Category Archives: Military

GW Bush Doing the Work Kerry Should on N. Korea

Posted on by

Sometimes when a panel is mobilized that includes media, negotiators, diplomats and legislators, interesting facts emerge. Such is the case where President George W. Bush convened a panel at the George W. Bush Institute on the matter of North Korea. Going beyond the proven human rights violations by the Kims, there is more to understand when it comes to relationships including the DPRK, China, Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan, Iran, Syria and more.

There is a U.S. citizen currently in prison doing slave labor in N. Korea but John Kerry voids his failure to get Otto Warmbier released. Kerry deferred the process to former governor Bill Richardson and there has been no progress.

The DPRK is in fact developing technology and weapons systems that are not only being tested but being sold to rogue nations for revenue purposes.

GW Bush has reached out to North Koreans that have escaped and made their way to the United States in a manner where they provide information and continued work for the benefit of Congress, the State Department, diplomatic objectives and policy to address the Kim regime going forward.

This is a fascinating discussion where real truths are revealed pointing to labor, human rights violations, military and nuclear operations, trade and more. North Korea is stacking missiles on launch pads and working on miniaturized nuclear weapons. The objective is to reach the United States. What has John Kerry done for deterrents? Nothing….

****

North Korea’s Rockets and Missiles

Space/2013: North Korea’s missile program is shrouded in secrecy, which helps the outlaw nation keep the rest of the world guessing.Still, Western experts have learned a fair bit about Pyongyang’s stable of rockets and missiles over the years by analyzing test flights, satellite photos and other data. Here are five of the most interesting things they’ve figured out.

FIRST STOP: Soviet Origins of Missiles

Soviet Origins

The Hermit Kingdom’s missile program is based primarily on Soviet Scuds, which apparently entered the country via Egypt in the 1970s. North Korea was building its own Scud version, called the Hwasong-5, by the mid-1980s, and moved onto bigger and more powerful missiles after that. [North Korea’s Missile Capabilities Explained]NEXT: Poor Accuracy

Poor Accuracy

North Korea’s missiles have lousy accuracy compared to those developed by the United States, experts say. Pyongyang’s Hwasong line, for example, can reach targets a few hundred miles away, but with an accuracy of just 0.3 miles to 0.6 miles (0.5 to 1 kilometer).A missile called the Nodong can fly 620 miles to 800 miles (1,000 to 1,300 km), but its estimated accuracy is even worse — 1.8 to 2.5 miles (3 to 4 km). Such missiles can’t reliably hit military targets, but they can certainly strike larger targets such as cities.

NEXT: Iran’s Help

Cooperation with Iran

North Korea has apparently cooperated extensively with fellow pariah nation Iran on rocket and missile technology. For example, the third stage of Pyongyang’s Unha-2 rocket is very similar to the upper stage of Iran’s Safir-2 launcher, physicists David Wright and Theodore Postol noted in a 2009 report.NEXT: Satellite Success

Satellite Launch Success

North Korea joined the ranks of satellite-launching nations last December, when its Unha-3 rocket launched a small satellite to Earth orbit.This breakthrough came after three consecutive failures — one in 1998, one in 2009 and another in April 2012. North Korean officials didn’t always admit to these mishaps, however. For example, they claimed that the Kwangmyongsong-1 (“Bright Star 1”) satellite reached orbit in 1998 and broadcast patriotic songs into space. [Unha-3 Rocket Explained (Infographic)]

NEXT: Nuclear Warheads Possible

Nuclear Warheads Possible

North Korea has been ratcheting up its bellicose rhetoric lately, threatening to launch nuclear strikes against Washington, D.C. and other American cities.While the rogue nation’s nuclear-weapons program is thought to be at a relatively primitive stage, Pyongyang may indeed already possess warheads small enough to be carried large distances by a ballistic missile, experts say. “Having something that’s around 1,000 kilograms, or maybe somewhat smaller than that, unfortunately does not seem impossible,” Wright told SPACE.com. “We don’t really know, but I think you have to take seriously that they could well be there.”

