World Content News – Jetzt heulen die Schlosshunde, und die Medien stimmen ein in das verlogene Konzert, das uns weismachen soll, eine geläuterte US-Regierung sei nicht mehr bereit, ein geheimes CIA-Programm mitzutragen, das die von Cheney veranlasste Ermordung von El-Kaida-Führern zum Ziel gehabt haben soll. Die Wahrheit ist: Das Assassin-Programm wurde deswegen eingestellt, weil es sich nicht mehr länger unter der Decke halten ließ.

Es war weder ein Mitglied des Geheimdienstausschusses im Repräsentantenhaus noch der CIA-Direktor Leon Panetta, der den Stein ins Rollen brachte, sondern einer der verdienstvollsten Journalisten unserer Zeit. Bereits vor vier Monaten hielt der Pulitzer-Preisträger Seymour Hersh eine eindrucksvolle Vorlesung an der University of Minnesota, in der er auch auf Cheneys Geheimprogramm aufmerksam machte:

Uuuuh – so what? Niemand von den Medien hat sich dafür interessiert, nur MSNBC griff damals die scheinbar unglaubliche Geschichte auf:

Aufgeregte MSNBC-Berichterstattung: Es war der 14. März 2009!

Jetzt wird zu retten versucht, was noch zu retten ist. Die Medien suggerieren, das „nicht ausgereifte“ Programm hätte sich nur auf den Beschuss mit Raketen auf El-Kaida-Führer in Pakistan beschränkt. Das hat die Öffentlichkeit damals jedoch mitgekriegt und schulterzuckend zur Kenntnis genommen, fast kein Hahn hat danach gekräht.

Erinnern wir uns noch an die Diskussion um die „gezielte Tötung„, mit der Israel die Ermordung von Hamas-Führern verniedlichte? Die bei uns brav nachgeplappert wurde? Die auch der deutsche Innenminister Schäuble bei seinem Anti-Terror-Kampf favorisierte? Dürfen wir nach der Obama-Wende jetzt wieder sagen was es tatsächlich ist, nämlich Hinrichtung und Mord?

Es darf gewettet werden, dass am Ende hinter Cheneys Lizenz zum Töten, die auch Bush mittrug, noch viel mehr steht, als ein paar klammheimliche Shoot&Kill-Aktionen in Pakistan. Dass auch im Nahen Osten, im Iran und im Irak Mordkommandos unterwegs waren, die es auch auf die jeweilige politische Führung abgesehen hatten. Die abscheulichen Folterszenen von Abu Ghraib, die Quälereien von Gefangenen in Afghanistan sind nach bisherigen Erkenntnissen auch auf eine Cheney-Order zurückzuführen.

Der Beschuss von Dörfern in Pakistan geht auch unter der Regierung von Obama weiter. Beinahe täglich surren Drohnen, die US-Regierung gibt vor, dass immer nur „Taliban“ getroffen werden, anderen Quellen zufolge gibt es hauptsächlich Opfer in der Zivilbevölkerung. Wo also ist der Unterschied zur Bush-Cheney-Regierung?

Der Nebel um die Untaten Cheneys wird sich, wenn nicht Journalisten wie Hersh die Regierung zur Vorwärtsverteidigung zwingen, erst einmal nicht lichten. Daran ändern auch Good-Will-Aktionen wie z.B. der schnell auf den Markt geworfene IG-Report über das PSP-Programm nichts, der das heimliche Überwachungsprogramm der NSA als ineffektiv bezeichnet und die Bedrohungslage der USA unter der Bush-Regierung aufarbeitet.

Der CIA-Chef Panetta will erst am 23. Juni von dem Mord-Programm erfahren haben. Ein Journalist hätte es ihm viel früher sagen können. Und sein CIA-Sprecher wohl auch: „Utter nonsense“ verlautete einen Tag nach dem Vortrag Hershs die Reaktion auf eine entsprechende Anfrage. Die Welt, in der wir leben …

…ist nur alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen. Die Süddeutsche Zeitung bringt es auf den Punkt: „Im Strudel des Schmelzwassers„:

Fazit: Messer, Gabel, Scher und Licht sind für kleine Kinder nicht…

Tondokument:
Vortrag von Seymour Hersh am 10.03.09 an der University of Minnesota (MP3, cce.umn.edu)

Videostream:
Seymour Hersh: Secret US Forces Carried Out Assassinations in a Dozen Countries, Including in Latin America
(Democracy Now, benötigt Real-Player, 31.03.2009)

Interview-Transcript dazu

Related Articles from March 2009:
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh describes ‚executive assassination ring
(Minnpost, 11.03.2009)
Hersh: ‚Executive assassination ring‘ reported directly to Cheney
(The Raw Story, 11.03.2009)
The CIA responds to Seymour Hersh
(Minnpost, 12.03.2009)

News:
CIA-Geheimpläne: Details kommen ans Licht
(Augsburger Allgemeine, 14.07.2009)
US-Demokraten fordern Untersuchung von Geheimprogramm
(Focus, 13.07.2009)
How Bush and Cheney Revived the CIA’s „Murder Inc.“
(Middle East Issues, 13.07.2009)
CIA linked to Benazir Bhutto’s assassination?
(globalresearch.ca, 14.07.2009)
US-Überwachungsprogramm half kaum bei der Terrorabwehr
(Heise, 11.07.2009)
Fleet of spy planes gives U.S. ‚an edge‘ in Afghan mission
(USA Today, 14.07.2009)
U.S. supplied Afghan insurgents for ‘Al Qaeda’ in Iraq
(onlinejournal.com, 29.06.2009)

Dieser Artikel erschien erstmalig bei World Content News

Stephan Fuchs – Der französische Bankier Edouard Stern wurde am 28. Februar 2005 tot in seiner Genfer Wohnung von Mitarbeitern seines Investmentfonds IRR gefunden. Niedergestreckt von vier Schüssen, gekleidet in Latex. Vor den Schüssen hatten er und C. B. sich sado-masochistischen Sexspielen gewidmet. C. B., heute 40-jährig, gab die Tat erst im zweiten Anlauf zu. Überwachungskameras zeigten das Callgirl beim Eintreten und Hinausgehen aus dem Haus, wo sich die Luxuswohnung des Bankiers befand. Gestern war der erste Prozesstag.

Die Wohnung von Stern befindet sich im Quartier Rive im fünften und obersten Geschoss eines Hauses, wo auch ein Polizeiposten untergebracht ist. Die Türe zum Innern des Gebäudes ist verschlossen und der Eingang mit einer Videokamera überwacht. Die Polizei fand keine Einbruchspuren.

