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Inside the Ring Bill Gertz INSIDE THE RING (Contact) North Korean leadership New reports from U.S. and diplomatic sources say that the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il continues to decline and that he may have only one more year to live. A U.S. official who is familiar with the Korea situation but spoke on condition that he not be named said there are signs that Mr. Kim is still not well nearly a year after he suffered a stroke. "Kim Jong-il certainly hasn't been in good shape since his stroke last year, and, as time wears on, it's...

U.S. 'ready' for N. Korean missile Pyongyang expected to test ICBM By Bill Gertz July 2, 2009 COLORADO SPRINGS | U.S. missile defenses are prepared to try to knock down the last stage of a Taepodong-2 missile that North Korea is expected soon to launch if sensors detect the weapon threatens U.S. territory, the commander of the U.S. Northern Command told The Washington Times. "The nation has a very, very credible ballistic-missile defense capability. Our ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, I'm very comfortable, give me a capability that if we really are threatened by a long-range ICBM that I've...

Iran has dramatically increased the amount of low-enriched uranium produced by its growing number of centrifuges that are part of its nuclear fuel production system. This year's report, known as the Section 721 report after a provision of the 1997 intelligence authorization law, provided more details than a 2007 report. A comparison of the two reports shows that Iran produced 75 kilograms of low-enriched uranium (LEU) in 2007 and about 555 kilograms of LEU last year, described by the CIA as a "significant" increase. Iran says its nuclear activities are peaceful and not intended to make atomic weapons. The findings,...

Background Joe Miller at Annenberg FactCheck says he was told by the Pentagon that the USS Bainbridge arrived at the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama on Friday February 10th and that authorization to send in the first SEAL team came at 8:00PM that night, rebutting a purported word-of-sailor report of a 36 hour delay. But news reports on the 9th said that the Bainbridge actually arrived before dawn local time on THURSDAY. Since 8:00 P.M. Friday was 4:00AM Saturday in Somalia, that would make the actual delay, local time to local time, about 48 hours. Bill Gertz at the Washington...

Stung by the widely circulated “SEAL pals” account of what really happened in Somalia (discussed here last Friday), the Obama administration had National Security Advisor James L. Jones and a number of anonymous Pentagon sources give their side two days ago in a Washington Times exclusive. Their mission, according to reporter Bill Gertz, was: ... to dispel Internet reports that the military was delayed from taking action by indecision inside the White House. Clintonesque parsing of words is evident throughout the Jones-Pentagon account, amounting on more than one occasion to outright dishonesty. Yet the actual information they provide (as opposed...

EXCLUSIVE: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates denied permission for the U.S. Northern Command to use the Pentagon's most powerful sea-based radar to monitor North Korea's recent missile launch, precluding officials from collecting finely detailed launch data or testing the radar in a real-time crisis, current and former defense officials said.

HERZLIYA, Israel -- A Russian nuclear proliferation expert contradicted a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, telling a conference here that Iran has developed the capability to produce and fire nuclear weapons. "Iran already has nuclear capabilities," [Ret.] Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin Dvorkin said in a speech to the the annual Herzliya Conference. He also said that said Iran has engineered its latest missiles, enabling them to contain a nuclear warhead. In a sharp departure from the U.S. NIE in late 2007, the Russian analyst said Teheran acquired most of the components needed for a nuclear bomb as early as 2003

Bill Gertz, defense and national security reporter for The Washington Times, argues that high-level bureaucrats in the State Department, White House, Pentagon, and CIA have repeatedly undermined the Bush administration's national security policies. Mr. Gertz says that these unelected officials - liberals from both political parties - have pursued their own agendas towards countries like Iran, China, North Korea, and Iraq and have weakened U.S. security as a result. Mr. Gertz discusses his book with Frank Gaffney, president and CEO of the Center for Security Policy.

Bill Gertz discusses his new book "The Failure Factory," on C-span. [VIDEO]

The Failure Factory: How Unelected Bureaucrats, Liberal Democrats, and Big Government Republicans Are Undermining America's Security and Leading Us to War  by Bill Gertz A Review:Unfortunately, Bill Gertz is not the household name he deserves to be. In the media it seems, only the propensity to lie and hew to a left-wing line brings widespread fame and fortune. Think Dan Rather, for example. Instead, a conservative interested in the truth like Bill Gertz has to be content with a much smaller measure of fame - but he is entitled to a full measure of our respect for telling the...

