Steven Aftergood – Millions of feet of film of historical imagery from intelligence satellites may be declassified this year, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) said. „The NGA is anticipa-ting the potential declassification of significant amounts of film-based imagery. in 2011,“ according to an NGA announcement that solicited contractor interest in converting the declassified film into digital format. It was published in Federal Business Opportunities on February 14, 2011. A copy is here.

For planning purposes, the NGA told potential contractors to assume the need to digitize „approxi-mately 4 million linear feet of film up to approximately 7 inches in width.“ The imagery is „stored on 500 foot spools, with many frames up to several feet in length.“ A nominal start date of October 1, 2011 was specified for the digitization project.

The NGA announcement also suggested that the winning contractor would „retain rights to distribute declassified imagery and recoup investment, for a specified period of time (negotiable).“ This would be problematic if it implied that the contractor had exclusive access to the declassified film and could prevent others from digitizing selected portions of it.

The declassification of historical intelligence satellite imagery has been largely dormant for many years. President Clinton’s 1995 executive order 12951 promised a periodic review of classified imagery „with the objective of making available to the public as much imagery as possible consistent with the interests of national defense and foreign policy.“ In particular, a review of obsolete film-return systems, such as the KH-8 GAMBIT and the KH-9 HEXAGON, was to be completed within five years. This was not done, or produced no results if it was done.

Wikileaks – An unsuccessful year-long bid by U.S. firm Bechtel to build a commercial port in the Libyan city of Sirte has shed light on how decisions about large foreign investment projects in Libya are made. Bechtel’s bid went through several evolutions, including signing a memorandum of understanding with the Prime Minister and a resolution by Libya’s Cabinet-equivalent to give the company the contract.

In the end, the contract evaporated after apparent late-innings intervention by senior regime figures. Despite a year’s worth of effort, $1 million worth of expenses, numerous high-level visits, and formal decisions by the GOL to bless the contract, the company’s efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, underscoring the fact that Libya’s much-trumpeted bidding process is less than transparent, and that the GOL’s formal structures do not have the final word on major foreign investment projects.

The fact that an operator with Bechtel’s savvy and deep pockets was ultimately unable to secure its contract serves as a cautionary tale for the many U.S. and western companies seeking to enter Libya’s booming market.

Promising beginnings…
U.S. engineering and consulting giant Bechtel has just declared as dead a year-long attempt to secure a $1 billion cost-plus contract to build a commercial port in the Libyan city of Sirte. Bechtel began its pursuit of the Sirte port contract in July 2007, when senior Bechtel representative Charles Redman (strictly protect), former U.S. Ambassador to Germany, arrived in Tripoli for discussions at the invitation of the Qadhafi Development Foundation (QDF), a quasi-governmental entity headed by Saif al-Islam AL-QADHAFI, son of Muammar AL-QADHAFI. During the initial visit, QDF representatives encouraged Bechtel to bid on several small infrastructure projects so the company could „prove itself“.

Redman made it clear that Bechtel wanted, but did not need, business in Libya and had a record that spoke for itself. Eventually, QDF representatives invited Bechtel to execute two projects: a new commercial port facility at Sirte and management of an industrial city adjacent to the Ras Lanuf oil facility. The QDF proposed that Bechtel partner with the Libyan Economic and Social Development Fund (ESDF) to execute the Sirte Port project.

This initial burst of positive energy dissipated over the next six months. Bechtel slowly made progress on a contract for the Sirte port project, but its relationship with General People’s Committee (GPC) for Transportation, its primary interlocutor on the deal (apart from the QDF), became increasingly difficult.

This primarily manifested itself in a lack of responsiveness on facilitation of visas for Bechtel representatives, prompting Bechtel to seek support from other quarters of the Government of Libya (GOL) to facilitate travel by its negotiators and technical staff. In November 2007, then Deputy Foreign Minister Muhammed Siala remarked publicly during a visit to Washington that Bechtel would not secure the Sirte port contract if Secretary Rice failed to visit Libya by year’s end.

Lead to high-profile commitments
After months of go-slow negotiations, Bechtel experienced an apparent breakthrough in February, when Redman received an urgent call from Minister of Transportation Elmabruk, who asked that the company’s team be in Sirte on February 25 to „sign the contract“. Although the company was still in the midst of conducting a laborious due diligence review of the contract (key provisions of which had not been finalized), they were convinced to rush a delegation to Sirte in time for a signing event.

