posted on May 1, 2007 09:39:25 AM new
Tuesday 05-01-2007 11:04am
I know that many people are wondering who will win the "American Idol" title. I know Lindsey Lohan and other smoking hot starlets entering and leaving rehab is really important but it looks as though the Bush lied mantra is falling apart. According to George Tenets book At the Center of the Storm there was a connectionhttp://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/596texms.asp?pg=2
between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Somehow the "Dixie Chicks" missed this in their intelligence analysis.
From the book; The intelligence told us that senior al-Qa'ida leaders and the Iraqis had discussed safe haven in Iraq. Most of the public discussion thus far has focused on Zarqawi's arrival in Baghdad under an assumed name in May of 2002, allegedly to receive medical treatment. Zarqawi, whom we termed a "senior associate and collaborator" of al-Qa'ida at the time, supervised camps in northern Iraq run by Ansar al-Islam (AI).
We believed that up to two hundred al-Qa'ida fighters began to relocate there in camps after the Afghan campaign began in the fall of 2001. The camps enhanced Zarqawi's reach beyond the Middle East. One of the camps run by AI, known as Kurmal, engaged in production and training in the use of low-level poisons such as cyanide. We had intelligence telling us that Zarqawi's men had tested these poisons on animals and, in at least one case, on one of their own associates. They laughed about how well it worked. Our efforts to track activities emanating from Kurmal resulted in the arrest of nearly one hundred Zarqawi operatives in Western Europe planning to use poisons in operations.
I know that George Tenet was the director of the CIA and he provided this information to the President as well as every member of congress before their vote to give President Bush authority to use force in Iraq but really; what does he know?
Cindy Sheehan, Bill Maher, Alec Baldwin, Barbara Streisand, Howard Dean and the rest of the Democrat party strategist know better.
Here’s more; Tenet explains the long history of collaboration between Iraq, Sudan, and al Qaeda:
During the mid-1990s, Sudanese Islamic Front Leader Hasan al-Turabi reportedly served as a conduit for Bin Ladin between Iraq and Iran. Turabi in this period was trying to become the centerpiece of the Sunni extremist world. He was hosting conferences and facilitating the travel of North Africans to Hezbollah training camps in the Bekaa Valley, in Lebanon. There was concern that common interests may have existed in this period between Iraq, Bin Ladin, and the Sudanese, particularly with regard to the production of chemical weapons. The reports we evaluated told us of high-level Iraqi intelligence service contacts with Bin Ladin himself, though we never knew the outcome of these contacts. [Emphasis added]
I wonder if the "Bush lied" mantra has been branded on the brains of so many people that it's too late to stop the Democrats plans for surrender. If not, we'll be fighting this war for a thousand years, in our own back yard.
C Baker It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.George S. Patton
posted on May 1, 2007 10:44:27 AM new
"in our own backyard"
Sadly...I believe that's what it's going to come down to....if the dem party gets control of the WH.
Look how long Israel has been experiencing the same thing....in their own backyard.
And on the 'Bush lied' mantra...those who still continue to spew it only show their own ignorance on the subject. There have been NO investigations, including the 9-11 commission report, who have EVER verified/stated any such nonsense.
But....their continued spewing of a lot of lies appears to have convinced the majority of America voters it HAD to be true.
Same as with this 'no connection' between Iraq and the AQ terrorists.
Yep, sadly it's the ignorant voters that will be the cause of us fighting this war 'in our own backyard'.
I wonder if that's going to make this MORE acceptable to those who don't want to fight it out NOW, in Iraq, with the AQ terrorists.
Maybe they'd like America to be just like what the Iraqi's are living in and through now.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by linda_K on May 1, 2007 10:47 AM ]
Proof positive that there are ignorant voters right here in our midst.
Those who refuse to believe any FACTS....those who live in total DENIAL of what the WORLD, THE UN and their own party have said.
Some will never 'get it'....until the terrorists are in their own town.
And then they'll probably kneel down and worship at their feet.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 1, 2007 11:23:17 AM new
And craw is further proof of the demo favorite tactic, Tell a lie often enough and people will come to believe it.
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.George S. Patton
posted on May 1, 2007 11:57:50 AM new
True. And even CC was repeating the same thing just a couple of days ago.
