by Tim Shorrock
4. R. J. Hillhouse, “The Achilles’ Heel of the US War Effort,” The Spy Who Billed Me (blog), October 4, 2007, http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_who_billed_me/2007/10/the-achilles-he.html.
5. Jane Mayer, “The CIA’s Travel Agent,” The New Yorker, October 30, 2006.
6. Miller, “Spy Agencies Outsourcing to Fill Key Jobs.”
7. Robert Baer, “Outsourcing the CIA,” Time, April 20, 2007.
8. Robert Baer, interview with author, May 2007.
9. Robert Baer, Blow the House Down (New York: Crown, 2006), p. 88.
10. Melvin Goodman, interview with author, April 2007.
11. “Statement to Employees by Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, General Michael V. Hayden, on Contractor Study,” CIA press release, May 30, 2007.
12. Court documents filed by the CIA in response to a lawsuit filed by “Peter B.,” a covert contract employee who claims he was unlawfully terminated, obtained by the Federation of American Scientists and posted on the FAS Secrecy News Web site, April 11, 2007, www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/.
13. Retired Air Force General Michael V. Hayden, in an interview with C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb, April 15, 2007.
14. Hillhouse, “The Achilles’ Heel of the US War Effort.”
15. Robert Young Pelton, Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror (New York: Crown, 2007), p. 30.
16. Ibid.
17. Larry Johnson, interview with author, April 2007.
18. Ray McGovern, interview with author.
19. At the same time, advances in information technology, and the automation of internal systems at the CIA, provided an opening for IT companies offering data management and information services. At the CIA, “Intelligence reports at the beginning of the decade [of the 1990s] were hand-delivered; by the end of the decade, almost all products were disseminated electronically,” Melissa Boyle Mahle, a former CIA Middle East specialist, wrote in her 2004 memoir, Denial and Deception. Even so, by the turn of the century the CIA’s system was fairly crude compared to what could be found in the commercial world, as Bruce Berkowitz, a former CIA officer and a research fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, discovered. In 2001 and 2002, Berkowitz was a scholar-in-residence at the Sherman Kent Center for Intelligence Analysis, the CIA’s think tank for analysts. Over a six-month period, he was charged with looking at how the Directorate of Intelligence used information technology and comparing the CIA to organizations that performed similar research functions, including the Washington Post and the Congressional Research Service. His study, “Failing to Keep Up with the Information Revolution,” was published on the CIA’s public Web site in April 2007. Berkowitz found that CIA analysts had access to two different computer systems: a classified network for CIA work and for communications with other intelligence agencies, and a declassified network connected to the Internet and public e-mail accounts. Using a switchbox, analysts could move from one system to another; but secrecy protocols at the CIA and its sister agencies made it extremely difficult to access classified documents posted on the CIA’s internal Web site, called CIASource. For example, a person could have a non-CIA top secret/SCI clearance and be cleared to read CIASource, but “not have either the CIA network access certification or the equipment able to access the website. The result is that DI analysts work in an environment that is largely isolated from the outside world.” He also found that the stringent rules for using classified systems sent “implicit messages to analysts: that technology is a threat, not a benefit, and that the CIA does not put a high priority on analysts using IT easily or creatively.” He recommended a new approach that would give CIA analysts easy and quick access to both secret and declassified systems. Only by using IT more effectively could the CIA hope “to provide US officials the intelligence that they are required to detect, understand, and respond to current, emerging, and future threats facing the United States.” See Melissa Boyle Mahle, Denial and Deception: An Insider’s View of the CIA from Iran-Contra to 9/11 (New York: Nation Books, 2004), p. 73; and Bruce Berkowitz, “Failing to Keep Up with the Information Revolution,” CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, May 2007, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/docs/v47i1a07p.htm.
20. The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 90.
21. John Gannon, interview with author, September 2006.
22. According to an NCTC official who testified before the 9/11 Commission. See “Statement of Russell E. Travers to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States,” January 26, 2004, http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing7/witness_travers.htm.