At that event, Prime Minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi and Bechtel signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) committing the two sides to finalizing the contract as soon as possible. In addition, the General People’s Committee (Cabinet-equivalent) issued Decision #158 on March 3, which was effectively an announcement of contract terms that granted permission to the GPC for Transportation to sign a contract with Bechtel. Following these public steps by the GOL, Bechtel reported that the GPC for Transportation appeared to be working in earnest to finalize an English-language version of the contract.

With expectations running high that a final deal was imminent, Bechtel pressed on with negotiations and a fully-vetted contract was presented to the Transportation Minister in early May. From that point on, all communication with the QDF, GPC for Transportation and Libyan Ports Authority (another key player in the deal) went dead. Sensing that something was amiss, Bechtel representatives continued to inquire about that status of the contract, but received no response.

On July 14, Abdulhakim el-Ghami, described as „an intermediary for a person very close to Saif al-Islam“, called Redman to inform him that the port project had been canceled. (Note: Redman told us el-Ghami, who is based in Munich, appears to be a key conduit for Saif al-Islam’s dealings with foreign companies. .) Bechtel received no explanation as to why the contract was cancelled, but el-Ghami encouraged the company to „seriously consider“ undertaking a different, unspecified infrastructure development project.

Comment: Bechtel’s experience throws into stark relief the fact that economic and commercial decisions ostensibly finalized by even the most senior levels of the GOL can be overturned by influential elements operating outside the formal government structure. Libyan officials have made much of recent measures designed to ensure transparency and predictability in bids for commercial contracts; however, the reality is that contracts of any size, particularly those involving foreign companies, are subject to intense maneuvering by regime insiders jockeying to ensure that they company they happen to champion wins the prize.

Bechtel’s story also reinforces post’s understanding of Saif al-Islam’s key as a principal gatekeeper for large foreign investment projects in Libya, a process he manages through the QDF and the National Engineering Services and Supply Company (NESSCO – further details will be reported septel). The silver lining in this tale of woe is that Bechtel’s power division has been awarded a project management job for construction of a new power plant outside Sirte; however, the sorry denouement of the company’s efforts to secure the Sirte port contract have dampened its for seeking any new major projects in Libya in the near future and should serve as a cautionary tale for other U.S. companies considering major investment projects here.

Sibel Edmonds – In June 2010 our rights and liberties suffered a major setback. The United States Supreme Court upheld the broad application of a federal law making it a crime to provide “material support” to designated “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTOs). Under this law individuals face up to 15 years in prison for providing “material support” to FTOs, even if their work is intended to promote peaceful, lawful objectives. “Material support” is defined to include any “service,” “training,” “expert advice or assistance” or “personnel.” This setback should cut both ways, that is, if we had a bit more application of justice and a tad less of hypocrisy, and of course, far more straight forward information delivery. What do I mean by having this setback cut both ways? Terrorism is not limited to individual(s), groups, organizations; it includes nation states. A bunch of ego-driven scholars or a few anal-retentive political analysts may want to split hairs as to whether or not ‘state sponsored terrorism’ constitutes terrorism, but hey, since 2002 their elected presidents have been accusing nations of being terrorists or axis of evil, and for this, for now, I am going to go with that.

State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism conducted by a state against a foreign state or people. It can also refer to widespread acts of violence by a state against its own people. Based on this definition and based on what the puppet court recently ruled on what constitutes ‘material support’ to terrorism, our government, those who have sanctioned US Foreign Aid to dictators inflicting violence against their own people, should be brought to trial. I am talking about Egypt. I am talking about Uzbekistan. I am talking about Jordan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Israel …To be more accurate, I am talking about Billions of dollars being continuously provided to dictators for half a century who in turn are terrorizing their own people. Egypt and where our tax dollars, US Foreign Aid, went is only one example. All you have to do is line check dozens of our foreign aid recipients against their established human rights (terrorism) record. Here are examples:

In September 2008, the U.S. and Jordanian governments reached an agreement whereby the United States will provide a total of $660 million in annual foreign assistance to Jordan over a 5-year period.

…

Then, check the dictator’s record in Jordan:

Domestic and international NGOs reported cases of arbitrary deprivation of life, torture, poor prison conditions, impunity, arbitrary arrest and denial of due process through administrative detention, prolonged detention, and external interference in judicial decisions. Citizens continued to describe infringements on their privacy rights. Restrictive legislation and regulations limited freedom of speech and press, and government interference in the media and threats of fines and detention led to self-censorship, according to journalists and human rights organizations. The government also continued to restrict freedoms of assembly and association.

…

Local human rights organizations reported widespread violence against women and children. The government restricted labor rights, and local and international human rights organizations reported high levels of abuse of foreign domestic workers.