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I just don't understand how the surrender now liberals/dems can't see what the UK is going through with their radical muslim terrorism? Can't they see what 'fighting them on their own soil' is doing to the UK?
All I see is their total DENIAL that terrorists ARE active in FREE nations too.
And how they think that's going to be ANY different here, in America, in time.....I'll NEVER understand.
Show the terrorists we're SCARED and willing to surrender in one war....and they think??? they'll just leave us alone then?
I'll NEVER get it.
But rather than FIGHT our ENEMIES.....they're putting ALL their energy and efforts to fight AGAINST an admin. that IS fighting our enemies....rather than AGAINST those who wish to DESTROY us.
And then they wonder why **I** see that as an anti/un-American position.
DUH
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 3, 2007 07:26:41 AM newAnd craw is further proof of the demo favorite tactic, Tell a lie often enough and people will come to believe it.
Just like Cheney keeps saying there were ties between Iraq and Al-Qaeda when the president even has suggested there were no ties.
So Bear which is the bigger liar in your party - Bush, Cheney, the Pentagon?
And you have just proven your point that if the Republicans keep saying the same lie over and over there will be some that believe anything. I guess you can now add to more to Cheney's group of people that he fooled. You and Linda have fallen in line.
Mr Cheney told a US radio show: "They were present before we invaded Iraq."
Hours earlier, a declassified Pentagon report said information obtained from Iraq's former leader Saddam Hussein had confirmed they had no strong ties.
Its publication followed pressure from Democrats who suggest intelligence was twisted in the run-up to the war.
The belief that Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda were working together was an important element in the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq.
Critics have since suggested the administration "cherry-picked" from available intelligence to bolster that case.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on May 3, 2007 11:41:39 AM newAnd craw is further proof of the demo favorite tactic, Tell a lie often enough and people will come to believe it.
And it's just like logansdunce to try and change the subject when they are clearly caught in their lie.
.
.
.
If it's called common sense, why do so few Demomorons have it?
posted on May 3, 2007 11:48:46 AM new
It has been proven there WERE AQ terrorists in Iraq BEFORE we invaded.
That is a FACT, ld.
Now....as to how each side WORDS their position.
It's kind of like the dispute during the clinton admin - on what ones personal defination of the word "IS" is. LOL LOL
Same thing here with the word usage of "ties". And what that means to each person individually.
Is THAT more clear for you now, ld? LOL LOL LOL
I won't hold my breath....DISTORTIONS seem to be rampant in the liberal minds.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 3, 2007 01:07:20 PM newIt has been proven there WERE AQ terrorists in Iraq BEFORE we invaded. That is a FACT, ld.
You do not know how to READ and COMPREHEND what is posted. The argument is not whether or not there was terrorists in Iraq before 9/11, the FACTS ARE THERE WERE NO STRONG TIES between Saddam and AQl-Qaeda like Cheney keeps saying.
Do you know cliam to know more than the Pentagon. Which part of the statement below do not not understand:
Hours earlier, a declassified Pentagon report said information obtained from Iraq's former leader Saddam Hussein had confirmed they had no strong ties.
Same thing here with the word usage of "ties". And what that means to each person individually.
It all comes down to semnatics with you because you continually to deny the FACTS Linda. You choose what you want you want to believe only because you feel it is necessary to throw your support behind Bush 100%. Anything else would be unacceptable to you. If you look at ALL the evidence about the pre-war intelligence, any one with half a brain can plainly see that the Bush administration chose to believe only the so called facts that would support the justification to go war. (Sound familiar - just like you, Linda). Eveything else was dismissed as not possible.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on May 3, 2007 03:05:24 PM new
Like I've said ld, more than once, it's ALL in how it's worded.
But I'm just SURE that you can prove that the AQ leaders who WERE KNOWN to be in Iraq....weren't planning ANYTHING together.
I'll await that PROOF.
==============
And again, even the liberal site The New Republic doesn't see things the same way our RADICAL liberals here see things. Thank God for small favors.
========
Congressional leaders are illiterate on Iraq.
