Posted on 04/08/2003 3:18:43 PM PDT by FreeSpeechZone
Intelligence ops in Baghdad show need for physical security back home
The U.S. Central Command today declined to offer details on how U.S. military forces were tipped off to an alleged meeting of Saddam Hussein and his top aides yesterday. But sources indicated today that physical taps on telephone and fiber-optic landlines in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad may have played a role. "We have a number of methods that we use to gain information," Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said during today's Central Command press briefing. "A single source is never adequate, so we have multiple sources."
Bombing missions near civilian targets also require that somebody on the ground "see" the target, he said.
The process by which the CIA and the military determined the likely location and time of an Iraqi leadership meeting is known in intelligence parlance as all-source fusion -- a process by which human intelligence, surveillance, imagery from satellites and aircraft and intercepted communications form pieces of a puzzle that help officials understand what's happening on the battlefield. It is the last piece, communications intelligence, that experts say may have played a key role in targeting Saddam.
"Tapping a fiber-optic cable without being detected, and making sense of the information you collect, isn't trivial but has certainly been done by intelligence agencies for the past seven or eight years," said John Pescatore, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc. and a former National Security Agency analyst. "These days, it is within the range of a well-funded attacker, probably even a really curious college physics major with access to a fiber-optics lab and lots of time on his hands."
The importance placed on fiber-optic communications cables in Baghdad by the Iraqi regime dates to the first Gulf War in 1990. Saddam quickly realized that the U.S. was capable of intercepting most radio and wireless communications, and as a result, worked to avoid detection by hiring French and Chinese companies to install a fiber-optic backbone that is closely integrated with the civilian telephone network. That makes it difficult for intelligence services to determine the separation point between civilian networks and the government's command-and-control networks.
U.S. intelligence agencies or their foreign adversaries have in the past employed physical taps on fiber-optic and telephone cables to gain intelligence. In 1955, during what was known as Operation Gold, the CIA tunneled under the border between East and West Berlin to tap phone lines used by Soviet intelligence. Likewise, during the early 1980s, the CIA's Operation TAW involved the tapping of a top-secret communications center outside Moscow by placing listening devices on cables in sewer tunnels.
Fiber-optic cables use light to transmit information and can be easily intercepted, interpreted and manipulated with standard off-the-shelf equipment that can be obtained legally throughout the world. More important, the vast majority of private and public fiber networks don't incorporate methods for detecting optical taps, offering an intruder a relatively safe way to conduct corporate espionage. Commercial intrusion-detection systems and other IT security systems operate at the data layer and offer no way to identify the existence of physical taps.
While there haven't been any high-profile public cases involving optical taps, experts and a former head of one of the major U.S. intelligence agencies warn that potential physical taps on fiber infrastructure should also be a concern for companies in the U.S.
Seth Page, CEO of Oyster Optics Inc. in Manhattan, has studied the threat of physical optical taps in detail and said they can be virtually impossible to detect. "Unless a field engineer happens to stumble upon a tapping device by accident you're not going to find optical taps," said Page. "Most CEOs and CIOs have no idea that optical taps are even technically feasible."
Not only are they feasible, but they may also be easier to conduct successfully than once thought. Web sites for metropolitan areas, such as San Diego, often post detailed maps of the entire citywide fiber backbone. In addition, the same high-speed fiber bundle sometimes serves a dozen or more office buildings, meaning criminals could gain access to wiring closets located in building basements or to cables that pass through public parking garages or elevator shafts, said Page.
In fact, standard testing and maintenance equipment is often used to either splice, split or passively capture a signal that's leaking from the cable, according to Page. Methods for using this equipment can now be found in the public domain.
"The vulnerability is entirely dependent on how the provider of services handles segmentation of the channels, multiplexing," said the former intelligence agency chief. "If the fiber-optic transport is a loop, if there is a common multiplexing scheme and no virtual private network or encryption protection for each user, which is usually the case with fiber, then access to a wiring closet is an easy way into a target," the former intelligence official said.
"This layer of security -- not just for fiber, but for standard LAN and telephone wiring also -- isn't really thought out by companies," said Pescatore. "I'd estimate that 75% of enterprises have some network cabling in public access space."
According to Page, while some banks in the U.S. have dedicated fiber running directly from a central switching office, other companies pay for a share of bandwidth where virtual channels are built. All that's required after identifying the location of the cables is an optical packet sniffer and a PC to pull out the information you want, he said.
"This has serious security implications for users of fiber-optical communication systems, especially those with sensitive data such as financial institutions, insurance firms and health care corporations, as well as R&D facilities, global manufacturers and government agencies," said Page.
