Sic Semper Tyrannis 2008

"Bhutto's Murder" Richard Sale

The chief suspects in the Bhutto assassination, as of forty eight hours ago, were lower and mid-level officers of Pakistan’s ISI, intelligence agency, and the Pakitani army.
Bhutto’s history with the ISI is long, tangled and, on the ISI’s side, murderous. The ISI or Inter-Service Intelligence agency was created in 1948, manned by officers from the three armed services. Pakistan became a fundamentalist Islamic state under the 1980s leadership of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq who assigned it to keep an eye on Bhutto’s Pakistan’s Peoples Party (PPP) among other things. In fact, according to an Indian counterintelligence source, B Raman, with whom I used to stay in close touch, the ISI’s Internal Political Division poisoned two of Bhutto’s brothers on the French Rivera in 1985, to try to scare her out returning to Pakistan in order to run not only the PPP but another group she had started, the Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD). She ignored Zia and returned.
When Bhutto entered her first term as PM in 1988, she tried to reduce the ISI’s powers and boost the clout of the Intelligence Bureau or IB founded in 1947. Usually a Lt. Gen. heads the ISI, but Bhutto put in a major general close to her father. This was bitterly resented.
When she became PM again in 1993, Bhutto followed the custom of letting an Lt. General of the Army head the ISI. But she transferred the handling of operations supporting the Taliban from ISI to the Interior Ministry. It was at this time she began to work with Gen. Musharraf who was ISI’s DG of Military Ops. But factions within the ISI detested her, and in 1996, assassinated her only remaining brother outside his house Karachi in September, according to former US officials. A former ISI station chief in New Delhi hatched a plot to assassinate her in 1995, but the plan was foiled. Once Bhutto was in exile, Musharraf toppled PM Narwaz Sharif in 1999, and in the tradition of Zia, Musharraf, tied to weaken the PPP which has its chief base in Sind, the Sindhis basically a group with a lot of Sufi influence and given to religious tolerance. Musharraf set up a secret task force to wreck the PPP and scatter the Sindh nationalists. To do this it began to collaborate with the Jamiat-ul-Ulema Islam (JUI), which is a jihadi group with ties to bin Laden.Musharraf also boosted collaboration with other dangerous terrorist organizations in aiding the Taliban. In fact, in 2001, US intelligence analysts had targeted Gen. Mohammad Aziz of ISI, Lt. Gen. Hami Gull, Lt. Gen. Avid Nadir and others. All had ties to al Aida and after the attacks of 9/11, they were removed thanks to US pressure.

Sale on Pakistan's Weapons

"Dear Pat
A week or so ago, I noticed some of your readers were nervous about the fate of Pakistani’s nuclear arsenal. While some concern remains, the following facts should be noted.
As early as 2000, the Clinton administration created a joint commission, a liaison group, consisting of American and Pakistani scientists. The purpose of this group was to help the Pakistanis create command and control codes for the use of such weapons that would be unbreakable. In the course of such work, America basically gained full knowledge of Pakistan’s command and control system.
The US then used snatch teams to kidnap Pakistani scientists who were peddling Pakistan’s nuclear technology or knowledge of it to undesirables. A bunch of such scientists disappeared from Burma while traveling, for example. But the kidnaping disrupted the alleged 200 links between the Pakistan nuclear community and terrorists such as al Queda. Other Pakistanis sympathetic to al Qaida Sultan Bashiruddin, a much decorated scientist for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, were arrested and interrogated.
The US had thoroughly infiltrated the nuclear procurement-peddling ring without telling the Pakistanis about it, which is why the US got Libya to abandon its program and why Iran, another Pakistan client, disclosed its own activities to the IAEA..
After 9/11, American aid to the Pakistanis to safeguard and control its nuclear arsenal was stepped up, with Bush using the proposed $3 billion in US aid as a bludgeon. Pakistan has 40 nuclear weapons, but within two days of the attacks, Pakistan’s military began to secretly relocate critical nuclear weapons components to six new secret locations, known to the Bush administration. When Pakistan joined the war on terrorism, it submitted to additional US oversight.
Lastly, Musharaff shuffled top military and intelligence personnel just before the US attack on Afghanistan on October 7. A new Pakistani Strategic Planning Division was set up, headed by a three-star general to supplement the control of such weapons by the National Command Authority.. There were also changes made to keep nuclear technology out of the hands of jihadis in the event Musharaff was assassinated. The US again had a big part to play in this.
So while the nukes of any country are allegedly in danger of hijacking, apparently the new safeguards are such that the slightest error in procedure renders the weapon null and void, a system much like the one the Russian used with their portable nuclear weapons systems.
So for now, the danger of jihadis seizing a Pakistan nuke seem minimal.
With greetings to all,
Richard Sale"

"Regarding Iran.."