…

Shouldn’t the persons in our government who have sanctioned and provided financial and material support to the dictators of these terrorist regimes who’ve been terrorizing their people be held liable?

Do I hear a whisper in the background…those who are saying,

‘Well, the terror practices of those dictators do not inflict or in any way affect our people here in the United States, thus, the criminal liability does not apply to our government officials who’ve been providing material and financial support to those state terrorists. The victims are not Americans.’

Let me respond to this point: Actually, yes, Americans do fall victims to terrorism practiced by these dictators which is made possible by our government’s material and financial support. Here is a fairly sound analysis published in 2008 at Terrorism Monitor

A great deal of debate surrounds the factors driving the brand of radical Islam in the Middle East that inspires some individuals to commit acts of violence. A recurring theme in extremist discourse is opposition to incumbent authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. For radical Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda, unwavering U.S. support for the autocracies that rule Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region tops a list of grievances toward what amounts to pillars of U.S. foreign policy in the region. In addition to al-Qaeda, however, most Muslims in the Middle East also see these regimes as oppressive, corrupt and illegitimate. Authoritarian regimes in the region are also widely viewed as compliant agents of a U.S.-led neo-colonial order as opposed to being accountable to their own people.

…

And here is a real life example they present :

There is ample evidence that a number of prominent militants—including al-Qaeda deputy commander Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and the late al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—endured systematic torture at the hands of the Egyptian and Jordanian authorities, respectively (see Terrorism Monitor, May 4, 2006). Many observers believe that their turn toward extreme radicalism represented as much an attempt to exact revenge against their tormentors and, by extension, the United States, as it was about fulfilling an ideology. Those who knew Zawahiri and can relate to his experience believe that his behavior today is greatly influenced by his pursuit of personal redemption to compensate for divulging information about his associates after breaking down amid brutal torture sessions during his imprisonment in the early 1980s [3]. For radical Islamists and their sympathizers, U.S. economic, military, and diplomatic support for regimes that engage in this kind of activity against their own citizens vindicates al-Qaeda’s claims of the existence of a U.S.-led plot to attack Muslims and undermine Islam. In al-Qaeda’s view, these circumstances require that Muslims organize and take up arms in self-defense against the United States and its allies in the region.

…

And this point:

Brutal and humiliating forms of torture are common instruments of control and coercion by the security services in police states intent on rooting out all forms of dissent. Previously the domain of human rights activists, researchers investigating the many pathways toward radicalization in the Middle East are increasingly considering the impact of torture and other abuses at the hands of the state during periods of incarceration in an effort to better understand the psychology of the radicalization process. Many researchers see these kinds of experiences as formative in the path toward violent radicalization.

…

Now, let me repeat again, our government, using our tax dollars, is providing material and financial support to dictators who terrorize their own people, and this terrorization plays a major role in creating radicalism that justifiably directs its wrath towards the United States responsible for sustaining these terrorist dictators by providing material and financial support, aka US Foreign Aid. Thus, with Americans becoming targets (since the money and consent originate from them) and victims, those in our government who sanction and execute these material and financial supports should be held criminally liable. Well, the Supreme Court says so.

The around the clock US media’s coverage of the uprising in Egypt and its domino effect in the region is more and more resembling the Hollywood-esque performance delivered to us during the Iraq war. Remember ‘Operation Shock & Awe’? Very similar.

Think-Tank experts are popping up at the rate of eight per hour; never mind their agenda-driven foundations and bosses. Academic experts thirsty to dump their 24 letter-per-word academic jargon cache are competing with each other in making Americans dizzier and more confused; never mind their ego-driven hypothesis-based nonsense rarely put to use in real life. A few are talking about ‘this’ as a real opportunity for ‘that’ part of the world to take hold of their destiny and make their dream of change come true. However, not many, if any, are talking about ‘this’ being a good opportunity for ‘our’ part of the world to grasp what has been exercised in ‘that’ part of the world on our behalf, in our name, and with our money. By talk I mean ‘straight’ talk: free of all the agenda, twists, denials, jargons, mischaracterizations and misinterpretations. If their intentions were noble, these analysts and experts, we’d get the plain truth (however painful or ego-bruising that may be) minus the bull sh..

Let me illustrate what I mean, and please chip in with your straight talk to make this a real straight forward discussion. Let’s talk about US Foreign Aid, and I’ll try to make it brief (‘they’ may try to persuade you otherwise but trust me, it is not that complicated).

