Jim sent this in:

[The Central Intelligence Agency released declassified reports to the National Association of Chiefs of Police regarding CBRN threats to the United States. The following is a synopsis of the information contained in these disturbing reports.]

Al-Qaeda and associated extremist groups have a wide variety of potential agents and delivery means to choose from for chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) attacks. Al-Qaeda’s end goal is the use of CBRN to cause mass casualties; however, most attacks by the group — and especially by associated extremists — probably will be small scale, incorporating relatively crude delivery means and easily produced or obtained chemicals, toxins, or radiological substances. The success of any al-Qaeda attack and the number of ensuing casualties would depend on many factors, including the technical expertise of those involved, but most scenarios could cause panic and disruption.

Several groups of mujahidin associated with al-Qaeda have attempted to carry out “poison plot” attacks in Europe with easily produced chemicals and toxins best suited to assassination and small-scale scenarios. These agents could cause hundreds of casualties and widespread panic if used in multiple simultaneous attacks.

Al-Qaeda is interested in radiological dispersal devices (RDDs) or “dirty bombs.”  Construction of an RDD is well within its capabilities as radiological materials are relatively easy to acquire from industrial or medical sources. Osama Bin Laden’s operatives may try to launch conventional attacks against the nuclear industrial infrastructure of the United States in a bid to cause contamination, disruption, and terror. A document recovered from an al-Qaeda facility in Afghanistan contained a sketch of a crude nuclear device.

Spray devices disseminating biological warfare (BW) agents have the highest potential impact. Both 11 September attack leader Mohammad Atta and Zacharias Moussaoui expressed interest in crop dusters, raising our concern that al-Qaeda has considered using aircraft to disseminate BW agents.

Analysis of an al-Qaeda document recovered in Afghanistan in summer 2002 indicates the group has crude procedures for making mustard agent, sarin, and VX.

Chemical Agents

Terrorists have considered a wide range of toxic chemicals for attacks. Typical plots focus on poisoning foods or spreading the agent on surfaces to poison via skin contact, but some also include broader dissemination techniques.

Terrorists have considered using a number of toxic cyanide compounds. Sodium or potassium cyanides are white-to-pale yellow salts that can be easily used to poison food or drinks. Cyanide salts can be disseminated as a contact poison when mixed with chemicals that enhance skin penetration, but may be detected since most people will notice if they touch wet or greasy surfaces contaminated with the mixture.

Hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and cyanogen chloride (ClCN) are colorless-to-pale yellow liquids that will turn into a gas near room temperature. HCN has a characteristic odor of bitter almonds, and ClCN has an acrid choking odor and causes burning pain in the victim’s eyes. These signs may provide enough warning to enable evacuation or ventilation of the attack site before the agent reaches a lethal concentration.

Both HCN and ClCN need to be released at a high concentration—only practical in an enclosed area—to be effective, therefore, leaving the area or ventilating will significantly reduce the agent’s lethality. Exposure to cyanide may produce nausea, vomiting, palpitations, confusion, hyperventilation, anxiety, and vertigo that may progress to agitation, stupor, coma, and death. At high doses, cyanides cause immediate collapse. Medical treatments are available, but they need to be used immediately for severely exposed victims.

Mustard Agent is a blister agent that poses a contact and vapor hazard. Its color ranges from clear to dark brown depending on purity, and it has a characteristic garlic like odor. Mustard is a viscous liquid at room temperature.

Mustard is not commercially available, but its synthesis does not require significant expertise if a step-by-step procedure with diagrams is available. Initial skin contact with mustard causes mild skin irritation, which develops into more severe yellow fluid-filled blisters. Inhalation of mustard damages the lungs, causes difficulty breathing, and death by suffocation in severe cases due to water in the lungs.  For both skin contact and inhalation, symptoms appear within six to 24 hours. There are only limited medical treatments available for victims of mustard-agent poisoning.

Sarin, tabun, and VX are highly toxic military agents that disrupt a victim’s nervous system by blocking the transmission of nerve signals.

These agents are not commercially available, and their synthesis requires significant chemical expertise. Exposure to nerve agents causes pinpoint pupils, salivation, and convulsions that can lead to death.   Medical treatments are available, but they need to be used immediately for severely exposed victims.    