Washington
Richard Perle's resignation as chairman of Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board on March 27 capped a tumultuous month for the neoconservative who spent the past decade stoking the fires for the US onslaught on Iraq. The trail to his resignation--as chairman, but not from the board itself--began with Seymour Hersh's New Yorker exposé of Perle's financial stakes in Trireme Partners, a private fund that is currying Saudi investment in homeland security companies, and the Autonomy Corporation, a British company that sells eavesdropping software to the FBI and to US, British and Italian intelligence.
Perle's fate was sealed when the New York Times reported that he was also taking money from Global Crossing to lobby the Pentagon to approve his clients' dealings with Hong Kong and mainland China. Some Democrats now argue that Perle's conflicts of interest are so serious that he should quit the board altogether.
But according to the Center for Public Integrity, such an ethical threshold would force almost one-third of Rumsfeld's board off the panel. Nine of the board's thirty members, CPI found in a new report (www.publicintegrity.org), have ties to defense and security-related companies that collectively won more than $76 billion in US defense contracts over the past two years. Former CIA director James Woolsey, for example, runs the Global Strategic Security practice of Booz Allen Hamilton, a global IT consulting firm that advises the US and British governments and had $680 million in military contracts in 2002. Retired Marine General Jack Sheehan works for Bechtel, the engineering giant and defense contractor bidding for US contracts to rebuild postwar Iraq. Retired Admiral David Jeremiah, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has links to at least five military contractors, including The Mitre Corporation, which runs a major R&D center for the Pentagon and is headed by board member James Schlesinger, a former Defense Secretary. However, the CPI found no evidence to suggest that serving on Rumsfeld's board "confers a decisive advantage" to corporations represented by board members, a list that includes Boeing, TRW, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin.
But there's a broader issue at stake here. Perle and Rumsfeld insist that board members with military ties never discuss their business dealings at policy meetings. Yet the entire board is beholden to private economic interests that are profiting from US foreign and military policy and stand to make megabucks as the war against terrorism moves into full swing.
Take Henry Kissinger. Unmentioned in the CPI report is his relationship to Freeport McMoran, the US mining giant that has paid the Indonesian military millions of dollars to guard its huge copper and gold complex in the strife-torn province of Papua and that, with Kissinger's help, lobbied to lift human rights restrictions on US military aid to Jakarta. Or Dan Quayle, who is described as a "consultant, author and public speaker," but who makes his living as a shill for Cerberus Capital Management, a US investment fund that has spent more than $2 billion snatching up bankrupt Asian enterprises and recently opened a Washington office to invest in homeland security companies. And Perle's full portfolio is still being fleshed out: It includes a directorship at FNSS, a big Turkish arms manufacturer owned by United Defense Industries, a subsidiary of George Bush Sr.'s Carlyle Group. Defense board member Thomas Foley, the former Speaker of the House and US ambassador to Tokyo, also works for Carlyle as an adviser for its Japan fund, which also lists George Herbert Walker Bush as a senior advisor.
Perle is clearly edgy about the attention he has brought to Rumsfeld's board. He bitterly attacked Hersh as a "terrorist" and was visibly upset when a Code Pink activist disrupted his March 25 talk at the American Enterprise Institute, where he, Woolsey and other pre-emptive warriors have found their ideological home. But Perle quickly recovered: After the woman was escorted out, he declared that the US campaign in Iraq underscores his argument that democracies don't start aggressive wars. "Dictatorships start wars because they need external enemies to exert internal control over their own people," he said. Add the need to expand markets for arms exporters, corporations and banks, and the Prince of Darkness may finally be on to something
By Scott Wheeler Insight on the News | March 4, 2003
An important U.S. high-tech manufacturer is shutting down its American operations, laying off hundreds of workers and moving sophisticated equipment now being used to make critical parts for smart bombs to the People's Republic of China [PRC], Insight has learned.
Indianapolis-based Magnequench Inc. has not yet publically announced the closing of its Valparaiso, Ind., factory, but Insight has confirmed that the company will shut down this year and relocate at least some of its high-tech machine tools to Tianjin, China. Word of the shutdown comes as the company is producing critical parts for the U.S. Joint Direct Attack Munition [JDAM] project, more widely known as smart bombs, raising heavy security issues related to the transfer of military technology to the PRC.
The factory uses rare earths to produce sintered neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnets that have many industrial applications but are essential to the servos critical to precision-guided munitions. According to documents obtained by Insight, Magnequench UG currently is producing thousands of the rare-earth magnets for "SL Montevideo Tech," a Minnesota-based manufacturer of servos.
