Bei den von der WAZ veröffentlichten Berichten handelt es sich um sogenannte „Unterrichtungen des Parlamentes“. Diese Papiere stellt das Verteidigungsministerium jede Woche dem Verteidigungsausschuss des Bundestages zu Verfügung. Sie sollen die Abgeordneten über die weltweiten Einsätze der Bundeswehr auf dem Laufenden halten und sind mit dem Hinweis „VS – Nur für den Dienstgebrauch“ gestempelt.

-> zu den Afghanistan Papieren

Bei “VS – Nur für den Dienstgebrauch“ handelt es sich um die niedrigste Geheimhaltungsstufe in Deutschland. Die Bundeswehr lehnte auf Anfrage eine Veröffentlichung der Berichte ab, weil aus ihnen Rückschlüsse auf „Einsatzverfahren und Einsatztechniken“ möglich sein sollen. Die WAZ-Gruppe hat trotzdem mehrere tausend Seiten dieser geheim gestempelten Berichte im Internet veröffentlicht.

Die Originaldokumente erlauben erstmals einen ungefilterten Blick auf den Kriegsverlauf im deutsch kontrollierten Gebiet am Hindukusch. Sie umspannen den Zeitraum von 2005 bis 2012. Wir haben nicht alle Dokumente, und einige sind kaum lesbar.

Trotzdem zeigen die Papiere die weitgehende Wirkungslosigkeit der bisherigen ISAF-Strategien – enthalten aber keine Informationen über „Einsatzverfahren und Einsatztechniken“ der Bundeswehr, wie von der Bundeswehr behauptet.

Mehr als 1000 Tote in 2012
Stattdessen werden in den geheimen Berichten auch Zahlen zu Opfern des Krieges genannt, die in den frei verfügbaren „Unterrichtungen der Öffentlichkeit“ von der Bundeswehr nicht verbreitet werden. So zitiert das Verteidigungsministerium etwa im geheimen Bericht 33 aus dem August 2012 eine Statistik der UNO. Demnach wurden in den ersten sechs Monaten des Jahres 3099 Zivilisten verletzt oder getötet, darunter 925 Frauen und Kinder; 1145 Menschen starben, 1954 mussten behandelt werden.

Laut UNO sind für 80 Prozent der Opfer die Aufständischen verantwortlich. ISAF-Soldaten und afghanische Sicherheitsdienste hätten etwa 310 Opfer verschuldet. In den öffentlichen Berichten der Bundeswehr fehlen diese Zahlen. Dabei sind auch diese Angaben nicht geheim. Die UNO veröffentlicht sie im Internet.

Keine Geheimnisse
Weiter enthalten die geheimen Berichte Informationen über Einsätze der Bundeswehr im Süden des Landes. Dort sind sie für ihre Bündnispartner aktiv. So setzt die Bundeswehr seit Jahren reguläre Soldaten des ehemaligen Fernmeldebataillons 284 aus Wesel in der Unruheprovinz Kandahar ein. Sie helfen dort den militärischen Flughafen zu kontrollieren – jeweils mit einer Ausnahmegenehmigung des gerade amtierenden Verteidigungsministers.

Diese Einsätze verschweigt die Bundeswehr in ihren erst seit 2011 wöchentlich erscheinenden „Unterrichtungen der Öffentlichkeit“. Dabei handelt es sich bei den Angaben durchaus nicht um Geheimnisse. Soldaten aus Wesel berichteten in der Vergangenheit offen in Zeitungen über ihren Einsatz in Kandahar.

27. November 2010 von David Schraven

Find this story at 27 November 2012

Die Afghanistan Papiere

Die Afghanistan Papiere sind online. Tausende geheime Seiten über einen Krieg, den die deutschen Soldaten nicht mehr gewinnen können. Unser Video gibt eine Einführung in das Projekt.

-> zu den Afghanistan Papieren

Was soll das?
Über den Krieg in Afghanistan wird in der Öffentlichkeit nicht immer wahrheitsgetreu gesprochen. Das wollen wir ändern und die Faktenbasis der Debatte vergrößern. Wir veröffentlichen die sogenannten “Unterrichtungen des Parlamentes”. Die sind “VS – nur für den Dienstgebrauch” gestempelt. Wir finden aber, die Öffentlichkeit sollte über den Krieg in Afghanistan umfassend informiert werden. -> Die Erklärung

Gefährlicher Einsatz
Die Lage in Afghanistan ist brisanter als öffentlich dargestellt. Wie aus den Afghanistan Papieren hervorgeht, verschlechtert sich die Sicherheit am Hindukusch kontinuierlich. Von 2007 bis 2012 verdreifachte sich die Zahl der Angriffe auf die Koalitionstruppen. Allein in einer Woche im September 2012 kam es zu über 620 Attacken. Am Mittwoch will die Bundesregierung das neue Mandat für Afghanistan beschließen. -> Das Wichtigste

Das verfehlte Ziel
Der Afghanistan-Krieg der Bundeswehr war zu Beginn ein Kampf um ein hohes Ziel. Bundesaußenminister Joschka Fischer gab es vor: „Es geht darum, eine Weltordnung zu schaffen, die Zonen der Ordnungslosigkeit nicht mehr zulässt.“ Ein demokratischer Rechtsstaat sollte am Hindukusch entstehen. Dieses Ziel ist verfehlt, stattdessen lässt sich die Bundeswehr mit mutmaßlichen Kriegsverbrechern ein. Es geht nur noch um einen funktionierenden Rückzug. -> Das Hintergrund-Stück