Stern war in Hochfinanz-Kreisen eine schillernde Persönlichkeit und galt als knallharter Banker. Er entstammt aus einer Bankiersfamilie und war bereits im Alter von 22 Jahren in die familieneigene Bank Stern eingestiegen. Schon zwei Jahre später zwang er seinen Vater aus der Bank auszusteigen, um selber die Leitung und die Aktienmehrheit der Bank zu übernehmen. Stern verkaufte die Bank an libanesische Partner, leitete sie aber noch bis 1998. Der Verkauf der Familienbank katapultierte Stern auf den 38sten Platz der 400 reichsten Franzosen. Als Schwiegersohn von Michel David-Weill, dem Chef der französischen Geschäftsbank Lazard, galt er lange als dessen Kronprinz. „Bis in fünf Jahren, weiss ich ob Edouard in die Lazard Philosophie passt“, meinte David-Weill in einem Interview mit Forbes. Schwiegersohn Stern, zog schließlich 1997, bereits nach vier Jahren, im Kampf um die Nachfolge den Kürzeren. Lazards Pressesprecher Richard Silverman, kommentiert den Tod Sterns nicht.

Im April 1998 gründete Stern die International Real Returns LLC (IRR) mit Eurazeo einer Lazard Holding, Mainz Holdings Ltd einer Stern Firma in den Virgin Islands und Jeffrey Keil Direktor der Republic New York Corporation. Laut Schweizer Handelsregister residierte die Firma IRR auch in Genf. Einer der IRR Verwaltungsräte war ebenfalls im Verwaltungsrat der Tradeco Limited aus Nassau / Bahamas, an dessen Zweigniederlassung in Genf. Richard Brennecke, ein amerikanischer Geschäftsmann und als notorischer Lügner bekannt gewordene Vertrags – Agent behauptete gegenüber Journalisten, dass die Firma Tradeco eine der wichtigsten CIA Finanzgesellschaften in Europa war. „Diese Firma befasste sich vor allem mit Waffenlieferungen in den Iran. Für gewisse Geschäfte verhandelte sie sogar direkt mit Teheran“.

Der Geschäftsleiter von Tradeco, James R. Fees, verweigerte ein Gespräch mit den Journalisten, war aber einflussreich genug, deren Telefone abhören zu lassen. Fees arbeitete über 25 Jahre für den Geheimdienst und war als Stations Leiter in Ägypten, bevor er ende der 70er Jahre nach Genf kam. Laut Brenneckes Aussagen, waren die Waffenlieferungen Teil des Geiselgeschäftes von 1980/81. 1999 berieten Stern und zwei ehemalige Lazard Banker Edmond Safra, den Gründer der Republic Bank of New York, beim $7.7 Milliarden schweren Verkauf von Safras Bank an die HSBC Holding Plc. Edmond Safra verbrannte 1999 in seiner Wohnung in Monaco. Das Feuer wurde von seinem Krankenpfleger gelegt, just bevor der Deal vollendet war. Die zur Republic Bank of New York gehörende Republic New York Corporation Air Transport, war jene Firma die im Iran – Contra Skandal auftauchte.

Ab 2000 begann Stern Aktien des Londoner Industrieunternehmens Delta PLC zu kaufen. Als er 26% der Aktien erworben hatte, er wurde somit zum grössten Einzelaktionär, machte er sich so zum Vorsitzenden der Firma. Die Gesellschaft habe am Mittwochabend (02.03.2005) auf Grund von entsprechenden Berichten vom Tod von Stern in Genf erfahren, heisst es in einer Stellungnahme von Delta Plc.

Im August 2000 übernahm die IRR Brasilien zusammen mit der Columbia University New York, der Penguin Holding, Eduardo Costantini Junior und Roger Wright 27% der erfolgreichen Kunsthändler Firma Latinarte.com. Die Firma handelt mit südamerikanischer Kunst mit Stützpunkten in Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Mexico City, Miami, New York, Bogota, Caracas, Lima, Montevideo, Santiago und Quito. Der Verwaltungsrat setzt sich aus Eduardo Costantini einem privaten Investor, Veronica Allende Serra von IRR, Marina Kessler & Hernan Fligler Mitgründer von Latinarte.com und Nicolas Helft Director of Art zusammen.

In den letzten Jahren versuchte Stern vergeblich, Unternehmen wie die Chemiegruppe Rhodhia oder der Brillenvertrieb GandVision zu übernehmen. Im April 2003 wurde Stern aus dem Verwaltungsrat der französischen Spezialitätenchemie-Gruppe Rhodia geworfen, nachdem er vergeblich versucht hatte, CEO Jean-Pierre Tirouflet aus dem Amt zu drängen. Der Financier verfügte über einen eigenen Jet und ein beträchtliches Vermögen, das er laut Tribune de Genève zuletzt zunehmend in osteuropäische Immobilien investiert hatte. Er präsidierte zuletzt den Verwaltungsrat des britischen Engineering-Unternehmens Delta Plc.

Amy Goodman – The investigative journalist for The New Yorker explains his recent bombshell revelation about Dick Cheney’s „executive assassination“ squads.

Amy Goodman: Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh created a stir last month when he said the Bush administration ran an executive assassination ring that reported directly to Vice President Dick Cheney. Hersh made the comment during a speech at the University of Minnesota on March 10th.

Seymour Hersh: Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination wing, essentially. And it’s been going on and on and on. And just today in the Times there was a story saying that its leader, a three-star admiral named McRaven, ordered a stop to certain activities because there were so many collateral deaths. It’s been going in — under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or to the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving.

Amy Goodman: Yesterday, CNN interviewed Dick Cheney’s former national security adviser, John Hannah. Wolf Blitzer asked Hannah about Sy Hersh’s claim.

Wolf Blitzer: Is there a list of terrorists, suspected terrorists out there who can be assassinated?

John Hannah: There is clearly a group of people that go through a very extremely well-vetted process, inter-agency process, as I think was explained in your piece, that have committed acts of war against the United States, who are at war with the United States, or are suspected of planning operations of war against the United States, who authority is given to the troops in the field and in certain war theaters to capture or kill those individuals. That is certainly true.

Wolf Blitzer: And so, this would be, and from your perspective — and you worked in the Bush administration for many year– it would be totally constitutional, totally legal, to go out and find these guys and to whack ‚em.

