroying its most successful counterterrorism tool: the CIA's rendition program. Spurred by The Post's traditional lust for compromising national security for no reason save selling copy, and abetted by Mr. McCain's ignorant grandstanding and shameless exploitation of his POW record to sate his presidential lust, the CIA program that best defends America will soon...

.... GERECHT: We actually know from inspectors that, in fact, there were large quantities of WMD that Saddam Hussein had, in fact, built. Now, what happened was that there appears to have been some change in the tactic and approach by Saddam Hussein during the 1990s. I suggest to you, the only way you really would have been able to detect that would have been multiple sources, multiple volunteers inside of those organizations that could have verified it, and that would have been very, very difficult, and the agency didn't have that type of penetration before. BLITZER: Melissa, you worked...

Powerline notes the outlandish claims being made by Michael Scheuer, formerly of the CIA: The pathetic Michael Scheuer claims that, “in the war against al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein was one of our best allies.” And the selectively pathetic Chris Matthews gives Scheuer a free pass on his big lie. Thomas Joscelyn has the details. JOHN adds: That’s an interesting change of heart on Scheuer’s part. Scheuer was the head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit in 1998, when Clinton’s Justice Department indicted bin Laden. Here is a paragraph from Count 4 of the indictment: Al Qaeda also forged alliances with...

The pathetic Michael Scheuer claims that, "in the war against al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein was one of our best allies." And the selectively pathetic Chris Matthews gives Scheuer a free pass on his big lie. Thomas Joscelyn has the details. JOHN adds: That's an interesting change of heart on Scheuer's part. Scheuer was the head of the CIA's bin Laden unit in 1998, when Clinton's Justice Department indicted bin Laden. Here is a paragraph from Count 4 of the indictment: Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with the government of Iran and...

CIA Conspiracy Theorist Michael Scheuer knows where America's real covert intelligence threat comes from--Israel.by Thomas Joscelyn 02/16/2005 12:00:00 AM MICHAEL SCHEUER has uncovered "the most successful covert action program in the history of man." Or, at least that's what he told an audience at Council on Foreign Relations in New York City on February 3. The CIA's former bin Laden-hunter-turned-public-persona is the widely cited author of a scathing critique of the Bush administration's war on terror, Imperial Hubris. Since his resignation from "the Agency" in November 2004, he has become best known for his view that the West is really...

The CIA's former Bin Laden desk chief revealed Thursday night that Clinton administration lawyers warned counterterrorism agents that Osama bin Laden had to be kept as comfortable as possible if they captured him during planned raids into Afghanistan. "The lawyers were more concerned with bin Laden`s safety and his comfort than they were with the officers charged with capturing him," former Bin Laden desk chief Michael Scheuer told MSNBC's "Hardball. "We had to build an ergonomically designed chair to put him in, [for] special comfort in terms of how he was shackled into the chair," Scheuer explained. "They even worried...

CIA Director Porter Goss has been criticized for telling Time that he had an "excellent" idea of Osama bin Laden's location, while inferring that U.S. respect for Pakistan's sovereignty prevented action to capture or kill him. Now, I tend to believe Mr. Goss's statement was part of a concerted U.S. government effort to press Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to do the always undefined "more" to eliminate bin Laden. Mr. Goss' comments followed harsh criticism of Pakistan's inaction by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and in a volley from the U.S. gadfly ambassadorinKabul,Zalmay Khalilzad, now on his way to Iraq to replicate...

Because the media do not always remember that nothing should be too dangerous to talk about in America, I would first like to thank TCS for allowing Mr. Apostolou to publish his essay on my work and ideas ("Michael Scheuer's Bloody Logic", TCS, 3/17/05). I am indeed an old-fashioned conservative nationalist, stuck with the quaint belief that U.S. foreign policy should protect Americans first, last, and always. I of course never said anything remotely resembling "America must kill innocent Muslims because of its relationship with Israel" -- although that's a clever way of diverting attention from the arguments of my...

Michael Scheuer, whose book Imperial Hubris lambasts US strategy in the war against al Qaeda, has attracted attention for recent public statements on Israel. The former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, Scheuer claimed at the Council on Foreign Relations in February that Israel controls the debate on US foreign policy. As important as Scheuer's hostility to Israel is his underlying message: that to keep Israel happy, the US must kill innocent Muslims. While Scheuer's views on the Middle East are unpleasant, they are not far from the orthodoxy among retired diplomats. The view of the superannuated foreign service...

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Washington AS Congress and the news media wail about the Central Intelligence Agency's "rendition" program - its practice of turning suspected terrorists over for detainment and questioning in third countries - it is time to focus on the real issue at hand. A good starting place is Page 127 of the tablets on which are inscribed the scripture handed down by the 9/11 commission. Here we find a description of a 1998 conversation between National Security Director Samuel Berger and his counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, about the capture of Abu Hajer al Iraqi, the "most important bin Laden...

Al-Qaeda's Completed Warning Cycle - Ready to Attack?   03/03/2005 - By Michael Scheuer DCI Porter Goss's testimony before Congress on February 16 that Soviet nuclear material could be in al-Qaeda's hands is a troubling coda to speeches by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in late 2004. Bin Laden's October 30 speech was treated by the media as an attempt to influence the election. Most post-speech commentary also claimed the speech moved bin Laden away from war and toward political discourse. That the speech was directed to the American people is clear. What received little notice, however, is that...

DCI Porter Goss's testimony before Congress on February 16 that Soviet nuclear material could be in al-Qaeda's hands is a troubling coda to speeches by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in late 2004. Bin Laden's October 30 speech was treated by the media as an attempt to influence the election. Most post-speech commentary also claimed the speech moved bin Laden away from war and toward political discourse. That the speech was directed to the American people is clear. What received little notice, however, is that the speech - and Zawahiri's in November 2004 - completed a cycle of statements...