Zeit für eine Diskussion
Jahrelang wurde der deutschen Öffentlichkeit der Krieg in Afghanistan als Friedensmission verkauft. Dabei riskieren deutsche Soldaten ihr Leben für einen korrupten Staat. Spitzenpolitiker haben es vernachlässigt, über die zukünftige Rolle der Bundeswehr offen zu sprechen. Mit der Sprachlosigkeit muss Schluss sein. -> Der Kommentar

Die wichtigsten Stories
Einige der aus unserer Sicht wichtigsten Stories zum Krieg haben wir hier verlinkt. -> Die Stories

Die ergiebigsten Quellen
Von offiziellen Webseiten über wissenschaftliche Analysen bis hin zu Soldatenblogs gibt es hier die ergiebigsten Quellen. -> Die Quellen

Die besten Bücher
Über Afghanistan sind zahlreiche Bücher erschienen. Hier die aus unserer Sicht besten. -> Die Bücher

———
Die Afghanistan Papiere wurden uns zugespielt; sie liegen teilweise nur in schlechter Qualität vor – deswegen brauchen wir ihre Hilfe. Bearbeiten Sie die Berichte, geben Sie Hinweise, diskutieren Sie die Afghanistan Papiere. Wir bleiben am Thema dran und freuen uns über Ihre Mithilfe. Haben Sie Informationen oder Dokumente zum Krieg in Afghanistan? Mailen Sie uns an recherche@waz.de, rufen Sie uns an oder nutzen Sie unseren verschlüsselten, anonymen Upload.

27. November 2012 von Autorengruppe

Find this story at 27 November 2012

Die Afghanistan Papiere

Protesters take action out in the cold rain at Bradley Manning’s November 27th hearing that addressed his unlawful pretrial punishment.

Ft. Meade, MD – Yesterday at Bradley Manning’s Article 13 hearing, professional military psychiatrist Captain Kevin Moore testified that Bradley Manning’s pretrial confinement conditions at Quantico military brig were worse than that of any other long-term pretrial prisoner he’d observed. He added that Bradley’s restrictive conditions, including being held in a 6×8 foot cell, having access to only 20 minutes of sunshine and exercise per day, and being deprived of basic items such as clothing and toilet paper for periods of time, were most comparable to yet still more severe than conditions of prisoners he’d observed on death row.

Bradley Manning’s case garnered considerable media buzz early in 2010 when it came to light that the UN and Amnesty International had initiated investigations into possibly illegal conditions of pretrial confinement at Quantico. Wednesday in court, two high-ranking military psychiatrists, Captain William Hoctor and Captain Moore, testified that the extent to which their recommendations were ignored by the Quantico Marine staff was unlike anything they had experienced elsewhere over a combined 30+ years of experience at various bases. Cpt. Hoctor went so far as to say that even at Guantanamo Bay his recommendations were implemented much faster than at Quantico. At Quantico, it would often take up to two weeks for the staff to implement his recommendations to change a prisoner’s status, in contrast with the few days it would take elsewhere. In PFC Manning’s case, the recommendations of both Cpt. Hoctor and Captain Moore to allow PFC Manning more exercise and downgrade him from Prevention-of-Injury (POI) status based on improved mental state was ignored over the course of many months.

Captain Hoctor said he became the angriest he’d been a long time when Quantico base commander Colonel Daniel Choike stated in a meeting that “Nothing’s going to change. He won’t be able to hurt himself. He’s not going to be able to get away, and our way of ensuring this is that he will remain on this status indefinitely.” During testimony on Tuesday, Col. Choike confirmed his position during that exchange. In reference to this statement, Bradley Manning Support Network Steering Committee member Jeff Paterson responded, “I think a reasonable person can see why PFC Manning was frustrated with these conditions. No matter what he did or how exemplary his behavior, the Col. had no intention of respecting his overall well-being and legal rights as a pretrial prisoner.”

While base commanders Col. Choike and Col. Robert Oltman testified that they believed brig staff acted in interest of PFC Manning’s safety, they both stated that the longest they had seen any other prisoner held at Quantico was 2 months. Additionally, they had both informed commanding officers that the Quantico brig was unsuitable for holding a prisoner longer than 90 days.

During his testimony, Psychiatrist Captain Moore indicated that he’d been trained in military interrogation, and that adverse mental side effects were to be expected in any prisoner held in such constrictive conditions for a long period of time. POI, the psychiatrists clarified, was typically a short-term status. In closing questions, defense attorney David Coombs asked Cpt. Hoctor how, in his professional psychiatric opinion, he would characterize an authority who chose to ignore or discount possible adverse effects when choosing a highly restrictive status such as POI for a long period of time. After a thoughtful look, Cpt. Hoctor replied the word he would choose is “callous.”

By Emma Cape. November 29th, 2012.

Find this story at 29 November 2012

Manning takes stand at pre-trial hearing and speaks at length about his treatment by the military following his arrest in 2010

Bradley Manning steps out of a security vehicle as he is escorted into the courthouse in Fort Meade, Maryland. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

After 917 days in military captivity, the world finally heard on Thursday from Bradley Manning, the army soldier accused of being the source of the largest leak of government secrets in US history.

In a dramatic opening half-hour of testimony on the third day of the pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade military base in Maryland, Manning spoke at length for the first time about the period after his arrest in May 2010.

Manning detailed the trauma he experienced at the hands of the US military while he was incarcerated for having allegedly handed hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.