John Hannah: There’s no question that in a theater of war, when we are at war, and we know — there’s no doubt, we are still at war against al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and on that Pakistani border, that our troops have the authority to go after and capture and kill the enemy, including the leadership of the enemy.

Amy Goodman: That’s John Hannah, Dick Cheney’s former national security adviser. Seymour Hersh joins me now here in Washington, D.C., staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. His latest article appears in the current issue, called „Syria Calling: The Obama Administration’s Chance to Engage in a Middle East Peace.“

OK, welcome to Democracy Now!, Sy Hersh. It was good to see you last night at Georgetown. Talk about, first, these comments you made at the University of Minnesota.

Seymour Hersh: Well, it was sort of stupid of me to start talking about stuff I haven’t written. I always kick myself when I do it. But I was with Walter Mondale, the former vice president, who was being amazingly open and sort of, for him — he had come a long way … since I knew him as a senator who was reluctant to oppose the Vietnam War. And so, I was asked about future things, and I just — I am looking into stuff. I’ve done — there’s really nothing I said at Minnesota I haven’t written in the (New Yorker). Last summer, I wrote a long article about the Joint Special Operations Command.

And just to go back to what John Hannah, who … I think ended up being the senior national security adviser, almost — if not the chief of staff, deputy chief of staff for Dick Cheney in the last three or four years, what he said is simply that, yes, we go after people suspected — that was the word he used — of crimes against America. And I have to tell you that there’s an executive order, signed by Jerry Ford, President Ford, in the ’70s, forbidding such action. It’s not only contrary — it’s illegal, it’s immoral, it’s counterproductive.

The problem with having military go kill people when they’re not directly in combat, these are asking American troops to go out and find people and, as you said earlier, in one of the statements I made that you played, they go into countries without telling any of the authorities, the American ambassador, the CIA chief, certainly nobody in the government that we’re going into, and it’s far more than just in combat areas. There’s more — at least a dozen countries, and perhaps more. The President has authorized these kinds of actions in the Middle East and also in Latin America, I will tell you, Central America, some countries. They’ve been — our boys have been told they can go and take the kind of executive action they need, and that’s simply — there’s no legal basis for it.

And not only that, if you look at Guantanamo, the American government knew by — well, let’s see, Guantanamo opened in early 2002. „Gitmo,“ they call it, the base down in Cuba for alleged al-Qaeda terrorists. An internal report that I wrote about in a book I did years ago, an internal report made by the summer of 2002, estimated that at least half and possibly more of those people had nothing to do with actions against America. The intelligence we have is often very fragmentary, not very good. And the idea that the American president would think he has the constitutional power or the legal right to tell soldiers not engaged in immediate combat to go out and find people based on lists and execute them is just amazing to me. It’s amazing to me.

And not only that, Amy, the thing about George Bush is, everything’s sort of done in plain sight. In his State of the Union address, I think January the 28th, 2003, about a month and a half before we went into Iraq, Bush was describing the progress in the war, and he said — I’m paraphrasing, but this is pretty close — he said that we’ve captured more than 3,000 members of al-Qaeda and suspected members, people suspected of operations against us. And then he added with that little smile he has, „And let me tell you, some of those people will not be able to ever operate again. I can assure you that. They will not be in a position.“ He’s clearly talking about killing people, and to applause.

So, there we are. I don’t back off what I said. I wish I hadn’t said it ad hoc, because, like I hope we’re going to talk about in a minute, I spend a lot of time writing stories for The New Yorker, and they’re very carefully vetted, and sometimes when you speak off the top, you’re not as precise.

Amy Goodman: Explain what the Joint Special Operations Command is and what oversight Congress has of it.

Seymour Hersh: Well, it’s a special unit. We have something called the Special Operations Command that operates out of Florida, and it involves a lot of wings. And one of the units that work under the umbrella of the Special Operations Command is known as Joint Special Op — JSOC. It’s a special unit. What makes it so special, it’s a group of elite people that include Navy Seals, some Navy Seals, Delta Force — what we call our black units, the commando units. „Commando“ is a word they don’t like, but that’s what we, most of us, refer to them as. And they promote from within. It’s a unit that has its own promotion structure. And one of the elements, I must tell you, about getting ahead in promotion is the number of kills you have. Of course. Because it’s basically devised — it’s been transmogrified, if you will, into this unit that goes after high-value targets.

And where Cheney comes in and the idea of an assassination ring — I actually said „wing,“ but of an assassination wing — that reports to Cheney was simply that they clear lists through the Vice President’s office. He’s not sitting around picking targets. They clear the lists. And he’s certainly deeply involved, less and less as time went on, of course, but in the beginning very closely involved. And this is the elite unit. I think they do three-month tours. And last summer, I wrote a long article in The New Yorker, last July, about how the JSOC operation is simply not available, and there’s no information provided by the executive to Congress.

Amy Goodman: What countries, Sy Hersh — what countries are they operating in?

Seymour Hersh: A lot of countries.

Amy Goodman: Name some.

Seymour Hersh:No, because I haven’t written about it, Amy. And I will tell you, as I say, in Central America, it’s far more than just the areas that Mr. Hannah talked about — Afghanistan, Iraq. You can understand an operation like this in the heat of battle in Iraq, killing, I mean, taking out enemy. That’s war. But when you go into other countries — let’s say Yemen, let’s say Peru, let’s say Colombia, let’s say Eritrea, let’s say Madagascar, let’s say Kenya, countries like that — and kill people who are believed on a list to be al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda-linked or anti-American, you’re violating most of the tenets.

We’re a country that believes very much in due process. That’s what it’s all about. We don’t give the President of United States the right to tell military people, even in a war — and it’s a war against an idea, war against terrorism. It’s not as if we’re at war against a committed uniformed enemy. It’s a very complicated war we’re in. And with each of those actions, of course, there’s always collateral deaths, and there’s always more people ending up becoming our enemies. That’s the tragedy of Guantanamo. By the time people, whether they were with us or against us when they got there, by the time they’ve been there three or four months, they’re dangerous to us, because of the way they’ve been treated …

Amy Goodman: One question: Is the assassination wing continuing under President Obama?

Seymour Hersh: How do I know? I hope not.

Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!

onlineredaktion – Kanadische Forscher haben nach eigenen Angaben ein riesiges Spionagenetzwerk entdeckt, das Computer in aller Welt zur Überwachung benutzt.

Das Munk Center for International Studies in Toronto gehe davon aus, dass mindestens 1295 Rechner in 103 Staaten infiltriert worden seien, berichtete die „New York Times“.

