organization:c.i.a

With Bags of Cash, C.I.A. Seeks Influence in Afghanistan

Tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

“We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”

The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/world/asia/cia-delivers-cash-to-afghan-leaders-office.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

http://www.parismatch.com/Actu-Match/Monde/Depeches/Les-sacs-d-argent-de-la-CIA-en-Afghanistan-481019 (extrait, en français)

#corruption #Afghanistan #USA

C.I.A. Delivers Cash to Afghan Leader’s Office - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/world/asia/cia-delivers-cash-to-afghan-leaders-office.html?ref=global-home

A la une de tous les médias norvégiens aujourd’hui : « La plus grande source de corruption en Afghanistan a été et est l’Amérique : de l’argent dans des valises, des sacs à dos et des sacs en plastique... »

KABUL, Afghanistan — For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.

#afghanistan #états-unis #corruption #cia

With Bags of Cash, C.I.A. Seeks Influence in Afghanistan
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/world/asia/cia-delivers-cash-to-afghan-leaders-office.html

The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing.

Moreover, there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan.

#guerre #afghanistan

After Airstrike, Afghan Points to C.I.A. and Secret Militias- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/world/asia/after-airstrike-afghan-points-to-cia-and-secret-militias.html

... irregular forces like the militias run by the C.I.A. are a crucial part of the effort, American officials say.

How Raymond Davis Helped Turn Pakistan Against the United States - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/magazine/raymond-davis-pakistan.html?pagewanted=print

(Pour rappel sur Raymond Davis http://www.lapresse.ca/international/correspondants/201102/18/01-4371564-diplomate-ou-espion.php)

... the day after Davis was released from prison and spirited out of the country. C.I.A. drones attacked a tribal council meeting in the village of Datta Khel, in North Waziristan, killing dozens of men. Ambassador Munter and some at the Pentagon thought the timing of the strike was disastrous, and some American officials suspected that the massive strike was the C.I.A. venting its anger about the Davis episode. More important, however, many American officials believed that the strike was botched, and that dozens of people died who shouldn’t have.

...

Munter said he believed that the C.I.A. was being reckless and that his position as ambassador was becoming untenable. His relationship with the C.I.A. station chief in Islamabad, already strained because of their disagreements over the handling of the Davis case, deteriorated even further when Munter demanded that the C.I.A. give him the chance to call off specific missile strikes. During one screaming match between the two men, Munter tried to make sure the station chief knew who was in charge, only to be reminded of who really held the power in Pakistan.

“You’re not the ambassador!” Munter shouted.

“You’re right, and I don’t want to be the ambassador,” the station chief replied.

This turf battle spread to Washington, and a month after Bin Laden was killed, President Obama’s top advisers were arguing in a National Security Council meeting over who really was in charge in Pakistan. At the June 2011 meeting, Munter, who participated via secure video link, began making his case that he should have veto power over specific drone strikes.

Panetta cut Munter off, telling him that the C.I.A. had the authority to do what it wanted in Pakistan. It didn’t need to get the ambassador’s approval for anything.

“I don’t work for you,” Panetta told Munter, according to several people at the meeting.

But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came to Munter’s defense. She turned to Panetta and told him that he was wrong to assume he could steamroll the ambassador and launch strikes against his approval.

“No, Hillary,” Panetta said, “it’s you who are flat wrong.”

There was a stunned silence, and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon tried to regain control of the meeting. In the weeks that followed, Donilon brokered a compromise of sorts: Munter would be allowed to object to specific drone strikes, but the C.I.A. could still press its case to the White House and get approval for strikes even over the ambassador’s objections. Obama’s C.I.A. had, in essence, won yet again.

A Secret Deal on Drones, Sealed in Blood- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/world/asia/origins-of-cias-not-so-secret-drone-war-in-pakistan.html?pagewanted=3&_r=3&

Bon voilà : La CIA adorerait les assassinats par drones parce qu’ils lui évitent d’avoir recours à la torture, cette dernière étant passible de poursuites judiciaires.

A New Direction

As the negotiations were taking place, the C.I.A.’s inspector general, John L. Helgerson, had just finished a searing report about the abuse of detainees in the C.I.A.’s secret prisons. The report kicked out the foundation upon which the C.I.A. detention and interrogation program had rested. It was perhaps the single most important reason for the C.I.A.’s shift from capturing to killing terrorism suspects.

Mr. Helgerson raised questions about whether C.I.A. officers might face criminal prosecution for the interrogations carried out in the secret prisons, and he suggested that interrogation methods like waterboarding, sleep deprivation and the exploiting of the phobias of prisoners — like confining them in a small box with live bugs — violated the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

“The agency faces potentially serious long-term political and legal challenges as a result of the CTC detention and interrogation program,” the report concluded, given the brutality of the interrogation techniques and the “inability of the U.S. government to decide what it will ultimately do with the terrorists detained by the agency.”