His defence lawyer, David Coombs, drew a life-sized representation on the courtroom floor of the 6ft by 8ft cell in which Manning was held at the Quantico base in Virginia after he was brought to the US.

Manning seemed initially nervous but relaxed into his subject. He described a breakdown he had in Kuwait in the days after his arrest. “I was in a pretty stressed situation,” Manning said. “I had no idea what was going on with anything. I was getting very little information.

“I began to really deteriorate. I was anxious all the time about not knowing anything, days blend into night, night into days. Everything became more insular.”

Manning described how his guards stopped taking him out of his cell, preventing any interaction with other detainees. “I didn’t have a good understanding of the reasons. Someone tried to explain to me but I was a mess. I was starting to fall apart.”

He claimed that two or three times a day his guards would give him a “shakedown”. This involved taking him out the cell, then tearing apart everything he had in the cell.

Coombs asked Manning whether he had any recollection of an incident on 30 June 2010, when he had lost control of himself to the extent that doctors had to intervene. “He was screaming, babbling, banging his head against the cell,” said Coombs.

Manning replied: “I knew I had just fallen apart, everything is foggy and hazy at that point.”

The soldier said he thought he would die in Kuwait. “I remember thinking I’m going to die. I thought I was going to die in a cage,” he told the hearing.

A few weeks later, on 29 July, Manning was transferred from Kuwait to Quantico marine base in Virginia. “I had no idea where I was going,” said Manning, who thought he might be taken to Germany. “I was very scared, I had no idea.”

On board the plane, he was placed in full restraint. “The captain went over the intercom, ‘We’ll be arriving in Germany’,” he said. After an hour and a half on the ground, Manning was put back on the plane. Only when the crew announced they were going to Baltimore did Manning discover he was being returned to the US.

That made him feel better, he said. “I didn’t think I would set foot on American soil for a long time.”

Coombs told how conditions in Quantico were tough, however. He drew a life-size representation of the cell on the floor of the court, and asked Manning to step into it, to recreate his conditions. Manning told how he could see a reflection of a skylight through a small gap in the cell door if he angled his head in a particular direction.

Earlier, before Manning took the stand, the military judge accepted the terms under which he would enter a guilty plea to seven charges for disseminating classified documents.

Colonel Denise Lind approved the language of the offences to which Manning would admit. She said those carry a total maximum prison term of 16 years.

…

Ed Pilkington at Fort Meade, Maryland
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 November 2012 21.12 GMT

Find this story at 29 November 2012
© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Investors going to Africa face political risk in some countries and the very bad transportation and infrastructure, says Erik Prince. Photo: SCMP

The man who built up Blackwater – the giant private security force that guarded US diplomats in some of the world’s most dangerous places, including Afghanistan and Iraq – sees Africa as his future.

After Erik Prince sold his firm to investors about two years ago, the former officer in the Navy SEALs – the special US military force that killed Osama bin Laden last year – set up a new company called Frontier Resource Group (FRG) early this year.

FRG is an Africa-dedicated investment firm partnered with major Chinese enterprises, including at least one state-owned resource giant that is keen to pour money into the resource-rich continent.

“Africa is so far the most unexplored part of the world, and I think China has seen a lot of promise in Africa,” Prince said during a brief trip to Hong Kong last week to meet potential Chinese investors and partners. “But the problem is if you go alone, you bear the country risk on your own. You have to get support and maintenance there,” Prince, FRG’s managing partner, told the South China Morning Post in an exclusive interview.

Despite the geographical distance, economic and diplomatic ties between Beijing and many African countries have rapidly strengthened in the past decade.

Earlier this year, Beijing pledged US$20 billion in credit to African governments over the next three years.

Most of the money is to be used to support the development of infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing and small businesses in Africa.

Prince, who credits the Navy SEALs with bringing out his entrepreneurial spirit, said there were two main risks that perhaps every businessman in Africa must face.

The first one is the political risk in some countries, and the second is the very bad transportation and infrastructure, which means a high cost of doing business there.

“If you can’t get to market cheaply enough, that’s not interesting,” Prince said.

Many foreign investors came to Africa purely for its natural resources, he said, but they forgot that transporting those resources was as important as exploring and producing them.

Prince, who works and lives in Abu Dhabi, where FRG is headquartered, said investing in Africa’s infrastructure, energy facilities and commercial agriculture to meet the local people’s basic needs of work and life should mean as much as investing directly in natural resources.

In July, FRG made the first closing of its first Africa-dedicated private equity fund, having raised US$100 million in a few months.

Prince committed some money himself to the fund to demonstrate a strong, long-term commitment to investing in the continent.

Following the first closing, Prince was invited by sovereign wealth funds, rich families and big banks in Asia, including some from Hong Kong and the mainland, to advise them on investment opportunities in Africa. Some wanted to put money into FRG’s first fund.

Now the firm aimed to raise an additional US$400 million by the first quarter of next year to close the capital-raising period of the fund, Prince said.

He said he was “selective” about his investors, as he only wanted to bring in those who could add value to FRG and its projects in Africa.

In 1997, Prince set up Blackwater, initially with his own money. That company received more than US$2 billion in contracts from US government agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department.

When asked how he turned Blackwater into a business success, Prince said Blackwater was a part of his history and Africa meant the future for him.

However, he said his experience in the SEALs and Blackwater developed his operational expertise for doing business in Africa.