Dazu gehörten Computer von Botschaften, Aussenministerien, der Nato und des Dalai Lama. Die infizierten Rechner stünden unter anderem in Brüssel, London und New York. Das Netzwerk – von den Forschern „GhostNet“ (Geisternetz) genannt – sei innerhalb von weniger als zwei Jahren aufgebaut worden und noch aktiv. Der Betreiber sei unbekannt.

Die Systemeinbrüche wurden dem Blatt zufolge entdeckt, nachdem Mitarbeiter des Dalai Lama die Kanadier gebeten hatte, ihre Rechner auf schädliche Programme wie Viren zu untersuchen.

Mit Hilfe der manipulierten Computer seien Dokumente aus Büros in aller Welt gestohlen worden, berichten die Forscher. Die Maschinen könnten zudem zur Raumüberwachung genutzt werden, in dem angeschlossene oder eingebaute Mikrofone und Kameras angeschaltet würden.

Ausgangspunkt der Angriffe seien Computer, die fast alle in China stünden. Die Wissenschafter vermieden es jedoch ausdrücklich, der Regierung in Peking eine Beteiligung vorzuwerfen. Dafür seien die Vorgänge im Untergrund des Internets zu differenziert, sagte der Munk-Forscher Ronald Deibert.

„Das könnte auch der CIA oder die Russen sein.“ Ein Vertreter der chinesischen Regierung in New York sprach von „alten Geschichten, die blödsinnig sind“. Sein Land lehne jede Form der Computerkriminalität ab.

David Dastych – When Sir Winston Churchill resigned from the office of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, in 1955, he was quoted as saying „I will not preside over the dismembering“ of what was previously The British Empire. But as the Empire shrank quickly to the size of the United Kingdom, the „Spy-Empire“ of MI5 and Mi6, founded in 1909, never receded but expanded world-wide and turned high-tech. On the eve of its 100th Anniversary, one of the best and most popular British writers, specializing in intelligence, pays a tribute to many generations of British spies and their spy-masters, who have influenced the history of Great Britain and of the world.

His book,“Secret Wars. One Hundred Years of British Intelligence Inside MI5 and MI6″ (St.Martin’s Press, March 2009), is a fascinating read for everybody, and for intelligence operatives and young secret service recruits, in particular it should be a must. This book is not a history text or a mere chronicle of events, and it’s not a panegyric either. „The great advantage of being a writer“ – Graham Greene once said – „is that you can spy on people. You’re there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see – every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.“ For a greater part of his 75-year-long life, Gordon Thomas was doing just that: meeting spies and spy-masters, not only British but also American, Israeli, Russian, Chinese, Polish, German and many others and listening to their insider’s stories. The best and undisputable value of his book is the author’s encounters with real flesh and blood intelligence people, including some of them that turned the tide of history.

The best and undisputable value of his book is the author’s encounters with real flesh and blood intelligence people, including some of them that turned the tide of history.

The research for this book took the author almost 50 years, since the Suez Crisis in 1956, which he had witnessed as a foreign correspondent based in Egypt. From his contacts there he learned about President Naser’s plan to nationalize the Canal and he warned the Foreign Office about that – only to be told that if he missed the truth he better forget about his journalist career. He was right. But it was the British Government to fail in their insane plans to assassinate Naser (described in the book) and then to abort a British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt, secretly conceived not to inform the Americans. Later on Gordon Thomas covered many other events, which had been planned, provoked or carried out with the participation of secret intelligence services. He was introduced to the world of spying by his late father-in-law and life-time friend, a former British covert agent, Joachim Kraner, to whom he later paid a tribute in his writings.

„Secret Wars“ is a story of the British Intelligence over the span of a hundred years, since 1909, when MI5 and MI6 (code-names for the military counter-intelligence and intelligence) were founded to prevent an expected German attack on Great Britain. The over-400 page book is not a systematic, chronologically arranged tale. Each of its 20 chapters is a purposeful mixture of past and present events, sometimes with projections into future. For a reader, this book is a fascinating, perfectly composed thriller, which The New York Times described as „Literally impossible to put down.“

Mark Twain was quoted as saying: „Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.“ He had writing fiction on his mind but his words could just as well be attributed to the distortion of intelligence by politicians. James Angleton, a famous CIA spy-master and spy-catcher, whom Gordon Thomas had interviewed, summarized this unhealthy relationship between intelligence and politics by these words, quoted in the book: „Secrecy from public scrutiny leads to often uncheckable and different accounts of the same events, which are often contradictory and distorted.“

Thomas‘ book gives innumerable examples of such misuse of the honest fact-finding by intelligence services, of which a recent one could be a „sexed-up“ report about alleged Saddam’s WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) that Prime Minister Blair and President Bush used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Great Game often recalled in „Secret Wars“ as the never-ending deception war waged by national intelligence agencies was played over the last hundred years by MI5 and MI6 continues. „The color of truth is gray“ (Andre Gide), because truth is evasive and often hidden from the public by purposeful cover-up. Generations of British spies, as well as their controllers and masters, contributed to the security of their country, at times preventing national disasters and saving many thousand of lives during wars. But the British (and also American) intelligence services have been, for decades, deeply penetrated and harmed by Soviet „moles,“ recruited at the best universities, such as Cambridge and Oxford. Gordon Thomas writes about treason within the British services and about a complete failure of the counter-intelligence to detect it. The cases of Kim Philby (a high-ranking British counter-intelligence officer and a long-time Soviet spy) and of nuclear scientists, Klaus Fuchs, Alan Nunn May and Bruno Pontecorvo, who passed top atomic weapons secrets of the West to the Soviets, are perhaps the most significant. The author describes these treason cases with passion and talent and warns that „splendid isolation“ of some British heads of The Services and their failure to put together and check simple facts, led to a disaster inside MI5 and MI6 and to a long-term lack of confidence between the British and American intelligence.

As the motivation of the Communist spies inside MI5 and MI6 was mainly ideological, the CIA and FBI suffered even bigger losses due to simple „commercial“ motivations of their own traitors, like Ames and Hansen. Greed for money was their only reason to betray the services and the country. Aldrich „Rick“ Ames destroyed the American spy network in the Soviet Union in the 1980s and caused the deaths of many Russian CIA agents for a reward of some $ 2.7 million from the KGB. Caught, he admitted with sarcastic grin that „The human spy, in terms of the American espionage effort, had never been terribly pertinent.“

Yet the British SIS (MI6) could also score big success with their top spy in the Soviet Russia, Oleg Gordievski, who’s brave exfiltration from USSR by a diplomatic car to Finland in 1985 had proven the efficiency of the British intelligence. A former MI6 covert agent, Richard Tomlinson, told the author, referring to SIS chief Collin McColl who worked in Russia and Poland: „Being in SovBlock meant you lived on the tightrope every moment of every day. Someone who could do that had to be very special.“

With the collapse of the Soviet Block in the early 1990s, the very nature of the Great Game has changed. The exceptionally high value of Gordon Thomas‘ book is his factual description and professional assessment of the substantial changes in the intelligence community, caused by new political and military situation of the world at large.

