Category Archives: Middle East

DHS is Not Deporting Visa Overstays

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The numbers are staggering but just for the time period of 2015, 482,000 are residing in the United States illegally. This number is clearly worse than those numbers coming in from the southern border.

DHS admits it’s not deporting most visa overstays

WashingtonExaminer: A pair of Department of Homeland Security officials told the Senate Wednesday that the government does not search for most of the people who overstay their temporary visas, a day after DHS said that nearly 500,000 people were still in the U.S. after having overstayed their visas last year.

“I didn’t mean to imply that we’re actually out monitoring them,” Craig Healy, an assistant director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., during Senate Judiciary subcommittee panel. Healy said that they review the universe of people who overstayed their visas and “prioritize” the deportation of people who went on to commit other crimes.

Their exchange came at the outset of a hearing on the federal government’s failure to implement a biometric system to track entries into and exits from the country, as required by a 2004 law. A Customs and Border Patrol official said the program couldn’t be implemented without causing “gridlock” at U.S. airports, a response that failed to allay bipartisan concern that the lack of this system is an ongoing national security threat.

“The biometric exit system is still not off the ground and that is unfortunate, very unfortunate, because it is a matter of national security,” New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader-in-waiting, said during the hearing.

John Wagner, deputy assistant commissioner of field operations for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, said the program couldn’t be implemented without causing two-hour delays when boarding airplanes. “It’s the placement of the technology and how you collect it to ensure that the person actually departed the United States,” Wagner said. “There’s no zone to do that.”

These answers frustrated Democratic lawmakers who otherwise disagree with Sessions and other immigration hawks the issue of border security and deportations. “It’s hard for me to envision that we can’t figure out where to get a space to do this at an airport or seaport,” said Senator Al Franken, D-Minn. “If you can’t solve it in 11 or 12 years, how can we know it will ever be solved?”

DHS’s report saying hundreds of thousands of people remained in the United States after having overstayed their visas drew complaints from both parties, but Sessions in particular.

“That is a population of individuals that is larger than any city in Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina,” Sessions said. Healy replied that about 3,000 of the people who had overstayed their visas were under investigation, a statistic Sessions cited to argue that President Obama’s team has made no effort to implement the system or to deport people who overstay their visas, as long as those people “keep their nose clean” and do nothing to draw the attention of law enforcement or counterterrorism officials.

He said the lack of a biometric exit system was part of a broader failure by the Obama administration to implement federal immigration law.

“Our executive branch is on strike against the will of the American people,” Sessions said. “Simply put, there is no border at all if we don’t enforce our visa rules.”

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Hold on, there is more…

Administration eases visa rules for travelers visiting terror hotspots

FNC: The Obama administration on Thursday eased visa rules for certain European travelers who have visited terror hotspots in the Middle East and Africa, triggering a backlash from congressional lawmakers who sought the restrictions for security reasons.

Moments after the announcement, two key Republicans declared the administration is “blatantly breaking the law” – a law that President Obama signed – by implementing the changes.

“This is not a difference of opinion over statutory interpretation, it is a clear contradiction of the law and the agreement we reached with the White House,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., author of the bill, said in a statement.

The revised requirements announced Thursday pertain to changes passed by Congress in the Visa Waiver Program.

Lawmakers had sought new restrictions to tighten up the program – which allows visa-free travel for residents of eligible countries — in order to prevent Europeans who have joined ISIS from entering the United States. Under the newly passed Visa Waiver Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, nationals of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Sudan as well as other travelers who have visited those countries since Mar. 1, 2011 now must apply for a visa in order to travel to the U.S.

The administration implemented those changes Thursday — but with some changes of its own.

Under the revised requirements, some Europeans who have traveled to those four countries in the last five years may still be allowed to travel to the United States without obtaining a visa if they meet certain criteria.

The administration announced it will use its waiver authority — granted to it in the legislation — to give waivers to travelers who traveled to the terror hotspots as journalists, for work with humanitarian agencies or on behalf of international organizations, regional organizations and sub-national governments on official duty.

Further, an additional waiver was announced for people who have traveled to Iran “for legitimate business-related purposes” since the conclusion of the Iran nuclear deal in July. The administration offers waivers for individuals who have traveled to Iraq for business as well.

Republicans reacted angrily to the waivers, saying the Obama administration had exploited the limited authority and has compromised national security.

“President Obama and his administration’s decision to abuse their limited waiver authority and allow scores of people who have traveled to or are dual nationals of countries like Iraq and Syria flies in the face of reason and congressional intent,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in a statement.