The majority of our people have this romantic notion of what’s called ‘US Foreign Aid.’ When they hear ‘US Foreign Aid,’ they picture hungry naked children with ribs showing, and bowls of Corn Flakes delivered to them by angelic faced men and women wearing bright colored t-shirts with the ‘US Department of State’ logo.

When they read the phrase ‘US Foreign Aid,’ they envision groups of American men and women with rolled up sleeves hammering away: building bridges, digging wells, paving roads…Helping poor nations put infrastructure in place or fight diseases… images similar to what they may have seen in posters and advertisements for volunteer organizations such as the Peace Corp.

When they think of ‘US Foreign Aid,’ they imagine money, their tax dollars, being sent to desperate and needy nations to purchase primary survival ingredients, or, to help with their primary Education… Basically, many Americans think of ‘US Foreign Aid’ as noble intentions and actions made possible by their tax dollars and delivered by their government to help the needy in some unfortunate part of the world.

Believing this false notion has been made easy for our people, thanks to our government, media, and fairytale books subscribed to by many academicians. And let’s admit it, believing this makes people feel good; real good. This unfounded notion of being the good guys makes people feel proud and patriotic, and more importantly, more nationalistic, even more importantly, more governable. This false belief even satisfies our religious and spiritual sides;  we, the altruistic Americans, who help the world.

While holding on to this false and romantic notion of ‘US Foreign Aid,’ complications, or, questions bringing on complications, are consciously or subconsciously avoided. Questions like,‘hmmmm, let’s see, we have over one trillion dollar deficit, yet we give several billion dollars to Egypt, several billion dollars to Israel, several billion dollars to Pakistan, hundreds of millions of dollars to …then, how do we even afford giving these billions of dollars every year?!’ Or, ‘I don’t understand, nearly fifty percent of our people struggle to obtain healthcare, our veterans can’t get needed medical assistance, many are finding it harder and harder to put aside college funds for their kids, the conditions of our schools are worsening…and we are giving billions of dollars to nations like Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, Georgia, Turkmenistan?! Huh?!’

See, those kinds of questions would mess up this entire romantic notion of ‘US Foreign Aid’ held by the majority, and that in turn would put our government in the position of having to explain and present the public with some very basic justification.

Then, there are other questions; the kind that require a little bit higher level of attention, critical thinking, and of course, the ever absent information withheld by the culprit US media. The questions of: Who gets those tax dollars? Why? Who benefits? Why?

Read all at Boiling Frog Post

Stephan Fuchs – Immer wieder gelangten die Tunnelsysteme die von Ägypten aus die palästinensischen Gebiete versorgten in die Schlagzeilen. Seit der ägyptischen Revolution hat die ägyptische Armee die Kontrolle an der Grenze massiv verschärft. Die Tunnels wurden geschlossen und die Versorgungslage in Gaza hat sich dadurch stark verschlechtert, so dass es kaum Strom, Arzneien und andere wichtige Güter gibt.

Zu den „wichtigen Gütern“ gehören auch tausende AK 47 Kalaschnikows, Präzisionsgewehre, der Sprengstoff TNT, GRAD Raketen, Koncord Anti-Panzerraketen und Fliegerabwehrraketen. Viele dieser militärischen Entwicklungshilfegüter werden von Beduinen in Gaza und in Israel verkauft.

Viel schwerwiegender noch ist die illegale Immigration militärisch hochausgebildeter Personen aus Syrien und Iran. Es sind jene Fachkräfte die verstehen mit dem importierten Kriegsgerät umzugehen und junge Hamas Kämpfer auszubilden. ISA, die Israel Security Agency, befürchtet, dass Hamas und Aktivisten des Palestinian Islamic Jihad PIJ topp ausgebildet nach Palästina zurückgekehrt sind und Hightech Waffen nicht nur handeln sondern auch warten können. Laut ISA ist Palästina zur Zeit ein Supermarkt für Waffen und explosive Stoffe, allerdings seien die Schmuggler nicht Teil der Muslim Brotherhood, oder von der PIJ, sondern Gangs aus dem Sinai Gebiet, die Geld verdienen wollen. Die Familien und Gangs aus dem Rafah Gebiet sind wahre Experten im Tunnelbau.

Über Jahre sagten die ägyptischen Generäle, dass sie nicht genug Ressourcen hätten um die Grenze zu Palästina genügend zu überwachen. Jetzt, in den zwei Wochen des Aufstandes wo der letzte Soldat gebraucht wurde, schienen die Ressourcen plötzlich zu reichen. Selbst Panzer wurden in die Grenzregion entsandt um ein Übergreifen in die palästinensischen Gebiete zu verhindern, dies wohl um den Amerikanern zu gefallen. Entgegen allen Verhandlungen der Ägypter unter Mubarak ist es nun der Armee gelungen die Tunnel Wege zu kappen. Sollte man sich da nicht ernsthaft über die wahre Macht der ägyptischen Armee wundern?

