R. James Woolsey
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R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Tue 15 Nov 2016 - 17:26
PULL THE EYES OVER THE WOOL
A Chronology of Robert James Woolsey Jr.'s Career
You gotta catch a tail by the tiger
Take the horns by the bull
A bird in need is a friend indeed
So pull the eyes over the wool
Fraggle Rock (1983)
Most people have heard of Henry Kissinger but few seem to know of his neo-conservative counterpart R. James Woolsey Jr. and considering that neo-conservartism has been ascendant since the Gerald Ford administration (when Kissinger and other 'liberal realists' were sidelined) this lack of focus on Woolsey amounts to a major blindspot in understanding the US deep-state. Time to shine some brisk northern sunlight on this Pentagon creepy-crawler.
Thanks to Joel van der Reijden, Robert Parry (RIP), Peter Dale Scott and History Commons (RIP?) for info and inspiration.
Early Years
- Early Years (including Carter) 1941 - 1979 (click to open):
1930s:
Woolsey's father, RJ Woolsey Sr., worked as an apprentice lawyer for Samuel Boorstin. Woolsey Sr. would then join the firm of 'Farmer, Woolsey, Tips & Gibson'.
Samuel's own son is Daniel Boorstin, a Rhodes Scholar, national historian, and "an ardent cold warrior and a leading neoconservative in the 1950s."Woolsey wrote: "Sam was a very good friend of the family’s and my dad worked for him for several years and then went out on his own with a larger firm which is the way that the Sam Boorstin clerkships worked."
1941 (Sept 21):
Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Woolsey will be an only child.
1941-44:Woolsey wrote: "We spent from ’41-’44 traveling around mainly the South and West with [his father] to different assignments at different outposts training troops. It was me, my mother, my grandmother and my aunt. So since my father was away a lot even before he went over to Europe in the summer of ’44, I was effectively raised by three, I always say, very smart Scotch-Irish women with nothing to do except teach this little boy stuff. [....] My father came home after the War and we were sitting around the dinner table and he said, “We have to decide what church we are going to go to.” He had always been Baptist and my mother is Presbyterian. They tell me I said, “I don’t know about you daddy but I’m a First Presbyterian."
1951 :
Attended Tulsa Central high schoolWoolsey wrote:Tulsa Central and the Oklahoma schools I think it was to my benefit were not very faddish ... I read Edmund Burke’s speech on conciliation with the colonies, my mother read Edmund Burke’s speech on conciliation with the colonies when she was at Central."
mid-50s:Woolsey wrote:"Well my big leap into being really interested in the outside world was when the summer after my junior year (11th grade) I was selected as an American Field Service student and went to Sweden." [Zalmay Khalilzad, a fellow neo-con is also an American Field Service alumni, as is Ashraf Ghani the current president of Afghanistan.]
1959:
This year the Ford Foundation gave Stanford $25 million - its largest gift to any educational institution.Woolsey wrote:"After the American Field Service a lot of the kids who were on that with me were going to Ivy League schools. I thought I might like to too, maybe Harvard or maybe Yale. My mother thought there would likely be a lot of Communists back there and Ms. Sandberry, who was my counselor, worked out a compromise between my mother and me which was Stanford."
1960:
Woolsey majors in History, "[f]ocusing on modern Europe, focusing especially on the years between the World Wars." Woolsey is involved in a fraternity secession (Sigma Mu/Beta Chi) then becomes 'administrative assistant' to student president, Armin Rosencrantz, and his G.R.I.P. (Group with Real Inside Power) party representing the 'liberal establishment'. Woolsey will re-write the student's constitution to re-affiliate their student body with the National Student Association.
1961:
The Stanford Study Center in Beutelbasch, Germany began with a $15,000 grant from Ford's 'Fund for the Advancement of Education'. It will run from 1957 to 1976. Woolsey is head of Stanford's German Club.Woolsey wrote:"My freshman year at Stanford they had one overseas campus in Germany ... so I took a year of German as a freshman. Then I signed up for Stanford in Germany and went over there when I was 18. I worked for the summer in a Red Cross Refugee Camp in Berlin; then had six months at Stanford in Germany studying Germany and history. German is the only foreign language that I speak at all."
1962:
Through Rosencrantz, Woolsey will meet Stanford's assistant dean of men Allard Lowenstein. Both Woolsey and his future wife, Suzanne Haley (history and psychology), will work with Lowenstein and all "three remained close friends." Lowenstein was some sort of 'spook' within the student movement and was, at minimum, a self-styled operative for the liberal but vehemently anti-Communist Democrat Party establishment. Lowenstein was president of the National Student Association and called it “the only effective counter to an intensive worldwide Communist student movement”.
1963 :
Woolsey was member of "Stanford observer delegation at the Helsinki Communist World Youth Festival and the Stanford delegation to the National Student Association Congress". Lowenstien "recruited students to serve as delegates to the 1962 World Youth Festival in Helsinki". Held every three years, the festival was considered “Communist-dominated." Those without the money for travel were offered grants from the CIA-funded 'Independent Research Service'.
Woolsey will meet Walter B. Slocombe as part of the Rhodes Scholars of 1963. Slocombe will later serve as reference for Woolsey's CIA nomination.
"Woolsey and Thompson plan to study at Oxford University in England under the Rhodes grant and then return to do graduate study at Harvard under the Danforth program. Woolsey plans to teach either Modern History or Political Science while Thompson hopes to teach either International Relations or Political History."
1963:
Intern, State Department (and continued involvement in Lowenstien's political projects)Woolsey wrote:"Because of this big fight I got into the civil rights business a bit, not a lot. I didn’t go down and demonstrate in the South like really brave folks did, but when I graduated from college in ’63 I was an intern for the summer at the State Department just before I was going to go over to Oxford in September. I was helping out in the evenings and weekends on something called the District Action Project which was run by the Congress of Racial Equality.Woolsey wrote:"I think I'm the only [CIA director] who was involved in both the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement"Gordon, 1993; NYTimes wrote:"Friends say that Mr. Woolsey was never a radical."Woolsey wrote:"Well I’m a kind of conservative Democrat more southern than not."
1963-5:
Masters at St. John's College, Oxford University, EnglandWoolsey wrote:"I started working on my dissertation and I decided after a couple of months this wasn’t the life I wanted. So I dropped back into the Oxford politics, philosophy and economics program in tutorials and went on then to law school."Woolsey wrote:"The Southeastern part of Oklahoma, so-called Little Dixie, was very solidly Democratic and the North up near Kansas with oil and insurance money and big wheat farms was generally Republican. The resolution of those vectors almost always came out with conservative Democrats and the modern manifestation is David Boren who is a good friend of mine; we were at Oxford together as Rhodes Scholars. David was a conservative Democrat governor and congressman and senator."
Aug 15 1965 - Marries Suzanne Haley
1966:
Intern, Bureau of the Budget, Washington, D.C.
1967 - Yale :
"Woolsey is a member of Yale's the Skulls and Bones" [https://www.voltairenet.org/article30080.html#nb2}
(March) Student contributor of Program Budgeting for Police Departments article to Volume 76, #4 of The Yale Law Journal.
Summer Associate with Debevoise, Plimpton, Lyons & Gates, New York."Debevoise specializes in strategic and private equity, M&A, insurance and financial services transactions, private funds, complex litigation, investigations and international arbitration ... From 1951 to 1953, Debevoise served as Deputy High Commissioner for Germany and was general counsel to the Allied Commission that administered Germany’s affairs in the years after World War II."
Founding member of the 'Yale Citizens for McCarthy' which followed from his work in the Congressional election campaign for Lowenstein.Woolsey wrote:"Well I supported the war for the first several years but by the fall of ’67 my wife and a man named Alan Lowenstein who’s a smart old guy whom I knew at Stanford; he was the assistant dean of men. But he and Sue both persuaded me that the strategy was wrong. Search and destroy wasn’t going to win it. This was the establishment anti-war group, the Yale Citizens of Eugene McCarthy for President. We sent people up to New Hampshire. I made everybody 'Get Clean for Gene' and shave their beards and cut their hair and put on coats and ties and go up and be well-presented young gentlemen and ladies to work the canvassing and so forth [...] what we were really doing was trying to see if we could get enough votes to have somebody notice that there were some folks against the war."
1968:
LL.B. from Yale Law School; managing editor of the Yale Law Journal (writes articles on system analysis and program budgeting).
Woolsey joins ACLU (quits in 1974).
Associate with the firm of O'Melveny & Myers, a international law firm in Los Angeles, California.
(August) - entered on active duty in the U.S. Army on reserve commission through the ROTC program.Woolsey wrote:"My position was that I opposed the war politically, but I wouldn't refuse to serve ... I became an Army captain after my first year."
Serves as program analyst in the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense (Intelligence Division/Systems Analysis) where he did "cost-effectiveness analysis" in "designing reconnaissance satellites.” Woolsey works for the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis, Charles Rossotti - one of McNamara's 'Whiz Kid's.
McNamara's chief "Whiz Kid", Alain Enthoven (Standford, Rhodes Scholar), then Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis recruits Woolsey to work on the "highly classified project" called *Code 50* applying game theory to the outcomes of various nuclear exchanges through IBM simulations. "The Code 50 Nuclear Exchange Model is a war game model produced by the LAMBDA Corporation ... Lambda Corporation is part of the Weapon System Evaluation Group (WSEG) of the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA), in the “paperclip” building on the Virginia side of the Potomac River." [The “paperclip building" must refer to Project Paperclip and the near-by Fort Hunt's "P.O. Box 1142"]Woolsey wrote:I was studying "super secret spy satellite programs inside a Pentagon vault".Woolsey wrote:"I started out 25 years ago in the Pentagon as a lieutenant, analyzing remotely piloted vehicles and satellites for an organization that — whose name was only made public [in 1993] the National Reconnaissance Office."
1968:
Encounters Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul H. Nitze at exclusive 'F Street Club'. Nitze's daughter was marrying one of Woolsey's Stanford classmates, W. Scott Thompson (no relationship to the Kids in the Hall legend, Scott Thompson, except both men identify themselves as gay, as was Allard Lowenstien...).
Nitze insisted that McCarthy's presidential campaign had hurt the Vietnam peace talks despite Woolsey's objections. Apparently Nitze was unaware that Nixon was blatantly sabotaging those same Peace Talks....[/i])"The two men spent a vociferous half-hour debating, during which Nitze kept poking his champagne flute furiously at Woolsey -- until Woolsey backed up into a window. As he left the F Street Club, Mr. Woolsey remarked to his wife that it was a good thing that Mr. Nitze would be leaving his post at the end of the Johnson Administration."Woolsey wrote:"It wasn’t a full straight forward pro/anti-war thing. As I remember it had to do with tactics and search and destroy and guerilla warfare and so forth." [Thus Woolsey met his "first and most important mentor in Washington]"Woolsey wrote:"Later I began serving as an advisor to a marvelous man, Paul Nitze, ... He became like a second father."
1969:
Woolsey will encounter a bureaucratic doppelganger while working at the pentagon. As documented in No fighting in the war room; Memories of a Spook by Robert John Woolsey in 2000, there were two Captain Robert J. Woolsey working in intelligence at the Pentagon; Both had received scholarships to study in Germany, spoke German and practiced law. John Woolsey was introduced to James Woolsey through their mutual friend, Captain Len Roth. Roth knew James from Rhodes Scholarship and worked with him on The Yale Law Review. John worked as a DIA briefing officer to the general staff at the Pentagon between 1968-1970.
1969-70:
Department of Defense adviser on the U.S. Delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) in Helsinki and Vienna.
Nitze hired Woolsey for negotiating team after Charles O. Rossotti suggested him.Woolsey wrote:"Nitze, who was the deputy secretary of defense in the Johnson administration and then came back early ’69 in the new Nixon administration to help negotiate arms control agreements with the Soviets. I got assigned to be his assistant, essentially. So I did that for about the last year of the two years I was in the Pentagon."
Also "temporarily detailed to the staff of the National Security Council [where he] frequently utilized intelligence about nuclear weapons and delivery systems."
1970 :
Suzanne Woolsey's 1970 Harvard dissertation entitled "Effects of experimenter race and segregated or desegregated school experience on some aspects of the social interaction of white and negro children." Suzanne receives a Ph.D. in clinical and social psychology.
(August) Leaves active duty as Captain, US Army.
(September to December) - Assigned by DoD to the 'Program Analysis Office' of the National Security Council (NSC) staff where he re-joins with William Slocombe (Rhodes '63 alumni).
(December) General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services (1970-73).Woolsey wrote:"Scoop Jackson, who was a member of Senate Armed Services and was the guy who got me my job as General Counsel. "Woolsey wrote:"I became the general counsel of the Senate armed services committee at 29 ... I assisted the Chairman and Committee in dealing with the investigation of the CIA's roles in Watergate and hearing on the nomination of Mr. William Colby to be Director of the CIA"
1971:
Les Aspin (Rhodes Scholar, McNamara's Office of Systems Analysis 66-68) was a Democrat Establishment "peace candidate" in 1970 and served as the junior member of House Armed Services Committee.
Begins drafting 'War Powers Resolution'.Woolsey wrote:"I've known Secretary Aspin since 1971"Woolsey wrote:"A large number of Southern Democrats ... felt that Congress (the Senate in particular) and the country had not been well served by passing the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in 1964 quickly and without thorough deliberation ... the aim of the Southern Democrats was to ensure that Congress exercised its power to ensure that the country as a whole supported involvement in major hostilities, rather than repeating what had happened in Vietnam ... Jake Javits, John Stennis, Javits' staffer Peter Lakelund and I (with a very generous assist from Alex Bikel at Yale Law School) did most of the work on what became the Senate version of the War Powers Resolution. It was rewritten substantially, of course, in conference with the House"
1972:
Trustee on the Stanford University Board of Trustees from 1972 to 1974.
"A resident of McLean Virginia".
(December) - Coalition for a Democratic Majority (CDM) formed by Scoop Jackson in 1972 after Nixon's electoral victory. The CDM's manifesto was titled "Come Home, Democrats" and declared that "The "New Politics" has failed". The CDM poached young members from the Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA), the moderate wing of the Socialist Party of America (SPA). The CMD allows "neoconservatives to maintained a voice in the Democratic party" and is full of neo-cons (both Democrat and Republican flavors) like Les Aspin, Richard Pearle, Irving Kristol, Samuel Huntington and Paul Wolfowitz. Woolsey is on the CMD's Board of Directors & will later present a report by them in 1988.
Richard Perle, the hard-line aide of Senator Henry M. Jackson, eased him into this potent post after Woolsey met Perle through Nitze.Woolsey wrote:"I always tried to follow some advice I got back in 1972 from Scoop Jackson .. He had a staffer named Dorothy Fosdick, Dickie, who was a real pistol. Her sidekick, as a very young man, was Richard Perle."
Suzanne Woolsey serves a one-year stint as a Washington Post editorial writer around this time.
1973:
WATERGATE: CIA Director Richard 'The Man who Kept the Secrets' Helms, who is briefly replaced by James Schlesinger and then Vernon 'Coup Guy' Walters is acting director for two months.
BOTH Helms and Schlesinger will be references for Woolsey's CIA nomination in 1993! Helms and Schlesinger are also mentioned as key players in 'Continuity of Government' plans.Woolsey wrote:Fall of 1973 ... Remember, we had a felon, Agnew, as Vice President, and immediately after the Attorney General forced his resignation, the special Watergate prosecutor, Cox, was fired, the Attorney General resigned, then the "Saturday Night Massacre", [then the the Senate War Resolution] passed over President Nixon's veto in late autumn of 1973. This all occurred in the midst of the U.S. strategic alert that followed [as the] Arab nations launched the Yom Kippur War against Israel, and both the Soviet Union and the U.S. went on strategic alert. It was one of the most tumultuous periods in modern American political history."Woolsey wrote:"It was 1973 ... and I was late for a hearing because I had to sit in a gas line, because it was in the middle of the Yom Kippur War. I remember sitting in that gas line seething that the Saudis cut off our oil. In one way or another. I've been teed off about this issue for 35 years!"
Nov 15 1973 - John Maury (CIA Legislative Counsel) and Jim Woolsey meet Stuart Symington and send advice to Richard Helms on an upcoming Watergate committee hearing. They are defending the CIA from it's attackers amongst "leftist radical", "Whitehouse crowd who resent the agency's lack of cooperation in a cover-up" and the "'Kennedy faction' of the Special Prosecutor's staff." They advise Helms to get "a first-class lawyer like Clark Clifford" and understand that Helms is "sore as hell" but he must "keep his cool" because the "effort to shaft you and the agency ... is a diversionary smoke screen and false trial." Woolsey suggests that Helms should seek Clifford's advice informally rather than hire him. Helms was the in Tehran at the time. He had been DCI until Feburary when he was made Ambassador to Iran after Nixon's policy making Iran the role of "policeman of the Gulf."
December - joins the Shea and Gardner, a D.C civil litigation, arbitration, and mediation firm. Woolsey joins Anthony Lapham at the firm. In 1975 Bush Sr. choose Lapham as CIA General Counsel (he returned to Shea and Gardner after). Lapham will be a reference for Woolsey's 1993 CIA nomination. Stephen Hadley also a partner at the firm.
1974:
Member of Smithsonian Associates.Woolsey wrote: “When I was at the CIA, I borrowed Native American art from the Smithsonian for my office.”
1975:
Joins Council on Foreign Relations.Carter
1976:
[(September 21) - Massimo de Carolis arrives in America looking for advice on color revolutions. He is a Milan lawyer, an ultra-“right wing” Christian Democrat and member of P2.
The State Department recommends a revealing list of media warfare, soft coups, and disinformation specialists to him]-In New York:
HERMAN KAHN, HUDSON INSTITUTE ;
PROF. BREZINSKI OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY;
PROF. AMITEI ETZIONI, COLUMBIA UNVIERSITY;
JOHN GARDNER (DE CAROLIS ALREADY HS INTRODUCTION TO GARDNER);
FORD FOUNDATION.In D.C:
HENRY OWNE, BROOKINGS INSTITUTE;
CHARLES FERRIS, AA TO SEN. MANSFIELD;
STANTON ANDERSON, C/O SURREY, KARASIK & MORSE, WASHINGTON;
DAVID ABSHIRE, DIRECTOR, GEORGETOWN INSTITUTE OF STRATEGIC STUDIES;
and
JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMERLY CHIEF COUNSEL, SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE C/O SHEA & GARDINER, 73415 ST. NW.[https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1976MILAN02034_b.html]
Woolsey and the neo-cons support Henry 'Scoop' Jackson's candidacy for President, but Jackson loses in the primaries and many Democrat neo-conservatives are cut out of the new administration - except for Woolsey in Naval Intelligence and Brzezinski as National Security Advisor.
(Dec) Woolsey is part of the Carter Transition Team for the Department of Defense.
*The 'Jewish Institute for National Security of America' (JINSA) established in 1976 with the encouragement of the Pentagon. It also overlaps with the Center for Security Policy (CSP), CSP’s founder, Frank Gaffney, was a protege of Perle when they both worked in Jackson’s office. Woolsey will be on the JINSA Board.
1977 :
(Feb 22)-Appointed Under Secretary in Department of the Navy.
Carter meets with Trudeau at the White House and announces he will nominate "Washington lawyer" Woolsey to be undersecretary of the Navy.
Woolsey's wife, Suzanne Haley Woolsey, former policy analyst at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and a member of the staff of the Urban Institute here, was named associate director of the Office of Management and Budget for human and community development. Woolsey says he was known only as "Sue Woolsey's husband" in White House receiving lines.
Woolsey serves under Secretary of the Navy W. Graham Claytor.Woolsey wrote:"As undersecretary, I was trying to obtain some very limited money for the Navy. My wife, on the other hand, had control of 51% of the federal budget and was moving billions of dollars around. My envy knew no bounds."Woolsey wrote:"I managed Naval Intelligence for 3 years when I was Under Secretary of the Navy" and "made decisions about resources for naval intelligence" [like the SEA PLAN 2000 study commissioned by Claytor and Woolsey]."Woolsey earned the affection of the admirals for his zeal in promoting their cherished budgetary aspirations, even going to the lengths of losing at tennis -- he had made the Stanford junior varsity team -- to Les Aspin, then a congressman influential on military matters. "Only once," said Woolsey sharply when I reminded him of this, "the day after Carter vetoed our new aircraft carrier." "
1978:
(Jan)- Wikileak's leaked diplomatic cables show Woolsey trying to shore up NATO's relationship with the Greek Minister Of Defense Averoff.https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1978ATHENS00266_d.html
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1978STATE008325_d.html
(Oct 14) Woolsey met Emilio Massera, an Argentine Naval military officer, leading participant in the Argentine coup d'état of 1976 and member of P2(clandestine Masonic lodge involved in Italy's strategy of tension). Many considered Massera to be a war criminal who masterminded the junta's Dirty War. ]https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1978STATE261263_d.html]Willam Perry wrote:"I was a good friend of Jim’s. I knew him in the Carter administration." [Perry is a Stanford alumni, Carter's Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, and Clinton's Sec. of Defense. He will also be another of Woolsey's CIA nomination references in 1993.]
1979:
(December 7)
Woolsey's resignation was "emblematic of [neo-con] hostility" to Carter, Woolsey "was frustrated by what he regarded as inadequate budget" and Carter's "peacenik" appoints to Arms Control and Disarmament Agency/SALT negotiations drive neo-cons into frenzy."[Woolsey] left the Carter administration in an unhappy situation too, because when ... the Secretary of the Navy job open, with Jim sitting as the Under Secretary. Carter decided to move an Assistant Secretary up to that job who was Hispanic. So Jim deduced, probably correctly, that this was a political move, passing him over for the job that he should have gotten, and he left in a huff, very unhappy with the Carter administration."
(Dec) - Woolsey (re)joins Shea and Gardner firm for next decade, doing work for spooky international firms like the Societe Generale de Surveillance S.A. (Switzerland) and Plessey Company, plc (Britain).
Last edited by Hobb on Thu 20 May 2021 - 18:11; edited 149 times in total (Reason for editing : 23)
Hobb- Admin
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Age : 49
Re: R. James Woolsey
by Reb Sat 26 Nov 2016 - 10:57
Reagan & Bush Sr.
- Reagan & Bush Sr. Era - 1980 - 91 (click to open):
1980:
Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel (CEP). CEP was established in 1970 under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) by Admiral Elmo Zumwalt to be a source of "independent peer advice" to the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). Zumwalt was on Nitze's staff when he became secretary of the Navy in 1963. Zumwalt joined Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney in the Gerald Ford White House for the Halloween Massacre of 1975, when Kissinger was ousted as National Security Adviser and Vice President Nelson Rockefeller was notified he would be dropped from the 1976 Republican ticket. Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., came close to accusing Nixon and Kissinger of treason and Kissinger of being a Soviet sympathizer.Woolsey wrote:"In the aftermath of three-years' service in the Navy Department, I was appointed to an organization called the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel. I was the far-most junior and least prestigious member of this fine panel, ... Albert Woolstetter or Charlie Hertsfeld muttered, "That sounds like an R. V. Jones idea," and I said, "Who is R. V. Jones?" A hush settled over the room. "Go read The Wizard War." "
Wohlstetter, served as a model for Dr.Strangelove, base on his 1958 RAND publication 'The Delicate Balance of Terror' calling for a perpetual increase in nuclear wars.Woolsey wrote:"A key understanding on how Richard [Perle] and Paul [Wolfowitz] and I think, is Albert [Wohlstetter]. He had a major impact on us."
Congressmen Lt. Col.Holmberg, a Marine and pioneering "bioenergy industrialist", introduces Woolsey to the "strategic vulnerabilities of the American energy system".
1980-1989:
Member, American Enterprise Institute - Public Policy Project on National Defense Advisory Council (AEI has deep ties to Stanford's Hoover Institute).
Center for Strategic & International Studies, Co-Chairman & Counsel of Maritime Policy Study Group (Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service).
World Affairs Council, D.C. Director (John Foster Dulles' Foreign Policy Association).
Member, Office of Technology Assessment's International Security & Commerce Program, M-X Panel, U.S. Congress (1980-82)."Woolsey, who was affiliated with the CSIS and other neoconservative think tanks, had been one of the Reagan administration’s favorite Democrats in the 1980s because he supported a hawkish foreign policy."
Member, Secretary of Defense Committee on M-X Basing (Charles Townes, Chairman) (1981).
As member of the Townes Commission on MX nuclear missiles Woolsey encounters the "Big Bird" project to create a "high endurance drone" to drop MX bombs and meets Isreali drone engineer Abraham Karem.Woolsey wrote:"About the same time, early ’80s, I had gotten to know a guy named Abe Karem, who was the chief designer for Israel Aircraft Industries and then emigrated to the U.S. in the late ’70s. He had told me of a Program that he had designed for DARPA called AMBER, which was a very effective, long-endurance, unmanned aerial vehicle. I kind of stored it in my mind."
