THE FAILURE OF U.S. INTELLIGENCE AND THE ROAD AHEAD FOR AMERICA

Osama bin Laden is an American creation. He worked for the CIA as a freedom fighter during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Bin Laden is well trained in the arts of secure communications, unconventional warfare, and he even knows how to fire the U.S.-made Stinger missile; all gratis the Central Intelligence Agency.

If anyone had a lead on bin Laden it should have been the CIA. The CIA has extensive contacts inside Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet, the CIA missed his attack on the USS Cole.

The CIA relies on the NSA and its great ring of American listening satellites. The NSA missed the Pakistan nuclear tests and did not intercept bin Laden until after the events of Sept. 11.

The super-secret National Security Agency has grown deaf over the years but not due to advancement of Internet technology. As former NSA Director Adm. McConnell noted, the NSA is overwhelmed by the absolute volume of messages. If you intercept a hundred million messages a day, which do you try to read?

Attempts to blame the Internet and not being able to read bin Laden's e-mail are lame excuses for wasting billions on ineffective equipment and software. Satellites are great at tracking military targets but are useless against a terrorist cell that uses hand written notes carried by trusted couriers.

Why are the directors of the CIA and NSA still in place? Why has CIA head George Tenet not tendered his resignation like Adm. Kimmel after Pearl Harbor?

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh has much responsibility to bear for not detecting and preventing this act. Freeh and his boss at the Department of Justice, Janet Reno, turned the federal law enforcement system into an international joke. The spectacular failures of the FBI under Freeh's directorship are too numerous to mention except one.

Freeh placed his trusted associate Robert Hanssen into his last position with the FBI as counter-intelligence director in New York City. The same Robert Hannsen later confessed to being a Russian spy. If anyone is not qualified to comment on what to do after September 11 - it is Louis Freeh.

The FAA should have stopped the attack at the airports. Yet, the FAA is also known as the "tombstone" agency for good reason. It is not designed as a law enforcement agency, but it has the security responsibility for airports. Again, the warnings were there. FAA and GAO investigators have been able to easily penetrate secure areas inside U.S. airports and critical air control facilities.

"In assessing the adequacy of computer security at the FAA earlier this year we found significant weaknesses that compromise the integrity of FAA's air traffic control operations," states a 1998 GAO testimony.

"This review resulted in a number of findings too sensitive to discuss in today's open hearing; accordingly, my statement will refer only to findings and recommendations contained in the unclassified version of our limited official use report. We can tell you openly, though, that we found evidence of air traffic control systems that had been penetrated, and critical ATC data had been compromised."

The Air Force has horrible communications with the FAA. The very first role of the U.S. Air Force is to control American airspace. The USAF failed. A city air and missile defense system is clearly necessary. U.S. air defense has suffered decades of neglect. Our cities and critical industries are vulnerable to air and missile attack.

The Air Force must keep an active strip alert aircraft ready to intercept incoming attacks. This will require more pilots, more planes and more training. Fighter pilots must have the standing authority to shoot down a hijacked airliner if necessary.

We must also institute area defense of critical targets. We saw Patriot missiles outside of Tel Aviv. We now see an Aegis missile warship sitting just off the waters of New York. U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine jet fighters are flying constant patrols in and around the shores of America. Perhaps it is time for a Patriot battery or two in metropolitan areas and at critical sites.

The restarting of the sky marshal program is clearly needed, but that is simply not enough. The next attack will come in an unexpected location. The training to be passive hostages is over. The actions of a brave few in the sky over Pennsylvania may have saved thousands on the ground and it now serves as an example. We must fight back.

It is not time to sit idle and let the thugs take over but band together to fight for our very lives. Anyone, anywhere can thwart an act of future terror sometimes only with a single word to authorities ahead of time. Be aware.

Know we are under attack. There are professional foreign soldiers working on American soil trying to kill you. In a 1999 interview, GRU Col. Stanislav Lunev told me of trained soldiers from various nations that work and live here in America. These professionals are armed with stored caches of weapons and bombs. They are here waiting for a day of future activation and combat on U.S. soil.

In short, Sept. 11 was bad but the next one will be worse. In 1999, I wrote that a single business jet armed with a suitcase bomb could fly to ground zero with satellite navigation accuracy and a GPS autopilot. Such an unmanned flight in the crowded skies of Washington D.C. would go unnoticed until the final fatal second.

The surprise nuclear attack could kill the entire U.S. leadership in a one fatal stroke. U.S. military leaders in the Pentagon, the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, and nearly a million American citizens will die in a single flash.

The price of freedom is too often measured in blood. We, the people of the United States, are the targets of World War III. Missiles are aimed at our cities and professional soldiers are on our soil trying to kill our leaders and us.

Nations harbor terrorists; nations provide support, homes, bases, money and cooperation. Afghanistan, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Iran, Iraq and North Korea provide training bases for suicide terrorists. These terrorists serve as free-lance mercenaries and often assume this role directly as unconventional forces working for the host military.