The report was the beginning of the end for the program. The prisons would stay open for several more years, and new detainees were occasionally picked up and taken to secret sites, but at Langley, senior C.I.A. officers began looking for an endgame to the prison program. One C.I.A. operative told Mr. Helgerson’s team that officers from the agency might one day wind up on a “wanted list” and be tried for war crimes in an international court.

The ground had shifted, and counterterrorism officials began to rethink the strategy for the secret war. Armed drones, and targeted killings in general, offered a new direction. Killing by remote control was the antithesis of the dirty, intimate work of interrogation. Targeted killings were cheered by Republicans and Democrats alike, and using drones flown by pilots who were stationed thousands of miles away made the whole strategy seem risk-free.

Twitter / MiddleEast_BRK : Terrific map on Syrian rebels’ ...
https://twitter.com/MiddleEast_BRK/status/316157807445553152/photo/1/large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BGM32c5CMAAGaQx.png

Influential Ex-Aide to Obama Voices Concern on Drone Strikes - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/us/influential-ex-aide-to-obama-voices-concern-on-drone-strikes.html?_r=0

Sur le tintamarre fait autour du transfert du programme drones de la CIA vers le Pentagone : Pure opération de relations publiques qui, au minimum, ne changera pas grand chose en termes de victimes civiles et donc de transparence.

Some close observers of the drone program disputed the widely repeated notion that moving it entirely to the Defense Department would necessarily make it more open, particularly if it is to be operated by the Joint Special Operations Command, among the least transparent elements of the military.

“We know JSOC is far more secretive than the C.I.A., and that Congressional oversight is weaker,” said Naureen Shah, associate director of the Counterterrorism and Human Rights Project at Columbia Law School. She said that while units under the Joint Special Operations Command were accused of serious abuse of prisoners in Iraq, “it never had to face public scrutiny about it in the way the C.I.A. did.”

#drones #FDG

Seeking Lessons From Iraq. But Which Ones ? - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/world/middleeast/iraq-war-offers-lessons-for-syria-and-iran.html

En tout cas, concernant les prémisses de ses articles il n’y a pas de dilemme pour le New York Times, elles restent les mêmes.

The C.I.A., having missed critical nuclear developments in Pakistan and many other nations, did not want to be caught making the same mistake again. And Mr. Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney, were not exactly looking for alternative explanations, as Mr. Hadley indicated.

“The problem was that, with the Iraqi W.M.D., the policy makers wanted bad news,” said James Dobbins of the RAND Corporation, who has held many government posts. “They wanted to confirm that Iraq had W.M.D., and the intelligence analysts were inclined to move in that direction anyway,” since “it would be even worse if they predicted they didn’t have W.M.D. and it turned out they did.”

Mr. Obama’s team, while seemingly convinced that Iran wants a weapons capability, has stopped short of saying that any decision has been made to take the final steps toward a weapon. And the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies, not wanting to repeat their most recent mistake, have been similarly cautious.

But in their more candid moments, some of Mr. Obama’s current and former advisers say they fear “strategic surprise,’’ the discovery that they missed something – a hidden nuclear facility, a decision by political leaders in Iran that they failed to pick up. In short, they fear making the error that worried leaders most before the bitter experience of Iraq.

Les alliés des Américains arment les rebelles syriens, et les Américains les entraînent. (Mais tu vas encore lire beaucoup d’articles au sujet des « hésitations » américaines et européennes à armer les rebelles dans le futur.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/world/middleeast/us-pledges-60-million-to-syrian-opposition.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

A covert program to train rebel fighters, which State Department officials here were not prepared to discuss, has also been under way. According to an official in Washington, who asked not to be identified, the C.I.A. since last year has been training groups of Syrian rebels in Jordan.

The official did not provide details about the training or what difference it may have made on the battlefield, but said the C.I.A. had not given weapons or ammunition to the rebels. An agency spokesman declined to comment.

Drone Pilots Found to Get Stress Disorders Much as Those in Combat Do - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-to-get-stress-disorders-much-as-those-in-combat-do.html?
Diriger des #drones, c’est pas bon pour la #santé_mentale, on s’en doutait

In the first study of its kind, researchers with the Defense Department have found that pilots of drone aircraft experience mental health problems like depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress at the same rate as pilots of manned aircraft who are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

encore moins pour ceux qu’on dézingue, mais ça on ignore

Those figures do not include drones operated by the C.I.A. in counterterrorism operations over Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.

Strategy Seeks to Ensure Bid of Brennan for C.I.A. - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/us/politics/strategy-seeks-to-ensure-bid-of-brennan-for-cia.html

Obama veut garder secrètes ses “règles rigoureuses” sur les frappes de drones.

The refusal so far to share more of the opinions with Congress, or to make redacted versions of the memos public, comes despite a pledge of greater transparency by President Obama in his State of the Union address on Feb. 12.

“I recognize that in our democracy, no one should just take my word that we’re doing things the right way,” the president said. “So, in the months ahead, I will continue to engage with Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.”

