sa intelligencer #65
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SA Intelligencer Number 6525 January 2010
Initiator: Johan Mostert Contributions and enquiries [email protected]
New Developments
US: Intelligence community’s language and linguistic shortfalls under scrutiny by Anthony L. Kimery, HSToday, Washington: 21 January 2010 (Ed: Excerpts) The rank and file analysts at the CIA, NSA and elsewhere throughout the Intelligence Community (IC) are patriotic, dedicated … hardworking. But they have long been hampered by a lack of both linguists and language proficient subject matter experts to help them make sense of the overwhelming storm of intelligence that is routinely siphoned from the air and gathered by human intelligence sources every day. This blizzard of information is blinding. According to IC sources HSToday.us talked on background, the IC’s failure to detect the recent attempted terrorist attacks on the US homeland wasn’t just about the failure to connect the existing dots – of which there were many ‐ but also was because of the inability to quickly and effectively interpret country‐language specific intelligence, such as that which was collected in Yemen. The interception of electronic communications in a specific region's native languages is vital to monitoring and, most importantly, understanding terrorist operations and activities in these areas. Last July, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported that it “is concerned about the abysmal state of the Intelligence Community’s foreign language programs.” The Committee’s report noted that “the collection of intelligence depends heavily on language, whether information is gathered in the field from a human source or from a technical collection system. Even traditionally nonlinguistic operations such as imagery rely on foreign language skills to focus and direct collection efforts.” However, the Committee concluded, “almost eight years after the terrorist attacks of September 11th and the shift in focus to a part of the world with different languages than previous targets, the cadre of
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Inside This Issue
1 US IC language & linguistic shortfalls under scrutiny
2 Venezuela silent as Colombia expels 2 spies
3. China not top priority for US spy agencies under new policy
4 Former Canadian envoy to Iran was covert CIA agent
5 Kenya Intel service figures on influx of Somali’s might have led to new citizenship guidelines
6 Kenya: CIA Chief in secret visit 7 Intel literature: Thinking articles &
books
An Open Source Intelligence Digest on developments in
the international intelligence arena: events,
leaders, studies and literature
“IC is still deaf, dumb, and blind, without the language skills for either face to face exploitation, or remote exploitation. It takes ten days for a captured Dari document to be translated, and even then we're not sure it is a good translation”
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But “five years later, the ODNI has still not completed an IC‐wide comprehensive foreign language plan that designates specific linguist or language requirements, lays out goals or timelines, or designates specific actions required to meet them.”
“Yet, the United States is one of the most polyglot of developed countries ‐ more than one in five Americans speak a language other than English in the home and more than a million citizens are of Middle East or South Asian descent.”
“Furthermore,” the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations report concluded that “individual agency and military service programs aimed at creating strategies to improve foreign language programs are inconsistent across the Intelligence Community. To explain their failure to redress critical gaps in national security foreign language capacity, agencies point to their lack of control over clearance processes, shallow hiring pools, the inability to allocate time to training, insufficient resources, and, in some cases, a dearth of qualified instructors. “The Committee is concerned that persistent critical shortages in some languages contribute to the loss of intelligence information and affect the ability of the Intelligence Community to process and exploit what it does collect,” the Committee’s report stated, noting that “this seriously hampers the nation’s ability to engage constructively and appropriately overseas.” Complete article at http://www.hstoday.us/content/view/11876/149/
Venezuela silent as Colombia expels two alleged spies
January 23, 2010 ∙ IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org On Tuesday, the Colombian government announced the expulsion of two alleged Venezuelan intelligence agents, reportedly for conducting espionage operations on Colombian soil. The two, Jose Vicente Marquez and Diego Jose Palomino, were nabbed by counterintelligence agents of Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (DAS) in the northwest city of Valledupar, just a few miles from the Colombian‐Venezuelan border. The two were reportedly found in possession of video footage of homes and vehicles, as well as “other types of material”, which so far remains unspecified.