“The Obama Administration is essentially rewriting the law by blowing wide open a small window of discretion that Congress gave it for law enforcement and national security reasons,” Goodlatte said.

Under the visa program itself, citizens of 38 countries, mostly in Europe, are generally allowed to travel to the United States without applying for a visa. But they still have to submit biographical information to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA.

The Homeland Security Department said waivers for some ESTA applicants will be granted on a “case-by-case” basis. Those travelers who are denied visa-free travel can still apply for visa through a U.S. embassy in their home country.

The new restrictions had previously been criticized by the Iranian government which suggested the U.S. might be violating the nuclear deal by penalizing legitimate business travel to the country.

Airlifting Italian Goats into Afghanistan?

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Lawmakers to Pentagon: Goats, Carpets and Jewelry Helped Afghanistan How?

At a Senate hearing this week, lawmakers questioned whether a Pentagon business task force had accomplished anything worthwhile.

ProPublica: Is it true that rare Italian goats were airlifted to Afghanistan?

Did Defense Department employees go to carpet tradeshows in Europe? How about on jewelry-related trips to India?

These might seem like unusual questions for the Pentagon, but lawmakers at a hearing Wednesday were trying to figure out how, exactly, a task force spent about $638 million on economic development in Afghanistan.

And more importantly, as Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., put it: “Was it worth it?”

The readiness subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee didn’t get many answers.

“That’s the big question, and it’s the right one,” was all Brian McKeon, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, could offer.

During two hours of questioning, he provided few specifics, allowing, “It’s a little early to say” whether the now-defunct Task Force for Business and Stability Operations had been successful.

The task force — a “very unusual animal” McKeon called it — was led by civilian business experts and aimed to develop the Afghan economy by jumpstarting the private sector.

The committee called the hearing after the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, published several damning reports about wasteful spending by the task force. It operated mostly outside the traditional bounds of government bureaucracy — and, SIGAR said, without much oversight.

John Sopko, the inspector general, testified that, so far, his agency has found that the Pentagon’s task force had a “scattershot approach to economic development” and there was no “credible evidence showing” that its efforts worked.

The task force was initially launched in Iraq before moving to Afghanistan in 2010. But even in Iraq, it was beset with problems, Sopko told the subcommittee. These issues were detailed in at least three official reports. The Pentagon and task force members should have learned from their experience in Iraq, he said, but they repeated the same mistakes.

His conclusions echo a yearlong ProPublica investigation into Afghanistan reconstruction that found a widespread failure to apply lessons from Iraq was in part to blame for upwards of $17 billion in waste.

McKeon put up little defense of the task force beyond disputing SIGAR’s estimated $43 million cost of a controversial natural gas station and claims that his office had been uncooperative.

He said he was “skeptical that the Department of Defense is the natural home” for economic development efforts.

Lawmakers agreed. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., the ranking minority member on the subcommittee, said it was a job better suited for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

McKeon said his office was struggling to come up with answers about the task force’s activities, because it shut down in March and most of its employees left the Defense Department — an argument the lawmakers found unpersuasive.

McKeon was unable to answer even the most basic questions about how all the money was spent.

The Pentagon, for the most part, had records for how money was spent by industry sector, but not necessarily for how support costs broke down for all the individual projects, he said. (Although, those goats? The task force spent $6 million bringing in nine blond ones from Italy and building a farm in an attempt to launch a thriving cashmere industry, according to SIGAR. This project hasn’t been evaluated yet for effectiveness.)

Questioning at the hearing didn’t get any easier from there, and, McKeon had, at times, an almost painful lack of information. Clearly uncomfortable and stuck with a limited script, he reiterated several times that he hadn’t been in charge of the task force, since he only took over the job in 2014.

Ayotte, who chairs the subcommittee, asked if there were metrics to judge the projects.

“I haven’t seen metrics,” McKeon said.

Then Ayotte asked why the task force eschewed living on a military base and opted instead for private villas and security that cost $150 million — a decision that ate up nearly 24 percent of all the money spent?

“We’re still digging” for an answer on that, McKeon said, but he added that he thought those arrangements were necessary to show businesses that they could operate safely in Afghanistan.

So, Ayotte asked, did any contracts result “because we spent $150 million on villas?”

“I wouldn’t make that claim,” McKeon said.

Later in the hearing, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the entire concept behind the villas defied common sense. The need to spend millions on security just to keep employees safe couldn’t possibly entice businesses to set up shop.

“Do you see the fallacy of the logic there?” she asked.

The subcommittee asked SIGAR to do a full financial audit of all the task force activities since the Pentagon could provide so few details.

The senators were also concerned with how the Pentagon stonewalled SIGAR’s inquiries on the task force.