Glenn Greenwald – Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months — and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait — under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture.

Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning’s detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries.

Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a „Maximum Custody Detainee,“ the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.

Read all at Salon

Stephan Fuchs – Generalleutnant Omar Suleiman war seit 1993 der Direktor des ägyptischen Geheimdienstes Muchabarat. Zwischen 1962 und 1973 war er an den Kriegen Ägyptens mit Israel beteiligt und wurde 1991 schließlich Leiter der militärischen Aufklärung. Am 29. Januar 2010 hat Hosni Mubarak hat dem ägyptischen Volk den Generalleutnant als blutenden Knochen seinem Volk vor die Füsse geworfen. Das Volk hat nicht zugebissen – sie kennen den Geheimdienstmann nur zu gut.

Generalleutnant Omar Suleiman: „Hit Man“ des Mubarak Regimes und Folterpapst der CIA

Emile Nakhleh, ein ehemaliger Nahost Analytiker der CIA meint: „Mubarak und Suleiman sind die selben Personen. Beide haben in den Kriegen Seite an Seite gefochten. Ihre Ideologie und ihre Hintergründe sind identisch.“ Ron Suskind, Autor von “The One Percent Doctrine” beschreibt ihn gar als „Hit Man“ des Mubarak Regimes. “Er foltert nur Menschen die er nicht kennt. Als die CIA DNA Proben des Al Quaida Führers Ayman al-Zawahiri verlangte, wollte er gleich einen ganzen Arm abliefern.“

In der Tat hatte die CIA gute Kontakte mit den Ägyptern: Die Folterungen von Terror Verdächtigen in den Verliesen des Muchabarat Geheimdienstes im Auftrage der CIA, lief über einen Mann: Generalleutnant Omar Suleiman.

Dazu Suskind: „Suleiman war unser Kontaktmann in Ägypten für viele Jahre. Alles lief über ihn. Wir mussten nie mit jemandem anderen sprechen. Wenn wir jemanden gefoltert haben wollten, dann haben wir ihn mit einem Jet nach Ägypten geflogen und ihn dort foltern lassen. Wir wollten Informationen.“

Diese haben die Amerikaner bekommen. Viele davon, so ist mittlerweile bekannt, waren falsch, wurden unter der Folter der ägyptischen Experten rausgeprügelt. Einer der Klienten war der 2003 in Milano entführte Abu Omar. Allerdings willigte der Generalleutnant bereits 1995 einem Programm zu, das den Amerikaner geheime Überführungen und Verhöre in Ägypten erlaubte.

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Sibel Edmonds – Last week I wrote about the Washington Post’s incomplete and one-sided coverage of the recently published memoir by former Turkish Intelligence Chief Osman Nuri Gundes exposing CIA Operations via an Islamic Group in Central Asia. Since then I have gone over the same book’s review and coverage by the Turkish mainstream media, and I have interviewed reporters and sources in Turkey who have read the book, followed the coverage, and or are intimately familiar with the topic. With that I now have several additional points on this exposé which further illustrate the journalistically mind-boggling piece marketed by the Post. Writing my previous piece cost me an associate whom I like and respect. It shouldn’t have. I still believe this was a case of institution-Government-editors vs. the journalist, with the former winning. I am not going to weigh my writing, modify my facts, alter the truth, tweak, and censor based on worries of losing a source, or a friend, or even readership. With that said I’ll briefly list my points gathered from documented facts and interviews, and sources familiar with Gundes’ recent book and Gulen.
 
Extensive Coverage in the Turkish Mainstream Media

As one might expect, the Turkish mainstream media (all major newspapers, magazines, radio & TV channels) extensively (and very intensely) covered the recent publication of Gundes’ book. The following are the main points on former Turkish Intel Chief Gundes’ CIA-Gulen allegations which were documented and reported by every single media outlet in Turkey (since mid December), including this one written by one of the most prominent journalists at Milliyet:

 
1-     In Central Asia, within Gulen’s Islamic schools, the CIA operatives worked under the guise of ‘American Teachers teaching English.’

Okay, the Washington Post article, going through the exact same publications/articles forgot to add these crucial details, which would have paved the way for journalistic investigation(s) leading to either confirmation or denial. The following is the only detail the article provided:

In the 1990s, Gundes alleges, the movement “sheltered 130 CIA agents” at its schools in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan alone

In this case, as others had done already, the existence of mysterious American teachers teaching English in Gulen’s schools in Central Asia has already been confirmed.