DAS director, Felipe Muñoz, said the two alleged agents appeared to be illegals –i.e. not affiliated with the Venezuelan embassy in Bogotá– having entered the country clandestinely on January 12, via Paraguachon, on the northernmost tip of the Colombian‐Venezuelan border. The expulsion of the two alleged agents is only the latest incident in a wider low‐intensity intelligence conflict between the two neighboring countries.
Last October, the government of Venezuela announced the arrest of an undisclosed number of Colombian intelligence agents, who were allegedly “captured carrying out actions of espionage”. There has reportedly been no comment about this latest incident from the Venezuelan Ministry of External Relations http://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/01‐373/
Editor: Dalene Duvenage Click on hyperlinks to open documents [email protected]
25 January 2010 SA Intelligencer Number 65 3
China not top priority for US spy agencies under new policy Bill Gertz, Washington Times: January 20, 2010 (Ed: Excerpts) The White House National Security Council recently directed U.S. spy agencies to lower the priority placed on intelligence collection for China, amid opposition to the policy change from senior intelligence leaders who feared it would hamper efforts to obtain secrets about Beijing's military and its cyber‐attacks.
"It means that the Obama administration doesn't understand the profound challenge that China has become or, even more disturbing, it cannot understand that China's challenges to America's policies are becoming even more threatening with each passing week,"
The downgrading of intelligence gathering on China was challenged by Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair and CIA Director Leon E. Panetta after it was first proposed in interagency memorandums in October, current and former intelligence officials said. The decision downgrades China from "Priority 1" status, alongside Iran and North Korea, to "Priority 2," which covers specific events such as the humanitarian crisis after the Haitian earthquake or tensions between India and Pakistan. Administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the new policy is part of the Obama administration's larger effort to develop a more cooperative relationship with Beijing. Critics within the government, however, said the change will mean that strategic intelligence on China —the gathering of data and analysis of information — will be reduced over time, undermining what officials said are urgently needed efforts to know more about China's political, economic, military and intelligence activities. Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, expressed concern about the change. "For those who say changing from Priority 1 to Priority 2 doesn't make any difference — well then, why do it?" he asked. "China should be at the top of the priority list, not moving down." Officials said the lower intelligence priority for China is a subtle but significant change that will affect an array of intelligence activities.
In September ’09, the DNI stated in the National Intelligence Strategy, that China is one of four main threats to U.S. interests, along with Russia, Iran and North Korea. The Chinese government reacted harshly to the strategy report, both in public and in diplomatic channels
Although the effect is not expected to be immediate, a change in priority number generally means that projects regarding that country are scrutinized more skeptically on budgetary and other grounds. Agencies likely will reduce spending for intelligence operations on China, whether carried out by spies or by photographic and electronic‐intercept satellites. One new area that has been given a higher intelligence priority under the Obama administration is intelligence collection on climate change, a nontraditional mission marginally linked to national security. The CIA recently announced that it had set up a center to study the impact of climate change. One U.S. official said the NSC intelligence policy change followed protests from China's government about the publication in September of the National Intelligence Strategy, produced by Mr. Blair's DNI office. The strategy report identified China as one of four main threats to U.S. interests, along with Russia, Iran and North Korea.