Most analysts doubt, however, that North Korean missiles are powerful enough to deliver a nuclear weapon to the American mainland. The tough talk from Pyongyang is primarily bluster aimed at wringing concessions out of the international community and building support for young leader Kim Jong-Un at home, they say.

Cease Fire Effective Friday in Syria, Assad/Hezbollah in Control

Posted on by

These talks have been underway for quite some time and the United States was not invited to participate. It is being reported that Hezbollah is the guarantor of the process and will manage the weapons control. Notice that Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iran don’t mention destruction of Islamic State or terminating the role of coalition nations participating in the Raqqa region, the headquarter location for ISIS.

***

Syria Cease-Fire Agreement Reached

Deal brokered between Turkey and Russia; Syrian military confirms truce, which is set to go into effect at midnight

WSJ: MOSCOW—Russia, Turkey and Syria announced that a cease-fire would go in effect in Syria early Friday morning, in a deal hammered out between Ankara and Moscow to bring the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and opposition groups into peace talks.

Details of the cease-fire were still emerging, but statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry and Syria’s military said it would begin at midnight local time in Syria.

Mr. Putin said agreements had been reached earlier Thursday between the Syrian regime and the “militant opposition” for a cease-fire and for arrangements to monitor it. While acknowledging the accords were “very fragile,” he also said consensus had been reached over the “readiness of peace talks to resolve [the situation] in Syria.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said Ankara and Moscow would be guarantors of the plan “to cease all armed, including aerial, attacks.” Under the accord, each side is to refrain from seizing further territory, the ministry said.

In his remarks, Mr. Putin didn’t identify the militant groups that had agreed to the truce, but Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu

said they included the “main forces” of the armed opposition.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said the cease-fire deal excluded groups designated as “terrorist organizations” by the United Nations Security Council. Islamic State and the Syrian Conquest Front, an armed group linked to al Qaeda, have been excluded from previous truces in the nearly six-year-old war.

The ministry also said that Ankara hoped that a successful cease-fire would lead to a renewal of the U.N.-supported process for a political transition in Syria.

Russia, Iran and Turkey agreed in Moscow last week to hold talks in Kazakhstan next month aimed at ending the fighting in Syria. Those talks would exclude the U.S.

The U.S. has participated in the U.N.-backed process in Geneva to end the fighting in Syria. Following last week’s meeting in the Russian capital, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov played down the U.N. initiative while promoting the diplomatic push by Tehran, Moscow and Ankara. “I believe that the most effective format is the one that you see today,” Mr. Lavrov said.

A U.S. official said Wednesday the Obama administration wasn’t opposed to the talks being held in Kazakhstan, even if American diplomats weren’t directly involved. The State Department’s only condition, the official said, is that the negotiations are consistent with resolutions approved by the U.N. on Syria.

***

Given the standing 3 zones in Israel now where constant ground battles happen and John Kerry wants to add a 4th for Palestine, the same proposal is on the table in agreed draft form for Syria. Russia and Turkey are calling it zones of influence. ‘Influence’? Really? No one is reporting that Iran is in full agreement or what the future holds for Syria, meaning who is responsible for reconstruction and creating a stage for Syrians to return to their homeland….but do these powers even care?

***

Russia, Turkey, Iran eye dicing Syria into zones of influence

Reuters: Syria would be divided into informal zones of regional power influence and Bashar al-Assad would remain president for at least a few years under an outline deal between Russia, Turkey and Iran, sources say.

Such a deal, which would allow regional autonomy within a federal structure controlled by Assad’s Alawite sect, is in its infancy, subject to change and would need the buy-in of Assad and the rebels and, eventually, the Gulf states and the United States, sources familiar with Russia’s thinking say.

“There has been a move toward a compromise,” said Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a think tank close to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

“A final deal will be hard, but stances have shifted.”

