Category Archives: Department of Defense

OPM Hack, Lies Came First, Truth Creeps out Slowly

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We are conditioned to hearing the lies first from the administration stemming from an event affecting the homeland security and the citizens within. It takes months, sometimes years for the truth to be known, and it must be said, suspicions still remain. Stinks huh?

Such is the case with the Office of Personnel Management hack that took place several months ago. The numbers and depth of the hack are getting published that are closer to the truth….. the truth has no agenda but achieving the whole truth takes enduring tenacity.

Unconfirmed chatter but apparently during the diplomatic and business visit by China President Xi, Barack Obama will not address the hacking except perhaps is a side meeting with lower level staffers. The mission by the White House is to defer to the corporations such as Boeing and Microsoft to target the matter of hacking with China.

OPM Now Admits 5.6 Million Fed’s Fingerprints were Stolen by Hackers

Wired: by Andy Greenberg > When hackers steal your password, you change it. When hackers steal your fingerprints, they’ve got an unchangeable credential that lets them spoof your identity for life. When they steal 5.6 million of those irrevocable biometric identifiers from U.S. federal employees—many with secret clearances—well, that’s very bad.

On Wednesday, the Office of Personnel Management admitted that the number of federal employees’ fingerprints compromised in the massive breach of its servers revealed over the summer has grown from 1.1 million to 5.6 million. OPM, which serves as a sort of human resources department for the federal government, didn’t respond to WIRED’s request for comment on who exactly those fingerprints belong to within the federal government. But OPM had previously confirmed that the data of 21.5 million federal employees was potentially compromised by the hack—which likely originated in China—and that those victims included intelligence and military employees with security clearances.

The revelation comes at a particularly ironic time: During the U.S. visit of Chinese president Xi Jinping, who said at a public appearance in Seattle that the Chinese government doesn’t condone hacking of U.S. targets, and pledged to partner with the U.S. to curb cybercrime.

“As part of the government’s ongoing work to notify individuals affected by the theft of background investigation records, the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Defense have been analyzing impacted data to verify its quality and completeness,” reads OPM’s statement posted to its website. “During that process, OPM and [the Department of Defense] identified archived records containing additional fingerprint data not previously analyzed. Of the 21.5 million individuals whose Social Security Numbers and other sensitive information were impacted by the breach, the subset of individuals whose fingerprints have been stolen has increased from a total of approximately 1.1 million to approximately 5.6 million.”

OPM adds that it’s mailing letters to all affected victims, and notes that it’s also offering them free credit monitoring. But that identity theft protection, which cost $133 million in likely misspent tax dollars, doesn’t begin to address the national security implications of having the fingerprints of high-level federal officials in the hands of hackers who are potentially employed by a foreign government.

OPM downplayed the significance of that biometric breach in its statement, adding that “federal experts believe that, as of now, the ability to misuse fingerprint data is limited.” When WIRED asked about those limitations, however, an OPM spokesperson wrote only that “law enforcement and intelligence communities are best positioned to give the most fulsome answer.”

The agency’s statement does admit that hackers’ ability to exploit the stolen fingerprints “could change over time as technology evolves,” perhaps as more biometric authentication features are built into federal government security systems. And it says it’s assembled an interagency working group that includes officials from the Pentagon, FBI, DHS, and intelligence agencies to review the problem. “This group will also seek to develop potential ways to prevent such misuse,” the statement reads. “If, in the future, new means are developed to misuse the fingerprint data, the government will provide additional information to individuals whose fingerprints may have been stolen in this breach.”

The increased number of stolen fingerprints represents only the latest in a series of calamitous revelations from OPM about the hacker intrusion that led to the resignation of the agency’s director Katherine Archuleta in July. Aside from the 21.5 million social security numbers taken by attackers and the newly confessed 5.6 million fingerprints, the agency has also confirmed that hackers gained access to many victims’ SF-86 forms, security clearance questionnaires that include highly personal information such as previous drug use or extramarital affairs that could be used for blackmail.