That company confirmed to Insight that it holds a Department of Defense [DoD] contract to produce the high-tech motors for the precision-guided JDAM. The Valparaiso-based manufacturer, originally known as UGIMAG, became Magnequench UG when it was acquired by Magnequench Inc. in August 2000. Magnequench Inc. had been purchased in 1995 by a consortium that included the China-based San Huan New Materials and Hi-Tech Co., created and at least partially owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
Magnequench was a spin-off company of General Motors Corp. [GM], and at the time of the buyout was headquartered in Anderson, Ind. Clyde South was a negotiator for the United Auto Workers Local 662 representing the workers at Magnequench when the consortium began negotiating to buy the company in 1995. In an interview with Insight, South says that worker concern about PRC influence over the consortium led to an "agreement with GM" that the plant would remain in Anderson for at least 10 years According to South,
the buyers made the same agreement with the union, but since he had doubts about their intentions he took his concerns to Washington. Warnings fell on deaf ears. In August 2001, the sixth year of the 10-year agreement, South's distrust was validated when the consortium's managers "told us they intend to close the plant" and eliminate roughly 400 jobs
. The Magnequench plant in Anderson transforms neodymium, iron and boron into powder using a unique patented process that produces the exotic rare-earth magnets.
Following the buyout in 1995, the production line at Anderson was "duplicated in China" at a facility built by the PRC company. According to South, after the company "made sure that it worked, they shut down" the Anderson facility. South says he suspects the buyout was about getting the technology, adding, "I believe the Chinese entity wanted to shut the plant down from the beginning.
They are rapidly pursuing this technology."
Meanwhile, says the union negotiator, "They told us, 'We are going bankrupt,'" and therefore had to close the Anderson facility. This was not long after the consortium purchased UGIMAG in Valparaiso, according to critics, telling the workers there that they planned to keep the factory running. But, according to some sources, Magnequench Inc. had "refused to buy the buildings or the property" on which the factory was located, "suggesting a temporary arrangement."
South said of his experience, "You just couldn't believe anything they told you." The plant workers at Magnequench UG are organized by the United Steelworkers of America. Insight contacted union official Michael O'Brien, who confirmed negotiations with Magnequench UG regarding the company's future, but declined to comment further. The transfer to Communist China of technologies that make rare-earth permanent magnets also is a matter of concern for defense and national-security experts, says Peter Leitner, a senior strategic-trade adviser to the DoD.
Leitner says rare-earth magnets "lie at the heart of many of our most advanced weapons systems, particularly rockets, missiles and precision-guided weapons such as smart bombs and cruise missiles." He tells Insight why the PRC's need for this type of technology is urgent, noting that "China has an ongoing high-priority effort to produce a long-range cruise missile.
They are trying to replicate the capabilities the U.S. has, such as with the Tomahawk [cruise missile], as part of their power projection, and expanding their ability to strike targets at long distances." Since the 1995 buyout of Magnequench by the consortium of two Chinese companies and a cooperating U.S. firm, it has in turn bought at least two more high-tech companies that deal in rare-earth magnets.
In addition to UGIMAG in 2000, which became Magnequench UG, it has bought GA Powders, which was a spin-off company of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, a U.S. national lab. An insider tells Insight that "Magnequench UG is the last American company making these rare-earth magnets. When it moves to China, there are none left." Leitner sees a pattern. He says the Chinese "have targeted the manufacturing process through a variety of suspicious business activities and have been furiously transferring the manufacturing technology to China, thereby becoming the only source. They are purchasing U.S. companies, shutting them down and transferring them to China." According to Leitner, "The Chinese are clearly trying to monopolize the world supply of rare-earth materials such as neodymium that are essential to the production of the militarily critical magnets that enable precise guidance and control of our most advanced weapons and aircraft." He warns that risks are involved in allowing this kind of technology transfer, adding: "By controlling the access to the magnets and the raw materials they are composed of, U.S. industry in general and the auto industry in particular can be held hostage to PRC blackmail and extortion in an effort to manipulate our foreign and military policy.
This highly concentrated control - one country, one government - will be the sole source of something critical to the U.S. military and industrial base." Intelligence analysts emphasize that the PRC routinely combines espionage operations with business deals. Internal PRC documents refer to this as advancing "economy and i national-defense construction."
A 1999 congressional report on PRC espionage states that the Beijing government sees "providing civilian cover for military-industrial companies to acquire dual-use technology through purchase or joint-venture business dealings" as a responsibility of the government. The report lists "rare-earth metals ... for military aircraft and other weapons" as one of the primary targets of the PRC. So how could this be happening? Because of the PRC's involvement in the 1995 buyout of Magnequench, the deal required the approval of the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States [CFIUS], which is chaired by the secretary of the Treasury.
CFIUS approval of the buyout predated a series of reports by the FBI and congressional committees warning of massive PRC espionage efforts against U.S. businesses and military technology. In one case, which involved the then-struggling McDonnell Douglas Corp., the China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corp. [CATIC] targeted the U.S. aircraft giant's plant at Columbus, Ohio, according to government sources. Plant 85, as it was known, is where the bodies of the U.S. Air Force C-17 strategic transport plane and the MX intercontinental ballistic missile were made. In 1994, CATIC made an offer to buy Plant 85 and relocate it to what was to be a civilian aircraft-production facility, according to government documents.