There are a wide range of toxic industrial chemicals that—while not as toxic as cyanide, mustard, or nerve agents—can be used in much larger quantities to compensate for their lower toxicity.

Chlorine and phosgene are industrial chemicals that are transported in multi-ton shipments by road and rail. Rupturing the container can easily disseminate these gases. The effects of chlorine and phosgene are similar to those of mustard agent.

Organophosphate pesticides such as parathion are in the same chemical class as nerve agents. Although these pesticides are much less toxic, their effects and medical treatments are the same as for military-grade nerve agents.
 

Biological Agents

Anthrax or Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax, is capable of causing mass casualties. Symptoms usually appear within one to six days after exposure and include fever, malaise, fatigue, and shortness of breath. The disease is usually fatal unless antibiotic treatment is started within hours of inhaling anthrax spores; however, it is not contagious. Few people are vaccinated against anthrax. Anthrax can be disseminated in an aerosol or used to contaminate food and water.

Cutaneous anthrax can be caused by skin contact with B. anthracis. This form of the disease, which is easily treated with antibiotics, is rarely fatal.

Botulinum toxin is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which occurs naturally in the soil. Crude but viable methods to produce small quantities of this lethal toxin have been found in terrorist training manuals. Symptoms usually occur 24 to 36 hours after exposure, but onset of illness may take several days if the toxin is present in low doses. They include vomiting, abdominal pain, muscular weakness, and visual disturbance.
Botulinum toxin would be effective in small-scale poisonings or aerosol attacks in enclosed spaces, such as movie theaters. The toxin molecule is likely too large to penetrate intact skin.

Ricin is a plant toxin that is 30 times more potent than the nerve agent VX by weight and is readily obtainable by extraction from common castor beans. There is no treatment for ricin poisoning after it has entered the bloodstream. Victims start to show symptoms within hours to days after exposure, depending on the dosage and route of administration.

Terrorists have looked at delivering ricin in foods and as a contact poison, although we have no scientific data to indicate that ricin can penetrate intact skin. Ricin will remain stable in foods as long as they are not heated, and it will have few indicators because it does not have a strong taste and is off-white in color.

Radiological and Nuclear Devices

Radiological Dispersal Device or RDD is a conventional bomb not a yield-producing nuclear device. RDDs are designed to disperse radioactive material to cause destruction, contamination, and injury from the radiation produced by the material. An RDD can be almost any size, defined only by the amount of radioactive material and explosives. A passive RDD is a system in which unshielded radioactive material is dispersed or placed manually at the target.

An explosive RDD—often called a “dirty bomb”—is any system that uses the explosive force of detonation to disperse radioactive material. A simple explosive RDD consisting of a lead-shielded container—commonly called a “pig”—and a kilogram of explosive attached could easily fit into a backpack.

An atmospheric RDD is any system in which radioactive material is converted into a form that is easily transported by air currents. Use of an RDD by terrorists could result in health, environmental, and economic effects as well as political and social effects. It will cause fear, injury, and possibly lead to levels of contamination requiring costly and time-consuming cleanup efforts.

A variety of radioactive materials are commonly available and could be used in an RDD, including Cesium-137, Strontium-90, and Cobalt-60. Hospitals, universities, factories, construction companies, and laboratories are possible sources for these radioactive materials.

Improvised Nuclear Device or IND is intended to cause a yield-producing nuclear explosion. An IND could consist of diverted nuclear weapon components, a modified nuclear weapon, or indigenous-designed device. INDs can be categorized into two types:  implosion and gun assembled. Unlike RDDs that can be made with almost any radioactive material, INDs require fissile material—highly enriched uranium or plutonium—to produce nuclear yield.

Jim sent this in:

When the best-selling author of political-thriller novels, Vince Flynn (Act of Treason, Consent to Kill), appeared on Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck Show last Friday, he blasted Attorney General Eric Holder. 

Flynn flatly stated that he suspected Holder’s reason for trying murderous terrorists in a civilian court in New York City is that it would give Holder an opportunity to continue his vendetta against agents from Central Intelligence Agency. Flynn believes Holder will use the trials to embarrass — perhaps even prosecute – the CIA agents who faithfully protected Americans from the likes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Flynn, who boasts of his numerous friendships with the men and women serving in US intelligence and law enforcement agencies, statement just might have hit the nail right on the head.

