The Spy Who Billed Me

Hollywood and bin Laden

My time has been limited lately and I"m traveling tomorrow, but rest assured I haven't gone black again.  I'm working on a few meatier posts, namely one on the history of the CIA and Hollywood and more Pakistan and OBL fun.  Stay tuned.  Until then, the New Zealand Herald published an interesting piece on the upcoming OBL movie and quoted me extenisvely.  I rarely point out when I'm in various media--seems too self serving--but given my time contraints at the moment, quoting myself in the Auckland paper is the best I can do--just hope I don't go blind from it:

Raelynn Hillhouse - who the Guardian says "regularly breaks news on the clandestine world of private contractors and US intelligence" on The Spy Who Billed Me blog - dismisses the New Yorker's "puff" piece and suggests Islamabad approved the covert US assassination.

She alleges the Saudis, using an intermediary, paid Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency to keep bin Laden under house arrest, necessary to stop his Wahhabist supporters dethroning the House of Saud.

But Hillhouse doubts "we will ever have definitive answers". Instead, the White House will probably pump up the patriotic version.

"What I find so disturbing is that the Administration knows that large portions of the US finding bin Laden story are fabrication and it's very keen on selling this cover story to the US public," she says.

This is "not to hide key operational details and capacities, but rather to satisfy the PR needs of a re-election campaign. The Soviets couldn't have done a better job".

In other words, she suggests, it's politics. The media narrative makes the President look a decisive man of action, the liberal version of George W. Bush's stunt landing a plane on a US carrier in 2003 to declare "mission accomplished" after invading Iraq.

"It will be very interesting when the timeline of the CIA's knowledge of where Osama bin Laden was being hidden and the US decision to go in and take out bin Laden comes to light," says Hillhouse.

"It's my understanding that it will not at all fit with the official narrative of the quick acting, decisive leader."

King may be barking up the wrong tree: burnishing Obama's image is good cover for America's shadowy "war on terror". As truth is war's first victim, the true story, if it emerges, will probably be messy, full of loose ends, and unflattering to combatants on both sides.

Questions Raised by Real Story of How US Found Bin Laden

The real story of how the US found bin Laden raises some key questions, namely:

• Why did the Saudis pay the Pakistanis to keep bin Laden?
• Why did the Pakistani's cooperate?
• Did the ISI run the safe house itself or did it use a third party?
• How permeable was the safe house?

A key to understanding why Saudi Arabia would finance bin Laden's hideout is clarifying what the Saudis were actually paying for.  Bin Laden was esentially being kept under house arrest.  His contact with the outside world was controlled and he was not allowed to leave the compound without Pakistani approval. 

It is unknown if they ever let him out. 

The recent puff piece in the New Yorker giving the Obama administrations' fanciful version of mission to take out OBL, included a very interesting detail:

...security precautions were in place. A locked metal gate blocked the base of the staircase leading to the second floor, making the downstairs room feel like a cage.

Now the author assumed that the gate was to keep people out of OBL's upstairs apartment, but it's my understanding that it was to keep OBL inside. 

 

The Saudis were in a very precarious situation with no good answers.  OBL was a Saudi who had sworn to overthrow the House of Saud, but he had widespread support among the Wahhabists whose acquiesence is critical for the stability of the Saudi state.  And he was the US public enemy number one.  Paying off a third party to keep him under wraps might have been the best solution for handling such an uncomfortable problem. 

Yes, the Saudis were sheltering, but at the same time they were apparently trying to keep him on a tight rope.   An interesting side question is under what conditions were the Pakistanis supposed to be holding OBL?  Did the Saudis stipulate that he be allowed or not be allowed contact with the outside world and did the Pakistanis honor the Saudi wishes or do their own thing?

 

Now why the Pakistanis cooperated seems that it would have been a better option that having OBL running around loose in Waziristan and the tribal areas, constantly provoking US pressure and raids and potentially acting to destabilize Pakistan. 

And of course, there was the money. 

I assume that since the Pakistanis didn't want to risk getting caught housing OBL, they used a cutout or rather a thrid party to hide behind.  Given tight relationship between Harakat and the ISI, they would be at the top of my list of suspects.  The New York Times reported that OBL's courier's cell phone had multiple calls to Harakat and suggested the benefits OBL would have in having Harakat as part of his in-country support network.  

 

How permeable was the safe house?  Regular release of audios indicates OBL was able to get information out.   The recent wave of encounters between top Qaeda leaders and Predator drones suggests that the US recently acquired significant intelligence on Qaeda leadership and its whereabouts.  There have also been numerous reports about valuable intelligence coming from OBL's computer drives.  It's probably very safe to assume the safe house leaked like OBL's body after the SEAL encounter. 