April 2 1980 - The Uses and Abuses of Analysis in the Defense Environment - A Conversation with R.J Woolsey [American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research]Woolsey: I often suggested that I wanted to try to be a party theoretician. That position does not really exist on our side of the iron curtain, but it is one that has always intrigued me. [...] In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, who has been quoted in other contexts, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
His main message is that "intellectual furniture" of "program analysis or systems analysis" designed in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the 60s in out-dated. The "program analysis revolution" brought "rationality to ... an obsolete system of hunches and biases, dressed up as military judgment" but it was becoming too "rooted in the disciplines of economics and the techniques of business schools ... that concentrate on objectives; quantify as much as possible; and focus on changes at the margin."
Woolsey wants a "Burkean attitude" that re-mystifies war as "a unique human enterprise that cannot be managed on the margin" because "men who in battle can realize proficiency that would be labeled impossible by any systems analyst, men who make two plus two equal five time after time" like the Viet-Cong did.... Specifically he wants the "civilian marginal approach toward things [replaced by] the military man's instinct for the jugular."
His concrete objectives are 1) US naval ships built to help Japan and Turkey fight the USSR 2) Better pay for naval Petty Officers 3) a higher grade of recruits because "people who enter the armed forces being considerably 'below average' in intelligence is probably closer to 25 percent."
1981:
Director of The Atlantic Council of the United States (1981-89, 1992+).
Member of Board, Quantico Marine Corps Staff College (1981-85)"The Atlantic Council is funded by substantial government, and corporate interests from the financial, defense and petroleum industries ... The current, honorary and lifetime Atlantic Council directors list reads like a bipartisan rogues gallery of American war-criminals...the Atlantic Council became involved in the intrigue and maneuvering of US foreign policy during the social unrest and political crisis around the world in the late 1960s and early 1970s."
Al Gore joins House Intelligence Committee so his national security adviser Leon Fuerth asks Woolsey to give Gore a "guest lecture" on nuclear armaments and "Code 50". Gore wanted information on the "survialbility" of nuclear war.Bill Perry wrote:"I was a good friend of Jim’s. He and I had gone to Aspen Strategy Group for many years together. Incidentally, the Aspen Strategy Group was one means by which people in the government would keep current in big issues. It was formed in 1981, right after I got out of being Under Secretary. It was always on a "bipartisan" basis, and the co-chairmen were myself and Brent Scowcroft. It was also a very useful way of keeping in touch with "bipartisan" elements of things."
Acts as lawyer for American International Group Inc. in their suit against the Islamic Republic of Iran "seeking compensation for nationalization" and "to prevent Iran from removing assets from the US"Woolsey wrote:"I thought then and I think now very positively about Gore. He would have been a good President. I’m into his environmental stuff, not exactly the way he is—I think he’s kind of over-the-top ... I got to know him in the early ’80s, on the stuff we were doing with the Scowcroft Commission, and the small mobile ICBM, and arms control, and all that—he just had a very sure touch for dealing with defense and foreign policy issues."
1982:
(Sept) Reagan establishes The National Program Office (NPO) by a secret executive order (National Security Decision Directive 55). Might be related to Carter's Executive Order 12148, "Federal Emergency Management" (July 20, 1979). The NPO is to ensure "continuity of government" (COG) in the event of a national disaster by creating an ALTERNATIVE line of presidential succession called 'Presidential Successor Support System' or “PS cubed” which suspends all legal requirements and allow a small group of neo-conservatives to appoint a new government composed of CEOs, National Security hacks and other elites like Dick Cheney, Richard Helms, James Schlesinger and James Woolsey... The secret COG network will also be used to facilitate many illegal intelligence operations under Reagan like Iran-Contra.Woolsey wants Unified Military Control (not Democratic Civilian) of Pentagon policy wrote:For years the only central voice in defense has been provided by the civilian staff of the Secretary of Defencse. Lacking military experience it was, largely, failed. The individual military Services have clear stands on many of these issues, but an overall coherent military view has been conspicious by its absence.
1982-1989 Advisor Board Member for Center for National Policy."The Council for National Policy (CNP), founded in the early 1980s by the power brokers who brought together cold warriors, moral majoritarians, John Birchers, dispensationalists, anti-government libertarians, free-enterprise zealots, and national-security hawks under one roof, has long been the incubator for the conservative movement's political strategy, and an essential stop for Republican presidential aspirants. Steve Baldwin, the executive director boasts that "we control everything in the world" with a staff of about eight, working in a modern office building in Fairfax, Va."
1982-1989 Trustee, The Aerospace Corporation -"a California nonprofit corporation that operates a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) headquartered in El Segundo ... Throughout the 1980s, Aerospace supported the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS), the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the Milstar and DSCS satellite communication systems, and antisatellite (ASAT) programs".
1983:
(April) President’s Commission on Strategic Forces (Scowcroft Commission).The Scowcroft Commission was formed to solve the problem of our "window of vulnerability" with regard to land-based missiles. Their solution was making more nuclear missiles - new mobile Midgetmen launchers for Al Gore and more MXs for Reagan. Nunn, Aspin and Scowcroft need moderate Democrat votes to help the president "get his MX" missiles so Woolsey suggests Al Gore who "took to it like a duck to water". Adopting some of Gore's proposals, the 1983 report is "written principally" by Woolsey and builds a "bipartisan coalition in the House to release money for development and flight test" of MX and Midgetman nuclear missiles.
(Sept) A photo of the 'President's Commission on Strategic Forces and the Special Counselors to the Commission' features President Reagan, Brent Scowcroft, Alexander Haig, Richard Helms, R James Woolsey, Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld and James Schlesinger shaking hands."Smiling knowingly and referring to two blue-ribbon commissions of the 1980s, Helms replied: “Who do you think drafted the Scowcroft and Packard commission reports?” Woolsey did indeed write the report as well as lead the panel’s deliberations."
1983+ - Member of American Bar Association Committee on Law & National Security, Chicago.
1983-1989 - The Titan Corporation, Director. Titan was represented by Shea and Gardner."Titan had many classified contracts in defense electronics and missile programs that Woolsey knew so much about as an arms negotiator ... By 1987, Titan had assembled a science and management team that Business Week called “the envy of the defense establishment [and] 71% of their yearly 4 million dollars in revenue were from federal contracts."
1983-6 - "Delegate at Large"/"DoD Consultant" to the U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) & Nuclear and Space Arms Talks (NST) in Geneva.
1984:
(April) COG Executive Order 12472 - Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Telecommunications Functions.
(Oct) At this point the whole Woolsey clan seems to have left Oklahoma for Spookland because Robert James Woolsey Sr. dies in McLean, Fairfax County, Virginia.
"The Politics of Vulnerability: 1980-83" by R. James Woolsey, Foreign Affairs:
"America's Hidden Vulnerabilities -- Crisis Management in a Society of Networks," report by the Woolsey-chaired panel on Crisis Management of the CSIS Science & Technology Committee."As the Soviet Union has steadily improved its strategic nuclear and other military forces in recent years, it has become increasingly clear to Americans that the United States is vulnerable in a sense that was never true before the advent of nuclear weapons."
Articles in Washington Post and NYT.
1985:
Member, President's Blue Ribbon Commission on Defenses Management (David Packard, Chairman). The Packard Commission recommended that defense appropriations should be passed in two-year budgets rather than annually, the position of "procurement czar" be created and the powers of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff be strengthened. Many of the recommendations by the commission were used when Congress reformed the Joint Chiefs of Staff system in 1986 with the Goldwater–Nichols Act.
Helped draft the Democratic Leadership Council's defense policy: "Defending America." Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was a non-profit corporation founded in 1985 to force the Democratic Party away from the left/New Deal. "[Neo-conservatives] operate largely through the tiny Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) of Joe Lieberman and Al Gore, and they control the party apparatus through gangsters and gangsterism. Although some call it the rightist or corporate “wing,” the DLC has never been an actual faction of the Democrats. It deliberately has no rank-and-file members. .. "Welfare Reform", “privatization” and "Third Way”are hallmarks of the DLC neoconservatives."Helms replied: “Who do you think drafted the Scowcroft and Packard commission reports?” Woolsey did indeed write the report as well as lead the panel’s deliberations."
(June 18) COG wargame exercise."Besides Cheney and Rumsfeld, who were regulars, other team leaders over the years included James Woolsey, later the director of Central Intelligence, and Kenneth Duberstein, who worked for a time as Reagan’s real-life White House chief of staff [...] The problem that this program was extralegal and extraconstitutional—that it established a process for designating a new American president that is nowhere authorized in the U.S. Constitution or federal law—is not merely a criticism manufactured by a law professor or an opponent of the Reagan administration. Rather, this problem was inherent in the Reagan-era program and was indeed part of the very rationale for the exercises."
(Sept) - OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT - Meeting of Task Force on Combating Terrorism. Participants include: Mike Ledeen, Mike Flynn, Al Haig, Vern Walters, Dick Helms, Ross Perot, Bob Woodward, Chuck Allen, CSIS, AIE and Woolsey! Oliver North recommends that the Task Force contact the director of the 'Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies' in Isreal....
1985-86 - "unpaid consultant" to the 'Senate Democratic Caucus Panel on National Security' (Senator Sam Nunn, Chairman).
1985-89 - "occasional adviser" to National Security Council.
1986
Woolsey retained as counsel by fellow 'Task Force on Combating Terrorism' member and "ex-CIA counterintelligence officer" Charles Allen. From 1980 to 1982, Allen was detailed to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he was deputy director of a continuity of government planning project where Allen said "our job is to throw the Constitution out the window." The COG project brought him into contact with Oliver North (who was delegated to monitor COG's findings by National Security Adviser McFarlane) and the Iran-Contra operation. Allen ran a disinformation op that took advantage of his access to CIA Director Casey to promote a political fiction (that an opening could be made to Iranian moderates) by using contrived information provided by CIA consultant George Cave."Director of Central Intelligence William Webster formally reprimanded Allen for failing to fully comply with the DCI's request for full cooperation in the agency's internal Iran-Contra scandal investigation. After failing to have the reprimand lifted through the regular appeal process, Allen retained future DCI James Woolsey as an attorney and was successful in applying pressure to have the reprimand lifted."
(April) Deaver Affair."Former White House deputy chief of staff Michael K. Deaver, now a lobbyist and consultant, recently met with the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, on behalf of a client, Rockwell International Corp., to persuade the administration and Congress to build more B1 bombers. The meeting unsettled some White House officials, administration sources said, because of federal rules that prohibit a senior official who leaves the government from lobbying his former department or agency for a year. The rules also prohibit top officials from lobbying on issues in which they were personally and substantially involved while in government. Deaver served for nearly two decades as a top adviser to Reagan and was credited with successfully blending policy initiatives and image-making in Reagan's first term."Woolsey wrote:"I was interviewed by Independent Counsel Whitney North Seymour in connection with his investigation of Mr. Michael Deaver. The purpose of the interview was to ascertain the facts concerning a meeting that I had attended, with numerous others, at which Mr. Deaver had made a presentation to Rockwell International concerning public relations."
Lawyer for the Republics of Venezula, Ecador, Guatamela and Paraguay in Trade Act argument about exporter inspection programs. In the "late 1980s" Woolsey registers as a foreign agent for Societe Generale de Surveilliance, a Swiss group that inspects exported goods.
Lawyer for the Sultan of Oman's Muscat Bank in "restructuring and collecting loan from, a U.S. citizen who held a partnership interest in a limited-partnership that owned a radio station"??
Helps draft the Democratic Leadership Council's defense policy paper "Defending America."
Director - Jamestown Foundation [Founded in 1984, the foundation was dedicated to supporting Soviet dissidents and defectors; it has since expanded into other programs and regions.]
1987:
Woolsey is the lawyer for fellow neo-con traveller Micheal Ledeen. They work together at CSIS, AEI and the 'Task Force on Combating Terrorism'. Ledeen has deep ties to Italian intelligence, right-wing Italian movements (Ledeen associated with a Francesco Pazienza, member of the Italian P2 Masonic Lodge) and was the man who introduced Oliver North to Iranian arms dealer Ghorbanifar.
Counsel to the United Kingdom by "provided advice regarding five lawsuits filed in the state courts of Minnesota naming two British judges as part of a wide-ranging international conspiracy to debase the U.S. currency".Ledeen wrote: "Mr. Blumenthal told my lawyer, James Woolsey... " [Washington Post, 1987]
Files 'amicus brief' for Kingdom of Netherlands in trade case Akzo v ITC. Akzo and Du Pont will suspend all legal battles and grant each other industrial patents for the manufacture of the fiber, which is sold by Du Pont under the Kevlar name. Analysts said that by removing uncertainty among customers, the deal would probably pave the way for a boom in the superfiber market.Woolsey wrote:"In 1987-88 I assisted in raising funds for and advising Senator Albert Gore when he sought the Democratic Presidential nomination." [He also gave money to Joe Liberman, Les Aspin and Peter Hoagland.]
(Aug) Sam Nunn is floated as the Democrat's presidential candidate and George Will (Newsweek) suggests "retired Adm. Jim Woolsey"(?!) as his Secretary of Defense.
1987-88 - Advisor, Joint Strategic Targeting and Planning Staff of the Scientific Advisory Group, Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska. (Site of a 'continuity of government' bunker).Bush Sr.
1988:
Woolsey is residing in Chevy Chase, MD. (So is Mike Ledeen).
Advisor Board, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.Woolsey wrote:"I had been active with an organization called JINSA. I’ve always said I anchor their Presbyterian wing. [...] In the mid-’80s I was on a trip with them [JINSA] in Israel and the IDF took me up to the Galilee and I saw these small, unmanned aerial vehicles, being operated by what looked like teenagers, flying up over southern Lebanon. They showed me some tapes of previous things they’d done, for example, the UAV would have a laser designator on it. There would be a Hezbollah car. They had some intelligence on a senior Hezbollah official. They’d laze the car with the laser designator, fire a Hellfire from a helicopter over the horizon, and boom. I remember thinking, Wow, that’s pretty interesting."
Supports Micheal Dukaksis. Bush Sr. Elected.
------------------------------------Woolsey wrote:"I think the CIA got a little bit spoiled in President Bush's presidency, because having been a director of Central Intelligence himself, he was, and remains absolutely fascinated by intelligence, by the CIA. The CIA headquarters is now named after him. He had the intelligence briefer in every day, and so forth."
Rumors that Woolsey briefs Bush Sr. on UFOs.
Throughout the 1990s and continuing up to Trump's inauguration, Dr. Ronald Pandolfi will spread rumours that he, Kit Green and James Woolsey gave UFO briefings to incoming Presidents, so it is worth examining Pandolfi.
During the 1990s, Pandolfi was the Deputy Director of the CIA Science and Technology Division (Rockets and Missiles section) doing MASINT (Measurement and signature intelligence) and Counter-Intelligence (CI) work. In 1998 he acts as a sort of whistle-blower publicly accusing the CIA and Hughes Electronics of giving China dual-use technology, these claims are championed by Woolsey and NEWSMAX to embarrass the Clinton administration. It is document that between at least 2002 and 2008 he was doing theoretical weapon and missile defence analysis for high-level JASON/MITRE agency (who in turn reported to ODNI or the NIC).
Pandolfi, a Roman Catholic, states he has little interest in UFOs and when forced to produce a report on the subject under pressure from Laurence Rockefeller he sub-contracted to a independent UFO researcher. Despite this he, like several other high-level US intelligence officers, spends a remarkable amount of time and money fostering UFO conspiracies by 'leaking' wild information of captured aliens and reverse-engineered technology to easily controlled UFOlogists.
Pandolfi primary conduit was Dan Smith, a physicist who had a mental breakdown and merged the ideas of the Christian Rapture and UFO Disclosure into his own personal Philip k Dick novel, with himself as the messiah/hero. The "Ron and Dan show" (as they call it) has been a disinformation firehouse for nearly 30 years and like all disinformation it has nuggets of truth embedded.
The strangely public face of the "Ron and Dan show" suggests it is an at least semi-approved outreach operation to investigate new 'fringe' technologies - but as Pandolfi and Smith seem to have sociopathic tendencies, and Pandolfi is currently being sued by FOX/NBC report Robert Kiviat for assisting a Joe Firmage 'anti-gravity'/TV show capital venture scam. So it may just be that Pandolfi is mostly a really jerky JASON with Dan Smith as his messiah-complex operative.
Here are the Woolsey rumours from the "Ron and Dan show" :- Woolsey Briefed Bush Sr. on UFO. As related by Dan Smith: "Ron [Pandolfi] and I are driving back from Front Royal after my briefing a special forces Colonel, a devout Catholic, on UFOs, eschatons and messiahs, with Ron observing. So I ask Ron about briefing the next President. And he said that if George W. [Bush] wanted a briefing he could just ask his dad about it. Ok, and what would his dad tell him, Ron? Well, his dad could tell him that he had tasked Jim Woolsey to find out and get back to him. Oh, really! And what was the result, Ron? Well, Jim came back and told the President that he just didn’t need to know."
Later in front of Gus Russo at a dinner party where Pandolfi was in attendance, Smith tried to get Pandolfi to confirm the story for Russo that Woolsey had been called in by Bush, and that he had told the President he had no "need-to-know." Russo was prepared to take the story to the New York Times but this time Pandolfi denied the story. Gus Russo is a reporter and 'Castro killed JFK' disinfo pusher. Smith will later pay Gusso to right a story on Ronald Pandolfi and ties between UFOs and intelligence work. - Dan Smith claims that "Jim [Woolsey] had taken one of the 'philosophy' courses that Ron had taught for the agency." This might be a reference to the Pandolphi's "phenomology" work.
- Clinton and the Goodie Bag. Dan Smith: "It seems that this particular bag of goodies has been around for awhile. Jim took his job at the agency, hoping he could persuade Bill Clinton to farm out some of its contents.... but to no avail. There is a goodie bag out there, somewhere. It may have a few nut&bolts...... to tide the economy over, until we can get our heads straightened out. [Does the] Goodie Bag contains a free energy device. It might. I'll have to ask Ron. The alleged goodie bag was tendered to the president for the expressed purpose of the competitive advantage that would be conferred."
- Woolsey & Krongard Brothers in some exotic technology scam. Dan Smith: Co-conspirators are Buzzy and Cookie, the Krongard brothers, Blackwater/CIA, local Gilman boys, and James Woolsey. In this RAM (replicated alien mechanism) intrigue, the brothers wear the black hat, and Jim wears the white hat.
- Briefing Trump & the "Woolsey Walkout". Dan Smith relays comments from Ron Pandolfi on Woolsey's role in the Trump Transition: "Ron and I were able to converse occasionally during the lunch. He spoke of two consulting teams or ... intelligence briefing teams. The smaller group that includes him [Ron Pandolfi] also includes Jim W[oolsey] and Mike P[illsbury] who is formerly of net assessments. Mike is going to visit with Joe Firmage.
Trump said he was tired and didn't want to talk anymore with them. At the same time, a member of the software team, Woolsey said he didn't want to be on a briefing team if they weren't doing any actual briefings. " - Post-'Woolsey WalkOut'. Dan Smith "gets up the nerve" to attempt to re-contact Woolsey because he is "especially well situated to oversee the communication of certain of this information to the public" about Pandolfi's new wife controlling an inter-dimensional portal (inter-dimensional portals have replace extraterrestrials in Pandolfi's current disinfo narratives). He contacts Cliff May at the neo-conservative Foundation for Defence of Democracy but nothing comes of it. Smith says Cliff May and Ron Pandolphi are both on a Sarfatti e-mail list.
Dan Smith: "Am I supposed to sit by the phone, waiting for Jim to call? I keep saying that such and such a day is the first day of Disclosure. Now I'll say it again..... the day we meet with Jim will be the first day." - Woolsey still involved with Trump.Dan Smith: "Although the media reports that he has left the Trump intelligence team, I am told he, is still active and is helping to brief Trump on the UFO issue."
1988-1991 - Trustee, Goldwater Scholarship & Excellence in-Education Foundation.
1989:
Board member, Arlington Institute. An NGO that "evolved from the bipartisan, eighteen-month long National Security Group project" begun by naval flight officer John L. Petersen [...] who was an adviser to a number of senior defense officials during this time, serving in various personal support roles to the undersecretary of the Navy and the chief of Naval Operations."
Suzanne Woolsey becomes Executive Director of the National Academy of Sciences' 'Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education'. This office has undertaken two unclassified studies for the CIA: Improving Research Methodologies in Analysis-of the Soviet Union [$68,000] & Workshop on Democratization in the Middle East [$35,000].
(Summer May to Aug) "Independent Contractor" for National Security Council (income goes to law firm).
Adviser, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (to 'advise' Senator Boren on his proposed intelligence reforms).
1989-91 - Ambassador to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), Vienna. Bush's choice of Woolsey was "a clear signal that the Vienna talks would be on a fast track."Woolsey wrote:"In early fall 1989 when I was picked to take over the European negotiation over conventional forces. One week after I took over the job, I was sitting in my apartment in Vienna.... I had misheated something in the microwave and was watching CNN. Then the Berlin Wall goes down. I said, ‘That might have an effect on the talks! [...] I had several CIA analysts on my delegation and they functioned very much like other U.S. government officials. We didn't formally call them CIA officials, but our Soviet and other counterparts knew that they worked for the CIA. And they chaired working groups for me on verification. They negotiated provisions with other countries, dealing with verification. They were valuable members of the team. And they had very cordial relations with Soviet counterparts. Sometimes we would even have parties with the American CIA people, and the Soviet KGB people, you know. It was an odd time.’ ”Woolsey wrote:"... in ’89 to ’91, when I headed up the CFE negotiations ..., I was already fixated on UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicle]. What I wanted to do was deploy UAVs all over Europe in order to monitor the CFE Treaty, because you had hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment that are supposed to stay here, stay there, or do that. We ran into the problem of air traffic control and all that."
1990:
Regent, Smithsonian Institution. No media publications.
August 1990 - Gulf War
In the lead-up to the Gulf War, Woolsey was a member of the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf, headed by Richard Perle, which worked closely with the Bush senior administration in mobilising support for the war, particularly in Congress. In 1998, the CPSG issued an open letter to then-president Bill Clinton calling for Washington to adopt a "comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime". [https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/iraq-pentagon-mafia-run-post-saddam-regime]
During the Gulf War, the IDF secretly meets an Iraqi exile in London in 1990. This exile, Alhmed Chalabi, "displayed [suspiciously] great quantities of good will [but] this did not prevent Israeli security officials from recommending Chalabi to the American administration and connecting him to "senior advisors" in the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA. As a result of the recommendations, James Woolsley gave him his patronage."
Chalabi, an Iranian double-agent and grifter from an elite Baghdad banking family, will live a charmed life with Woolsey patronage. Especially when compared to the thousands of Kurds and Shia killed by Iraqi forces after their failed CIA-backed rebellions fizzled out after the US invasion. Woolsey will relentless promote Chalabi's Iraq exiles as a government-in-waiting until the disasterous invasion of 2003.Woolsey wrote:"The first Bush administration made a serious error in judgment in not supporting Iraqi opposition after the war. The Clinton administration made eight years of that."
1991:
First half of 1991
Woolsey is the "Chief of the US Delegation to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed forces in Europe"
Feb - Gulf War Ends
Woolsey is "unhappy with the realism of the first Bush, and outraged by his failure to oust Saddam after the first Gulf War".
May - Bush signs a covert “lethal finding” that authorized the C.I.A. to spend a hundred million dollars to “create the conditions for removal of Saddam Hussein from power”, this is the slush fund that fiances the Iraqi exiles groups that Woolsey will champion.
July - Woolsey "leaves" government and (again) rejoins Shea & Gardner law firm to continues his lucrative racket as a Military-Industrial legal conciergerie.
• Caryle Group (paid advisor on a 'potential acquisition')
• General Dynamics (lawyer for settlement of DoD termination of A-12 aircraft)
• McDonnell Douglas (lawyer for settlement of DoD termination of A-12 aircraft)
• SAIC (paid advisor on 'conflict of interest laws'........)
• Southern Streamship Ltd. (paid advisor on 'maritime and tax law')
• Titan Corporation (paid advisor on 'contract termination' law)
• Thomson CSF (paid advisor to French company on 'DoD security regulations' ; withdrew due to conflict of interest)
Even more lucratively, Woolsey is appointed the Director of Martin Marietta, a aerospace firm with major NRO contracts. Martin Marietta will merge with Lockheed in 1995 to form Lockheed-Martin.
He also acts as a paid advisor on 'government accounting' for his wife's National Academy of Science, where he also serves on a panel about Presidentially Appointed Scientists.
Woolsey also become the vice-chair of Crescent Investment Management's Board of Governors. Crescent Investment is a spooky NY-Turkey based hedge-fund with a $ 2.7 billion investment portfolio on behalf of Persian gulf governments looking to invest in "national security technologies" and open up "new oil field development in Sudan." The CEO, Mansoor Ijaz, is a Pakistani-American physicist at Oak Ridge labs turned venture financier, he will later become a FOX News correspondent who strongly promoted 'Saddam + 911' disinformation. He is a major Democrat donor in the 1990s.
