Category Archives: al Qaida al Nusra Boko Haram

Private Contractors Left without Escape Plan in Afghanistan

Posted on by

The next Benghazi? State Department leaves contractors in Afghanistan without escape plan

Circa: The concerns are heightened by the fact that many of those civilians doing the security and nation-building work of the U.S. government hold sensitive security clearances, making them an attractive target for the enemy.

And the situation could become even more precarious after the U.S. military in Afghanistan draws down to just 8,400 troops by year’s end.

“It’s not just a political nightmare for somebody, it’s people’s lives at stake,” said Kevin Ofchus, head of Georgia-based firm Host Nations Perspectives Southwest Asia (HNPSWA) that has security contracts in Afghanistan.

The current situation

“The State Department says there’s a lack of infrastructure to support an emergency response after we’ve spent 15 years and billions of dollars on infrastructure,” he added.

Ofchus’s company is a member of the State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Committee, and it chairs the Crisis Management Advisory Subcommittee in Kabul, which advises companies about security working in hot-zones.

And his sentiments are widely shared by a dozen other federal contractors in theater interviewed by Circa, some of whom would only talk on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisal from Washington.

“I was told ‘don’t bother going to Kabul, grab your weapon and fight your way through until you can reach an aircraft’ or whatever,” said one contractor working in Afghanistan, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“I don’t think any of us count on State Department to have their shit together. I’ve never seen, heard or prepared for any evacuation plan.”

— -Anonymous contractor

So is there a plan?

State Department officials told Circa that there is an evacuation plan, but they could not release any details about it because it was classified.

Mike Warren, a security director for the USAID-backed Mining Investment and Development for Afghanistan Sustainability Project, known as MIDAS, says he believes State has a very remedial plan but it fails on almost every security protocol.

“The Department of State, in close coordination with the Department of Defense, has a crisis response plan for Afghanistan that encompasses civilians and contractors. U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, in close coordination with the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, maintains a classified Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations plan to support the chief of mission,” the department wrote in an email.

“I know the U.S. Embassy was working on a plan, but it’s a shell of what they need,” Warren said in a phone interview from Kabul. “There appears to be a lack of coordinated effort between the U.S. Embassy and the American companies and personnel here in Afghanistan.”

“I know the U.S. Embassy was working on a plan, but it’s a shell of what they need.”

— Mike Warren, security director for MIDAS

Circa obtained a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the State Department and Department of Defense governing the protection and evacuation of U.S. citizens and nationals from threatened areas overseas. The document specifically outlines the duties and requirements of the various agencies.

The Secretary of State “will prepare the plans for the protection and evacuation of all U.S. citizens and nationals and designated other persons abroad, including the Department of Defense (non-combatants).” More terrifying details here from Circa.

*****

In part: Now, as President Obama prepares to hand off combat operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere, to his successor, he’s also bequeathing a way of war that relies on large numbers of guns-for-hire while, at least formally, restricting the number of American “troops” sent overseas. Since 2009, the ratio of contractors to troops in war zones has increased from 1 to 1 to about 3 to 1.

Private military contractors perform tasks once thought to be inherently governmental, such as raising foreign armies, conducting intelligence analysis and trigger-pulling. During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, they constituted about 15 percent of all contractors. But don’t let the numbers fool you. Their failures have an outsized impact on U.S. strategy. When a squad of Blackwater contractors killed 17 civilians at a Bagdad traffic circle in 2007, it provoked a firestorm in Iraq and at home, marking one of the nadirs of that war.

Contractors also encourage mission creep, because contractors don’t count as “boots on the ground.” Congress does not consider them to be troops, and therefore contractors do not count again troop-level caps in places like Iraq. The U.S. government does not track contractor numbers in war zones. As a result, the government can put more people on the ground than it reports to the American people, encouraging mission creep and rendering contractors virtually invisible.

For decades now, the centrality of contracting in American warfare—both on the battlefield and in support of those on the battlefield—has been growing. During World War II, about 10 percent of America’s armed forces were contracted. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that proportion leapt to 50 percent. This big number signals a disturbing trend: the United States has developed a dependency on the private sector to wage war, a strategic vulnerability. Today, America can no longer go to war without the private sector. More here from DefenseOne.

That $1.3 Billion to Iran was Paid, How? Classified…

Posted on by

How was it delivered? Classified. How do you put $1.3 billion on pallets and shrink wrap it and get it to Iran? Classified. We thought the $400 million was for ransom but now it appears it was ALL of it, $1.7 billion and Iran along with Russia coupled with the Iranian militia and Hezbollah will enjoy it all.

