The Washington Times has removed the article.

Mr. Obama will shutter “all permanant detention facilities overseas,” the draft said, according to the individuals who asked not to be named because the orders have not yet been signed. There are at least eight such prisons, according to published reports. The Bush administration never revealed the number or location of the facilities, although several were said to be in Eastern Europe.

I believe I will be mostly blogging about National Security during President Obama’s tenure.

If President Obama believes that this executive order is good for the country, he is mistaken. This is not a good start

How many attacks on America and our allies have been prevented because of the information extracted by CIA agents from terrorists while insides these “black sites”?

It seems as if President Obama is sacrificing America’s safety for a misguided ideal of treating everyone equally, even if that person is evil.

Hat Tip: Hot Air Headlines

New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.

White House officials never conclusively determined whether Israel had decided to go ahead with the strike before the United States protested, or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was trying to goad the White House into more decisive action before Mr. Bush left office. But the Bush administration was particularly alarmed by an Israeli request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran’s major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country’s only known uranium enrichment plant is located.

The White House denied that request outright, American officials said, and the Israelis backed off their plans, at least temporarily. But the tense exchanges also prompted the White House to step up intelligence-sharing with Israel and brief Israeli officials on new American efforts to subtly sabotage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, a major covert program that Mr. Bush is about to hand off to President-elect Barack Obama.

This account of the expanded American covert program and the Bush administration’s efforts to dissuade Israel from an aerial attack on Iran emerged in interviews over the past 15 months with current and former American officials, outside experts, international nuclear inspectors and European and Israeli officials. None would speak on the record because of the great secrecy surrounding the intelligence developed on Iran.

More…

Attack Planning

Early in 2008, the Israeli government signaled that it might be preparing to take matters into its own hands. In a series of meetings, Israeli officials asked Washington for a new generation of powerful bunker-busters, far more capable of blowing up a deep underground plant than anything in Israel’s arsenal of conventional weapons. They asked for refueling equipment that would allow their aircraft to reach Iran and return to Israel. And they asked for the right to fly over Iraq.

Mr. Bush deflected the first two requests, pushing the issue off, but “we said ‘hell no’ to the overflights,” one of his top aides said. At the White House and the Pentagon, there was widespread concern that a political uproar in Iraq about the use of its American-controlled airspace could result in the expulsion of American forces from the country.

The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Sallai Meridor, declined several requests over the past four weeks to be interviewed about Israel’s efforts to obtain the weapons from Washington, saying through aides that he was too busy.

Last June, the Israelis conducted an exercise over the Mediterranean Sea that appeared to be a dry run for an attack on the enrichment plant at Natanz. When the exercise was analyzed at the Pentagon, officials concluded that the distances flown almost exactly equaled the distance between Israel and the Iranian nuclear site.

“This really spooked a lot of people,” one White House official said. White House officials discussed the possibility that the Israelis would fly over Iraq without American permission. In that case, would the American military be ordered to shoot them down? If the United States did not interfere to stop an Israeli attack, would the Bush administration be accused of being complicit in it?

More…

A New Covert Push

Throughout 2008, the Bush administration insisted that it had a plan to deal with the Iranians: applying overwhelming financial pressure that would persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear program, as foreign enterprises like the French company Total pulled out of Iranian oil projects, European banks cut financing, and trade credits were squeezed.

But the Iranians were making uranium faster than the sanctions were making progress. As Mr. Bush realized that the sanctions he had pressed for were inadequate and his military options untenable, he turned to the C.I.A. His hope, several people involved in the program said, was to create some leverage against the Iranians, by setting back their nuclear program while sanctions continued and, more recently, oil prices dropped precipitously.

There were two specific objectives: to slow progress at Natanz and other known and suspected nuclear facilities, and keep the pressure on a little-known Iranian professor named Mohsen Fakrizadeh, a scientist described in classified portions of American intelligence reports as deeply involved in an effort to design a nuclear warhead for Iran.

Past American-led efforts aimed at Natanz had yielded little result. Several years ago, foreign intelligence services tinkered with individual power units that Iran bought in Turkey to drive its centrifuges, the floor-to-ceiling silvery tubes that spin at the speed of sound, enriching uranium for use in power stations or, with additional enrichment, nuclear weapons.

A number of centrifuges blew up, prompting public declarations of sabotage by Iranian officials. An engineer in Switzerland, who worked with the Pakistani nuclear black-marketeer Abdul Qadeer Khan, had been “turned” by American intelligence officials and helped them slip faulty technology into parts bought by the Iranians.

