Outgoing CIA chief warns Donald Trump to watch unguided utterances

Outgoing CIA chief John Brennan on Sunday launched a scathing attack on Donald Trump, warning him to watch what he says and suggesting the president-elect doesn’t understand the challenges posed by Russia.

Brennan’s stern words — which sparked a quick Twitter retort from Trump — were the latest salvo in the ongoing feud between the incoming Republican leader and US intelligence agencies, who have concluded Moscow meddled in the November election.

The 70-year-old Trump, who takes office on Friday, has nevertheless been effusive in his praise of Vladimir Putin, saying that if the Russian leader “likes” him, it would be an “asset” to help repair strained ties with Moscow.

“I don’t think he has a full appreciation of Russian capabilities, Russia’s intentions and actions,” Brennan said of Trump on Fox News Sunday.

“I think Mr Trump has to be very disciplined in terms of what it is that he says publicly,” he added.

“He is going to be, in a few days’ time, the most powerful person in the world, in terms of sitting on top of the United States government and I think he has to recognize that his words do have impact,” the CIA chief said.

“He’s going to have the opportunity to do something for national security as opposed to talking and tweeting,” he added.

“Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests.”

– ‘Distraction’ –
US intelligence agencies allege that Putin ordered a covert effort to interfere in the election to boost Trump and harm his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

A report from the Director of National Intelligence released this month said hackers working for Russia penetrated Democratic Party computers and accounts to release files embarrassing to Clinton, and also conducted a campaign of media manipulation with the same aim.

Trump’s feud with intelligence agencies has been stoked by the leak of an unsubstantiated report that Russia had gathered compromising personal and financial material on the president-elect, and alleged close links between Trump and Kremlin aides during the campaign.

Hours after Brennan’s rebuke, Trump slapped back at intelligence leaders on Twitter, echoing the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward, who called the alleged Russia “kompromat” dossier “garbage.”

And later, he sent another tweet, this time slamming Brennan for suggesting that Trump did not fully understand Russia — and even seeming to hint that the CIA chief himself might have leaked the Russia dossier.

“Oh really, couldn’t do much worse – just look at Syria (red line), Crimea, Ukraine and the build-up of Russian nukes. Not good! Was this the leaker of Fake News?”

Incoming Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday dismissed notions that the Trump team and the Kremlin had made contact during the 2016 race.

“This is all a distraction,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“It’s all part of a narrative to delegitimize the election and to question the legitimacy of his presidency.”

– ‘Salacious allegations’ –
The unsubstantiated dossier about Trump, Russia and possible compromising material — compiled by a former British MI6 intelligence agent doing opposition research for Trump’s campaign opponents — also said Moscow had incriminating video of the president-elect.

The fact that intelligence agencies had offered Trump a synopsis of the dossier — which was later published in full online by BuzzFeed — lent the allegations credence.

But Brennan said the intelligence community was only “making sure that the president-elect was aware that it was circulating.”

“I think there are some very salacious allegations in there — again, unsubstantiated,” he said, adding it was “a responsibility in the minds of the intelligence directors” to inform Trump as well as the Obama White House of the report.

Brennan bristled at Trump’s likening of the US intelligence community to Nazi Germany, calling it “outrageous.”

“I do take great umbrage at that,” the outgoing spy chief said.

Pence blamed the scandal on “media bias,” in an interview with CBS.

Ten years after, CIA agent who grilled Saddam Hussein says US was wrong about him

I had been up for 27 hours and was flat-out exhausted, but the news sent jolts of adrenaline through me like I’d never experienced before.

A Special Forces team hunting the man we called High Value Target No 1 had pulled someone from a hole in the ground. He answered the description.

And my bosses at the CIA were grilling me, the expert.

Could this burly, unkempt man truly be Saddam Hussein, the ruthless dictator of Iraq? The most wanted man in the world?

 Could this burly, unkempt man truly be Saddam Hussein, the ruthless dictator of Iraq? The most wanted man in the world?

Could this burly, unkempt man truly be Saddam Hussein, the ruthless dictator of Iraq? The most wanted man in the world?

