Free Republic

TUCSON - How secure are U.S. military installations? You would think the answer is: very. But, as the News 4 Tucson Investigators uncovered, one installation, right here in southern Arizona, continues to face potential outside security risks, and the problem doesn't seem to be getting any better. Fort Huachuca is only 15 miles north of our state's border with Mexico. The Army post covers more than 73,000 acres. In many parts, the terrain is steep and rugged. Much of the work that goes on at Fort Huachuca is classified but, as the News 4 Tucson Investigators learned, keeping people who...

“We did call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information.”-John Kirakou I would take anything John Kirakou says with a grain from the salt pit.  I question his credibility. What does anyone really know about Gina Haspel, President Trump's nominee to be the next director of the CIA? Not a heck of a lot. So far what we have is media and ideology-driven hysteria:...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A police interrogation of a Kansas City man charged with drug and gun offenses ended prematurely when an investigator was driven from the room by the suspect's excessive flatulence. A detective reported that when asked for his address, 24-year-old Sean Sykes Jr. "leaned to one side of his chair and released a loud fart before answering."

Last month, Senator Dianne Feinstein and other Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the executive summary of their final report investigating the CIA's controversial detention and interrogation program. As part of their study, the Democrats compiled twenty case studies, which were intended to address claims made by the CIA regarding the efficacy of its interrogations. One of those case studies focused on the identification and arrest of Ali Saleh Kahlah al Marri, who was freed from a US prison just days ago. Al Marri served as a "sleeper" operative for al Qaeda inside the US in 2001....

If Republicans on Tuesday win the majority of seats in the House, that body's intelligence panel is likely to give fresh oversight of the Obama administration's prosecution review of the CIA's enhanced interrogation program. Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the highest-ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told The Washington Times last week that he would expect the next Republican chairman of the committee to hold hearings on how the threat of prosecutions has affected the CIA's morale. "I expect vigorous oversight of this administration now," Mr. Hoekstra said. "What has been the impact of [Attorney General...

In October Paula Broadwell told an audience that the CIA in Benghazi "had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner" at its secret annex. The CIA flatly denied the claim, saying that the agency "has not had detention authority since January 2009, when Executive Order 13491 was issued. Any suggestion that the Agency is still in the detention business is uninformed and baseless." Marc Thiessen of the American Enterprise Institute points out that the denial is factually incorrect because while Obama ordered the closure of all CIA detention facilities (i.e. “Black Sites”), the order states that it "does not...

The Justice Department on Monday charged a former CIA officer with repeatedly leaking classified information, including the identities of agency operatives involved in the capture and interrogation of alleged terrorists. The case against John Kiriakou, who served as a senior Senate aide after ending his CIA career, extends the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on disclosures of national security secrets to journalist. Kiriakou, who was among the first to go public with details about the CIA’s use of water-boarding and other harsh interrogation measures, was charged with disclosing classified information to reporters and lying to the agency about the origin of...

Lawfare Blog: Following an American special forces raid on the compound of Islamic State operative Abu Sayyaf, U.S. interrogators, who are part of the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, have flown to Iraq in order to question Umm Sayyaf, the wife of Abu Sayyaf, who was taken during the operation. Umm Sayyaf was allegedly involved in the workings of the Islamic State and could possibly have played a role in “the enslavement of women in Iraq and Syria.” U.S. interrogators plan to talk to Umm Sayyaf about U.S. hostages held by the militant group. However, according to the Washington Post,...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: – January 24, 2012, 3:50PM, Camp Pendleton CA Puckett and Faraj Press Statement on Sentence of SSgt Wuterich We wish to first acknowledge the tragic loss of civilian life in Haditha on November 19, 2005, and express our condolences to the families who lost loved ones that day. The military justice system has fairly dealt with SSgt Wuterich’s case by delivering a measure of justice. Today, SSgt Wuterich stands vindicated by the very system that has held him captive for over 6 years. This case began with sadness for the loss of life and ended with rage...

A former staffer for Bay State Sen. John F. Kerry has been charged with leaking the names of CIA operatives, including one who was involved in the interrogation of terror suspects held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and Kerry’s office.

