CIA

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In Pakistan, US Moves From Ground to Air

CIA turns to airstrikes after land operations draw protest

(Newser) - The US has recalibrated its antiterror campaign in Pakistan, backing off ground raids via the Afghan border and intensifying its CIA-led airstrikes against militants. The Pakistani government had lodged bitter complaints about the ground operations, the New York Times reports, which were seen as a violation of the country's sovereignty....

Russian Role in CIA Agent's Murder Probed

Questions linger over 1993 killing as Georgia's geopolitical significance surges

(Newser) - The first shot of a new cold war with Russia may have been fired into a CIA station chief's head in 1993, the Wall Street Journal reports. A vodka-swilling villager was swiftly jailed for the killing of Freddie Woodruff, the top US spy in newly independent Georgia, but that man,...

Secret White House Memos OK'd Waterboarding

Fearing backlash, CIA sought and received support

(Newser) - The Bush administration gave its blessing in writing for the CIA to use waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques in two secret memos that have only now come to light, the Washington Post reveals. Intelligence officials sought to get something on paper in 2003—more than a year after the...

Missile Strikes Are Learning Tool: CIA

Chief says agency 'tickles' terrorist enemy to gauge reaction

(Newser) - The CIA purposely uses missile strikes to "tickle" enemy groups, often by targeting a single person, to learn from their responses, agency chief Michael Hayden said today. Hayden also told a gathering of Air Force members the CIA has "picked up insights" from working alongside the military, the...

Russia Claims US Citizen Provoked War

Cites teacher's found passport as proof of meddling in Georgia

(Newser) - To support its claims that US intelligence agents played a role in the Georgian conflict, the Kremlin has produced a US passport belonging to an Army veteran from Texas, the Wall Street Journal reports. They say the passport was found in an outpost used by Georgian special forces. The alleged...

CIA Dreads Another Neocon White House

Agency fears McCain administration would extend Bush-era woes

(Newser) - The CIA has had a rough run under the Bush White House, and its top brass is worried that a John McCain presidency would be just as bad, reports Mother Jones. In recent years, animosity has defined the relationship between neoconservatives and spies, and McCain’s braintrust is full of...

50 Years On, Tibet's Secret War Simmers

Dalai Lama's brother was key to CIA-backed anti-China insurgency

(Newser) - The little-known Tibetan resistance struggle after China's 1950 invasion still affects its politics today, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Dalai Lama's brother played a vital role in the CIA-backed armed movement, largely made up of Buddhist monks, and Chinese suspicion still lingers over how much the spiritual leader himself...

Julia Child Dished Up Secrets in WWII

Chef one of several famous Americans revealed as spies

(Newser) - Legendary chef Julia Child, Hollywood star Sterling Hayden, White Sox catcher Moe Berg and historian Arthur Schlesinger were all spies for the US, according to newly declassified documents. Untold stories and clandestine heroics of World War II will come to light today as authorities release 750,000 pages of files...

CIA Confronts Pakistan Over Militant Ties

Secret meeting focuses on evidence of links to violent extemists

(Newser) - The CIA has confronted Pakistani officials with evidence of links between the nation's spy agency and Islamic insurgents, the New York Times reports. A top CIA official flew to Pakistan for a tense secret meeting earlier this month with information about ties to al-Qaeda-affiliated militants in the border region believed...

Secret Justice Memo Bares CIA Torture Defense

Agents would be safe from prosecution if they acted in good faith

(Newser) - The Bush administration advised the CIA in 2002 that its agents would not be prosecuted on anti-torture legislation as long as they professed an "honest belief" that their actions would not cause severe pain and anguish, CNN reports. The memo is one of three made public by the ACLU,...

Gitmo 'Torture' Modeled on Chinese Grilling of US POWs

Communist methods became US training manual

(Newser) - Guantanamo Bay interrogators learned their techniques from Chinese Communists who used them on American POWs in the Korean War, the New York Times reports. A 1957 Air Force chart labeled Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance detailed methods like prolonged standing and exposure to cold, and was used as...

Ailing bin Laden Mere Months From Death?

Terror mastermind succumbing to kidney disease, CIA claims

(Newser) - Terror leader Osama bin Laden is dying from kidney disease, according to a CIA analysis of the medications he has been taking, reports Time.The world's most wanted terrorist likely has no more than 12 months to live, and may already be teetering on the brink of death, according to...

Gitmo Prisoner Charged in Cole Bombing

Torture claims will be central to defense

(Newser) - A suspected al-Qaeda terrorist held at Guantanamo Bay for six years has been charged with masterminding the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors and injured 50 others. The treatment of Saudi prisoner Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri in custody, which included waterboarding by interrogators, will be a...

US and Pakistan Let al-Qaeda Regroup

Infighting, Musharraf, Iraq led to failure of 'Operation Cannonball'

(Newser) - Nearly seven years after 9/11, America has not only failed to capture Osama bin Laden; it has also allowed al-Qaeda to rebuild itself in lawless northwest Pakistan, near the Afghan border. The New York Times conducted more than four dozen interviews to discover how rivalries among American agencies, trouble with...

US Steps Up Covert Plots in Iran
US Steps Up Covert Plots
in Iran
GLOSSIES
Jun 30, 2008 2:15 AM CDT

US Steps Up Covert Plots in Iran

Critics view $400M program as prelude to war

(Newser) - Congress agreed to boost covert operations against Iran last year despite reservations by key officials, Seymour Hersh writes in the New Yorker. President Bush sought up to $400 million for the program, which supports dissidents intent on undermining Tehran and gathers data on its nuke plans. Some analysts believe the...

'Good Cop' Enticed 9/11 Mastermind to Talk

But detainee had already faced waterboarding

(Newser) - A CIA interrogator’s rapport with a mastermind of the 9/11 attacks helped provide vast amounts of information on terrorism while raising tough questions about interrogation methods, the New York Times reports. Agent Deuce Martinez cajoled Khalid Sheikh Mohammed into discussing his thoughts in great detail—but it’s unclear...

CIA Gave Pentagon Torture Tips
CIA Gave Pentagon Torture Tips
Jun 18, 2008 8:06 AM CDT

CIA Gave Pentagon Torture Tips

Methods were 'reverse-engineered' from manuals

(Newser) - The CIA gave the Pentagon advice about the legality of harsh interrogation techniques to be used on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, the Washington Post reports. Documents shown to a Senate committee yesterday reveal that the agency had a bigger role than first thought. Torture is "subject to...

German Sues Again to Nab CIA Agents

Berlin dropped extradition try last year when US refused

(Newser) - A German man is suing his country to have 13 CIA agents extradited in a case of "extraordinary rendition," the BBC reports. Khaled al-Masri says they grabbed him by mistake in 2003 and dropped him in an Afghan prison, where he was tortured for 5 months. But Germany...

CIA Chief: Tide Turning Against Al-Qaeda

Hayden says terrorists are all but defeated in Iraq, Saudi Arabia

(Newser) - Al-Qaeda is "near strategic defeat" in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and the tide is turning against it elsewhere, CIA chief Michael Hayden says in a surprisingly upbeat Washington Post interview today. In contrast to a  reports of an al-Qaeda resurgence a year ago, Hayden now cites “significant setbacks...

Rove Brushes Off McClellan Claims on Plame Deception

Says he didn't mislead anyway

(Newser) - With the political world abuzz over the harsh tone of Scott McClellan’s new memoir about the "culture of deception''  in the Bush White House, Karl Rove is defending himself against one of the former spokesman’s most damning claims—that Rove and Scooter Libby colluded in a Valerie...

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