CIA DID NOT MISLEAD CONGRESS

(July 15, 2009) The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal an in-your- face AlQaeda hit squad from Congress is being defended by CIA who claim that the operation was never completely in place. CIA chief Leon Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions last week.

Director Panetta should see that thinking about, planing and implimenting an operation are very different. CIA should not tell Congress that they are going to kill a bunch of AlQaeda terrorists if the program is not operational. Does the Air Force announce they are going to bomb a site to kill Al Quaeda torrorists beforehand. This has become a political football that is demoralizing our intelligence service. Are we safer if Congress knows or not? I don’t think that Congress need know beforehand that we are going to take out Al Quaeda leaders where we can penetrate their cells.

The question of how completely the C.I.A. informed Congress about sensitive programs has been hotly disputed by Democrats and Republicans since May, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the agency of failing to reveal in 2002 that it was waterboarding a terrorism suspect, a claim Mr. Panetta rejected.

The law requires the president to make sure the intelligence committees “are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity.” But the language of the statute, the amended National Security Act of 1947, leaves some leeway for judgment, saying such briefings should be done “to the extent consistent with due regard for the protection from unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to sensitive intelligence sources and methods or other exceptionally sensitive matters.”

In addition, for covert action programs, a particularly secret category in which the role of the United States is hidden, the law says that briefings can be limited to the so-called Gang of Eight, consisting of the Republican and Democratic leaders of both houses of Congress and of their intelligence committees.

The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded had hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.

In the tense months after Sept. 11, when Bush administration officials believed new Qaeda attacks could occur at any moment, intelligence officials brainstormed about radical activities like hit squads. I say that we leave the intelligence agency do its work and stop demonizing them.

WASHINGTON REPORTS 10 OUT OF 10 FEDERAL BUILDINGS, INCLUDING THE BUILDING HOUSING HOMELAND SECURITY WERE ALL SUCCESSFULY PENETRATED WITH BOMB MAKING MATERIALS. THE BOMBS WERE THEN QUICKLY ASSEMBLED IN BATHROOMS AND SET FOR MASS DESTRUCTION.

Homeland Security, Federal Protective Agency and its umbrella agencies are the DISGRACEFUL JOKE in charge of protecting the entire American public, a million federal employees and thousands of federal buildings.

The GAO reported this week that Homeland Securty failed to keep bomb-making materials out of ten high-security facilities, according to Congressional testimony provided by Senate aides. In the past year, investigators successfully smuggled bomb-making materials into ten high-security federal buildings, constructed bombs and walked around the buildings undetected, exposing weaknesses in security provided by the Federal Protective Service.

More than one million government employees work in 9,000 facilities guarded by FPS around the country, including at least 350,000 in the Washington region. Investigators carried liquid explosives and low-yield detonators — materials investigators note are not normally carried into federal buildings. The GAO said security concerns prevent it from revealing the exact locations or cities of the affected facilities, but that eight of them were government owned, while two were leased. They included offices of a U.S. senator and House member, as well as offices for the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State, the GAO reported. In one instance, the GAO obtained a building security tape showing an investigator walking through a security checkpoint with bomb making materials.

In April, Homeland Security inspector general report faulted its contracting processes. A 2008 GAO survey found the agency so short-staffed it exposed buildings to risk of terrorist attacks. These jokers ought to buy a copy of Under Nuclear Attack which illustrates our vulnerablity to attack and a worst case scenario that the book addresses.

Japanese media reported that the North Koreans appear to be preparing for a long-range test near July 4. On Wednesday North Korea threatened to rid the world of the United States.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered additional protections for Hawaii in case a missile is launched over the Pacific Ocean. North Korea is in possession of two long-range missiles, the Taepodong-1 and the Taepodong-2. The first can go 2,500 miles, but it’s never been successfully tested. The Taepondong-2 could go about 3,700 miles. However, both have failed its tests. There are 4,500 miles between Pyongyang and Honolulu.

The USS John S. McCain has trailed the Kang Nam Freighter since it left the North Korean port of Nampo. The ship is believed to be headed toward Myanmar, according to South Korean and U.S. officials. In the past, the ship was accused of transporting banned goods. If the ship is found to be carrying banned goods, it will be the first test of U.N. sanctions passed that placed an embargo on arms shipments from North Korea.

