Controversy over head of Obama’s terrorism watch-list review
December 31, 2009 Leave a comment
John Brennan
By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A veteran CIA official appointed to review the US government’s defective terrorism watch-list system, was actually involved in designing it, and later helped sustain it through a lucrative private-sector contract. John O. Brennan was appointed by President Barack Obama on Sunday to head a “comprehensive interagency review” of travel security measures, after it was revealed that the father of Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, the Christmas Day airline bomb plot suspect, had notified the CIA about his son’s activities. It turns out, however, that not only was Brennan part of the US National Counterterrorism Center team that designed the terrorism watch-list system, but he also helped sustain it while heading the Analysis Corporation, a scandal-prone private contractor charged with overseeing the watch-list system. Politico’s Carol Lee and Laura Rozen are among the very few reporters who have connected the dots on Brennan. Read more of this post
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For second time in history, CIA suffers 8 deaths in a day [updated]
December 31, 2009 by intelNews 4 Comments
US Beirut mission
By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Update: The CIA now says that seven, not eight, of the “Agency’s workforce” died in the Khost suicide attack. There is, however, some confusion as to the status of the bomber himself, with some Taliban sources in Afghanistan claiming he was already operating as a CIA informant.
Since it emerged last night that eight CIA agents were killed in a suicide bombing in Khost, Afghanistan, intelNews has received several emails asking whether the deaths marked a horrific record for the US spy agency. The unnamed agents were reportedly killed along with at least one Afghan civilian at the US-operated Forward Operating Base Chapman, close to the Pakistani border. The CIA is not known for forwarding details on its agents who perish while on missions around the world. But there is at least one other known instance when the Agency lost eight of its operatives in one day: Read more of this post
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