Editor: Dalene Duvenage Click on hyperlinks to open documents [email protected]
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Counterintelligence officials also were surprised at the decision to lower the intelligence priority on China, noting that China's espionage, technology theft and economic spying continue to dominate scarce resources, including people and funds. Full article at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/20/china‐removed‐top‐priority‐spies//print/
Former Canadian envoy to Iran was covert CIA agent
Press TV, 24 January 2010 Canada's former ambassador to Tehran, Kenneth Taylor, actively spied for the Central Intelligence Agency and helped the US plan a military incursion into the country during the Islamic Revolution, according to new reports. An arrangement was set up by then‐US President Jimmy Carter and Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark, whereby Taylor would provide US intelligence with information from his position at the Canadian Embassy in Tehran, according to a report published in The Globe and Mail on Saturday. The report added that details of Taylor's role are revealed in the book “Our Man in Tehran” by Trent University historian Robert Wright. Taylor, who was the Canadian ambassador to Iran from 1977 to 1980, became “the de facto CIA station chief” in Tehran after Iranian students took control of the US embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979, and took 60 US citizens hostage. The daily information he sent out was seen by only two officials at what was then the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa — Louis Delvoie, director of the intelligence analysis division, and Pat Black, assistant undersecretary for security and intelligence. In conversation with The Globe and Mail this week, Taylor said he felt confident taking on the US intelligence enterprise because Iran at the time was in chaos and the risk was minimal. The former Canadian envoy to Tehran added that for three months he, along with his wife and embassy staffers, concealed the six US embassy staff members who had escaped into hiding after the seizure of the US embassy. The CIA, working with Taylor, arranged for the US citizens, using Canadian passports, to leave Tehran on a flight to Zurich on Jan. 27, 1980. Kenneth Taylor then closed the embassy and left with his staff. http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116897§ionid=351020101
Editor: Dalene Duvenage Click on hyperlinks to open documents [email protected]
25 January 2010 SA Intelligencer Number 65 5
Kenya: Intelligence Service figures on influx of Somali’s might have led to new citizenship guidelines
Sunday Nation, 24 January 2010 (Ed: my heading) Figures from the National Security Intelligence Service show that the population in North Eastern increased by 140 per cent since 1999 and is believed to have persuaded the government to shelve the provisional results of the census conducted last year.
Fears that last year’s population and housing census figures were doctored explain the decision by the government to shelve the provisional results, Sunday Nation investigations show.
Informed sources told the Sunday Nation that a meeting to brief the President and the Prime Minister on the census results ended prematurely after figures from the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) contradicted those compiled by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).
On 23 January 2010, the government issued new
guidelines for the issuance of identity cards in the province to ensure aliens do not acquire the
vital document. However, it was not clear if the move was related to the census saga.
According to NSIS statistics, the population in North Eastern Province had increased by a staggering 140 per cent since the last census in 1999. If the NSIS figures were to be believed, it would put the population in North Eastern province to 2.2 million, up from 962,144 in 1999. The intelligence agency attributed the high figures to infiltration of the province by aliens from the neighbouring war‐torn Somalia. The country has been without a government since 1991.
Under the new guidelines, local residents have been given powers to scrutinise the list of the vetted applicants. The list would be placed on public notice boards at the local level and at the district commissioner and the provincial commissioner’s offices.
Addressing a leaders’ meeting in his boardroom, area PC James Ole Serinai said that the move was aimed at stopping refugees from acquiring the citizenship document and reducing corruption among registration officials. The National Security Intelligence Service and the Criminal Investigation Department officials shall be attending all vetting meetings.
The provisional census figures show that North Eastern Province also recorded the second highest growth rate. It was further noted that North Eastern was the only province, apart from Nairobi, whose male population outnumbered that of females.
The provisional figures that were to be released last month have been delayed twice for unexplained reasons. The government is now engaged in what experts called “post‐census analysis” before releasing the full figures for the exercise, conducted last August.
Editor: Dalene Duvenage Click on hyperlinks to open documents [email protected]
25 January 2010 SA Intelligencer Number 65 6
While Nairobi’s provisional figures were attributed to rural‐urban migration, no concrete explanation could be given for the upsurge of the population in the country’s least populated province.
The provisional figures place the country’s population at 39.5 million with the expansive Rift Valley accounting for 10 million people. Nairobi has the highest growth rate of 52.11 closely followed by North Eastern at 44.92 per cent. Rift Valley is third with 43.66 per cent. Nairobi is also the most densely populated province with 4,684 persons per square kilometre.