“People come to Africa to help [Africans] to build up the capabilities there and to show them both know-how and capital,” he said. “Our job is to put all these things together and make them good investment opportunities.”

…

Monday, 19 November, 2012, 12:00am

George Chen

Find this story at 19 November 2012

Copyright © 2012 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

IPCC tells MPs that hundreds of officers beyond South Yorkshire force will be investigated and more documents uncovered

The police watchdog said it was getting new information from members of the public about the Hillsborough disaster. Photograph: PA

The massive scale of the inquiry by the police watchdog into the Hillsborough disaster emerged on Tuesday during evidence to parliament.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has been given a preliminary list of names of 1,444 officers currently serving with South Yorkshire police. But the IPCC’s chief executive, Jane Furniss, told the home affairs select committee there are likely to be hundreds more officers they have to look at from up to 15 other forces who were involved in providing support. The true figure of officers being examined for their role was around 2,444.

Dame Anne Owers, the chair of the IPCC, revealed that 450,000 pages of documents needed by her team had been given back to the various authorities that owned them. The documents were uncovered and examined by the Hillsborough independent panel, which produced the damning report on the tragedy in September and led to the IPCC announcing a criminal inquiry.

But as the documents have been handed back, the IPCC, as a starting point has to gather them together again and enter them onto the Home Office large major enquiry system (Holmes) before its investigation begins. This process could take months.

Furniss told MPs that her organisation would be asking for extra resources from the home secretary to carry out the inquiry.

“The documentation is a significant challenge,” she said. “Retrieving documents that were returned to different authorities, then logging them on to the Holmes system … that will take some time.” Pressed on how long it would take, Furniss said months.

She did not reveal to the committee how the IPCC intends to input the documentation onto Holmes. The Metropolitan police has access in some major cases to Altia – a software system that scans documents into the Holmes system very quickly. According to sources, inputting the documents without this system could take significantly longer than a few months.

Since the Hillsborough independent panel reported, more documents have been uncovered, the committee heard.

The IPCC is also getting new information and allegations from members of the public, and through their engagement with the Hillsborough families.

Allegations include members of the public claiming they were prevented from making statements, or that they were bullied into withdrawing them.

“So there are new allegations coming to us as a result of us announcing what we are doing,” said Furniss.

Owers told the committee that the IPCC’s Hillsborough inquiry was into the aftermath of the tragedy – into whether there was a cover-up, why blood samples were taken, what information was released to the media.

“This is going to be a large and complex investigation,” Owers said.

The Hillsborough independent panel’s report exposed the scale of the apparent cover-up by South Yorkshire police in the aftermath of the disaster in 1989 that left 96 dead.

…

Sandra Laville, crime correspondent
The Guardian, Tuesday 13 November 2012 18.34 GMT

Find this story at 13 November 2012
© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

WASHINGTON — Authorities with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the CIA, decided to remove the terms “attack,” “Al Qaeda” and “terrorism” from unclassified guidance provided to the Obama administration several days after militants attacked the U.S. mission in Benghazi, a senior official said Tuesday.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, relied on the so-called talking points when she appeared on several Sunday TV talk shows five days after the Sept. 11 attacks in eastern Libya. She asserted that the violence, which killed four Americans, erupted out of a protest over a film made in the U.S. that mocked Islam.

Critics accused Rice and other administration officials of twisting the intelligence for political reasons when it later emerged that the CIA had concluded that the lethal assault involved militants, some of whom had links to Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate. The White House has argued that Rice was relying on information provided by the CIA and other agencies and didn’t deviate from it.

U.S. intelligence officials supported the administration claims Tuesday, contending that language in the talking points was changed by intelligence officers to protect information that was classified at the time.

“Early drafts of the talking points included several analytic judgments that were debated and adjusted during the internal intelligence community coordination process,” said the senior intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue involved classified material. “The adjustments were focused on producing talking points that provided the best information available at the time, protected sensitive details and reflected the evolving nature of rapidly incoming intelligence.”

Officials at the CIA and at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, headed by James R. Clapper, “were all communicating on an email chain, which is normal in our coordination process,” the official said. “Suggestions were being made and implemented in a collaborative manner.”

The CIA drafted the initial talking points, and they were not “edited to minimize the role of extremists, diminish terrorist affiliations, or play down that this was an attack,” said a second U.S. official familiar with how the material was edited.

David H. Petraeus, the former CIA director, told the House and Senate intelligence committees in closed hearings Friday that he believed almost immediately that the Benghazi assault was an organized terrorist attack, according to lawmakers who attended the hearings. But he said the CIA initially withheld reports that extremists with links to Al Qaeda were involved to avoid tipping off the terrorists.

Petraeus also said some early classified reports supported the possibility that some attackers were motivated by violent protests in Cairo earlier that day over the anti-Islam video.

When the CIA drafted language that Rice could use for her TV appearances, it circulated the language to officials at Clapper’s office, which has a supervisory role in the intelligence community. In the editing process, the word “attack” was changed to “demonstration,” and the phrase “with ties to Al Qaeda” was removed, officials said. The word “terrorism” also was removed.

If intelligence professionals were responsible for the changes, it might dispel charges from some Republicans that political operatives at the White House had manipulated the narrative to downplay the possibility of an Al Qaeda attack when the Obama administration was campaigning on its successes in degrading the terrorist group.

One of the most vocal critics, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said he was “somewhat surprised and frustrated” Tuesday after CBS broke the news.