Richard Sale sent me this.  It should be posted.  I am busy writing.  That is all.  Not a big deal.  pl

"Dear Pat:

I will be brief and be gone.

Regarding Iran, the Bush line of attack has been and will continue to be allegations of Iranian interference inside Iraq, chiefly to al Sadr and other pro-Tehran factions. Iran is supplying weapons and IEDs to the insurgency, but only to the Shia factions.

British intelligence uncovered an Iranian op in Afghanistan that was supplying weapons to the Taliban. Knowing of Cheney's relish to appear tough in front of the eyes of the world and his followers, the British spooks were timid about informing Bush about the Afghan op, but were overruled at the ministerial level.

According to senior US intelligence officials, President Bush has definitely decided not to strike any of Iranian alleged nuclear weapons production facilities this year. Israeli intel is floating a lot of stories about bunker buster bombs being moved to the region, but this is psyop rubbish.

What Cheney has proposed is a measure that would launch a very limited military strike at one or more known Iranian training centers whose forces are being deployed to Iraq. This proposal has, so far, gotten no approval.

With greetings to all,

Richard Sale"

Sale Responds to Comments

"Dear Pat:

I think that any one drawing the inference from my criticism of Chalabi that my adverse comments could possibly be used as a way to edge America towards a war with Iran lacks any capacity for logic.

Chalabi has always had strong ties with the Iranians. If he worked as their agent, it is something that we should have countered by filling him full of disinformation or channeling erroneous nonsense to Iran about US intentions. The CIA cut him off, so he went to Capitol Hilll and later the Pentagon who kept sending him large checks.

Chalabi does have his backers. Former CIA case officer Warren Marik told me that Chalabi truly wanted Iraq to be rid of Saddam and didn't care how that came about, an opinion echoed by Ned Walker, former Assistant Sec of State.  That Chalabi was directly responsible for an incredible amount of crap to be channeled into the White House simply shows his skill of pretense, and the unscrupulousness of the administration who was going to use the information to market the war whether it was true or not. To push INC information to the topmost levels of the White House without its being vetted by intelligence professionals is iobscene but it happened.

That Chalabi falsified and hyped reports from his own emigre field agents on WMD is a proven fact. I spoke with one case officer who had taken notes when he interviewed these people, and when he saw the information retailed in 51 US news outlets, he said he could barely recognize it. He could recognize the source but the information had been transformed and exaggerated. I will go into my files and find the name, but it happened.

I will also post additional intelligence on Chalabis government and business dealings in Iraq.

But as I say, he has his defenders: Marik says that the real traitor in the case of the blown operation to read Iran's codes was "the drunken American idiot" who told Chalabi about the operation, not Chalabi.  Former CIA agent Bob Baer, while excoriating Chalabi in many ways, also says of the exile, "He never told me a lie."

But on the subject of Iran, I think the United States should be talking with them about their program. I think we in America ignored "the will to status" -- the feeling on the part of countries they think it their destiny to fulfill, expand and perfect ther powers to their fullest extent. They feel they should not be relegated to a permanent second class place.

The United States has thrown a hissy fit every time another power has developed a nuclear weapon. The Russians surprised us by exploding one in 1949, but we were opposed to De Gaulle getting one, to the British getting one -- we had plaid rabbits trying to make sure israel didn't get one. When it came to Pakistan and India, there was a faction within the agency who thought that perhaps it would tame the virulent hatreds between the two by producing some sort of MAD equilibrium, a doctrine many other intelligence officials thought quite mad.

In any case, I think it unhelpful for view Iran and Iranians as being incapable of reason and common sense.

With greetings to all,

Richard Sale"

More Sale on Chalabi

"Pat:

Some amplification about Chalabi from a former CIA official.

"First and foremost," this guys says, Chalabi wanted "not just to destroy the secular Sunnis, but "especially the secular Shia. That is the reason for the ferocious attack on the Army and the Baath. Demographics would have taken care of the Sunnis, they were only 20 percent of the population, but the Shia were historically secular in Iraq and the majority. The Shia were the backbone of the old Communist party and when the Soviet empire fell, many went to the Baath and many made the only other political move feasible and joint the Iranian-backed religions parties."