In order for the United States to inspect the suspicious cargo, it would have to seek permission, according to a new U.N. Security Council. North Korea said it would consider interception a declaration of war and accused the United States of seeking to provoke another Korean War. “If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will … wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all,” the official Korean Central News Agency said.

WHO COULD WRITE A NOVEL BETTER THAN THIS?

Tegucigalpa, Honduras, June 29, 2009, The Green Left News reported that the President of Honduras, President Zelaya was kidnapped and exiled to Costa Rica by the head of the Army. It was a rude awakening for a Sunday morning, especially for the millions of Hondurans that were preparing to vote today for the first time on a consultative referendum concerning the future convening of a constitutional assembly to reform the constitution. The vote was not a binding vote, but an opinion poll to determine whether or not a majority of Hondurans desire to eventually enter into a process to grant the President an additional term or terms. Was it another attempt to become “president for life” as was the case with Chavez in Venezuela? Perhaps.

The nonbinding referendum had never taken place in the Central American nation, which only allows the president a single term. In the 50’s CIA thwarted land reform that would have adversely affected United Fruit Company through political intervention. In the 80’s, the CIA funded political movement unfavorable to political reform. The Honduran constitution, rewritten in 1982, was designed to keep in powers interest economically and politically favorable to the United States.

President Zelaya, elected in November 2005 on the platform of Honduras’ ultra socialist leftist Liberal Party, had proposed the opinion poll be conducted to determine if a majority of citizens agreed that constitutional reform was necessary. He was backed by a majority of labor unions and social movements in the country. If the poll had occured, depending on the results, a referendum would have been conducted during the upcoming elections in November to vote on convening a constitutional assembly. Nevertheless, the scheduled poll was not binding by law.

Several days before the poll was to occur, Honduras’ Supreme Court ruled the vote illegal, upon request by the Congress, both of which are led by anti-Zelaya majorities and members of the ulta-conservative party, National Party of Honduras (PNH). This move led to massive protests in the streets in favor of President Zelaya. On June 24, the president fired the head of the high military command, General Romeo Vásquez, after he refused to allow the military to distribute the electoral material for Sunday’s elections. General Romeo Vásquez held the material under tight military control, refusing to release it even to the president’s followers, stating that the scheduled referendum had been determined illegal by the Supreme Court and therefore he could not comply with the president’s order. As in the Unted States, the president of Honduras is Commander in Chief and has the final say on the military’s actions, and so he ordered the General’s removal to end the constitutional delemma. The Minister of Defense, Angel Edmundo Orellana, also resigned in response to this increasingly tense situation.

But the following day, Honduras’ Supreme Court reinstated General Romeo Vásquez to the high military command, ruling his firing as “unconstitutional’. Thousands poured into the streets of Honduras’ capital, Tegucigalpa, showing support for President Zelaya and evidencing their determination to ensure Sunday’s non-binding referendum would take place. On Friday, the president and a group of hundreds of supporters, marched to the nearby air base to collect the electoral material that had been previously held by the military. That evening, Zelaya gave a national press conference along with a group of politicians from different political parties and social movements, calling for unity and peace in the country.

In resonse, a group of approximately 60 armed soldiers entered the presidential residence and took Zelaya hostage. After several hours of confusion, reports surfaced claiming the president had been taken to a nearby air force base and flown to neighboring Costa Rica.

President Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, speaking live on Telesur at approximately 10:00am Caracas time, denounced that in early hours of Sunday morning, the soldiers stormed their residence, firing shots throughout the house, beating and then taking the president. “It was an act of cowardness”, said the first lady, referring to the illegal kidnapping occuring during a time when no one would know or react until it was all over. Casto de Zelaya also called for the “preservation” of her husband’s life, indicating that she herself is unaware of his whereabouts. She claimed their lives are all still in “serious danger” and made a call for the international community to denounce this illegal coup d’etat and to act rapidly to reinstate constitutional order in the country, which includes the rescue and return of the democratically elected Zelaya.

Reports coming out of Honduras have informed that the public television channel, Canal 8, has been shut down by the coup forces. Just minutes ago, Telesur announced that the military in Honduras is shutting down all electricity throughout the country. Those television and radio stations still transmitting are not reporting the coup d’etat or the kidnapping of President Zelaya, according to Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas. “Telephones and electricity are being cut off”, confirmed Rodas just minutes ago via Telesur. “The media are showing cartoons and soap operas and are not informing the people of Honduras about what is happening”.