…

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

By Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times

12:26 AM PST, November 21, 2012

Find this story at 21 November 2012

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

Frederick W Humphries II unmasked as investigator who was banned from case because of relationship with Jill Kelley

Jill Kelley complained to FBI agent Frederick Humphries about threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, who had an affair with David Petraeus. Photograph: Chris O’Meara/AP

The FBI agent who set in motion the investigation that brought down David Petraeus as CIA director, but was ordered to stay away from the case because of his alleged infatuation with a woman who prompted the inquiry, has been identified as a veteran terrorism investigator, Frederick W Humphries II.

The New York Times revealed the agent’s name and reported that his colleagues described him as having “conservative political views and a reputation for aggressiveness”.

Before his name was made public, Humphries had been dubbed Agent Shirtless after it was revealed that he once sent a topless picture of himself to Jill Kelley. Kelley’s subsequent complaint to Humphries about harassing emails from Petraeus’s mistress, Paula Broadwell, set in motion the investigation that forced the CIA director from office.

Humphries, a former military intelligence officer in the US army, is himself under internal investigation. The FBI ordered him to stay away from the Petraeus case, which did not fall within his expertise, because of his close ties to Kelley. Last month Humphries revealed the Petraeus probe to members of Congress because he said he was concerned about a cover-up. But the move could be seen as political with the potential to embarrass the president ahead of last week’s election.

“Fred is a passionate kind of guy,” a former colleague told the New York Times. “He’s kind of an obsessive type. If he locked his teeth on to something he’d be a bulldog.”

Lawrence Berger, general counsel for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, spoke to Humphries and then told the New York Times that he sent a shirtless picture of himself to Kelley in jest and that it was not sexual. “That picture was sent years before Ms Kelley contacted him about this, and it was sent as part of a larger context of what I would call social relations in which the families would exchange numerous photos of each other,” Berger said.

Humphries shot dead a soldier at MacDill air force base, home of the US military’s central command where he became friends with Kelley, in 2010. The FBI agent, who was off duty at the time, killed an army veteran, Ronald Bullock, who confronted him with a knife while trying to flee the base after a confrontation with security officials. Humphries was cleared in a subsequent investigation that found he “operated within the scope of the FBI’s deadly force policy”.

Humphries has been involved in a number of terrorism investigations including one involving Abu Hamza al-Masri who was extradited from Britain to the US in October on charges of involvement with al-Qaida and planning to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon.

…

Chris McGreal
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 November 2012 03.00 GMT

Find this story at 15 November 2012

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Former CIA director insists no information was passed to Paula Broadwell as closed-door congressional hearing begins

David Petraeus resigned his post as CIA director after the FBI uncovered his extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Former CIA director David Petraeus has denied passing classified documents to his lover, Paula Broadwell, as the FBI investigation focuses on how the general’s biographer came to have restricted material on a personal computer and in her house.

Petraeus also told CNN that his resignation was solely the result of the affair and was not linked, as some Republicans have hinted, to the CIA’s role during the Benghazi attack in which the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans, including two CIA security men, were killed.

The CIA said it had opened an “exploratory” investigation into the conduct of Petraeus. “At the CIA we are constantly reviewing our performance. If there are lessons to be learned from this case, we’ll use them to improve,” a CIA spokesperson said in a statement. “But we’re not getting ahead of ourselves; an investigation is exploratory and doesn’t presuppose any particular outcome.”

Petraeus has agreed to give evidence on Friday to congressional intelligence committees looking into the security failures around Stevens’ death, including allegations that the state department turned down appeals from US officials in Libya for more protection, and accusations that the CIA and other agencies failed to heed warning signs of an attack.

The closed-door hearings opened with appearances by Petraeus’s replacement, acting CIA director Michael Morell, and the national intelligence director, James Clapper.

CNN did not directly quote Petraeus. It said he had had a conversation with one of its reporters, Kyra Phillips, who has previously interviewed him. She said that although Petraeus was no longer formally required to testify to congressional intelligence committees about the Benghazi attack once he resigned as CIA director, he was keen to do so.

“He said this has nothing to do with Benghazi, and he wants to testify,” she said on CNN.

Petraeus’s affair prompted the US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, to order a review of ethics training for military officers. The FBI is scrutinising classified material discovered in Broadwell’s house and on her computer. But Phillips said Petraeus denied giving secret documents to her.

The Pentagon withdrew Broadwell’s security clearance as a lieutenant colonel in the military intelligence reserve as the focus of the FBI investigation shifted to how she came to have classified documents. Her security clearance gave her access to “secret” and “top secret” material. However, it would not necessarily have permitted her to keep hold of it.

Concerns that Petraeus may have spoken to Broadwell about secret information were raised after it was revealed that in a speech at the University of Denver last month, Broadwell said the Benghazi attack on 11 September was prompted by the CIA holding militiamen prisoner there. The CIA has denied the claim.

The intelligence committees of both houses of Congress are keen to speak to Petraeus about what the CIA told the White House in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi attack as well as whether it had picked up warnings of an imminent assault and security failings.

…

Chris McGreal
The Guardian, Friday 16 November 2012

Find this story at 16 November 2012
© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

An undated photo shows Soviet dictator Josef Stalin with his daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva. Alliluyeva, who changed her name to Lana Peters. (AP Photo/Courtesy Icarus Films)

(TheBlaze/AP) — Newly declassified documents show the FBI kept close tabs on Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s only daughter after her high profile defection to the United States in 1967, gathering details from informants about how her arrival was affecting international relations.