It was December 13, 2003, and I’d been in Iraq for eight weeks – a CIA analyst looking for leads that might take us to Saddam and his notorious henchmen. That was when I was called to see Buzzy Krongard, the CIA’s executive director.

The war to topple the regime had been going for nearly nine months, yet when it came to Saddam, all we’d turned up were ‘Elvis sightings’, as we called them. Until, that is, troops searching a farm near Saddam’s home village of Tikrit found a large bearded man concealed in a tiny underground bunker.

Now a group of senior officers were quizzing me in Krongard’s office; how, they asked, would I make a definitive identification? I told them about the tribal tattoos on Saddam’s right hand and wrist, the bullet scar on his left leg and that his lower lip tended to droop to one side, something I picked up from studying videotapes.

Krongard interrupted me: ‘We need to make sure this is Saddam and not one of those body doubles.’

The myth – and it was a myth – that Saddam maintained multiple lookalikes was a source of wry amusement to those of us who worked in intelligence, but I decided silence was the better part of valour and started compiling a list of questions only the dictator could answer.

The military was flying the putative Saddam to Baghdad airport that night and it was decided we’d make the identification there.

In late 2007, I was summoned to give a detailed presentation to George W. Bush at the Oval Office. What kind of a man had Saddam been, he asked me?

In late 2007, I was summoned to give a detailed presentation to George W. Bush at the Oval Office. What kind of a man had Saddam been, he asked me?

At midnight, after a long wait, the convoy was ready. Men in night-vision goggles drove us at 100mph down the Airport Road, a no-go zone at night. At the airport, a side road led to a series of low-slung blockhouses that once housed Saddam’s Special Republican Guard. Inside, I found pandemonium and another wait until finally a GI said, ‘OK, guys. You’re up.’

Suddenly the door opened and I immediately found myself sucking in air. There he was, sitting on a metal folding chair, wearing a white dishdasha robe and blue quilted windbreaker.

There was no denying that the man had charisma. He was big – 6ft 1in – and thickly built. Even as a prisoner who was certain to be executed, he exuded an air of importance.

I spoke first through a translator. ‘I have some questions I’d like to ask you, and you are to answer them truthfully. Do you understand?’

Saddam nodded. ‘When was the last time you saw your sons alive?’

I expected Saddam to be defiant, but I was taken aback by the aggression of his reply: ‘Who are you guys? Are you military intelligence? Mukhabarat [civilian intelligence]? Answer me. Identify yourselves!’

I noted his tribal tattoos and that his mouth drooped. Now I needed to see his bullet wound.

There was so much we wanted to know. How had he escaped from Baghdad? Who had helped him? He would not say, answering only the questions he wanted to.

‘Why don’t you ask me about politics? You could learn a lot from me,’ he barked. He was especially vocal on the rough treatment he’d received from the troops who brought him in, launching a long diatribe.

I was incredulous. Here was a man who didn’t think twice about killing his own people complaining about a few scratches. He lifted his dishdasha to show the damage to his left leg. I saw an old scar. Was it the bullet wound, I asked him. He assented with a grunt – the final piece of proof. We’d got him.

Capturing Saddam was all very well, but now we had to get to the truth about his regime, and in particular the weapons of mass destruction that had been the pretext for the invasion. His response was simply to mock us.

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein moments after his capture by US forces

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein moments after his capture by US forces.

‘You found a traitor who led you to Saddam Hussein. Isn’t there one traitor who can tell you where the WMDs are?’ He warmed to the subject, saying Americans were a bunch of ignorant hooligans who did not understand Iraq and were intent on its destruction.

‘Iraq is not a terrorist nation,’ he said. ‘We did not have a relationship with (Osama) bin Laden, and did not have weapons of mass destruction… and were not a threat to our neighbours. But the American President [George W Bush] said Iraq wanted to attack his daddy and said we had ‘weapons of mass destruction.’

Ignoring his goading, we asked Saddam if he’d ever considered using WMDs pre-emptively against US troops in Saudi Arabia. ‘We never thought about using weapons of mass destruction. It was not discussed. Use chemical weapons against the world? Is there anyone with full faculties who would do this? Who would use these weapons when they had not been used against us?’

