Adfero Group HSPI

The past couple of days have been bloody as Iran and its surrogates and Israel fight a dirty war of retribution using the streets of innocent countries as fields of battle. Additionally, the Iranian Navy continues to threaten the world’s oil shipping lanes with rhetoric and by making furtive moves against the U.S. Navy. I think we are very close to the tipping point of war with Iran, and in my opinion, the more time we wait, the more dangerous they become.

Let’s start with a quiz. Who is the biggest spy in modern US history? If you said Aldridge Ames, or Robert Hanson, you’d be wrong. It was PFC Bradley Manning, of WikiLeaks fame, who despite being a very junior analyst in a tactical military HQ, gave away to his accomplice/handler Julian Asange more volume of stolen intel than anyone ever. Bottom line, cyber has changed the world of intel, and this is just one example.

I had the privilege of recently attending a two-day seminar on Intelligence Led Policing (ILP). Law enforcement officials and academics educated participants on the tenets of ILP and how to better equip officers to begin to use ILP in their police departments. Regardless of what it’s called – be it ILP, smart policing or predictive analytics – the best practice comes down to this: Police gather information, they evaluate and analyze that information, and they create a threat assessment. That information and resulting analysis drive the agency’s strategy and its actions.

Last week, Thai police arrested Atris Hussein, a suspected Hizballah operative, at the Bangkok airport, while another suspect escaped. Elsewhere in the capital, authorities seized a large cache of chemical explosives composed of ammonium nitrate and urea fertilizer. These discoveries of Hizballah bombmaking in Thailand are no surprise given the group’s long history of terrorist operations in Southeast Asia.

In the Second World War, the iconic phrase “loose lips sink ships” summed up the need for keeping information that could be useful to the enemy to only those who need it. It’s 70 years later and the social imperative for who needs information has diametrically changed. On any social networking site, there are opportunities for our enemies to identify us and use that information to plan attacks, both physical and cyber.

America’s intelligence community finds itself pressed to deal with the “Wild West” frontier of an ever-expanding cyber space. From Twitter to blogs to e-mail, the changes are coming hard and fast for governments, businesses and individuals worldwide. The challenges for the American policy maker and the intelligence community are simple and yet hugely complex. So far, by our own admission, we appear not to be passing the grade.

The recently identified “Duqu” worm has raised a whole new set of issues. Seemingly a variant of the Stuxnet malware that got so much of the world’s attention, everyone is trying to figure out what it “means.” Stuxnet opened a new window, and Duqu is only the first of many. The rub is, unlike Stuxnet, which targeted Iranian centrifuges, Duqu may be coming directly at you and your systems.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement that a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen and a commander in Iran’s Quds Force had been charged in New York for their alleged roles in a plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, represents a brazen escalation in Iran’s struggle for regional dominance. But Iran’s willingness to use brutal means to achieve its foreign-policy goals is nothing new: Since the creation of the Islamic Republic, U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly identified terrorism as one of the regime’s signature calling cards.

There has been a great deal of intellectual froth over the subject of the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Numerous editorials cover the entire intellectual waterfront. Most focus on the continuing sense of loss and grief we feel and ask us to never forget. There is a different group I have a problem with, those who say America “overreacted” to 9/11. I was in the Pentagon on 9/11, and so was my wife. I know in my heart as well as my head. Our leaders didn’t overreact; they did exactly what was needed.

What has been termed the “Arab Spring” could potentially pose the gravest challenge the United States has ever faced in the Middle East. Yet, when one tracks the reactions and positions of the US foreign policy establishment, one is left with a state of confusion and bewilderment. In this fourth part of The Real New Middle East Order series, we will resume the process of explaining the Real New Middle East Order focusing on the post-9/11 period.

The present, predominant view that Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) is confined to Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and High Yield Explosives (CBRNE) only is now passé. Many people do not even include the “E”. This is far too narrow a view! At least two other categories must be included in the pantheon of WMD. These are cyber weapons and economic warfare.

My recent post on Richard Clarke has generated a lot of interest in discussion. I was fortunate to get a response from the people behind the controversial interview with Mr. Clarke, including a link to a YouTube video of the interview. Despite the new materials they have shared, I still want to see the proof behind the charges that have been made.

September 11, 2000 began as just another day for the United States and much of the world. Ten years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, sometimes it seems like as a country, we have remembered the date but lost the lesson. Every day is common until the unthinkable occurs, and when it happens, collective efforts are what help us bounce back, in most cases stronger than before. Yet, America is more polarized today than it has been in a generation. We cannot control the threat, but we can control our reaction.

Fellow Security Debrief contributor Rich Cooper recently posted a piece about comments Richard Clarke made in an upcoming documentary, in which he suggests former CIA Director George Tenet and others led a cover-up to keep from the White House and FBI intelligence that could have stopped the 9/11 attacks. Not having heard Clarke’s statements on the forthcoming documentary, I cannot speak to the validity or falsehood of his claims. But I respectfully disagree with Cooper that such unproven statements constitute the end of a distinguished career, or at least, the end of the days of informed statements.

The homeland security and national security community is full of all types of personalities, and there are few personalities as polarizing as Richard Clarke. As a former senior official, he made quite the reputation for himself. Clarke has never shied away from making headlines or making waves. In an upcoming documentary, Clarke points a finger at former CIA Director George Tenet claiming the CIA conducted a cover-up to hide information about the 9/11 terrorist attacks from the White House and FBI. Whether he’s anxious to be on the media circuit in the pre-9/11 anniversary days or just anxious to burn any remaining bridges he has left to former colleagues, Clarke’s charges are slanderous without any proof.

For the past several years, DHS has quietly been testing various forms of advanced technology to identify, detect and deter criminal and/or terrorist acts before they happen. It appears DHS is trying to emulate the Tom Cruise movie “Minority Report.” Yet, several experts believe that relying on the current technology will create many false positives, targeting innocent people for additional questioning and slowing down security queues at busy airports. We don’t need to waste scarce government monetary resources trying to develop “thought crime software.”

As the 10-year mark since the attacks of September 11 approaches, the images I saw from my house across the Hudson River are still fresh in my mind. It was a defining moment for our country. The event took friends from us too soon, changed our ideas of safety, changed our understanding of the vulnerabilities in our systems, and had a profound impact on all of us, both as individuals and as a country. As we approach the 10-year commemorative, we pause to reflect the journey 10 years on.

Recent developments in terror threats against the United States are at odds with the latest counterterrorism line coming out of the White House. We need some new thinking.

I published a piece in Foreign Affairs about the terrorist organization, Hezbollah, and their new role in the Lebanese government. With Iran’s economy weakening, and Syria in political turmoil, Hezbollah has launched a crime wave to gather funds, something Western countries should leverage to hurt the organization’s legitimacy and support.

If you have been following the news reports concerning ATF’s Operation “Fast and Furious,” you are acutely aware that CBP agent Brian Terry was killed in the line of duty and some of the weapons found at the scene have been traced back to what is now known as “Operation Fast and Furious.” For various political reasons, including conspiracy theories, there has been and continues to be a feeding frenzy by reporters and commentators on both the left and the right. Everyone needs to take a step back, take a deep breath and look at the facts.