2-     The American Teachers working at Gulen’s Islamic Schools in Central Asia possessed US Diplomatic Passports.

I contacted my source, formerly with the State Department, and he confirmed issuing diplomatic status for at least 50 Americans to teach in former Soviet republics. When I asked him whether they were employed by the State Department, he said: ‘Not officially.’ I asked him whether they were connected to the CIA, and he responded, ‘I wouldn’t know.’ I inquired about the direct foreign employer(s) of these American teachers, and this was his response: ‘Private Turkish companies in education fields and several NGOs in Turkey.’ This particular source was retired in 2004.

Again, the Washington Post article conveniently omitted this particular detail. Publishing this detail would have required seeking comments from the State Department: “Have you issued diplomatic passports to American teachers in XYZ countries.” Of course, no such inquiry was ever made by the Post.

Read all at Boiling Frog Post

Alan Cowell – Shortly after the radiation poisoning in London of a former K.G.B. officer, Alexander V. Litvinenko, a senior Russian official asserted that Moscow had been tailing his killers before he died but had been waved off by Britain’s security services, according to a cable in the trove of secret American documents released by WikiLeaks.

The Russian assertion, denied by British officials, seemed to revive a theory that the British intelligence services played a murky role in the killing — a notion voiced at the time by some in Moscow to deflect allegations of the Kremlin’s involvement in the murder.

The cable, dated Dec. 26, 2006, and marked “secret,” was one of several in the WikiLeaks trove that tried to examine the still unanswered question of who exactly ordered the use of a rare radioactive isotope, polonium 210, to poison Mr. Litvinenko, leading to his death on Nov. 23, 2006. Russia produces polonium commercially, but the process is closely guarded and British investigators have concluded that the isotope could not have been easily diverted without high-level intervention.

In a telephone interview, Marina Litvinenko, the widow of the former K.G.B. officer, called the Russian assertion “disinformation.”

“When they prepared this, they never expected polonium would be known as a murder weapon,” she said. “But after Nov. 23, they needed some kind of disinformation.” She said that “polonium could not be used without very high level” involvement of the security services.

A separate cable from Paris suggested that at least one senior American official, Daniel Fried, seemed skeptical of statements by Vladimir V. Putin — then Russia’s president and now prime minister — that he was unaware of the events leading to the killing, which Britain has blamed on another former K.G.B. officer, Andrei K. Lugovoi.

Mr. Lugovoi, now a member of the Russian Parliament, has denied British charges that he murdered Mr. Litvinenko by slipping polonium into a teapot at a British hotel where the two men met on Nov. 1, 2006. Russia has refused a British request for Mr. Lugovoi’s extradition and the relationship between two countries has not fully recovered from deep strains after Mr. Litvinenko’s death.

Among several cables mentioning the affair, perhaps the most sensitive covers a meeting in Paris on Dec. 7, 2006, between an American ambassador at large, Henry Crumpton, and Anatoly Safonov, at the time a special representative of Mr. Putin. That encounter had a whiff of an espionage film script. The two met over a dinner described as “amicable.” Both men were veterans of their countries’ intelligence services, and were now assigned by their governments to cooperate in counterterrorism.

Mr. Crumpton had led the C.I.A.’s operation in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Mr. Safonov was a former K.G.B. colonel-general who had risen to high office as deputy director in its successor organization, the F.S.B., in the 1990s, according to Andrei Soldatov, a Russian journalist who has just published a study of that organization called “The New Nobility.”

One of Mr. Safonov’s subsequent assignments in the 2000s was to head a joint British-Russian counterterrorism group, which was dissolved in the diplomatic freeze provoked by Mr. Litvinenko’s death, Mr. Soldatov said in a telephone interview.

According to the leaked cable, “Safonov claimed that Russian authorities in London had known about and followed individuals moving radioactive substances into the city, but were told by the British that they were under control before the poisoning took place.”

The cable did not identify the people carrying the material. Mr. Safonov’s comments reflected allegations by Mr. Lugovoi who, at the time, accused Mr. Litvinenko of being in the pay of British intelligence. But Mr. Safonov’s remarks seemed likely to be taken by British officials as an accusation of incompetence, with the poisoning happening under their eyes. If confirmed, they would also raise the question of how Britain reacted to the idea of Russian spies tailing their citizens on British soil.