Then the interesting question becomes was this the intent and understanding of the Saudi benefactors?   (Did those guys ever check up on their outsourced prison?  At least the US black sites/detention did have a contract monitoring system in theory...)

Or did the ISI allow OBL to remain active, all the while keeping tabs on all information passed through that grate between the floors? 

Did the ISI ever leak actionable intelligence gleaned this way to the US? 

I doubt we will ever have definitive answers.

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Pakistan Security Reveals ISI Toileting Secrets

I used to love the crazy-ass denials the Soviets would come up with and part of me is still stuck in the good 'ol days of the Cold War, but now I'm finally warming up to the 21st Century thanks to the Pakistanis.  The Telegraph (UK) is reporting today that the Pakistanis are denying my report of Pakistani cooperation in the bin Laden raid.  According to the Telegraph:

However, a senior Pakistani security official denied that the ISI had sheltered bin Laden.

"We don't use toilet paper – we wash," he said. "But toilet paper is all this theory is good for."

Toilet paper???!!!

Okay...

Now you'd think they'd been sweating bullets since the deal with the US went south.  I would assumed they had gamed every scenerio and were prepared to throw a major disinformation campaign to the world as soon as news of their cozy little arrangements leaked. 

But toilet paper?

You gotta love these guys.

Now personally, I'm a big fan of TP, especially when dealing in shit like this.

 

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Bin Laden Turned in by Informant -- Courier Was Cover Story

Forget the cover story of waterboarding-leads-to-courier-leads-to bin Laden (not to deny the effectiveness of waterboarding, but it’s just not applicable in this case.)   Sources in the intelligence community tell me that after years of trying and one bureaucratically insane near-miss in Yemen, the US government killed OBL because a Pakistani intelligence officer came forward to collect the approximately $25 million reward from the State Department's Rewards for Justice program. 

The informant was a walk-in.

The ISI officer came forward to claim the substantial reward and to broker US citizenship for his family.   My sources tell me that the informant claimed that the Saudis were paying off the Pakistani military and intelligence (ISI) to essentially shelter and keep bin Laden under house arrest in Abbottabad, a city with such a high concentration of military that I'm told there's no equivalent in the US. 

The CIA and friends then set about proving that OBL was indeed there.  And they did.

Next they approached the chiefs of the Pakistani military and the ISI.  The US was going to come in with or without them.  The CIA offered them a deal they couldn't refuse:  they would double what the Saudis were paying them to keep bin Laden if they cooperated with the US.  Or they could refuse the deal and live with the consequences:  the Saudis would stop paying and there would be the international embarassment...

The ISI and Pakistani military were cooperating with the US on the raid.

The cooperation was why there were no troops in Abottabad.  They were all pulled out.  It had always seemed very far-fetched to me that a helicopter could crash and later destroyed in an area with such high military concentration without the Pakistanis noticing.  But then it seemed even wilder to believe that a US Navy SEAL (DEVGRU) actually shot a woman who rushed them in the leg.  Yeah, right.  I know these guys.  They only way they'll shoot a woman in the leg is if they are double tapping a head or chest and that leg got in the way. 

DEVGRU shoots to kill.

The cover story was going to be a drone strike in Pakistan.  Things went south when the helicopter crashed.  The White House freaked and the cooperating Pakistanis were thrown under the bus. 

Splat.

Although the White House really pissed off the intel and DEVGRU guys with their knee-jerk reaction that tossed the Pakistanis under the proverbial bus, ironically it did have the same outcome as the original CIA cover story:  the way they were treated, no one believes Generals Kiyani and Pasha were cooperating with the US. 

Big shaka for that, Barry!

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I'm baaaack -- The Spy Who Billed Me Comes in from the Cold

    After going black a couple of years ago, I'm returning to The Spy Who Billed Me.  The blog got a lot of attention, some of it good, some of it, well, you can guess.  I broke several national security stories and the best ones are, unfortunately, the ones I chose not to break out of national security concerns or to protect my sources.  I've irritated a lot of people, some in very high places, some in very low.  I've had threats from just about everywhere,  including some of the scariest organizations on the planet.   I have to be either insane, a fool, or someone with very good friends who watch my back--or all of the above.

I was told The Spy Who Billed Me was a catalyst for some changes in contracting at the USS Langley (as in "why are we doing it this way now?"  "That damn blog."), but knowing how slow that battleship is to change course, I'm guessing those are long past.  I was also told the security guys were ordered to come after me because of a Sunday op-ed in the Washington Post, discussing how half-assed contracting at the CIA is endangering national security.  Word around Headquarters was that they couldn't touch me, but no one seemed to know if it was because I hadn't worked for them or because I had done something too sensitive to come after me. 

So in the end, instead of a good tussle, all I got was a lame rebuttal in WaPo by the Assistant Director of National Intelligence.  Worked for me.