Related reading: United States is Buying Nuclear Material from Iran

US paid Iran $1.3 billion in cash to settle old dispute

NYP: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s $400 million payoff to Iran was followed by a second transfer of $1.3 billion, it was reported Tuesday.

President Obama took considerable flak for the first payment, which coincided with the release in January of four Americans being held by Tehran.

Critics charged that the move smacked of ransom, which the US has pledged never to pay.

The $400 million was the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement with Iran to resolve a dispute over a failed arms deal signed before the 1979 fall of the shah.

But there was no word about what happened to the rest of the debt — $1.3 billion.

On Tuesday, The Weekly Standard reported that the second payment was also quietly delivered.

Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs Julia Frifield sent a letter to Congress on March 17, 2016, stating, “Iran received the balance of $400 million in the Trust Fund as well as roughly $1.3 billion representing a compromise on the interest,” according to the magazine.

This payment was likely made in cash, since the US has no banking relationship with Tehran.

Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran in an unmarked cargo plane to cover the first $400 million.

“The reason that we had to give them cash is precisely because we are so strict in maintaining sanctions — and we don’t have a banking relationship with Iran — that we couldn’t send them a check,” Obama said in an Aug. 4 press conference.

Although he insisted there was no connection to the hostages, one of them described waiting for “another plane” to land before being freed from Iran.

“I just remember the night at the airport sitting for hours and hours there, and I asked police, ‘Why are you not letting us go?’” former hostage Pastor Saeed Abedini told Fox Business.

“He said, ‘We are waiting for another plane, so if that plane doesn’t come, we never let [you] go.’”

In part from Reuters:

The White House announced on Jan. 17, a day after the prisoner exchange, it was releasing $400 million in funds frozen since 1981, plus $1.3 billion in interest owed to Iran. The remaining interest has since been fully paid from the U.S. Treasury-administered Judgment Fund, according to a U.S. official.

The funds were part of a trust fund Iran used before its 1979 Islamic Revolution to buy U.S. military equipment that was tied up for decades in litigation at the tribunal.

The Treasury Judgment Fund?

The Judgment Fund was established to pay court judgments and Justice Department compromise settlements of actual or imminent lawsuits against the government.

It is administered by the Judgment Fund Branch, which is a part of the United States Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The Judgment Fund Internet Claims System (JFICS) is the application used to process all Judgment Fund claims.

The Judgment Fund is a permanent, indefinite appropriation available to pay judicially and administratively ordered monetary awards against the United States. The Judgment Fund is also available to pay amounts owed under compromise agreements negotiated by the U.S. Department of Justice in settlement of claims arising under actual or imminent litigation, if a judgment on the merits would be payable from the Judgment Fund. The statutory authority for the Judgment Fund is 31 U.S.C. 1304.

If funds for paying an award are otherwise provided for in the appropriations of the defendant agency, the Judgment Fund may not pay an award. A federal agency may request that payment of an award be made on its behalf from the Judgment Fund only in those instances where funds are not legally available to pay the award from the agency’s own appropriations.

Amounts paid vary significantly from year-to-year. Federal agencies are not required to reimburse the Judgment Fund except when cases are filed under the Contract Disputes Act (CDA) or the No FEAR Act (Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act).

 

Mass Transfer out of Gitmo: Detainees to UAE

Posted on by

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – Fifteen prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been released to the United Arab Emirates in the single largest transfer of detainees during the Obama administration.

The release of 12 Yemeni nationals and three Afghans comes amid a renewed push to whittle down the number of detainees held at the U.S. base in Cuba. The men have been cleared for transfer by U.S. government departments and agencies.

The Pentagon says 61 detainees remain at Guantanamo.

President Barack Obama has been seeking to close the detention center amid opposition from Congress.

Naureen Shah is Amnesty International USA’s director of national security and human rights. She says Monday’s transfers are a “powerful sign that President Obama is serious about closing Guantanamo before he leaves office.”

**** Photo from Miami Herald, click here for more details.

ABC: The latest batch of released prisoners had mostly been held without charge for some 14 years at Guantanamo. They were cleared for release by the Periodic Review Board, comprised of representatives from six U.S. government agencies.

The UAE successfully resettled five detainees transferred there last year, according to the Pentagon.