Full article at http://www.nation.co.ke/News/‐/1056/843770/‐/view/printVersion/‐/rgxjfv/‐/index.html
Kenya: CIA chief in secret visit
The Standard, 24 January 2010 (Ed: Excerpts) Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Edward Panetta made a secret visit to Kenya from 21 January 2010 where he is believed to have delivered President Barack Obama’s message on governance and terrorism to the Government. We could not confirm reports that he met President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Interestingly, Panetta arrived the same day Jamaican cleric Abdullah Al‐Faisal left the country. Senior Government officials declined to comment on the visit terming it "very sensitive". Sources, however, said the director’s visit had much to do with the spread and rebuilding of al‐Qaeda militants in Somalia. Panetta also met with senior National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) officials led by Director General Michael Gichangi and a few police officers at his hotel in Nairobi. Our sources said the CIA boss wanted to ask the country’s leadership to be tougher on terrorism matters and especially al‐Qaeda, who America believes are rebuilding fast in the Horn of Africa. This followed reports that al‐Qaeda fighters have begun arriving in Somalia to carry out a war against the State seen by Islamists to be supported by the West.
CIA Director Leon Panetta
Security experts say some 200 foreign jihadists have arrived from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, India, and even the US, who serve as military trainers and experts in explosives. The foreign jihadists are staying on to transform the nationalist fight into a global jihad, and their ideology was seen in a rash of recent suicide bomb attacks on AU peacekeepers and even a university graduation ceremony on December 3 last year, in Mogadishu. Full article at: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=2000001631&cid=4&
Editor: Dalene Duvenage Click on hyperlinks to open documents [email protected]
25 January 2010 SA Intelligencer Number 65 7
Intelligence literature One of the biggest challenges for American intelligence? The way the brain works.
By Robert Jervis, January 17, 2010 (Ed: Excerpts – read the full article at http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/01/17/think_different_cia?mode=PF
An excellent short article on the analytical pitfalls and biases that blind
intelligence analysts (and every human being), and which leads to thinking and intelligence failures
What’s wrong with American intelligence? That question became tragically urgent at the end of last year, first with the failed attempt to blow up Northwest Flight 253, and then the deadly suicide bombing that killed seven CIA officers in eastern Afghanistan. Leaders and critics, from the president on down, are calling for a host of solutions: more people on no‐fly lists, tighter control of visas, more thorough airport screening, better tracking of suspects. In sum, the thinking goes, we need to gather more information, then work harder to connect the dots. Those impulses are understandable, but they miss the most important problem. From studying many individual cases, and conducting detailed post‐mortems of US intelligence failures in the cases of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the 1979 Iranian Revolution, I have found that many common assumptions about why our intelligence fails are misguided. The problems with our intelligence system aren’t primarily problems with information. They are problems with how we think. The problem isn’t usually ‐ or at least isn’t only ‐ too little information, but too much, most of it ambiguous, contradictory, or misleading. The blackboard is filled with dots, many of them false, and they can be connected in innumerable ways. Only with hindsight does the correct pattern leap out at us, and to fix what “broke” the last time around only guarantees you have solved yesterday’s problem.
Read more:
Psychology of Intelligence Analysis
Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis
Overcoming Analytic Mindsets: Five Simple
Techniques
The Tradecraft of Warning: Overcoming Cognitive Barriers
How Do Cognitive Pitfalls Limit Our Ability to
Anticipate Rare Events?
Far more important, and useful, is to address the flaws in how we interpret and use the intelligence that we already gather. Intelligence analysts are human beings, and many of their failures follow from intuitive ways of thinking that, while allowing the human mind to cut through reams of confusing information, often end up misleading us. This isn’t a problem that occurs only with spying. It is central to how we make sense of our everyday lives, and how we reach decisions based on the imperfect information we have in our hands. And the best way to fix it is to craft policies, institutions, and analytical habits that can compensate for our very understandable flaws. Robert Jervis is a professor of international politics at Columbia University and a consultant to the intelligence community. His book, ”Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War,” will be published by Cornell University Press in March.
Editor: Dalene Duvenage Click on hyperlinks to open documents [email protected]
25 January 2010 SA Intelligencer Number 65 8
Editor: Dalene Duvenage Click on hyperlinks to open documents [email protected]
To save space, only new announcements on upcoming intelligence related events will be carried here. The complete list can be accessed at http://4knowledge-za.blogspot.com/
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