“The American people have no reason to believe that they’ve heard the full story and every reason to believe that Washington assumes they are too stupid or preoccupied to care about cyber security,” Senator Ben Sasse wrote today in an email.

For the hackers who cracked OPM’s vault of highly private information, it’s the gift to foreign intelligence that keeps on giving.

 

Honest Summary of Obama vs. Syria and Putin

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There are gratifying moments when honest assessments are written. We often think we have a handle on conditions both on domestic policy and that of foreign policy. Personally, this blogger think she has most conditions and circumstances figured out while motivations and other objectives remain in question. I want to see the world through others eyes, from those that own bona fides and the resume where omissions on my part are checked and re-checked.

When it comes to the National Security Council running operations in the Middle East with regard to Iraq and Syria, one must challenge those decisions and seek the grander realities. Even the White House has admitted the NatSec team is too big, but is firing on all cylinders. What?

In recent weeks, Russia has taken a proactive, aggressive posture as well as a military stance in Syria, a country he knows well and the reason is, Obama retreated handing Putin an alternate set of keys to access the region on his own terms.

John Schindler writes below a summary I find is in full agreement with my own conclusion, yet the big question in the elephant in the room….what now?

Obama’s Collapsing War on the Islamic State

For the Obama administration, the news from the Middle East keeps going from bad to worse. Vladimir Putin’s power play, moving significant military forces into Syria to support his ailing client, Bashar al-Assad, caught the White House flat footed and unsure how to respond.

Although the administration gave the Kremlin de facto control over American policy in Syria some two years ago when it walked away from its own “red line,” granting Russia a veto on Western action there, President Obama and his national security staff nevertheless seem befuddled by this latest Russian move.

The forces Mr. Putin has just deployed to Syria are impressive, veteran special operators backed by a wing of fighters and ground attack jets that are expected to commence air strikes on Assad’s foes soon. They are backed by air defense units, which is puzzling since the Islamic State has no air force, indicating that the Kremlin’s true intent in Syria has little to do with the stated aim of fighting terrorism and is really about propping up Russia’s longtime client in Damascus.

The White House is left planning “deconfliction” with Moscow—which is diplomatic language for entreating Russians, who now dominate Syrian airspace, not to shoot down American drones, which provide the lion’s share of our intelligence on the Islamic State. The recent meeting on Syrian developments between Mr. Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who clearly finds dealing with the Russian strongman preferable to parleying with President Obama, indicates where power is flowing in today’s Middle East.

This is about much more than merely “cherry-picking” intelligence.

To make matters worse for the administration, new revelations regarding flawed intelligence assessments of the Islamic State, which I told you about last week, paint a troubling portrait of organized lying at the Pentagon. Some of the more than 50 analysts at Central Command in Tampa who blew the whistle on politicized intelligence reported feeling “bullied” to make their assessments of the U.S.-led war on the Islamic State appear more successful than the facts warranted. This is about much more than merely “cherry-picking” intelligence.

One named whistleblower has come forward about CENTCOM’s intelligence problems, explaining that he witnessed persistent, command-mandated low-balling of terrorist threats in Iraq since the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Rising terrorism in Iraq was “off message” for the White House, eager to pronounce jihadism there as dead as its leader.

David Shedd, who until recently was the acting director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which supplies CENTCOM with many of its analysts, spoke for colleagues still serving with his caution that such rampant politicization of intelligence cannot be tolerated. In language sure to cause heartburn at the White House, Mr. Shedd stated, “the problem is not a stand-alone case but systemic.” In response, Congress has taken interest in the allegations and President Obama’s problems there are only now starting to take political shape.