A later subsidiary, Crescent Technology Ventures, will have a Board of Advisors chaired by Woolsey and featuring two retired Air Force generals (Jim Abrahamson and Tom McInerney). Their focus is "developing homeland-security technologies ... cyber-security, air and seaport cargo container security, stratospheric telecommunications platforms and alternative energy development."
Woolsey also re-news his position as a Board Member of Freedom House, one the NED's core propaganda outlet. Freedom House was given $2.5 million by the NED between 1984-88 making it "almost an NED subsidiary." Its targets have included Central America, post-Soviet East Europe and Syria.
Sept - "Save the CIA, Confirm Robert Gates" [WSJ opinion piece]
Woolsey favored the promotion of Gates to head of the DCI and this article begins the framing of Woolsey's own time as DCI as a continuation of the Gates' reformatting of the CIA analysis into a political tool.
As documented in Chapter 13 of Robert Parry's Secrecy and Privilege, Gates was DCI William Casey's hatchet-man in politicizing the CIA. By instilling a new corporate culture that favored neo-con/'Team B' analysis, Gates neutralized, what he called "flabby...objectivity" and replaced it with a climate of fear and conformity. Within a few years CIA analysis was so biased toward seeing Soviet aggression they failed to notice the Soviet state was collapsing, a chronic over-estimating that was factually wrong and served to "exaggerated the impact of Reagan-Bush policies." Now Gates was assuming the role of DCI ... with Woolsey's support.
"fall 1991" - 'NeoCons for Clinton' party at Pamela Chuchhill-Harriman's house
Sandy Berger arranges a small party at Pamela Chuchhill-Harriman’s Georgetown house to get neo-conservative support for Bill Clinton's presidential run. Or as Bill Clinton euphemistically commented the people he met at the party had “more robust views on national security and defense than our party typically projected.”Woolsey wrote:"Shortly before Governor Clinton declared he was running for the Presidency—I don’t remember what month, but in the fall of ’91—there was a dinner party at Pamela Harriman’s house, and Sandy Berger asked me to come to meet Governor Clinton. There were probably 15 people at the dinner party. It was a pleasant evening. I don’t recall much else about it, except being impressed by him. I certainly was, yes."
Berger, Clinton, and Woolsey all worked on the George McGovern presidential campaign of 1972. Woolsey and Berger would also work together at the sinister private equity fund Paladin Capital Group. Pamela Churchill Harriman together with her husband Averell Harriman re-built the Democratic Party after the Reagan years. Like Woolsey she would have prefer Al Gore as president but worked to elect Clinton. Clinton choose her house for his first victory dinner in Washington and named her Ambassador to France.
December 25, 1991 - Soviet Union dissolvesWoolsey wrote:"The CIA did some very useful things in undermining the Soviet Union. One thing was assisting the mujahedin in Afghanistan [...] Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa have both said that the single most important thing that the United States did during the Cold War was Radio Free Europe and of course for the first 20 years of its existence it was a CIA covert action until it became a public institution in the 1970s [...] Another very useful CIA undertaking was in the Reagan administration when we learned through the French actually what types of technology the Soviet KGB was attempting to steal from the United States and we let them continue to steal it -- various types of computer chips and so forth -- but we made some changes in the chips they were stealing and we were able therefore with what they stole to see them put it into their national gas pipelines and the rest and they had terrible problems getting their gas pipelines to work, they had some big explosions and the like, all because of their own theft of American technology which we had made some adjustments in."- Woolsey Briefed Bush Sr. on UFO. As related by Dan Smith: "Ron [Pandolfi] and I are driving back from Front Royal after my briefing a special forces Colonel, a devout Catholic, on UFOs, eschatons and messiahs, with Ron observing. So I ask Ron about briefing the next President. And he said that if George W. [Bush] wanted a briefing he could just ask his dad about it. Ok, and what would his dad tell him, Ron? Well, his dad could tell him that he had tasked Jim Woolsey to find out and get back to him. Oh, really! And what was the result, Ron? Well, Jim came back and told the President that he just didn’t need to know."
Clinton's Director of the CIA (1992)
- 1992 (click to open):
1992:
Positions- Director - British Aerospace, Inc. (now BAE Systems)
- Director - Arlington Institute
- Vice Chairman - US State Department's 'Defense Trade Advisory Group'
- Board of Directors - *Yurie Systems, Inc.
*Yurie Systems started by South Korean immigrant, Jeong Kim, a Naval officer who had "worked in the black world of fast-attack nuclear subs" and was a contract engineer for the Naval Research Laboratory. Lieutenant commander Kim will become CEO of Lucent after their buyout of Yurie and "appoints Woolsey to the board of a separate US subsidiary for Lucent's classified work" Yurie received a $305,000 Defense Department affirmative action contract for minority-owned businesses. A prototype Yurie box strapped to a Jeep was used to transmit video pictures of polling booths during 1995 elections in Haiti and also saw action in the Bosnian conflict.Strobe Talbott wrote:"Around the time of the Renaissance weekend [an invitation-only American Anglophile elite retreat] in ’92, so January ’92. They wanted a neocon for ticket balancing and they were going after, what was his name? McCurdy. I think he wanted State or Defense. I think he was shooting higher, if I remember correctly." (JAN) (Rhodes '68)
(Feb 1) - Guatemala
State Department issues its annual global human rights report - but it does not mention Guatemalan abuses, and this will become an issue when, later this year, the CIA pays $44,000 to a notorious Guatemalan army officer. The CIA continued to pay its informant, Col. Julio Alpirez, even after agency officers were told of his involvement in the 1990 death of an American innkeeper in rural Guatemala and the recent torture-killing of a Guatemalan leftist married to an American lawyer. Colonel Alpirez, on the C.I.A.'s payroll since the 1980's, received a final payment of thousands of dollars from the agency's Guatemala station at about this time of the torture-killing."Of all of the charges levelled in the Guatemalan scandal, congressional leaders on the House and Senate Intelligence committees are most concerned about the CIA's failure to notify them of its informant's possible complicity. The CIA, many lawmakers believe, purposely did not report on its agent's role in the killings in a congressionally mandated 1992 report on human rights abuses."
All of this will surface two months after Woolsey's departure in January 1995, prompting the Clinton administration to launch a probe resulting in the dismissal of the chief of the CIA’s Latin America division and two C.I.A. station chiefs in Guatemala, 8 others are reprimanded, including a retired chief of the CIA’s clandestine arm (Hugh Price?). This "decision to impose stern punishments in the messy controversy appeared to represent a conscious effort by the new director to distance himself from his predecessor, R. James Woolsey, who lost his job after he refused to mete out tough discipline to CIA officials."
(Summer) - Woolsey Panel / "NRO Program Task Force for the Director of Central Intelligence"Woolsey heads a "undoubtedly still classified" study committee at the request of DCI Gates on a post-Desert Storm assessment of "certain intelligence collection systems". The panel looked at "reconnaissance capabilities, a new set of priorities for intelligence gathering and outlined substantial budgetary cuts" ... "this study that he had done with Jeff Harris’s help to examine how much of the resources could be devoted to the intelligence space enterprise in the post-Cold War world, in the peace dividend environment."
"Desert Storm did reveal some key shortfalls, the most important of which can be tied to an inability to move data with absolute efficiency and to provide the necessary total coverage of the battlefield [because of] the inability of low-orbit imaging satellites to consistently dwell or to acquire synoptic imagery in sufficient quantities to meet intensive tactical demands. Similarly, because of bandwidth demands of other architecture issues, we are plagued by problems with the dissemination of imagery."
The panel proposed "direct and radical" priorities for intelligence gathering and "some vertical pruning of the system, to sort of re-baseline it."
George Tenet said "the reasonwasthe Woolsey study that had been done, [was to] convinced [the Clinton team] that Woolsey was the guy who could make changes in the intel community." Woolsey would not present himself as a bold “change agent” like Gates but he did point out that he had been an adviser to the SSCI in 1989 when Boren and others had proposed reform legislation for intelligence.
(Aug) Woolsey, Nitze and AIPAC members endorse Clinton for President by signing a paid advertisement in The New York Times.Woolsey wrote:"I joined a group of other so-called 'Scoop Jackson Democrats' who took out a small ad during the campaign and endorsed then-Governor Clinton"Woolsey wrote:I contributed about $250 to the campaign, and the campaign asked me and Lee Hamilton on Labor Day of ’92 to fly down to Little Rock and spend several hours meeting with the Governor talking about all the things that were going on in former Yugoslavia, and also what opportunities there might be for arms control." (Sept) - Labour DayIRAN SAID TO SEND ARMS TO BOSNIANS -NYTimes wrote:"In the first documented evidence of military support by an Islamic country to the Muslim-dominated Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatian officials have intercepted a planeload of Iranian arms and personnel, Western officials said today. Its ostensible mission was to deliver relief supplies for overland delivery to Bosnia and Herzegovina. But when the plane was inspected, Croatian officials discovered 4,000 guns, more than a million rounds of ammunition and 20 to 40 Iranians huddled in the back." (SEPT. 10, 1992)Woolsey wrote:"When [Clinton] wanted to do something really sensitive like let Bosnians be armed indirectly by the Iranians, he didn’t go through us [the DCI]."
During the four-year Bosnian war, when America and Europe would not arm and equip the Bosnians, Iran sent thousands of tons of weapons and hundreds of military trainers and intelligence officers, and distributed aid to the dispossessed. In the Clinton Administration, DCIs Woolsey and Deutch have spoken of covert actions with neither the enthusiasm of Allen Dulles nor with the skepticism of Stansfield Turner.
(Oct 26) Woolsey made public appearances in support of Clinton in Portland, Maine.
Woolsey's 1992 Political Contributions:
11/21/92 Friends of Les Aspin - - (from S.H. Woolsey) $1,000
11/16/92 Sanders for Mayor $1,000 (Bernie Sanders in Burlington??)
10/14/92 Friends of Les Aspin $1,000
09/04/92 Ferraro for U.S. Senate $50
08/18/92 Mike Moody for Senate $150
07/27/92 Solarz for Congress $200
07/13/92 Clinton for President $500
06/05/92 Friends of Les Aspin $100
03/30/92 Friends of Jim Moody $300Woolsey wrote:"My ideal Clinton administration ... would have been to have Gore be President, Clinton to be Vice President, Madeleine to be Secretary of State, and Chris [Warren] to be Ambassador to the UN. The Defense Department I would have left alone. [laughter]"
(November 3) - Clinton Elected
"Admiral Bill Crowe, the former head of the Joint Chiefs whose had endorsement of Clinton had been so important" now wanted Clinton to name a neoconservative selection to "broaden his team".
"The neocon pitch was that the party should be open to 'all' [but] having supported Reagan all during the 1980s ... many Democrat loyalists considered them traitors"Woolsey wrote:"Mr. Woolsey appears to have supporters in high places ... including Brent Scowcroft, President Bush's national security adviser, and Bobby Inman, the retired admiral and former Deputy Director of the C.I.A., who recommended to Mr. Clinton that he appoint Mr. Woolsey to lead the agency."George Stephanopoulos wrote:"We needed conservative Democrats. Woolsey had bipartisan appeal and good experience."Bill Perry wrote:"Woolsey was in the strategy group. I did not think of him as an odd man out. He was a natural choice to come into the administration."CIA website wrote:"Woolsey’s experience in national security matters made him a logical candidate for DCI. He was familiar with intelligence generally, and, having led the NRO study in the summer of 1992, he was also up to date on some of the community’s most important programs."---BUT---
Woolsey: "We know from the President’s book that Dave McCurdy was his first choice." McCurdy was a "neo-con sympathizer" and national chairman of the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council (DCL). The Secretary of Defense job ultimately went to Les Aspin. McCurdy was offered the role of Director of Central Intelligence, but turned it down.Berger wrote:"The President very much wanted Dave McCurdy to be head of the CIA. Dave McCurdy was a Congressman from Oklahoma, had been an early supporter of Governor Clinton, and worked very hard for him during the campaign. We very much wanted to have one person on the national security team who sent the signals. These were not all Carter people or all McGovern people. McCurdy came from the pro-defense wing of the party. There was a kind of crisis at the end, because I think they set a deadline for announcing the national security team and the pieces hadn’t fallen into place. It was a little game of chicken. McCurdy thought if he held out for Defense, he’d get Defense, and Clinton wanted him in CIA. Ultimately McCurdy said no, he wouldn’t take CIA. I remember talking to Christopher and mentioning [James] Woolsey’s name as a possibility. Woolsey then slides into CIA and Madeleine Albright slides into the UN, and the pieces kind of came together. But that was a very close-held process."Woolsey wrote:"McCurdy recommended me and so did Al Gore. I’m told what happened is that they got right down to the last minute and Dave McCurdy and the Vice President-elect both said, 'Well, Woolsey can read and write', let’s stick him in."
The Director of Central Intelligence "is to provide overall coherence to the intelligence efforts of this nation, which include the CIA, but also includes the NRO and NSA and others."Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege wrote:"There was a brief window for reform with Bill Clinton's election in 1992. Former CIA analyst Peter Dickson was among the CIA veterans to put the "politicization" issue before Clinton's incoming national security team. Dickson sent a two-page memo, dated December 10, 1992, to Samuel "Sandy" Berger, a top Clinton national security aide. Dickson urged Clinton to appoint a new CIA director who understood "the deeper internal problems relating to the politicization of intelligence and the festering morale problem within the CIA."
In urging a housecleaning, Dickson wrote, "This problem of intellectual corruption will not disappear overnight, even with vigorous remedial action. However, the new CIA director will be wise if he realizes from the start the dangers in relying on advice of senior CIA office managers who during the past 12 years advanced and prospered in their careers precisely because they had no qualms about suppressing intelligence or slanting analysis to suit the interest of Casey and Gates. This is a deep systemic problem.
"The lack of accountability also became a systemic problem in the 1980s . ... A recent CIA inspector general investigation confirms the near total breakdown in confidence among employee{s] that management is willing to deal honestly and objectively with their complaints. Many of them concern the lack of professional ethics and in some cases personal abuse at the hands of senior officer managers - a group of individuals beholden and therefore loyal to Gates."
But the appeals from Dickson and other CIA veterans were largely ignored by Clinton and his top aides, who were more interested in turning around the U.S. economy and enacting some modest social programs. The Clinton administration didn't want to "refight the battles of the 1980s," a senior Democrat told me. Although Gates was removed as CIA director, Clinton appointed James Woolsey, a neoconservative Democrat who had worked closely with the Reagan-Bush administrations.
One well-placed Democratic source said the incoming Clinton team defended the choice of Woolsey as a reward to some neoconservative Democrats at The New Republic and elsewhere who had split from George H.W. Bush and lent their support to Clinton. Under Woolsey and Clinton's subsequent CIA directors, the Gates team sans Gates remained in top management positions and consolidated its bureaucratic power. The old ideal intelligence analysis free from political taint was never restored.”
(November 30) (1992?) - Woolsey on CNN’s Larry King Show stated that the new Clinton administration "wished to disclose historical material in a spirit of new openness."
(Dec 2) World Affairs Council in Washington
Woolsey stressed the need to focus on an arc of unstable and heavily armed nations that stretch from North Africa, across the Middle East and the lower reaches of the former Soviet Union to North Korea.Woolsey wrote:"This world that we are beginning to see -- with the addition of nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemicals, bacteriologicals and the rest -- begins to look more and more like a more lethal version of the old world that existed before 1914, when a range of nationalist sentiments produced the holocaust of World War I."Woolsey wrote:"I get a call at home from Warren Christopher. I’d known him for some years. He had been the head of the national security side of staffing the campaign. The President-elect and I met. That’s the only time I ever saw him alone. It was for about an hour ... We talked about Oklahoma and Arkansas football ... At one point he said something along the lines of, Do you think the CIA Director ought to give policy advice? I said, No, I really don’t." (mid-DEC)
Woolsey says he didn't know he was Clinton's choice until he called Christopher to confirm his status.
(DEC 22) - Clinton Cabinet AnnouncementWoolsey wrote:"Now it is 12:25 and the press conference is 12:30. I said, 'I’m not an admiral. I never got above captain in the army'. DeeDee said, Whoops, we’d better change the press release."Clinton wrote:"I am appointing as CIA director a man who has worked with and who has won the respect of both Democrats and Republicans, presidents and members of Congress alike, James Woolsey ... Mr. Woolsey said when we were coming over here today that maybe his service in the Bush Administration would cancel out his service in the Carter Administration."Gore wrote:"I'm proud to stand here with two of long-time allies, Les Aspin and Jim Woolsey, in many efforts over an extended period of time to build a bi-partisan base of support for diplomacy through strength and for an activist US role in the world."Richard Haver wrote:"When Jim was announced that afternoon at that news press conference, I watched it at CIA headquarters with George Tenet. George indicated he knew this was coming, and he told me that the reason was the Woolsey study that had been done, that this had convinced them that Woolsey was the guy who could make changes in the intel community. "Woolsey on the Clinton National Security team: "I’d known Chris (Warren Christopher) for a long time. I’d actually once been a summer associate at O’Melveny & Myers. He was already a very senior member of the bar. Les Aspin had been a buddy for years. He and I were very good friends. I knew Tony and Sandy somewhat, liked them, got along with them. So the team was one that I was perfectly okay with and knew."
(late 1992) - Woolsey as head of the executive committee at the Smithsonian, was looking for a general counsel for it. He had called George Tenet, staff director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Tenet's right-hand man, Buzzy Krongard had been a consultant to CIA director James Woolsey in the mid 1990s. “I’m from Oklahoma. I grew up around Native American culture. When I was at the CIA, I borrowed Native American art from the Smithsonian for my office.”- Director - British Aerospace, Inc. (now BAE Systems)
Reb- Admin
- Posts : 604
Join date : 2015-03-30 -
Re: R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Tue 29 Nov 2016 - 21:08
Clinton's Director of the CIA (1993)
- 1993 (click to open):
1993:
Suzanne Woolsey serves as chief operating officer at the National Academies from 1993 to 2000 (and as chief communications officer from 2000 to 2003).
Jan 25 - Pakistani national Mir Qazi (Aimal Kansai) kills two 2 and wounds 3 CIA employees at a stoplight outside the CIA headquarters in Langley. Aimal Kansai "later wrote that he wanted to kill CIA director James Woolsey or his predecessor, Robert Gates, but he knew that entry to the secure facility would be impossible. He settled for aiming his AK point-blank at a group of commuters waiting to make a left turn."NYT wrote: After a career in both Democratic and Republican administrations, Mr. Woolsey has become a conservative voice on Mr. Clinton's national security team, completing an evolution from campus activist to Washington insider with solid credentials on military issues.
Woolsey's detractors portray him as an ambitious man who saw a professional advantage in being to the right of most of his Democratic counterparts, becoming the Republicans' favorite Democrat and the ideal candidate to protect a Democratic White House from charges that it plans to cut military spending too much. They say his thinking is too heavily rooted in the cold war, when he sounded alarms about the Soviet missile threat, and that he is not the man to help the American intelligence agencies adapt to a new world.
His backers say he is just what the Clinton Administration needs: a nondogmatic conservative [and] an accepted member of the national security establishment who is likely to be politically acceptable to intelligence agencies while having the intellect and energy to change them.
Mr. Woolsey ... is taking over the American intelligence apparatus at a critical moment. A little over a year ago, he joined the boards of the Martin Marietta Corporation, the giant defense company that made the MX missile, and British Aerospace, the North American arm of the British-owned company. He is required to resign both posts before assuming the C.I.A. directorship.
He recently represented the McDonnell Douglas Corporation and the General Dynamics Corporation in a lawsuit seeking to recover damages from Defense Secretary Dick Cheney's cancellation of the A-12 for the Navy because of its excessive cost.
With his Washington credentials, he is expected to sail through the confirmation process and take on a job that he has described as presenting a "complex and difficult agenda." (Jan 11) The C.I.A; Campus Activist to Insider: Journey of the C.I.A. Nominee. (New York Times)Feb 2-3 - Nomination Hearing Before The Select Committee On Intelligence Of The United States Senate -
Chairman DECONCINI: Jim Woolsey is, in many ways, an ideal choice for this job ... unless those who are sponsoring you here criticize you in some way, I intend to vote for you.
Senator WARNER: I think both the nominee and I recognize that we got our jump starts in political life in the Department of the Navy. We remain everlastingly grateful for that.
Senator LUGAR: I am pleased that you have had service in the Department of the Navy. I would just say that you bring to all public service a sound logic, a good legal mind, a sense of re-
alism, and yet idealism.
Senator CHAFEE: Mr. Chairman, I would also like to add that we have an extraordinary array of Rhodes Scholars here today. It seems to be a Mafia that has suddenly taken over the Administration. And as- I watched Senator Lugar (Rhodes '54) praise Mr. Woolsey, I thought there was a connection there.
Senator JOHNSTON. It's called the "Old Boy Network."
Senator CHAFEE. That's right. I don't know what the secret, grip is, but -- [General laughter.]
Senator KERREY Ambassador Woolsey, you may have noted earlier that -I am not a Rhodes Scholar, and in fact many people in Nebraska-wonder how it is possible for me to serve on any Committee called the Intelligence Committee. [General laughter.]
Senator DANFORTH: Mr. Woolsey, I noticed in the morning paper that in a previous job when you were with the Defense Department, you tried to kill the F-18. So I can say that I am glad that you have been nominated for this position rather than Secretary of Defense. [General laughter]
Senator BOREN (Rhodes): Ambassador Woolsey began his negotiating skills very early, and when we were 22 years old, we negotiated a pact together, and that pact, was that if either one of-us ever were fortunate enough to be nominated for any position, the other would appear in his behalf and tell only the good things -that we knew about each- other. This is the second time that I have had a chance to redeem that pledge. I was able to present him and introduce him when he was before the Senate for confirmation to be our Ambassador and U.S. representative to the negotiation on Conventional Forces in Europe, and I have this privilege of being here to make that presentation and redeem that pledge again today. And I might point out, highly effective. It was only three days after he arrived in Vienna that the Berlin Wall did go down.
Representative HOAGLAND: [Woolsey] had a capacity for doing things late at night that was always very impressive. And during our undergradute years, I watched him excel in so many things. I can remember how skilled he was as president of our freshman dormitory in conducting his meetings, for instance, his senior year to live in a freshman dorm to care for and advise and nurture a crop of about 25 freshmen. Woolsey is about values most of all, setting aside his accomplishment. He is about intellectual honesty; he is about maturity and balance; he is about respect for others; and he is particularly about respect for the laws and Constitution of the United States.
Senator SARBANES: Woolsey, is a person of integrity, a straight shooter, a person of keen intelligence and of strong character.
Senator METZENBAUM: Mr. Woolsey, I would like to discuss with you your relations with your present law firm. Shea & Gardner has represented a number of foreign countries. From '73 to '76 you were an associate with Shea & Gardner, you went back to Shea & Gardner in December of '79 and stayed for about 10 years, left in November of '89 for about a year and in July 1991 you went back to Shea & Gardner. It is reasonable to assume, without any commitment on your part, that since you spent most of your professional life with Shea & Gardner, that when you leave this position, you'll probably go back with them?
Ambassador WOOLSEY: Let me just say that each of the two times I have returned to the firm, it has been a separate and independent decision, but ... let's say for the duration of the time I serve as Director of Central Intelligence I would recuse myself from any matter in which Shea and Gardner was representing any client in connection with the Intelligence Community.
Senator METZENBAUM: I thank you for your answer. Now, you and I had a discussion before about the fact that you have an interest in a privately held corporation [Dyncorp] that from a value standpoint it is a very substantial one. It is my understanding that you are prepared to dispose of your holdings in that corporation within this year.
Ambassador WOOLSEY: Yes. That reflects your and my discussion immediately before this meeting.
Chairman DECONCINI: Mr. Woolsey, you may make an opening statement, but with all the remarks you have heard here, maybe we should just vote on you. [General laughter.]
You might take a risk if you read that, but go ahead. We seriously welcome you here, Mr. Woolsey, and you may proceed for as long as you like.
Ambassador WOOLSEY: Yesterday in remarks at his swearing in, the new Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin; said the new world order is long on new and short on order. And I think that sums it up reasonably well. And these challenges, if unmet, can decidedly affect -our daily lives for the worse. Our two surrounding oceans don't isolate us anymore. Yes, we have slain a large dragon, but we
live now in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes. And in many ways the' dragon was easier to keep track of.
[Woolsey appeared out of step with the administration's "it's the economy, stupid" marching song ... when at his confirmation hearings, Woolsey waxed zoological about dragons and snakes, but according to the CIA website, "This colorful metaphor provided a “sound-bite” justification for his view that substantial intelligence resources were still needed in the post-Cold War era." ]Woolsey's Nomination papers wrote:REFERENCES
1. Richard Helms (known 20 years)
2. James R. Schlesinger (known 20 years) - Center for Strategic & International Studies
3. Walter B. Slocombe (known 30 years)
4. Anthony A. Lapham (known 19 years) - Shea & Gardner
5. William J. Perry (known 16 years) - Technology Strategies & Alliances
18. DESCRIBE ANY LOBBYING ACTIVITY DURING THE PAST TEN YEARS
(1) In 1987, in connection with Shea & Gardner's representation of SGS and its American affiliates
(2) Provision of legal advice and services to the MIT (Lincoln Laboratory) concerning a lease and a government contract
(3) Since February 1992, I have provided legal advice and services to General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas concerning litigation
Pursuant to law and regulations I will, upon confirmation, resign from membership in Shea & Gardner and from my Directorships of Martin Marietta and British Aerospace, Inc. I would request that I be permitted to retain ownership of the DynCorp stock listed in my financial-statement upon condition that I recuse myself from any decisions that might affect that Corporation's interests.
