U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command combat controllers give a C-130 Hercules takeoff clearance and provide air traffic control during a mission to establish and assess an airfield at a forward deployed location in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, March 15, 2008.
U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Jeremy T. Lock
US Soldiers Restore Honor To Old Glory
Forward Operating Base Delta, Iraq.
Saturday, 29 March 2008
By Sgt. 1st Class Stacy Niles
More than 150 U.S. Soldiers and civilians attended a flag-raising ceremony at Forward Operating Base Delta, Iraq, March 22.
The flag laid on the grounds of a Georgia apartment complex for almost a week in February until it was rescued by Dan Turner, a passerby, who sent it to Iraq to have its honor restored.
(Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Stacy Niles)
Read the story here.
America’s top spy fears cyber-terror against U.S.
Greenville native says, ‘We’re not safe, but we’re safer’
By Ben Szobody
STAFF WRITER
Mike McConnell, President Bush’s director of national intelligence, told The Greenville News on Friday that the country’s cyber networks pose a national vulnerability “probably unprecedented in our history,” and he hopes to create a robust federal program to prevent an attack that he said would have “an order of magnitude global impact greater than 9-11.”
He also pushed for three key provisions in a controversial surveillance bill pending in Congress, saying passage is crucial because a “significant — some would even say majority” — portion of what the U.S. knows about terrorists and their plans comes from listening to their communication.
In an hour-long speech at Furman University, the country’s top spy traced his career from modest childhood roots in Greenville through his first semester sleeping in a gym closet at Furman, and later to jobs as intelligence director during the Gulf War and director of the National Security Agency.
Asked to assess U.S. intelligence since 2001, McConnell, whose Cabinet position was created in part to increase sharing between intelligence agencies, said, “We’re not safe, but we’re safer.”
He urged Furman students to consider a life of public service and said he’d like to build a house on a lot he owns in The Cliffs at Glassy.
Read the rest here.
Another Suicidal Spring Offensive
h/t: Strategy Page
March 28, 2008: As the Taliban announce their new “Spring Offensive,” they must also confront a public relations crises.
A religious scholar has issued a fatwa condemning the Taliban for their un-Islamic activities (killing civilians, use of terror) and declaring them “out of Islam” (not Moslem).
The Taliban continue to enhance this image. In the north, five de-miners were killed in an ambush.
The attackers, who were apparently Taliban, fled when they realized who they had attacked.
De-miners are very popular, and the Taliban was forced to make profuse apologies for earlier attacks.
The Taliban are hostile to outside assistance, as it threatens Taliban control. The de-miners, who are Afghans, are one of the few exceptions.
But some outsiders are extremely popular.
For example, a Taliban campaign against cell phone companies (who are believed to be assisting the government in tracking Taliban cell phone users) has turned 250,000 southern cell phone users against the Taliban.
That’s because the Taliban have demanded that the cell phone companies turn off service at night, and have damaged or destroyed ten cell phone towers to back up their threat.
In response, some cell phone companies in the south have shut down all service, blaming the Taliban attacks.
The cell phone users, most of whom have no other access to phones, are furious.
There are now 2,000 cell phone towers in the country, most of them recently built in rural areas, where people get phone service for the first time.
Cell phones are enormously popular, even with Taliban supporters.
Read more here.
Staff Sgt. David Aleman, with Company A, 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, attached to 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, pulls security at a farmhouse during Operation Marne Rugged March 15.
U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Ben Brody.
U.S. Army soldiers and Iraqi army soldiers talk with people on Chem Street in Adhamiyah, Iraq, March 20, 2008, after efforts to improve security brought the market back to life. The U.S. soldiers are assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division’s 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment.
Photo by U.S. Army Spc. Elvyn Nieves.
Story here.
First Trial Opens in Canada Terror Case
TORONTO — A teenager charged with plotting terror attacks in Ontario pleaded not guilty to belonging to a terrorist group Tuesday, as some details of an alleged plan to storm Canada’s Parliament emerged publicly for the first time.
The suspect was among 17 people arrested in June 2006 after they allegedly tried to obtain three tons of ammonium nitrate, an explosive material commonly used in fertilizer. Officials accused the suspects of plotting attacks and said they were inspired by al-Qaida.
