MetaFilter posts tagged with CIA and alQaeda

Cyberbattles in the shadows

msalt — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:16:52 -0800

Hacking Al-Qaeda's websites: Hacker wars are the latest front in the fight against Al Qaeda. CNN says here that AQ may be unable to post propaganda videos as a result. But who is attacking? As far back as 2002, people speculated that Western intelligence agencies had compromised them, and a pornographer claimed he did. More recently, there are Shiite vs. Sunni battles, as when Ayatollah Sistani's website was cracked. In 2004, Zarqawi's site was breached.

Ron Suskind Says White House Forged Iraq-Al Qaeda Letter

ericb — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:04:53 -0800

In his new book, 'The Way of the World' "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind claims that, after the Iraq war began, the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein, in an attempt to tie Hussein to the 9/11 attacks."^* Suskind writes: "'It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq' and that Iraq bought yellowcake uranium from Niger with the help of al Qaeda. Suskind also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official "that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion." After the fake letter was released in late 2003, press outlets reported it as evidence of a Saddam/al Qaeda link. "Now, if this is true, that blows the lid off al Qaeda—Saddam," said Bill O’Reilly at the time. "The White House plans to push back hard," Politico reports. Former CIA Director George Tenet today called the charges 'ridiculous' and questioned whether Suskind is a 'serious journalist.' 'There was no such order from the White House to me,' he said. On NBC’s Today Show [video|01:34], Suskind said Tenet simply does not remember the letter — but Tenet’s staff does:

'I think this is part of George’s memory issue....He seems not to remember it. That’s at least what he claims. In this book, instead of going to George, I went to all the people around George, close to George, who remember because they were involved in the thing, and they remember what George says to them.'

After a White House meeting, Tenet went back to the CIA and ordered his staff to forge the letter. 'Listen Marine, you’re not going to like this, but here goes,' Tenet told Rob Richer, former head of the CIA’s Near East Division, according to Richer.^*

Porter Goss Resigns at CIA

digaman — Fri, 05 May 2006 11:12:01 -0800

Newsfilter: CIA director Porter Goss resigns. After taking some of the ~~fall~~ heat for bad intelligence in the months before 9/11, Cheney's "cat's paw" finally gets out of the kitchen.

Parsing Terror

digaman — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 07:36:09 -0800

Osama bin Laden, littérateur and new-media star. A thought-provoking analysis of bin Laden's adept use of Koranic language and the Internet by Bruce B. Lawrence, an Islamic scholar at Duke who edited a new anthology of bin Laden's public statements called Messages to the World. The Western media -- says the millionaire mass-murderer formerly trained as a useful ally by the CIA via Pakistan's ISI -- "implants fear and helplessness in the psyche of the people of Europe and the United States. It means that what the enemies of the United States cannot do, its media are doing!" Know thy enemy. [via Arts and Letters Daily.]

Miller and Chalabi are SO 2004

mkultra — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 07:14:57 -0800

Slate's Today's Papers went the extra op-ed mile today to discuss an NYT front page story that alleges that DOD intelligence pegged 3 of the 9/11 hijackers as al-Qaeda agents in the U.S. back in 2000. Remember, this is the same DOD that, under Rumsfeld, wants to establish its own intelligence agency outside of the CIA, having bumbled an earlier incarnation. The problem? The article is primarily sourced to Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) and the ubiquitous "unnamed defense official". Weldon's primary source is an associat of Manucher Gorbanifar, "a well-known Iranian exile whom the CIA branded as a fabricator during the 1980s but who was used by the Reagan White House as a middleman for the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran." Oh, and he's got a new book out. The NYT has apparently learned nothing.

It turns out it wasn't Joe Klein

sixpack — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 09:40:21 -0800

The anonymous author of Imperial Hubris has been revealed.

CIA Seeks Probe of Iraq-Al Qaeda Memo Leak

Postroad — Tue, 18 Nov 2003 04:56:23 -0800

CIA Seeks Probe of Iraq-Al Qaeda Memo Leak The CIA will ask the Justice Department to investigate the leak of a 16-page classified Pentagon memo that listed and briefly described raw agency intelligence on any relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network, according to congressional and administration sources...and if this probe is like so many others, that will be the end of this news item.

alms — Tue, 05 Nov 2002 14:14:40 -0800

The CIA is back in the business of committing assasinations on foreign soil. Meanwhile, the administration still objects to Israel's policy of targeted killings because of its effect on the peace process.

raaka — Sat, 12 Oct 2002 19:00:17 -0800

“President Bush’s case against Saddam Hussein ... relied on a slanted and sometimes entirely false reading of the available US intelligence, government officials and analysts claimed yesterday.” Another article on the same subject says, “Rumsfeld’s recent remark that the United States has ‘bulletproof’ evidence of links between Al Qaeda and Hussein struck many in the intelligence community as an exaggerated assessment of the available evidence.” One paper explains the differences this way, “The C.I.A. has to maintain its credibility for objective estimates. The White House is mobilizing the public and preparing foreign nations for a potential American invasion of Iraq.”

nofundy — Thu, 19 Sep 2002 10:14:34 -0800

Freeh's misplaced priorities. "The threat level grew so high that by December 1998, the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, issued a "declaration of war" on Al Qaeda, in a memorandum circulated in the intelligence community. Yet, Ms. Hill said, the intelligence agencies failed to adequately follow up on the declaration, and by Sept. 10, 2001, the F.B.I. still had only one analyst assigned full time to Al Qaeda. "

Whereas Freeh had 85 agents assigned to the continous microscopic inspection of Clinton's zipper. Politics trumps national security?

risenc — Tue, 10 Sep 2002 07:09:49 -0800

U.S. Stops Iraq-Al Qaeda Talk From the Washington Post. Beyond the superficial significance of administration back-tracking, in regards to intelligence there seems to be two key aspects to this story: 1) The article talks about how the CIA was unable to "validate two prominent allegations made by high-ranking administration officials," implying that Bush/Cheney/etc. have been making baseless assumptions about Iraq in their pro-war arguments, and 2) it brings into question whether we know anything at all about Iraq, anyway. What if the same can be said of Hussein's nuclear plans?

Voyageman — Mon, 10 Jun 2002 15:54:07 -0800

They Have Ways of Making Al-Qaida Talk Interrogations must be pretty damn crucial these days. Given advances in science during the past twenty years, how much more sophisticated can CIA methods have become since the 80's?