The question of who ordered the killing surfaced in a separate leaked cable, also marked “secret,” about a meeting in Paris — on the same day as the former spies’ dinner — between a French presidential adviser, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne and Mr. Fried, then the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs in the Bush administration. Mr. Fried is now the Guantánamo special envoy, appointed by President Obama and charged with persuading other countries to take detainees held at the prison in Cuba.

The French official, the cable said, ascribed the killing to “rogue elements” in the Russian security services. But Mr. Fried “commented that the short-term trend inside Russia was negative, noting increasing indications that the U.K. investigation into the murder of Litvinenko could well point to some sort of Russian involvement.”

Later, it said: “Fried, noting Putin’s attention to detail, questioned whether rogue security elements could operate, in the U.K. no less, without Putin’s knowledge. Describing the current atmosphere as strange, he described the Russians as increasingly self-confident, to the point of arrogance.”

Mr. Fried’s reported remark was the first time that such a suggestion by a serving American officer was made public.

That remark reflected some suspicions about high-level Kremlin involvement in the period after Mr. Litvinenko’s death, when conspiracy theories blossomed relating to Mr. Litvinenko’s activities as a visceral public enemy of Mr. Putin and as a whistle-blower on Russian organized crime. Mr. Litvinenko fled Russia in 2000 and sought asylum in Britain, where he acquired British citizenship shortly before his death. Mr. Fried declined to comment publicly on the content of the cable.

Another cable, from the American Embassy in Madrid, marked “confidential” and dated Aug. 31, 2009, cited an article in the newspaper El País. The article said that Mr. Litvinenko had tipped off Spanish security officials about Russian organized crime figures in Spain and had provided information about four suspected gangsters at a previously unrecorded meeting with Spanish officials in May 2006.

That report added one more layer to the debate about the motives of his killers — could the killing have been done in revenge for his disclosures about the mob?

Perhaps the most tantalizing item in the cables was related to Dmitri Kovtun, a business associate of Mr. Lugovoi, who passed through Hamburg on his way to London on Nov. 1 and was, by his own account, present when Mr. Lugovoi met Mr. Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel in the Mayfair district of London on Nov. 1, 2006.

According to a confidential cable from the American consulate in Hamburg, dated Dec. 19, 2006 — about a month after Mr. Litvinenko’s death — a senior German counterterrorism official, Gerhard Schindler, “said Kovtun left polonium traces on everything he touched” in Hamburg. That much had been publicly reported.
But, the cable said, “German investigators concluded Kovtun did not have polonium traces on his skin or clothes; Schindler said the polonium was coming out of his body, for example through his pores.”

That suggested that the exposure took place during an earlier visit to London by Mr. Lugovoi and Mr. Kovtun in October 2006, during which they had met Mr. Litvinenko; they claimed later that they themselves had been victims of a poisoning attempt. Mr. Litvinenko’s supporters and British investigators, however, have long described the earlier visit as a part of the conspiracy against Mr. Litvinenko.

The cable from Hamburg said no traces of polonium were found on the Germanwings plane Mr. Kovtun took to London, and German authorities had been preparing to ground the Aeroflot plane that took him to Hamburg from Moscow to test it for traces of the isotope. “Schindler said Russian authorities must have found out about German plans because ‘at the last minute’ Aeroflot swapped planes,” the cable said. “Schindler said he did not expect Aeroflot to fly the other plane to Germany any time soon.”

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Stephan Fuchs – Der amerikanische Geheimdienst hat im Fall Tinner in der Schweiz viel mehr interveniert als bislang bekannt war. Dazu gehörte auch ein Hacker Angriff auf das Computerzentrum der Bundespolizei. Diese ist mit dem Fall Tinner betreut. Ein damals involvierter Beamter bestätigt gegenüber der Schweizerischen Sonntagszeitung den Angriff.

Im Jahr 2006 – Mitten in den Ermittlungen gegen Vater und Söhne Tinner – habe die Bundespolizei einen Hacker-Angriff auf ihr IT-Center in Zürich festgestellt. Im IT-Center lagerten zu dieser Zeit auf gesicherten Servern unzählige Daten, die man bei den Tinners sichergestellt hatte. Darunter waren auch Pläne zur Herstellung von Atomwaffen.

Die Techniker der Bundespolizei hätten den Angriff zurückverfolgt und seien auf eine Firma im Irak gestossen, die in Verbindung mit dem US-Verteidigungsministerium stand. Der Hackerangriff fiel in eine Phase, in der die USA mit allen Mitteln versuchten, ein Verfahren gegen die Tinners in der Schweiz zu stoppen. Grund: Die Schweizer Mitglieder des Khan-Netzwerks hatten ab spätestens Sommer 2003 mit der CIA kooperiert und dem Geheimdienst Informationen über das Netzwerk geliefert.