One defense lawyer has said his client and some of the other suspects were charged with plotting to attack Canada’s Parliament, take hostages and possibly behead the prime minister if their demands for the release of Muslim prisoners were not met.
The teenager, the first of the 17 to go on trial, is charged with participating in and contributing to the activity of a terrorist group. He was 18 at the time of his arrest.
The government will present evidence that proves the youth attended a training camp where he participated in military exercises and firearms training, prosecution attorney Marco Mendicino said.
Read more here.
U.S. Army Spc. Justin Clark shares high-fives with students at a school in the Meshahadah province of Iraq, March 16, 2008.
The students took an oath of induction into the Junior Hero Program to obey their families and teachers, and to live an honorable life.
Clark is assigned to the 25th Infantry Division’s Company C, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment.
U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. William Greer.
More photos.
A 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, Humvee sits beside the survey site of damaged high-tension power line towers near al Durai’ya, Iraq, March 17.
Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Sean Riley, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division Public Affairs.
Government of Iraq Funds Critical Power Line Repairs in Al Durai’ya
Saturday, 22 March 2008
By Staff Sgt. Sean Riley
3rd Infantry Division Public Affairs
FOB HAMMER — Soldiers of 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, working with the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity (MoE) representative, surveyed several damaged high-tension power line towers near al Durai’ya, March 17.
The day prior, Lt. Col. Jack Marr, from Minneapolis, commander of 1-15th Inf. Regt., met with Iraqi Army leadership, the MoE, and Sheik Majid, the local Sons of Iraq (SoI) leader, to discuss repair of the towers.
After surveying the site, the MoE agreed the government of Iraq would fund labor for the repairs and security for the laborers would be provided by SoI in the area.
“Sheik Majid agreed to secure the roads with Sons of Iraq while the power lines are being repaired by the Ministry of Electricity,” said Maj. John Cushing, from Rochester, Mich., operations officer for the battalion.
Marr said assisting the al Durai’ya residents will improve relationships between local leaders, citizens and Iraqi security forces. “It is truly great to see Iraqis solving Iraqi problems.”
The 1-15th Inf. Regt., 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, from Fort Benning, Ga., has been deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom since March 2007.
Connecting the Dots
That’s the central idea about the kind of intelligence work we have to do at the federal level.
That doesn’t sound hard. In fact, when you put it that way, most people ought to be good at it.
Most efforts of this sort have two parts, the collection (of the dots, if you will) and the analysis
(connecting the dots). That sounds easy enough, if you get all the dots.
But if somebody runs the dots through a strainer, and thereby holds back some of the dots, the resulting analysis will be wrongly, perhaps fatally, biased.
Suppose connecting the dots was my job.
If you don’t give me all the dots, you change the model we must then use to deploy our defenses, determine the shape the lines of defense and support will take, where and how the first responders will be trained and deployed, and where to stage reserves.
All of these could, of course, be wrongly defined by our biased model.
Wrongly prepositioned caches of medical supplies and hazard gear may be useless or undeliverable.
And it would have a definite effect upon my testimony if I survived the attack and had to answer the investigative committees and panels that will follow.
It might be hard to avoid comparisons with Jamie Gorelick and the Gorelick Wall.
Just what is meant by the term Failure of Intelligence?
The term is being heard more frequently these days. Not as often as the term Surge, but often enough to serve the cause of punditry in these dark days.
Osama bin Laden is back in the news again, with another of his messages.
But what do they mean?
Is this a failure of intelligence?
Reuters has published a list of bin Laden messages here, so you can look for yourselves.
Maybe you can figure it out.
Or maybe there just aren’t enough of those messages. Can we get him to generate more of them?
That could be the solution: get more messages to study. Any ideas on how to do that?
More is certainly better than fewer.
U.S. Marines prepare to board an MV-22 Osprey belonging to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 in the Al Jazirah Desert, Iraq, March 12, 2008 after conducting an assault mission.
The Marines are assigned to the 4th Marine Division’s 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment.
State of the News Media 2008 Now Online
The State of the News Media 2008, PEJ’s newest annual report on the status and health of American journalism, is now online at www.stateofthenewsmedia.org.
The study analyzes the major trends in the main media sectors and features: a Year in the News; a Survey of Journalists; a look at the Future of Advertising; an analysis of Citizen Media sites and more.
Read it here.