Nations also suffer the consequences of war. In this war all targets are strategic. When we go on the offensive we should be prepared to use all the weapons in the U.S. inventory. There must not be any quarter given. The only way to deal with a Kamikaze is to kill him before he kills you. We must send them to hell.

FBI Plays Hunt The White House Mole

London Sunday Times
By James Adams
July 6 1997

American investigators are on the verge of revealing the identity of a senior official in the Clinton administration they suspect of spying for Israel, according to intelligence sources.

The suspect, who works in the National Security Council, was put under surveillance because of previous contacts with the Israelis, and FBI investigators are convinced he has been passing secrets to Israel under the codename "Mega".

FBI counter-intelligence agents, who have been hot on his trail for several months, are trying to gather enough evidence for an arrest, but given the pro-Israeli political climate in Washington, a prosecution is unlikely.

The hunt for Mega began last January, after the National Security Agency intercepted a coded conversation between a Mossad agent in the Israeli embassy in Washington and his supervisor in Tel Aviv.

The conversation was decoded by the NSA. In it, the Israelis discussed "going to Mega" in order to obtain a copy of a letter from Warren Christopher, then secretary of state, to Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader.

When news of the interception surfaced, the Israeli government issued furious denials that it had a mole in the White House. One Israeli spokesman claimed that Mega was an abbreviation of Megawatt code for a communications system that has existed for years between friendly intelligence agencies. In fact, the system a method of sharing information about terrorism is called Kilowatt.

Another Israeli official claimed that Mega was a Mossad nickname for the liaison officer at the CIA, an explanation that is not believed by either the CIA or the FBI. Publicly, the Clinton administration, which was anxious to appease the Israelis, appeared to accept the explanation, but the hunt for the spy continued.

Arab organisations want action to prove that the administration will prosecute Israeli spies in the same way it deals with spies from other countries.

The reality is that even if there is enough evidence to stand up in court, a prosecution is unlikely. Jonathan Pollard, a naval worker jailed for life in 1986, is the only person to have been sentenced in America for spying for Israel, even though dozens of other Israeli agents have been identified by the FBI.

FBI Is Said to Probe U.S. Official For Giving Israel Sensitive Data

Report: FBI seeks Israeli spy in U.S. government

U.S. Memo On Israel Cited Its Spy Aims

Damage Caused by 'Friendly' Spies

Coded warnings raise the spectre of a mole inside the White House

Safire: Inside The Bunker (Mole in the White House?)

House Speaker Hires Registered Foreign Agent As His Top Foreign-Policy Chief

Massive Mole Hunt Under Way in Washington, Moscow

Foreign spies have unescorted access to the State Department

Foreign Nationals Access DoD Computers

FBI: Foreign Agents Have Unescorted Access to State Department

Spies like us - Foreign agents posing as reporters have easy access to FBI, State

Castro's Planes Fly Over U.S. Despite Terrorist Ties

U.S. Permits Unlimited Access to Foreign Spy Planes

Investigative Report - Intelligence Agents Or Art Students?

Intelligence Agents Or Art Students?

Investigative Report

Insight Magazine
By Paul M. Rodriguez
Issue Date: April 1, 2002
March 11, 2002

From Paris to Washington to New York City and back again, a story has reverberated about an alleged Israeli spy ring that was busted in the United States last year. Intelligence Online, a well-respected Internet news service broke the explosive story, which quickly was picked up by Le Monde in France, then the Associated Press (AP) in Washington and other news outlets. These stories all seem to track a similar report last December by Carl Cameron of Fox News outlining concerns among U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence agencies that an Israeli-based network of operatives was spying or otherwise engaged in information-gathering activities within the United States. All the news agencies said or mentioned that many of those under investigation subsequently were deported by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for visa violations. Most also quoted named and unnamed Israeli spokesmen as saying that Israel doesn't spy on the United States and that whatever these Israeli citizens were doing was not criminal even if inappropriate and in violation of their visas.

Insight already was investigating such allegations and had obtained numerous documents for what from the beginning was planned as an investigative report. Amid the breaking news of the so-called "Israeli spy-ring bust," it is time to clear the air on a variety of real and half-baked charges reported by others. Specifically:

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) began an "unprecedented" internal-security investigation early last spring following reports from field agents and regional offices involving suspicious activities by Israeli citizens engaged in the sale of artwork and paintings throughout the Southeast, South and Southwest, including Florida, Texas and California.

The "Israeli art students" — so dubbed because that's how they described themselves to various law-enforcement officials when confronted — were both male and female and, as appropriate to their ages and required under Israeli law, served that nation's military.

These alleged students traveled in "organized" teams of eight to 10 people, with each group having a team leader.

Reports of Israeli art students calling on DEA employees began at least as early as January 2000 and continued through at least June 2001.

These unusual visits at both the homes and offices of DEA officers were expanded to include employees of "several other law-enforcement and Department of Defense agencies."

"The number of reported incidents has declined" since spring 2001, though the "geographic spread of the incidents has increased to Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Los Angeles."

The stories offered by the Israeli art students "are remarkable in their consistency" insofar as they state they either are from the University of Jerusalem or the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem."

