By William Tucker

Authors note: I wrote this article in early October 2009. My purpose in posting it here is to give some background information on the Iranian nuclear standoff. As things move to a crisis point I will post relevant information here.

The vast majority of information available to the public on the Iranian nuclear program has been speculative at best and contradictory at worst. Perhaps the most confusing document came out in late 2007 in which the U.S. intelligence community declared that Iran had halted work on a nuclear weapons program and instead was wholly focused on energy production. It was my contention at the time that this statement was not one made in fact, but rather published for reasons of political expediency. At the time the Bush administration was struggling to come up with a strategy for a deteriorating situation in Iraq and was looking to Iran for help stabilizing the situation. Though this attempt failed the ensuing troop surge managed to bring a tense stability to Iraq and by extension a means by which the U.S. could begin to draw down the troop presence. Because of a recent revelation by the Obama administration this previous analysis holds true.

Continue reading "Iran, the Bomb, and the Israeli Red Line" »

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By William Tucker
Whenever the U.S. carries out a drone strike in Pakistan's restive border areas rumors are quick to follow. Such is the case with the current leader of the Pakistani Taliban Hakimullah Mehsud. The U.S. struck two sites in Northern Waziristan on the 13th and 14th of January targeting the TTP leader only to have Mehsud release two audio tapes confirming his survival, but the rumors of his death still continue. Unfortunately, the U.S. and Pakistan do not have reliable intelligence assets in the area leaving the answer to the questions of known terrorist leaders' welfare elusive. As Professor Hesterman pointed out in her post on January 22nd, the intelligence gap is well known. This gap forces those of us that rely on open sources to wait for confirmation from the Taliban as to the current status of Mehsud.

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By Professor Jenni Hesterman, Counterterrorism Expert
(source: Information Security Resources)

Last Thursday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee opened hearings on the Fort Hood tragedy.

One of the topics on the agenda is the rising domestic terror threat. But this alarm was sounded months ago, in Apr 09, when DHS released their report entitled Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.

The report was heavily covered in the news, but only for these statements:

"Rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat."

and:

"The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks."

DHS was called out by veteran's groups, Congress, et al. Janet Napolitano had to apologize for it.

The pundits thought it was somehow political - a complete insult to our hardworking GS employees who have been at their desks, analyzing threats for decades.

The sad part -- the statements are exactly on target. Veterans will be recruited due to their skill set.

There has been firearms and ammo "hoarding" and returning veterans may have issues that lead to violent acts.

Timothy McVeigh was a military veteran sworn to protect and defend the very country he attacked. And due to the veteran controversy, the rest of the report was ignored.

In the meantime, we've had several high profile domestic terror issues in our country.

Najibullah Zazi, an al Qaeda sympathist and now confirmed operative, was arrested for conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction in our country.

The FBI infiltrated two separate domestic terror plots.

The subjects tried to deploy the dummy devices purchased from agents-one outside a federal courthouse in Springfield, Ill and another in a Dallas skyscraper.

And it has come to light that two North Carolina men under arrest since July on international terrorism charges were also planning to kill U.S. military personnel.

Anarchists stormed Pittsburgh, causing fear among the citizens and casting new light on their anti-government agenda.

David Headley from Chicago, formerly known as Daood Gilani, was recruiting terrorists abroad to conduct operations.

And Nadal Hasan opened fires into a crowd of unarmed citizens (not combatants) - on the former sanctuary of a military base.

We shouldn't be surprised by these events. The DHS report was an absolute gem - it was actionable intelligence.

For the first time, we had current analysis and it was in the hands of our civilian populace, which could be a powerful force multiplier in this fight -- if educated about the threat.

The report was pure and unfiltered. It wasn't routed through every last agency for comment (and watered down accordingly).

It is a shame the reaction in our country centered around two very true and factual statements, instead of the shock and concern about the rising threat among us.

Thanks to the overreaction, I am afraid we will never see a report like that again in the public domain.

Here is a link to the entire report, I highly suggest you take a look: http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf.

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