Bill Gertz talked about his book The Failure Factory: How Unelected Bureaucrats, Liberal Democrats, and Big Government Republicans Are Undermining America's Security and Leading Us to War (Crown Forum; 1 edition (September 30, 2008). Mr. Gertz argues that high-level bureaucrats in the State Department, White House, Pentagon, and Central Intelligence Agency have repeatedly undermined the Bush administration's national security policies. Mr. Gertz says that these unelected officials - liberals from both political parties - have pursued their own agendas toward countries like Iran, China, North Korea, and Iraq and have weakened U.S. security as a result. The guest interviewer was...

EXCLUSIVE: The United States needs new weapon systems, including missile defenses and other advanced military capabilities, to deter and counter China's steady buildup of nuclear and conventional arms, according to a draft internal report by a State Department advisory board. U.S. defense policy has stressed missile defenses against Iran and North Korea. The report, by the Secretary of State's International Security Advisory Board (ISAB), is the first to recommend such defenses against China, including technology in space. The draft, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, said Chinese strategy goes beyond building forces capable of retaking the...

Two Russian generals were photographed receiving awards from Saddam Hussein's government for helping Iraqi military forces less than 10 days before the U.S.-led invasion. The two retired officers were identified by the newspaper Gazeta.ru as Col. Gen. Vladimir Achalov and Col. Gen. Igor Maltsev, both former high-ranking officers involved in Soviet rapid-reaction and air defense forces.

Judge Withdraws Threat as Reporter Pleads the 5th In Spy Leak Probe By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | July 24, 2008 SANTA ANA, Calif. — A federal judge withdrew his threat to order a prominent reporter on the national security beat to identify his confidential sources after the journalist took the Fifth Amendment in a surprise-filled hearing here this morning. Judge Cormac Carney excused William Gertz of the Washington Times from further proceedings here after he repeatedly invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination in response to questions from the judge and a defense attorney. Mr. Gertz's refusal...

The U.S. intelligence community in May completed a major National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran that concluded the Iranian military is building up its missile and conventional forces but that its forces remain relatively outdated, according to U.S. officials. The classified assessment, circulated to senior policy-makers, comes amid rising tensions in the region over Iran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment and concerns that Israel or the United States will take military action to knock out Iranian nuclear facilities. Intelligence officials familiar with the estimate declined to disclose its details or even its key judgments, noting that the entire document is...

SANTA ANA – A Washington Times reporter has been subpoenaed by a federal judge who wants him to reveal the sources for a story he wrote about an engineer convicted of conspiracy to export U.S. defense technology to China. National security reporter Bill Gertz was ordered to appear before U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney in June, the newspaper reported Saturday. The judge has also requested e-mail messages, files and correspondences. Gertz cited U.S. government sources in a 2006 story saying that Justice Department officials approved an indictment against Tai Mak and that four of Mak's relatives would also be charged....

The State Department investigation into how and why the passport files of three presidential candidates were breached is scrutinizing an employee at a Virginia-based company, which is headed by an adviser to Barack Obama’s campaign. The Washington Times, which broke the news Thursday that Obama’s files were improperly accessed, reported Saturday that the State Department inspector general’s internal probe will include polygraph tests of supervisors to determine whether there was a political motive behind the breaches. The article said a focal point of the probe will be an employee who works for The Analysis Corporation and is still with the...

The State Department investigation of improper computer access to passport records of three presidential candidates is focusing on one remaining employee — a contract worker with a company headed by an adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama....

The State Department investigation of improper computer access to passport records of three presidential candidates is focusing on one remaining employee — a contract worker with a company headed by an adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama The probe by State's inspector general will include polygraph tests for supervisors in the passport section to find out whether the three contract employees who accessed the records had a political motive or were part of a political operation to obtain personal data on Mr. Obama, Sen. John McCain or Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Two of the three contract employees...

Article published Mar 22, 2008 Passports probe focuses on worker March 22, 2008 By Bill Gertz and Jon Ward - The State Department investigation of improper computer access to passport records of three presidential candidates is focusing on one remaining employee — a contract worker with a company headed by an adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama The probe by State's inspector general will include polygraph tests for supervisors in the passport section to find out whether the three contract employees who accessed the records had a political motive or were part of a political operation to...