On Friday, the Organization of American States (OAS), convened a special meeting to discuss the crisis in Honduras, later issuing a statement condeming the threats to democracy and authorizing a convoy of representatives to travel to OAS to investigate further. Nevertheless, on Friday, Assistant Secretary of State of the United States, Phillip J. Crowley, stated the following, “We are concerned about the breakdown in the political dialogue among Honduran politicians over the proposed June 28 poll on constitutional reform. We urge all sides to seek a consensual democratic resolution in the current political impasse that adheres to the Honduran constitution and to Honduran laws consistent with the principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.”

USAID provides over US$ 50 millon annually for “democracy promotion” programs, which generally supports NGOs and political parties favorable to U.S. interests, as has been the case in Venezuela, Bolivia and other nations in the region. The Pentagon also maintains a military base in Honduras in Soto Cano, equipped with approximately 500 troops and air force combat planes and helicopters.

Foreign Minister Rodas has stated that she has repeatedly tried to make contact with the U.S. Ambassador in Honduras, Hugo Llorens, who has not responded to any of her calls thus far. Politicians believe that Washington may be invovled, passively or actively, since neither the Honduran military, which is majority trained by U.S. forces, nor the political and economic elite, would act to oust a democratically elected president without the backing and support of the U.S. government. President Zelaya has increasingly come under attack by the conservative forces in Honduras for his growing relationship with the ALBA countries, and particularly Venezuela and President Chávez. Many believe the coup has been executed as a method of ensuring Honduras does not continue to unify with the more leftist and socialist countries in Latin America.

Government Mistakenly Discloses Our Top Secret Nuclear Sites

On Monday, June 2, 2009, the New York Times reported that the federal government mistakenly made public, in an online newsletter, a 266-page report, its pages marked highly confidential, that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation’s civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons. The publication of the document was revealed Monday in an online newsletter devoted to issues of federal secrecy. The release set off a debate among nuclear experts about what dangers, if any, the disclosures posed. It also prompted a flurry of investigations in Washington into why the document had been made public. On Tuesday evening, after inquiries from The New York Times, the document was withdrawn from a Government Printing Office Web site.
This is exactly what my novel Under Nuclear Attack is about. Releasing nuclear site information is a blueprint for disaster. The mistkenly released documents contained critical information about our nation’s stockpile of nuclear arms. The released material presented what appears to be an exhaustive list of the sites that make up the nation’s civilian nuclear complex, which stretches coast to coast and includes nuclear reactors and highly confidential sites at weapon laboratories. The information dicloses where nuclear fuels are stored and could facilitate theft or worse with respect to weapon grade nuclear materials, which is the reason the the information was top secret in the first place.
Using this list, how difficult would it be to have access to nuclear materials and plant a dirty or nuclear bomb? In researching my global thriller, “Under Nuclear Attack,” I discovered just how easy it would be to smuggle nuclear materials into the U.S., make a dirty bomb, and create an enormous radioactive dust explosion that could kill millions. Armed with the information, terrorists and thieves have access to top secret information that points them to nuclear storage faciltites within this country. And there are few facilities that cannot be penetrated. An imaginative and daring force could penetrate a facility and take enough nuclear material to kill millions of U.S. citizens.
Someone, who we don’t want reading my novel, is using it for a blueprint. Buy the book and find out what’s about to happen

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Threat of dirty bombs ‘increased’

 

There is an increased risk terrorists could get hold of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons to attack the UK, the Home Office has said.

The assessment comes as Home Secretary Jacqui Smith unveiled a new UK strategy to tackle an evolved terrorist threat. It warns failed states such as Iran have made it easier to obtain materials for weapons such as dirty bombs.

Ms Smith said the threat is “severe” – meaning an attack is “highly likely” and “could happen without warning”.

Dirty bomb

The BBC’s home affairs correspondent, Daniel Sandford, said chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons “have always been something al-Qaeda have aspired to” but the report warns they are now within terrorists’ grasp.

“There is a concern now among officials in the Home Office that the chances of them getting hold of this material have increased in a world of failed states, in a world of easy availability of radiological material in hospitals and in a world of greatly increased smuggling of these kinds of materials.”

He added that the greatest concern was not over an attack by a nuclear warhead, but with a so-called dirty bomb which could contaminate a wide area and trigger panic.

Mr Sandford also said the report warned the al-Qaeda leadership “could well be killed or captured, but that doesn’t mean the threat would go away” because new groups and affiliates had sprung up that adhered to their ideology.