Clients Billed More than $500 Worth-of My-Services During Past 5 Years -
- Aerospace Corporation
- Bell Communications Research,
- Bolt, Baranek & Newman
- The Carlyle Group....
- Center for Strategic & International Studies
- Center for Naval Analysis -
- Clean Sites
- Cornell University
- DynCorp
- Fairchild Industries ("I had been a director since 1984")
- General Dynamics
- Insilco
- Litton Industries
- Martin Marietta Corporation
- McDonnell Douglas Corporation
- M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory
- NationalAcademy of Sciences
- National Security-Council
- Newmont
- Penn-Central Corporation
- Plessey,
- Rockwell International Corporation
- SAIC
- Shack & Kimball, P.C.
- Southern Steamship Ltd.
- Thiokol
- Thomson, CSF
- The Titan Corporation
- United Technologies Corporation
- Young & RubicamFEB. 3, 1993 - C.I.A. Nominee Wary of Budget Cuts [NYT - Doug JEHL] -
The confirmation hearing, held in a stark and modern chamber, was convened amid tight security because of the unsolved killings last week of two C.I.A. employees as they sat in traffic outside the agency's headquarters in suburban Virginia. Strong Endorsement Seen
Mr. Woolsey, a 51-year-old Washington insider who has traversed the barriers between public and private life for more than two decades, met with scant criticism from committee members. The panel limited its questioning to a day, and it is expected to recommend overwhelmingly on Wednesday that the Senate confirm his nomination. That swift embrace of Mr. Woolsey stands in sharp contrast to the 11-day ordeal to which the panel subjected Mr. Gates during combative hearings in the fall of 1991 before recommending, in a divided vote, that he be confirmed.
An Owl Who Spies? / "Yes, we have slain a large dragon"
Woolsey, whose bespectacled face and balding pate can give him an owlish look, spoke with confidence but maintained a studied caution as he sat alone at a witness table, a battered leather briefcase at his feet. He said he had not reached a final decision on what he termed the "hottest" issue facing the agency: whether intelligence information should be shared with private American companies. He pledged if confirmed to order a "thorough review" early in the Administration to come up with a "systematic policy" on economic intelligence.
[But] refused today to endorse any immediate cut in the nation's estimated $29 billion intelligence budget, warning of multiplying threats to American security [and] his strong warnings about the gravity of threats appeared intended to serve notice that he would be highly wary of budget-cutting efforts that might weaken intelligence programs. Resisting invitations to describe a new era of austerity for the nation's intelligence agencies, Woolsey instead outlined what he said were widening and vexing challenges. [His] nomination won praise from Republicans and Democrats, appeared headed for certain Senate confirmation[, b]ut his reluctance to join in the debate about potential budget cuts left him oddly disengaged from a Congressional battle that began to flare even as he spoke. DeConcini of Arizona, who has indicated that he plans to seek cuts beyond the $1.6 billion that Congress stripped from the budget last year.
Pressed to be more specific, Mr. Woolsey indicated only that he would be more willing to endorse reductions in spending than to countenance a cutback in manpower at a time when the number of serious threats to American interests, despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, had "grown, not shrunk." He went on to liken ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia to a cancer that could metastasize anywhere.(Feb 05) begins as Director of CIA
Woolsey's Team & Allies:- Bill Studeman ("his deputy")
- Janet Andres (Woolsey: "I was[n't] going to bring anybody from the outside, except Janet, who was a foreign service officer")
- Joe "Smart Power" Nye (Woolsey: "I brought Joe Nye down from Harvard to chair the National Intelligence Council")
- Jeff Smith ("He went out and picked Jeff Smith as General Counsel")
- Richard Haver ("CMS chief whom Woolsey had inherited from Gates" [the 'Community Management Staff' is the "right arm" of the DCI])
- Jeff Harris ("Woolsey’s boy Harris, and ... his space progams.")
- Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch (allied in many projects)
- NSA Anthony Lake ("Woolsey served as an important and influential confidant of national security adviser Anthony Lake"
- VP Al Gore (Woolsey: "Gore was a big help to us. But we didn’t have much interaction with the President.")
Woolsey wrote:"Since the DCI was head of both the CIA and the [Intelligence] community, and reported to the President—and the U.S. during those two years kind of bestrode the world like a Colossus—you tended to be received by the head of state, or the head of government anyway. [Silvio] Berlusconi gave a small dinner for me when I was in Italy ... [The Kazakistan president] gave me an official portrait [of myself] woven by hundreds of Kazak ladies into the rug.
Feb 15 - Woolsey meeting at the Pentagon with Colin Powell discussing the former Yugoslavia. Woolsey "[knows] how to go put a team together to make stuff happen ... and the next morning he had 25 people in a conference room cranking out information that ended up in a package that Jim took back to Colin Powell."LA Times OpEd wrote:"A primary task of intelligence is to identify these dangerous reptiles .... there are some in Congress, including some on its intelligence committees, who believe that significant cutbacks in intelligence budgets can be safely made. They may be right, but for now it is impossible to know. Intelligence costs, largely hidden under different headings throughout the vast federal budget, are fully known to only a few people ... yes, the big intelligence buildup of the Reagan years may have put an appreciable amount of bloat into intelligence spending that can now be siphoned out. But when national security is involved--in fact, the security of much of the world--we had better be very sure." The Dragon Is Gone--but Not the Snakes : Confirmation hearing shows risks in cutting CIA budget-Feb 7, 2005
"early two or three months of ’93" - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
Woolsey “pressed for progress” in developing UAV for reconnaissance as to demonstrate the utility of UAVs to the military as Woolsey wanted close cooperation with DoD. The Pentagon created the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office to pursue the UAV idea.Woolsey wrote:"[We began] jump-starting the government’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle [UAV] ... I wanted to be able to do what the Israelis were doing to the Hezbollah cars. I wanted to be able to do that to Serbian folks who were killing people ... we ought to be able to put together a long-endurance, unmanned aerial vehicle that’s not too expensive, and stay under the cloud cover, because Bosnia has this cloud cover all the time at two to three thousand feet. We can stay under it. ... The first call I made was to Abe Karem. I asked him what happened to AMBER. He said, 'Well, as you know, I went bankrupt. General Atomics [Aeronautical Systems] bought everything at bankruptcy sale. I recently sold three of them to the Turks. But there’s about half-a-dozen airframes sitting out there.' "
(Feb 26) - World Trade Center Bombing
(March 9) "March 1993 press attention ...... portrayed him as not on board with overall administration policy [of fiscal austerity and budgetary transparency]"Woolsey wrote:"As far as the WTC bombing of 1993 was concerned, all the information that was collected by law enforcement was kept under grand jury secrecy. The intelligence agencies were not permitted by law to see it until the trials of conspirators like Ramzi Yousef were completed. That was the way that the Clinton administration chose to approach acts of terrorism. As law enforcement matters and not as acts of security."
Woolsey testified to HPSCI on of his concerns regarding making the intelligence budget public: "There is no electronic or data fence around the United States or around American citizens. Disclosing that and the ensuing debate publicly means disclosing it to the people overseas who we target our intelligence assets on." Next year, Woolsey again repeat his opposition to budgetary disclosure saying that moving from one aggregate number to disaggregated details that would educate "the rulers of North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, terrorist groups, and others about our plans and programs."
(April) Woolsey came in "on a promise to cut intelligence spending by about $7 billion over a five-year period [though the] cancellations of major collection programs no longer viewed as affordable, but he fought tenaciously to limit the cuts. Woolsey wrote to the president, giving him a carefully framed explanation of how his planned program—despite a near-term increase—would achieve the five-year savings goals Clinton had set for intelligence."
(April) Albright proposed establishing a series of “U.N. protection enclaves” in Bosnia that would be defended by U.S., NATO, and Russian ground forces with the support of American air power.Woolsey wrote:"Gore was very helpful ... to help get our budget through ... particularly the Senate Intelligence Committee, and you get a call from the Vice President, that’s good but it kind of indirectly says that the President doesn’t have the time on this one to call."
(May) - Aspin announces "the end of the Star Wars era"Woolsey wrote:"My hunch is that, had Al [Gore] been President, we would not have waited two-and-a-half years, if I may put it in blunt terms, to kick Serbian butt in the former Yugoslavia. As Madeleine [Albright] has been quoted to ask Colin [Powell] about the military, 'Why don’t we use it?' "
Clinton was determined to bury the Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) long derided as "Star Wars." The DoD announced that it was making national missile defense a lower priority than theater missile defense.
SPRING -Woolsey wrote:"In early 1993, the administration could have chosen to continue some promising negotiations -the Ross-Mamedov talks - which were, at that point, only one year old ... that would leave research and development unconstrained, deploy over 1,000 interceptors at multiple sites, and place a time-limit on the duration of the ABM Treaty, to allow future deployment of space-based interceptors. But the new Clinton administration canceled the talks and took the position that the ABM Treaty was the "cornerstone of strategic stability" between the U.S. and Russia ... [This was] a school-uniform program for national defense: it does almost nothing to deal with the basic problem ... impeding our efforts to deal with our growing vulnerability to rogue-state missiles.... the administration has purposely designed vulnerabilities into its own system in order to assure the Russians that they can penetrate it with ease."CAQ wrote:Last spring, as the incoming Clinton administration faced the challenge of economic decline in a global market and a new director of the CIA confronted the task of re-orienting the Agency to a much-changed world, a reporter got an envelope in the mail. Inside was a 21-page document, "Defense Confidential," which laid out assignments for French spies to steal technological secrets from U.S. firms. The document was authentic. The "news," however, was not: The resulting article reprised a plan, first revealed in 1990, in which the French government targeted 49 high-tech companies, 24 U.S. financial institutions, and six U.S. government agencies. The "revelation" prompted a belated outcry in Congress and official protest, the tenor of which was caught in a quote attributed to "a senior intelligence official": "No more Mr. Nice Guy." The Clinton administration "is taking off the gloves," reported the Associated Press."
(June) - Cruise Missiles Strike On Iraq
"it was Woolsey who presented the report to Clinton that Iraq was behind a foiled car bomb attack on Bush Sr. in Iraq" but then is then left out of further consultations and disclaims any responsibility.
Afterwards Aspin and Woolsey bemoan their lack of access to the President at one of their "regular breakfasts." Commenting that Christopher Warren is also likely left-out, Aspin "looked up at the ceiling and said, 'I wonder who is [advising the president]?" Clinton's memoirs "gives all responsibility for the targeting to Colin Powell."Woolsey wrote: "The only NSC meeting I know of that neither Studeman nor I was even invited to was the one where they decided in the aftermath of the attempt by the Iraqis to assassinate former President Bush, to launch the cruise missiles in the middle of the night against the Iraqi intelligence headquarters ... They knew, because I had gone to the Department of Defense, that we had some folks who were looking at the vulnerabilities of Saddam’s regime and what one could do in order to really punish the regime without damaging the population ... I talked to Tony [LAKE] about it a little bit. We were just trying to provide an option. I think because they had decided they did not want to do anything like that, they met while I was out of town, and didn’t invite Studeman to the meeting. Then when they did select a target, they selected an interesting target—Iraqi Intelligence Headquarters—but decided to do it at night so they wouldn’t hurt anybody ... they apparently wanted to avoid having presented and discussed something that was equivalent to Casey’s intervention on the Libya bombing .... that left about as sour a taste in my mouth. Don’t just bomb the building, bomb the damn tent! That’s where he lives! You know, [Clinton] not to want even to hear that, left an awfully sour taste in my mouth, I must say, an awfully sour taste ... I think it's hard to get much more reluctant to use force than that ... I have subsequently characterized as a retaliation against Iraqi cleaning women and night watchmen."
SUMMER - CounterTerrorism Center
Helped by a "whole cadre of people who had served in the first Bush administration who were on the outside agitating—Paul Wolfowitz ... writing op-ed pieces, et cetera. The Agency established a counterterrorism center inside ... in the summer of ’93."
When James Woolsey was the DCI "Gadhafi appealed to his U.S. interlocutors for assistance against "Islamist extremists" in the Benghazi region." Later, Woolsey was one of the signatories of an "open letter to House Republicans" imploring Congress to not to be "held hostage" by the UN but instead "more to help the Libyan opposition" because ISIS and Al Qaeda militas "deserves our support."
"Woolsey took a personal interest in issues of law enforcement, counterintelligence, and security policy" and "moved immediately to place CIA’s General Counsel [JEFF SMITH] in charge of a task force of CIA and community officers to look at how the Intelligence Community, which focused on foreign events, could improve its support to US law enforcement." Woolsey had DDCI Studeman commission a study of the three DCI centers on terrorism, narcotics, and proliferation and of the National Military Joint Intelligence Center to clarify how they coordinated work among different community components.
(August) Task Force Ranger deployed to Somalia, a month later two Black Hawk helicopters are shot down.Woolsey wrote: "China ... is aggressively recruiting CIS [ex-Soviet] scientists to help in a number of weapon programs [like SS-25/SS-18 ICBMs].. there is substantial movement along on those lines" (July 28)
(September) - Israeli-Palestinian settlementWoolsey wrote:"[Clinton staff] decided that they’re going to send Bob Oakley over to set up a coalition government in Somalia. After that announcement, as I recall, we moved immediately to Dee Dee and George going back and forth across the table, talking about who was going to background the Washington Post, who was going to background the New York Times, who was going to be on the Sunday talk shows, to deal with the issue of the coalition government ... The shock to the system that Black Hawk down created, and the gun shyness that that sent into the system."Woolsey wrote:"The so-called Clinton parameters were accepted by Ehud Barak and his cabinet (until the Israeli–Palestinian thing collapsed, virtually, on January 20th of 2001) and rejected by Yasser Arafat. That’s clear in President Clinton’s book and it’s clear in Dennis Ross’s book. The Carter book says exactly the opposite."Andres wrote:"We had probably one of the closest relationships in terms of intelligence service-to intelligence service with the Israelis. There were many meetings, both in Washington and in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Certainly all this was very closely worked with the White House with Jim’s contacts there. We used to meet with Rabin—that was very common—and King Hussein [bin Talal], and King Fahd [bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud], and [Hosni] Mubarak."
(Sept) "[Woolsey] fought tenaciously to limit the cuts and to justify what he considered a responsible level."Woolsey wrote:"Janet’s and my two favorite people from that part of the world, going back a long way, are Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein. King Hussein, as a result of Black September and the fact that it was a CIA station chief who essentially saved him, had always had a close relationship to the Agency. He was the only head of state who would come out to Langley and meet alone with me. It wasn’t me; it was his whole history. I spent more time alone with King Hussein than I have with Bill Clinton."
(Sept/Oct) - UAV"[Being] "as close to the high-tech spying industry as any CIA director" Woolsey "didn't seem much interested in the CIA's core competency, human intelligence ... reducing the number of large overseas CIA stations by 60% and cut the number of deployed case officers working overseas by 30%. Much of this was in response to Al Gore's National Performance Review (calling for greater intelligence community efficiency). In contrast, Woolsey was ferocious in defending the IC's technical budget that funded Titan, Martin Marietta and other companies he had just recently sign of the the boards of..." [from Mahel's Denial and Deception]Woolsey wrote: "By September, October maybe, of ’93, for about five million dollars that Joyce [Pratt] had scraped together from reprogramming money—$500,000 from this Program and $750,000 from that—and with the non-opposition of the relevant people on the Hill, because, since we were doing it by reprogramming and the numbers were so low, we could move fast. Miracle woman here [Pratt] comes up with my half-a-million here, half-a-million there, and we get the thing going.
It has to do with having a link through what is called a Schweizer aircraft, which is essentially a powered glider, that we had up above the Adriatic. We had an old abandoned air base in Albania with a trailer on it with just a couple or three people in the trailer. We got the use of the air base from the Albanians by giving them some blankets. We had a bunch of leftover blankets for the mules that had been going into Afghanistan, and the Albanians were in such poor shape they needed the blankets, so we gave them a lot of blankets and they gave us this abandoned air base to use.
I remember hav[ing] a kind of a primitive e-mail exchange with the guy in the van in northern Albania who was flying this thing with a joystick, linking through the Schweizer to the UAV that was up over somewhere in Bosnia. I could say, What are we looking at? He’d say, Well, that’s Mostar. We’re coming up from the south. I’d say, What’s that in front of it? Well, that’s the bridge. You see, there’s a guy starting to get on the bridge. I’d say, What’s he got on his head? Looks like a funny big hat. You want me to zoom? Yes, zoom. Let’s look at the hat. Zoom. Yes, funny big hat. That’s fall, winter of ’93-’94. So when some of our friends from the Pentagon who had said it was going to take six years and cost $500 million got word and came out to see it, they were kind of, 'Wow!'
I don’t think it had flown yet when I stepped down in early ’95. But before I stepped down I remember asking Abe, This new stretch thing we’re doing, what are we going to call it? He said, We’ve been talking about that. We think maybe, ‘Predator'."
"September or October" - HRCWoolsey wrote:" I had an intense and close relationship with the First Lady at her 20th Yale Law School reunion, and my 25th. I’m five years older than they are. ... I am standing around and I see, coming in the door, a classmate from law school I hadn’t seen in 20-plus years. I step out to go say hello to him and I feel something soft under my foot, and a female voice says, 'Ouch!' I look down and I am standing on the First Lady’s foot. [laughter]"
Fall 1993 - Two Covert Action Quarterly articles : "No More Mr. Nice Guy - The CIA in Search of Something to Do" & "Woolsey's Good Connections"
Oct 13, 1993 - [NYT article on Corporate Espionage]Woolsey wrote:"Israel has sold advanced military technology to China for more than a decade and is moving to expand its cooperation with Beijing ... China has been acquiring advanced military technology from Israel for more than a decade on programs for jet fighters, air-to-air missiles and tanks ... the sale of Israeli military technology to China "may be several billion dollars." Israel and China did not establish diplomatic relations until 1992."
OCT 23, 1993: Haiti Disinfo
Woolsey and the CIA's chief Latin American analyst, Brian Latell, brief Congress with disinformation on exiled President Aristide's scheduled return to Haiti falsely asserting that Aristide had been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment in Montreal during the early 1980s and was promoting mob violence. Woolsey personally gave closed-door briefing to some senators to spread his disinfo. Woolsey and Latell were citing a Bush-era classified CIA psychiatrist assessment of Aristide in an operation that "slowed the momentum of the U.S. campaign to return Aristide to power, fortified the Haitian leader's critics and embarrassed President Clinton, who supports Aristide's return to power." The Miami DEA Chief unsuccessfully attempt to link Aristide to the Columbian cocaine business may have also part of this operation. So might the giving of U.S. reconnaissance photos to the Miami Herald showing hundreds of "sailboats" ready "for a massive exodus of Haitians to South Florida" that never occurred.
Woolsey's claim about psychiatric treatment will be debunked by December and his propaganda about Arsitide encouraging violence was a purposefully distortion of a video-taped Aristide speech where he said "Your equipment in hand, your trowel in hand, your pencil in hand, your Constitution in hand. Don't hesitate to give him what he deserves. What a beautiful tool! What a beautiful instrument! What a beautiful piece of equipment! It's beautiful, yes it's beautiful, it's cute, it's pretty, it has a good smell, wherever you go you want to inhale it." Woolsey claimed Aristide was talking "necklacing" – placing a gasoline-soaked tire around a person's neck and setting the tire ablaze.
Woolsey's partner, Brian Latell, is a Latin American specialist for Georgetown University, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Hoover Institute and the CIA. He is also interested in spy satellites and was co-editor of Eye in the Sky, a history of the Corona reconnaissance satellite program (1998). He is a vehement anti-Cuban and blames Castro for killing JFK. The following year, Latell is promoted to director of the C.I.A. division responsible for declassifying and publishing CIA documents. Woolsey had pledged to continue declassifying documents "warts and all". [see May 29, 1997]Nearly two decade later, in a 2010 oral history, Woolsey was still promoting his Haiti disinfo giving a sample of what he said in those closed door meetings, "I don’t know whether the Agency will want to have this in or not—Aristide is really bipolar and was very much on medication. You could see it if you ever talked to him. If he was on the good side of things, he is as friendly and articulate and smart as people get. If he is on the dark side, he’s perfectly happy to be ranting at a torchlight rally, and putting tires around people’s necks and pouring gasoline into them and lighting it—necklacing them. Since a number of them really wanted Aristide to be the Thomas Jefferson of Haiti, it was very difficult for them to avoid the conclusion that this was just a bunch of CIA folks protecting these damn Tonton-Macoutes that had been in their pay."
Dec 2, 1993
The Haiti disinfo campaign explodes in Woolsey's face. Aristide had completely denied Woolsey's claims and authorized all of his medical records to be searched. The Miami Herald checked those records and found the Lafontaine Hospital in Montreal and three other facilities categorically denied it had ever treated Aristide. Caught red-handed by Congress and the Miami Herald "Woolsey gamely pretended there was no egg on Langley's face" appearing on Larry King Live and American Public Radio to say that "the CIA had been pretty good on Haiti" but now following the Whitehouse line by saying that Aristide "would be a very reasonable choice to support."
A senator briefed by Woolsey said it was a "public character assassination of President Aristide based on flimsy second and third-hand information." Even National Security Council staff bluntly admitted it was "a textbook case of the politicization of intelligence." Many senators were angry for being lied to.Woolsey wrote:"I had 205 appointments on the Hill in 1993, Congress was in session 195 days ... At one point for example I sat beside one of my analysts for 29 hours before a number of different committees, because his judgment about Haiti had been called into question, and we answered questions from a large number of individual congressmen, mainly senators, on precisely what type of judgments we made about President Aristide and why.
Woolsey and Latell have never offered further proof or explanation for their actions but Strobe Talbott gives some insight: "Woolsey had a real bee in his bonnet about Haiti and Aristide. There were a lot of pressures building indicating that we really had to do something about the horror developing on Haiti, and Woolsey’s message was, 'You know, you can’t do it, it’s trouble, don’t touch that thing, don’t touch that guy'. That was the centerpiece of it. The intelligence product kept getting in the way of clear thinking because of these deep, deep biases there. And not least because the intelligence community was heavily invested in the old regime there."
The US has always feared and hated the world's oldest black republic as an example of a successful slave rebellion. Two years after Woolsey's briefing, the infamous Republican racist Jesse Helms was still presenting the "now-discredited CIA document on the Senate floor" claiming Aristide was "psychotic" to pass "a stream of bills ordering U.S. troops out of Haiti, terminating a host of infrastructure-building initiatives there." Until the liberation-theology inspired Aristide won Haiti's first democratic election in 1990, Haiti had been ruled by a succession of CIA-backed, US army-trained dictators.
The Republicans despise Haiti and even "Clinton NSA Anthony Lake bragged to Congress about how the CIA and USAID were going to handpick a new Haitian Parliament to balance Aristide." DynCorp (whose stock Woolsey refused to sell when he became DCI) was picked by CIA to train and deploy the new Haitian National Police as part of the World Bank deal. When UN troops pulled out of Haiti, DynCorp advisers remained.
Nov 19 - Economic Club of ChicagoWoolsey wrote:"Let be quite clear about this. The CIA is not going to be in the business that a number of our friends' and allies' intelligence services are in: spying on foreign corporations for the benefit of domestic business." [Woolsey will later publicly admit that the CIA does exactly this]
(November 30) - Woolsey on CNN’s Larry King Show stated that the new Clinton administration "wished to disclose historical material in a spirit of new openness."
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(December 13) - UFO briefing for the Woolseys
Jim and Susan Woolsey are given a briefing by UFOlogist Steve Greer at a house in Arlington. At the beginning of the year Steven Peterson approached Greer after a UFO lecture in Colorado to communicate a request by Woolsey to forward the best information he had on UFOs. During this same period Peterson was passing documents from UFOlogist Stanton Friedman to Woolsey. Peterson was the director of the Arlington Institute where Woolsey was a member and they were working on a some sort of report "under contract from the Coast Guard."
Greer claims he and Peterson were "working very closely" and, in December, Peterson would set-up a 'briefing' between the Woolseys and Greer under the 'cover story' of a dinner party arranged using FedEx memos, codewords and demands of secrecy. Greer says Secret Service agents waited outside the house as he presented Woolsey with a "white paper" on UFOs. Interestingly Greer's "initial thought" about the Woolsey meeting was "that [he] was being set-up."
Both Peterson and Woolsey encouraged Greer's UFO paranoia. Peterson told Greer that, "meetings with people like Woolsey must be kept very closely guarded. I have not even told [my wife] about it... Remember: the most powerful people in the world will have a deep, compelling interest in our activities and will use everything at their disposal to effect their objectives.” Woolsey's performance during the briefing by Greer is equally dramatic, stopping Greer just 10 minutes into his talk to say he knows that UFOs are real but he wants to no why that info is being hidden from him and Clinton(!).