Assad’s powers would be cut under a deal between the three nations, say several sources. Russia and Turkey would allow him to stay until the next presidential election when he would quit in favor of a less polarizing Alawite candidate.

Iran has yet to be persuaded of that, say the sources. But either way Assad would eventually go, in a face-saving way, with guarantees for him and his family.

“A couple of names in the leadership have been mentioned (as potential successors),” said Kortunov, declining to name names.

Nobody thinks a wider Syrian peace deal, something that has eluded the international community for years, will be easy, quick or certain of success. What is clear is that President Vladimir Putin wants to play the lead role in trying to broker a settlement, initially with Turkey and Iran.

That would bolster his narrative of Russia regaining its mantle as a world power and serious Middle East player.

“It’s a very big prize for them if they can show they’re out there in front changing the world,” Sir Tony Brenton, Britain’s former ambassador to Moscow, told Reuters. “We’ve all grown used to the United States doing that and had rather forgotten that Russia used to play at the same level”

BACKROOM DEALS

If Russia gets its way, new peace talks between the Syrian government and the opposition will begin in mid-January in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, a close Russian ally.

The talks would be distinct from intermittent U.N.-brokered negotiations and not initially involve the United States.

That has irritated some in Washington.

“So this country that essentially has an economy the size of Spain, that’s Russia, is strutting around and acting like they know what they are doing,” said one U.S. official, who declined to be named because of the subject’s sensitivity.

“I don’t think the Turks and the Russians can do this (political negotiations) without us.”

Foreign and defense ministers from Russia, Turkey and Iran met in Moscow on Dec. 20 and set out the principles they thought any Syria deal should adhere to.

Russian sources say the first step is to get a nationwide ceasefire and then to get talks underway. The idea would then be to get Gulf states involved, then the United States, and at a later stage the European Union which would be asked, maybe with the Gulf states, to pick up the bill for rebuilding.

The three-way peace push is, at first glance, an odd one.

Iran, Assad’s staunchest backer, has provided militia fighters to help Assad, Russia has supplied air strikes, while Turkey has backed the anti-Assad rebels.

Putin has struck a series of backroom understandings with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan to ease the path to a possible deal, several sources familiar with the process say.

Moscow got Iran to buy into the idea of a three-way peace push by getting Turkey to drop its demands for Assad to go soon, the same sources said.

“Our priority is not to see Assad go, but for terrorism to be defeated,” one senior Turkish government official, who declined to be named, said.

“It doesn’t mean we approve of Assad. But we have come to an understanding. When Islamic State is wiped out, Russia may support Turkey in Syria finishing off the PKK.”

Turkey views the YPG militia and its PYD political wing as extensions of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has long waged an insurgency in its largely Kurdish southeast.

“Of course we have disagreements with Iran,” said the same Turkish official. “We view some issues differently, but we are coming to agreements to end mutual problems.”

Aydin Sezer, head of the Turkey and Russia Centre of Studies, an Ankara-based think tank, said Turkey had now “completely given up the issue of regime change” in Syria.

Turkey’s public position remains strongly anti-Assad however and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday a political transition with Assad was impossible.

Brenton, Britain’s former ambassador, said Moscow and Ankara had done a deal because Moscow had needed Turkey to get the opposition out of Aleppo and to come to the negotiating table.

“The real flesh in the game the Turks have, and the fear they have, is of an autonomous Kurdistan emerging inside Syria that would have direct implications for them,” he said.

Ankara launched an incursion into Syria, “Operation Euphrates Shield”, in August to push Islamic State out of a 90-km (55-mile) stretch of frontier territory and ensure Kurdish militias did not gain more territory in Syria.

REALPOLITIK

The shifting positions of Moscow and Ankara are driven by realpolitik. Russia doesn’t want to get bogged down in a long war and wants to hold Syria together and keep it as an ally.