An even greater blow to President Obama’s diffident war against the Islamic State, known to the Pentagon as Operation Inherent Resolve, came this week with the stunning news that John Allen, the White House’s “war czar,” is stepping down this fall. In that job for almost exactly a year, Mr. Allen, a retired Marine four-star general whose last uniformed position was commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, enjoyed a bumpy tenure thanks to frequent meddling by West Wing staffers.

Mr. Allen, ostensibly charged with managing the war across agencies in tandem with allies, was unable to secure the military assets he believed were needed to defeat the Islamic State, for instance meeting strong White House resistance to his plans to put air controllers on the ground to guide airstrikes by Western forces. Although Mr. Allen has portrayed his resignation as a personal matter, due to his wife’s health problems, Pentagon insiders insist this an excuse to save face—mainly President Obama’s.

The main culprit is micromanagement by White House staffers, especially on the National Security Council, which is bloated and regularly treats senior military officers and diplomats like hired help. Obscenity-laced tirades by senior NSC staff are not uncommon. To make matters worse, significant differences between the NSC and the Pentagon on how to defeat the Islamic State went unresolved for months, leading to lethargy inside the Beltway while U.S. theater commanders were close to panicking about the enemy’s rise. Mr. Allen eventually had enough.

Now the White House needs to find a replacement who’s up to the job, which looks to be no easy task. “Good luck with that,” stated a senior Pentagon official, “I doubt they’ll find another four-star eager to be the dog who catches that car.” A senior NATO official explained that Mr. Allen’s departure “is really a serious blow. We had little confidence before in President Obama’s ability to defeat Daesh,” the Arabic term for the Islamic State. “Now we have none.”

As long as Mr. Putin calibrates his strategy to realistic expectations, he may avoid the overreach disasters that plagued the American wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Allen is leaving an administration in disarray in the Middle East. President Obama’s promise to grow a “moderate” Syrian opposition force of thousands, able to serve as an alternative to Assad and the jihadists alike, is in tatters, with only a handful of fighters remaining. The resulting gap has been filled by the Russians, who have entered the Levantine fray with gusto and purpose.

Secretary of State John Kerry presented the deployment of Russian jet fighters to Syria as “basically force protection,” but Pentagon planners are less charitable in their assessments. “The only ‘force’ the Russians are protecting themselves from with Su-30s,” referring to the four modern fighters deployed to Syria, “is the U.S. Air Force,” one military officer said to me.

Some Pentagon staffers are taking comfort in hopes that the Russians will find themselves mired in a messy stalemate in Syria, whose civil war has raged for four bloody and indecisive years already. That may be optimistic, however, as Russian spies and soldiers have served in Syria for over a half-century and many of them are well acquainted with Syrian realities. As long as Mr. Putin calibrates his strategy to realistic expectations, he may avoid the overreach disasters that plagued the American wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

What happens next in Syria is the top guessing game among security experts the world over right now. Has Mr. Putin finally gone too far? Can anything be salvaged from that awful conflict that could serve Western interests while stopping the rise of the Islamic State—and perhaps even save innocent lives? What is the aim of Operation Inherent Resolve now that General Allen is leaving the stage? All that’s certain at this point is that President Obama’s flailing war against the Islamic State is looking for a strategy as well as a new czar.

John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a navy officer and a war college professor.

bin Ladin’s Bodyguard Transferred to SA from Gitmo

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Usama bin Ladin’s bodyguard is transferred to Saudi Arabia.

Full detainee file is here.

  1. (S//NF) Personal Information:
  • JDIMS/NDRC Reference Name: Abdul Shalabi
  • Current/True Name and Aliases: Abd al-Rahman Shalbi Isa

Uwaydah, Abdul Haq Rahman, Saqr al-Madani, Mahmud

Abd Aziz al-Mujahid

  • Place of Birth: Medina, Saudi Arabia (SA)
  • Date of Birth: 4 December 1975
  • Citizenship: Saudi Arabia
  • Internment Serial Number (ISN): US9SA-000042DP
  1. (U//FOUO) Health: Detainee is in good health.
  2. (U) JTF-GTMO Assessment:
  3. (S) Recommendation: JTF-GTMO recommends this detainee for Continued Detention

Under DoD Control (CD). JTF-GTMO previously recommended detainee for Continued

Detention Under DoD Control (CD) on 26 October 2007.

