Why the Bargain Reward for Ibrahim al-Asiri?
For 5 years, Ibrahim al-Asiri has been the chief boogeyman in US efforts to scare Americans about terrorism from AQAP (and to justify huge outlays for dumb machines TSA can use). Almost yearly, the CIA...
View ArticleThe Timing of CIA’s Discovery Its Paramilitary Ops Fail
Mark Mazzetti reports that in 2012 and 2013, CIA did a study that one of its favorite means of covert intervention — arming rebels — pretty much doesn’t work. An internal C.I.A. study has found that it...
View ArticleNow That’s Some Disturbance in the Force
At some time around 9:30 PM ET at the INSA Leadership Dinner, John Brennan suggested that maybe the CIA Director — that is, maybe he — should have a 10 year term. D/CIA John Brennan says it might make...
View ArticleUS Extended Its Special Relations with the Saudis another Decade
Back in 2013, then Saudi Interior Minister and current Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef came to the US for a great coming out party (and, seemingly, to herald Obama’s second term foreign policy team)....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Is the Aramco Hack Considered a Significant NSA Milestone?
I’ve been puzzling over the list of “key SSO cyber milestone dates” released with the upstream 702 story the other day. For the most part, it lists technical and legal milestones leading to expanded...
View ArticleIs This Why the Press Finally Revealed the Saudi Drone Base?
In spite of all the furor over the way the NYT and WaPo sat on news of a Saudi drone base, the only explanation I know of for why they chose to reveal it now was this one. So, what changed? Why did the...
View ArticleThe Saudi Intelligence without a Name
I had been wondering why John Kerry closed his meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal the day after the Boston Marathon bombing, followed by Chuck Hagel’s unscheduled meetings in Saudi...
View ArticleWhy Would the UndieBomber Make a Martyrdom Video in Arabic?
In his drone letter to Congress 11 days ago, Eric Holder quoted a recording Anwar al-Awlaki made — it was prominently reported across the US media in March 2010, not long after he was added to the...
View ArticleHot and Cold Running Bandar
Yesterday, just weeks after the time Al Arabiya announced Prince Bandar bin Sultan would resume his duties as head of Saudi intelligence (and therefore the mastermind of the Saudi-backed effort to oust...
View ArticleNSA Got Into Bed with the Saudis Just Before Our Technical Cooperation...
In February 2011, around the time the CIA took over the hunt for Anwar al-Awlaki, NSA started collaborating with Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior’s (MOI) Technical Assistance Directorate (TAD),...
View ArticleDid Another Saudi Double Agent “Tip” Us Off to a “Plot” Against America?
ABC reports that the UndieBomber 2.0 plot revealed yesterday in breathless fashion was exposed by a double agent that–given that he delivered the bomb to Saudi Arabia–was presumably being run by the...
View ArticleDid the Saudis or the Yemenis Expose the Involvement of a Double Agent?
There’s a remarkable moment in this CNN story reporting on the concern within the US that someone leaked the fact that a double agent was involved in foiling the UndieBomb plot. After quoting Peter...
View ArticleCluster Bombs on the Head of a Saudi Pinpoint
Congratulations to the NYT, which offers the superlative version of a story everyone seems to be writing today. It describes a whole host of reasons why we should not trust the Saudis. That...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What the White House “Official Announcement” of UndieBomb 2.0 Would Have...
As I’ve been tracing, there’s a pissing contest going on between the AP and John Brennan over the roll-out of the UndieBomb 2.0 “plot” earlier this month. When the AP first broke the story on UndieBomb...
View ArticleYour Obligatory Fran Fragos Townsend Leak
Remember how the detail that UndieBomb 2.0 involved a Saudi infiltrator got out? John Brennan had a private teleconference with Richard Clarke and Fran Fragos Townsend and implied as much, which led to...
View ArticleUndieBomb 2.0: Defying the Trend
In his story describing the lowered standards for drone strikes the other day, Greg Miller described multiple officials admitting that we’re increasing the number of drone strikes in Yemen even though...
View ArticleJudge Kollar-Kotelly Sees No Evil, Hears No Evil
Yesterday, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly upheld the government’s right to withhold cables already released via WikiLeaks under FOIA (see my earlier posts on this FOIA here and here). Her logic seems to have a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mohammed bin Nayef’s Debutante Ball
This Marc Lynch post on America’s Saudi problem is worth reading for its discussion of how our uncritical support for Saudi Arabia undermines our efforts in the Middle East. America’s alliance with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Is State Waiting to Release the Saudi Technical Cooperation Agreement?
As I noted in this post, one explicit purpose of Saudi Minister of Interior Mohammed bin Nayef’s trip to the US from January 14 to 16 was to renew the Technical Cooperation Agreement first signed on...
View ArticleMohammed bin Nayef’s Remarkable Prescience about Obama’s Second Term Cabinet
Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu just resigned. Which got me thinking about my latest obsession: the Technical Cooperation Agreement beween Saudi Arabia and the US, under which (as far as the...
View Article