Turkey wants to informally control a swathe of northern Syria giving it a safe zone to house refugees, a base for the anti-Assad opposition, and a bulwark against Kurdish influence.

The fate of al-Bab, an Islamic State-held city around 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Aleppo, is also a factor. Erdogan is determined that Turkish-backed rebels capture the city to prevent Kurdish militias from doing so.

Several sources said there had been an understanding between Ankara and Moscow that rebels could leave Aleppo to help take al-Bab.

Iran’s interests are harder to discern, but Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s top adviser, said Aleppo’s fall might alter a lot in the region.

By helping Assad retake Aleppo, Tehran has secured a land corridor that connects Tehran to Beirut, allowing it to send arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Russian and Western diplomatic sources say Iran would insist on keeping that corridor and on Assad staying in power for now. If he did step down, Tehran would want him replaced with another Alawite, which it sees as the closest thing to Shia Islam.

Iran may be the biggest stumbling block to a wider deal.

Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan has said Saudi Arabia must not take part in talks because of its stance on Assad – Riyadh wants the Syrian leader to step down.

Scepticism about the prospects for a wider deal abounds.

Dennis Ross, an adviser to Democratic and Republican administrations, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said he did not think a deal would bring peace to Syria.

“I doubt this will end the war in Syria even after Aleppo,” Ross told Reuters. “Assad’s presence will remain a source of conflict with the opposition.”

2016: Islamic State Over There, Over Here

Posted on by

WT: Law enforcement agencies have arrested nine Northern Virginia residents on charges of aiding the Islamic State since the terrorist group rose to power in Syria and Iraq in 2014 and launched social media propaganda to attract followers, a government message to police states.

The Northern Virginia Regional Intelligence Center issued profiles of the nine in a Dec. 21 report labeled “law enforcement sensitive.”

Such reports are designed to help state and federal agents recognize trends in the types of individuals who are influenced by the Islamic State’s message and how they communicate across terrorist networks.

A defense attorney in one of the cases accused police of anti-Muslim bias; his client later pleaded guilty.

Somalis living in Minnesota appear to receive the most press attention in the U.S. for wanting to help or join the Islamic State. The FBI arrested six residents of Somali origin in April after they made arrangements to leave Minnesota for Syria. Last December, a 20-year-old man of Somali origin was arrested on accusations of leading a group of ethnic Somalis attempting to fight for the Islamic State.

The Northern Virginia report shows that Muslims seeking to become mass killers live near the seat of American government.

Of the nine Northern Virginians who were arrested, all but one were in their teens and early 20s. They included a police officer, a Starbucks barista, Army soldiers, bankers and a cabdriver. Four of the nine graduated from Northern Virginia high schools, one with honors. Two attended Northern Virginia Community College.

In other words, all of them appeared to have opportunities via public education to become successful Americans but instead were charged with what amounted to a devotion to violent jihad.

They are suspected of conducting terrorism planning through Twitter, Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp and other platforms and apps, as well as on prepaid phones.

“Local police are in a particularly difficult situation,” said Robert Maginnis, a retired Army officer and researcher on Islamism who lives in Northern Virginia. “They face a severe challenge by Islamists operating in the shadows of our open society. These mostly young male Muslims become radicalized either by Islamist imams at some of the thousands of mosques across America, at school, or over the ever-present internet sites that spew anti-West, anti-Christian hatred.”

These are the nine profiles, according to the intelligence report obtained by The Washington Times:

• Ali Shukir Amin. He pleaded guilty to providing support to the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh) and was sentenced to 136 months in prison. An honors student at Osbourn Park High School, Amin wrote a pro-Islamic State blog, had a Twitter account with 7,000 tweets and instructed people on how to use bitcoin to hide money transfers and on how to travel to Syria.

• Reza Niknejad. Also an Osbourn Park student who was attending Northern Virginia Community College, Niknejad, aided by Amin, traveled to Syria in 2015. He was charged in absentia.