This was not what we had expected to hear. How, then, had America got it so wrong?

Saddam had an answer: ‘The spirit of listening and understanding was not there – I don’t exclude myself from this blame.’ It was a rare acknowledgment that he could have done more to create a clearer picture of Iraq’s intentions.

Was he playing with us, twisting the truth to spare his pride?

Debriefing The President: The Interrogation Of Saddam Hussein, by John Nixon, is published on December 29 by Bantam Press at £16.99

Debriefing The President: The Interrogation Of Saddam Hussein, by John Nixon, is published on December 29 by Bantam Press at £16.99

I asked about his notorious use of chemical weapons against the Kurdish city of Halabja during the Iran-Iraq war. He became furious. ‘I am not afraid of you or your president. I will do what I have to do to defend my country!’

Then he turned to me and sneered: ‘But I did not make that decision.’

We decided to close the briefing. As Saddam left the room, he glared at me. I have annoyed quite a few people in my life, but no one has ever looked at me with such murderous loathing.

My superiors were delighted at the progress we were making, yet something nagged at me about the exchange. My gut told me that there was some truth in what Saddam had said. He was incensed about Halabja. Not because his officers had used chemical weapons – he showed no remorse – but because it had given Iran a propaganda field day.

It was not the only thing that would surprise me. For example, in my years studying Saddam, I never doubted the received wisdom that his stepfather in Tikrit beat him. Many eminent psychiatrists who had analysed him from afar said this was why Saddam was so cruel and why he wanted nuclear weapons.

Yet, in the course of my further interrogations, Saddam turned our assumptions upside down, saying his stepfather was the kindest man he had ever known: ‘Ibrahim Hasan – God bless him. If he had a secret, he would entrust me with it. I was more dear to him than his son, Idham.’

I asked about the CIA’s belief that Saddam suffered great pain from a bad back and had given up red meat and cigars. He said he didn’t know where I was getting my intelligence, but it was wrong. He told me he smoked four cigars every day and loved red meat. He was also surprisingly fit.

The CIA profile of Saddam suggested he was a chronic liar, yet he could be quite candid. Our perception that he ruled with an iron grip was also mistaken. It became clear from our interrogations that in his final years, Saddam seemed clueless about what had been happening inside Iraq. He was inattentive to what his government was doing, had no real plan for the defence of Iraq and could not comprehend the immensity of the approaching storm.

Saddam was quick, too, to deny involvement in 9/11. ‘Look at who was involved,’ he said. ‘What countries did they come from? Saudi Arabia. And this [ringleader] Muhammad Atta, was he an Iraqi? No. He was Egyptian. Why do you think I was involved in the attacks?’

Saddam had actually believed 9/11 would bring Iraq and America closer because Washington would need his secular government to help fight fundamentalism. How woefully wrong he had been.

During our talks, we often heard muffled explosions. Saddam inferred things were not going well for the US forces and took pleasure in the fact. ‘You are going to fail,’ he said. ‘You are going to find that it is not so easy to govern Iraq.’ History has proved him right. But back then, I was curious why he felt that way.

‘Because you do not know the language, the history, and the Arab mind,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to know the Iraqi people without knowing its weather and its history. The difference is between night and day and winter and summer. That’s why they say the Iraqis are hard-headed – because of the summer heat.’

THE ONE SUBJECT THAT MADE HIM CRY

Doting dad: Saddam and Rana

Doting dad: Saddam and Rana

The only time Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein showed any emotion during my interviews was when we discussed his daughters, Rana and Raghid.

His eyes became watery and his voice quivered. ‘I miss them terribly,’ he said. ‘I enjoyed a wonderful relationship with them. They loved me very much, and I loved them very much.’

Saddam also said he was proud of his murderous sons Uday and Qusay, but realistic about their shortcomings. He sometimes found it necessary to punish them.

Uday was a particular problem for him. He said he was incensed when he learned that Uday kept a fleet of Bentleys, Jaguars and Mercedes in a garage protected by Republican Guard soldiers, saying: ‘What kind of message are we sending to the Iraqi people, who must suffer under sanctions and do without?’