23. “TAC Gets Work on Terrorist Watch List,” Homeland Security & Defense, November 2, 2005.
24. Karen DeYoung, “Terror Database Has Quadrupled in Four Years,” Washington Post, March 25, 2007.
25. Renae Merle, “Fairfax Firm Adds to Its CIA Cast,” Washington Post, June 22, 2006.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. L-1 Identity Solutions Inc., analysts meeting transcript, November 2, 2006.
29. L-1 Identity Solutions Inc., earnings conference call, May 9, 2007 (available on the SEC Web site).
30. Briefing by Douglas Franz, formerly of the Carlyle Group, at an investors forum in Washington, D.C., March 31, 2004.
31. Oynx Garner, “Creating a Win-Win Culture,” Outsourcing Journal, June 2005, www.outsourcing-journal.com.
32. “Tenet Joins ‘James Bond’ Firm,” Reuters, October 24, 2006.
33. See Laura Rozen, “The First Contract,” The American Prospect, March 30, 2007, http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=12612.
34. “Former CIA Director George Tenet Joins Guidance Software Board of Trustees,” Guidance press release, March 22, 2006.
35. General Dynamics, “IT Solutions for Mission Support,” publication number 5636, handed out at GEOINT 2006, Orlando, Florida.
36. “Contractor’s Rise Shows Blurred Government, Industry Lines,” Government Executive, July 7, 2006.
37. “Mission-Critical Intelligence Support in War on Terror,” SAIC Magazine, Winter/Spring 2006, www.saic.com.
38. Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele, “Washington’s $8 Billion Shadow,” Vanity Fair, March 2007.
39. Brookes’s CIA experience while working at SAIC is mentioned in his biographical information posted on the Heritage Foundation’s Web site.
40. Bartlett and Steele, “Washington’s $8 Billion Shadow.”
41. Dana Priest, “Top-Secret World Loses Blogger,” Washington Post, July 21, 2006; and Mark Mazzetti, “CIA Worker Says Message on Torture Got Her Fired,” New York Times, July 22, 2006.
42. “BAE Systems Global Analysis Business Unit: Expert Analysts in Partnership with the Intelligence Community,” BAE brochure distributed at GEOINT 2007.
43. “FBI Oversight,” testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, May 2, 2006, Dr. John Gannon, vice president for Global Analysis, BAE Systems Information Technology, supplied to the author by Dr. Gannon.
44. Entrepreneur Weekly, November 8, 2005.
45. Ibid.
46. Greg Miller, “A Bold Upstart with CIA Roots,” Los Angeles Times, September 17, 2006.
47. “The CIA’s Accountants,” Intelligence Newsletter, July 22, 1999.
48. Linda Robinson and Kevin Whitelaw, “Seeking Spies,” U.S. News & World Report, February 13, 2006.
49. James Bamford, “This Spy for Rent,” New York Times, June 13, 2004.
50. Miller, “A Bold Upstart with CIA Roots.”
51. David B. Ottoway, “State Dept., Congress in Embassy Row,” Washington Post, March 4, 1987.
52. “Abraxas Corporation Opens Office in China,” Abraxas press release, printed in Asia Pulse, October 21, 2004.
53. Ben Hammer, “Abraxas Goes on Shopping Spree,” Washington Business Journal, December 25, 2006.
54. “One Door Closes, Another Opens,” Montgomery Advertiser, March 28, 2004.
55. This was
posted on a blog called Enough, I’ve Had It, http://blogs.salon.com/0003752/2004/04/14.html.
56. Hammer, “Abraxas Goes on Shopping Spree.”
57. Hoskins’s name doesn’t appear on the company Web site, but his biographical information was posted by his alma mater, Auburn University’s School of Engineering, in 2006. See http://eng.auburn.edu/admin/marketing/events/index.html.