• Heather Coffman. She pleaded guilty to making a false statement concerning involvement in international terrorism and was sentenced to 54 months in prison. She joined the Army but was discharged after four months, and later worked as a sales clerk. She operated multiple Facebook accounts to promote the Islamic State and shared terrorism contacts with possible recruits.

• Joseph Hassan Farrokh. He pleaded guilty this year to attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State and received 102 months in prison. He provided $600 to a friend to travel to Syria and attempted to be a foreign fighter.

• Mahmound Amin Mohamed Elhassan. He pleaded guilty in October to aiding Farrokh and lying about his involvement in international terrorism. He spoke openly of supporting the Islamic State and its violence. He had attended Northern Virginia Community College and worked for Starbucks.

• Mohamad Jamal Khweis. He was arrested in Turkey on charges of conspiring to help the Islamic State. His trial begins in April. He graduated from Edison High School and worked for two banks and Highgate Hotels. He traveled to Syria in 2015 to become a foreign fighter before having second thoughts and escaping.

• Mohammad Bilor Jalloh. He pleaded guilty in October to trying to help the Islamic State. He had served as a combat engineer in the Virginia National Guard and worked for consulting firms. He met with Islamic State members in Africa and tried to buy firearms to carry out a Fort Hood-style massacre.

• Haris Qatar. He also pleaded guilty to charges of helping the Islamic State. He attended Northern Virginia Community College and worked for Wells Fargo. He created 60 Twitter handles for Islamic State propaganda and stalked residences in Northern Virginia that were on the group’s “kill lists.” He was preparing to make a video encouraging people to carry out “lone wolf” attacks around Washington.

• Nicholas Young. The oldest of the nine at 36, he has been charged with helping the Islamic State but has not faced trial. He graduated from West Potomac High School and worked as a Metro police officer. He is accused of stockpiling weapons at his home. According to authorities, he traveled to Libya and gave advice to Islamic State followers on how to avoid law enforcement monitoring.

Mr. Maginnis, who stays in contact with local police in Virginia, said the wave of social media rhetoric against law enforcement has made their counterterrorism role more difficult.

“Given our open society, detached parents and politically correct schools, local police in Northern Virginia understandably hesitate to rigorously pursue young Islamist wannabes,” Mr. Maginnis said.

****

Hoover Institute:

The goal of the United States and its allies must be the total eradication of the Islamic State. Destroying ISIS begins with eliminating its self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria. This can be accomplished by arming local actors and assisting them with advisers, forward air control teams, and airpower. More importantly, the United States must work with regional partners to knit together a political solution to provide Iraqi and Syrian Sunni Arabs a measure of autonomy to prevent the reemergence of ISIS or its ideological successor. The United States must also wage a holistic campaign to combat ISIS elsewhere in the world. Means include pressuring ISIS affiliates through drone strikes and by strengthening partner states, using financial and legal means to impede terrorist financing, combating radicalization in cyberspace and on social media platforms, and focusing intelligence capabilities to uncover ISIS operatives seeking to conduct terror attacks in Europe and the United States.

 

The Destruction of ISIS by Hoover Institution on Scribd

Iran Deal Terms Revealed, They DID Lie

Posted on by

   Do you wonder what world leaders know that we don’t? Shall we start with the Iranian nuclear deal?

From the White House website January 2016:

On January 16, 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency verified that Iran has completed the necessary steps under the Iran deal that will ensure Iran’s nuclear program is and remains exclusively peaceful.

Before this agreement, Iran’s breakout time — or the time it would have taken for Iran to gather enough fissile material to build a weapon — was only two to three months. Today, because of the Iran deal, it would take Iran 12 months or more. And with the unprecedented monitoring and access this deal puts in place, if Iran tries, we will know and sanctions will snap back into place.