SIGAR and the Pentagon had been in a public tiff over access to records and the Pentagon’s insistence that documents be reviewed in a special “reading room.” Despite claiming the reading room was required to safeguard information in general, the Pentagon only restricted task force documents in that way.

But ahead of the hearing, the Pentagon reversed course and handed over a 100-gigabyte hard drive last week that it said contained all the task force information SIGAR had requested.

However, Sopko said “the data provided is substantially inadequate” and forensic accountants are examining it to see if anything was manipulated. McKeon said he was committed to providing SIGAR with all they needed.

Much of the hearing was spent bickering about the actual cost of the compressed natural gas station, which has few customers and is barely being used. Part of the problem: The average Afghan would have to spend more than a year’s salary to convert a car to run on compressed gas.

McKeon did not defend the gas station as a concept, but rather the reported cost.

Last year, SIGAR said it cost $43 million, including $30 million on overhead. This week the Pentagon disputed that number, saying the real cost was under $10 million.

The question comes down to overhead cost, which the Pentagon has been unable to accurately calculate because of poor recordkeeping, Sopko said. He defended SIGAR, saying it reported the best number it had at the time, which came from the Pentagon itself and hadn’t been disputed by the Defense Department until the day before the hearing.

It was unclear by the end of the hearing how much the gas station actually cost or whether anyone would be able to make that determination.

McCaskill had little patience for the cost debate.

“I don’t care if it was $2.9 million or $200 million,” she said. The project was “dumb on its face.”

She said she wanted to know who had “made the brilliant decision that this was a good idea to put a natural gas station in Afghanistan,” so she could “find out what the person was on that day.”

What Oath Did John Kerry Take?

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John Kerry was also in the military during Viet Nam and his record there is dubious at best. After discarding his war medal and speaking of the shame and sham of the Viet Nam war he went on to politics. He has taken the Oath of office more than once. Surely at some point he would GET the point. But now, he has officially in his own words crossed the Rubicon.

Something about ‘all enemies foreign and domestic’ come to mind and both John Kerry and Josh Earnest both admit that Iran has long-standing support for terrorism.

TheHill: Some money from Iran’s sanctions relief is likely to go to terrorists, Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged Thursday. Still, he said, he has yet to see that happen, adding there will be consequences if Iran uses the money to fund terrorism.

“I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists,” he said in an interview with CNBC, referring to the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Over the weekend, the United States lifted sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program after it certified Tehran was in compliance with the nuclear agreement.

Lawmakers opposed to the deal have argued that the billions of dollars Iran gets after sanctions are lifted will be funneled into supporting terrorist organizations.

In an interview from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Kerry conceded the United States can’t prevent that from happening.

“You know, to some degree, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that every component of that can be prevented,” he said. “But I can tell you this: Right now, we are not seeing the early delivery of funds going to that kind of endeavor at this point in time.”

Of the $100 billion to $150 billion in sanctions relief, Kerry estimated Iran would end up with $55 million because some of the money is obligated to foreign debts.

He later told a group of reporters on the sidelines of the forum that the Revolutionary Guards are “already complaining that they are not getting the money,” according to The Associated Press.

“If we catch them funding terrorism, they’re going to have a problem in the U.S. Congress and other people, obviously,” he said.

A group of Republican senators vowed Thursday to introduce new sanctions should the administration not take a tough stance against the country.

Enter Josh Earnest, the White House spokesperson:

FreeBeacon: White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday it was “entirely likely” and “even expected” that Iran will continue to support terrorism as it receives tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief through the Iran nuclear deal.

The deal brokered by the Obama administration and other world powers gives Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, $100 billion in sanctions relief in exchange for compliance with the agreement meant to stop the rogue regime from getting nuclear weapons.

After Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged  Thursday that “some” Iran deal money would go to terrorists, CBS reporter Margaret Brennan asked Earnest at the White House briefing whether he agreed.

“I think that reflects his rather logical conclusion that a nation that supports terrorism may use some of the money that’s coming into the country to further support terrorism,” Earnest said. “The thing that’s important for people to recognize is that critics of this agreement often exaggerate the value of the sanctions relief that Iran will obtain, and they often overlook the rather severe economic priorities that are badly underfunded inside of Iran.”

Earnest said the White House had been honest about acknowledging that the nuclear deal would not assuage their concerns about Iran’s “bad behavior.”

“It is entirely likely, I think it’s even expected, that Iran will continue to support terrorism, but because of Iran’s intention that we assess to continue to support terrorism, that’s what makes it so important that we prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Earnest said.

