History repeating itself

["Michael Keaney" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Friends

Among the horrors detailed in the article below is a mention of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Has anyone done any work on
this outfit?


Cheney set to 'work the dark side' after failures

VICKY COLLINS

The Herald, 17 September 2001

      INTELLIGENCE resources and operations will
      be reassessed thoroughly, Dick Cheney, US
      vice-president, said yesterday.

      He said American spies needed more
      discretion in their search for terrorists and "it's
      going to be vital to use any means at our
      disposal" to succeed in the worldwide manhunt
      for those responsible for the attacks.

      The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other
      US spy agencies have come under close
      scrutiny over the past week and a growing
      chorus of US lawmakers have criticised the
      "massive intelligence failure" that prevented the
      authorities from uncovering the plot.

      Mr Cheney said the attacks had definitely
      caught the United States by surprise but
      stopped short of any specific criticism of
      intelligence operations.

      However, Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama
      republican, criticised the CIA's failure to detect
      any evidence of the impending attack and said
      George Tenet, the director, should be held
      accountable.

      He said: "This was a massive intelligence
      failure. This was on his watch. If we didn't have a
      clue, then something's wrong. If we had a clue
      and didn't act, then something's worse."

      However, the decision about Mr Tenet's future
      lay with the president, he said.

      A wide range of US officials and lawmakers -
      including George Bush, the former president
      who once headed the CIA - have urged a
      loosening of CIA curbs on hiring human rights
      violators, a view echoed by Mr Cheney
      yesterday.

      He said the war on terrorism would involve
      possible military action as well as increased
      surveillance of terrorist groups and the states
      that support or harbour them.

      "We also have to work the dark side, if you will.
      We have to spend time in the shadows," said
      the vice-president, who served as defence
      secretary under the former President Bush.

      He said it was imperative to let US intelligence
      agencies use more aggressive tactics in
      gathering information, in order to "make certain
      we have not tied the hands of our intelligence
      community".

      In 1995, the CIA established a policy that
      required case officers in the field to get
      management approval for any effort to recruit
      foreign agents who were human rights violators.

      The CIA policy does not forbid recruiting agents
      with questionable records but makes
      management approval mandatory to protect CIA
      field officers in the event of later political and
      public fallout, a US intelligence official said.

      Critics of that policy have said it has a chilling
      effect on the CIA's ability to recruit the type of
      agent needed to inform on activities by
      extremists such as those who carried out the
      attack on New York and Washington last week.
      Mr Cheney said without the freedom to use all
      possible sources, the CIA's ability to learn about
      the impending attacks was hamstrung.

      He said that unless intelligence agencies
      employed unsavoury agents, it was impossible
      "to find out what the bad guys are doing".

      The CIA has consistently said its hands were not
      tied by the policy and that it had never turned
      away a recruit who could provide key
      information.

      Colin Powell, the secretary of state, said all laws
      in America were under review after the attacks.

      These included a 1976 executive order enacted
      by President Gerald Ford banning US personnel
      from engaging in or conspiring to engage in
      assassinations.

      "It's still on the books and as part of our
      campaign plan we are examining everything -
      how the CIA does its work, how the FBI and
      justice department does its work.

      "Are there laws that need to be changed and
      new laws brought into effect to give us more
      ability to deal with this kind of threat? So
      everything is under review," he said.

      However, Mr Cheney said current US and
      international law would not prevent the country
      from assassinating Osama bin Laden, currently
      the prime suspect for the attacks, if he could be
      located.

      Dick Armey, leader of the house majority,
      pledged to support the US campaign to hunt
      down those responsible for the attacks, saying it
      would involve "more covert than overt
      operations". He also cautioned that lawmakers
      would work to safeguard any violations of the
      civil liberties of Americans.

      Christopher Shays, the Connecticut Republican
      who heads the house government reform
      subcommittee on national security, said the
      attacks had underscored the importance of
      improving US intelligence-gathering operations.

      "We can take incredible pictures from
      satellites," he said. "We can penetrate and hear
      the most intimate conversations, and we also
      need the human capabilities . . . to assess that
      data."

      Mr Shays said it was "heartbreaking" to learn
      that at least 19 people were involved in plotting
      the attacks but had completely escaped
      detection.

      Joseph Cirincione, of the Carnegie Endowment
      for International Peace, said it was shocking that
      US investigators were quickly able to link the
      hijackers with Osama bin Laden but had not
      been monitoring them closely beforehand.

      "If within days it was clear that the people
      involved came out of the Hamburg (Germany)
      cell, why weren't they being tracked, monitored,
      kicked out?" he said.

Full article at:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/17-9-19101-0-57-44.html

Michael Keaney