Beamter im Schweizer Nachrichtendienst wird verdächtig ein Maulwurf zu sein
Ein „leitender Mitarbeiter des Schweizer Geheimdienstes“ soll die US-Behörden laufend über alle Schritte der Schweiz informiert haben. Dieser Verdacht sei 2006 unter den Ermittlern aufgekommen. Der verdächtigte Beamte hatte eine langjährige Verbindung zur CIA und galt als Freund der Bush-Regierung. Laut Insidern ist es plausibel, dass damals ein Schweizer Beamter die USA mit Informationen versorgt hat. Offiziell sagt eine Sprecherin der Bundesanwaltschaft aber, man habe keine Kenntnis von einem Informationsleck.

Der Fall Tinner

Prozess in Suedafrika und Banditen im Nuklearbereich

Brian Michael Jenkins – A.Q. Khan, a Pakistani scientist, created a global network to secretly obtain and sell the capability to go nuclear. Two journalists sniff out the efforts of U.S. and British intelligence to penetrate and dismantle that network.

Anyone concerned about nuclear proliferation or interested in the world of espionage will want to read Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz’s provocative new book, „Fallout: The True Story of the CIA’s Secret War on Nuclear Trafficking,“ which tells a fascinating story whose characters come straight out of a spy novel.

Illustration of A.Q. Khan for the review of „Fallout: The True Story of the CIA’s Secret War on Nuclear Trafficking“ (Shonagh Rae / For The Times / January 9, 2011)

The emergence of Pakistan, North Korea and potentially Iran as nuclear states owes much to the work of one man, A.Q. Khan, a Pakistani scientist who created a clandestine global network to secretly obtain and sell the capability to go nuclear. At first, his efforts were devoted exclusively to making Pakistan a nuclear power, but driven by greed and intense hatred of the United States, he soon became a global supplier of nuclear weapons know-how and the specialized equipment required to make atomic bombs. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, described Khan’s clandestine network as a nuclear “ Wal-Mart.“

The efforts of the CIA and British intelligence to penetrate and dismantle the Khan network are the subject of „Fallout,“ which serves as a kind of sequel to the authors‘ previous book, „The Nuclear Jihadist,“ and, of necessity, repeats some of the same material.

But their continuing investigations and interviews with sources in the intelligence community and their principal informants also offer additional details and observations as well as remarkable success stories, such as the CIA’s recruitment of the Tinner family (father and sons), Khan’s Swiss confederates. The information the Tinners provided enabled American and British intelligence to uncover Khan’s operations in Europe, Dubai and Malaysia, subtly alter blueprints and sabotage equipment destined for his customers, and intercept a shipment of vital nuclear components headed for Libya.

Books about contemporary espionage come with a warning label: No matter how much is leaked, authors never have all the facts. They know only what they are told by people who have an interest in contests yet to be resolved. No one speaks in the interest of truth; information is provided only to advance national, institutional or personal agendas.

Collins, a former foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, and Frantz, a former managing editor of the Los Angeles Times and correspondent for the New York Times, describe what must have been a frustrating interview with the talented CIA agent who recruited the critical informants inside Khan’s network. He evaded all of the authors‘ questions, then left them with a slip of paper on which was written, „The most important part of the story is the piece of it you don’t know.“

Concerned that a well-written history, however interesting, might not suffice to attract readers, publishers too often push for a headline-grabbing angle. Government incompetence, a cover-up or imminent danger are reliable themes, but they can also distract from a solidly supported narrative such as „Fallout’s.“ Though they admire the CIA’s success, the authors remain critical of America’s failure to dismantle Khan’s network sooner. In their view, Khan was able to steal secrets and peddle his black-market connections far longer than was necessary. They are also critical of what they describe as a „cover-up“ subsequently engineered by Washington to prevent the public from finding out just how tarnished its intelligence victory was.

Many in the intelligence community would disagree with these assertions. There is often tension between the need to take action and the need to collect more information. It is a classic intelligence quandary. The Khan network was a complex enterprise that took decades to assemble. Thus it took time for outsiders to understand all of its dimensions. Acting prematurely might have only temporarily disrupted one tentacle of Khan’s operations rather than delivering a strategic blow. Networks are inherently resilient, hard to kill. Previous investigations and warnings to several of Khan’s confederates had not stopped them.

Read all at LA Times
Der Fall Tinner