The times of the absolute domination of the two super-powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, have passed forever. For some years, in the 1990s, the U.S. leadership naively believed America could become the only world’s super-power to dictate its policy and to promote the democratic values of the West to the rest of the globe. But soon new threats appeared and the United States (and also Britain as their main ally) realized that the world was too complicated to rule and that the peaceful victory in the Cold War was but a temporary success.

„Secret Wars“ is a perfect book to prove that. Once again, Gordon Thomas demonstrated his unique talent in grasping of new trends in the Great Game and in the intelligence community. For no one knows how long a time, the world will be a very dangerous place, with many global and regional centers of power, and with growing problems. Terrorism, which was seen by MI5 and MI6 as mainly a local (IRA) problem or as an offspring of the Communist diversion, had developed into a global monster (al-Qaeda) and its main ideological motivation had become radical Islam, or Islamism.

The negligence of this phenomenon by American and British intelligence agencies led to their ineptitude to prevent 9/11 in America in 2001, and the London bombings of 2005. In spite of many efforts to disrupt al-Qaeda, to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, the Islamist radical network is still developing and posing a deadly threat to the West and to Asia and Africa.

Two extremely dangerous developments added to the threat of international terrorism: bio-terrorism and nuclear-terrorism. Both have been described in „Secret Wars“ with utmost accuracy and a powerful vision. The arsenals of bio-weapons, deadly viruses and bacteria, originally developed in the Soviet Union and also in the West, penetrated to rogue countries, from where they might be distributed to non-state terrorist organizations.

On the other hand, nuclear materials and even weapons could be bought up on black markets by envoys of al-Qaeda to be used against the „Infidels“ and were also offered by a Pakistani Dr. A.Q.Khan „commercial“ network. Dr. Khan described himself as „world’s nuclear bomb peacemaker.“ Nuclear scare embraced America and Britain following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil (2001) and the suicide bombings in London (2005). The author pays much attention to these tragic events and to the inability of the powerful secret services to predict and prevent them.

„There’s a new world out there. Adjust or die,“ Gordon Thomas quotes former chief of the CIA, Bob Gates. But fortunately for the Western intelligence, people from the „other side“ decide to „walk-in“ and offer their help. One of these people was (the late) Vladimir Pasechnik from Russia, who contacted the British service to report about his KGB enterprise Biopreparat developing mass-killing toxins, viruses and bacteria. Asked why he did that, he replied: „I want the West to know. There must be a way to stop this madness.“ Dr. David Kelly (also late by now), a top British microbiology and bio-weapons expert, told the author after his interrogation of Pasechnik: „The really terrifying thing was that I knew Vladimir was telling the truth.“

Thomas dedicated more than one chapter of his book to the tragic plight of Dr. Kelly, whose more than 30 trips to Iraq in search of bio-weapons ended by a conclusion that there weren’t any. In spite of that, a „sexed-up“ intelligence report to the British PM had been used as an excuse for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In the same year, Dr. Kelly, disgraced and left alone by MI6 and MI5, died, or rather was murdered in strange circumstances. Before his death, a number of bacteriologists from several countries, including Britain, Russia and the U.S.A., were killed by unknown perpetrators, allegedly for refusing to share their knowledge with North Korean, Iranian and probably Chinese intelligence.

New threats and at the same challenges to the intelligence services of Britain and the West, described in detail by Gordon Thomas in „Secret Wars“, could be summed up as: international terrorism, rogue regimes (North Korea, Iran in particular) and a technological diversion, including professional cyber-attacks, led and developed by some states (Russia and China) and even by members of the Western alliance (Israel). It started in early 1980s with the theft of a powerful tracking software system, PROMIS, invented by a former NSA expert William L. Hamilton and produced by his small Washington D.C.-based company Inslaw Inc.

Of PROMIS a former Mossad operative, Ari Ben Menashe, quoted by the author, said: „PROMIS changed the thinking of the entire intelligence world.“ And Charles Foster Bass added: „Like any good spy novel, the Cox Report alleges that Chinese spies penetrated four U.S. weapons research labs and stole important information on seven nuclear warhead designs.“ Only an American citizen and Israel’s spy, Jonathan Pollard (still in American top security prison) could do more. Pollard transmitted over 360 cubic feet of U.S. secret documents to Tel Aviv and some were also sold to Russia. A former CIA chief, the late William Casey complained about that to the author: „It was a double blow. It had cost us every worthwhile secret we had. And it had been stolen by a country supposed to be our ally.“

But God perhaps rewarded the West and MI6 with a voluntary service of a high-ranking Iranian intelligence general, Ali Reza Asgari from VEVAK, code-named „Falcon“, who informed the British intelligence about the nuclear program of Iran and was successfully exfiltrated via Turkey and Bulgaria to the U.K. His motivations were personal and perhaps also monetary, but his services were of top importance to the West.

The spying Great Game goes on undisturbed by moments of failure and agony. The British services, closely cooperating with the American ones, own a big share of the most sophisticated spying technology, including satellite surveillance systems, ECHELON eavesdropping network and the fastest computers in the world. A former CIA chief, William Colby, quoted by the author on the NSA computers, said: „makes lightening look slow. One time there was a program that could translate seven languages at five hundred words per minute. Next time I checked, a month later, it had doubled its capacity and halved its translation time.“ The various spying technologies like ELINT, SIGINT, IMINT and missile trajectory tracking systems are well described in the book. But all these marvelous inventions are still short of tracking Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Pakistan or Afghanistan and to follow, like PROMIS, the passage of money to terrorists by an ancient Muslim „hawala“ human contact network, based on full confidence of the sender, the receiver and the „hawaladar“, the money handler.

As Mark Twain once remarked, „It is wiser to find out than to suppose.“ This phrase might be the best description of what the intelligence services always did and do. Their mission is to discover and transmit secret information to help the governments in their decision making. Michael Smith, a defense analyst, quoted by Gordon Thomas in his Personal Notes closing the book, had captured the inner sense of proper spying: „Intelligence will need to be untainted and unlike the notorious (sexed-up) dossier on Iraq, both genuine and accurate.“

„For decades to come the spy world will continue to be the collective couch where the subconscious of each nation is confessed“ (John LeCarre).