As Greer tells it: "I mean there were times when, well, [Woolsey] would just hold his head in his hands going, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh! Oh! Wow!’ I mean he was just exclaiming as we went through documents that we have acquired, as we went through cases, as we went through photographic evidence, as we went through other types of scientific evidence... He was almost in tears...I can’t release what I don’t have access to....He felt terribly wronged that something like this would not be something that he would have found out about after many months of being at the top of the intelligence community."
Susan Woolsey joined in by relating her own UFO sighting in the 1960s and asking how the aliens can communicate over light-years in distance. She may have a significant role in this because Greer was recruited in her home base of Colorado and she was still interested enough in the topic to "attend a special briefing that Greer set up for members of Congress in the spring of 1997."
Greer is a well-connected UFO conspiracy theorist and his attempt to get the US government to confess to having UFOs included contacting Barry Goldwater, Admiral Bobby Inman (NSA/SAIC) and "senior members of the Clinton administration, the Presidents’ closest friends, and the Bruce Lindsay family, the President’s Science Advisor, Tony Lake, senior people in Al Gore’s office, his Chief of Staff, as well as Al Gore, and many of his personal friends." Also among these insiders was a senior scientist at the Naval Research Labs, Richard Foch, who claims he saw plans preparing the attacks in Cheney's Vice-President office. Foch's job at the Naval Research Labs was "aerospace engineer" and "chief test pilot" for expendable military drones (with overlapping interest in next generation fuel cells, electronic warfare and putting UAVs into orbit).
Greer's entrance to this elite world was facilitated by Pamela Churchill-Harriman, the same grande dame who hosted the initial meeting between Woolsey and Bill Clinton: "Harriman and two other well-connected ladies have formed a rather secretive group known only by the initials BSW, partially funded by Laurence Rockefeller. Harriman and co. have taken under their collective wing UFO researcher Steven Greer, an emergency room physician who asserts that he has contacted off-worlders on a number of occasions." During the 1990s Laurence Rockefeller was using heavy elite pressure to have the Clinton administration disclose any UFO secrets.
In the wake of the briefing Petersen relayed to Greer that Woolsey had searched but "the files weren’t there." Whatever Woolsey's motives, he did order another review of all CIA files on UFOs in "late 1993". Three years later the “CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-1990” by NRO historian Gerald Haines was published using de-classified info to reveal that half of all UFO sightings in the 50’s and 60’s were actually US secret spy planes (a reversal of a 1950s CIA report claiming most UFOs were environmental effects).
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(December 16) - Aspin Resigns after "concluded that President Clinton had lost confidence in his leadership ... Senior Administration officials said that Mr. Clinton had decided to shake up his national security team and that Mr. Aspin became the odd man out both because of his public stumbles and because he lacked the close personal ties to Mr. Clinton. Mr. Aspin and the White House budget director, Leon E. Panetta, have squared off over a $50 billion shortfall the Pentagon suddenly faced in its long-range plan. That would put Mr. Clinton in the almost untenable position of taking money from domestic programs to pay for an increase in military spending."
UNDATED :
Tokenism, Pinkwashing, Greenwashing, 'lean' management fads, Intell reform (Woolsey "tried to break down [Directorate of Operations/Directorate of Intelligence] stovepipes so that you could get the very best estimates possible" by " just kind of mov[ing] people around.")- Woolsey conformed to the new administration’s mandatory program aimed at preventing sexual harassment and affirmative-action plan requiring the agency’s deputy directors “to identify the top 50 positions in their directorates” and to collect data on “the percentage of minorities who apply, and the number selected” for these slots. Although Woolsey was careful to state that “we have not and will not set down quotas,”
- the digital mammograms -Woolsey wrote: "Assistant Secretary for Women’s Health said, Jim, this is a strange request, I[but] I’m calling everybody that has any R&D money. We have algorithms that are very sensitive for denoting changes in imagery ... like looking through hundreds of thousands of acres for the mobile missiles... We took these algorithms and turned them onto a large number of mammograms that had been given to us by Dr. Daniel Kopans at Harvard."
- pushing the use of satellite photos for environmental assessment
- Woolsey associated the Intelligence Community with Al Gore's “National Performance Review” and established an 'Intelligence Community Quality Council' to push “total quality management” principles. [Woolsey's Deputy] Studeman was an untiring advocate of improved managerial techniques throughout the community and took a strong interest in activities sponsored by the small CMS staff element supporting this initiative.
- Bill Studeman ("his deputy")
Last edited by Hobb on Sat 3 Aug 2019 - 0:33; edited 27 times in total
Hobb- Admin
- Posts : 1671
Join date : 2015-03-31
Age : 49
Re: R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Wed 14 Jun 2017 - 17:38
Woolsey's Annus Horribilis (1994)
- 1994 (click to open):
1994
Woolsey expands DCI Robert Gate's Counternarcotics Center (est. 1989) into the Crime and Narcotics Center run by 200, largely CIA, personnel. These sort of counter-terrorism and anti-drug 'fusion' centers are notorious deep state magnets.
Commercial use of intelligence imagery from satellites and aircraft-The Whitehouse wants to boost private-sector use of satellite imagery so Woolsey tells senior executive at aerospace firms deeply involved in classified reconnaissance operations to "drum up an industrial base for this." The administration begins granting licenses to U.S. companies to build high-resolution imaging satellites for domestic and foreign sale. Richard Haver, a senior executive with TRW, is approached by Woolsey. Lockheed will partnership with E-Systems Inc. to spending $150 million to develop a commercial remote sensor satellite system for aerial photography of the Earth.
(Jan)
(Jan) Woolsey appoints Hugh "Ted" E. Price the chief of covert operations (department of operations). After being dogged by the "directorate's troubled relationship with the Guatemalan military [and] scores of women accusing the clandestine service of sex discrimination" Price will retire three months (May 1995) after Woolsey is forced out.
(Jan 21) AP Wire speculate on DoD candidates after Clinton's first-choice, Bobby Ray Inman, rejects the offer. Candidates include Woolsey, Woolsey's "good friend" William Perry (Stanford, Aspen Group, DCI referent) and Norman Augustine, the Chairman of Martin Marietta where Woolsey was Director since 1991. Of the 3 closely interconnected candidates, Perry will get the nod.
(January 25) - Zapatista uprising hearing. The January 1st Zapatista uprising took the White House by surprise and they dispatched a shadowy five-member 'State Department' team to Mexico the following day. Soon after Congress grilled Woolsey on this latest intelligence failure asking if there had been a cover-up between Woolsey and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the subject.
Some suspected that the CIA had withheld suspicious of this uprising until after the NAFTA agreement had been signed. During a closed-door House Select Committee on Intelligence meeting about Mexico shortly before the November NAFTA vote, CIA analyst Brian Latell (who was working "very closely" with Anthony Lake and Woolsey) had warned that a defeat of NAFTA would bring "undesirable political and economic consequences" inside Mexico and "helped many members to overcome fears about NAFTA." Others questioned why the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) had suddenly granted half a million dollars to five Mexican "civic groups" in 1993 when the country had not even been of their radar in 1991.
Sen. Kerrey told Woolsey in a recriminating tone, "We did not get a prediction of potential political unrest in Chiapas [until] after the treaty was approved. No prediction was made." Woolsey gave no response. In a closed-door session later that day, CIA officials admitted an intelligence failure of omission but denied withholding information to persuade Congress to ratify NAFTA. "We asked if the NAFTA debate had been a factor, and there was no evidence of that, I cannot guarantee it, but that is what they said," said DeConcini.
(Feb): Woolsey presents a CIA report to the Senate Intelligence Committee predicting hyperinflation, unemployment and civil war in Ukraine and Crimea leading to Russian intervention. Left unstated is the Chicago School 'shock therapy' and IMF 'conditionalities' which caused hyperinflation and unemployment.
(Feb 21) - ALDRICH AMES ARRESTED
Ames and his wife are charged by the Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union and giving information that resulted in the deaths of a number of CIA assets.
Janet Andres, a career foreign service officer acting as Woolsey executive assistant: "George Tenet told me there wasn’t any interest in the White House in touching this. This is your problem. They washed their hands of it. The fallout from the case absorbed half our energies and time. Information was dribbling out constantly and we had to react. Every new revelation was greeted with, 'Boy, the CIA is really stupid!'"
Woolsey: "The morning he was arrested, when the morning began, [FBI Director] Freeh and I had an agreement that we’d hold a joint press conference, and in mid-morning the Bureau called and pulled out of that, and ran the press conference themselves. From that moment on, it was a full court press by the Bureau to get complete control of all counterintelligence. [...] In the aftermath, the FBI and the Senate Intelligence Committee produced a statutory reform that not only gave the Bureau a role in counter-intelligence at the Agency domestically in the U.S., so that’s fine, but also effectively gave the Bureau control over counter-intelligence overseas in the sense of penetrating foreign intelligence services. I went to every member of the House Committee, and we worked and we got it modified so that at least that didn’t manifest itself in a radical change. That took me untold hours of working the Hill, because DeConcini again was absolutely committed to have his way."
In the wake of Ames's arrest, Woolsey doggedly fought for his agency like a lawyer defending a client, refusing to concede there were major shortcomings or even to fire anyone.
(Feb. 25) - Disastrous CIA townhall meeting
The day after the arrest of Ames was announced, Woolsey met with several hundred C.I.A. officers in the agency's auditorium in a speech that was seen on closed-circuit television by every employee as a televised "town hall".
After some bland re-assurances about Ames, the issue of Woolsey's refusal to take a polygraph exam as other directors had done prompted one employee to demand an explanation. Woolsey said that presidential appointees are already subject to Senate confirmation so they should not have to endure a 'second trial by machine'. Further he was "skeptical" about the polygraph's effectiveness and wanted to hear first from a special commission on government security matters before agreeing to take it. The five minutes explaining why he was above the law "sickened many officers, according to one who watched [who] point[ed] out privately that they, too, have questions about the efficacy of the polygraph but are required to take the test every five years or lose their jobs."
(March 8 ) - Spies, Lies, Averted Eyes [NYT]
Two weeks after it occurs the NYT reveals Woolsey's 'CIA town hall' fiasco. "As for that polygraph test that Mr. Woolsey wouldn't take, he shouldn't overlook the importance of symbolism. When he arrogantly refuses to submit to the same security procedure as everyone else, he not only shows that he condones unconscionable laxity. He suggests that he is not up to the task of correcting it. [...Woolsey's actions...] underscores how effectively the C.I.A. has covered up its own incompetence. For contrary to news reports and to the impression Mr. Woolsey conveyed, the polygraph was accurate in Mr. Ames's case. According to several people inside and outside the agency who are familiar with the results, he failed all three tests the C.I.A. gave him after he allegedly began spying in 1985."
(March 9) - WOOLSEY TO JOIN CIA POLYGRAPH TEST CLUB [WP]
The day after the NYT anti-Woolsey article, a gossip column in the Washington Post does damage control by quoting a "CIA official" who assures that Woolsey "is prepared to submit to a routine polygraph examination, fulfilling one of the agency's longstanding requirements for new employees. He fully intends to take the polygraph. The captain has to conform with the requirements laid on the crew."
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(March 15) The CIA publishes an executive report to cover themselves if Rwanda explodes. The report was poorly sourced but luridly sub-titled "300-500,000 potential deaths" and was sent to the National Security Adviser to ensure the NSC could not blame the CIA for lack of foreknowledge. Woolsey would later glance at the title of the report and exclaim, "We are out of the frying pan on this one."
(April) - Rwanda Massacres
Woolsey: "We didn’t need UAVs in Rwanda ... we knew what was happening."
(April) - CIA uncover Clinton's "amber-light" to Iranian arms ships to Croatia.
Since 1992 Iran had been trying to ship arms to Muslims in the Croatian civil war. Clinton at the urging of his NSC chief Anthony Lake and the U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, now unofficially approved a Iran-Croatia arms route. The operation run through the State Department and NSC cutting out the CIA.
Woolsey claims to discovers this 'off-the-books' operation through CIA's SIGINT and HUMINT. The SIGINT came from CIA/NRO satellite photos showing multiple deliveries of munitions to Croatia via Turkey and Bosnia. These shipments were originating in Iran or being purchased and shipped with Iranian backing. The scale of the deliveries suggested the "active acquiescence" of the White House.
The HUMINT source arose on May 2, when Ambassador Galbraith ask the CIA station chief in Zagreb, Bosnia, to rely instructions to the Croatian government obliquely concerning the smuggling. The CIA chief begins compiling evidence on the Ambassador and then senior CIA officials took the evidence to Woolsey to create a formal "paper trail" ensuring that they could not be accused later of trying to cover up the matter. Woolsey seemed genuinely shocked by the evidence and quickly took it to the White House. "He either didn't know about it or was doing the best acting job I've ever seen," one source said.
Woolsey "hit the roof" not only because he was cut out of the loop but because "the ploy looked just like [a] covert action previously rejected." Deputy Secretary Talbott did not divulge to Woolsey "that there was a new U.S. policy" but advised that "Galbraith was going beyond his instructions."Woolsey wrote:"Mr. Talbott ... said that Ambassador Galbraith was of the view of the United States should show, as he put it, 'the amber light' to such deliveries; [but] that he had been told clearly and tartly that the ambassador should simply say that he had no instructions and that he should not hint that he had wiggle room."
(April 21) - Senate hearing
Woolsey's larger narrative is that organized crime syndicates from Russia, Asia, and Africa are forming alliances with traditional Italian and Latin American organizations to create a 'jungle of snakes' that need to be killed.Woolsey wrote:"Organized crime is so rampant in Russia that it threatens Boris Yeltsin's presidency and raises concern that syndicates will obtain and smuggle Russian nuclear weapons to terrorists or foreign agents."
(April 28) - Ames' Speech
In a moment "Woolsey had been dreading " Ames gives a damning account of the CIA from the Alexandria city jail. After first confessing to betraying all the US agents he knew to the Soviet on a whim that is "still not entirely explicable, even to [himself]".Ames then described the CIA as a: wrote: "self-serving sham, carried out by careerist bureaucrats who have managed to deceive several generations of American policy makers and the public about both the necessity and the value of their work. There is and has been no rational need for thousands of case officers and tens of thousands of agents working around the world, primarily in and against friendly countries. The information our vast espionage network acquires at considerable human and ethical costs is generally insignificant or irrelevant to our policy makers’ needs. Our espionage establishment differs hardly at all from many other federal bureaucracies, having transformed itself into a self-serving interest group, immeasurably aided by secrecy. Now that the cold war is over and the Communist tyrannies largely done for, our country still awaits a real national debate on the means and ends—and costs—of our national security policies. To the extent that public discussions of my case can move from government-inspired hypocrisy and hysteria to help even indirectly to fuel such a debate, I welcome and support it.”Tim Weiner's view on Woolsey's reaction wrote: "As a lawyer [Woolsey] knew Ames must have his say, but ... from the CIA’s perspective, the speech Ames delivered was nothing but another act of treason. And the worst thing was that the press and the Congress would take him seriously, as if he were some savant on the Sunday-morning talk shows. They did. Suddenly a traitor was setting the terms of debate about the CIA’s future."
(May) - Scatter the CIA to the winds?
Since 1991, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, a former vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had been arguing that the CIA’s analytical functions should be given to the State Department, its paramilitary capabilities transferred to the Pentagon, spy catching left to the FBI, and the Agency itself given a decent burial. He had put those ideas into writing in an “End of the Cold War” bill. It never really had been meant as legislation but as a rhetorical device. After Ames’s speech, even some conservatives started paying attention to Moynihan’s proposal. DeConcini and Representative Glickman, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, were calling the CIA “a cult.”
A week after Ames’s speech, Senator John Warner, a Virginia Republican not known as a radical, told Woolsey to his face in an open hearing of the Senate intelligence committee that not one or two, but many senators would support Moynihan’s bill if it were introduced.
A few minutes later, Senator Dennis DeConcini, the chairman of the committee, exploded in anger at Woolsey for refusing to consider the committee’s ideas on improving counterintelligence and spy catching. “It’s a disgrace, what’s happened, and the American public is losing confidence in our intelligence,” the senator said. “There is more and more mail coming to me and questions all the time. ‘How much do we spend?’ I can’t say. ‘Is it this much?’ Well, that’s what’s been reported in the press. ‘How can you spend that much on intelligence and have this kind of operation?’ And ‘Why doesn’t somebody eliminate the CIA?', as Senator Moynihan says.’ I mean, that’s a real fear here. If you think for a moment that this is a passing feeling—”
(SPRING) DCI/DoD budgetary partnership
Woolsey continues to ally with the Pentagon in a variety of ways. Primarily to fight budget cuts by presenting a unified front but also in an array of “joint reviews” and "Executive Boards" on topics like "military intelligence" and led by himself and the deputy secretary of defence (first William Perry then John Deutch).
These "joint reviews" give plenty of examples of Woolsey continuing of Robert Gate's importing of corporate culture into intelligence, like the DCI/DoD “Redefining Security” joint report that emphasized a “risk management” cost/benefit approach to security threats.
According to Woolsey, one "very important" 'joint review' resulted in upgrading the NRO's "high-altitude satellite architecture" with the Jeff Harris' "8X satellite constellation" at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion. The new satellites would have an apogee 8 times that of a standard KeyHole satellite orbit (i.e. reconnaissance US military satellites).Woolsey wrote:"The new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, DeConcini of Arizona, very much wanted to kill this Program. We had a big argument about it. We eventually prevailed. Jeff Harris was the Director of NRO by this time."
(Spring) - INTELINK
Building on another Gates/CMS initiative, Woolsey & Deutch created the Intelligence Systems Secretariat (ISS) to make the government's 16 intelligence agencies more interoperable.
The ISS was led by the DIA's Steve Schanzer to create a private Internet - INTELINK - a year before the first commercial websites came online. INTELINK appropriated a classified, private network, a "top secret backbone, analogous to the Internet" - with no links at all to the public Internet. "JWICS provided the changes were so consequential that Schanzer briefed 10 Downing Street.
Woolsey placed a senior DOD officer in charge of establishing the system, and DOD elements in the community adopted it. The CIA was concerned about the security of the system but participated in it at ordinary levels of classification. NSA provided all the technologies.Woolsey wrote:"We essentially had created a classified version of AOL, in gathering the use of some of their software, which we were hosting to allow this classified interaction, and Bill [Clinton] signed the waiver that allowed people to post. What pleases me greatly is the bureaucracy has allowed the six-month waiver that was signed during 1993 to still be in place. They have not reissued it. It has vestigially become the rule of order. All of the systems that currently provide for interactive sharing of classified materials inside the U.S. government, basically were spawned by Schanzer in that initiative."
(June)- Jimmy Carter in NORTH KOREAWoolsey wrote: "We’re sitting in the NSC with the President and Vice President, and the President’s secretary comes in and interrupts the meeting. It was the only time I’d ever seen her do that. She said, 'I’m really sorry, but former President Carter has just called from Pyongyang. He’s about to go on CNN and he’d like to talk to Tony Lake'. So Tony went out to talk to him.
Somewhere there’s a photograph of half-a-dozen of us—the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, me—watching CNN, trying to see what former President Carter was saying and what constraints we would be under in making this decision in the Clinton administration. It was a really very interesting moment in modern TV-age diplomacy. Of course he knew what he was doing.
I still think—I made a careful study of it—that Carter’s intervention at that time essentially was part of what tied Clinton’s hands in his ability to consider at least the option of using force.
President Carter has a particular ability to deal with rogues, political leaders who the rest of the world regards as unacceptable. I think he feels like he can understand them. There were, at least superficially, comparable incidents that occurred in the Bosnia episode and Haiti (where Carter went down and developed a relationship with Cedras)."
(June)- Testimony before the International Organizations, International Security and Human Rights Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. House of Representatives
Woolsey sourly notes that working with the Russian security and intelligence services is nothing like collaborating with the "honest" services of Hong Kong, Britain, Italy, or Germany, and that newly installed "electronic fund transfer networks for banks in Russia" are under heavy Russian intelligence influence if not control.
(June 22-23) THE GORE-CHERNOMYRDIN COMMISSION
The third meeting of the U.S.-Russian Joint Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation. The Commission's original mandate was to support cooperation in the areas of space, energy, and high technology. Since then, the Commission has expanded its scope to include other areas of U.S.-Russian cooperation, such as business development, defense conversion and the environment. James Woolsey served on the Advisory Committee To The U.S. Chairman
(July) Elements of the Iranian arms to Yugoslavian Muslims pipeline emerge. Main US players include Holbrooke (State Dept), Clark (JCS) and Galbraith (Ambassador). The CIA Director of Operation, Ted Price, oppose this version of the plan.
(July) A Federal lawsuit by a female C.I.A. officer, Janine M. Brookner, a former station chief, says the agency tolerates abusive behavior toward women. By December the C.I.A. will agree to pay $410,000 to settle the suit.
(July) Woolsey announces a "comprehensive strategic plan" for restructuring the CIA.
Talk of Clinton cutting the CIA numbers creates an out-cry among the usual hawks but they had nothing to worry about. The unclassified body of literature provides no information on the progress of restructuring. Personnel reduction may be the transfer of CIA personnel to newly unclassified NRO or other type of "shell game by claiming reductions when employees are actually being shifted among the Agency's directorates, or to other intelligence agencies." Nor did Woolsey "specify a base year against which future reductions can be measured."
Woolsey presided over a CIA workforce estimated at anywhere from 10-30,000 with 18,500 being a likely figure. This number declined slightly under Carter and then rebounded under Reagan, peaking in the mid-1980s at over 20,000. The Woolsey plan "directed the cuts away from the D.O." but will eliminate some 1,700 administrative jobs by the end of the decade. [Woolsey, DCI ,'National Security and the Future direction of the Central Intelligence Agency,' Address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., July 18,1994]
(July 18) - Woolsey's Center for Strategic and International Studies speech
Knowing that he is "on friendly ground and had an audience that could speak and understand his language" in the CSIS basement auditorium, Woolsey tries to re-frame the Ames affair and address the larger crisis in the CIA. He had to "walk two tightropes at once. He had to buck up his demoralized troops while criticizing their work and their conduct."
After using the word "treason" (the first time the Clinton administration applied it to Ames' acts) and attacking Ames as a "Benedict Arnold" and a "warped, murdering traitor wanted a bigger house and a Jaguar", Woolsey addressed the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, saying that it was time to make “important changes in that culture” by making a “fundamental assessment of the entire structure and operations of the Directorate of Operations, a directorate which is on the front lines of espionage.” Woolsey wanted to "change the culture of the C.I.A" so that it will not be "a fraternity . . . wherein once you are initiated, you're considered a trusted member for life." He acknowledged that the Ames case revealed an institutional carelessness that bordered on criminal negligence and concluded that "not only that no one was watching, but no one cared."
Woolsey's ultimate answer was to set-up an oversight inquiry. This disappointed many because "such boards had been created and destroyed for forty years, their criticism stamped TOP SECRET, filed, and forgotten, and not one had made much of a difference [...except...] snippets have been discovered through the diligent work of a few historians granted exceptional access to presidential archives."
When Ames heard of Woolsey's remarks comparing him to Benedict Arnold a few weeks later he remarked the comparison was “rather flattering."
(AUGUST) New NRO headquarters controversy
The next disaster for Woolsey is when the Senate discovers that his beloved NRO is getting a new HQ, a $310 million fact that had been incompletely hidden from them. After several senators protested to him, Clinton declassified the existence of the proposed headquarters. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence claimed that the HQ, being secretly built near Dulles International Airport, was concealed from Congress. The HQ had been publicly described as an office complex for Rockwell International Corp., the Los Angeles-based defense contractor. The contractor was Collins International Service Corp., a Rockwell subsidiary with experience in building high-security facilities.
Woolsey again allies with the Pentagon and Navy to set-up their own review into the NRO HQ project. Yet Woolsey's DoD ally, John Deutch, also his own scheme in action.TIM WEINER wrote: "With great fanfare, Senators DeConcini and Warner announced that they had been duped [about the NRO HQ]. A hearing was scheduled. Placed in the difficult position of explaining in public how intelligence agencies perform in secret, Mr. Woolsey, jaw jutting, told the Senators they were being disingenuous. Mr. Deutch, by contrast, confessed error. Woolsey's approach won him little. Mr. Deutch's penance won him credibility. That would stand him in good stead in an era when some in Congress are calling for revolutionary, not evolutionary, changes in intelligence."
Woolsey is convinced that the controversy is being politically driven by the Air Forces' rivalry with the NRO and its new director, Jeff Harris. At stake is the independence of the NRO within the Department of Defense.Woolsey wrote:"The Senate Intelligence Committee, staff and some members, in part because of the desire to consolidate the NRO and not have it operate under stovepipes with one part of the Army, one part of the Navy, (and competing satellite programs) et cetera, became enamored of the idea of a new headquarters.