58. “McDonald Bradley Participates in Consortium That Lands $250 Million Agreement at DoD,” McDonald Bradley press release, October 12, 2007.
59. Stephanie Cline, “Scitor Corp. to Move to Patriot Park in Colorado Springs,” Colorado Springs Business Journal, May 13, 2005.
60. Eric Winig, “Allied Capital Makes $22 Million Bet on Scitor’s Future,” Washington Business Journal, August 26, 2002.
61. “Employees Acquire Scitor Corp. in 100% ESOP Buyout,” press release, Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin, July 29, 2002.
62. Nick Wakeman, “M&A Roundup,” Washington Technology, October 1, 2007.
63. According to the Auburn University Web site, http://eng.auburn.edu/admin/marketing/events/index.html.
64. Stephanie O’Sullivan, remarks to GEOINT 2006.
65. “In-Q-Tel Announced Strategic Investment in Keyhole,” In-Q-Tel press release, June 25, 2003.
66. Kim Hart, “Firm to Mine Databases for National Security Threats,” Washington Post, April 19, 2007.
67. Donald Tighe, interview with author, November 2006.
68. Vernon Loeb, “CIA Adventures in Venture Capital,” Washington Post, June 3, 2001.
69. Shannon Henry, “In-Q-Tel, Investing in Intrigue,” Washington Post, July 1, 2002.
70. Donald W. Tighe, In-Q-Tel, e-mail interview with author, January 26, 2008.
71. Olga Harif, “A Start-up’s Road to Washington,” BusinessWeek On-Line, May 10, 2005.
72. Noah Shachtman, “With Terror in Mind, a Formulaic Way to Parse Sentences,” New York Times, March 3, 2005.
73. I interviewed Tighe at the GEOINT conference in 2006.
74. Joseph Santucci, interview with author, November 2006.
75. According to Stephanie O’Sullivan.
76. Ken Beeks, interview with author, September 2006.
77. Michael Kleeman, interview with author, January 2006.
78. Ken Silverstein, “The JIN: Too Good to Be True,” Harper’s, April 4, 2007. Silverstein also raised serious questions about Ianatron’s technology.
79. Chris Byron, interview with author, June 2006.
80. Ray McGovern, interview with author, April 2007.
81. Melvin Goodman, interview with author, April 2007.
82. Michael Scheuer, interview with author, February 9, 2005.
83. Robert Baer, interview with author, May 2007.
84. Timothy Sample, interview with author, August 2006.
5. THE ROLE OF THE PENTAGON
1. “The GIG Vision, Enabled by Information Assurance,” National Security Agency Web site, http://www.nsa.gov/ia/industry/gig.cfm.
2. Steven Zenishek made these comments at the Precision Strike 2006 Conference in Silver Spring, Maryland, March 1, 2006.
3. Among other things, the PNAC document proposed that the U.S. Army deploy forward-based units for long-term “reconnaissance and security missions” abroad, to be capable of operating over long distances “with sophisticated means of communication and access to high levels of U.S. intelligence.” Looking ahead to the Internet-based systems that would be developed under Rumsfeld, the task force emphasized that these units should be “built around the acquisition and management of information. This will be essential for combat operations—precise, long-range fire requires accurate and timely intelligence and robust communications links—but also for stability operations.” The report also foreshadowed the Pentagon’s creation of secret human intelligence units. “Especially those forces stationed in volatile regions must have their own human intelligence collection capacity, perhaps through an attached special forces unit if not solely through an organic intelligence unit.” Among the members of the PNAC defense task force were three people who would play a key role in the Rumsfeld-Cheney intelligence axis: Stephen Cambone, then affiliated with the National Defense University; Scooter Libby, who would become Cheney’s top national security aide; and Paul Wolfowitz, who would become Rumsfeld’s deputy. See “Rebuilding America’s Defense: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century,” a report of the Project for the New American Century, September 2000, http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf.