Knowledge Gap
by Lawrence F. Kaplan
Only at TNR Online | Post date 05.01.07
Maybe it was a slip of the tongue. But, when Nancy Pelosi confessed last year that she felt "sad" about President Bush's claims that Al Qaeda operates in Iraq, she seemed to be disputing what every American soldier in Iraq, every Al Qaeda operative, and anyone who reads a newspaper already knew to be true.
(When I questioned him about Pelosi's assertion, a U.S. officer in Ramadi responded, incredulously, that Al Qaeda had just held a parade in his sector.)
Perhaps the House speaker was alluding to the discredited claim that Al Qaeda [b]operated in Iraq before the war. Perhaps.
But the insinuation that Al Qaeda's depredations in Iraq might be something other than what they appear to be has become a staple of the congressional debate over Iraq.
Thus, to buttress his own case for withdrawal, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "We have to change course [away from Iraq] and turn our attention back to the war on Al Qaeda and their allies"--the clear message being that neither plays much of a role there.
What is going on here? There are two possibilities:
First, Reid and Pelosi could be purposefully minimizing the stakes in Iraq.
Or, second, they don't know what they're talking about.
My guess is some combination of the two.
Political maneuvering certainly contributes to the everyday pollution of Iraq discourse. But a lot of the pollution derives from legislators being functionally illiterate about the war over which Congress now intends to preside.
In this, of course, they're hardly alone. The Bush administration's wretched Iraq literacy has been well-chronicled. But, with Congress demanding a louder say in the management of the war, the same knowledge gap that plagued our arrival in Iraq looks like it will be revived just in time for our departure.
Whatever explains the literacy gap, this much at least is obvious:
Having been called into being by politicians on both sides of the aisle, the war in Iraq no longer bears a relation to anything they say. You don't need to cherry-pick quotes to prove the point:
Nearly every time a senator's mouth opens, something wrong comes out.
A typical example came a few weeks ago when Senator Joseph Biden took to the op-ed page of The Washington Post. In response to an equally surreal op-ed by Senator John McCain, Biden wrote,
The most damning evidence that the "results" McCain cites are illusory is the city of Tall Afar. Architects of the president's plan called it a model because in 2005, a surge of about 10,000 Americans and Iraqis pacified the city. Then we left Tall Afar, just as our troops soon will leave the Baghdad neighborhoods that they have calmed.
A minor detail perhaps, but "we" never left Tal Afar.
In 2006, the First Brigade of the First Armored Division replaced the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, actually boosting the number of Americans in the city.
Biden's analysis will also come as news for the 25th Infantry Division, whose soldiers were patrolling the streets of Tal Afar even as the senator claimed otherwise.
Not to single Biden out: Who can forget Representative John Murtha's suggestion that it would be a cinch for American forces to "redeploy" from Iraq to nearby Okinawa, 5,000 miles from Baghdad?
Or House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes not knowing whether Sunni or Shia populate the ranks of Al Qaeda?
U.S. officers in Iraq say that, during their briefings to visiting delegations, they routinely find themselves subjected to examples of congressional oversight along the lines of:
Is (the northern city of) Mosul east or west of Baghdad?
What's the difference between a brigade and battalion?
As to why some of Capitol Hill's would-be war managers can't name more than a single Iraqi province, officers and journalists offer all kinds of theories.
A common explanation points to the shrinking percentage of veterans in Congress, which amounts to a paltry fraction of the World War II cohort that legislated the war in Vietnam (and, incidentally, did a lousy job). But the ranks of the confused feature enough veterans, most notably Reid and Murtha, to disprove the theory.
Another blames the reluctance of delegations to venture beyond the Green Zone or the bases they visit--and, then, their reluctance to be dazed by the sheer unfamiliarity of it all.
"I'll never forget the helicopters coming in at night delivering wounded to the hospital in the Green Zone," the Iraq Study Group's Leon Panetta marveled to The Washington Post. "We've all seen 'M.A.S.H.,' and yet it was happening right there."
Which brings us to yet another explanation for the literacy gap:
Today's wise men don't exactly rise to the level of their predecessors. In place of William Bundy and Walt Rostow, we have Panetta and Vernon Jordan; as the custodian of William Fulbright's legacy, we have Harry Reid.
The former hungered for the data and lacuna of war; the latter seem frankly uninterested.
More than that, congressional leaders often seem loath even to hear about events on the ground.