[The Washington Times' Bill Gertz] gets hold of this and there is an article about this secret new building. The Air Force hates the NRO. They will make a stink out of this. Cheney is absolutely convinced to this hour that he was right about that.
DeConcini calls a public hearing. We declassify a lot of material. Actually there’s a Washington Post picture of me carrying a giant box in with all of our stuff that we’re going to give out to the press, give out to the committee, run through in public the large number of meetings that were held— The press effectively didn’t report the House hearing. We had a whole chronology of all the hearings."
The roles of "Woolsey's boy", Jeff Harris, seems too important. The Washington Post notes "by law, the Pentagon official said, the director of the [NRO] is the assistant secretary of the Air Force for space. By coincidence, the official said, the person now in that job, Jeff Harris, is a CIA veteran."Richard Haver wrote:"This was about getting Woolsey and getting Woolsey’s boy [Jeff] Harris, and getting to his space programs."Woolsey wrote:"One of my proud possessions is a T-shirt that Jeff and Joyce made up for me that has a picture taken in these hearings of him leaning over my shoulder, and I’ve got the microphone blocked while I’m listening to him before I respond to the Committee and I’m asking, "How many zeros in a billion?" [laughter]
(August) - HPSCI & SSCI Hearings
Woolsey's continued stonewalling earns the ire of Senator Metzenbaum & SSCI Chairman DeConcini.
Metzenbaum, noting that he had “made almost a career out of trying to get the CIA’s budget made public,” said that Woolsey “won’t even agree to tell the American people the full cost of U.S. intelligence programs”.
Woolsey’s uncompromising positions, according to some aides and supporters, has also produced a poor relationship with intelligence staffers, in addition to alienating SSCI Chairman DeConcini. DeConcini’s extreme discontent with DCI Woolsey’s management of the CIA had become common knowledge on Capitol Hill.Representative Norman Dicks wrote:“I think this is a personal vendetta between Dennis DeConcini and Jim Woolsey. I think DeConcini is trying to do everything he can to destroy Jim Woolsey’s reputation.”
(September 26)- "Global Organized Crime: Threats to U.S. and International Security." Woolsey's presentation to CSIS's Conference on Global Organized Crime.
(Late September) - The Ames Affair
Woolsey decided that 11 senior officers would receive official reprimands in the Ames case with no one fired or demoted. Woolsey refused to dismiss or demote any for the "systemic failure." Instead he sent letters of reprimand to six former senior officers and five still on duty, including the Department of Operation chief, Hugh "Ted" Price.
When Woolsey presented this decision to a closed session House intelligence committee "he made a bad impression ... [of a] CIA no different from any other bureaucracy [that had] lost the vibrancy of its unique mission." Woolsey's repeated references to the civil liberties of his personnel, rather than the impact of their actions on the agency "go to the heart of his credibility."Woolsey wrote:"DeConcini accused me of acting like a civil rights lawyer."
Lieutenant General Bill Odom, who had run the National Security Agency under Reagan, said, "I would disembowel the CIA. It's contaminated."
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), said the CIA's situation after Ames was comparable to a company that had lost almost half its production. If Woolsey were head of that company, "I'd say he had to fire the whole group," Lewis said. “People were killed, after all,” said Senator Dennis DeConcini.
It went no better on September 28 when Woolsey summoned reporters up to the seventh floor of the CIA to make public his verdict on the Ames case.
(Sept. 29) - CIA runs a covert operation against Woolsey
One DO officer, Milton Bearden, is reprimanded by Woolsey for "very serious" failures and is the only reprimanded officer still on the payroll. Either "the following day" or "just hours later" some senior DO staff present Bearden with an achievement award for running the "Afghan Task Force from 1986 to 1989 and smuggling more than a billion dollars’ worth of weapons into Afghanistan". A week later, the head of the DO, Ted Price, explains to Woolsey "that two of his best people had run a covert operation on him" because "the award had been an act of defiance, triggered by Woolsey’s failure to mete out discipline in a coherent way." Tim Weiner argues "that the granting of the award to Bearden was insubordination that helped doom Woolsey, leaving the impression that he had lost control of the agency."
An angry Woolsey summons the men involved to immediately demoted them but they quit instead. Congressional committees that oversee the C.I.A. noted that the punishments against the two men were more severe than any meted out in the Ames case. A CIA spokesman said "Woolsey acted more in sorrow than in anger when he demoted the two senior covert operators." The two senior officials were the CIA's associate deputy director of operations, John McGaffin, and the Near East operations chief, Frank Anderson.
McGaffin was already being questioned in a sex-bias lawsuit filed by Janine Brookner, the former C.I.A. station chief in Jamaica, who said she was denied promotions. None of this prevented the FBI from quickly hiring McGaffin in July 1995 as a senior adviser and counterintelligence consultant. MacGaffin insists his hiring by the FBI does not represent an affront to the CIA, “Before accepting the FBI offer, I consulted with senior CIA officials, with former heads of the CIA, officials at the National Security Council and representatives of the congressional oversight committees."
(Sept. 29) - NRO HQ joint review
Woolsey and Deputy Secretary of Defense Deutch issue a joint statement finding that the National Reconnaissance Office merely "failed to follow intelligence community guidelines" and pledged that future budget submissions would follow those guidelines and in turn would meet Congressional needs.
Deutch and Woolsey called an internal investigation led by Assistant Navy Secretary Nora Slatkin and CIA Deputy Counsel John Byerly that found the HQ cost were 'reasonable based on comparable military facilities.'
(Sept 30)
On September 30, just two days after Woolsey's presentation, Congress created the Aspin-Brown Commision, a commission on the future of the CIA. The commission was given sweeping authority that was seen in Washington "as stripping Woolsey of executive power and prodding him toward his decision to resign."
It took three months to select the members of the commission, four months to draft an agenda, and five months before the panel held its first formal meeting. Eventually the commission was virtually handed over to RAND. A senior staffer on the commission remarked to a colleague midway through the investigation that the Aspin-Brown panel was all about “gaining time” while the Clinton administration searched for a new DCI (to replace Woolsey) and tried to head off Moynihan’s calls for shutting down the CIA; the creation of a commission gave the public a sense that something was being done about these issues.
Commission members like Porter Goss (recruited by the CIA during his junior year at Yale) and Paul Wolfowitz, will be "influential members of the next president's inner circle."
Loch K. Johnson suggests that Woolsey was "intimidated" by the "DO regulars" into avoiding the tougher sanctions suggest by the CIA inspector general, Fred Hitz, and that a similar fate awaited Woolsey's successor, John Deutch, when he was booed for trying to discipline DO officers from improper activities in Guatemala. This is the most charitable motivation that could be ascribed to Woolsey's lifelong commitment to governmental unaccountability. When someone leaked details of the CIA Inspector General’s classified report on the damage done by Ames, an enraged Woolsey demanded that Hitz himself by investigated.
CIA inspector general, Fred Hitz: “The then-director of Central Intelligence, Jim Woolsey, thought I might have done it, so he put me on the polygraph. The FBI polygraphed me,” Hitz said, incredulously, “his own inspector general.” {LA Times Nov 1995}Woolsey wrote:"I deprived the system of catharsis by not firing anybody. I'm not going to fire somebody just to fire someone ... that’s not the American way."Janet Anders wrote:"It left was a real feeling of frustration on the part of some people in the Agency, and certainly the press, and the Congress and so forth. For many people, the fact that you didn’t fire anybody meant that you were protecting this old boy network and the fraternity, and that all just got morphed together. I think the whole Ames thing, after the arrest and everything, kind of played into the feeling that was already there on the part of some people on the Hill, and in the press, and to a certain extent in the public, that the CIA had a culture that was at odds with what we needed for the new post-Cold War era."
(OCT 1) - Woolsey doing Ames damage control on "MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour" stated "I considered myself as functioning here as, essentially, a judge in this matter."
(Oct. 12)— In a rare move Woolsey criticizes Israel [NYT/NBC]
Woolsey's assessment was provided in written responses to questions by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. The C.I.A.'s response to the committee was reported by NBC News and confirmed by a Committee aide.Woolsey wrote:"Israel has sold advanced military technology to China for more than a decade and is moving to expand its cooperation with Beijing, says R. James Woolsey. China has been acquiring advanced military technology from Israel for more than a decade on programs for jet fighters, air-to-air missiles and tanks. The CIA said the sale of Israeli military technology to China "may be several billion dollars." The Rand Corporation has made similar assessments."
(Oct) Rumors of Woolsey departure begin.Woolsey wrote:"There had been a press story or two in October that the White House wanted Woolsey to step down. So I called the Vice President’s office and went to see him. I asked Gore, Does the President want me to step down? He said, I don’t think so, but I’ll find out. He called me a couple of days later and I went down to see him and he said, No, I talked to him. He thinks you’re doing a fine job. "
(October) - Woolsey questions the technical legality of the Iran-Croatia pipeline prompting a top-secret six-month investigation.
Woolsey confronts Anthony Lake with evidence of the arms pipeline. Lake tells Woolsey that the United States "was merely standing mute and that was well short of the line that had been defended by President Bush's veto." Woolsey replies, "Fine. It may well be that this is all being done entirely properly, but it might be a good idea for the NSC lawyers to have a look." So Lake brings in White House counsel to refer it to the Intelligence Oversight Board for investigation. The board consists of four Clinton appointees unaffiliated with individual intelligence agencies. "This case is very, very sensitive and very highly classified," said White House counsel Mikva. Congress and Senate intelligence committees are not informed until much later.
IOB Chairman Anthony Harrington, a Washington attorney in private practice said the board began a classified investigation in November 1994. It examined whether the administration had conducted an illegal covert action by failing to issue a written "presidential finding"--a classified report that legally must be filed to explain the action's purpose--and by failing to notify the intelligence oversight committees in Congress. Harrington said the board concluded in May, in consultation with Mikva, that no U.S. laws had been broken because the administration's actions did not constitute a covert action under the legal definition of the term, so no "finding" or congressional notification was legally required.
The 'Holbrooke plan', as the Iran-Croatia arms pipeline is referred to, is rejected in "early November" due to "the CIA's doubts" about it.
(Oct) - Chalabi's INC is "providing a steady stream of low-ranking walk-ins from various Iraq army units and Republican Guard units who generally had interesting information" but there are also problems with Chalabi. CIA officers complained about "Chalabi's efforts to lobby Members of Congress" and his refusal to "act under CIA control." The CIA chief of Iraq Operations said Chalabi "came with some baggage." Chalabi insisted he was a political leader "not a US intelligence asset" and "that his strategy from the beginning was to get support INC from Congress".
Despite this friction Woolsey's CIA gave Chalabi an award in 1994 for "facilitating a cease-fire" between warring Kurdish militias. The next year the two Kurdish groups were fighting again.
(WINTER) - [Covert Action Quarterly] "The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is in the spotlight these days. The Aldrich Ames fiasco, sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits, the uproar over the new and luxurious National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) headquarters, and rumors of an impending shakeup at the top of the Agency have all received extensive attention."
(November) - A “constitutional” issue arose when Lt. Gen. James Clapper, USAF, who served as director of DIA sought to formalize for himself the title “Director of Military Intelligence". Woolsey believed it conjured the image of a DCI-like figure within DOD [who] could come to be viewed as a substitute for, or competitor with, the DCI. Woolsey’s objections carried the day, and DOD did not adopt the new title.
Gates/Woolsey's CMS publishes 'A Framework for US Intelligence in the 21st Century' bearing a seal devised in the early 1990s with the words “Director of Central Intelligence: Intelligence Community.”
(Nov 1) : The Senate Intelligence Committee issues a report sharply critical of the C.I.A. as missing chances to stop Ames earlier.
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(First week of December) - The French Interior Minister summons U.S. Ambassador Pamela Harriman to demand four American CIA agents to leave France. On the orders of the C.I.A. station chief in Paris, Dick Holm, the spies had been offering bribes to French officials to overcome French attempts to restrict U.S. television programming imports. Word was leaked to the Paris newspaper Le Monde around this time and a month later will be a major story.
On December 10, Daniel Schorr, a senior news analyst for NPR and "a friend with [Woolsey] whom I've shared many seminars" writes an article justifying the CIA's economic warfare. The FBI had expelled several French spies in 1989 and US intelligence operations had helped U.S. firms beat French companies for a $6 billion Boeing/McDonnell Douglas military contract with Saudi Arabia and a $1.4 billion contract for a Raytheon surveillance system in Brazil. So French counterintelligence went into a "crash program" of sting operations to catch CIA agents and soon caught the CIA "using bribery to find out about bribery."
Since Woolsey's "No more Mr. Nice Guy" speech publicly announcing that economic intelligence on allies like Japan, Germany and France was a major new priority for the C.I.A, "several top U.S. intelligence sources confirm that the CIA was indeed mobilizing its stations around the world in 1993 and 1994 to gather information about French business practices so as to 'level the playing field' [because] except for the South Koreans, the French are the only American ally that systematically conducts extensive espionage operations against us."
The C.I.A.'s Paris station had at least five operatives -- four officers posing as diplomats and a woman posing as the Paris representative of a private American foundation -- working on a two-pronged project. They were assigned to uncover French positions on world trade talks and to counter French economic espionage against American companies.
The undercover operative posing as a foundation representative made fundamental mistakes: communicating too openly with the C.I.A. station, communing too secretly with her target (a French official) and conducting a love affair with that official. Despite these danger signs, Holm wanted to carry on, and he convinced his boss. Sources say the operation was blown when the French uncovered one of the spies, a part-time contract employee with the CIA.
Ambassador Harriman managed to diffuse the affair, after Joseph DeTrani, chief of the Europe division of the C.I.A.'s clandestine service, was placed in administrative limbo but "U.S. officials quietly acknowledged the episode had far graver consequences than the Clinton Administration originally let on ... forced the CIA to suspend virtually all its operations in France earlier that year ... hampered the agency’s ability to gather information in France on such far-reaching subjects as terrorism, arms smuggling and the Middle East ... the episode so angered the French that they may have shared information about the CIA’s economic espionage activities with other European intelligence services, including those in Germany and Italy." John Deuth, who would replace Woolsey as DCI "traveled to Paris [in 1995] in an effort to smooth relations with both France and Harriman. Sources say Deutch was warned during a summer trip to Bonn that German officials would fight CIA efforts to engage in economic espionage inside their country. They also demanded that the CIA scale back its staff in Germany."
The case has frustrated senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill, some of whom complain that the CIA once again failed to keep Congress adequately informed of an espionage operation. "They didn't tell us anything before the operation blew," said one member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who declined to be identified. "They only told us about this at the time that it was hitting the papers." One senior lawmaker involved in intelligence oversight describes the French affair as a "cooler Guatemala"(see 1992).
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(December) - Final Trip to Saudis. Woolsey visited Saudi Arabia in December and "huddled with Prince Turki" to discuss a CIA station report on surveillance by Iranian agents and their Shiite allies in Riyadh. The month before Woolsey had forwarded false Saudi intelligence that a Hezbollah hit squad was after National Security Adviser Tony Lake, who was then moved into safehouse! CIA reporting about Iranian-sponsored terrorist threats inside Saudi Arabia continued at a high tempo throughout 1995. Because the Saudi intelligence service was so heavily focused on the Shiites, Prince Turki recalled, that later bombing by bin Laden–inspired Afghan veterans came “out of nowhere.”
(Christmas) - Woolsey claims he is "under so much stress that his sons sat him down over one Christmas vacation and insisted he resign for the sake of his health and his family." Woolsey pre-records a farewell address to the CIA, sends a letter of resignation to the White House by courier, and left town in a hurry.Woolsey wrote:"The family and I were going sailing, December 27th, down in the Virgin Islands for a week. So I wrote out a one-sentence resignation letter: Mr. President, it has been an honor to serve in your administration; 'I’d like to hereby submit my resignation.' On the 26th, I dropped it by the White House. I got a call at the office not long thereafter from Gore, asking, "Are you sure you really want to do this, Jim?"
(Dec 27) - Woolsey gets warm praise the night before his resignation from four of his predecessors in a CNN interview. James R. Schlesinger said in an interview with The Sun that "Woolsey would have done better in a time of greater international tension."
(Dec 28) - Woolsey resignsNYT wrote:"The White House said Mr. Woolsey's decision was his alone. Clinton said in a statement that he accepted the resignation with regret. A senior official in the Clinton Administration who worked with Mr. Woolsey said he was "really, really surprised" by the resignation. White House official said, "We did not solicit his resignation. We did not ask for it.
Woolsey, in a statement, said his family figured prominently in his decision. "For their patience and understanding in the face of lost evenings, weekends and holidays, it is time for recompense," he said.
Woolsey won strong support from the White House in protecting the $28 billion secret budget. He won praise from both the White House and Congress for streamlining the size and the cost of the nation's constellation of intelligence satellites, hugely expensive systems that take pictures and eavesdrop on telecommunications around the world.
White House officials gave Woolsey a cold shoulder, limiting his access to the President and stopping the daily briefings held in previous Administrations. Woolsey's relations with Congress were worse. He clashed repeatedly with the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Dennis DeConcini, an Arizona Democrat who openly detested Mr. Woolsey, and the feeling was mutual.
The Director was also unpopular with many covert-operations officers within the agency. Some of the personal attacks on him rose to the level of "character assassination," a senior C.I.A. official said today. Like most officials involved in intelligence operations, he spoke on condition of anonymity. "I'm an old friend of Jim's, but I don't think he succeeded in this job," one of Mr. Clinton's most trusted advisers said today. "He had an opportunity to be a new broom, and instead he was a defender of the status quo."
Woolsey had said as recently as 10 days ago that he would stay on the job. "
(December 30) - The List for C.I.A. Director Is Short, for a Good Reason: By TIM WEINER
"The early line today favors the Deputy Secretary of Defense, John M. Deutch, who has the backing of the outgoing leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senators Dennis DeConcini of Arizona and John W. Warner of Virginia. Mr. Deutch knows as much inside information about the intelligence agencies as anyone. Military intelligence agencies now overseen by Mr. Deutch and his boss, Defense Secretary William J. Perry, consume up to 85% of the intelligence budget. He and Mr. Woolsey conducted reviews on major intelligence issues this year, including studies of the hugely expensive programs for photoreconnaissance and electronic eavesdropping. Together these two programs consume perhaps a third of the nation's intelligence budget. "Why Did Woolsey Resign?
Woolsey endlessly repeated the joke that "when a small plane accidentally crashed on the White House lawn in 1994, it was me trying to see Clinton." His joke is an unfunny feint designed to overshadow how disastrous Woolsey time as DCI was.
From their first meeting Clinton was clear he did not want the CIA interfering in policy. According to Woolsey, "At one point [Clinton] said something along the lines of "Do you think the CIA Director ought to give policy advice?" I said, "No, I really don’t". I agreed with him that we shouldn’t do policy."
Despite this "Woolsey had tried to cultivate a more private relationship by accompanying the professional CIA briefer to his morning session at the White House. Knowing that presidents often invite the briefer -- and the CIA director if he is present -- for a dialogue about the intelligence memos, Woolsey made it a point to be there. But after cooling his heels for an hour each morning for two weeks outside the Oval Office, he gave up."
And he would later moan about this very topic complaining "we've done a very bad thing in the 1990s by the Clinton administration being so feckless and flaccid [...] decisions were not made on the advice of the people who are involved with intelligence. Indeed, the intelligence agencies during the Clinton administration were told they were not to give policy advice."
This lack of direct access did not stop Woolsey from trying to alter policy. He purposely leaked CIA disinformation to the Senate on Haiti to alter policy, he personally cultivated the dubious Chalabi and the INC, he stonewalled any attempts to cut intelligence budgets or make the CIA accountable. The Clinton Whitehouse had hired a neo-con warrior and they got one. The next Whitehouse administration would find themselves in the same situation.
Other difficulties with Clinton stemmed from the fact, as the official CIA history notes, “Woolsey loved the science and technology aspects of defense and intelligence matters" which lead to "strong disagreement" about Clinton’s desire to cut technical intelligence spending. Woolsey also "wanted to continue a rebuilding Program that Robert Gates, his predecessor as CIA director" began, whereas Clinton wanted to make a fresh start.
Nor had Woolsey's appointment staunched the growing neo-con criticism of Clinton's failure to militarily intervene in Bosnia, his compromises in Haiti including allowing the repatriation of Haitian refugees, and his failure "to get tough with China".
The Ames arrest, the NRO headquarters boondoggle, the Somalia ambush, the surprise of the Zapitisa uprising, his refusal to take a polygraph, his leaking of disinformation to alter policy, his stonewalling and arrogance, the fact he was a neo-con "Reagan Democrat" - all of these combined to cut Woolsey's time as DCI short.QUOTES
Tim Shorrock wrote:"Accounts of Woolsey’s two years at the CIA portray him as an arrogant intellectual who browbeat intelligence critics in Congress but was outmanoeuvred because of his lack of presidential support."Bill Perry wrote:"Jim was very unhappy, I would say bitter, departure from the job [because of] no access to the President."Halberstam wrote:Clinton never embraced Woolsey, because he was “Reagan Democrat. He simply could not get near the president ... was always a bad fit."Warren Christopher wrote:"It seems to me to be a chemistry issue, a personal chemistry issue between those two people. Woolsey was nominated without the President knowing him very well and Woolsey came into controversy with Colin Powell early in the meetings in the White House, and that was very tough competition because Colin is a past master in bureaucratic arguments. It was especially a devastating overmatch when Jim Woolsey began to express views on the operation of the Pentagon. I think that created a distance between the two."Sandy Berger wrote:"[Laughter] I don’t think that [Woolsey] was a good fit. Of course Jim leaves the scene after about a year. The CIA Director has to be somebody who is analytically impartial. We’ve run into problems recently where that’s not been the case. Jim’s an advocate, a lawyer, a litigator. He’ll fight you about a comma. I think there was a feeling that Jim was too rigid, and that what he was giving us was not so much the analytical assessment of the intelligence community as it was the 'World according to Jim Woolsey', and there just wasn’t a good personality fit between Woolsey and Clinton."TALBOLT wrote:"And I think Jim had a tendency to oversell. He also had a tendency to over-advocate and the President, I think, tended to be more interested in what the intelligence community could tell him by way of information as opposed to what he ought to do or not do."DeConcini wrote:"Woolsey felt like he knew best, and nobody could tell him otherwise."R. Jeffrey Smith (Washington Post) wrote:“Many of Woolsey’s friends and supporters blame his troubles on what they see as his argumentative and sometimes abrasive personal style. An ambitious, driven litigator, Woolsey is frequently said to be unable or unwilling to strike a compromise.”Michael Scheuer (CIA officer) wrote: "James Woolsey was a neocon ideologue whom the White House hated."Baltimore Sun wrote:"Woolsey drew grumbles from policy-makers after a Capitol Hill leak of a negative and, to some critics, flawed CIA assessment of the mental stability of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whom the administration was trying to restore to power."Scott Thompson wrote:"It was the first time in Jim's career that he didn't click with the in crowd. Jim was as down as I have ever seen him."Greer wrote:"He was gravely shaken. He was almost in tears."Janet Andres wrote:"There was the conventional wisdom at the time that there had to be a complete reorganization and you just couldn’t get them off that. You could say, 'We’re doing this, this, this, and all these other new things.' But they didn’t take it in: 'Oh, no. You don’t get it, Woolsey.' And, 'Woolsey doesn’t want change.'"Woolsey wrote:[My job as DCI] was "not to be liked ... [the CIA] needed a psychiatrist, not a manager."Woolsey wrote:"You know, they are treating me like a bag-man, that goes up to Capitol Hill, gets their 30 billion dollars for the intelligence community, and brings it back. You know I really don’t know anything that’s going on that’s sensitive."
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Woolsey
by Hobb Thu 10 Aug 2017 - 14:17
1995
- 1995 (click to open):
(Jan 10) Woolsey officially resigns.Woolsey wrote:"We had my retirement ceremony and reception on my final day in office, and the next morning I went down and did the testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and in the afternoon I went over to Shea & Garner and started practicing law. So I kind of wandered into the job and I kind of wandered out."
Woolsey rejoins Shea & Gardner as "a $440-an-hour Washington corporate lawyer [who] customarily conducts business in boardrooms and similarly well-appointed venues." Woolsey had "got in touch" with Stephen Pollak a partner at Shea & Gardner, who invited him back. Pollack had been with Shea & Gardner since 1969 and had his roots in the Navy, Yale Law, Democrat Party and Zionism.Woolsey wrote:"Since the second week of January of 1995 I've been a private citizen [who] continue to hold security clearances and confer with the government from time to time ... When I was in the government before ’95, I spent my time trying to figure out how to blow up, spy on, or negotiate with the bad guys. Now I’ve shifted gears – and I’m trying to help bankrupt them.”
Woolsey will call the C.I.A "my old outfit."