What Mr. Bush authorized, and informed a narrow group of Congressional leaders about, was a far broader effort, aimed at the entire industrial infrastructure that supports the Iranian nuclear program. Some of the efforts focused on ways to destabilize the centrifuges. The details are closely held, for obvious reasons, by American officials. One official, however, said, “It was not until the last year that they got really imaginative about what one could do to screw up the system.”

Then, he cautioned, “none of these are game-changers,” meaning that the efforts would not necessarily cripple the Iranian program. Others in the administration strongly disagree.

In the end, success or failure may come down to how much pressure can be brought to bear on Mr. Fakrizadeh, whom the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate identifies, in its classified sections, as the manager of Project 110 and Project 111. According to a presentation by the chief inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency, those were the names for two Iranian efforts that appeared to be dedicated to designing a warhead and making it work with an Iranian missile. Iranian officials say the projects are a fiction, made up by the United States.

Basically, Israel asked for permission to attack Iran. Israel wanted to fly over Iraqi airspace. President Bush said no citing the safety of American troops in Iraq. Also, Israel asked for bunker-buster bombs, which were also denied by President Bush.

President Bush, however, has decided to use the Central Intelligence Agency to disrupt Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The CIA most likely was able to turn the suppliers of centrifuges to Iran, thus the faulty equipment blew up once it was installed in Iranian nuclear plants. Also, President Bush used falling oil prices and created a European bank credit crunch against Iran, and was successful in persuading European banks to cut off financing to Iran.

Finally, the U.S. needs to take decisive action against Mr. Mohsen Fakrizadeh, who is a professor that is deeply involved in designing a nuclear warhead for Iran.

Back on September 25, 2008, Scoop This reported that Israel asked for the green light to attack Iran, and President Bush said no.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

Fahid Mohammed Ali Msalam, left, and Sheikh Ahmed Salem Swedan, right, both on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list, were reportedly killed in a drone attack in Pakistan on New Year’s day. They were wanted and indicted for the 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa. ABC News has confirmed this report according to U.S. officials and counter-terrorism sources.

ABC News

Two top al Qaeda officials are believed dead following a New Year’s Day drone attack in northern Pakistan, ABC News has confirmed. U.S. officials said Fahid Mohammed Ali Msalam and Sheikh Ahmed Salem Swedan, both on the FBI’s most wanted terrorists list, were killed in the CIA strike.

Msalam, who also went by the alias Usama al-Kini, and Swedan were both from Kenya and were indicted in the Aug. 7, 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and for conspiring to kill U.S. citizens.

“It’s amazing that it took 10 years to get these guys when they were on the FBI most wanted list all of this time,” said former national security advisor and ABC News consultant Richard Clarke.

U.S. counter-terrorism officials said that they believed the al Qaeda leaders were running operations for the terrorist group in Pakistan.

“Hopefully this provides some sense of justice for the 1998 bombings,” one official told ABC News.

The U.S. Department of State had offered rewards of up to $5 million for information leading to the capture or conviction of each of them.

John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer and ABC News consultant, described Msalam as “probably the single most prominent African member of al Qaeda” and a leader who known as a “logistics whiz.”

“He was very important in al Qaeda’s ability to coordinate and plan very complicated terrorist operations,” said Kiriakou, adding that the U.S. government had been looking for him “for a very long time.”

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said in statement late Thursday that Msalam was believed to be the operations chief for al Qaeda in Pakistan. While he could not confirm Msalam’s alleged involvement in the September 2008 attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, he said U.S. offficials reported Msalam was involved in attacks in Pakistan over the last year.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the matter.

Those are some ugly mofos.

Great job, CIA.

The FBI will send you a $10 million check tomorrow.

Hat Tip: InstaPundit

ABC News

Osama bin Laden is alive and “putting a lot of energy into his own security,” the director of the CIA, General Michael Hayden, said today.

He also claimed, without providing details, that the US intelligence community had disrupted an attack “that would have rivaled the destruction of 9/11.”

“America and its friends have taken the fight to the enemy,” Gen. Hayden said in a broad roundup of efforts to fight al Qaeda.

“Al Qaeda has suffered serious setbacks, but it is a determined, adaptive enemy unlike any our nation has ever faced,” he said.

Without directly referring to the CIA’s offensive blitz of unmanned missile attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan, the CIA boss said the US had successfully isolated the al Qaeda leader bin Laden, referring to him in the present tense.

“He appears to be largely isolated from the day-to-day operations of the organization he leads,” Hayden said in a speech delivered to the Atlantic Council in Washington.

Hayden said the failure to kill or capture bin Laden in the seven years since the 9/11 attacks, could be explained by the “rugged and inaccessible” terrain of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area and “the fact that bin Laden has worked to avoid detection.”

The CIA director provided no other details but it was the first public indication of the intelligence agency’s growing effort to narrow the focus of the search for bin Laden and other top terror leaders.