During General Petraeus's visit to Washington last week, for example, House Democrats at first denied the Iraq commander an opportunity to brief them, citing "scheduling conflicts." And, when he finally did brief Congress, the evidence of progress that Petraeus was expected to present was dismissed before he even offered it.
"He's the commander," Senator Carl Levin reasoned. "We always know that commanders are optimistic about their policies."
The joke here, of course, is that Levin and his colleagues were not so long ago denouncing the Bush administration--and rightly so--for the sin of disparaging military expertise.
True, civilians have no obligation to heed that expertise.
They do, however, have an obligation to be informed or, at a minimum, to listen.
But, then, expertise may be beside the point.
Obliviousness, after all, has its uses. It comforts the sensibilities of politicians whose varying levels of awareness allow them to favor certain facts and not others.
Obliviousness testifies to the virtue and good intentions of members of Congress who, in truth, couldn't care less what comes next in Iraq. It invites Americans to indulge in the conceit that what happens in Washington obviates the need to think seriously about what happens in Baghdad.
Most of all, illiteracy makes for good politics.
There is the conviction, to paraphrase McCain, that winning a war takes precedence over winning an election.
But it isn't so clear that this conviction guides a partisan brawl in which the Senate majority leader can gush, "We're going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war."
In such an environment, the subordination of facts to politics inform matters small and large, from the relatively trivial question of whether U.S. troops still operate in Tal Afar to enormous questions regarding the future of the U.S. enterprise in Iraq.
These big questions, of course, are where literacy matters most--and where you won't find a trace of it.
Consider a speech last week by Reid, who neatly summarized the strategic logic behind legislation mandating a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. Speaking of "where things stand on the ground in Iraq," Reid insisted that the role of U.S. forces is to train Iraqi security forces, protect U.S. troops, and conduct targeted counterterrorism operations.
This transitions our mission to one that is aligned with U.S. strategic interests, while at the same time reducing our combat footprint. U.S. troops should not be interjecting themselves between warring factions, kicking down doors, trying to sort Shia from Sunni, friend from foe.
There are several problems with this formulation, not the least of which is that, far from being a "new strategy," it mirrors exactly the approach that was tested and found wanting when Donald Rumsfeld was presiding over the war and "reducing our combat footprint" was a raison d'être. Chaos, not stability, was the result.
Still, the idea dovetails neatly with Reid's insistence that it is "the specter of U.S. occupation [that] gives fuel to the insurgency"--and that, absent this specter, the violence will magically subside. But just the reverse has been true.
Falluja and Tal Afar in 2004, Ramadi in 2005, Western Baghdad in 2006--these places became charnel houses when U.S. forces pulled back. The suggestion, moreover, that American forces ought to confine themselves to "targeted counter-terror operations" rather than trying to sort "friend from foe" misunderstands the most basic tenets of counterinsurgency, ignores the lessons of the past four years, and purposefully slights the testimony of Petraeus and his fellow experts.
Living among the population and sorting "friend from foe" is precisely how the military generates intelligence tips, which, in turn, provide the key to "targeted counter-terror operations."
It can't be done from Kuwait, and it can't be done from Okinawa.
Though Reid has no use for the Bush administration's military "surge," he does propose a "surge in diplomacy," in line with the cliché that the war has no military solution.
As The Washington Post's David Broder has pointed out, "Instead of reinforcing the important proposition ... that a military strategy for Iraq is necessary but not sufficient to solve the myriad political problems of that country, Reid has mistakenly argued that the military effort is lost but a diplomatic-political strategy can succeed."
Nor is this the only reason to doubt the reasoning behind Reid's "diplomatic surge." To begin with, even if they were inclined to assist the American cause in Iraq, neither Iran nor Syria have much, if any, sway over Al Qaeda.
Moreover, the violence in Iraq has its own, wholly internal logic. In fact, the one brand of diplomacy that truly matters in Iraq--the U.S. Army's tribal diplomacy, which accounts for the recent turn-around in Anbar Province--is precisely the mission that Reid's demand for a skeleton force would shut down.