The documents were released Monday to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act following Lana Peters’ death last year at age 85 in a Wisconsin nursing home. Her defection to the West during the Cold War embarrassed the ruling communists and made her a best-selling author. And her move was a public relations coup for the U.S.

One April 28, 1967, memo details a conversation with a confidential source who said the defection would have a “profound effect” for anyone else thinking of trying to leave the Soviet Union. The source claimed to have discussed the defection with a Czechoslovak journalist covering the United Nations and a member of the Czechoslovakia “Mission staff.”

“Our source opined that the United States Government exhibited a high degree of maturity, dignity and understanding during this period,” according to the memo, prominently marked “SECRET” at the top and bottom. “It cannot help but have a profound effect upon anyone who is considering a similar solution to an unsatisfactory life in a Soviet bloc country.”

Svetlana Alliluyeva, only daughter of late Russian dictator Josef Stalin, steps off a plane at Kennedy International Airport in New York on April 21, 1967 after defecting from the Soviet Union. Upon her arrival she said, “I have come here to seek the self-expression that has been denied me for so long in Russia.” (AP Photo)

When she defected, Peters was known as Svetlana Alliluyeva, but she went by Lana Peters following her 1970 marriage to William Wesley Peters, an apprentice of famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Peters said her defection was partly motivated by the Soviet authorities’ poor treatment of her late husband, Brijesh Singh, a prominent figure in the Indian Communist Party.

“I have come here to seek the self-expression that has been denied me for so long in Russia,” she reportedly said upon arriving in the States.

Another memo dated June 2, 1967, describes a conversation an unnamed FBI source had with Mikhail Trepykhalin, identified as the second secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C.

The source said Trepykhalin told him the Soviets were “very unhappy over her defection” and asked whether the U.S. would use it “for propaganda purposes.” Trepykhalin “was afraid forces in the U.S. would use her to destroy relationships between the USSR and this country,” the source told the FBI.

(Photo: AP)

An unnamed informant in another secret memo from that month said Soviet authorities were not disturbed by the defection because it would “further discredit Stalin’s name and family.”

Stalin, a dictator held responsible for sending millions of his countrymen to their deaths in labor camps, led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, denounced him three years later as a brutal despot.

And even though Peters denounced communism and her father’s policies, Stalin’s legacy haunted her in the United States.

“People say, `Stalin’s daughter, Stalin’s daughter,’ meaning I’m supposed to walk around with a rifle and shoot the Americans,” she said in a 2007 interview for a documentary about her life. “Or they say, `No, she came here. She is an American citizen.’ That means I’m with a bomb against the others. No, I’m neither one. I’m somewhere in between.”

Another FBI source, reporting on a 1968 May Day celebration in Moscow, said “the general feeling” is that she defected “because she was attracted by the material wealth in the United States.”

(Photo: AP)

George Kennan, a key figure in the Cold War and a former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, advised the FBI that he and Alliluyeva were concerned Soviet agents would try to contact her, a December 1967 memo reveals. The memo notes that no security arrangements were made for Peters and no other documents in the file indicate that the KGB ever tracked her down.

Many of the 233 pages released to the AP were heavily redacted, with the FBI citing exemptions allowed under the law for concerns related to foreign policy, revealing confidential sources and releasing medical or other information that is a “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

Lana Peters is photographed on a rural road outside of Richland Center, Wis., in 2010. (Photo: AP)

An additional 94 pages were found in her file but not released because the FBI said they contain information involving other government agencies. Those pages remain under government review.

More than half of the pages released to AP were copies of newspaper articles and other media coverage of her defection.

…

Here is 1967 video of Peters speaking about her struggle with communism, and how, when she looked around her, the results weren’t as promised “theoretically.” She also denounced her father’s murderous actions, but said the regime and the “ideology” as a whole should be blamed:

Posted on November 19, 2012 at 11:24pm by Erica Ritz

Find this story at 19 November 2012

All information © 2012 TheBlaze LLC

Josef Stalin’s only daughter, who went by the name of Lana Peters after marrying an American in 1970, died in a Wisconsin nursing home in 2011.

MADISON, Wisconsin — Newly declassified documents show the FBI kept close tabs on Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s only daughter after her high-profile defection to the United States in 1967, gathering details from informants about how her arrival was affecting international relations.

The documents were released Monday to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act following Lana Peters’ death last year at age 85 in a Wisconsin nursing home. Her defection during the Cold War embarrassed the ruling Communists and made her a best-selling author. Her move was also a public relations coup for the U.S.

When she defected, Peters was known as Svetlana Alliluyeva, but she went by Lana Peters following her 1970 marriage to William Wesley Peters, an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright. Peters said her defection was partly motivated by the Soviet authorities’ poor treatment of her late husband, Brijesh Singh, a prominent figure in the Indian Communist Party.

George Kennan, a key figure in the Cold War and a former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, advised the FBI that he and Alliluyeva were concerned Soviet agents would try to contact her, a December 1967 memo reveals. The memo notes that no security arrangements were made for Peters, and no other documents in the file indicate that the KGB ever tracked her down.

One memo dated June 2, 1967, describes a conversation an unnamed FBI source had with Mikhail Trepykhalin, identified as the second secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C.

The source said Trepykhalin told him the Soviets were “very unhappy over her defection” and asked whether the U.S. would use it “for propaganda purposes.” Trepykhalin “was afraid forces in the U.S. would use her to destroy relationships between the U.S.S.R. and this country,” the source told the FBI.

