CALIFORNIA YANKEE

CIA Agent Fired For Leaking Classified Information

CNN reports the CIA has fired one of its officers for leaking classified information:

The officer admitted to "unauthorized discussions with the media in which the officer knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence including operational information," said spokeswoman Michelle Neff.

[. . .]

A U.S. official said the person's name has been turned over to the Justice Department, where a determination will be made on whether to file criminal charges.

All CIA employees are required to sign a secrecy agreement upon being hired stating they are prohibited from discussing classified information with anyone not cleared to receive the material.

NBC News reported the leaked information pertained to stories on the CIA’s rumored secret prisons in Eastern Europe and was allegedly provided to Dana Priest of the Washington Post, who wrote about the CIA prisons in November. The story earned Dana Priest a Pulitzer Prize.

According to NBC, the CIA believes the fired officer had more than a dozen unauthorized contacts with Priest.

Priest's report caused an international uproar, and government officials have said it did significant damage to relationships between the U.S. and allied intelligence agencies. Last December the impact of Priest's article was so damaging that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had to tell our European allies that the United State does not violate allies' sovereignty or break international law, and Rice reminded the Europeans that their governments are cooperating in a fight against terrorists who have bombed commuters in Madrid and London.

I hope the justice Department throws the book at the leaker. The Stakes are too high in the War Against Terror for such damaging misconduct not to be severely punished.

New Nominee For Iraq PM

Jawad al-Maliki has been nominated to be Iraq's prime minister, replacing the incumbent, Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

According to the Associated Press, Al-Maliki is a top ally of al-Jaafari:

Al-Maliki is one of the top figures in al-Jaafari's Dawa party and has often appeared as his spokesman. Still, little is known about him since he fled Iraq in the 1980s, settling in Syria and working in Dawa's political office. He returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The nomination is to be presented to a session of parliament on Saturday.

If Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties accept al-Maliki the Iraqis can form a new government and hopefully quell the sectarian violence.

Russia Backs 's Nuclear Program

The London Times reports Russia offered its most outspoken support yet of 's nuclear program:

"Our advice to our ian colleagues and friends is to complete work with the International Atomic Energy Authority and to calmly continue its nuclear energy programme... and on this path we are ready to provide assistance to ," Sergei Kislyak, the Deputy Foreign Minister, told a security conference in Moscow.

The search for a solution must follow the route of diplomacy, and our position is that the instrument for resolving this problem, as before, must remain the IAEA, as we don’t have another international agency that has such authority and competence in the non-proliferation area.

This can only make it more difficult, if not impossible, to resolve 's nuclear ambitions diplomatically.

The conventional wisdom is that Russia, and China won't agree to sanctions against because both countries are making a lot of money selling military and industrial equipment to . If the UN imposes sanctions on , Russia and China would lose billions of dollars of sales. China and Russia are apparently willing to gamble that by the time actually has working nukes there will be a more rational government in .

I'm not convinced that the mullahs grip on power can be eased before they are allowed to develop nukes.

Caught And Released

The New York Times reports that of the 1,187 illegal aliens detained in the IFCO Systems raids, 275 have already been deported to Mexico. According to the Times, the rest are being processed for deportation, although many may be released on bond.

Reports from various papers around the country reveal that contrary to administration promises, the government is still using the failed catch and release policy returning illegal aliens back into our "welcoming and lawful" society.

The Indianapolis Star:
All but one of 38 illegal aliens arrested at the Southside plant have been released. The men were processed and scheduled for court appearances. One man found to have a criminal background was kept in custody.

The Houston Chronicle:
All but 14 of the 67 illegal aliens arrested in Houston have been assigned court dates and released.

The Chicago Tribune:
The 26 people arrested at a Southwest Side IFCO site were released on their own recognizance.

The Akron Beacon Journal reported that about 25 percent of the 1,187 illegal aliens arrested in the IFCO raids have agreed to voluntarily leave the United States. The rest will have to appear before an immigration judge, and some might actually face criminal charges.