Gordon Thomas is well placed on this „couch“ to observe what the services do and how Britain and the world benefit or lose from their work. The Great Game will never end and „Secret Wars“ is a great book to read and learn of the 100 years of MI5 and MI6 and much more.

This article was first published on Canada Free Press

David Dastych is a veteran journalist who served both in the Polish intelligence and the CIA; jailed in Poland by the Communist regime he spent several years in special prison wards; released in early 1990’s he joined international efforts to monitor illegal nuclear trade in Europe and Asia; handicapped for lifetime in a mountain accident in France, in 1994; now he returned to active life and runs his own media agency in Warsaw.

History Commons – A CIA officer who blocked notification to the FBI that Khalid Almihdhar had a US visa makes a number of false statements about the blocking in an interview with the Justice’s Department’s office of inspector general.

The officer, known only as “Michelle,” was working at Alec Station, the CIA’s bin Laden unit, in 2000. She blocked a cable drafted by an FBI agent on loan to Alec Station named Doug Miller telling the FBI about Almihdhar (see 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. January 5, 2000), but then drafted a cable falsely stating the information had been passed (see Around 7:00 p.m. January 5, 2000) and insisted to Miller’s colleague Mark Rossini that the FBI not be informed the next day (see January 6, 2000). Instead of telling the inspector general why she blocked the initial cable and then drafted the cable with the false statement, Michelle claims that she has no recollection of Miller’s cable, any discussions about putting it on hold, or why it was not sent.

She also claims the language of the cable suggests somebody else told her the information about Almihdhar’s visa had been passed to the FBI, but cannot recall who this was. [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 242-243 pdf file; Bamford, 2008, pp. 19-20] The exact date of this interview is not known, although the inspector general discovered Miller’s cable in early February (see Early February 2004) and Miller and Rossini are interviewed around this time. Both men also falsely claim not to recall anything about the cable.

This rticle was published on History Commons

Cooperative Research – Following the bombing of a Berlin disco in which three people, including two US serviceman, died, and which is blamed on Libya, and a retaliatory air strike by the US against Libya, European public opinion begins to turn against the US. The CIA therefore makes it seem that the Libyans intend to plant another bomb in Berlin, so as to influence the European public. According to a CIA officer involved in the operation, the first step is “to convince German intelligence and police there was a terrorist cell.”

To achieve this, a Lebanese CIA asset named Jamal Hamdan, who helps the US in various ways around this time, makes a series of phone calls from an apartment in Cyprus to suspected terrorists in Germany. Hamdan also tells a relative living in West Berlin that his brother Ali and a friend will enter the city carrying a package, which, it is implied, is a bomb. Ali Hamdan and the friend then enter West Berlin illegally from the east and are arrested by German police, who wrongly believe that they actually have a bomb and the plot is real. Word of the plot is leaked to the US press, enabling the Reagan administration to quell criticism of the attack on Libya. The CIA then steps in and has the two men held in Germany released.

This article was published on Cooperative Research

Tim Shorrock – SPIES FOR HIRE exposes how, from the tracking of al-Qaeda to the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, private contractors have infiltrated every corner of intelligence gathering in America. Drawing on insider documents and exclusive interviews with sources including former agency operatives and CEO’s of private intelligence firms, Shorrock lifts the highly secretive veil off the mysterious world of intelligence contracting, demonstrating the shocking truth that over 70 percent of the massive U.S. intelligence budget is now spent on contractors, with minimal congressional oversight. Bankrolled with tax money, these private firms are exerting enormous influence on governmental policies that affect all Americans.

Steven Aftergood: “Spies for Hire is an excellent roadmap to the daunting new terrain of U.S. intelligence, in which the explosive growth of intelligence contracting threatens to overwhelm any possibility of independent oversight. In this groundbreaking work, Tim Shorrock explores who has benefited, who has paid, and why it matters to us all.”

In a compulsively readable tour de force of investigative reporting, SPIES FOR HIRE explains how Abu Ghraib and Blackwater are merely the tip of the iceberg. Shorrock’s meticulous research reveals the following and much more:

Intelligence contracting has become a $45 billion industry, eating up more than 70 percent of the $60 billion the U.S. government spends annually on intelligence. Corporations like Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC, and CACI International have become full partners with the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Pentagon in their most sensitive operations.

The business of intelligence has grown so large and so fast that even its champions aren’t afraid to borrow a weighted term from President Dwight Eisenhower to describe it. “Call it the Intelligence-Industrial Complex,” the director of the largest industry association in the spying business tells Shorrock (page 12).

The companies that make up the new Intelligence-Industrial Complex range in size from defense behemoths like Lockheed Martin to tiny “Beltway Bandits” like SpecTal, and include both household names (IBM) and the obscure (Scitor). These firms do everything from providing disguises to CIA officers operating undercover to analyzing signals intelligence picked up by the National Security Agency.

Official information about the scope of intelligence outsourcing, critical as it would be to the public’s understanding of national security, has been deliberately suppressed by the U.S. government. In 2006, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence ordered a study of contracting within the 16 agencies that make up the Intelligence Community. When time came to release the study in 2007, however, the ODNI refused to make it public. Shorrock’s book provides the only available documentation on the size and scope of our privatized intelligence system.

Most Americans are now aware that telecom giants such as AT&T and Verizon are helping the NSA monitor phone and internet traffic. Shorrock shows that private sector involvement in government surveillance goes far beyond the telecommunications industry to include many of the nation’s top IT companies and defense contractors. At least 50 percent and as much as 75 percent of the people at NSA headquarters and its ground stations around the world are contractors working for the private sector, Shorrock estimates.

Shorrock shows how, under contract to the NSA, companies such as SAIC and CACI International provide critical assistance to the NSA’s interpretation and analysis of signals captured by its global surveillance system. This vast complex of companies intertwined with the agencies, Shorrock argues, has created a powerful National Surveillance State made up in part by private interests whose contracts are classified and beyond the reach of congressional oversight committees.

Not only were private contractors involved in the extreme interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, they have taken over the training of military interrogators at the U.S. Army’s Intelligence Center in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. And in hotspots around the world, private contractors are taking the place of government operatives. In Pakistan, for example, three-quarters of the officers posted at the Islamabad CIA station since 9/11 have been private contractors. In the Baghdad CIA station, contractors have sometimes outnumbered government employees and have taken supervisory positions overseeing what CIA agents do every day.