Hayden said the deaths of at least six top al Qaeda commanders in Pakistan had kept the terror group “off balance.”

The good news of success in Iraq against al Qaeda was measured against the terror group’s alarming growth in North and East Africa and Yemen, he said in his remarks.

Wow! U.S. intelligence interrupted a possible attack that could have rivaled 9/11’s destruction. Scoop This reported three days ago that Al Qaeda wanted to surpass 9/11 attacks.

It seems as if we know where Osama Bin Laden is, we just cannot get to him. However, the Predator-drone airplane attacks are working since at least six Al Qaeda terrorist leaders have been killed in the Pakistani mountain region.

Also, the end of the article states that Al Qaeda has strengthened in Africa. Scoop This reported that news seven days ago.

breitbart.com

US special forces have conducted about a dozen secret operations against Al-Qaeda and other Islamic militants in Pakistan, Syria and other countries under broad war-waging authority given them by the administration of President George W. Bush, The New York Times reported on its website.

Citing unnamed senior US officials, the newspaper said the authority was contained in a classified order signed by then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld in early 2004 with the approval of President Bush.

The order gave the military permission to attack Al-Qaeda and other hostile targets anywhere in the world, even in countries not at war with the United States, without any additional approval, the report said.

Under this authority, a Navy Seal team raided a suspected Islamic militant compound in the Bajaur region of Pakistan in 2006, The Times said, citing a former top CIA official.

What’s more, military planners were able to watch the entire attack “live” at CIA headquarters in Virginia through a video camera installed on a Predator aircraft that was sent to the area, the paper said.

Another raid was conducted by US special forces in Syria last October 26 in cooperation with the Central Intelligence Agency, the report said.

There is no information about the remaining secret military strikes, but officials made clear the list of targets did not include Iran, The Times pointed out.

The paper said, however, that US forces had carried out reconnaissance missions in Iran using other classified directives.

About a dozen additional operations have been canceled in the past four years because they were deemed too risky, too diplomatically explosive or relied on insufficient evidence, the paper said.

Before the 2004 order, the Pentagon needed to get approval for missions on a case-by-case basis, which could take days, the paper recalled.

But Rumsfeld was not satisfied with the status-quo and pressed hard for permission to use military power automatically outside the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to The Times.

The paper says the 2004 order identifies 15 to 20 countries, including Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and several other Persian Gulf states, where Al-Qaeda was believed to be operating or had sought sanctuary.

According to the New York Times, the name of the secret order is called the “Al Qaeda Network Exord”.

According to a senior administration official, the new authority was spelled out in a classified document called “Al Qaeda Network Exord,” or execute order, that streamlined the approval process for the military to act outside officially declared war zones. Where in the past the Pentagon needed to get approval for missions on a case-by-case basis, which could take days when there were only hours to act, the new order specified a way for Pentagon planners to get the green light for a mission far more quickly, the official said.

Hopefully, the secret raids were successful in killing and capturing Al Qaeda militants.

Countries on the list where secret raids took place include: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, plus other Gulf states. Secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran were also ordered and executed.

There were missions canceled as well, and some of these canceled missions were reported in the New York Times this past June. This was at the time when the New York Times was (rightfully) accused by the American public for revealing U.S. military and CIA missions in other countries. One of the canceled missions, reported by the New York Times, included the U.S. Navy SEALS and Army Rangers receiving secret orders to capture Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama Bin Laden’s top deputy, inside Pakistan.

Read the entire 3-page article - International Herald Tribune

cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Bush administration told the CIA in 2002 that its interrogators working abroad would not violate U.S. prohibitions against torture unless they “have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering,” according to a previously secret Justice Department memo released Thursday.

“Because specific intent is an element of the offense, the absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture,” Jay Bybee, then the assistant attorney general, wrote in the memo.

The memos were made public by the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained the three CIA-related documents under Freedom of Information Act requests. It called them “further evidence, if any were needed, that the Justice Department authorized the CIA to torture prisoners in its custody.”

The 18-page memo is heavily redacted, with 10 of its 18 pages completely blacked out and only a few paragraphs legible on the others. It was made public by the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained it and two other CIA-related documents under Freedom of Information Act requests.

The ACLU dubbing this report a “torture memo” is disingenuous. President Bush clearly stated to the CIA NOT to violate U.S. laws against torture, unless it’s vital to U.S. security (such as Osama Bin Laden’s current location or the next target of a terrorist attack).

Also, if the “torture memo” was any type of real evidence against the Bush Administration or the CIA for the tactics they use to safeguard Americans, it would not appear on the BLOG section of CNN. It would be front-page news.