Lee Wolosky, the State Department’s special envoy for Guantanamo’s closure, said the U.S. was grateful to the United Arab Emirates for accepting the latest group of 15 men and helping pave the way for the detention center’s closure.

“The continued operation of the detention facility weakens our national security by draining resources, damaging our relationships with key allies and partners, and emboldening violent extremists,” Wolosky said.

Obama has been seeking to close the detention center amid opposition from Congress, which has prohibited transferring detainees to the U.S. for any reason. The administration has been working with other countries to resettle detainees who have been cleared for transfer.

According to Amnesty, one of the Afghans released to the UAE alleged that he was “tortured and subjected to other cruel treatment” while in U.S. military custody. The man, identified only as Obaidullah, was captured by U.S. special forces in July 2002 and allegedly admitted to acquiring and planting anti-tank mines to target U.S. and other coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan.

In clearing him for transfer, the review board said he hasn’t expressed any anti-U.S. sentiment or intent to re-engage in militant activities. However, a Pentagon detainee profile also said he provided little information and they had little “insight into his current mindset.”

One of the Yemeni men sent to the UAE was identified as Zahir Umar Hamis bin Hamdun, who traveled to Afghanistan in 1999 and later apparently acted as a weapons and explosives trainer.

A Pentagon profile from September 2015 said he expressed dislike of the U.S., which they identified as “an emotion that probably is motivated more by frustration over his continuing detention than by a commitment to global jihad.”

***** One such detainee profile:

Detainee to UAE

CENTCOM Reports Altered to Follow Obama’s Lead

Posted on by

Not all intelligence professionals complied with the reports declaring in Congressional testimony conditions that were dramatically worse than what Barack Obama was telling the American people. The consequence of the top CENTCOM staff altering and filtering factual summaries can never be fully measured however, immediately after General Mattis left CENTCOM, the process was changed and reporting began to go south. When General Austin replaced Mattis, collaboration and use of all intelligence tools were amended. Timing is important such that the fall of Ramadi and Fallujah happened but notably within days of Obama making the declaration that Islamic State was the JV team, Mosul fell.

The United States officially left Iraq in 2011, there were an estimated 700 terror fighters that remained, within several months the number grew to several thousand while the top count going into 2014 it was 31,000. Today, Islamic State has functional operating cells in 24 countries. Attention to al Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Taliban and other terror factions has been eliminated from the political lexicon.

The Congressional 17 page report is.

House probe: Central Command reports skewed intel on ISIS fight

FNC: Intelligence reports produced by U.S. Central Command that tracked the Islamic State’s 2014-15 rise in Iraq and Syria were skewed to present a rosier picture of the situation on the ground, according to a bombshell report released Thursday by a House Republican task force.

The task force investigated a Defense Department whistleblower’s allegations that higher-ups manipulated analysts’ findings to make the campaign against ISIS appear more successful to the American public.

The report concluded that intelligence reports from Central Command were, in fact, “inconsistent with the judgments of many senior, career analysts.”

Further, the report found, “these products also consistently described U.S. actions in a more positive light than other assessments from the [intelligence community] and were typically more optimistic than actual events warranted.”

Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., who was involved in the House report, said Thursday the data was clearly “manipulated.”

“They wanted to tell a story that ISIS was the JV, that we had Al Qaeda on the run,” he told Fox News. “This is incredibly dangerous. We haven’t seen this kind of manipulation of intelligence … in an awfully long time.”

It is unclear how high up the reports in question went, though the task force found “many” Central Command press releases, statements and testimonies were “significantly more positive than actual events” as well.

The joint task force report blamed “structural and management changes” at the CENTCOM Intelligence Directorate starting in mid-2014 for the intelligence products. Surveys provided to the task force, according to the report, showed 40 percent of analysts later claimed they “had experienced an attempt to distort or suppress intelligence.”

The report also said senior leaders relied on details from coalition forces rather than “more objective and documented intelligence reporting,” using this as a rationale to change reports – sometimes “in a more optimistic direction.”

The Defense Department inspector general is now taking a close look at the findings – and looking for more possible whistle-blowers. The joint task force described its assessment released Thursday as an “initial report” and continues to investigate.

“The facts on the ground didn’t match what the intelligence was saying out of the United States Central Command,” Pompeo said.

The Pentagon did not comment in depth on the report, citing the ongoing IG investigation.

However, spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Patrick L. Evans said the intelligence community assessments are “based on multifaceted data related to the current security environment.”

“Experts sometimes disagree on the interpretation of complex data, and the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense welcome healthy dialogue on these vital national security topics,” he said in a statement.