Here’s how we got to this point. Since October, Iran has:

  • Shipped 25,000 pounds of enriched uranium out of the country
  • Dismantled and removed two-thirds of its centrifuges
  • Removed the calandria from its heavy water reactor and filled it with concrete
  • Provided unprecedented access to its nuclear facilities and supply chain

Because Iran has completed these steps, the U.S. and international community can begin the next phase under the JCPOA, which means the U.S. will begin lifting its nuclear-related sanctions on Iran. However, a number of U.S. sanctions authorities and designations will continue to remain in place. More here.

Sept, 2015: Democratic senators Tuesday blocked for the second time an attempt by frustrated Republicans to stop the Iran nuclear agreement from taking effect. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., vowed to try again to derail the deal.

Senators voted 56-42 in favor of bringing to the floor a resolution of disapproval opposing the Iran deal — four votes shy of the 60 Republican leaders need to advance the resolution. It was the second time in less than a week that Democrats safeguarded the Iran agreement. The votes spare President Obama from having to veto a disapproval resolution since it will not come to his desk. The House rejected the vote, so what did the Obama White House do? They took it to the UN and bypassed Congress completely…Now we know more details as it is demonstrated that Obama, John Kerry and Ben Rhodes all lied. Consequence? None yet unless we demand them.

 

U.N. Agency Publishes Secret Iran Deal Docs On Exemptions Obama Admin Dismissed

Top Nuclear Expert: “You just have to ask the question of, what else is being hidden?”

TWS: Iran was given secret exemptions allowing the country to exceed restrictions set out by the landmark nuclear deal inked last year, some of which were made public this week by the United Nations nuclear watchdog and others that are likely still being withheld, according to diplomatic sources and a top nuclear expert who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Friday posted documents revealing that Iran had been given exemptions in January that permit the country to stockpile uranium in excess of the 300 kilogram limit set by the nuclear deal, experts said. The agreements had been kept secret for almost a year, but recent reports indicated that the Trump administration intended to make them public.

TWS reported earlier in December that top Democratic senators also supported releasing the documents.

Some details of the exemptions had previously been leaked. The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) revealed in September that Iran had been allowed to exceed certain caps in the deal so that the country could come into compliance with the deal’s terms.

Administration officials dismissed the ISIS report at the time, and surrogates who White House officials have described as the administration’s “echo chamber” criticized the organization.

“The administration was really nasty after we released these documents,” David Albright, the founder and president of ISIS, told TWS on Friday. “It was very tough for us to get the information. … I think that if we hadn’t released, they had every intention to keep it secret. They may have given lip service to openness, but I think their intention was to keep it secret.”

Albright credited the release of the documents as a step towards greater transparency, despite administration attempts to conceal the agreements.

“You just have to ask the question of, what else is being hidden?” said Albright. “The administration did it to try to minimize the chance that people would know what was in these decisions, and certainly keep those people from talking to people like me in the technical community that can actually interpret what’s in those decisions.”

A source who works with Congress on the Iran issue and who had been briefed on some of the exemptions confirmed that assessment.

“The Obama team was just hoping to get through the next few weeks without revealing that they’ve been allowing Iran to go beyond the nuclear deal the whole time,” said the source. “That way the president and Secretary of State Kerry could keep declaring that Iran has been following the deal, and their echo chamber could keep saying the nuclear deal is working.”

“But now it’s public. The only reason that the nuclear deal is still in place is because the Obama team has been secretly rewriting to let Iran cheat. The only question is, what’s still not being told?”

The now-confirmed exemptions reported on by ISIS include allowing Iran to keep low-enriched uranium (LEU) in various forms beyond what’s allowed under the nuclear deal. The concession applies to forms that have been “deemed unrecoverable” for use in a nuclear weapon, and Iran has promised not to build a facility to try recover them.

That language is not in the nuclear deal, and Obama officials have struggled to defend it. At a State Department press briefing in September after the release of the ISIS report, journalists pressed spokesperson John Kirby on the decision.