Despite the students' claims that they had themselves produced the artwork or paintings they were offering for sale, "information has been received which indicates the art is actually produced in China."

All this is contained in official DEA documents obtained by Insight, including one produced in early June 2001. These represent an extraordinary compilation by DEA's Office of Security Programs chronicling not only contacts of DEA personnel at home or at their offices, but also similar incidents involving employees of other agencies and the military.

"It is a very alarming set of documents," says one high-ranking federal law-enforcement official when told of the cache of materials collected by Insight. "This shows how serious DEA and Justice consider this activity."

Indeed, says a senior Justice Department official briefed on an ongoing multiagency task force, "We think there is something quite sinister here but are unable at this time to put our finger on it." But, said another federal law-enforcement source: "The higher-ups don't want to deal with this and neither does the FBI because it involves Israel."

One report, Suspicious Activities Involving Israeli Art Students at DEA Facilities, lists more than 180 documented-incident cases. Analysts tell Insight they appear to be attempts "to circumvent the access-control systems at DEA offices" and to capture personal information about private lives of DEA law-enforcement officers, such as where they live, what cars they drive and how they behave outside of their official offices. This was concluded, in part, based on photographs made of U.S. law officers and other materials seized by a variety of federal and local law-enforcement officers during searches.

"The nature of the individuals' conduct, combined with intelligence information and historical information regarding past incidents involving Israeli organized crime, leads IS [DEA's Internal Security division] to believe the incidents may well be an organized intelligence-gathering activity," a classified document euphemizes.

The documents do not clearly label the activities of the so-called art students as a government-sanctioned spying operation, as widely reported. But they do make clear there is a covert nature to the well-orchestrated activities. In one reference, DEA said telephone numbers obtained from one encounter with its agents in Orlando, Fla., "have been linked to several ongoing DEA MDMA [the illegal drug Ecstasy] investigations in Florida, California, Texas and New York now being closely coordinated by DEA headquarters" in Washington.

A review of passports obtained by law enforcement also showed that a majority of the students traveled to numerous countries, including Thailand, Laos, India, Kenya, Central and South America, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada.

Besides federal law-enforcement incidents, DEA's IS unit found that several military bases also had experienced unauthorized entries by some of the students, including two bases from which Stealth aircraft and other supersecret military units operate. Unauthorized photographing of military sites and civilian industrial complexes, such as petroleum-storage facilities, also was reported to the DEA, the documents show and interviews confirm.

In virtually every incident of the many reported by the entire DEA field-office structure the pattern was similar: Students would attempt to enter secure buildings, take photographs, follow federal agents when they left buildings, show up at their homes, take pictures of their cars and circle their neighborhoods, visiting only their houses and then departing.

"This is very odd behavior under any situation," says a current DEA official who had heard but not yet seen the reports until Insight shared them. "The patterns are clear and they pose a significant danger to our officers in the field." Maybe U.S. national security.

On March 4, Intelligence Online reported that U.S. authorities had busted an Israeli spy ring in the United States that had sought to penetrate various federal law-enforcement agencies and military establishments. According to one wire report, the online service also said that documents it had obtained showed "a huge Israeli spy ring operating in the United States was rolled up by the Justice Department's counter-espionage service" last year.

Once newspapers and the AP picked the story up, FBI officials downplayed it, telling reporters that no charges of espionage had been filed. The carefully worded statements left out any mention of whether spying was suspected. FBI and INS officials told newsmen that most of those involved — an estimated 100 or so "Israeli art students" — overstayed their visas and had been deported. Some also were found to have illegal drugs or admitted to illegal-drug usage and were deported for this, too, documents showed and officials confirm to Insight.

A spokesmen for the Israeli Embassy in Washington says suggestions of espionage are nonsense and that all that might have been involved was a few visa violations. "If there were crimes committed then why weren't any of these people charged?" a spokesman asked. "That's not to say that there isn't any organized crime involving Israeli citizens," said another Israeli official when asked about DEA concern that the art students might have been tied to a criminal syndicate. "If that is so, I hope they put them in jail. We don't need those types of people, no matter who they are, loose on the streets."

This Israeli government official also tells Insight that his government's police and intelligence services cooperate fully with their counterparts in the United States, including the ongoing Ecstasy investigation mentioned in one of the DEA documents this magazine has obtained. "It is unfortunately a big problem, and we are working to help stop it," the Israeli official confirms.

FBI and Justice spokesmen have sought either to downplay or knock out the stories — even discredit the DEA reports and their authors. But if DEA was wrong then how can Justice explain this item Insight discovered that was circulated by a little-known but sensitive White House agency called the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive.

That agency not only circulated an internal warning to intelligence, federal law enforcement and White House planners — three full months before DEA issued its own internal report — but also posted on its site a warning to all federal employees about Israeli art students aggressively trying to enter federal facilities and going to the homes of senior federal agents. The same thing apparently was going on with a non-Israeli outfit with possible ties to a Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalist group.

Paul M. Rodriguez is managing editor of Insight

Note 1 Note 2

Mossad warned CIA of attacks - report

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.