“To be clear, what you’re saying is while, some may conclude, and it would be logical to conclude, that some monies may flow to groups labeled terrorists, you think you can mitigate the threat, but you do say it could flow there,” Brennan said.

“Uh, well, we’ve been candid about that possibility, and that assessment is drawn from Iran’s longstanding support for terrorism,” Earnest said. “Again, that longstanding support for terrorism is what motivated us to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

A sample listing of Iran’s terror history is found here.

Gitmo Population Down to 91, 2 More Transferred

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US officials concluded that Al Sawah was a master bomb maker for al Qaeda and worked for senior al Qaeda leaders. Sawah gave up a lot of intelligence on Al Qaeda and fellow detainees, according to JTF-GTMO, so assumption was his former comrades would seek revenge. Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) recommended that Al Sawah be transferred anyway because they believed AQ wouldn’t take him back.

The full story on Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed al Sawah, an Egyptian is found here.

Detainee Transfer Announced

The Department of Defense announced today the transfer of Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed Al Sawah from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the Government of Bosnia.

On Feb. 12, 2015, the Periodic Review Board consisting of representatives from the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and State; the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence determined continued law of war detention of Al Sawah does not remain necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States. As a result of that review, which examined a number of factors, including security issues, Al Sawah was recommended for transfer by consensus of the six departments and agencies comprising the Periodic Review Board. The Periodic Review Board process was established by the president’s March 7, 2011 Executive Order 13567.

In accordance with statutory requirements, the secretary of defense informed Congress of the United States’ intent to transfer this individual and of the secretary’s determination that this transfer meets the statutory standard.

The United States is grateful to the Government of Bosnia for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The United States coordinated with the Government of Bosnia to ensure this transfer took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures.

Today, 92 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay.

Detainee Transfer Announced

The Department of Defense announced today the transfer of Abd al-Aziz Abduh Abdallah Ali Al-Suwaydi from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the Government of Montenegro. As directed by the president’s Jan. 22, 2009, executive order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of this case. As a result of that review, which examined a number of factors, including security issues Al-Suwaydi was unanimously approved for transfer by the six departments and agencies comprising the task force. In accordance with statutory requirements, the secretary of defense informed Congress of the United States’ intent to transfer this individual and of the secretary’s determination that this transfer meets the statutory standard. The United States is grateful to the Government of Montenegro for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The United States coordinated with the Government of Montenegro to ensure this transfer took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures. Today, 91 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay.

Spoofing the GPS, Navy Sailors Arrested

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My first conclusion was Iran hacked the GPS and described this with evidence on January 14th.

Story You Aren’t Being Told About Iran Capturing Two American Vessels

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/20/2016

Zerohedge The airwaves in the United States were filled with images of sailors on their knees while a US Navy vessel was searched. Unjustified outrage swept the nation. The US Secretary of Defense blamed the incident on a simple navigation error, however a chain of events leading back to 2009 demonstrates the facts are a little more complicated than first appear. The chain of events leads defense analysts to one unmistakable conclusion: Iran has the ability to disrupt US GPS systems. For western military analysts, the thought is terrifying. The West uses GPS for much more than replacing a compass and a map.

In 2009, Lockheed Martin’s RQ-170 Sentinel showed up on a runway in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The aircraft entered service two years earlier, but the public was unaware. The bat wing styled drone is reminiscent of the Stealth Bomber. The similarities extend beyond the cosmetic, and the RQ-170 is the premier spy drone in the US fleet. This was the drone used to map out Bin Laden’s compound. It was tasked with keeping an eye on Iran’s nuclear program. That’s when things got interesting.

On December 4, 2011 a RQ-170 Sentinel crashed into the Iranian countryside. Iran claimed its electronic warfare unit brought the plane down. The US Department of Defense stated the aircraft was flying over western Afghanistan and crashed near or in Iran. The aircraft was 140 miles inside Iran’s borders. The west laughed at the idea of Iran’s military obtaining the capability to down one the most sophisticated drones in the world. One military official remarked it was like:

“dropping a Ferrari into an ox-cart technology culture.”

They probably shouldn’t have been so quick to laugh. It appears the Iranians didn’t just down the aircraft, they took control of it mid-flight. Dailytech.com explained:

“Using its knowledge of the frequency, the engineer claims, Iran intiated its ‘electronic ambush’ by jamming the bird’s communications frequencies, forcing it into auto-pilot.  States the source, ‘By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain.’

 

“The team then use a technique known as ‘spoofing’ — sending a false signal for the purposes of obfuscation or other gain.  In this case the signal in questions was the GPS feed, which the drone commonly acquires from several satellites.  By spoofing the GPS feed, Iranian officials were able to convince it that it was in Afghanistan, close to its home base.  At that point the drone’s autopilot functionality kicked in and triggered the landing.  But rather than landing at a U.S. military base, the drone victim instead found itself captured at an Iranian military landing zone.