4. “Intel Reform Clears Congress with Military Chain-of-Command Accord,” Inside the Pentagon, December 9, 2004.
5. Melvin Goodman, interview with author, April 2007.
6. Joan A. Dempsey, “The Limitations of Recent Intelligence Reforms,” paper delivered at a seminar on intelligence, command, and control at the Center for Information Policy Research, Harvard University, September 2006.
7. Douglas Jehl, “Bush Wants Plan for Covert Pentagon Role,” New York Times, November 23, 2004.
8. Philip Giraldi, interview with author, April 2006.
9. Seymour Hersh, “The Coming Wars,” The New Yorker, January 24, 2005. The Washington Post first revealed the existence of the Strategic Support Branch in January 2005. The Pentagon, Post reporter Barton Gellman wrote, was now engaged in overseas missions “that have traditionally been the province of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.” That included sending defense personnel abroad under “nonofficial cover,” using false names and nationalities—something the CIA’s Directorate of Operations had always had exclusive jurisdiction over. Lieutenant General William G. Boykin, the Christian fundamentalist placed in charge of the support branch, confirmed to the Post that the Pentagon was directing some missions “previously undertaken by the CIA,” but explained the actions in the context of the secretary of defense’s control over the bulk of the nation’s intelligence budget. “He has 80 percent of the responsibility for collection, as well,” Boykin pointed out, as if this justified Rumsfeld’s unprecedented actions. See Barton Gellman, “Secret Unit Expands Rumsfeld’s Domain,” Washington Post, January 23, 2005. Meanwhile, as the secret military intelligence teams grew bolder, they began to alienate U.S. officials in several countries where they were deployed. Edward Gnehm, the former U.S. ambassador to Jordan, disclosed in 2007 that he once discovered that the Pentagon had sent a secret team into Jordan without even telling the CIA station. “The CIA was not happy at all,” he said at the time. Later, the Los Angeles Times reported that U.S. officials removed a secret Pentagon team from Paraguay after one of its members shot and killed an armed assailant who tried to rob them. And in East Africa, members of another team were exposed by the local government and arrested. The mishaps and clashes prompted a new effort by the CIA and the Pentagon “to tighten the rules for military units engaged in espionage,” the paper reported. See Greg Miller, “US Seeks to Rein in Its Military Spy Teams,” Los Angeles Times, December 18, 2006.
10. “Network-Centric Warfare: Creating a Decisive Warfighting Advantage,” Director, Force Transformation Office of the Secretary of Defense, Winter 2003.
11. “United States Network Centric Operations Markets, FY12-22,” Frost & Sullivan, www.frost.com. My copy of this report was made available by the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium.
12. Terence Morgan, interview with author, January 2007.
13. Harry Raduege, interview with author, January 2007.
14. Lt. Gen. William Boykin, speech to the GEOINT symposium, November 2006.
15. Michael Hirsh and Mark Hosenball, “Gates Cleans House at the Pentagon,” Newsweek, January 9, 2007.
16. “The 2006 Annual Report of the United States Intelligence Community,” Director of National Intelligence, unclassified, February 2007; and Gerry L. Gilmore, “DoD to Set Up Joint Intelligence Operations Worldwide,” American Forces Press Service, April 12, 2006.
17. This integration was spelled out in a set of Power
Point slides prepared in 2007 by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence to explain progress of the JIOC system. One slide, titled “JIOC/DCGS-Joint Concept,” stated that the JIOCs are to be integrated with Distributed Common Ground Systems.
18. News transcript, “Press Availability on Joint Intelligence Operations Centers,” Department of Defense, April 12, 2006.
19. This contract was disclosed by SAIC during a briefing for investors at the Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Washington, D.C., conference in March 2007.
20. “Mission-Critical Intelligence Support in War on Terror,” SAIC Magazine, Winter 2006, www.saic.com.
21. Paul Kaihla, “US: In the Company of Spies,” Business 2.0, May 1, 2003.