Where all this leads is clear. Piece together a string of demonstrably false "facts on the ground" from a suitably safe remove, and you're left with a scenario where we can walk away from Iraq without condition and regardless of consequence. [b]You don't need to watch terrified Iraqis pleading for American forces to stay put in their neighborhoods.
You don't need to read the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which anticipates that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal will end in catastrophe.
Why, in the serene conviction that things are the other way around, you don't even need to read at all.
Chances are, your congressman doesn't either.
================
Lawrence F. Kaplan is a senior editor at The New Republic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on May 3, 2007 03:41 PM ]
posted on May 3, 2007 08:56:08 PM newBut I'm just SURE that you can prove that the AQ leaders who WERE KNOWN to be in Iraq....weren't planning ANYTHING together.
I'll await that PROOF.
While you await my proof, I will be waiting for your so-called beyond a reasonable doubt proof that they did PLAN something.
I seriously doubt you can find hard evidence from an unabaiased source that Saddam and Al-Qaeda ever planned anything.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
The former CIA chief is earning big money from corporations profiting off the war -- a fact not mentioned in his combative new book or heard on his publicity blitz.
By Tim Shorrock
May. 07, 2007 | If you go by the book jacket of his new memoir, "At the Center of the Storm," George Tenet is enjoying the life of a retired government servant teaching at Georgetown University, where he was appointed to the faculty in 2004. The former CIA director played up the academic image when he kicked off the recent media blitz for his new book by doing an interview for CBS's "60 Minutes" from his spacious, book-lined office at the university. His academic salary, and the reported $4 million advance he received from publisher HarperCollins, should provide the former CIA director with more than enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his days and leave a substantial fortune to his children.
But those monies are hardly Tenet's entire income. While the swirl of publicity around his book has focused on his long debated role in allowing flawed intelligence to launch the war in Iraq, nobody is talking about his lucrative connection to that conflict ever since he resigned from the CIA in June 2004. In fact, Tenet has been earning substantial income by working for corporations that provide the U.S. government with technology, equipment and personnel used for the war in Iraq as well as the broader war on terror.
When Tenet hit the talk-show circuit last week to defend his stewardship of the CIA and his role in the run-up to the war, he did not mention that he is a director and advisor to four corporations that earn millions of dollars in revenue from contracts with U.S. intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense. Nor is it ever mentioned in his book. But according to public records, Tenet has received at least $2.3 million from those corporations in stock and other compensation. Meanwhile, one of the CIA's largest contractors gave Tenet access to a highly secured room where he could work on classified material for his book.
Tenet sits on the board of directors of L-1 Identity Solutions, a major supplier of biometric identification software used by the U.S. to monitor terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company recently acquired two of the CIA's hottest contractors for its growing intelligence outsourcing business. At the Analysis Corp. (TAC), a government http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/05/07/tenet_money/print.htmlcontractor run by one of Tenet's closest former advisors at the CIA, Tenet is a member of an advisory board that is helping TAC expand its thriving business designing the problematic terrorist watch lists used by the National Counterterrorism Center and the State Department.
Tenet is also a director of Guidance Software, which makes forensic software used by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence to search computer hard drives and laptops for evidence used in the prosecution and tracking of suspected terrorists. And Tenet is the only American director on the board of QinetiQ, the British defense research firm that was privatized in 2003 and was, until recently, controlled by the Carlyle Group, the powerful Washington-based private equity fund. Fueled with Carlyle money, QinetiQ acquired four U.S. companies in recent years, including an intelligence contractor, Analex Inc.
By joining these companies, Tenet is following in the footsteps of thousands of other former intelligence officers who have left the CIA and other agencies and returned as contractors, often making two or three times what they made in their former jobs. Based on reporting I've done for an upcoming book, contractors are responsible for at least half of the estimated $48 billion a year the government now spends on intelligence. But exactly how much money will remain unknown: Four days before Tenet's book was published, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence decided not to release the results of a yearlong study of intelligence contracting, because disclosure of the figure, a DNI official told the New York Times, could damage national security.
That may be a real break for Tenet. Under his watch, according to former CIA officials and contractors I've interviewed, up to 60 percent of the CIA workforce has been outsourced. A spokesman for the CIA told me last week that that figure "is way off the mark," but wouldn't provide the actual figure, which he said is classified. But publication of that number could prove embarrassing to Tenet, particularly in light of his own deep involvement in the privatization of U.S. intelligence.