Last summer, the Obama White House announced that the CIA will no longer interrogate suspected terrorists. Any and all interrogations will be conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under the direct supervision of a member of the Obama Administration, although no one has been named “Interrogation Czar.”

The move was part of Attorney General Eric Holder’s intention to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the CIA agents involved in interrogations already investigated by the CIA’s Inspector General’s Office. Holder’s critics have pointed out that his law firm represented several terrorists who were tried by the U.S.

Groups such as Amnesty International, Code Pick and others are applauding Attorney General Holder’s decision to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate cases brought to the Department of Justice against members of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The premise of this questionable investigation is the allegations of misconduct by interrogators who questioned suspected terrorist leaders and their foot soldiers.

According to the CIA’s inspector general’s report, during Bush-era interrogations of suspects, CIA agents carried out mock executions — although no one was physically harmed — and the agents made threats of violent torture.

“Attorney General Holder has been biting at the bit since he took office in January to go after someone — anyone — regarding what he views as torture, although the IG’s report reveals there were only threats of doing physical harm to the terrorists and their associates,” said former NYPD Det. Sid Frances, a former intelligence officer.

“The timing of this news is suspect, as well. Obama’s having trouble with his left-wing supporters and with this move by Holder, the Obama Admninistration is throwing them a bone to keep them from deserting him during his push to pass a health care bill,” said the decorated detective and former Marine.

Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA’s executive director, issued the following statement about the release of various documents and announcements regarding Holder’s action:

“That the Bush administration was prepared to abandon America’s human rights legal obligations is a cautionary tale for those who think any nation can disregard human rights in the fight against terrorism. The report demonstrates that the US government agencies’ internal monitoring systems are unreliable in upholding American values or laws. Compliance comes through disclosure and reform.”

“The IG’s report demonstrates that it is more important than ever that a comprehensive and independent investigation with the full force of the law is created to reveal and hold accountable those who requested, devised and carried out illegal counter-terrorism practices. It’s time to appoint a special prosecutor to prove that U.S. laws will be enforced, no matter who violated them,” said Cox.

Meanwhile, many security and intelligence professionals are not happy about this latest round of accusations and its creation of a new media feeding frenzy during a time of war.

“Holder was a Clinton Justice Department bigwig who — along with another Associate Attorney General, Jamie Goerlick — actually contributed to the US being blind-sided on September 11, 2001. During the Clinton Administration, [Attorney General Janet] Reno, Holder and Goerlick prohibited FBI agents from sharing information with the CIA and vice versa. They even forbade FBI agents involved with intelligence gathering or counterintelligence from communicating with FBI agents involved in law enforcement. A terrorist couldn’t have created a better scenario,” said security analyst George McHugh.

“These people — Obama, Holder, MoveOn.Org, the ACLU and others — are working hard to make Americans less safe and terrorists more secure. It’s insanity,” he said.

Jim sent this in:

When US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he was appointing an independent counsel to investigate possible incidents of abuse by CIA personnel during interrogations that went beyond guidelines imposed by the Bush administration, it had a chilling effect on both the intelligence and law enforcement communities.

Jim sent this in:

Former CIA directors, who served both Republican and Democrat presidents, urged President Barack Obama to end a criminal investigation of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogations” of terror suspects during the war on terrorism. The seven CIA directors made their request in a letter sent Friday to the White House.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced last month that he was appointing an independent counsel to investigate possible incidents of abuse by CIA personnel during interrogations that went beyond guidelines imposed by the Bush administration.

“If criminal investigations closed by career prosecutors during one administration can so easily be 

reopened at the direction of political appointees in the next, declinations of prosecution will be rendered meaningless,” wrote the former directors.

The former directors of Central Intelligence included Michael Hayden, Porter Goss and George Tenet, who served under Bush; John Deutch and James Woolsey, who worked for President Bill Clinton; William Webster, who served under President George H.W. Bush; and James Schlesinger, who ran the agency under President Richard Nixon.