"The Baath were the majority Shia and the Baath was the biggest threat to SCIRI and the Da'wa because all of Irq's capable technocrats like Thamir Ghadban, the first Oil Minister, were in the Baath."

"After Op Iraqi Freedom, the initial idea was to form a transitional government perhaps under Gen. Sultan Hashem which would be made up of respected Kurdish, Shia and Sunni elements.which could gjide the country for six months or more until elections could be held. The ide was at a later date, truth and reconciliation process could take over after Iraq was out of transition. The neocons, supporting Chalabi, never would accept elements from the old regime providing the bridge to the future because it would cut out Chalabi and external exiles."

"Clearly the entire idea was vetoed by principals in the Pentagon. The USG was never looking at Hashemi, the agency was.  It was an attempt to preempt the Chalabi claque. Chalabi certainly suspected something was up and had a direct line into Wolfowitz's office.

"There is no doubt of Chalabi's long term connection with Iran and his having been their agent for years, but, in fairness, not everyone there believed he worked for Iran. Many simply considered  him power mad. But I think that the idea that Chalabi was perhaps an Iranian plant from the beginning was more than some people could contemplate."

In any case, Vince Cannistaro has had no doubts: "Chalabi was working for Iran, and Iran took us to breakfast, lunch and dinner."

Hope this helps.

Richard"

Richard Sale on Chalabi

Reproduced here with the permission of Richard Sale and Milt Bearden.  Richard informs me that all of this was "on the record."  pl

------------------------------------------------------

"Dear Pat:

I have been busy working on the Balkans, but wanted to provide some data about Chalabi and Iran.

According to more than half a dozen CIA operatives, including former clandestine DO officials, "Agency people became aware that Chalabi had probably been a long-time agent for Iran," in the words of one. These sources, including Whitley Bruner, say that Chalabi was long ago working for Iran in Lebanon, even before the agency recruited him in 1991 and stuck him in as head of the INC. Bruner said of Chalabi: "He never gave the agency any intel on Iran, never submitted to being debriefed.' adding, "He was Iran’s guy."
Bruner and others claim that Chalabi "wanted to start low-intensity war with Iraq. He hoped we would get sucked in." The plan was that the INC would "appeal to US benefactors and we would rescue our proxies."
Former CIA agent, Bob Baer who went into Kurdistan in 1994, said that Chalabi always came into Kurdistan from Iran, where he had a villa. He said Chalabi was very close to Iranians, and covert operators said IRG folk were often at his house in Salauddin.
The INC was totally penetrated by Iranian and Iraqi agents but the CIA didn't care. Chalabi was never entrusted with any secret operations. He was be the day to day manager of INC which was putting out anti-Saddam gray propaganda. We wanted Saddam to know about the INC just to keep the pressure on him.
In 1996, the CIA was trying to organize a serious attempt to overthrow Saddam using the INA, headed by a former Saddam hit man, Iyad Allawi who had broken with Saddam and walked in to work for MI-6 in the late 1970s. The Brits eventually brought him to the CIA in 1992. Allawi had assets inside Saddam's military but Chalabi betrayed the coup out of jealousy. The INA was the preferred CIA instrument, its intelligence was being checked out by technical means, and its success would have meant the end of Chalabi's funding.
In any case, Chalabi got caught fabricating information and the CIA cut him off. He merely went to the Pentagon and the checks kept coming because his fabricated intelligence on Iraq's WMD was so essential to selling the war, this from a man who had already failed four CIA polygraphs so that the agency had issued a "burn" notice on him by the late 1990s.
In 2004, Chalabi betrayed to Iran the fact the NSA was listening to mail belonging to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).  Milt Bearden called me in real distress the day the Iranian channel went off the air.
But Chalabi's real goal was to get rid of the Baathists in Iraq, and get rid of the army. In spite of promises we had made to senior Iraqi military, some of whom facilitated our entry into Iraq in 2003, Bremer, Wolfowitz and Chalabi broke all those promises and the Iraqis joined the insurgency.

All the best,

Richard Sale"

Sale on Negroponte Move

"Contrary to the bland stories in The New York Times and Washington Post of Friday, Negroponte did not go voluntarily to State from his job as director of intelligence. In fact, there was tremendous administration pressure to get him out of his current job. The chief cause of the quarrel involved Negroponte's balking at at request from Vice President Cheney to increase domestic collection by the National Security Agency on U.S. citizens.

Negroponte flatly refused, Cheney bridled, and from then on the pressure built to get rid of him. (The White House did not return phone calls, but there is nothing new is that.)