Despite making himself available for plenty of airtime of late, Tenet was not available for an interview with Salon, said Tina Andreadis, his publicist at HarperCollins. She referred me to Bill Harlow, Tenet's co-author and his former director of public affairs at the CIA, who said Tenet's work on corporate boards "is all a matter of public record."
Tenet's ties with contractors were underscored last week in a dispute between two groups of former CIA officials over Tenet's legacy. On April 28, six former intelligence officers wrote to Tenet, saying he shared culpability with President Bush and Vice President Cheney for "the debacle in Iraq," and suggesting he donate half the royalties from his book to Iraq war veterans and their families. All of the signatories had severed their ties to U.S. intelligence, although three of them, Phil Giraldi, Larry Johnson and Vince Cannistraro, work as consultants for news organizations, corporations and government agencies outside of intelligence.
A few days later, six recently retired officers responded. They called the first letter a "bitter, inaccurate and misleading attack" on Tenet and pointed out that it was drafted by officers who "had not served in the Agency for years." Tenet, his supporters said, "literally led the nation's counterterrorism fight." And three of its six signatories were directly involved in that fight -- as contractors. They included John Brennan of the Analysis Corp.; Cofer Black, Tenet's former counterterrorism director and vice chairman of Blackwater, the private military contractor; and Robert Richer, the former deputy director of the CIA's clandestine services. Richer recently left Blackwater to become the CEO of Total Intelligence, a new company formed with Black and other ex-CIA officials to provide intelligence services to corporations and government agencies.
The company with the closest ties to the CIA -- and the biggest potential financial payoff for Tenet -- is L-1 Identity Solutions, the nation's biggest player in biometric identification. L-1's software, which can store millions of ID records based on fingerprints and eye and facial characteristics, helps the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence "in the fight against terrorism by providing technology for insurgent registration [and] combatant identification," the company says. L-1 technology is also employed by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security for U.S. passports, visas, drivers' licenses and transportation worker ID cards. L-1 clearly hired Tenet for the business he could secure at the CIA. "We want the board to contribute in a meaningful way to the success of the company," CEO Bob LaPenta told analysts during an earnings conference call last year. "You know, we're interested in the CIA, and we have George Tenet."
Last fall, as part of its push into intelligence outsourcing, L-1 acquired SpecTal, a Reston, Va., intelligence contractor with at least 300 employees with security clearances, gaining instant access to several agencies where SpecTal had contracts, including the CIA, the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Just recently, L-1 picked up another intelligence contractor, Advanced Concepts Inc., where 80 percent of the 300 employees have top-secret clearances. Tenet, according to company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, was provided with 80,000 shares of L-1 stock when the company acquired Viisage, where Tenet was also a director. At the company's recent price of $19.79, those shares are worth more than $1.5 million. According to an SEC filing on April 6, in 2006 Tenet received director's compensation of $129,337, and $332,030 worth of stock. "George has amazing experience," said Doni Fordyce, L-1's executive vice president for communications. "We're in the security business, right? So he's a tremendous asset." In 2006, L-1 earned $164.4 million, up from $66.2 million in 2005.
Last October, Tenet continued to profit from the defense industry by joining the board of directors of QinetiQ Group PLC. QinetiQ, whose name draws from the fictional British spook who made the gadgets in the James Bond movies, moved aggressively into the U.S. market in 2003 after a majority of its voting stock was acquired by the Carlyle Group. (Carlyle sold off its remaining shares in February, making a $470 million profit on its original investment.)
Here, too, Tenet is profiting from involvement in Iraq and the broader war on terror. QinetiQ's recent acquisitions in the U.S. market include defense contractor Foster Miller Inc., which makes the so-called TALON robots used by U.S. forces in Iraq to neutralize IEDs. QinetiQ also controls Analex Corp., an information technology and engineering company that earns 70 percent of its revenue from the Pentagon. Among the clients listed on Analex's Web site are the National Reconnaissance Office, which manages the nation's spy satellites, and the Pentagon's Counter-Intelligence Field Activity office -- a secretive agency that has been criticized by members of Congress for collecting intelligence on American antiwar activists. According to QinetiQ's Annual Report and Accounts for 2006, non-executive directors like Tenet are paid a minimum of $70,000, with some paid up to more than a quarter-million dollars.