(February)
In a victory lap over the CIA, FBI chief Freeh (with the support of the State Department) visits Switzerland to sell his agenda of creating FBI offices, local liaisons, and training missions to 15 foreign leaders. While still DCI "Woolsey was angered because he only learned of the Freeh trip from a third source, not from Freeh [and when he] asked for the CIA's inclusion in the delegation, Freeh refused. One CIA official said angrily that in the wake of the Aldrich Ames scandal, "Freeh and the FBI saw a hole they were going to drive a truck through. They made a power play"
(March)
Without any overt CIA support, Chalabi launches an insurrection in Iraq that fails dramatically: "There was nothing there." The failed uprising causes the Senate to "reassess our relationship with Chalabi because he had unilaterally entered into this plan without consulting the CIA" but Chalabi counters he was in contact with CIA "field elements and head-quarters" in seeking Kurdish support for the rebellion. The CIA told Chalabi that "the US military will not provide a no-fly zone, or in any way will support the action. The US is opposed to an action that leads to civil war or a popular uprising."
Disdainful of the Clinton Administration, which he felt had abandoned him, Chalabi will increasing turn his efforts to Washington, and under neo-conservative patronage, "for the rest of Clinton's term, Republicans -- and some Democrats -- on Capital Hill used him as a battering ram against the White House for its "do-nothing" policy toward Saddam Hussein, frequently inviting him to testify in hearings on Iraq." Soon Chalabi is under Woolsey's "patronage", "a guest" of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and "a favorite at the Pentagon." Chalabi's name becomes a "rallying point for political conservatives and for many of the former senior officials who had run the Gulf War for the first President Bush."
A former CIA operations officer with long experience in Iraqi affairs joked, "Chalabi has more influence on the banks of the Potomac than on the banks of the Tigris -- by far. I would say that Chalabi is effective in that he knows the U.S. system, he's effective in the U.S., he's effective in Congress. He's effective in that he can get people to accept his story in the U.S."
(July 1995 to 23 March) - Third Taiwan Strait Crisishttp://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2019/09/14/2003722240 wrote:In 1996, during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, Stephen Bryen, a former US deputy undersecretary of defense for trade security policy under former US president Ronald Regan, former CIA director James Woolsey and US Navy admiral Bud Edney spent two weeks in Taiwan to assess the likelihood of China launching an invasion. They proposed that then-US president Bill Clinton send two aircraft carrier groups to defend Taiwan, which resolved the crisis.
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Re: R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Fri 1 Dec 2017 - 19:35
1996
- 1996 (click to open):
(January 1) – Woolsey's handling of the Ames Affair become a Harvard 'case study'
(May) - Ballistic Missile Defense: Subcommittee on National Security, House of Representatives,
Woolsey joins "anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist" Frank J. Gaffney. and "anti-Iran conspiracy theorist" Curt Weldon in fretting about missiles." In the past several weeks, we have seen Russia sell S8-18 or heavy ICBM technology to China. This is the same China that visibly threatened Taiwan with a military invasion in March and openly implied that Los Angeles could one day become a target. Meanwhile, Jordan has seized ballistic missile parts headed for Iraq-specifically gyroscopes and accelerometers, right; and we will hear more about that later today, I am sure-again from Russia. And we have now confirmed that North Korea has a ballistic missile development program. In fact, we heard just this past week, from the pilot who defected, that North Korea has both a plan and the means for overwhelming its southern neighbor." [The connect-the-dots opening statement from Robert Ehrlich gives a sample of the paranoid tone]
(April 5) - LA Times front-page reveals the Clinton's Arms-to-Bosnia Policy
The opening line of the article: "President Clinton secretly gave a green light to covert Iranian arms shipments into Bosnia in 1994 despite a United Nations arms embargo that the United States was pledged to uphold and the Administration's own policy of isolating Tehran globally as a supporter of terrorism, according to senior Administration officials and other sources." Hundreds of pages of highly classified documents on the subject were "obtained" by the LA Times' James Risen and Doyle McManus.
(April)- Senate majority leader, Bob Dole, and Newt Gingrich, the Speaker of the House, demand hearings into the Arms-to-Bosnia Policy.
President Clinton said that he sees no inconsistency between a U.S. foreign policy that seeks to punish Iran yet secretly permits Iranian arms to flow to the Bosnian Muslims, since the arms flow was a key factor in helping create the conditions that brought about a truce in Bosnia. DCI Deutch says that the CIA believes Ambassador Galbraith's account of the situation.
(May)- Arms-to-Bosnia hearings begin
Senior Clinton staff like Galbraith and Talbot have to give sworn testimony before the House International Relations Committee. Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) enters previously classified Woolsey testimony into the public record.
Woolsey told the Senate Intelligence Committee in closed session that the Administration had kept the CIA in the dark until his Zagreb CIA station chief reported that Galbraith had asked for his help in making sure that the Croatians got the message that the United States was going to allow the Iranians to smuggle arms.
Woolsey also had testified that he reported to three State Department officials, including both Secretary of State Christopher and his Deputy Talbott, about Galbraith's conversations with the station chief and was told that Galbraith would be instructed again not to go beyond his original "no instructions" orders.
Talbott told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he explained things fully but Specter said Woolsey testified that, "I was never told that there had been any change in U.S. Government policy on this matter" and that whatever the Ambassador was up to, "very definitely my station chief should not assist."
Galbraith, who had been given classified papers to prepare to testify before Congress said it was "the most chilling day" of his life we he concluded the CIA station chief had been spying on him. An Administration official who sides with Mr. Galbraith said the C.I.A. was indeed "reporting on the activities of the embassy, and in a very bizarre manner -- it's not what any American would want their Government to be doing." And an American diplomat in Europe agrees. The agency's spies, he says, "are a country unto themselves."
(June 27) - Woolsey endorses dole for presidency
One day after Dole launched an attack on President Clinton's "romantic" and "dreamy" assessment of the threat from Russia, Woolsey met Dole at his campaign headquarters and endorsed him as the best man to deal with a world that is "still a very dangerous place." Woolsey singled out the United States' lack of an 'Star Wars'-style anti-ballistic missile system.
On the campaign trail, Dole has said the country needs an antimissile system to protect from accidental launches and outlaw states. The Clinton administration has dismissed such a system as unneeded, unworkable and too costly.
"I believe we need consistency, clarity and conviction in U.S. foreign policy to address these threats," said Woolsey, who did not mention his former boss by name. Instead, he pointedly described Dole as a man whose "leadership will offer a steady hand in guiding American foreign policy and pledged to help the Dole campaign with security issues.
The Woolsey endorsement, the major bit of news the Dole campaign served up yesterday, appeared designed to keep the "soft Clinton" theme percolating.
(September 2) - THE NEW SPY WARS (MACLEANS - NOMI MORRIS)
The article begins with Woolsey's 'dragon slayer' confirmation line and then quotes what "Woolsey told Maclean’s during a recent visit to Moscow" there is "definitely a chill in American-Russian post-Cold War relations.” Since 1991 Maclean's has had a Moscow Bureau Chief, Malcolm Gray, and so Woolsey's quote may come from him.
The article focuses on Woolsey's pet topic "the new growth area in espionage: economic secrets" and discusses a Canadian intelligence whistle blower who claim she had "spied on Canada’s supposed friends Japan, South Korea and Mexico." Then we get a "senior U.S. intelligence source, who spoke to Maclean’s on condition he not be named" but is described as "an expert at a major think-tank who acts as an adviser to the White House and the CIA." Considering the article is framed by a Woolsey statement and features a single attributable quote from him, I would speculate that the "senior U.S. intelligence source" is Woolsey giving off-the-record/background comments to Maclean's Moscow Bureau Chief.
[The unnamed source] confirmed that "intelligence ties between the two countries have become much more adversarial in recent years".Unnamed source wrote:“There are many intelligence studies being conducted right now on the dismemberment of Canada and the opportunity for the United States to acquire additional states. It is conceded within the intelligence community that Ontario would never come in but the feeling is that there are very good chances for British Columbia, Alberta and possibly Saskatchewan". "Canadians", he adds, "are naïve about the 'imperial American mind' and continuing U.S. expansionism. It is very possible that some time in the next century some of the Canadian provinces will become American states. It is the task of the American intelligence agencies to prepare the ground, and that is what is happening.”
The article also mentions that the head of Parliament’s spywatching subcommittee, is convinced the CIA uncovered information that led to the current RCMP investigation of Brian Mulroney and others for allegedly accepting bribes from the European Airbus Industry consortium which beat out Boeing and McDonnell Douglas to sell 34 airplanes to Air Canada in 1988.
(SEPT. 25)- NRO Headquarter Follow-Up
After Congress expressed continued concern about the NRO's finances, DCI Deutch appoints a four-member congressional team who revealed that the NRO had lost track of a $1.5 billion slush fund because “it was so highly classified even top intelligence officials had no control over it" due to "sloppy management." House and Senate negotiators said they had decided to slash the $1.5 billion contingency fund by two-thirds as part of their agreement on the 1996 defense appropriations bill where intelligence agencies budgets are hidden in the budget of the Defense Department so the amounts will not be disclosed.
(Oct 30)- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Christopher Ruddy, "obtains" and prints photos copy of the a photograph of Grigori Loutchansky and Bill Clinton. This "discovery" will enable a last minute smear of Clinton.
After working at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Ruddy will start NEWSMAX media along with Richard Mellon Scaife in 1998. Newsmax will become Woolsey's primary media outlet. Ruddy will also become a member of CSIS and the Stanford University's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace.
Ruddy's October 30 story was faxed to wire services and other newspapers, but Rupert Murdoch's New York Post was the only outlet that immediately ran with it. Operatives at the advocacy group AIM (Accuracy in Media) begin calling media outlets to inquire why they are not picking up the story.
----
(November 3)- Clinton guest linked to Russian mob, nuke smuggling
In a classic dirty PR move, the Dole campaign smears Clinton on the weekend before a Tuesday election. The Washington Times reports that "Republicans and President Clinton's former CIA director are expressing concern" about Clinton meeting "with another wealthy foreigner." The head of the Republican National Committee appealed to broad xenophobia ("As if big money from Indonesian gardeners, fund-raisers at Buddhist temples, and consorting with convicted drug dealers weren't enough!") but Donald Rumsfeld, the co-chairman of the Dole-Kemp campaign, and Woolsey were more specific.
Rumsfeld on "Fox News Sunday" was "disturbed" that Grigori Loutchansky, whose international firm, Nordex, has been linked to nuclear weapons smuggling, was invited to two DNC fund-raising dinners. Rumsfeld said "a former very senior official from the CIA [aka Woolsey!]" described Mr. Loutchansky as a "very unsavory individual. . . . He makes Mr. John Huang [an indicted Clinton fund-raiser who worked at the Lippo Bank] look like Little Bo Peep."
Woolsey released a statement that "any DNC invitation to Loutchansky in 1995 would show a severe lack of scrutiny and appalling bad judgement. It would be unwise in the extreme for there to be any ties between the U.S. government and Loutchansky or Loutchansky's company, Nordex. . . Next to Loutchansky, the Lippo syndicate [of Indonesia] looks like the Better Business Bureau."
Loutchansky, a Russian who now lives in Israel, attended the first dinner in 1993 as the guest of New York real estate executive. He got a private two-minute meeting with Clinton and had his picture taken with Clinton and Gore. Loutchansky was invited to second fund-raising dinner in July 1995, but was dis-invited by the DNC after learning of his background. A Democratic spokeswoman charged that "the 11th-hour" Republican attack was a misguided "desperation tactic" and that no political party does background checks on everyone who attends a political fund-raiser as someone else's guest. They also questioned why a Republican press release "based mainly" on a Time magazine article from July was now news.
The Time magazine linked Nordex with nuclear smuggling, drug trafficking, and money laundering, claiming it was established to "earn hard currency for the KGB" and "engaged in nuclear smuggling." Soon after Newt Gingrich, was claiming that Loutchansky had shipped Scud missile warheads from North Korea to Iraq. Woolsey has a deep role in this whole operation. In 1993 after "excellent briefing on some aspects of Russian organized crime" Woolsey says he "moved promptly to ensure that very senior officials at Justice, the FBI, the National Security Council and elsewhere in the Government received this briefing. I commissioned a special on Russian organized crime that had limited circulation because of the sensitivity of the sources and methods. I also put the issue on the agenda of some of our meetings with our allies at very senior levels" Later, in a 1999 congressional hearing, Woolsey would state that "Mr.Louchansky and his company, NORDEX, were a focus of our attention."
According to the TIME Magazine, in 1994 the US spy agencies had instructed law enforcement agencies of major EU countries to launch a joint campaign to discredit NORDEX and its head Grigory Luchansky. In 1995 Loutchansky was the sole subject of a two-day Interpol meeting involving 11 nations and soon after Canada blocked Loutchansky from entering that country. After 1996 Nordex’s activities were almost frozen. NORDEX counter-claims that its' "successes were maliciously attributed not to its highly efficient management team staffed with top Russian experts and economists but to the fictitious clandestine schemes or secret pacts between Nordex and KGB, or alternatively former Soviet Communist Party and criminal gangs. Luchansky has initiated 26 lawsuits against media outlets and government agencies in different countries, and won all 26 cases. Both a State Department spokesman and FBI Director Louis Freeh have confirmed at press conferences in Tel Aviv and Moscow that the US did not have any specific charges against Nordex or its management."
Woolsey claims that Loutchansky and Nordex first came to public attention in an earlier 1996 April congressional hearing where DCI Deutch identified Nordex as an `organization associated with Russian criminal activity' yet transcripts of that congressional hearing do not mention 'Nordex' at all. Could Woolsey be claiming this earlier mention to blur the fact he was the main 'leaker' of this information?
---
(November 4) - Ross Perot in a taped address that he paid to have televised nationwide showed the photo of Clinton and Loutchansky, and asked his audience how they felt about the President soliciting contributions from an individual who was suspected of shipping Scud missile warheads to Iraq, dealing in nuclear materials on the black market, smuggling narcotics and laundering money.
(November 5)- Clinton Re-Elected
When Clinton recommends his National Security Advisor Anthony Lake to be the nation's next CIA director, it will re-trigger another examination of his Arms-to-Bosnia policy. Two reports have already been complied by the House Select Subcommittee (October) and Senate Intelligence Committee (November). The Senate Intelligence Committee issued a report critical of the administration's policy but did not question its legality. The select subcommittee created by the House to look into the matter said it believed there may have been an unauthorized covert action and asked the Justice Department to investigate its legality.
Another black mark against Lake, in the eyes of Neo-conservatives, was "his decision to withdraw support at the last minute for an Iraqi coup" by Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. By "late 1996" Iraqi Army had driven Chalabi's operation out of northern Iraq so he moved the INC base to London, England.
(December 4)- Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Analysis on the Long-Range Missile Threat to the United States- Robert Gates [DCI from 1991 to 1993]
- R. James Woolsey [DCI from 1993 to 1995]
- Robert Gates [DCI from 1991 to 1993]
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Re: R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Sat 3 Aug 2019 - 0:02
1997
- 1997 (click to open):
(February) - CFR conference on "The Future of the CIA"Woolsey wrote:"The United States must retain the capability to do something between sending in the Marines and sending in former President Carter"
Woolsey hopes for a future of unlimited low-intensity warfare - drones, embargoes, special forces, coups - to be waged unilaterally by the US. The post-911 'wars of terror' will realize this dream. Woolsey wants tools for war that are 'plausibly deniable' or at least below the media's radar, as he makes clear in a Washington Times (Dec 97), "If a president decides that he wants to change the government's policy's barring assassinations, there is no way of escaping the necessity of openly repealing President's Ford's Executive Order - telling the world we have decided to go back to the Kennedy era practice of committing political murder .... It is hard to conceive of anything that would do more to undermine what America stands for and do more to provoke anger and resentment."
Many 'drone assassinations' will be the solution to Woolsey's problem of how to allow the US to "[re]adopt the use of murder as a national policy."
(February)- House National Security Committee on Threats to U.S. Security
Woolsey joins two other ex-DCIs, William Webster and James Schlesinger, to foster institutional paranoia and promote war.Woolsey wrote:"I was in favor of using force to overthrow him [Saddam] as early as 1997 when I started testifying before the Congress."
(March)- Woolsey's participates in a Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)-sponsored trip to IsraelJerusalem Post (March 29/97) wrote:"Woolsey and his friends visit each other's homes, meet at conferences and worry about Israel."Ha’aretz (March 26/97) wrote:“Woosley criticized the American administration for its unwillingness to accept the version of events put forward by Israeli intelligence, according to which Yasser Arafat gave the ‘green light’ to carry out the terror attack in Tel Aviv [on 21 March].Woolsey wrote:"The [Clinton] Administration is ignoring the possibility that there is more than one way to encourage acts of terror. In the struggle against terror it is preferable not to get into a dispute over semantics ... it is important that the Administration understand that Israel is on the front line against terrorism.'”
(June)- Bill Kristol and Bob Kagan found Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a Washington think-tank designed advance Neo-conservaitism (or as they call it "Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy") in the Clinton White house. Woolsey is one of the twenty-five people who signed PNAC's founding statement of principles, ten members will serve in the administration of President George W. Bush. Having achieved the goal of a war against Iraq, PNAC was dissolved in 2006.
(July 1)- Woolsey chairs a CFR round table on "Asian politics and security" designed "to bring together select Capitol Hill foreign policy staff in meetings."
(July 4) - U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon (USCFL) was founded by Ziad Abdelnour, a Lebanese American investment banker. It's purpose is to "destroy Iran at any cost" and the USCFL is heavily staffed by neo-cons likes Woolsey, Gaffney, Pearle, Leeden, Abrams. Like Ahmed Chalabi, Abdelnour is an expatriate investment banker who lobbiesthe U.S. government to implement a militarist pro-Israel foreign policy
After the election of Obama, USCFL tried to distance itself from neoconservatism. A statement posted on the group's "About" page said, "Bad rumors say that the USCFL is the front of some 'shady' force plotting with some organizations out there against Lebanon's interests. Just to set the record straight, we are NOT a front of any foreign entity; whether Syrian, Israeli or whatever. We are neither neo-cons nor doves. We are just the ultimate lobbyists and powerbrokers for a Free and Democratic Middle East. Period."
(August)- Readers Digest's "Can We Trust the FBI" by Brock Brower
Features Woolsey amongst a chorus of people criticizing the FBI and Louis Freeh. Woolsey appears on a minor story about "Freeh's old friend, FBI chief counsel Howard Shapiro" and "White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum" harassing an FBI agent investigating Hillary Clinton by ordering the search of his office. Woolsey's bombastically comments that, "It's one thing to try to intimidate a member of the Cali cartel. It's another to try to intimidate one of your own agents."
The author of the article is Brock Brower, a Rhodes Scholar and former US Army Intelligence officer.
(October 20)- PBS
23 November - What's Saddam Hiding? [Segment on CBS 60 Minutes]
Steve Kroft interviews a former member of Saddam Hussein's government {Chalabi}, who says that Iraq has biological weapons in a compelling story about the secret incarceration of several members of the Iraqi opposition. Produced by Leslie Cockburn, 13 mins
Chalabi first appeared on 60 Minutes in 1991, in the months when he was financially almost completely wiped out and when his alliance with the CIA was just beginning. Leslie's husband would write a glowing profile of Woolsey in 2000 ('The Radicalization of James Woolsey') and a CBS team (under producers Richard Bonin and Adam Ciralsky) would be given special access to INC defectors in 2002.
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Re: R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Sat 3 Aug 2019 - 0:03
Ahmed Chalabi (L) speaks with Woolsey before testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Iraqi situation [March 2, 1998]
- 1998 - CLick to Open:
Jan 26 - Woolsey signs a 'Project for the New American Century' letter calling for WAR! in Iraq
Woolsey is one of eighteen prominent neoconservatives to sign an open letter to Clinton begging him for a war in Iraq, urging him "to act decisively ... to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its ally" and to reject "weakness and drift" The other signatories were: Elliott Abrams, Richard L. Armitage, William J. Bennett,Jeffrey Bergner John Bolton Paula Dobriansky Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter W. Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber, Paul Wolfowitz & Robert B. Zoellick
January 27 - Chalabi meets U.N weapon inspector Scott Ritter in a townhouse on Conduit St., London. The UN was unable to account for all Iraqi bioweapons and Chalabi offered to help penetrated Saddam’s circle. Ritter recalls Chalabi sat on a couch, taking notes, “playing the overlord” as Arab servants served tea. (Ahmed Alawi, an I.N.C. official, also attended the meeting.)
“I should have asked him what he could give me,” Ritter said. “Instead, I let him ask me, ‘What do you need?’ ” The result, he said, was that “we made the biggest mistake in the intelligence business: we identified all of our gaps.” Chalabi’s people, Ritter said, eventually supplied detailed intelligence on Saddam’s alleged W.M.D. programs, but “it was all crap [including a] fabricated a source for the mobile bio-weapons labs.”
February - Khalilzad, Woolsey and Chalabi ask Congress for WAR!
Khalilzad, and Woolsey join Ahmed Chalabi in testifying before congress. Khalilzad, in his testimony, proposed undertaking sustained air attacks to dismantle Iraqi defenses, the destruction of the Iraqi National Guards, creation of "safe havens" for the Kurds, and arming and financing Iraqi opposition forces to control the rest of the country. Woolsey lobbied for passage of the Iraq Liberation Act, which endorsed the concept of regime change and allocated $100 million to Iraqi opposition parties, including Chalabi’s INC. Five other Congressional hearing on Iraq will be held this year and the neo-cons from PNAC will testify in support of Chalabi at each one. Richard Perle will testify three times on Chalabi's behalf. Their efforts will suceed and regieme in Iraq will become offical US policy by October.(Feb 18)Woolsey engages in a "electronic town hall" at Time.com to demand WAR!
http://www.time.com/time/community/transcripts/chattr021898.html
Woolsey wants the US to "do everything we can, short of invading with a land army" by establishing a "no-fly zone over the entire country", broadcasting propaganda in, and stealing Iraqi economic assets to give to the INC. The main kinks in his plan are the Russians ("quite supportive of Saddam") and the "aggravating ... key holdout" Saudi Arabia, who "even though we went to war in 1991 principally to protect its oil, are unwilling to let us launch air strikes from their country."time.com wrote:
Timehost: Thank you, Mr. Woolsey for your time tonight, and for your insights. Are there any concluding comments you'd like to add?
James Woolsey: The only thing I would add is that Saddam could make it harder for us to put in place a long term program to remove his regime by giving in, for some small face-saving device at this point. Even if he does that, I still think we should begin working for the replacement of the regime over the long run, but it would be politically much harder for us, if he decides now to try to appear reasonable to the world. This will not be easy, but in 1980, when martial law was declared in Poland, we were pretty pessimistic about Solidarity about ever being able to take power. Yet nine years later, it did come to power, and immediately thereafter the Berlin Wall fell. Stranger things have happened, indeed in the recent past, than the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Apr 27, 1998 - Jeong Kim sells Yurie Systems to Lucent Technologies for over $1 billion. Kim will later become CEO of Lucent in 2006 and "appoint Woolsey to the board of a separate US subsidiary for Lucent's classified work" Woolsey was on Kim's previous Yurie board
June 1998 - Six months after the London meeting, Chalabi invites (UNSCOM) weapons inspector Scott Ritter to a town house in Georgetown for another meeting.
Ritter: "I frequently traveled to Washington, D.C., for liaison purposes. The usual 'customers', so to speak, included the State Department, the CIA and the Department of Defense. I strayed from the umbrella of "official business" only once during my tenure as an inspector, when, in June 1998, during a scheduled official trip to Washington, D.C., I ventured out into the shadows of back-bench domestic American politics.
I was scheduled to fly down to Washington to meet with the CIA about ongoing intelligence support Programs then underway. In my desk I had a business card for Randy Scheunemann, the national security adviser to Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who was at that time the Senate majority leader. Scheunemann had been part of a congressional staff delegation that had visited the United Nations earlier in 1998, and had met with Butler and some of the UNSCOM inspectors to discuss the situation in Iraq. I dialed the number listed and told Scheunemann I would like to meet with him while I was in Washington to discuss some new developments. He agreed to the meeting and threw in a twist of his own: Would I mind meeting with Ahmed Chalabi"
I was ushered into Chalabi's home, where he set out an ambitious Program , including briefings to senators and their staffs. Chalabi talked to Ritter about doing intelligence work for the I.N.C. and shows him a study advocating Saddam’s overthrow by retired Special Forces General Wayne Downing. Ritter, a former marine, isn’t impressed. “So how come the fact that you’d need more American assistance is not in the plan?” Ritter asked. “Because it’s too sensitive,” Chalabi replied.
Chalabi went on to describe a clear vision of Iraq’s future—with himself in charge. Ritter said, “He told me that, if I played ball, when he became President he’d control all of the oil concessions, and he’d make sure I was well taken care of."