The State Department this evening had not yet released the names of the persons responsible for the unauthorized searches but said two were employed by Stanley Inc. and the third was an employee of The Analysis Corp. (TAC). Stanley Inc., a 3,500-person firm, is an Arlington-based information technology firm that this week won a $570 million contract to continue providing passport services to the State Department, which the company has done since 1992, according to Stanley Inc.’s Web site. TAC is a McLean-based information firm that has helped the State Department automate the Terrorist Watchlist over the last several years,...

The State Department this evening had not yet released the names of the persons responsible for the unauthorized searches but said two were employed by Stanley Inc. and the third was an employee of The Analysis Corp. (TAC). Stanley Inc., a 3,500-person firm, is an Arlington-based information technology firm that this week won a $570 million contract to continue providing passport services to the State Department, which the company has done since 1992, according to Stanley Inc.’s Web site. TAC is a McLean-based information firm that has helped the State Department automate the Terrorist Watchlist over the last several years,...

<p>DIRTY TRICKS FEAR AFTER STATE DEPT. FIRES TWO FOR UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO BARACK OBAMA'S PERSONAL PASSPORT FILE... MORE... WASHINGTON TIMES SET TO SPLASH THE DEVELOPMENT, NEWSROOM SOURCES TELL DRUDGE REPORT... MORE...</p>

** EXCERPT ** Two State Department employees were fired recently and a third disciplined for improperly accessing electronic personal data on Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, Bush administration officials said yesterday. ~snip~ A similar data breach took place in 1992 when State Department officials looked up data on presidential candidate Bill Clinton, in an attempt to find out information from the late 1960s, amid unfounded political campaign rumors that Mr. Clinton had sought to renounce his citizenship to dodge the draft during the Vietnam War while a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. That incident triggered a three-year investigation by a...

Inside the Ring March 7, 2008 By Bill Gertz - China missiles One little-noticed intelligence disclosure contained in the Pentagon's annual report on Chinese military power says China now has ballistic missiles designed to hit U.S. aircraft carriers and ships at sea. The missiles are described in the report as part of China's "anti-access/area denial capabilities" that include "anti-ship ballistic missiles designed to strike ships at sea, including aircraft carriers." Using a ballistic missile to target ships requires a degree of sophistication not shown by Chinese missiles in the past, and indicates China's military has mastered precision missile targeting, no...

Miss Rosett tried — and failed — to get straight answers from Mr. Wensing about why Mr. Islam claimed that when he was 7 his family was bombed by Israeli jets at his home in Cairo, when there is no evidence the Israelis bombed the Egyptian capital during the 1967 war. Also, Mr. Wensing could not explain why Mr. Islam said in his biography that he was on a freighter sunk by an Iranian torpedo in the Persian Gulf when there is no record of the ship being sunk. According to his 1992 master's thesis at the Naval Postgraduate School,...

"...lifting that PC curtain on Islam and its jihadist tenets is precisely the effect of Stephen Coughlin's Pentagon brief. It goes against what political correctness tells us; it also goes against what Islamic advocacy groups tell us."

Stephen Coughlin Update. Here is an excellent summary piece on Coughlin's firing, its implications, and what must be done next. Objective: The objective of this paper is to clarify the incidents surrounding the firing of Mr. Coughlin, and enumerate the implications of this event to U.S. National Security and the GWOT (Global War on Terror). Background: Mr. Stephen Coughlin works as a contractor on the Joint Staff, J-2 (Intelligence) for the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. The Joint Staff specifically requested him because of his knowledge of Islamic Doctrine as it applies to “Jihad” and the Strategic...

As noted in Cliff's post yesterday (relying on a Bill Gertz report in the Washington Times), the Pentagon has sacked an authentic, influential scholar of Islam, Stephen Coughlin, who evidently refused to lie about — er, I mean, "soften his views on" — Islamic extremism (which, like it or not, is rooted in Islamic scripture) at the insistence of one Hasham Islam, Army Chief Gordon England's Islamophilic factotum (one of countless such creatures now pervading the federal government). For more on this, check out this post on the new website of Andrew Bostom, another scholar of Islam. Andy knows Coughlin...

I was surfing through the Washington Times Website and came across an article by Bill Gertz, about the sacking of Stephen Coughlin, the “Pentagon specialist on Islamic Law and Islamist extremism.” The article gave me chills....chills of fear. I think that I could more deal with the "in your face" attacks of 9/11, rather than with the insidious fungus/mold that is spreading throughout all levels of our society. Ask the folks who experience mold in their homes. It silently and amorphously spreads, inch by inch, until the homeowner flees. By the time the mold of “Islamist extremism,” finishes the process,...