U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, released a statement after the former CIA directors sent a letter to President Obama requesting him to reverse Attorney General’s decision to re-open investigations into CIA interrogations that had been conducted by career Justice Department prosecutors.

“The political witch hunt and endless investigations against the CIA being conducted by partisan ideologues need to stop. As noted by the former CIA directors, ‘if criminal investigations closed by career prosecutors during one administration can so easily be reopened at the direction of political appointees in the next, declinations of prosecution will be rendered meaningless,” said Rep. Hoekstra.

“The Obama Justice Department is wrong to subject the CIA to never-ending second guessing for policies approved and never questioned at the highest levels of the congressional and executive branches. The letter correctly notes the distraction and devastating impact the re-opening of the investigation is having on CIA morale, America’s counterterrorism efforts and our foreign intelligence partnerships,” he stated.

“For those of us who have opposed the heavy-handed attempts of the Obama administration to review and reverse the national security judgments of the previous administration, the bipartisan nature of the letter shows that there are broad national security concerns about the decisions being made by this president,” he said. 

“President Obama should heed his own advice, and that of this bipartisan group of CIA directors, that we need to move forward and look to the future on these issues. The best way to do that is to end the re-investigation of the CIA launched by one of his political appointees into the previous decisions made by non-political, Justice Department career prosecutors.”

“Mr. President, you may disagree with the judgments of the previous administration and Congress, but the men and women of the CIA who have kept our nation safe since 9/11 should not be the ones you ask to pay the price,” stated Congressman Hoekstra.

On Sept. 11, President Barack Obama said all the right words to commemorate the tragedy that took place eight years earlier.

“Nearly 3,000 days have passed, almost one for each of those taken from us,” Obama said outside the Pentagon. “Let us renew our resolve against those who perpetrated this barbaric act and who plot against us still. In defense of our nation we will never waiver; in pursuit of al-Qaida and its extremist allies, we will never falter.”

Yet, as when Obama claimed his budget moves America “from an era of borrow and spend” to one of “save and invest,” his actions belied his words.

Obama has turned the CIA into a personal punching bag, dealing one blow after another to the agency which is our first line of defense against another attack. After releasing Justice Department memos detailing the CIA’s enhanced interrogation tactics, Obama spoke to CIA employees. As if speaking to a kindergarten class, Obama said, “Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes. That’s how we learn.”

What mistakes did CIA officers make? Their “mistake” was to patriotically do what their government told them to do and subject three terrorists to waterboarding. While Obama has referred to waterboarding as a “brutal” tactic, it inflicts no pain. If it were brutal, we would not subject our own special forces to waterboarding during training.

As the Washington Post said in its lead story on Aug. 29, the technique produced valuable intelligence that led to pinpointing plots and rolling up key operatives, thwarting planned attacks.

Focusing on the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 plot, the paper described “the transformation of the man known to U.S. officials as KSM from an avowed and truculent enemy of the United States into what the CIA called its ‘preeminent source’ on al-Qaida. This reversal occurred after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques.”

After being subjected to waterboarding, Mohammed described plans to strike targets in Saudi Arabia, East Asia, and the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks, including using a network of Pakistanis “to target gas stations, railroad tracks, and the Brooklyn Bridge in New York,” the paper said, quoting from a CIA summary. “Cross-referencing material from different detainees, and leveraging information from one to extract more detail from another, the CIA and FBI went on to round up operatives both in the United States and abroad.”

Similarly, during initial interrogations, Abu Zubaydah was reluctant to give up individuals who were close to him. After he was waterboarded he gave up Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a member of Osama bin Laden’s inner circle. In turn, that led to the capture of Mohammed and the uncovering of a plot to target the West Coast in a second wave of attacks.

For these “mistakes,” Obama has been demonizing the CIA and threatening prosecutions, with predictable results. CIA operatives are either leaving the agency or insisting on so many approvals that their effectiveness is destroyed. Potential recruits are deciding not to apply.

As described in the Newsmax story Obama Has Paralyzed the CIA, the risk-averse atmosphere imposed by Obama is even worse than the culture that contributed to the failure to detect the 9/11 plot.