The request for an export license for the plant's machine tools touched off a bitter feud among export-control officials at the DoD that still lingers nine years later. Those opposed to the sale argued that once the Plant 85 machine tools were exported to the PRC, they would be used to produce missiles for China's People's Liberation Army [PLA]. Those who favored the sale pointed to the ancillary deal the PRC dangled in front of McDonnell Douglas to purchase more than $1 billion worth of aircraft.
In the end, those in favor of the sale of Plant 85 won out and those opposed almost immediately were vindicated. According to government documents, within months of exporting the plant to China, U.S. officials learned that the sensitive machine tools had been diverted for use in a Chinese factory that makes the Silkworm missile that Beijing has provided to rogue nations.
United Auto Workers union official South tells Insight he sees similarities between the cases of McDonnell Douglas and Magnequench, noting that immediately after the consortium's first Magnequench acquisition, "They transferred the patented jet-casting process to China." In an interview with Insight, Magnequench Inc. President Archibald Cox Jr. initially denied but later confirmed having a contract for the production of rare-earth magnets for the JDAM.
When asked about the shutdown of the Anderson plant last year, he acknowledged having a 10-year agreement with GM and the steelworkers, but insists that despite the early termination of that agreement the workers "got a fair deal" when the company bought out their contract. Cox tells Insight the closing of the Valparaiso plant was a matter of economics, and denies that the company is moving equipment to China.
"We are going to sell everything in the plant i unless we can use it somewhere else," says Cox. Insight has obtained evidence that "somewhere else" may mean China. A copy of an internal memo from the Valparaiso plant seems to contradict the "sell or auction" option. A brief memo, dated Jan. 23, states in part, "In the near future you will be seeing people in the plant performing measurements and a variety of estimating and planning activities in preparation for equipment sale and/or removal ... to give the company an idea of cost and logistics."
According to eyewitness accounts, all such "people have been from China." Cox also acknowledges that Magnequench Inc. did not purchase the buildings or land where the Valparaiso plant is located, but refuses to characterize reluctance on the company's part: "It just wasn't part of the deal," Cox says. And, Cox insists, "China is already selling the same products for less money." A source with detailed and specific information about the internal operations of the company tells Insight that
"the company set up their own competitors by transferring the machines and technology to China.
Once the Chinese companies bought into Magnequench, they created their own competition." According to company officials, Mangnequench asked for and received clearance to export equipment it has shipped to the PRC. Meanwhile, employees of Magnequench UG have placed their hope in an unlikely labor-union ally. The one surefire deterrent to Magnequench UG's move to China would be for President George W. Bush to exercise his authority under the 1988 Exon-Florio amendment to the Defense Production Act and order San Huan New Materials to divest its holdings in this strategic U.S. company.
In his State of the Union Address, the president offered a glimmer of hope for Magnequench employees by declaring his administration's intent to "strengthen global treaties banning the production and shipment of missile technologies." If so, say the workers, this may be a very good place to begin the process.
Hutchison, which is owned by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, is simply a cat's paw for China to further its strategic designs against Washington.
In addition to the Panama Canal leases, he wrote in the Washington Times, Hutchison "is currently hard at work acquiring a presence for China at other strategic 'choke points' around the world, including notably the Caribbean's Bahamas, the Mediterranean's Malta, and the Persian Gulf's Straits of Hormuz. At a moment inconvenient to the United States, such access could translate into physical or other obstacles to our use of such waterways."
Global Crossing controls 5 of the 6 major financial communications hubs world-wide. Hutchinson-Whampoa seeks to purchase this company. The chart 'China Connection' shows a very good layout of the Peoples Liberation Army. Hutchinson-Whampoa is a front company for the PLA.
| The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military / Commercial Concerns witht the People's Republic of China IRREPARABLE HARM <<< Don't miss this..!! The Impact of Foreign Influences on the Clinton Administration, National Security, And National / International PolicyA Critical Review of the Evidence as Compiled By FreeRepublic.com |
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The FBI does not want to hear about illegal wiretapping. Police will say it is a federal matter and recommend you hire a p.i.
I had a client who was a supervisor at the telephone company. He told me that guys on the crews pick up extra cash tapping telephones. They do it everyday, and love the extra bucks. When you find a tap on your line -- "Who do you call?" The telephone company. Bingo!
Saddam was a total idiot if he believed his lines were secure. The Frogs and the Krauts and our U.S. govt boys have back doors and trap doors and secret passageways no one ever thought about.
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