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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concluded the Iranian military is building up its missile and conventional forces but that its forces remain relatively outdated, according to U.S. officials.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.

China is building up military forces and setting up bases along sea lanes from the Middle East to project its power overseas and protect its oil shipments, according to a previously undisclosed internal report prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

War chieftains Look for some new combatant commanders to be named later this year. Army Gen. Bantz Craddock, who now heads U.S. Southern Command in Miami, is slated to move to Europe to be the next supreme allied commander of NATO. He would replace Marine Gen. James Jones, whose term is expiring. Gen. Craddock, a one-time senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, will be replaced at SouthCom by Vice Adm. James Stavridis, a former warship commander who now serves as Mr. Rumsfeld's top military aide. Sending Gen. Craddock to Brussels restores to one of its officers what...

The Pentagon activated its new U.S. ground-based interceptor missile defense system, Bill Gertz reports in Tuesday's WASHINGTON TIMES, just as officials announced that any long-range missile launch by North Korea would be considered a "provocative act." Poor weather conditions above where the missile site was located by U.S. intelligence satellites indicates that an immediate launch is unlikely, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. However, intelligence officials said preparations have advanced to the point where a launch could take place within several days to a month. Two Navy Aegis warships are patrolling near North Korea as part of...

The Marine Corps is livid over the mistreatment of three Marines at the hands of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in Philadelphia last month. According to a Marine Corps memo we obtained, three Marines were "humiliated" by TSA security guards while escorting the body of Marine Sgt. Lea R. Mills, 21, who was killed April 28 along with two others in Al Anbar province, Iraq, by an improvised explosive device. Sgt. Mills' body was being moved from Dover Air Force Base through Philadelphia International Airport en route to her final resting place in Gulfport, Miss., on May 3. The three...

Goss quits as CIA chief By Joseph Curl and Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published May 6, 2006 CIA Director Porter J. Goss resigned abruptly yesterday, leaving a post he held for less than two years and becoming the latest high-level administration official to be ensnared in a White House shake-up.     Mr. Goss, widely unpopular among senior officials in the intelligence community and blamed for repeated leaks in recent months, called President Bush yesterday morning to offer his resignation. "I've accepted it," the president said.     Yesterday's announcement was hastily arranged, with the two men speaking briefly to reporters in the...

Manhunt sidelines bin Laden By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES April 18, 2006 Osama bin Laden and his top deputy remain at large, but the Bush administration's top counterterrorism coordinator says the international manhunt has limited their effectiveness. Retired Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told The Washington Times that al Qaeda's "central" leader bin Laden and No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri have been forced to limit their communications and public exposure after U.S. troops "drained the swamp" of terrorists in Afghanistan in 2001. "To say the obvious, if you want to go hide somewhere in...

The top ranks of government counterintelligence agencies are empty due to resignations and retirements amid a dispute over the role of counterspying, U.S. intelligence officials say. The most senior U.S. government counterintelligence official -- presidential appointee Michelle Van Cleave -- resigned last month after the office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX), which she headed, was made part of the new Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI)... Intelligence officials said the failure to fill the top posts is a sign of bias against counterspying by senior intelligence officials under DNI John Negroponte and at other agencies. It goes...

China's communist leaders are advising the new leftist government in Bolivia to avoid upsetting the United States, but at the same time have offered to replace shoulder-fired missiles that a CIA-led operation removed from the South American country last year, U.S. intelligence officials said... Before Mr. Morales' election in December, the CIA led an operation that secretly took 38 Chinese-made HN-5 surface-to-air missiles. The agency was helped by Bolivian security officials concerned that the weapons would fall into the hands of terrorists linked to the new ruling Movement to Socialism (MAS), Mr. Morales' party. The official said a Chinese missile...

The Pentagon's latest four-year strategy report calls for setting up a special military task force to prevent weapons of mass destruction from being transferred to terrorist groups, The Washington Times has learned. The task force will employ special operations forces, other troops and intelligence personnel to prevent states such as North Korea and Iran from supplying nuclear, chemical and biological weapons to terror groups. Special operations forces "will also have greater capacity to detect, locate, and render safe WMD." The unit will have its own intelligence component and be led by a two-star general or admiral, who defense officials said...

JAG, we are told, mistakenly thought the open-tip round was the same as hollow-point ammunition, which is banned. The original open-tip was known as Sierra MatchKing and broke all records for accuracy in the past 30 years. The difference between the open-tip and the hollow point is that the open tip is a design feature that improves accuracy while the hollow point is designed for increasing damage when it hits a target. About 10 days ago, the Army JAG in Iraq ordered all snipers to stop using the open-tip 175-grain M118LR bullet, claiming, falsely, it was prohibited. Instead of the...

Coinciding with increased tensions with Iran over the resumption of illicit uranium enrichment, the U.S. Air Force has dispatched additional warplanes to the region in a not-so-subtle sign, military sources say. An entire wing of F-16s, the Air National Guard's 122nd Fighter Wing based in Fort Wayne, Ind., left for a base in southwest Asia on Tuesday. A wing is usually about 72 aircraft and several hundred support personnel. F-16s and support personnel from the 4th Fighter Squadron of the 388th Fighter Wing based at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, also deployed recently to Iraq. The squadron has 12 F-16s....