The Bush people, chiefly Cheney and the president, were already annoyed by the fact that the Negroponte group has been busy producing drafts of reports that predict utter disaster in Iraq and which are utterly opposed to any increase of troops. Cheney and Bush both flared in wrath over this. Of course, intelligence is simply evaluated information. Its purpose is to help inform decisions by policymakers, as Pat as so often pointed out. But this this administration perceives objectivity as a inadequate commitment or as an absence of complete loyalty.

The new national director of intelligence Adm. "Mike" McMConnell, has my sources at NSA tearing their hair out. In the view of some very sharp analysts there he was "among the worst directors this agency ever had," in the words of one.

But the rift over increased domestic surveillance was the real reason Negroponte was forced out. I am frankly shocked by seasoned reporters at the NYT who would swallow statements such as Negroponte was never comfortable being a spy and therefore wanted to return to being a diplomat. That is like the Steeler's coach saying he is resigning to spend more time with his family.

Rice, of course, has been looking for a deputy since last June when Zoellick resigned to go to Goldman Sachs. She first asked for Nick Burns, a very canny and experienced guy and that request was squashed by Cheney. Burns will resign, I'm told. She asked for Phil Zoellick who is her special advisor and that went nowhere. She finally negotiated with Bush first and then Cheney and got approval for Negroponte. She can use his expertise on the Middle East.

One further note.

Regarding Cheney's recent trip to Saudi Arabia. Cheney went there to get the Wahabis to start ratcheting up actions against the Hizbullah in Lebanon and elsewhere in the region. Saudi relations with Syria have cooled dramatically since the Hariri murder. As senior CIA officials told me in 2001, Hariri was a Saudi agent for a long time. But one former CIA official told me that Saudi police the other day arrested a man because he put up Nasrallah's picture up on his wall.  What CIA officials I talked to see is a major shift in the terrain -- a growing region-wide alliance between the Sunnis  that will act as a counter to the growing power of the Shia thanks to the mindless U.S. backing of them Iraq.

My sources on this are excellent -- 8.5s out of 10s.

Richard Sale"

Sale on Dignity at the End.

"I am so tired of hearing the word "dictator" and Saddam together. It's on a level with "anal" and then "sex." Yug. Instead of demonizing him, why not first of all mention that he didn't die a coward. He looks perfectly composed as he eyes the rope that is about to break his neck. And you have to admire the fact he didn't repent of his megalomania, saying to the hangman, "Iraq is nothing without me."

But he also was a skillful ruler and a legitimate one, as you pointed out in your briefing to the White House in late 1990 or early 1991. He had an extraordinary insight into his people --knowing when to massacre a section of a tribe or instead, build it a whole new sewage system and a string of free clinics.

Why demonize? Think of Somoza or the shah or Trujillo or the whole awfully bloody bunch of shits we have used to advance our ends in the world. We did after all back Stalin and lied for years to the public about his actions and character. Amazing.

Few have mentioned the sheer discourtesy or insensitivity of hanging him on the Muslim Sabbath.

I think we should have left him in prison and made sure he got tons of newspapers delivered to his cell every day. He was a man who had to predominate. Knowing of great events afoot and knowing you are forever a discarded man with no further part to play in the world would have eaten him hollow and not made a martyr of him.
Richard Sale"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I really agree with Richard on this.  Saddam may have killed your father, uncle or brother, but he died a man.

We have made some colossal errors in Iraq but this is among the worst:

1- We killed a former (?) head of state.  The Shia government did it?  What a joke! Neocons!  Do you imagine that anyone believes this? Maliki would not even go to the execution.  No.  We will be blamed and rightly so.  We provided "advisors" to the trial judges.

2- We made him a figure for legend and he took advantage of it.  "God is Great! Long live Iraq!  Palestine is Arab."  That is what he uttered on the gallows with the rope around his neck.  You damned fools!  What do you think will be the war cry with which millions of Muslims will confront us and our "regional allies?"

3-The, oh so clever Iranian political warfare machine (and friends) have tried for many years to denigrate the Iraqi army that fought Iran and defeated it.  The men who served in that army know how well they fought.  For good or ill he was their commander in chief.  Do you think that deliberately humiliating him in the manner of his death will serve the cause of reconciliation in Iraq?

4- We allowed his execution in the month of Pilgrimage, just before the Feast of Sacrifice when a holocaust of sacrificed animals will be offered.  Could you have given him a better gift?

5-Is it really true that Moqtada al-Sadr's people participated in the execution?  Is it true?

6-How like AQ's executions this was.  How like.

What more could you have given him?