Saddam had the cars torched after a drunk Uday shot and wounded Saddam’s half-brother Watban at a family party.

The altercation prompted the 1995 defection of Hussein and Saddam Kamel, the husbands of Saddam’s two daughters, to Jordan.

He chuckled and added: ‘Next summer, when it is hot, they might revolt against you. The summer of 1958 got a little hot. In the 1960s, when it was hot, we had a revolution. You might tell that to President Bush!’

It was several years and several more postings to Iraq before I could explain the realities of Iraq to the President, face to face. By now, Saddam had been tried and executed, finally dispatched in late 2006.

But in late 2007, I was summoned to give a detailed presentation to George W. Bush at the Oval Office. What kind of a man had Saddam been, he asked me?

I told him that he was disarming at first and used self-deprecating wit to put you at ease.

The President looked as if he was going to lose his cool. I quickly explained that the real Saddam was sarcastic, arrogant and sadistic, which seemed to calm Bush down.

He looked at Vice-President Dick Cheney and their eyes locked in a knowing way. As I was leaving, he joked: ‘You sure Saddam didn’t say where he put those vials of anthrax?’ Everyone laughed, but I thought his crack inappropriate. America had lost more than 4,000 troops.

Several months later, I was asked to go back to the White House. This time, the President looked annoyed and distracted and asked for a briefing on the Shia cleric called Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army, then engaged in dangerous insurgency against the coalition. This was not on the agenda.

Trying to gain a few seconds, I said: ‘Well, that is the $64,000 question’ Bush looked at me and said: ‘Why don’t you make it the $74,000 question, or whatever your salary is, and answer?’ What an a***hole!

In his 2010 memoir, Bush wrote: ‘I decided I would not criticise the hardworking patriots of the CIA for the faulty intelligence on Iraq.’ But that is exactly what he did. He blamed the agency for everything that went wrong and called its analysis ‘guesswork’ while hearing only what he wanted to hear.

I do not wish to imply that Saddam was innocent. He was a ruthless dictator who plunged his region into chaos and bloodshed. But in hindsight, the thought of having an ageing and disengaged Saddam in power seems almost comforting in comparison with the wasted effort of our brave men and women in uniform and the rise of Islamic State, not to mention the £2.5 trillion spent to build a new Iraq.

China Hacks U.S. Government, 4 Million Identities Compromised

China-based hackers are suspected of breaking into the computer networks of the U.S. government personnel office and stealing identifying information of at least 4 million federal workers, American officials said Thursday.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that data from the Office of Personnel Management and the Interior Department had been compromised.

4 million current and former federal employees may have had their personal information hacked.

The agency, which conducts background checks, warned it was urging potential victims to monitor their financial statements and obtain new credit reports.
U.S. officials believe this could be the biggest breach ever of the government’s computer networks.
“The FBI is conducting an investigation to identify how and why this occurred,” the statement said.
An assessment continues and it is possible millions more government employees may be impacted.
American investigators believe they can trace the breach to the Chinese government. Hackers working for the Chinese military are believed to be compiling a massive database of Americans, intelligence.

A U.S. official, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the data breach, said it could potentially affect every federal agency. One key question is whether intelligence agency employee information was stolen. Former government employees are affected as well.

“This is an attack against the nation,” said Ken Ammon, chief strategy officer of Xceedium, who said the attack fit the pattern of those carried out by nation states for the purpose of espionage. The information stolen could be used to impersonate or blackmail federal employees with access to sensitive information, he said.

It is not clear what the purpose of the database is.
Employees of the legislative and judicial branches, and uniformed military personnel, were not affected.
The FBI is now investigating what exactly led to the breach.
“We take all potential threats to public and private sector systems seriously, and will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace,” the FBI said in a statement.
The federal personnel office said “personally identifiable information” had been breached, though didn’t name who might be responsible.
Source: CNN

US War Against ISIS is ‘Total Fraud’ to Create a CIA Base: Journalist

A Pentagon plan to arm and train the so-called moderate militants in Syria to fight against the ISIS terrorist group is a “total fraud” and “bogus” claim to carve out a CIA base in the region, an American journalist in Missouri says.