  1. (S//NF) Executive Summary: Detainee is a member of al-Qaida and a long-term bodyguard for Usama Bin Laden (UBL), serving in that position beginning in 1999.

Detainee received specialized close combat training for his role as a suicide operative in an aborted component of the 11 September 2001 al-Qaida attacks. Detainee participated in hostilities against US and Coalition forces and was captured with a group referred to as the Dirty 30, which included UBL bodyguards and an assessed 20th 11 September 2001 hijacker.

Detainee received basic militant and advanced training at al-Qaida associated training camps.

 

Truths Surface via Whistleblowers on Intel Reports

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In part from JC Chairman Dempsey in position closing words:

It has to be understood at the highest levels. “When I talk to my peers in the military and when I talk to our elected officials, I talk about options and I talk about whether we’re in a period that requires either a bias for action or a bias for inaction,” he said. “But what we can’t allow is this proliferation of information to do is generate an almost insatiable appetite for more information and more options, which can actually paralyze the system.”

People want an exquisite solution, the chairman explained, and they often believe that with just a bit more information and a bit more time that a perfect solution exists. “What I’m suggesting is, as I pass the torch of the chairmanship to [Marine Corps] Gen. [Joseph] Dunford, I think that reality of making strategy in public and the risk of paralysis is much more real than it was when I became the chairman, and I can only imagine how that environment could change over the next four years.”

Whistleblower: Iraq intel ‘grossly thrown’ aside

WashingtonExaminer:

Reports about terror activity in Iraq have been “grossly thrown to the side” by officials in U.S. Central Command since the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011, according to a former Army official with the command, in an attempt to paint a rosy picture of the coalition’s efforts in the Middle East.

Retired Army Sgt. 1st Class William Kotel told the Washington Examiner that he was pushed out of his position after raising concerns about “missing pieces” in reports for Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East. He had attempted to include in his official reports information about an Iraqi target that had allegedly stolen U.S. money from the Central Bank of Iraq. But the intelligence was stripped from his final report at the behest of his superiors, he said.

Since it was first reported that dozens of intelligence analysts have accused Central Command of downplaying information that suggested terrorist groups such as the Islamic State were making strategic gains, five congressional committees have opened investigations into the matter, on top of a probe by the Pentagon’s inspector general.

Kotel, who was noncommissioned officer in charge of the Joint Targets Enterprise, said warnings about imminent terror attacks in Iraq were required to be routed through a maze of Pentagon channels, a process that could take weeks, instead of communicated directly with military units in harm’s way.

He said the policy of substituting economic or environmental information for terror-related intelligence in reports was never made explicit by Central Command’s leadership, but that he and his colleagues had “implied orders” not to report facts on the ground in Iraq.

The problem, Kotel said, is not necessarily that final reports were being edited for political reasons. Instead, it’s that key intelligence wasn’t allowed in those reports in the first place.

Kotel said it was “really disheartening” when credible intelligence about terror activity was discarded.

“They’ve spent more money and time trying to push down this intelligence … than they have actually spending time and effort on real security,” he said.

Bridget Serchak, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon’s inspector general, declined to answer questions about when the probe was opened or when it would conclude, but said the investigation is underway.

“The investigation will address whether there was any falsification, distortion, delay, suppression, or improper modification of intelligence information; any deviations from appropriate process, procedures, or internal controls regarding the intelligence analysis,” Serchak said.

She noted there would be “personal accountability for any misconduct or failure to follow established processes.”

Two Senate and three House committees are now investigating the matter as well.

A spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, confirmed her committee had met with a whistleblower about the issue.