Covertly taken photos of CIA interrogators that were shown by defense attorneys to al Qaeda inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison represent a more serious security breach than the 2003 outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, the agency's former general counsel said Wednesday. John Rizzo, who was the agency's top attorney until December, said in an interview that he initially requested the Justice Department and CIA investigation into the compromise of CIA interrogators' identities after photographs of the officers were found in the cell of one al Qaeda terrorist in Cuba. "Well I think this is far more serious than...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's second choice for transportation security chief has withdrawn from consideration because of questions over his background as a defense contractor. Retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Harding took himself out of the running Friday night as head of the Transportation Security Administration, another setback for Obama after his first choice withdrew in January. Harding said the distractions caused by his work as a defense contractor would not be good for the administration or the Homeland Security Department. The TSA is part of that department. Harding has extensive intelligence experience that Obama hoped to tap in shoring...

This week saw the premiere of a new season of 24, with CTU agent Jack Bauer preparing to leave the world of counterterrorism for a quiet life as a grandfather in Los Angeles. But he is pulled back into the fight to stop the attempted assassination of a Middle Eastern leader in New York. As he questions an informant, he thrusts a gun into the man’s neck but then pulls back, telling him, “You’re lucky I’m retired.” In another time, the man would have suffered far worse. The public view of interrogations had been shaped by the fictional Bauer, who...

As President-elect Barack Obama assures intelligence officials that his complaints are with the Bush administration, not them, there are growing hints from Democratic Senate allies that spy agency veterans will not be prosecuted for past harsh interrogation and detainee policies. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein told The Associated Press in an interview this week that there is a clear distinction between those who made the policies and those who carried them out. "They (the CIA) carry out orders and the orders come from the (National Security Council) and the White House, so there's not a lot of policy debate...

This is the first in a series following a media event at the Intelligence Center on Fort Huachuca on Wednesday. By Bill Hess Herald/ Review FORT HUACHUCA — In small buildings human intelligence collector trainees are getting a taste of what they will face when they deploy to Iraq. More realistic training for interrogators, as human intelligence collectors are called, is a fact of life at the Intelligence Center on this southern Arizona Army post. And that realism means Arabic is a major part of the graduation test — a 10-day field training exercise. Staff Sgt. Rami Elsouhag said interrogators...

Leaked fax 'shows Romania helped CIA interrogators' By David Rennie in Brussels (Filed: 10/01/2006) An Egyptian government fax intercepted by Swiss intelligence offers the first "real evidence" that the US interrogated suspected terrorists at secret prisons in Eastern Europe, European politicians said yesterday. The highly-classified fax, purportedly sent late last year by Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, to its embassy in London, was leaked to a Swiss newspaper on Sunday. In it, Mr Gheit discussed the fate of 23 detainees from Iraq and Afghanistan who were apparently interrogated at the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base in Romania on the Black...

If I were a judge, I would sentence Durbin and his fellow travelers and comrades in the Gitmo Flat Earth Society to: Endless hours of sleep-deprived filibustering watching continued reruns of documented terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and their murder of thousands; the beheadings of journalist Daniel Pearl, Nicolas Berg and others; the films of Uday and Qusay, Saddam Hussein's sons, depicting the systematic torture and murder of hundreds of Iraqis; Hitler's concentration camps in Germany and the starvation, gassing, burning of millions of Jews; the carnage of Pol Pot's systematic fratricide of 2 to 3...

'Cause they stand on a wall. And they say "Nothing's gonna hurt you tonight. Not on my watch." Guantanamo prisoners are treated nicer than U.S. Navy SEALs in training. I support Guantanamo Prison policies. www.MoveOnYourself.com Hypocracy in Action.

I am dismayed so far by the Republican response to Durbin's statements comparing our treatment of the Gitmo detainees to that given by the Nazi's, Soviets and Pol Pot. I heard Mitch McConnell and some other Senator on the Michael Savage Show debating and questioning Durbin in an entirely too civil manner. It is my opinion that Durbin's statements--and Hillary's and every Democrat who is suggesting that we are mistreating or torturing Gitmo detainees should, in turn, be responded to with nothing less than derision. It seems to me that by failing to do so, the Republicans are treating Durbin's...

Protests were planned across Pakistan Friday as Muslim anger over the alleged desecration of the Koran by the U.S. military spread outwards from Afghanistan, where at least seven people have been killed in violent clashes with security forces. The Pentagon said Thursday there is no evidence to support an allegation that a copy of the Islamic text had been flushed down a toilet "in an attempt to rattle suspects" held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. The brief item, citing an unnamed source, was published in Newsweek magazine. General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,...