The United States is fighting a “multi-front war” against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad because he operates independently from the West, said Dean Henderson, an author and columnist at Veterans Today.

“This whole ISIS thing is just an attempt to carve out this base where CIA, Mossad, British intelligence … can operate freely and attack Syria for now but maybe later Iran,” Henderson told Press TV on Sunday.

Henderson said Congress is wasting “precious US tax dollars” to fund the false fight against ISIS, which the CIA helped create in the beginning.

“We’re not against ISIS, we are ISIS, we created ISIS, we trained ISIS, we are ISIS,” he acknowledged.

On Saturday, a delegation of US senators led by John McCain, began a tour of the Middle East, which will take them to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to discuss a Pentagon plan to arm and train “moderate” militants in Syria.

The US Defense Department has announced it is deploying about 1,000 troops to train the Syrian militants to fight against the ISIS terrorist group.

Some analysts reject the notion that “moderate” militants exist in Syria. “Nobody in any position of expertise here thinks that there really is any significant moderate Syrian rebel force. It does not exist,” Dr. Kevin Barrett, a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, said in an interview with Press TV on Saturday.

Credit: Press TV

CIA Report: UK ‘Did Not Request Torture Claim Report Edits

A Guantanamo Bay detainee being walked along by two guards, with more guards looking onMany US detainees after 9/11 were held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba

None of the information the UK asked to have blacked out of a report on CIA interrogation related to claims of British involvement in prisoner mistreatment, Downing Street has said.

No 10 confirmed UK intelligence agencies spoke to US counterparts to request some redactions before the US Senate report was published.

But officials said requests were only made on national security grounds, not to erase “torture or rendition” claims.

Senators found “brutal” CIA tactics.

The report, which looked at treatment of detainees in the years after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, is a 525-page summary of a 6,000-page document produced by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The full document remains classified.

The published report contains no reference to UK agencies.

Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate committee, said CIA tactics – which included repeated waterboarding, slapping, stress positions and sleep deprivation – amounted to torture.

‘Protect sources’

A version of the report was finished in 2012, but there were disagreements about what should be published. Part of this process was a “classification review” by the CIA into what information should remain classified.

Downing Street said UK requests for redactions were made “agency to agency” – by British intelligence service MI6 to the CIA.

The requests were made to protect sources and for other national security reasons, No 10 added.

On Wednesday, Downing Street said no requests for redactions had been made.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said a Whitehall official “pointed out” it would make no sense for the CIA to redact allegations of UK abuse while allowing its own name to be “dragged through the mud” in the Senate report.

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US report’s key findings:

File photograph of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, left, and Abd al-Rashim al-Nashiri, rightKhalid Sheikh Mohammed, left, and Abd al-Rashim al-Nashiri, were among those held by the CIA

  • none of 20 cases of counterterrorism “successes” led to unique or otherwise unavailable intelligence
  • CIA misled politicians and public
  • at least 26 of 119 known detainees in custody during the programme wrongfully held
  • methods included sleep deprivation for up to 180 hours, often standing or in painful positions
  • Saudi al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah was kept confined in a coffin-sized box for hours on end
  • waterboarding and “rectal hydration” were physically harmful to prisoners

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As well as meetings between UK and US intelligence agencies, information obtained by human rights charity Reprieve in August suggested UK government officials had met members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on 24 occasions over the previous five years.

The charity did not request details of the subjects discussed, though William Hague – then foreign secretary – said in July: “The UK government has not sought to influence the content of the Senate report.

“We have made representations to seek assurance that ordinary procedures for clearance of UK material will be followed in the event that UK material provided to the Senate committee were to be disclosed.”

One of the UK officials to meet the Senate committee was Home Secretary Theresa May in 2011.

Downing Street said Mrs May “discussed a range of issues” at that meeting. She is expected to be questioned on the matter when she appears before Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee on Monday.

Government ministers and UK security and intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6 have always said torture would never be used by Britain to extract information.

Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee is currently examining the question of whether the UK was complicit in the US mistreatment of suspects.

On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said he would be open to a full judicial inquiry if the committee failed to answer key questions

Source – BBC UK