Where have I heard that line before?

Pentagon closes controversial intelligence unit

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Monday said it was closing a controversial intelligence office that had raised concerns about domestic spying by the military after the September 11 attacks.

The Defense Department said it had "disestablished" the Counterintelligence Field Activity office, or CIFA, created in February 2002 by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to manage defense and armed service efforts against intelligence threats from foreign powers and groups such as al Qaeda.

Those responsibilities will now be carried out by a new organization called the Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center, overseen by the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency.

CIFA's operations stirred concern among members of Congress and civil liberties advocates. A CIFA database known as Talon, set up to monitor threats against U.S. military installations, was found to have retained information on U.S. antiwar protesters including Quakers after they had been found to pose no security danger, officials said.

Talon, the acronym for Threat and Local Observation Notice, was ended last year as a result of the outcry. But the controversy, leading the Defense Department to reorganize CIFA's functions after a broad review of Pentagon intelligence operations, officials said.

A senior defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Defense Secretary Robert Gates approved the change after the review found the office's functions could be performed more effectively by another agency.

The Army, Air Force and Navy operate their own separate counterintelligence operations. Officials said coordinating and management function previously performed by CIFA would be taken over by the new center, which will also oversee DIA's operations in traditional espionage.

"Integration under one organization will result in greater collaboration in operational and support areas where both disciplines overlap," Army Maj. Gen. Theodore Nicholas, the center's new director, said in a statement.

Cecilia Grimes charged with destroying evidence

More bad news from Pennsylvania:

A Pennsylvania-based lobbyist was charged Tuesday with destroying evidence related to an FBI investigation into former Rep. Curt Weldon.

Prosecutors said in court filings that Cecilia Grimes threw travel receipts and other material that mentioned Weldon in the trash after she received grand jury subpoenas for those and other documents. FBI agents retrieved the documents from garbage cans outside Grimes' house. Authorities said she also threw out her Blackberry at a fast-food restaurant to keep the FBI from retrieving her e-mail.

Weldon, a former Republican lawmaker who represented a suburban Philadelphia district for 20 years, is not named in the court papers but is identified by his service as vice chairman of both the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees. The government's filing Tuesday is known as a criminal information and is typically part of a plea deal. A plea agreement hearing has been scheduled for July 25 in U.S. District Court in Washington.

Grimes' lawyers said she is "extremely remorseful for any mistake she has made in reference to this investigation" and that she would not be taking additional questions.

"Any suggestion that Ms. Grimes engaged in any inappropriate, illegal or improper conduct with regard to her role as a lobbyist is incorrect and unfounded," said the statement from the Montgomery, McCracken Walker & Rhoads law firm in Philadelphia.

The FBI turned its focus to Grimes as part of its investigation into whether Weldon agreed to help Grimes by supporting appropriations requests from her lobbying firm, based in Media, Pa., according to court documents.

Weldon's defense attorney, William Winning, did not immediately return a telephone call.

Weeks before the November 2006 election, FBI agents raided the homes of Weldon's daughter Karen Weldon and her business partner, Charles P. Sexton Jr., as they investigated whether the congressman helped them win nearly $1 million in foreign lobbying contracts.

Weldon lost the race to Democrat Joe Sestak.

Weldon's former chief of staff, Russell Caso Jr., of Rockville, Md., pleaded guilty in December to conspiring to commit honest-services fraud. Records show his sentencing has been deferred indefinitely while he cooperates with federal investigators.

Earlier this year, Weldon moved the last $80,000 in his campaign fund to a legal defense fund.

Pentagon announces charges in Cole bombing

I believe this is the first time the US has actually charged anyone:

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon said Monday it is charging a Saudi Arabian with "organizing and directing" the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole — and will seek the death penalty.

Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, legal adviser to the U.S. military tribunal system, said charges are being sworn against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni descent, who has been held at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006.

The charges still must be approved by a Defense Department official who oversees military tribunals set up for terrorism suspects.

Hartmann said the allegations include conspiracy to violate laws of war, murder, treachery, terrorism, destruction of property and intentionally causing serious bodily injury.

North Korea Demolishes Nuclear Cooling Tower

Make no mistake, Curt Weldon helped us get here:



From Larry King Live in 2006:

KING: So, what do they do Congressman Weldon? What do they do at the White House?

WELDON: You can have bilateral talks in the six party context which is what we've been advocating. I spent 15 hours over two visits with (INAUDIBLE) their lead negotiator and I'm firmly convinced that there is a way to diplomatically resolve this issue and there's a way to bring Russia in.

The day that I left Pyongyang on my last trip (INAUDIBLE) was going into Pyongyang. The Russians have an interest in running gas supply lines from the Russia far east at Socoline (ph) down to the North Korean rail corridor into South Korea. The South Koreans, and I've met with the Chong (ph) family of the Hyundai Corporation in South Korea and gas. They're willing to finance such pipelines.

There's a natural interest on the part of Russia both of (INAUDIBLE) and (INAUDIBLE) on the oil side to have those pipelines supply their land-locked energy which would give North Korea a non- nuclear source of energy and a source of income.

But you can't make those kinds of discussions occur in what appears to be a context of bowing down to the pressure they brought forward. That's why I thought the administration should continue to have kind of an unofficial or second tier dialog, not to give them the status of direct bilateral talks because as we saw with the '94 framework, as Colin Powell said on March the 26th of '03 before the House Appropriations Committee and our Congress, before the ink was even dry they were cheating with their enriched uranium program, which they finally admitted to in the middle of 2002. That enriched uranium program was specifically designed to build nuclear weapons. You need to be candid and transparent with them. I think the six party framework is the right one but I think there need to be secondary talks at the second tier, third tier level which is why I took two bipartisan delegations in, not to try to preempt the administration but to support the president's overall intentions and to try to find a way to convince the North Koreans that it was in their best interest.