An unnamed informant in another secret memo from that month said Soviet authorities were not disturbed by the defection because it would “further discredit Stalin’s name and family.”

Stalin, who was held responsible for sending millions of his countrymen to their deaths in labor camps, led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, denounced him three years later as a brutal despot.

Even though Peters denounced communism and her father’s policies, Stalin’s legacy haunted her in the United States.

“People say, ‘Stalin’s daughter, Stalin’s daughter,’ meaning I’m supposed to walk around with a rifle and shoot the Americans,” she said in a 2007 interview for a documentary about her life. “Or they say, ‘No, she came here. She is an American citizen.’ That means I’m with a bomb against the others. No, I’m neither one. I’m somewhere in between.”

Many of the 233 pages released to the AP were heavily redacted, with the FBI citing exemptions allowed under the law for concerns related to foreign policy, revealing confidential sources and releasing medical or other information that is a “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

An additional 94 pages were found in her file but not released because the FBI said they contain information involving other government agencies. Those pages remain under government review.

More than half of the pages released to AP were copies of newspaper articles and other media coverage of her defection.

…

FBI Releases Stalin’s Daughter Files
21 November 2012
The Associated Press

Find this story at 21 November 2012

© Copyright 2012. The Moscow Times. All rights reserved.

“The police cannot be permitted to hide behind the cloak of secrecy, when they have been guilty of one of the most intrusive and complete invasions of privacy that can be imagined.”

The approach of the Metropolitan Police to the litigation has been obstructive from the outset, refusing to provide any substantive response to the allegations and hiding behind a ‘neither confirm nor deny’ policy about the activities of their officers. Now, to add insult to injury, following one of the most intrusive invasions of privacy imaginable, the police are attempting to strike out the women’s claim by arguing that the case should have been started in a shadowy secret court known as the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT). [1]

The IPT exists for the sole purpose of maintaining secrecy, and under its jurisdiction the case could proceed with the women denied access to and unable to challenge police evidence, and powerless to appeal the tribunal’s decisions. This will mean that neither they, nor the public will ever find out the extent of the violations of human rights and abuses of public office perpetrated by these undercover units. Thus, the women, who have suffered a totally disproportionate, unnecessary and extremely damaging invasion of their privacy, may be denied access to justice by the very legislation which was purportedly designed to protect their rights.

The public outrage at the phone hacking scandal earlier this year focused on the cynical intrusion into lives of individuals by the press and the police. Today’s hearing relates to levels of intrusion far more invasive than phone hacking, yet so far most mainstream politicians remain silent.

What little information the women have garnered indicates that for 30 years or more these undercover units had (and still have) a rolling brief to inform on political movements and keep files on individuals (simply because they are or were politically active), without investigating any specific crime, and with no apparent intention to participate in any criminal justice process.[2] As a part of this, undercover officers lied and manipulated their way into people’s lives whilst their cover officers, back-room teams and the rest of the police command structure monitored and controlled people’s private lives and relationships. In certain cases, the false identity established by the police was able to be exploited by individual officers to continue their deceit after their deployment had officially ended, seemingly with no safeguard for the women involved, even fathering children in the process.

These massive intrusions into people’s lives are reminiscent of the activities of the Stasi in East Germany and those responsible should be brought to public account. These cases are, therefore, being brought in an attempt to expose the damage done by the Metropolitan Police and to make them publicly accountable for their actions.

This is a statement from supporters of eight women who are bringing legal against the Metropolitan Police. The eight women were deceived into long term intimate relationships with undercover police officers. The Metropolitan Police has applied to have the cases heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT). [1] The application will be heard at the High Court on Wednesday 21 and Thursday 22 November 2012. Read the Press Release here

NOTES FOR EDITORS:
[1] The IPT is a little known tribunal set up under section 65 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA, 2000) to deal with claims brought under the Human Rights Act against the police and other security services.
[2] The HMIC report states that “for most undercover deployments the most intense scrutiny occurs when the evidence they have collected is presented at court. Accountability to the court therefore provides an incentive for police to implement the system of control rigorously: but in the HMIC’s view, this incentive did not exist for the NPOIU. This is because NPOIU undercover officers were deployed to develop general intelligence…rather than gathering material for the purpose of criminal prosecutions.” Source: HMIC “A review of national police units which provide intelligence on criminality associated with protest” (February 2012) p.7

Find this story at 19 November 2012

Mark Kennedy, in environmentalist mode: three of the women referred to in court had intimate relationships with him. Photograph: Guardian

Undercover police officers had long-term sexual relationships with political activists and joined them at family gatherings and on holidays to make their targets “emotionally dependent” on them, according to papers submitted to the high court.

The allegations were revealed at the start of a legal attempt by the Metropolitan police to have the claims heard in secret.

Ten women and one man have launched a legal action claiming they were conned into forming “deeply personal” relationships with the police spies.

The case is the first civil action to be brought before a court since the Guardian revealed police officers frequently slept with political campaigners as part of a spy operation over four decades.

Lawyers for the police are applying to have the cases struck out of the high court and moved to a little-known tribunal that usually deals with complaints about MI5.

The solicitor Harriet Wistrich, who is representing most of the claimants, said: “These women are suing for a gross invasion of privacy, and the Met’s response is to try and hive it off into a secret court.”

Most of the claimants had long-term and serious relationships with police spies, one lasting nearly six years. One was a man who had a close personal friendship with a police spy who ended up having a sexual relationship with his girlfriend.