Scott noted ( here) Bill Gertz's report on the conflict inside the Defense Department between between Stephen Coughlin, a leading student of Islamic extremism, and Hasham Islam, an aide to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England who conducts Muslim outreach on behalf of DOD. Coughlin had pointed out, based in part on information that came to light in the Holy Land Foundation trial in Texas, that several of the groups participating in Mr. Islam's outreach program are front organizations for the pro-jihad Muslim Brotherhood. Gertz now (reports) that Islam won the bureaucratic battle: Coughlin has been fired from the U.S....

Stephen Coughlin, the Pentagon specialist on Islamic law and Islamist extremism, has been fired from his position on the military's Joint Staff. The action followed a report in this space last week revealing opposition to his work for the military by pro-Muslim officials within the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. Mr. Coughlin was notified this week that his contract with the Joint Staff will end in March, effectively halting the career of one of the U.S. government's most important figures in analyzing the nature of extremism and ultimately preparing to wage ideological war against it. He had run...

Conservative officials who served in the Reagan administration are upset by the left-wing slant of the new movie about the covert action program that helped Afghan guerrillas defeat the Soviet army during the 1980s. "Charlie Wilson's War," out Friday, is based on a book about former Rep. Charles Wilson, Texas Democrat, known widely on Capitol Hill during his tenure as "Good Time Charlie" and who helped fund the semi-secret war that ultimately helped fell the Soviet Union. The Reagan-era officials said the movie promotes the left-wing myth that the CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and ultimately...

<p>Conservative officials who served in the Reagan administration are upset by the left-wing slant of the new movie about the covert action program that helped Afghan guerrillas defeat the Soviet army during the 1980s.</p> <p>The Reagan-era officials said the movie promotes the left-wing myth that the CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and ultimately produced the attacks of September 11, 2001.</p>

China's intelligence service gained access to a secret National Security Agency listening post in Hawaii through a Chinese-language translation service, according to U.S. intelligence officials. The spy penetration was discovered several years ago as part of a major counterintelligence probe by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) that revealed an extensive program by China's spy service to steal codes and other electronic intelligence secrets, and to recruit military and civilian personnel with access to them. According to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, China's Ministry of State Security, the main civilian spy service, carried out the operations by...

Further concerns among conservatives about the liberal Democratic bent of the Pentagon were highlighted by the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's first public speech to the Democrat-dominated Center for New American Security, founded by Clinton administration defense officials Kurt Campbell and Michele Flournoy. The Oct. 25 speech by Adm. Michael Mullen followed Mr. Gates' appointment of Clinton administration Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, prompting insiders to speculate that Mr. Gates is following the example of former CIA Director George J. Tenet in seeking to become a "holdover" in an anticipated...

Five authors have sued the parent company of Regnery Publishing, a Washington imprint of conservative books, charging that the company deprives its writers of royalties by selling their books at a steep discount to book clubs and other organizations owned by the same parent company. In a suit filed in United States District Court in Washington yesterday, the authors Jerome R. Corsi, Bill Gertz, Lt. Col. Robert (Buzz) Patterson, Joel Mowbray and Richard Miniter state that Eagle Publishing, which owns Regnery, “orchestrates and participates in a fraudulent, deceptively concealed and self-dealing scheme to divert book sales away from retail outlets...

Russian Navy eyes Syria bases to expand Mideast presence MOSCOW — Russia plans to expand its naval presence in the Middle East, starting in Syria. Officials said the Russian Navy has been pressing Moscow's allies to expand basing and anchoring rights. They said the navy has sought to establish a permanent naval presence that would include such countries as Algeria, Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen__ Full Text, Subscribers --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

International radio operators picked up large numbers of coded Air Force communications being sent around the world on June 26 that indicated some type of military activity was about to take place. A U.S. military official said the radio traffic was monitored from the Air Force Global High Frequency System (GHFS) that some observers regarded as "extraordinary" because of the unprecedented length of messages. They were sent to Air Force commanders at Andrews Air Force Base; Wideawake Airfield on Ascension Island; Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska; Andersen Air Force Base, Guam; Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii; Lajes Field in the...

Nuclear messages International radio operators picked up large numbers of coded Air Force communications being sent around the world on June 26 that indicated some type of military activity was about to take place. A U.S. military official said the radio traffic was monitored from the Air Force Global High Frequency System (GHFS) that some observers regarded as "extraordinary" because of the unprecedented length of messages. They were sent to Air Force commanders at Andrews Air Force Base; Wideawake Airfield on Ascension Island; Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska; Andersen Air Force Base, Guam; Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii; Lajes Field...