And I can tell you, Larry, they are ready to do that and I still believe that today. I think what you're seeing now is the result of the pressure we've applied by the tightening up on (INAUDIBLE) Asia which has basically shut down much of their economy.

That was an action this administration took in recent months and it's had a devastating impact on their economic capability and I think you're seeing Kim Jong-il lash out because of that.

Sentencing for Russ Caso delayed

This whole thing is sad to watch. Russ is a good guy. Here's the latest:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v. Criminal No. 07-332 (HHK)

RUSSEL J. CASO, JR.

Defendant.

JOINT MOTION TO CONTINUE STATUS CONFERENCE

On December 11, 2007, the Court accepted Russell J. Caso’s plea of guilty and deferred setting a date for his sentencing. The Court scheduled a status conference for May 23, 2008, at 9:45 a.m. As part of his plea agreement, Mr. Caso has agreed to cooperate with the government in any and all matters when required. In conformity with this agreement, Mr. Caso has been cooperating with government agents and prosecutors. The government anticipates that Mr. Caso’s cooperation will continue for the foreseeable future. In the view of both parties, no issues have arisen which require the Court’s intervention at this time.

Accordingly, the parties jointly move the Court to again defer setting a date for the sentencing of Mr. Rudy. The parties also ask that the Court continue the status conference to a date not less than 90 days in the future in order to allow Mr. Caso’s cooperation to continue uninterrupted. A proposed order is attached.

Dated this 2nd day of May, 2008.

FOR THE UNITED STATES:
JEFFREY A. TAYLOR
United States Attorney
Howard R. Sklamberg
Deputy Chief,

FOR THE DEFENDANT:
Kelly B. Kramer, Esq.
Nixon Peabody, LLP

Obviously, "Mr. Rudy" was an error. The motion was followed by this:

Reset Hearings as to RUSSELL JAMES CASO, JR:

Status Conference is reset for 9/19/2008 @ 10:30 AM in Courtroom 27A before Judge Henry H. Kennedy.

Probe of USS Cole Bombing Unravels

Glad to see someone is still looking into this. New front page story in the Washington Post. Doesn't mention preincident indicators, but it's a start.

Probe of USS Cole Bombing Unravels

Plotters Freed in Yemen; U.S. Efforts Frustrated

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 4, 2008; A01

ADEN, Yemen -- Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials.

Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni who helped organize the plot to bomb the Cole as it refueled in this Yemeni port on Oct. 12, 2000, has broken out of prison twice. He was recaptured both times, but then secretly released by the government last fall. Yemeni authorities jailed him again after receiving complaints from Washington. But U.S. officials have so little faith that he's still in his cell that they have demanded the right to perform random inspections.

Two suspects, described as the key organizers, were captured outside Yemen and are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Many details of their alleged involvement remain classified. It is unclear when -- or if -- they will be tried by the military.

The collapse of the Cole investigation offers a revealing case study of the U.S. government's failure to bring al-Qaeda operatives and their leaders to justice for some of the most devastating attacks on American targets over the past decade.

Dieter Snell back in the news

As Peter Lance points out here:

As the sex scandal hurricane engulfed Eliott Spitzer last week, one of his closest advisors at the eye of the storm was Dietrich “Dieter” Snell. An ex U.S. Attorney from the same office conducting the prostitution probe, Snell is now defending Spitzer in the “Troopergate” scandal and reportedly raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees for the international law firm he joined last year.

A former Southern District prosecutor who later became Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, Snell is also one of the ex Feds who rewrote history in the Commission’s “Final Report” by relying entirely on the tortured “confession” of 9/11’s purported “mastermind” to pinpoint the origin of the “planes as missiles” plot.

He’s the same investigator who dismissed as not “sufficiently credible” the testimony of a decorated Navy Captain who was part of a secret data mining operation that uncovered evidence of 9/11 hijackers in the U.S. more than a year before the attacks.

A former Deputy Attorney General under “the Sheriff of Wall Street,” Snell is now attempting to quash the subpoenas of investigators probing whether Spitzer misused state troopers to investigate his chief political rival, protecting his ex boss and mentor with a “separation of powers” defense worthy of Dick Cheney.

Lance's column also references an article by Larisa Alexandrovna on the new book by Phil Shenon. Ms. Alexandrovna writes:

Bayoumi moved to London in 2001 and lived there until his arrest immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. Following his release, Bayoumi returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was interviewed in October 2003 by the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, and Senior Counsel Dieter Snell.

Snell did not respond to requests for comment; Zeilkow could not be reached.

According to Shenon, several staff members working under Snell, “felt strongly that they had demonstrated a close Saudi government connection,” based on “explosive material” on al-Bayoumi and Fahad al-Thumairy, a “shadowy Saudi diplomat in Los Angeles.”

Shenon recounts how Snell, in preparing his team’s account of the plot, purged almost all of the most serious allegations against the Saudi government and moved the “explosive” supporting evidence to the small print of the report’s footnotes. (The Commission, pp. 398-399)

Two commission investigators who were working on documenting the 9/11 plot, Michael Jacobsen and Raj De, argued that it was “crazy” to insist on 100 percent proof when it came to al-Qaeda or the Saudi regime. In the end, however, and with a publishing deadline looming, Snell’s caution and Zelikow’s direction buried apparently promising leads.