Now he belongs to the ages.  pl

A New Decision?

Richard Sale sent me the following analysis of the "state of play" concerning Iraq/Iran in the White House. If this is correct, then the Iraq Study Group might serve a purpose. After all, if the "Decider" decides to decide something different.... GStK!

Pat Lang

PS - This is Bush as Ahab.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Administration officials told me on Monday that President George Bush is likely to announce "an exit strategy" that would draw down current U.S. force levels in Iraq.
"I think the dimensions of the catastrophe there has finally sunk in," one administration source said.
He and two others I talked to refused to speculate on details of any withdrawal, but all said that Bush would begin public statements after the upcoming elections were completed.
But they did say that Bush is also becoming "increasingly pessimistic" about any military action against Iran. According to one, "Bush really wanted to mount an attack on Iran earlier this year -- he was really hot to trot," but military briefings brought home to him that attacking Iran did not mean eliminating its suspected nuclear sites but also having to destroy "Iran's entire retaliatory capability," in the words of one. This capability is formidable; U.S. intelligence sources say Iran has underground missile batteries southwest of Abu Musa with the HY-2 advanced version of the Silkworm anti-ship missile. There are also Scud-Cs which could hit any UAE ports, including those to the south and west of Abu Dhabi and they could also strike Dubai where U.S. naval sources currently dock at the port of Jebel Ali.
Since the Scuds are long-range missiles, they don't need to be moved to the Gulf islands in order to hit targets on the Saudi side of the Gulf.
The underground storage bunkers also store the newer Chinese-made C-801 and C-802 anti-ship missiles and it could easily transport them to Abu Musa if they are not already there as a few U.S. experts contend. The majority I spoke to felt they were there already.
They could also be transported to places like the Tunbs, Sirri and other islands in the blink of an eye where they would be sheltered in bunkers.
There is also the threat of Iran's Navy. It has much amphibious capability -- both flat bottomed ships and hovercraft -- and a brigade of marines, all of which it showed off in exercises in the spring of this year, meaning it could cross the Gulf at any point it chose to, say experts.
Iran has submarines that could be easily sunk, the Gulf being so shallow, and so Tehran would likely resort to its array of E-boats, mini-subs, combat swimmers, and fast missile patrol craft to wreak damage. Iran is also training fundamentalists from Egypt, the Gulf States, Tunisia, Algeria and Lebanon at Iranian facilities, and would be likely to have a Fifth column in place in the Gulf States long before any conflict began.
Iran's ability to do this quickly and effectively is pretty much taken for granted, U.S. officials said.
One military analyst pointed out that in 1986-1988 when Iran's oil infrastructure was being savaged by Iraq, Iran responded by using fast interdiction boats like Boston Whalers, Boghammers as well as helicopters to launch attacks against Saudi and Kuwait shipping. Tehran could be expected to resort to this tactic again, experts say.
If the United States began the bombing of Iran's conventional military forces, Iran might attempt to close the Straits of Hormuz before losing its chief military assets.
In Qatar, there is currently underway a $50 billion natural gas project funded mutually by Exxon-Mobil and the Qatar government. The United States is fast running out of natural gas, and the Qatar program would ship in new reserves to take up the shortage. But even though Qatar has assured Tehran that it does not back any action against Iran by the United States, Tehran has made it clear that Qatar would be heavily damaged in punitive attacks if the Bush administration starts a war.
As one civilian military expert said, "Iran would be likely to do a great deal of damage in the Gulf before its assets on the mainland and islands were neutralized."
In other words, if attacked, Iran would respond asymmetrically, and any U.S. Iran war would be more frightful, full of bloody slaughter and unintended consequences than current U.S. planners think. This is what is giving Bush pause.
Cheney is still pushing hard for a strike, but Bush has become more skeptical of the vice president's ardor as he looks over the wreckage of Iraq, U.S. officials said.

Richard Sale”

"What Is Interrogation?"

   With the earsplitting din of the current debate about whether to use torture in interrogating terrorist prisoners, it may be helpful, even educational, to define what an interrogation is, and how it is properly carried out, as opposed to the disagreeable prospect of torturing information out of prisoniers, a practice which would puke up America's record of promoting human rights..

    According to retired a former very senior CIA official, interrogation is, in the first place, a function of counterintelligence which he defined as: “A huge research effort that involves consulting of massive and detailed  files.” It is the data in those files that plays the key role, the official said. How the data is applied and used, especially the timing of its use, depends on the perceptiveness, the sensibility, the sheer artistry of the interrogator, he said.