Former high-ranking national security officials such as Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and CIA directors George Tenet and R. James Woolsey have brought their knowledge and expertise to consulting positions with the intelligence industry. This migration from the public to the private sector has created a shadow force of contractors, many of whom are doing for their companies the same tasks they did as government servants – only at double or triple the pay. A former CIA officer tells Shorrock: “Everyone I know in the CIA is leaving and going into contracting whether they’re retired or not” (page 14).

SPIES FOR HIRE shows how the revolving door between public and private often spins two or three times. Take the example of Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, who was the first contractor in US history to take the leading role in the US Intelligence Community. Prior to his appointment as DNI, McConnell managed military intelligence for Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the nation’s top intelligence contractors; a dozen years earlier, Booz Allen hired McConnell directly from a stint at the National Security Agency, where he was the director for three years.

As DNI, McConnell has turned to a private business association that he himself once chaired as a Booz Allen executive – the Intelligence and National Security Alliance – to work with the government to build public support for US intelligence policies. Shorrock shows how INSA, which is backed by the largest CIA and NSA contractors, has become a vehicle for industry-government debate where the public is excluded – making the task of congressional oversight almost impossible. “It’s not like a debate when someone loses,” intelligence expert Steven Aftergood tells Shorrock. “There is no debate. And the more work that migrates to the private sector, the less effective congressional oversight is going to be” (page 21).

Shorrock takes the reader into the heart of the industry by visiting conferences and symposia where high-ranking government and private sector officials discuss their common strategies and corporations display their latest wares in intelligence collection and surveillance technologies. As counterterrorism wars rage in Iraq and Afghanistan, the talk among the executives gathered for these conferences, Shorrock writes, “is of money and profits, ‘market drivers,’ being ‘in sync with our customers,’ and providing ‘soup-to-nuts support’ to the U.S. military” (page 263). “We are a national security pure-play,” exclaims one excited CEO (page 261).

Behind the wall of secrecy that shrouds intelligence contracts, the opportunities for corruption are extensive. The corruption is illustrated by the notorious case of Congressman Duke Cunningham, who accepted $2.4 million in bribes from intelligence contractor MZM in exchange for valuable – and secretive – budget earmarks for MZM.

President Eisenhower famously warned Americans about the rise of a “military-industrial complex”, but in the information-saturated 21st century, the Intelligence-Industrial Complex exposed by Tim Shorrock in SPIES FOR HIRE is a more salient threat to our freedoms. From huge defense contractors to small, focused companies that provide specialized technology for mining and analyzing data, the disturbingly unregulated role of the private sector in gathering intelligence and acting upon it demands the level of scrutiny Tim Shorrock brings. In the bestselling tradition of Ron Suskind’s The One Percent Doctrine, SPIES FOR HIRE is a must-read for all Americans concerned with who pulls the strings (and triggers) of American foreign policy and national security.

Comments about SPIES FOR HIRE
“Spies for Hire is an excellent roadmap to the daunting new terrain of U.S. intelligence, in which the explosive growth of intelligence contracting threatens to overwhelm any possibility of independent oversight. In this groundbreaking work, Tim Shorrock explores who has benefited, who has paid, and why it matters to us all.”
– Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy, Federation of American Scientists

“Tim Shorrock’s well researched and convincing book reveals how the intelligence community now subcontracts out most of its work—70 percent—to private-sector companies that inevitably have their own agendas, which may or may not accord with the national interest. By laying out very specifically how all this works, Shorrock has provided a very important service to the country.”
– Burton Hersh, author of The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA

Tim Shorrocks Website
SPIES FOR HIRE
Tim Shorrock is an investigative journalist who has devoted a quarter-century of research to the intersection of national security and business, specifically researching intelligence contracting for the past four years. His work has appeared in many publications in the United States and abroad, including The Nation, Salon, Mother Jones, Harper’s, Inter Press Service, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Progressive, The Journal of Commerce, Foreign Policy in Focus and Asia Times. He also appears frequently on the radio as a commentator on US-Korean relations and US intelligence and foreign policy, and has been interviewed on Pacifica’s “Democracy Now,” Air America and CBS Radio. Shorrock grew up in Japan and South Korea and now lives in Tahoma, California, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Lake Tahoe.

World Content News – Wie das Magazin «Journal du Dimanche» berichtet, sind offenbar Hacker in den Besitz geheimer Informationen über ein privates Bankkonto des französischen Staatspräsidenten gelangt und haben davon kleine Geldsummen abgehoben. Um welche Beträge es sich dabei handelte, wurde nicht bekannt. Man vermutete zunächst, dass die Hacker im September über das Internet an Nicolas Sarkozys Kreditkartendaten gelangt sind. Dieser hat inzwischen Anzeige erstattet.

Peinlich, peinlich, bestohlener Präsident: Wer war das?

Es klingt leicht futuristisch, wenn inzwischen sogar schon einem der wichtigsten Staatsoberhäupter der Welt seine streng geheimen privaten Daten abhanden kommen und man fragt sich, was überhaupt noch vor dem Datenabgriff sicher ist. Dazu passt auch folgende Meldung:

Kreditkartenlesegeräte in mehreren europäischen Ländern sind von einer organisierten Verbrecherbande aus Asien aufwendig manipuliert worden. Vor allem in britischen Filialen der Lebensmittelketten Wal-Mart und Tesco wurden die Geräte gefunden. Mithilfe kleiner Zusatzplatinen sammeln die Geräte Daten von Kreditkarten und senden sie über eine kabellose Verbindung einmal pro Tag auf mehrere Server in Pakistan. In Großbritannien beläuft sich der Schaden durch die Betrüger bereits auf 37 bis 75 Mio. Euro. Auch in Irland, Belgien, Holland und Dänemark sind bereits manipulierte Lesegeräte aufgetaucht, berichtet das Wall Street Journal. (Quelle)

Vielleicht sind die „Wanzen“ im Kartenlesegerät noch weitaus verbreiteter als zunächst angenommen und auch das Barabheben in kleinen Summen längst automatisiert. Hätten die Diebe bei so einem kapitalen Hirschen nicht weitaus kräftiger zugelangt, wenn sie gewusst hätten, wessen „Sesam öffne Dich“-Daten sich da vor sich liegen hatten ?

Die Kommentare von Lesern des Journals waren jedenfalls entsprechend progressiv fröhlich und lassen sich in etwa so wiedergeben: „Endlich hat mal ein Dieb einen Dieb bestohlen„.