When Obama visited the CIA and pronounced on the agency’s “mistakes,” he claimed he fully supports CIA officers. As with Obama’s speech on 9/11, his words were empty. Then and now, Obama is undermining what has been a successful effort to prevent another terrorist attack that took the lives of nearly 3,000 Americans.

Jim sent this in:

US Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, issued a biting statement to the National Association of Chiefs of Police after learning that the Department of Justice will continue its investigation of terrorist interrogations and that Attorney General Eric Holder is intent on naming a special prosecutor to investigate CIA officers engaged in counterterrorism.

“At the same time the situation in Afghanistan is getting decidedly worse and the Taliban is advancing, the Obama Justice Department is launching an investigation that risks disrupting CIA counterterrorism initiatives. This is the last thing that should happen when the president is sending more troops into harm’s way, and the nation’s top military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, said over the weekend that al-Qaeda still remains a threat to America and our interests abroad,” stated Congressman Hoekstra. 

“Attorney General Holder should know that as he increases the focus on America’s past counterterrorism efforts, he is distracting from the CIA’s current counterterrorism efforts. Having recently been forced to drop cases due to prosecutorial misconduct at DOJ, the attorney general argued that these were rare instances and not part of a broader problem. The same can be said of the CIA, where the agency initiated the investigation, reported cases of misconduct and disciplined the officers involved,” he said.

“President Obama has said repeatedly that he wants to move forward, but his Justice Department seems intractably stuck in reverse. The message from the administration is completely confused, and the men and women at the CIA who we ask to protect our nation have been left in the lurch. The attorney general needs to stop his zealous attempt to make this out to be a systemic problem, when unlike cases such as the 2001 Peru shoot down, the CIA IG did not find evidence that there was a systemic problem. Disgruntled lawyers at DOJ, having lost the debate that America’s counterterrorism efforts should be focused on prevention not prosecution, need to put an end to this bureaucratic turf battle,” Hoekstra stated.

Groups such as Amnesty International, Code Pick and others are applauding Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate cases brought to the Department of Justice against members of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA cannot seem to catch a break, especially with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi trying to weasel her way out of a sticky situation along with Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes insinuating that an investigation of the Central Intelligence Agency should take place.  Now it appears that House Democrats want to take it a step further.

They want to hold a series of hearings investigating instances in which intelligence officials may have misled members of Congress; at least part of these rumored hearings are being based on weekend reports – rumors are more like it and more than likely came from the MSM – that former Vice President Dick Cheney his information from Congress.  Here’s a couple samples for you here – both from the MSM:

• The New York Times reported on Sunday that the CIA, under the direction of Cheney, developed a secret counterterrorism program and then was directed by the vice president to conceal it from Congress.
• The Wall Street Journal first reported that the program was a classified initiative to kill or capture al Qaeda operatives. Cheney has not commented on the media reports.

I will say that the WSJ isn’t exactly a MSM outlet, but they were one of the first to report such findings.  Apparently, members of both the House and Senate Intelligence committees learned about the program last week, and CIA director Leon Panetta had ordered it terminated.  But at the same time, Panetta told both Democrats and Republicans on the Intelligence panels that Cheney had told his predecessors to hide the program from Congress – including the “Gang of Eight” House and Senate leaders and top Intelligence committee members, who are directed by law to receive regular intelligence briefings.

As a result of all of this,  Pelosi on Monday indicated that she would give the House Intelligence Committee permission to investigate incidents in which the CIA allegedly misled or lied to Congress, including times that Cheney was allegedly involved.  What this does, folks, is give the Democrats some political cover, especially Pelosi.

For those who may have forgotten, Pelosi had initially accused the CIA of not briefing her on several occasions yet provding no evidence to back her story up.  so apparently, these so-called “investigations” are her way to cover her ass while at the same time goive Congress permission to attempt to unravel anything – assuming that there is actually anything to unravel – that involved the Bush administration, including Cheney.

A pretty piss-poor attempt by Pelosi and others to use this as a distraction to make the public forget about much more important issues that are out there.  That would include our weak economy, Obama’s Socialist health care reform bill and the cap-and-trade bill.  I do not see this “investigation” involving the CIA and members of the Bush administration going too far at all.  Just a waste of time and resources, in my opinion.