The Spy Who Billed Me gave me some amazing experiences such as some national TV gigs and dinner in my honor with a former Senator and former NSC member in a former President's personal suite  Most importantly, I formed some close friendships with some very unique individuals who are a joy to have in my life.

I'm still always a little freaked when people know who I am.  Strangely enough, it happened four times in the last two weeks.  And I thought I had gone to ground.

I have no idea where I'm going to carve out the time to do this, but I figure in the world of Facebook and Twitter, microblogging might be the key.  (And those of you who have read me over the years know I'm lying to myself here because I favor long detailed posts, but you do what you gotta do.) I'm optimistic I will find a few hours here and there.

Oh, and I just created Twitter and Facebook accounts.  I'll slap lipstick on those pigs later, but here are the links so you can follow and friend me: Twitter and Facebook 

Or at least I think these are the links.  It's been awhile.  ;)

And thank all of you for those hundreds of emails checking up on me and asking when I was going to start back again.  A couple of days ago I wrote a reader that I wasn't going to happen again.  Then on Friday The New York Times contacted me to do a post on disappearing for their opinion page forum.  It was fun to write and I realized how much I missed The Spy Who Billed Me and how much I missed you guys.   And I also decided to quit sitting on a major international news story and break the damn thing.

Standby.  The Spy Who Billed Me is coming in hot, fangs out.

Not Blackwater, but Xe, as in Xena Warrior Princess

 Blackwater has gone to ground--sort of.  In a move to apparently distance itself from its image as reckless cowboys that was etched into the world's mind from the September 2007 Baghdad Nisoor Square shoots, Blackwater USA is once again rebranding itself.  It has changed its name (and presumably legal structure) to Xe.  (Pronounced, "Z" as in "Xena, Warrior Princess.")

The world's largest private security company that once boasted on its website, "We are not simply a 'private security company.' We are a turnkey solution provider for 4th generation warfare," has taken yet another step to distance itself from its swashbuckling past.   Due to its aggressive, yet effective tactics, it became the world's poster child for irresponsible guns for hire, an ironic reputation since Blackwater was actually one of the most professional of the hundred plus private military organizations.

Given that the Iraqi government recently kicked Blackwater out of the country and BW subsequently lost that portion of a larger State Department security contract, the move is most likely to distance itself from this past so closely associated with the Bush Administration's questionable Iraq policies and to make contracting with it more palatable for government organizations and private entities.  In a few years, everyone will still remember Blackwater, but few will recall that Xe (again, pronounced "Z" as in "Xena, Warrior Princess.") is indeed its successor.  The cryptic name is unlikely to incite strong public opposition or at the least the fear of it.

It is unclear if the new legal structure will help limit the legal liabilities of Blackwater, containing them within the Blackwater USA, LLC structure and shielding the new entity.

 The shift to Xe (as in "Xena, Warrior Princess") appears to be rather hasty.   Xe (as in Xena) does not yet have its own website and they have not yet begun redirecting internet traffic away from the old Blackwaterusa.com.  Xe has yet to roll out a new logo.

For those who are remain nostalgic for the old Blackwater bravado, the former Blackwater Pro Shop has been rebranded, but it continues to stock a wide variety of Blackwater gifts, including my fave, the Blackwater bear.

Dusty Gets Green Light for Green Badge

   Former number three at the CIA, Dusty Foggo, cut a sweet deal with federal prosecutors and pleaded guilty to one felony count for abusing his Agency position to funnel lucrative water contracts to Brent Wilkes, former friend and intel contractor.  The terms of the plea agreement essentially bar Foggo from holding a government position requiring a security clearance.  However, the deal expressly allows Dusty to work for an intel contractor requiring a security clearance.  In other words, Dusty has been green lighted to become a green badger and use his government contacts to steer business to intel contractors along the Beltway.   

Br'er rabbit just got thrown into the briar patch of the Beltway Bandits, restoring our shaken faith in Dusty's cunning.  Apparently federal prosecutors understanding of the world of intel contracting was as good as Br'er Fox's of the briar patch. 

And those intel contractors are probably already lining up to add Foggo to their team.  It's not that often that someone of Foggo's stature, skill and charm come onto the market.  Of course, Dusty will first have to serve a possible prison sentence of up to 37 months, but after that he be free to introduce his unique flair to Beltway business.  Beyond wining and dining blue badgers at his favorite Capital Grille in Tyson's Corner, he has most likely picked up a few more elaborate entertainment ideas from his buddy Brent -- Scotland and cigars and Hawaii and hookers. 

Okay, so hookers probably weren't Brent's idea...

Memo to Dusty:  when flying blue badgers and their families to Scotland for golf and cigars, don't use your own credit card or the company's charter jet, but use a cutout instead.  Ditto for Hawaii and hookers.  Think tradecraft. 