Kommissar Ehrlicher: Klärt nicht mehr nur fiktive Fälle auf

Dass die Gleichstellung von Politikern und Managern mit Dieben und Betrügern in ganz Europa durchaus Hochkonjunktur hat, zeigt auch der kompetente Vergleich eines früheren Tatort-Kommissars und jetzigen Bewerbers für das Bundespräsidentenamt, Peter Sodann. Dieser hatte in einem Interview gesagt, als echter Polizist würde er den Vorstandsvorsitzenden der Deutschen Bank, Josef Ackermann verhaften. Der wiederum versteht die real existierende Welt nicht mehr:

Ich finde es ungeheuerlich, dass jemand so etwas sagt, der für das höchste Amt in einem Rechtsstaat kandidiert. Mir wird langsam Angst um dieses Land.

Und er droht theatralisch:

„Die Feinde der Freiheit und der Marktwirtschaft sehen jetzt ihre Stunde gekommen. Aber sie sollten sich nicht zu früh freuen. Die Marktwirtschaft hat aus Krisen immer gelernt und ist dadurch immer besser geworden. So wird es auch diesmal sein.“
(Zum Originalinterview)

Aua, ist etwa gerade eine Revolution im Anzug? Oder war das nur auf den Bundesfinanzminister gemünzt? Wir werden es wohl nie herausbekommen.

Schwer zu orten ist auch eine Story von Fox News, nach der den Meisterdieben in unserer freien Welt, der Weltbank, hoch sensible Daten zur derzeitigen Finanzkrise entwendet worden sein sollen. Im Juni und Juli dieses Jahres sollen sich Hacker mit IP-Adressen aus China nach Angaben von Mitarbeitern der Bank in insgesamt achtzehn hoch geschützten Servern eingeloggt haben. In einer hektischen Mitternacht-Rundmail hat angeblich ein Senior-Manager den Einbruch als „noch nie dagewesene Krise“ bezeichnet. Ein Weltbanksprecher wies inzwischen den Fox News-Artikel als „komplett falsch und haarsträubend“ zurück.

Kenner glauben zu wissen, dass die Weltbank mit einem Derivat der sagenumwobenen PROMIS-Software der Firma Inslaw, Inc. arbeitet. Diese soll schon über verschlungene Umwege an Osama Bin Laden gelangt und bei seinen Transaktionen zu Diensten gewesen sein. Außerdem soll sie über eine geheime Backdoor verfügen, mit der das FBI und die amerikanischen Geheimdienste Geldwäschern auf die Spur kommen wollten. Über genau so eine Hintertür sollen sich die Hacker Zugriff verschafft haben, berichtete auch Fox News.

Der Erfinder der PROMIS Software, William Hamilton, hatte 1982 das Programm an das US-Justizministerium für 10 Millionen Dollar verkauft, die Behörde hatte aber nicht bezahlt und das Programm abgeändert und weiterverwendet. Unter anderem soll das Programm Grundlage der vom FBI verwendeten Systeme Field Office Information Mangament System (FOIMS) bzw. Community On-Line Intelligence System (COINS) gewesen sein.

Hamilton selbst hat nach WCN vorliegenden Informationen bestätigt, dass es diese Backdoors gibt und mindestens vier „Re-vamps“ dieser Software im Umlauf sind. Er glaubt außerdem, dass die derzeitige Finanzkrise mit solchen Hintertürchen „orchestriert“ wurde. Viel Stoff für Verschwörungstheorien also, aber wo die Wahrheit letztendlich liegt, wissen nur die Diebe selbst.

Promisgate: World’s longest spy scandal still glossed over / Part I
Promisgate: World’s longest spy scandal still glossed over /Part II
Promisgate: World’s longest spy scandal still glossed over /Part III

Quellen:

Sarkozys Bankkonto wurde online geplündert
(Telepolis, 19.10.2008)
Manipulierte Kreditkartenleser funken nach Asien
(Der Standard, 13.10.2008)
Bargeld lacht oder die Technik schlägt zurück
(Gulli News, 14.10.2008)
Vereinigte Arabische Emirate melden dubiose Einbrüche
(Gulli News, 05.09.2008)

Ackermann nennt Sodann «ungeheuerlich»
(Netzeitung, 19.10.2008)
Herr Dr. Ackermann, was bedeutet Geld für Sie?
(Bild am Sonntag, 19.10.2008)

World Bank Under Cyber Siege in ‚Unprecedented Crisis‘
(Fox News, 10.10.2008)
Satyam Banned for business with World Bank-Case of Data Theft
(etalkindia.com, 12.10.2008)

Dieser Artikel erschien erstmalig bei World Content News

onlineredaktion – Die US-Geheimdienste haben in einer internen Lagebeurteilung laut US-Medien eine alarmierende Verschlechterung der Situation in Afghanistan festgestellt.

Die Zentralgewalt der Regierung von Präsident Hamid Karsai stehe unter anderem wegen der ausufernden Korruption vor dem Zusammenbruch, zitierten US-Zeitungen aus dem Entwurf eines gemeinsamen Afghanistan-Berichts mehrerer US-Geheimdienste.

Zusätzlich erschwert werde die Lage durch die Neugruppierung und Stärkung von islamistischen Extremisten und durch den expandierenden Heroinhandel, der bereits bis zu 50 Prozent der afghanischen Volkswirtschaft ausmache.

US-Aussenministerin Condoleezza Rice bestätigte in Washington, dass ein derartiger Bericht derzeit in Arbeit sei. „Ich möchte dazu nur sagen, dass Afghanistan in einer schwierigen Phase ist“, sagte sie. Es solle geprüft werden, wie Karsais Regierung besser unterstützt werden könne.

Ein Beamter des US-Verteidigungsministeriums sagte, dass „die Situation in Afghanistan schlechter wird und sicherlich nicht besser“. Der gemeinsame Bericht der Geheimdienste solle bald fertiggestellt werden.

Laut Vorabinfornationen der „New York Times“ wirft der Entwurf die Frage auf, ob Präsident Karsai der gegenwärtigen Lage in Afghanistan gewachsen sei. Die Lage drohe in eine „Abwärtsspirale“ zu münden.

Die „Washington Post“ zitierte aus dem Entwurf, dass Extremistengruppen vom Nachbarland Pakistan aus ihre Angriffe verstärken. Dabei sei eine Internationalisierung des Aufstands zu beobachten: Neben Afghanen und Pakistanern seien unter den Kämpfern viele Afghanen, Tschetschenen, Usbeken und andere Zentralasiaten.