Albany's The Business Review:

Twenty-six of the illegal aliens arrested in the Albany, New York, area are facing immigration violation charges, which means they are released pending court appearances, and three illegal aliens who were previously deported and returned to the United States are facing felony charges.

According to the Indianapolis Star, the feds claim they don't have the facilities to hold the arrested illegal aliens:

As for the workers, immigration officials said they did not have the facilities to hold them indefinitely. With 20,000 detention beds nationwide, Immigration and Customs spokeswoman Gail Montenegro said the agency has to prioritize. It focuses on holding illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds. She said the system is not set up to detain every immigrant found to be in the country illegally.

"We need to conserve our detention space for illegal aliens that are dangerous criminals or who have been previously deported," Montenegro said.

If the arrested men don't show up at their hearings at a Chicago immigration court, a judge will order them deported in absentia, she said, and they will be classified as fugitives.

It is unacceptable that those responsible for administering immigration in this country can't find facilities to detain "nonviolent" illegal aliens pending a hearing. Can't hotels be leased and secured? Aren't there unused military bases that could be used? How about putting up tent cities like we do for refugees?

Impertinent Freedom

On NPR's "Morning Edition" this morning there was a story about John Kamm, who in 1990 was head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, where he worked for a U.S. multi-national corporation.

Kamm had it made his perks included a chauffeur-driven Mercedes and an apartment overlooking the South China Sea. According to NPR, one evening Kamm kissed that life goodbye:

Kamm was at a Chinese government banquet. Thousands were still in prison from the Tiananmen Square crackdown. A Chinese official was praising Kamm for his help in lobbying Congress.

Kamm just couldn't take it.

"I stopped him, in the middle of his toast. And basically said, 'Thank you very much, but what are you going to do for me?' And the room, it just froze," Kamm recalls.

Kamm said China needed to improve its human rights record. And it could start by freeing a Hong Kong student held in Shanghai.

"Well, this minister... became very angry. He said that this was an act of gross interference in the internal affairs of China and an unfriendly act that had hurt the feelings of the Chinese people," Kamm says.

"That created quite, quite a scene," says Jeff Muir, a U.S. businessman who attended the dinner. He said people were worried Kamm was spoiling U.S.-China relations. "I remember somebody saying to the Chinese official that 'not all Americans are as impertinent as Mr. Kamm.'"

Impertinent? Sure. But the outburst was also effective. After the banquet, Kamm testified in Washington on China's behalf. About six weeks later, the Hong Kong student walked free.

Since then, Kamm estimates he's either helped free or improve the conditions of 400 political prisoners. Kamm presents their cases directly to Chinese officials. He tells them that showing mercy is good PR in America.

Since then Kamm has made a career of assisting Chinese political prisoners. So the moral to be drawn from Kamm's experience is that sometimes it is better to be impertinent rather than polite.

Feds Arrest 1,200 Illegal Aliens

1,200 illegal aliens and seven managers were arrested in raids at IFCO Systems plants in 26 states.

According to Reuters, the seven managers were charged with conspiracy to transport, harbor and encourage illegal immigrants to reside in the United States for commercial advantage and financial gain. The managers face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each illegal alien worker.

Officials said the arrests underscored efforts by the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement to crack down on illegal immigrant workers and their employers.

CNN reported the arrests were the result of a yearlong investigation which revealed that IFCO managers had induced illegal aliens to work there, telling some to doctor W-2 tax forms and others that no documentation was needed at all.

A number of bloggers are calling this crackdown nothing more than a politically motivated attempt to salvage the President's guest worker proposal. I'm happy to see illegal aliens and their law breaking employers arrested, even if it is politically motivated.

Bomb Grade Nuclear Material Removed From Uzbekistan

The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports 63 kilograms of spent highly enriched uranium was removed from Uzbekistan and transported to Mayak in Russia.

The operation was a joint undertaking of the IAEA, the United States, Uzbekistan, Russia and Kazakhstan as part of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI). This is not the first such removal operation:

This latest shipment follows the successful repatriation of nearly 11 kilograms of fresh highly enriched uranium from the Uzbek reactor in 2004. Over the past three years the IAEA has supported similar operations in other countries including Libya, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Latvia and the Czech Republic to transfer HEU reactor fuel back to its country of origin.