“You’re using this term that’s not in the document. I’m just trying to figure out how we can actually check that or understand what it means,” said Associated Press reporter Bradley Klapper. “If you say some things are usable but some things aren’t, but I don’t know which are which, that’s not spelled out in the document. That seems to be a new idea here.”

Albright suggested to TWS that the uranium could actually be recoverable and used in a rush to a nuclear weapon. The State Department in September distorted the nature of the exemption, he said.

“If this whole thing rests on [Iran] promising not to build a facility that they’d probably only build in secret if they were going to actually break out, then this material probably should not be deemed non-recoverable,” he continued. “The State Department … deliberately distorted what was in these decisions to make this point that somehow ‘non-recoverable’ meant [the LEU] really would never be able to be recovered, regardless if they build a facility.”

Obama Terminates NSEERS

Posted on by

CAIR is delighted with this Obama decision and so is the New York Attorney General. Essentially, this is removing many of the national security tools used to secure the homeland. It is not only about tracking Arab or Muslim men. How about foreign national spies?

Obama gets rid of visitor registry before Trump takes over

TheHill: The Obama administration is abolishing a national registry program created to track visitors from countries with active terrorist groups, a move likely intended to send a strong message to Donald Trump just weeks before he takes office, the New York Times reports.

The registry, officially called the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, was created after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but has not been in use since 2011.

President-elect Trump has suggested he was open to reviving the program and has even floated a wider national registry of all Muslims and potentially barring people from countries with a history of Islamist extremism from entering the country.

The Department of Homeland Security submitted a rule change for dismantling of the program, writing that it no longer helps security. The changes will take effect Friday.

“D.H.S. ceased use of NSEERS more than five years ago, after it was determined the program was redundant, inefficient and provided no increase in security,” Neema Hakim, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement.

Hakim said the program diverts personnel and resources from other areas that are more effective.

Civil liberties groups have long criticized the program.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee praised the move, calling the registry a “failed program rooted in discriminatory profiling.”

In a statement, the group said it has worked “tirelessly” in pushing DHS to dismantle the program.

“This is the right decision by [Homeland] Secretary [Jeh] Johnson. We commend him, and the Obama administration, for letting it be known that such registry programs are futile and have no place in our country,” said Abed Ayoub, the group’s legal and policy director.

“However the community cannot be at ease; the next administration has indicated that they will consider implementing similar programs. We will work twice as hard to protect our community and ensure such programs do not come to fruition.”

Kris Kobach, Kansas’s secretary of state and a member of Trump’s transition team, was photographed with a document recommending reintroducing the visitor registry program in the first year of Trump’s presidency.

“All aliens from high-risk areas are tracked,” the document said.

Trump has waffled on whether his administration would create a broader so-called Muslim registry, and he faced new questions about the proposal this week after the attack in Berlin.

Asked by reporters if he intends to set up a registry, he said: “You know my plans,” adding, “All along, I’ve been proven to be right, 100 percent correct.”

****

This site posted a summary on this database a month ago.

It is called NSEERS.

There is an entry and exit program managed by the Department of Homeland Security….well they maintain it but don’t use it to remove people…but it does exist to the point of a backlog of 1.6 million and it actually a Visa Overstay system.

Thank you GW Bush, as NSEERS was launched in 2002 and used to collect names, backgrounds and locations of people that were inside the United States that would pose a threat and cause additional harm to the homeland. The Bush administration earnestly applied all elements of this program and performed thousands of deportations as well as criminal investigations on violators or those connected to nefarious groups and organization. By the end of the calendar year 2002, 3,995 wanted criminals had been arrested attempting to cross into the United States. 

The 9/11 Commission Report dedicated an entire chapter to immigration and the flaws. Many of the hijackers were in the United States illegally. Okay, then the 9/11 Commission also made stout recommendations of which everyone in Congress agreed to and signed. Then a few years later, those agreements began to fall apart on the Democrat side and continue to be forgotten today.