Blackwater Gearing Up for Hurricane Gustav

Blackwater Worldwide is currently seeking qualified law enforcement officers and security personnel to potentially deploy to provide security in the possible aftermath of Hurricane Gustav.  This is the first time Blackwater has mobilized under its controversial Homeland Security contracts.  Blackwater did deploy security personnel to assist New Orleans in wake of Hurricane Katrina and this resulted in great controversy since it was the first time a private military corporation had deployed on US soil.

 

Blackwater issued the following call for personnel late Friday afternoon:

 

   

Blackwater is compiling a list of qualified security personnel for possible deployment into areas affected by Hurricane Gustav.      
Applicants must meet all items listed under the respective Officer posting and be US citizens. Contract length is TBD.

   

Law Enforcement Officers (all criteria must apply)

   

1. Current sworn [may be full time, part time or reserve]

   

2. With arrest powers

   

3. Armed status (must indicate Armed and/or Semi Auto. Revolver only not accepted)    
expiration must be greater than 60 days out

   

4. Departmental credentials (not just a badge)

   

Armed Security Officers (all criteria must apply)

   

Only from the following states: OR, WA, CA, NV, NM, AZ, TX, FL, GA, SC, NC, VA, MD, IL, OK

   

1. Current/active/licensed/registered armed security officer

   

2. All training verification [unarmed and armed certificates of completion]

   

3. Current state issued face card indicting armed status [expiration must be greater than 60 days out]

   

Applicants will be required to provide an electronic copy of the above required credentials/documents, recent photo within      
the last six months with response to this AD prior to consideration for deployment.

   

Personnel who meet the above qualifications and are interested, please send resumes and files to: 25505@blackwaterusa2.hrmdirect.com

Excellence in Intel Contracting

  I've long been skeptical of the Director of National Intelligence's emphasis upon "Excellence in Acquisition," but the recent contracting experience of a green badger has me convinced it might not be such a bad idea after all.  And no, this is not a joke or parody.  I'm business as usual in the wacky world of intel contracting.

Recently, an intelligence community (IC) agency awarded a multi-year contract for services to a major government contractor after a lengthy, scrupulously fair competition. It was anticipated that there were going to be two, perhaps even three, initial task orders (TOs) on the contract.  No problem.  The contracting officer (CO) assigned was young and inexperienced, but the workload on this particular contract was anticipated as being light.

The contractor’s contracts manager (CM) that had been assigned to the contract was an experienced hand who had left the awarding agency after several years for the greener pastures and lighter pressures of the private sector.  On the Friday after the contract award, he got a panicky telephone call from the young CO.  “There aren’t three initial TOs, there are eleven!” And they’re due out by COB (close of business) Monday.  I can’t do it, I don’t know enough about the different specifications for the task orders.”

The green badger felt for the young CO, he knew what it was like to be under a lot of time pressure, which was one of the reasons that he had left government service.  “Don’t panic”, he said, “I’ll come in over the weekend and help you out, if you like.”  The CO agreed to the help.

Over the course of Saturday and Sunday, the CM essentially wrote the eleven initial task orders from scratch, each one with customized administrative specifications for security, personnel, travel. work locations (i.e., on site or off site), etc.  The CM gave the TOs to the CO in “softcopy” (i.e., on a thumbdrive) Sunday evening so complete that the CO could just fill in the contract number, print them, and send them back to the contractor.  After he finished, the CM was feeling pretty patriotic, and even treated himself to a stiff drink with dinner on Sunday evening.  He may not be a government employee anymore, he thought, but he was still taking care of the mission.

When the hardcopy TOs arrived by courier mid day on Tuesday, the CM was stunned when he started reviewing them.  The “blank” contract number had indeed been filled in, and the substantive deliverables were still the same.  The customized administrative specifications for all eleven TOs had been changed, however, by someone just copying those that had been written for the first task order into the other ten.  For at least four of the eleven TOs, this materially changed what was required to respond to the TOs, and thus increased the cost over the amount that would normally have been proposed.  More importantly, however, was the fact that new administrative specifications rendered at least those four task orders nonsensical, and the CM had to go back to the CO and ask him to clarify what he really wanted.

“I can see now why the DNI [Director of National Intelligence]procurement executive thinks that acquisition needs to be a core competency,” the CM commented.  “It’s gotten so bad in acquisitions that you can’t even do their job for them without them somehow screwing it up.”

The post that was in this place has been deleted.  It reported on a rumor regarding the latest Foggo indictment, clearly stating that this was a rumor.  If you read it, please ignore its contents.

I have consistently held this blog to a higher standard and with that post I slipped.  Rumors deserve no place on this blog.  It was a judgment error and I apologize.