According to the IAEA, the fuel will be processed so that it can not be used for atomic bombs.

Efforts to secure and remove nuclear and radiological materials that continue to pose a threat to the United States and other nations should be applauded, encouraged and expanded. There is still a significant amount of nuclear materials in dozens of research reactors and other locations throughout the world that could be obtained by terrorists.

More Dithering On

The global coalition seeking to ensure that does not acquire nuclear weapons shows a growing sense of urgency, but a lack of progress after several multilateral meetings.

the Los Angeles Times, reports after two days of talks, representatives of the Group of 8 industrialized nations and key members of the U.N. Security Council, Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said that all participants were anxiously seeking some way of jointly pressuring to rein in its nuclear ambitions.

Following a meeting with representatives of Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union, Burns said there is agreement on the general notion that has to feel the isolation, the pressure of the international community.

That isn't evident from what some coalition members are saying.

Russia and China have argued against using sanctions to pressure . Russia may criticize , but if Russia And China refuse to impose sanctions, will achieve the one thing it needs to acquire nuclear weapons, time.

As I have posted before, the man who led 's nuclear negotiations with Britain, France and Germany revealed "duped" the European powers while playing for time to work on its secret nuclear program.

Speaking to a closed meeting of leading Islamic clerics and academics, Hassan Rowhani boasted about 's stalling:

He boasted that while talks were taking place in Teheran, was able to complete the installation of equipment for conversion of yellowcake - a key stage in the nuclear fuel process - at its Isfahan plant but at the same time convince European diplomats that nothing was afoot. "From the outset, the Americans kept telling the Europeans, 'The ians are lying and deceiving you and they have not told you everything.' The Europeans used to respond, 'We trust them'," he said.

[. . .]

He told his audience: "When we were negotiating with the Europeans in Teheran we were still installing some of the equipment at the Isfahan site. There was plenty of work to be done to complete the site and finish the work there. In reality, by creating a tame situation, we could finish Isfahan."

now admits that the October 21, 2003 agreement with the Europeans was nothing more than a ruse to buy time for the mullahocracy to continue to pursue its secret nuclear program, whit had successfully concealed for two decades.

Yesterday the Associated Press reported Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on to halt all uranium enrichment activities, saying the international community is demanding "urgent and constructive steps" from Tehran to ease concerns about its nuclear program.

The Associated Press reports Russia will wait to decide its stance on the ian nuclear program until after a report is issued next week by the head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

At every turn is allowed more time to develop its nuclear program. In order for diplomacy to have a chance of persuading to give up nuclear ambitions, must pay a price for staying the course. The coalition's dithering can only encourage the ian mullahocracy.

Hillary - Big Spender

Senator Clinton of New York raised more than $6 million during the first three months, leaving her with nearly $20 million in the bank.

The New York Post reports Clinton has raised $39.4 million so far in a re-election race. But Clinton has also spent about half of that or $19.7 million. How could a Senator spend nearly $20 million and still have $20 million in the campaign war chest in a reelection campaign where the opponents, former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer and Reagan-era Pentagon official Kathleen "KT" McFarland each have less than a half-million in the bank?

Most pundits and observers understand Clinton is really campaigning for the presidency. Any campaign cash left over from her re-election bid can be transferred into a presidential campaign.

The cost of keeping Clinton's political operation up and running is actually considerably higher than the $3.5 million she spent in the past three months. Clinton uses her HillPAC political-action committee to split costs on campaign staffers, research projects and consultants, an army of more than 40 campaign aides and operatives.

Last February The National Review reported that Clinton’s campaign was a "vast political empire" unrivaled in scale and ambition in Democratic politics.

Clinton has tried to move to the center as she prepares for a presidential campaign. She has not embraced the so-called netroots that many Democrats are chasing.

According to Rasmussen Reports' Hillary Meter, her move towards the center isn't convincing the voters.

She is viewed as politically liberal by 47% of voters while 35% see her as politically moderate.