Senate Armed Services Chairman. John McCain said his committee is investigating the whistleblower’s claims as well.

“This committee is disturbed by recent whistleblower allegations that officials at Central Command skewed intelligence assessments to paint an overly rosy picture of conditions on the ground,” the Arizona Republican said during a hearing last week.

Gen. Lloyd Austin, head of Central Command, told the committee he would “take appropriate action” if the Defense Department’s inspector general found evidence of wrongdoing.

“Because the allegations are currently under investigation, it would be premature and inappropriate for me to discuss this matter,” Austin said during the hearing. “I cannot speak to the specifics of the allegations.”

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has urged the Pentagon to conduct an anonymous survey of intelligence analysts throughout the Defense Department to get a sense of the political pressures those analysts might face.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter, two Democrats and two Republicans in the House pressed Pentagon leadership to shield whistleblowers involved in the investigation from retaliation.

Reps. Jackie Speier and Mike Thompson, both Democrats, and Reps. Duncan Hunter and Mike Coffman, both Republicans, signed the letter, which was obtained by the Examiner.

The lawmakers asked the Pentagon to report to Congress any instances of potential retaliation against whistleblowers involved in the complaint.

They pushed Carter to arrange regular briefings on the inspector general’s investigation of the intelligence tampering for “interested members” of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee.

Retaliation against whistleblowers?

Hunter sent another letter to Jon Rymer, Pentagon inspector general, urging the watchdog to look into instances of retaliation against soldiers who may be attempting to speak to Congress on behalf of Sgt. Charles Martland, who is being removed from his post after confronting an Afghan police commander who had kidnapped and raped a young boy.

The Army imposed gag orders on soldiers who wanted to reach out to members of Congress, Hunter said.

But the problem extends beyond Martland’s case. The Army has a reputation for silencing whistleblowers, the California Republican wrote in his letter last week.

What’s more, the Pentagon inspector general has in the past shared information with the Army that has then been used as fodder against officials who report wrongdoing.

Because some of the whistleblowers who raised concerns about the intelligence reports are from the Army, the congressman is concerned that the military branch could discover the identities of analysts who alerted the inspector general to the tainted intelligence reports and attempt to take action against them.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Rep. Ron DeSantis, chairman of Oversight’s National Security Subcommittee, asked Carter last week for more information about the military intelligence reports on the Islamic State’s progress.

DeSantis said the oversight committee “is taking these reports very seriously” and vowed to “investigate fully.”

Maj. Genieve David, spokesperson for Central Command, said the agency “welcomes” the inspector general review.

“While we cannot comment on the specific investigation cited in the article, we can speak to the process,” David said.

She noted security assessments are based on a collection of intelligence from a variety of sources, including from military commanders on the ground and from “key” advisers.

“The multi-source nature of the assessment process purposely guards against any single report or opinion unduly influencing leaders and decision-makers,” David said.

She declined to comment on allegations that the Central Command intelligence team focused on Iraq had been pressured to leave certain information out of their reports.

The intense congressional scrutiny of the intelligence reports, especially those that involve the Islamic State, has renewed criticism of the Obama administration’s strategy to combat extremism in the Middle East.

Lawmakers are escalating their calls for a review of the president’s plan for the Islamic State, with many voicing concern that airstrikes in Syria and Iraq are not effectively deterring the terrorist organization.

*** One piece of good news:

 

Cook confirmed the Sept. 10 death of senior ISIL leader Abu Bakr al Turkmani and the July 5 death of French national David Drugeon, an al-Qaida operative and explosives expert.

The press secretary said the coalition airstrike that killed Turkmani near Tal Afar, Iraq, “will help disrupt ISIL operations in the Tal Afar area and shows that their leadership is not beyond the coalition’s reach.”