The submissions also refer to the case of a woman who had a child with an undercover officer who was spying on her and who vanished from her life when the deployment came to an end.

Three of the women referred to in court had intimate relationships with Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years living as an environmental campaigner. Details of Kennedy’s deployment were made public last year after activists worked out he was a police mole.

Two other women in the case had sexual relationships with a colleague of Kennedy’s who served undercover alongside him. The police spy claimed to be a truck driver called Mark Jacobs when he infiltrated a small anarchist group in Cardiff until 2009.

As Jacobs, he had taken part in “deeply personal aspects of their lives”, even attending the funeral of one woman’s father after he died of cancer, barristers told the court in their written legal submissions.

“In doing so, he had exploited the vulnerabilities of the claimants and sought to encourage them to rely on him emotionally,” the documents added.

“Jacobs” had instigated a sexual relationship with one of the women, the court was told, while she was going out with another male activist, who is part of the legal action.

“During the course of those relationships, Jacobs purported to be a confidant, empathiser and source of close support to each of the claimants,” the barristers said.

Lawyers for the 10 women involved in the joint legal action against the Met, which had overall responsibility for the deployment of the spies, claim the deception caused their clients “serious emotional and psychiatric harm”.

They told Mr Justice Tugendhat the undercover officers had used the long-term relationships to gather intelligence on the women or for their own “personal gratification”, while pretending to support them emotionally.

They said the “grave allegations” of police misconduct raised serious questions about the “extent to which covert police powers have been and may in future be used to invade the personal, psychological and bodily integrity” of members of the public.

There is confusion over the rules governing the conduct of police spies. Senior officers have claimed it is “never acceptable” and “grossly unprofessional” for undercover officers to sleep with their targets; however, a government minister recently told parliament the tactic was permitted.

The evidence uncovered by the Guardian suggests the practice is routine. Eight of the nine undercover officers identified over the past 21 months are believed to have had intimate sexual relationships with protesters they were spying on.

Documents submitted to the court allege that Kennedy attended intimate family gatherings with all three women and joined them on holidays.

“He discouraged [them] from terminating the intimate sexual relationships,” their barristers said.

Kennedy, who was married with two children, had one relationship with an activist for two years. Another activist, who became his long-term girlfriend, was in a relationship with the police spy for six years.

…

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
The Guardian, Wednesday 21 November 2012 13.05 GMT

Find this story at 21 November 2012

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Scotland Yard has been accused of ‘trying to hide its secrets’ after appealing for a case involving female activists who were ‘conned into sexual relationships’ with undercover police officers to be heard in secret.

One man and 11 women from environmental activist groups are seeking damages from Scotland Yard for the ‘emotional trauma’ they suffered when undercover officers allegedly tricked them into having sexual relationships.

One of the women is planning to sue the Met for the financial burden of bringing up a child, now 27, fathered by an officer, it was reported.

Controversial: Scotland Yard has been accused of ‘trying to hide its secrets’ after appealing for a case involving female activists who were ‘conned into sexual relationships’ with undercover police officers to be heard in secret

But it emerged last night that the Metropolitan Police are aiming to move the case against them from the High Court to a secretive tribunal.

The Met is to appeal this week that some of the cases – which were due to be heard in the High Court – should be heard in the little-known Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) instead.

The IPT, which was established in 2000, has the power to investigate complaints about the conduct of Britain’s Intelligence Agencies, including MI5, MI6 and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

But complainants who take cases to the IPT have fewer rights than in court and are not able to choose their own lawyer or cross-examine witnesses.

Most hearings are held in private, no explanation has to be given for the judgement and there is no automatic right of appeal.

The Met claims that because it’s undercover operations were authorised under the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act (Ripa), which is monitored by the IPT, the cases cannot be heard in a normal court.

Action: The cases were sparked after activists exposed Met policeman Mark Kennedy, pictured, as an undercover officer

But critics have accused the Met of covering up its ‘dirty laundry’ by trying to have the cases heard by the IPT – which has upheld fewer than 1 per cent of complaints in its history.

Jenny Jones, deputy chairwoman of City Hall’s police and crime committee, which monitors the Met, told The Times: ‘I’m very concerned about this because clearly the Met is trying to hide its dirty laundry.

‘These women deserve to have their stories told and for people to understand that what happened to them was a complete betrayal of trust.

‘There seems to be a trend of the State clearly trying to hide its secrets and that’s not acceptable.’

The cases were sparked after activists exposed Met policeman Mark Kennedy as an undercover officer, leading to the collapse of a case against people charged with planning to invade a power station.

Several women then came forward to say they had had sexual contact with him, without realising he was a policeman.

…

By Rosie Taylor and Tim Shipman

PUBLISHED: 05:26 GMT, 19 November 2012 | UPDATED: 05:29 GMT, 19 November 2012

Find this story at 19 November 2012

© Associated Newspapers Ltd

Scotland Yard has been accused of trying to “hide its dirty secrets” after it sought secret hearings for cases brought by female activists who had sexual relationships with undercover police officers.

Eleven women and one man are suing the Met for emotional trauma after claiming they were tricked into forming intimate relationships with undercover officers.

One woman claims an undercover officer fathered her child and is planning a landmark legal claim that will test whether the Met should bear some financial responsibility for the child’s upbringing.

The cases have been lodged in the High Court, but the Met argues that some cases should be heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.

…

Justin Davenport, Crime Edito

Find this story at 19 November 2012

© 2012 Evening Standard Limited