<p>New intelligence reveals China is covertly supplying large quantities of small arms and weapons to insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, through Iran.</p>

China arming terrorists New intelligence reveals China is covertly supplying large quantities of small arms and weapons to insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, through Iran. U.S. government appeals to China to check some of the arms shipments in advance were met with stonewalling by Beijing, which insisted it knew nothing about the shipments and asked for additional intelligence on the transfers. The ploy has been used in the past by China to hide its arms-proliferation activities from the United States, according to U.S. officials with access to the intelligence reports. Some arms were sent by aircraft...

The Bush administration sought to avert a political fight with such Senate Democrats as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Carl Levin over Iraq and homosexuals in the military by not renominating Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace to a second term as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. "The administration view was that this would not be helpful to protect America's security," said a defense official close to the debate. "People viewed a bruising Senate fight as not helpful in terms of public opinion, or in preparing for the interim report" expected in September from the top commander in Iraq, Gen. David H....

Pentagon officials are hoping that members of Congress will notice that the senior admiral in charge of the U.S. Pacific Command set the stage for violating congressional limits on military exchanges with China by recently offering to help Beijing build an aircraft carrier. Adm. Tim Keating, the U.S. Pacific Command leader, told reporters during his visit to China last month that while building and operating a carrier battle group is complex, the United States is willing to help. "We would, if they choose to develop [an aircraft-carrier program], help them to the degree that they seek and the degree that...

LOS ANGELES A federal court plans to investigate whether government officials illegally supplied grand jury information in a U.S. military secrets case to a Washington Times reporter. Court papers show the investigation seeks to uncover a possible source and content of "improper communications" with Times reporter William Gertz for a story he wrote in May. The order, entered Wednesday by a federal judge in Orange County, comes at the request of a defense attorney for Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, one of five family members indicted in an alleged scheme to send sensitive information about Navy warships to China. The request was...

The Pentagon has had two rounds of discussions with the Chinese military on the defense budget process, with the United States explaining in detail how its military spending works and China revealing very little about its secret military budget. Chinese military officials met Pentagon officials in June and provided a very limited explanation of the process Beijing uses to support its weapons and forces. "We're trying very hard to get an exchange of experts on the budgeting process so that we can understand how they create their budgets, since this is an area where we have a very large disagreement...

BACKGROUNDER: Compiled by Bill Gertz -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Security incidents on U.S. flights worry officials U.S. officials said there were at least six security-related incidents aboard American commercial aircraft days after the discovery of plot to blow up as many as 10 commercial jetliners from London to the United States. The suspicious incidents have raised concerns that Al Qaida terrorists have been conducting tests of U.S. and allied security measures through the incidents. Most of the incidents on the aircraft were not reported. The most visible incident took place Aug. 16 when a female passenger was subdued by flight attendants and a...

Tribal and religious violence is increasing in Iraq but has not become a civil war, according to a Pentagon quarterly report to Congress made public yesterday. "Sectarian tensions increased over the past quarter, manifested in an increasing number of execution-style killings, kidnappings, and attacks on civilians, and increasing numbers of internally displaced persons," the report stated. Sunni and Shi'ite extremists, especially the terrorist group al Qaeda in Iraq and rogue elements of the Jaysh al Mahdi (JAM) "are increasingly interlocked in retaliatory violence and are contesting control of ethnically mixed areas to expand their existing areas of influence," the report...

'House cleaners' Army Special Forces soldiers are expressing outrage, among themselves, over purported remarks made by Lt. Gen. Dell Dailey last week at a meeting with new U.S. ambassadors at U.S. Special Operations Command (Socom) in Tampa, Fla. But both a Socom spokesman and a senior officer tells us the Special Forces troops, better known as Green Berets, are misquoting Gen. Dailey, who directs the Center for Special Operations, the critically important war-planning arm for all commandos. The tempest got so bad last week that Lt. Gen. Robert Wagner, commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C.,...

A veteran CIA operations official who clashed with former agency Director Porter J. Goss was formally named the deputy CIA director yesterday, raising concerns among critics who say he will hamper reform at the agency. Stephen R. Kappes, who is well-liked among CIA rank and file but who is viewed as someone supporting the status quo at the embattled agency, began work yesterday in his new role, a CIA statement said.