When the allegations initially surfaced last year, the White House insisted no one in the administration pressured anyone, and suggested blame may rest with the military.

Meanwhile there is Rosneft, Deeper Russian Terror

Posted on by

Primer: From January 2015

Foreign Firm Funding U.S. Green Groups Tied to State-Owned Russian Oil Company

Executives at a Bermudan firm funneling money to U.S. environmentalists run investment funds with Russian tycoons, a shadowy Bermudan company that has funneled tens of millions of dollars to anti-fracking environmentalist groups in the United States is run by executives with deep ties to Russian oil interests and offshore money laundering schemes involving members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. One of those executives, Nicholas Hoskins, is a director at a hedge fund management firm that has invested heavily in Russian oil and gas. He is also senior counsel at the Bermudan law firm Wakefield Quin and the vice president of a London-based investment firm whose president until recently chaired the board of the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft.In addition to those roles, Hoskins is a director at a company called Klein Ltd. No one knows where that firm’s money comes from. Its only publicly documented activities have been transfers of $23 million to U.S. environmentalist groups that push policies that would hamstring surging American oil and gas production, which has hurt Russia’s energy-reliant economy.

****

Why is this important? Arms trafficking….there is always a darker side including people. Anyone remember the name Viktor Bout?

 Photo: CNN

*****

Notorious Russian arms dealer ‘refused US offer for lighter sentence’

FITSANAKIS: The wife of Viktor Bout, the imprisoned Russian arms dealer dubbed ‘the merchant of death’, said he rejected an offer by his American captors who asked him to testify against a senior Russian government official. Born in Soviet Tajikistan, Bout was a former translator for the Soviet military. After the end of the Cold War, he set up several low-profile international air transport companies and used them to transfer large shipments of weapons that fueled wars in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. He made millions in the process and acquired international notoriety, which inspired the Hollywood blockbuster Lord of War. But his business ventures ceased in 2008, when he was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, with the cooperation of the Royal Thai Police. He was eventually extradited to the US and given a 25-year prison term for supplying weapons to the Afghan Taliban, and for trying to sell arms to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Bout is currently serving his sentence at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center in New York.

In a newspaper interview on Tuesday, Bout’s wife, Alla Bout, said her husband could have gotten away with a considerably lighter sentence had he agreed to testify against a senior Russian government official. Speaking to Moscow-based daily Izvestia, Alla Bout said her husband had been approached by American authorities after being extradited to the United States from Thailand. He was told that US authorities wanted him to testify against Igor Sechin, a powerful Russian government official, whom American prosecutors believed was Bout’s boss. In return for his testimony, US prosecutors allegedly promised a jail sentence that would not exceed two years, as well as political asylum for him and his family following his release from prison. Alla Bout added that her husband’s American lawyers were told by the prosecution that the ‘merchant of death’ “would be able to live in the US comfortably, along with his wife and daughter”, and that his family could stay in America during his trial “under conditions”. Alla Bout claimed she was told this by Bout himself and by members of his American legal team.

From 2008 to 2012, Sechin, who has military background, served as Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister. Today he heads the Board of Directors of Rosneft, a government-owned oil extraction and refinement company, which is considered one of the world’s most powerful business ventures. Many observers see Sechin as the most formidable man in Russia after Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is also believed to be a senior member of the Siloviki, a secretive group of government officials in the Putin government who have prior careers in national security or intelligence. Although Bout and Sechin have never acknowledged having met each other, some investigators of Bout’s weapons-trading activities believe that the two were close allies. It is believed that the two men first met in Angola and Mozambique in the 1980s, where they were stationed while serving in the Soviet military. But the two men deny they knowing each other. According to Alla Bout, Viktor told his American captors that he “never worked for Sechin and did not know him in person”. He therefore turned down the prosecution’s offer and was handed a 25-year sentence. When asked by the Izvestia reporters whether Bout was simply protecting the powerful Russian government official, Alla Bout insisted that the two “have never even met, not once”.

**** Igor Sechin

Forbes: Igor Sechin may be the left hand man to the World’s Most Powerful Man, but that didn’t stop him or his giant oil company, Rosneft, from landing on a U.S. visa and financial sanctions list announced after the Russian military intervention in the Ukraine. “Putin trusts him more than anyone else,” says Russian expert Mark Galeotti of NYU. “And if Putin trusts you, power and wealth always follow.” Suffice it to say that the Kremlin is one of Rosneft’s major stockholders.