Disrupting ISIL

Turkmani, an ISIL administrative amir, was part of al-Qaida in Iraq before joining ISIL and was a close associate of many ISIL senior leaders in Iraq, Cook said. Drugeon, killed by a coalition airstrike near Aleppo, Syria, belonged to a network of veteran al-Qaida operatives sometimes called the Khorasan group, who are plotting attacks against the United States, its allies and partners, Cook told reporters.

“As an explosives expert, he trained other extremists in Syria and sought to plan external attacks against Western targets,” the press secretary said.

The action, he added, will degrade and destroy ongoing al-Qaida external operations against the United States, its allies and partners. Read more detail here.

 

Damascus Airport Renamed Putin International

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Just kidding on that title, well rather, tongue in cheek. Syria has always been a military base for Russia and now more so with Hezbollah in the lead for the ground game directed by GRU forces redeployed from Ukraine.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his military team met with Putin this week to come to an accommodation on the role and threat risk of Hezbollah vs. Israel.

Israel will continue to conduct strikes on weapons locations, transfer routes and smuggling which was formally agreed to by both Israel and Moscow. Meanwhile the United States is completely out of the equation mostly due to ineptness and deference, fully isolating the United States.

Embedded image permalink

Only John Kerry is making demands that at some time during these Russian/Iranian operations, Bashir al Assad will be removed from power…..yawn.

Pro-Hezbollah daily says party
in Syria pact with Russia

Al-Akhbar claimed that Russian troops will fight alongside Hezbollah in Syria

BEIRUT – A leading pro-Hezbollah daily claimed on Tuesday that the party has joined a new counter-terror alliance with Moscow and that Russia will take part in military operations alongside the Syrian army and Hezbollah.

 

Al-Akhbar’s editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin wrote that secret talks between Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq had resulted in the birth of the new alliance, which he described as “the most important in the region and the world for many years.”

 

“The agreement to form the alliance includes administrative mechanisms for cooperation on [the issues of] politics and intelligence and [for] military [cooperation] on the battlefield in several parts of the Middle East, primarily in Syria and Iraq,” the commentator said, citing well-informed sources.
“The parties to the alliance are the states of Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah as the fifth party,” he also said, adding that the joint-force would be called the “4+1 alliance” – a play on words referring to the P5+1 world powers that negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran.

 

The Al-Akhbar article came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow over the latter country’s major military build-up in Syria.

 

Following their meeting, Netanyahu announced that Russia and Israel had agreed to “a joint mechanism for preventing misunderstandings between our forces,” and reiterated that Tel Aviv’s commitment to preventing weapon transfers from Syria to Hezbollah.

 

Putin, in turn, told Netanyahu that the Syrian regime was in “no position” to open a new front against Israel, which has conducted regular airstrikes in Syria targeting weapon transfers as well as in retaliation to cross-border rocket fire.

 

 

 

Despite the reported agreement between Tel Aviv and Moscow, Al-Akhbar’s editor-in-chief said that Russian forces were coordinating with Hezbollah in Syria.

 

“[Several] days ago, Russian officers accompanied by specialists… from the Russian forces arriving in Syria toured a number of positions in Hama’s Al-Ghab Plain area and carried out a field survey accompanied by Syrian Army and Hezbollah officers,” Amin claimed.

 

“Similar tours took place in the [areas] around Idlib and in the mountain range overlooking Latakia.”

 

“It has become clear that the Russian force is made up of various specializations, from air force [units] to units specialized in sniper operations and artillery officers, as well as survey and observation teams.”

 

He also made the startling claim that Russia will “play a prominent role on the ground and will participate in combat on the battlefield with their advanced weaponry by leading operations and taking part in artillery shelling, air [raids] and otherwise, alongside the Syrian army and Hezbollah.”

 

“The Russians have also set up a coordination process with Kurdish forces and parties,” the article said.

 

“A Russian military delegate paid a secret visit to a number of Kurdish military commanders in Hasakeh and inspected areas of confrontation between the YPG and the armed groups.”