At QinetiQ, Tenet is working with Duane P. Andrews, a former assistant secretary of defense who is QinetiQ's CEO for North America. Prior to coming to QinetiQ, Andrews served for 13 years as a senior executive with Science Applications International Corp. SAIC is one of the largest U.S. intelligence contractors and a major provider of private sector analysts to both the CIA and the National Security Agency. Vanity Fair recently referred to it as a "shadow government."
There is an intriguing detail about SAIC buried in Tenet's acknowledgements in his new book: "Arnold Punaro of SAIC," he writes, "graciously provided me with a secure workspace to review and work with classified material." Punaro is identified on the SAIC Web site as the company's executive vice president for government affairs, communications and support operations, as well as general manager of its Washington operations.
Getting use of such a secure room is no small feat. In the intelligence business, such rooms are known as sensitive, compartmented information facilities, or SCIFs. To prevent eavesdroppers from picking up top-secret conversations, a typical SCIF has film on the windows, walls fitted with soundproof steel plates and white-noise makers embedded in the ceiling. Punaro must have had approval from SAIC and the CIA to allow Tenet such access. Harlow, Tenet's co-author, explained to Salon that Tenet could have used office space at the CIA to work on the book, but that he "believed it would be better not to be producing his memoirs at a government facility." It was "a matter of convenience" to use the room at SAIC, Harlow said.
In 2006, shortly after he joined TAC's advisory board, Tenet joined the board of directors of Guidance Software. One of Guidance's products, EnCase, has been used extensively by U.S. law enforcement, intelligence and military agencies to collect evidence in criminal and counterterrorism cases, including the prosecution of Enron executives and the British "shoe bomber," Richard Reid. Tenet's "years of experience fighting terrorism and extensive knowledge of potential and existing threats will expand Guidance's unparalleled expertise in computer forensics and network investigations," the company noted in a press release. According to SEC records, Tenet earned $58,112 in 2006 as a director and holds 9,700 shares of company stock. At its recent price of $12.85 per share, that would make Tenet's stock worth more than $124,000.
In his work at the Analysis Corp., Tenet has been reunited with John O. Brennan, his former chief of staff and, according to the book, one of his "closest advisers." Brennan spent 25 years in the CIA, and was deputy executive director at the time of the 9/11 attacks. In 2003, he was dispatched by Tenet to run the CIA's Terrorist Threat Integration Center. It eventually morphed into the U.S. government's National Counterterrorism Center, which Brennan ran from December 2004 to August 2005, when he retired from government. (The center, which integrates intelligence from various agencies, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, is staffed primarily by contractors.) In November 2005, Brennan joined TAC, which has contracts with the State Department, Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Brennan, the company's CEO, also declined a request from Salon for comment for this report.
In a statement TAC released when Tenet was appointed to that company's board last year, Tenet said he would help the company "address critical needs as government and industry work together to fight terrorism." Serving with Tenet on the advisory board there are Alan Wade, Tenet's former chief information officer, and John P. Young, a former CIA senior analyst. TAC is a privately held company and no public information is available regarding compensation for its board members. But between the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and 2006, the company's income quintupled, from less than $5 million in 2001 to $24 million in 2006.
posted on May 8, 2007 05:36:46 PM new
That's too funny.
Your tim appears to be nothing more than a liberal whiner.
Like these companies should hire someone who doesn't have the knowledge, contacts, etc. that Tenet does.
LOL
What's the big deal about all this? Many who leave gov. jobs take on other jobs in their fields of expertise.
This is no different.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 8, 2007 07:08:42 PM new
Thanks, Helen. That was a well-researched article and very interesting to read.
Personally I find it disgusting that all these men who have their fingers in this war are also the ones making huge profits and they're doing it on the blood and guts and very lives of the young people being sent off to fight it.
I'm wondering if they have any interest in looking for bin Laden anymore.
posted on May 8, 2007 08:03:51 PM new
The Ansar Al' Islam link, tenuous at best, has been debunked and explained over and over again. Nothing to see here. Move along....
Are YOU a Bunghole?