Drone Strikes’ Dangers to Get Rare Moment in Public Eye
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/world/middleeast/with-brennan-pick-a-light-on-drone-strikes-hazards.html

The killing of Mr. Jaber, just the kind of leader most crucial to American efforts to eradicate Al Qaeda, was a reminder of the inherent hazards of the quasi-secret campaign of targeted killings that the United States is waging against suspected militants not just in Yemen but also in Pakistan and Somalia. Individual strikes by the Predator and Reaper drones are almost never discussed publicly by Obama administration officials. But the clandestine war will receive a rare moment of public scrutiny on Thursday, when its chief architect, John O. Brennan, the White House counterterrorism adviser, faces a Senate confirmation hearing as President Obama’s nominee for C.I.A. director.

#drones #exécutions

In Behind-Scene Blows and Triumphs, Sense of Clinton Future
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/us/politics/in-behind-scene-blows-and-triumphs-sense-of-clinton-future.html?hp&_r=0

Last summer, as the fighting in Syria raged and questions about the United States’ inaction grew, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton conferred privately with David H. Petraeus, the director of the C.I.A. The two officials were joining forces on a plan to arm the Syrian resistance.
Related

The idea was to vet the rebel groups and train fighters, who would be supplied with weapons. The plan had risks, but it also offered the potential reward of creating Syrian allies with whom the United States could work, both during the conflict and after President Bashar al-Assad’s eventual removal.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Petraeus presented the proposal to the White House, according to administration officials. But with the White House worried about the risks, and with President Obama in the midst of a re-election bid, they were rebuffed.

Ex-Officer Is First From C.I.A. to Face Prison for a Leak - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/us/former-cia-officer-is-the-first-to-face-prison-for-a-classified-leak.html?p

the irony of this whole thing is, very simply, that he’s going to be the only C.I.A. officer to go to jail over #torture,” even though he publicly denounced torture, Mr. Riedel said. “It’s deeply ironic under the Democratic president who ended torture.”

#CIA #secret #défense

There is wide agreement in the government that too much information is classified, and even senior officials are sometimes uncertain about what is secret.

Trying to Keep Your E-Mails Secret When the C.I.A. Chief Couldn’t - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/technology/trying-to-keep-your-e-mails-secret-when-the-cia-chief-couldnt.html?pagewant

“Robust tools for privacy and anonymity exist, but they are not integrated in a way that makes them easy to use,” Mr. Blaze warned. “We’ve all made the mistake of accidentally hitting ‘Reply All.’ Well, if you’re trying to hide your e-mails or account or I.P. address, there are a thousand other mistakes you can make.”

#sécurité #privacy #email

C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Rebels
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?_r=1&hp

A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.

The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.

The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so.

Files Note Close C.I.A. Ties to Qaddafi Spy Unit
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/world/africa/03libya.html

Documents found at the abandoned office of Libya’s former spymaster appear to provide new details of the close relations the Central Intelligence Agency shared with the Libyan intelligence service — most notably suggesting that the Americans sent terrorism suspects at least eight times for questioning in Libya despite that country’s reputation for torture.

Le très méchant n’était pas si infréquentable que ça ...

Clandestine C.I.A. Operatives Gather Information in Libya - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/world/africa/31intel.html?_r=1

While President Obama has insisted that no American military ground troops participate in the Libyan campaign, small groups of C.I.A. operatives have been working in Libya for several weeks as part of a shadow force of Westerners that the Obama administration hopes can help bleed Colonel Qaddafi’s military, the officials said.

[...]

Several weeks ago, President Obama signed a secret finding authorizing the C.I.A. to provide arms and other support to Libyan rebels, American officials said Wednesday. But weapons have not yet been shipped into Libya, as Obama administration officials debate the effects of giving them to the rebel groups. The presidential finding was first reported by Reuters.

Bravo la précision : « several weeks », ça n’a rigoureusement aucun sens dans le cas présent. Les combats ont commencé mi-février (il y a six semaines) ; la résolution de l’ONU, c’est le 17 mars (il a deux semaines). #Libye

A Declaration of Cyber-War | Culture | Vanity Fair
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/04/stuxnet-201104

The cyber-world where #Stuxnet lives is so murky, so hard to know the truth about, that some experts still question certain elements of the public story. From the beginning, many have found it odd that, of all the security companies in the world, an obscure Belarusian firm should be the one to find this threat—and odder still that the serial rebooting that gave Stuxnet away has been reported nowhere else, as far as most of the worm’s top analysts have heard. Such facts moved one former C.I.A. official to suggest that perhaps Stuxnet was not actually discovered—but dropped. Maybe its limited impact on Natanz indicates that it was not fully successful as a cyber-operation. After being detected by Iran, it may have been retooled by the country as “psyops”—psychological operations—against the West. Robert Baer, the former C.I.A. officer and author of The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower, says, “The moment Iran caught Stuxnet, they could easily have put out misinformation”—to the effect that their nuclear program had been set back several years—“simply to alleviate meetings in Western capitals. So that everyone will say, ‘All right, Stuxnet worked.’ ”