 

“Spoofing the GPS is a clever method, as it allows hackers to ‘land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the [encrypted] remote-control signals and communications.’

 

“While the technique did not require sophistication from a cryptography perspective, it was not entirely trivial, either, as it required precise calculations to be made to give the drone the proper forged distance and find and fine an appropriate altitude landing strip to make sure the drone landed as it did in Afghanistan.

 

The Iranian engineers knew the details of the landing site, because the drone had been confirmed in grainy photos to be landing at a base in Khandar, Afghanistan.

 

“Despite the careful calculations, the drone still sustained a dent in its wing and underbody (though it did not have the usual signs of a high-speed collision).  During its press conferences, the Iranian military covered this damage with anti-American banners.

 

“The engineer explained this damage commenting, ‘If you look at the location where we made it land and the bird’s home base, they both have [almost] the same altitude.  There was a problem [of a few meters] with the exact altitude so the bird’s underbelly was damaged in landing; that’s why it was covered in the broadcast footage.’The approach echoes an October security conference presentation [PDF] in Chicago, in which ETH Zurich researchers laid out how to use interference and GPS spoofing to more gently down a drone.”

The Aviationist agreed and suggested the US “reconsider their drones’ equipment, countermeasures and combat operation procedures as well as Iran’s electronic and cyberwarfare capabilities.” It should be noted the “ox-cart technology culture” has since reverse engineered the drone.

The gross underestimation of the Iranian military led to the recent incident in the Persian Gulf. The story being repeated in the western press is one of ten sailors getting lost and ending up in Iranian territorial waters (if the outlet mentions that part). According to Secretary of Defense Carter, “All the contributing factors to that we don’t know yet, and we’re still talking to those folks, and we’ll find out more … but they were clearly out of the position that they intended to be in.”

Two boats lost their GPS abilities at the same time, and the Secretary of Defense isn’t sure what happened? A few US outlets, such as the L.A. Times, reported on the other malfunctions during the incident. Both boats lost radio communication and all other communication during the incident. A single vehicle losing its GPS abilities can happen. It’s rare, but it can happen. Two vehicles losing the systems at the same time borders on implausible, but there is still a possibility of it occurring through Murphy’s Law. The loss of all communication equipment and GPS systems on two boats at the same time means one thing: electronic warfare.

The unwillingness to admit the US military has spent billions on a system that has apparently been defeated by Iran is the most likely culprit behind the western media’s attempt to focus on the “ill treatment” of US sailors. Even the L.A. Times, which was willing to report on the communications failures, placed the following quote in a bold offset in the same article:

“The way those sailors were treated was entirely inappropriate. … The U.S. Navy would never demand Iranian sailors hold their hands on their heads and coerce a confession.– James Stavridis, retired U.S. admiral”

The U.S. Navy’s installation at Guantanamo Bay has been the scene of the worst treatment of detainees by the US government in decades. The sailors captured by Iran were not waterboarded, deprived of sleep or food, sexually abused, or otherwise tortured. The United States does not have the moral authority to object to how another nation treats detainees.

The burning question now relates to whether or not Iran’s actions constitute an attack on the U.S. It’s not a simple question. Electronic warfare and cyber warfare have become common place. It is also worth noting the two US vessels were within just a few miles of Farsi Island. Farsi Island is the home of the Revolutionary Guards’ Navy (RGN). The RGN is Iran’s maritime unconventional warfare force. For comparison, imagine a scenario in which a nation that has attacked a US civilian airliner and whose political leaders have constantly threatened war sent two boats to  pass extraordinarily close to the home base of a U.S. Seal Team. The reader can decide if Iran’s actions were appropriate.

The most important takeaway from this incident is to remember the high-tech military of the United States has an exposed vulnerability. It’s a vulnerability that was exploited by Iran. Iran is not a nation many in military circles would see as technologically advanced. The drone warfare system has a fatal flaw. If Iran can exploit it, China and Russia certainly can. Even North Korea has been able to successfully disrupt the GPS system. Beyond simple navigation, the U.S. employs the GPS system to guide missiles. If the Iranians can jam and spoof their way into controlling a drone, it isn’t a huge leap to believe have the ability, or will soon have the ability, to do the same thing with guided missiles.

It should be noted that GPS jammers are available on the civilian market and have been detected in use inside the United Kingdom. This revelation may also be the reasoning behind the U.S. decision to require drone operators to register their aircraft.