In January 2005, 51% saw Clinton as politically liberal. She moderated her image in the early part of last year, but the number seeing her as liberal has not consistently dipped below the 45% range.

Collectively, today’s Hillary Meter places Senator Clinton a net 58 points to the left of the nation's political center. Two weeks ago, she was 56 points to the left of center.

The Hillary Meter poll was conducted, April 17-18, 2006 and has margin of error of +/- 3 percent.

More Connections

Frontpage has an interview with Thomas Joscelyn, an expert on the international terrorist network. The interview focuses on the light recently realeased documents shed on the connection between Saddam's Iraq and its support for terrorist entities such as al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Millions of documents captured in Iraq and Afghanistan by American forces are only now being released. Joscelyn says the documents are important they provide a window into the Iraqi regime’s activities prior to the war and can potentially shed light on Saddam’s Human Rights atrocities, connections to terrorism and what happened to Iraq’s WMD programs:

One IIS document, in particular, has received significant attention. The document was apparently authored in early 1997 and summarizes a number of contacts between Iraqi Intelligence and Saudi oppositionist groups, including al Qaeda, during the mid 1990’s. The document says that in early 1995 bin Laden requested Iraqi assistance in two ways. First, bin Laden wanted Iraqi television to carry al Qaeda’s anti-Saudi propaganda. Saddam agreed. Second, bin Laden requested Iraqi assistance in performing “joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz.” That is, bin Laden wanted Iraq’s assistance in attacking U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia.

We do not know what, exactly, came of bin Laden’s second request. But the document indicates that Saddam’s operatives “were left to develop the relationship and the cooperation between the two sides to see what other doors of cooperation and agreement open up.” Thus, it appears that both sides saw value in working with each other. It is also worth noting that in the months following bin Laden’s request, al Qaeda was tied to a series of bombings in Saudi Arabia.

The same document also indicates that Iraq was in contact with Dr. Muhammad al-Massari, the head of the Committee for Defense of Legitimate Rights (CDLR). The CDLR is a known al Qaeda propaganda organ based in London. The document indicates that the IIS was seeking to “establish a nucleus of Saudi opposition in Iraq” and to “use our relationship with [al-Massari] to serve our intelligence goals.” The document also notes that Iraq was attempting to arrange a visit for the al Qaeda ideologue to Baghdad. Again, we can’t be certain what came of these contacts.

Just recently, however, al-Massari confirmed that Saddam had joined forces with al Qaeda prior to the war. Al-Massari says that Saddam established contact with the “Arab Afghans” who fled Afghanistan to northern Iraq in 2001 and that he funded their relocation to Iraq under the condition that they would not seek to undermine his regime. Upon their arrival, these al Qaeda terrorists were put in contact with Iraqi army personnel, who armed and funded them.

Joscelyn tells us that the 9-11 Commission's proclamation that there was no operational relationship between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda is now more tenuous than ever:

Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator who served as a 9/11 commissioner, told Eli Lake of The New York Sun that the document is a “very significant set of facts.” While cautioning that it does not tie Saddam to the September 11 attack, Kerrey said that the document “does tie him into a circle that meant to damage the United States.” That circle includes al Qaeda’s affiliate in the Philippines, Abu Sayyaf, which was funded by bin Laden’s brother-in-law. One document, which has not yet been released to the public, indicates that Iraqi Intelligence also funded Abu Sayyaf. Steve Hayes first reported the existence of this document last month. The document includes a series of IIS memos from 2001 in which Saddam’s henchmen discuss funding the group, but consider withdrawing support after a string of high-profile kidnappings of westerners brought unwanted attention. But whatever concerns Iraqi Intelligence had appear to be short-lived. In 2003, one Abu Sayyaf leader openly admitted to the press that the Iraqis had been funding his group.

One should always be cautious when analyzing documents such as these. But those who insist Saddam had nothing to do with terrorism or al Qaeda should read the interview. The often repeated assumption that Saddam’s secularism precluded significant cooperation between Saddam and al Qaeda is in fact only an assumption. The assumption is called into question by Joscelyn's analysis and facts.