At the townhouse, Ritter will encounter Francis Brooke, an American from Atlanta who was Chalabi's principle adviser, Dr. Max Singer, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute who specialized in "political warfare", Steve Rademaker,who briefed Ben Gillman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, about bio-weapons, and "Rademaker's wife, Danielle Pletka, accompanied by none other than James Woolsey..."Ritter wrote:
They found seats around the table, and it became clear that this was where we would be eating. The discussion moved from the flawed military planning evident in Gen. Downing's paper and onto the issue of Chalabi's political future. Jim Woolsey was an unabashed supporter of Chalabi, something I found strange since Chalabi and the CIA were at odds over many aspects of the INC's past operations. "This [criticism] is all bunk," Woolsey said. "Chalabi is an Iraqi patriot and visionary who intimidates many lesser thinkers in Langley [CIA headquarters]. My friend Ahmed is a risk taker who understands the reality of Iraq, unlike the desk-bound analysts and risk-averse operators at the CIA. Chalabi scares these people, so they have created false accusations in order to denigrate him and ultimately destroy him." Danielle Pletka chimed in. "We cannot allow this to happen. Ahmed Chalabi has many friends in Congress, and it is our goal to make sure Ahmed Chalabi gets the support he needs to not only survive as a viable opposition figure to Saddam Hussein but more importantly to prevail in Iraq."
Trent Lott and the Republican Party were gunning for Bill Clinton and the Democrats, and they believed that with Iraq they had discovered a chink in Clinton's armor. Chalabi was being resurrected before my eyes.
And so the night went -- it was clear that Chalabi was being groomed for another run at power.
Chalabi smiled and nodded. "I understand completely. As for your status as a weapons inspector, you must understand that those days are nearly gone. The inspection process has run its course. You need to think about what you are going to be doing in the future. I would like you to work for me."
I looked over at him. "How would that work? As an American citizen I can't be working for you while planning the overthrow of Saddam. I believe there are laws against that."
Chalabi laughed. "Of course. You wouldn't be working for me, but for the U.S. Senate. My friends would create an advisory position for you, and you would in turn advise me. It wouldn't pay much upfront," he said.
September 3 - " TERRORIST ACTS LIKELY TO ESCALATE " [USIA Staff Writer]
Senator Biden, FBI Director Freeh and Woolsey warn against Osama Bin Laden after US attacks 'terrorist camps' in Afghanistan and Sudan. Woolsey evokes (later disproven) bio-weapons claims: "I believe the intelligence community was correct with respect to its analysis of the soil sample...and that VX was in some fashion present at the facility that was struck in the Sudan." He calls for freezing bank accounts and cruise missile strikes but acknowledge the "extremely poor countries themselves, to
some extent, are victims rather than managers" of terrorists.
Sept 17 - Woolsey Speech - Los Angles AIPAC - "Who is Osama bin Laden? And what is his agenda of destruction?"
An attendee recalls that Woolsey presented himself as someone who "not only knew the answers, but was also part of the Machine that made the answers & questions both - according to the need of the larger games ... the master games." Woolsey is quoted as saying,"We don't just follow the news. We make the news happen when he have to"
October 5, - Iraq Liberation Act (ILA) gives $100 million for 'Iraqi opposition', mainly the Chalabi's Iraq National Congress (INC)
October 1998 - A "bipartisan" Senate hearing for a 'crime victims’ bill of rights' constitutional amendment is hijacked by Woolsey when the concept of "secret evidence" is brought up.
Woolsey gets Jon Kyl and Dianne Feinstein to create a subcommittee with himself as the principal witnesses to advocate for the "Iraqi Six". Apparently he goes into 'drama queen' calling the Senators "bureaucrats not caring that they're treating people unfairly, even in life-threatening circumstances" and claiming that he was "ashamed for my country" in a display of "open outrage of this kind is not the hallmark of the establishment in which Woolsey had flourished for so long."
An off-the-record administration official said, "This is Washington, where everyone keeps track of who crossed whom and when. Jim certainly burned his bridges with some people." Woolsey's wife, Susan, agreed, "Many of our friends said, 'There's surely no need to be so public about it, embarrassing the administration."Woolsey on the Virtues of Whistle-blowing and Governmental Openess wrote: I saw how government confusion, bias, and incompetence, masked by secrecy, might have condemned these men to prison and potentially, following deportation to Iraq, to death. One man, Hashim Hawlery, spent a year in prison because of an interpreter's error. Some FBI agents assigned to the INS made devastating judgments by confusing the Iraq-Iran War of the 1980s with the Gulf War of 1991, mixing up Iran and Iraq, and by blatant bias (e.g. "there is no guilt in the Arab world"). One agent ludicrously alleged that my client, Safa al-Batat, who had survived three assassination attempts by Saddam -- including one using the deadly rat poison thallium -- had probably been taking the poison "recreationally."
Frightened imprisoned people, often with little knowledge of English, should not have their counsel told, as I was, "You may have a security clearance, but you don't have a need to know the charges against your client."
late 1998 - "A Private CIA"
GlobalOptions Inc. is founded as a "private CIA, Defense Department, Justice Department, and FBI, all rolled into one" or "international, risk management and business intelligence company" or “A McKinsey & Company with muscle”
Founded by Neil C. Livingstone, adviser to Col. Oliver North during the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran, he frequently appears on TV to issue repeated public calls for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein (and later Iran).
Livingstone’s 1998 “Crisis Management Inc.” business proposal highlighted his close ties to James Woolsey. And his Advisory Board would include Admiral William J. Crowe as Chairman, and Woolsey as Vice Chairman.
Kenneth I. Starr, the disgraced financial adviser of Hollywood clients, was a major investor in GlobalOptions, meaning his clients were too: Uma Thurman, Al Pacino, Martin Scorsese, and Neil Simon. GlobalOption’s board of directors has included Starr’s son.
The firm said its foreign clients were primarily Russian-Jewish oligarchs and Caribbean banks. Specific clients include: Akwa Ibom (Nigeria), Hayground Cove Asset Management, the Motley Rice law firm, Zeromax (a Swiss-based holding company of Gulnara Karimova, the powerful daughter of Uzbek dictator) and Ukrainian businessman Dimytro Firtash (who “brokered several billion-dollar deals between Gazprom and the government of Ukraine.) The names Alexander Mirtchev and Thomas Ondeck (a disbarred attorney) have been speculated as having controlling interests in the firm.
[[July 2004, Woolsey and Livingstone profiled in a LA Times expose of war advocates profiting from Iraqi reconstruction. Livingstone starts another "private CIA" called Executive Action LLC, in late 2006 to destabilize the Iran.]]
- 1999:
(January) - Eric Olson’s investigation into his father's death recruits Woolsey! Eric's dad was Frank Olson was an American biological warfare scientist, and (CIA) employee who worked at Fort Detrick. When Frank Olson wanted to quit he was dosed with LSD and tossed out a window - it was ruled a suicide. Eric was impressed by Woolsey because he had “represented some Guatemalan families some years back in a suit against the U.S. government.” Woolsey does know where many of the bodies are buried, but he ain't telling us or Eric....
February 1999 - the Brits send their Privy Councillor and Foreign Minister to Washington to cheer lead for IRAQ WAR! at a closed-doors meeting at Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Since 1962, CSIS is the US conduit for the Chatham House/International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) policies. Funded by $17 million a year in tax-exempt funds from City of London and Wall Street.
Feb 22, 1999 - David Wurmser's In Tyranny's Ally published.
The ‘ally’ in the title refers to the US government for refusing IRAQ WAR!. The book’s acknowledgements, list Perle, Ledeen, Feith, Woolsey, Harold Rhode, Chalabi and gambling tycoon Irving Moskowitz for funding his work at AEI. Wurmser works for Cheney/Bolton/Navy Intelligence/Netanyahu.
March - House Armed Services Committee
Tired of waiting for IRAQ WAR! Woolsey snipes, “ Perhaps the administration, in order to stay focused, needs to post a sign on the wall of the White House Situation Room that says, `It's the regime, stupid.” Marine Gen. Anthon Zinni responds, "It's not just the regime. It is the region. It is stability in the region that counts. ... And whatever you do to affect regime change, a noble goal, should be done with that in mind. History teaches us in this region that you can change regimes if that's your only goal and you could end up with an Afghanistan, an Iran, a Somalia,'' Zinni warned. “In the long run they could be more destabilizing."
Woolsey will get IRAQ WAR! - but it is Zinni whose predictions come true...
March 25 - Rep. Gilman committee on Russia
NY Republican Gilman’s first witness was Woolsey, who set the tone by demonizing Primakov as "the man who replaced the IMF 'reformers' and was responsible for the proliferation of WMDs to 'rogue states'." Woolsey said that he had just returned from Moscow with Curt Weldon and Donald Rumsfeld. Woolsey claimed that “much of Russia’s military industrial complex” is “for sale to the highest bidder” including to the Aum sect in Japan! Woolsey urged the committee to use the IMF to hammer Russia into line. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) challenged Woolsey on why his account was so different from a briefing he had attended by Jack Matlock, President Reagan’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union, who said that “Primakov is the best thing that’s happened to Russia,” and that the United States is humiliating the economically distressed Russia, without regard for the future."
[Yeltsin fired Primakov in May 1999, Primakov's dismissal was extremely unpopular with the Russian population and led to Yeltsin resigning on Dec 31st]
APRIL - Washington Post reveals Woolsey’s efforts on behalf of the North American Industrial Hemp Council (NAIHC) for legalized “hemp manufacturing,”
May 7, 1999 - 5 guided bombs hit the Chinese embassy in the Belgrade, Yugosalvia, killing three Chinese journalists and outraging the Chinese public.
Ron Kessler, author of the book, Inside the CIA, says the bombing of the Chinese embassy represented a new low. "This is the stupidest mistake that could possibly have been made," he says. Woolsey says the inaccurate map was the fault of the Pentagon's national imagery and mapping agency (NRO?).
May 9 -Woolsey at an aerospace conference in Arlington, VA: "I have a confession to make. When I was under secretary of the Navy I used to put programs into the black in order to be able to avoid the requirements of the POM (program objective memorandum) process." Putting a program in the black enabled faster, more efficient development -- and less oversight, he noted. Woolsey often sought secret cover for acquisition programs for the sole purpose of avoiding the POM budget process. The Defense Department's highly classified special access programs (SAPs) regularly remain under wraps for at least the next four decades.
AUG Muslim Public Affairs Council leader, Salam al-Marayati: "With me sitting on this National Committee on Terrorism with CIA director Woolsey and a bunch of bureaucrats, it would be more or less a nine to one vote on every issue. So we have exposed that the Commission is already agenda-driven."
September 21, 22, 1999 - Russian money laundering : Committee on Banking and Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives,Second panel is composed of the:
Honorable James Woolsey, who is the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency;
Fritz Ermarth, CIA Chief Russian Analyst and NSC official;
Paul Saunders, who is Director of the Nixon Center;
Vladimir Brovkin, who is a Professor at the American UniversityWoolsey wrote:I should begin by ensuring that you realize that my detailed knowledge of this particular issue — that is, Russian money laundering — is dated, is limited in scope and was highly classified at the time I was working on it several years ago, because of the sources and methods that we used in learning about it.
Russian organized crime groups may become involved with the sale of technology or the material for weapons of mass destruction, and such sales could be profitable in the right quarters, for example in the Mideast, to terrorist groups or governments such as Iraq ... To them, America won the Cold War and then helped to give them a capitalist economic system that is modeled not on Silicon Valley, but on the Chicago liquor market of the 1920's.
I would characterize Congressman Weldon's overall approach as a form of "tough love" in dealing with Russia. In pursuit of such a withdrawal, some have even proposed cutting Nunn-Lugar funds, which I think would be extremely shortsighted.
1999 - Woolsey co-authors CFR paper with Republican Senator Richard Lugar concerning oil sustainability, Woolsey states that 'peak oil' may occur as early as 2004-5........
Last edited by Hobb on Wed 19 May 2021 - 3:46; edited 13 times in total
Hobb- Admin
- Posts : 1671
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Age : 49
Re: R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Sat 3 Aug 2019 - 0:03
- 2000:
Behind Closed Doors with Joan Lunden (Episode
: Home Improvement; Subs and Navy SEALS; CIA.
Lunden visits the nuclear submarine USS Key West and takes part in a Navy SEAL exercise. Also: interviews with former CIA director James Woolsey; a week in the taping of “Home Improvement.”JAN 22- 1st CFR WARGAME
In 1999 the CFR's "Financial Vulnerabilities Project," run by Wall Street investment banker Roger Kubarych arranges to "bring together serious professionals from the financial markets, business and the foreign policy and national security communities" to study "most dangerous near-term threat to U.S. world leadership, and thus collaterally to U.S. security, would be a sharp decline in the U.S. securities markets." On January 22, 2000, the group ran a "Policy Simulation" of a global financial meltdown of the securities markets.
According to an article in the March 10 issue of Euromoney magazine, written by an eyewitness reporter during the simulation, "a major objective of the exercise was to bail out the financial markets. Federal Bank Chairman [Alan] Greenspan is uncomfortable, but agrees to the deal. `All the public will see,' says one regulator reassuringly, `is that the Fed's volume of loans to banks has gone up.' "
The simulation used Schwartz's book The Art of the Long View, particularly its last chapter, which is a formulation of game-theory and war-games in the context of the New Age and New Economy.
As a commenters noted at the time: "The simulation confirms that, despite media prattling, the highest levels of the financier oligarchy are making preparations for something that may be quite different than unlimited prosperity."
FEB The Dam bursts and the Public Money flows....
Woolsey briefly serves as a corporate officer/corporate secretary for the INC Support Foundation, the arm of the INC that handled U.S. funding according to its corporate records. Woolsey's firm, Shea and Gardner, did pro-bono work ("helped file the papers") for the INC and their Iraqi 'exiles'. "It was an interesting thing: the former CIA director who had once overseen the anti-Saddam program, back in 1993, was later to work directly for an incarnation of the “opposition” group his agency had once funded. "
The Iraqi National Congress Support Foundation (INCSF) was established “at the request of the U.S. Department of State to serve as a vehicle for the department to channel assistanc eto the Iraqi National Congress.” An incorporated entity to pass on money to the Chalabi's unincorporated bank account.
The State Department demanded that Chalabi’s rivals in the Iraqi opposition were also installed on the foundation’s board. But the important thing for Chalabi, Aras, Francis Brooke, and all the band was this: they had finally busted through. The dam was broken. They got their first check—a good federal government check—in March 2000, and Chalabi marched off to a Georgetown bank to deposit it, as Maha Yousif remembers it.
MARCH 7- More "We Steal Economic Secrets" stuffFOREIGN PRESS CENTER speech wrote:
The Aspin-Brown Commission said that approximately 95% of U.S. intelligence collection with respect to economic matters is from open sources. 5% is essentially secrets that we steal. We steal secrets with espionage, with communications, with reconnaissance satellites.
Terrorism is not something you learn a lot about from plants, to the contrary, notwithstanding from looking at terrorist camps through reconnaissance satellites. You need spies.
There's a separate problem here, which is, what's an American corporation? Is it a company that's headquartered in New York, but does most of its manufacturing in Canada -- an American corporation? Is it a Canadian corporation that manufactures largely in Kentucky? Who knows. We have a terrible time sorting this sort of thing out in trade issues, generally. And it's just a morass that the U.S. intelligence community has no particular instinct or reason to get into.
I have not been current on this subject for the last five years since I left the government -- but I will say this. Both Jordan and Israel have very fine intelligence services. Both countries are friends of the United States. The countries under a lot of circumstances today are friends of one another.
MARCH 16 Echelon and "Why We Spy on Our Allies”WSJ commentary \"written by loudmouth Washington lawyer, Anglophile, Woolsey." wrote:
"What is the recent flap regarding Echelon and U.S. spying on European industries all about? We'll begin with some candor from the American side. Yes, my continental European friends, we have spied on you.
And it's true that we use computers to sort through data by using keywords. We have spied on you because you bribe. Your companies' products are often more costly, less technically advanced or both, than your American competitors. As a result you bribe a lot. It is because your economic patron saint is still Jean Baptiste Colbert, whereas ours is Adam Smith. Get serious, Europeans. Stop blaming us and reform your own statist economic policies. Your governments largely still dominate your economies. . . . You’d rather not go through the hassle of moving toward less dirigisme. It’s so much easier to keep paying bribes.”
An "increasingly emotional" Lord Harris declared that “the French political ruling class is horrid. The French governing class is a disgrace! Woolsey is absolutely right, absolutely correct! France’s problem, is that it never had an Adam Smith, and that it is obsessed with Colbert.” Lord Philip Harris is an English carpet-retailer CEO who fortunes has funded Tory PMs Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron's careers and got him a Lordship...
APRIL 14 - Immigration proceedings Testimony [SIX KURDS (Dr.Karim)]
Woolsey testified Thursday on behalf of a Kurdish doctor who says he once fought against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein but now faces deportation from the United States over concerns he is a double agent. Dr. Ali Yasim Mohammad Karim is the last of a group of six Kurds who have been contesting their return to Iraq after the United States evacuated them from the country in March 1997.
Woolsey described the government's case as "ridiculous." Outside court Thursday, Woolsey called the allegations "nonsense." He said the combination of secret evidence and the government's "loose" standard for determining national security risks has conspired to produce a grave injustice for Karim. "The man's a physician. A nice Kurdish doctor," the former CIA director said, "He is not the kind of individual agents seek to recruit."
This conflicts with the position of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which contends there are reasonable grounds to suspect that Karim is linked to Iranian or Iraqi intelligence operations. Government attorneys contend that Karim repeatedly traveled in Iran, that his organization had contact with Iranian intelligence officers, and that he might have misled FBI agents about how a relative was evacuated by the U.S..
June 2000 - TOPOFF - BioTerror Wargame.
The $3 million TOPOFF drill tested the preparedness of top government officials to respond to simulated terrorist attacks against the United States. In the fictional scenario, an aerosol of pneumonic plague has previously been released at the Denver Performing Arts Center. The release has gone undetected, so the exercise starts with a hypothetical, unconfirmed attack. [NO WOOLSEY?]
June 5 - COUNTERING THE CHANGING THREAT OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM - Report of the National Commission on Terrorism to President Clinton
L. Paul Bremer III, Chairman,
R. James Woolsey, Commission Member
"A terrorist attack involving a biological agent, deadly chemicals, or nuclear or radiological material, even if it succeeds only partially, could profoundly affect the entire nation."July 12-13 SECOND CFR WARGAME
For two days, several speakers told a high-powered audience of 250 people, comprised largely of bankers, investors, corporation officials, and policymakers, mostly from the United States, but also from Europe, of the possibility that the U.S. stock market, and potentially the world financial system, would melt down. "The Next Financial Crisis" conference also included a "testgame" regarding a possible terrorist attack "...a scenario of a global financial meltdown, run as a war-game simulation"
Woolsey played the role of Secretary of Defense. James Jones played the role of National Security Adviser.
Jones reported: "We assumed that the President of the United States was incapacitated. We assumed that either Clinton was depressed because he was denied his favorite part-time occupation—and I don't mean golf—or because Ronald Reagan was yearning for his old Hollywood movies. But we assumed the President was incapacitated. We had to decide whether to take powers from the President." That is, the CFR simulation started with a coup d'état against the U.S. President.
July 23 - "The Radicalization of James Woolsey" NYT Mag
Woolsey gets "Anglo-American leftist" Alexander Cockburn to pen a glowing article on how Woolsey is a crusader against the Tyranny of Big Government - by defending Iranian double-agents agents from US deportation! :lol!:
Cockburn has a reputation as a cynic but he swallowed Woolsey's bait. Cockburn is also against any JFK or 9/11 "conspiracy theories" but supports those that claim FDR had inside knowledge of Pearl Harbour.....
2000 (Fall) - 'Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein’s Unfinished War Against America'
AEI publishes Mylroie’s book blaming Iraq for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Woolsey does the foreword for a 2002 re-print: "After September 11 many, including myself, believe that the attacks may be the result of a partnership between the terrorists and a state with a sophisticated intelligence service and ....a program of biological warfare. If this proves to be true and Iraq is shown to be the terrorists' partners, there is no reason for anyone to ask, 'Why didn't someone warn us?' because Laurie Mylroie did."
Woolsey said Mylroie is the "living American to whom you would owe more for future security" In Vanity Fair, Paul Wolfowitz says he was completely convinced of its claims about Iraqi involvement in the WTC and Oklahoma bombings. Outside of neo-conservative circles this is all considered conspiratorial nonsense...
OCT 2000 - Woolsey retires as INCF's Funding officer.
Just eight months after the INCSF was incorporated, Woolsey stepped away suddenly. He resigned in October 2000. With Shea & Gardner collecting juicy legal fees paid for with the American money funding the Iraqi group, Woolsey says he was concerned about the appearance of a conflict of interest for him personally. He says he sent a note to his law firm agreeing to forego any of the profits earned by the firm on the account.
Francis Brooke, Washington representative of the INC said intermediaries such as Woolsey and Perle would contacted the Bush administration multiple times on the INC's behalf over the next years.
The INCSF reported a mere $1 million in 2000 but $11 million the next year, and then $13 million in 2002. In total, the INCSF would collect a total of $33 million from the U.S. State Department.
OCT - Susan Woolsey comes to the trough
Susan Woolsey a trustee of the Institute for Defense Analyses, a nonprofit corporation paid by the government to do research for the Pentagon and provided senior Pentagon officials with assessments. "This team did business within the Centcom headquarters on a daily basis by observing meeting and planning sessions, attending command updates, watching key decisions being made, watching problems being solved and generally being provided unrestricted access to the business of the conduct of this war," [briefing by Army Brig.Gen. Robert W. Cone.] Tax records show Suzanne Woolsey was still being paid $11,500 in trustee fees for serving on the Institute for Defense Analyses board in 2003.
Nov. 3 - WSJ article attacking Clinton anti-whistleblowing law so that he can legally silence whistleblowing reporters (?!?)Woolster wrote:"President Clinton has until tomorrow to decide whether he will sign or veto an intelligence authorization bill just passed by Congress. I urge him to veto the bill because of its Draconian provisions. This legislation would make potential felons of those who express themselves on any issue about which they have ever had access to classified information, if they now have "reason to believe" that someone, somewhere, sometime may have used a classification stamp on material covering the same subject.
Ironically, since it would have been impossible to issue a formal directive giving him a security clearance, my explanation to him would have been a felony under the new bill. Since most of us don't want there to be even a hint of the felonious in our conduct...."
Last edited by Hobb on Mon 11 May 2020 - 18:26; edited 8 times in total
Hobb- Admin
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Re: R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Sat 3 Aug 2019 - 0:05
- 2001 - Jan to Sept 7th:
January
January 2 - Break-in at the Niger embassy in Rome.
Items taken were of minimal value - official Niger government stamps, stationery and letterhead - but after 9/11 those items came into the spotlight when the CIA received a shady report from SISMI (Italian military intelligence) that an Iraqi official had attempted to acquire uranium (“yellowcake”) from Niger and the UN Iraq Nuclear Verification office was given forged Niger documents. Both the CIA and UN dismissed these as “blatant forgeries” but they carried weight in the US media circus. [re: December 2001]
January 21 - Bush Jr.'s InaugurationArrows of the Night: Ahmad Chalabi and the Selling - Richard Bonin, 60 Minutes Producer wrote:
A meeting at the two-story home of Richard Perle of "a handful of like-minded civilians who saw the charting of U.S. foreign policy as both their dominion and their duty." Among those present, Chalabi said, were Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas J. Feith, Zalmay Khalilzad, and John P. Hannah.
“Well, we have won.” Perle beamed as he opened the meeting. “And now we have to get our policy objective adopted by the administration.” After a meeting with him in 2000, Perle had come to believe that Bush had “the temperament” to finish the job his father had begun.
“I didn’t know how they were going to outmaneuver the State Department,” Chalabi said of his neoconservative supporters. Or how they might neutralize the CIA, where senior officials detested Chalabi, viewing him as a charlatan and an opportunist.
Jan - Another branch of the NeoCon Pentagon - AEI/DIA linkage
Longterm "Pentagon official" Harold Rhode [see Feb 1999] , a "specialist" on Islam and "ideological gadfly" officially assigned to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, an in-house Pentagon think tank headed by fellow neocon Andrew Marshall. Rhode, a is a protege of British intelligence’s Dr. Bernard Lewis, and a close collaborator of Ledeen.
Rhode quickly began accosting senior Arab diplomats ("bartering in the bazaar anymore.... You're going to have to sit up and pay attention when we say so!") and purged career Defense officials and staff who weren't enthusiastic about the Iraq crusade, replacing them by "pulling people out of nooks and crannies of the Defense Intelligence Agency" and their "unofficial, off-site recruitment office at the American Enterprise Institute"
Pentagon officials like Rhode and Michael Rubin were also "stage managers" for the AEI events.
Rhode was the target of a espionage probe, involving his passing of U.S. national security secrets to Israel, while he was in Baghdad as part of the Coalition ProvisionalAuthority (CPA). While in Baghdad, Rhode practically lived out of the home and office of Iraqi National Congress (INC) head Ahmed Chalabi.\"Rhode (when self-promoting as the 'Savior of Iraqi Jewish Heritage') wrote: "The importance of what Israel and America have in common is the values as James Woolsey, the former head of the CIA said. The values of Mt. Sinai meaning that we're all equal, every human being is equal. No more, no less and that we are a people, either American or in this case Israelis who are answerable to the law. We must live within a legal framework."\"Rhode (when refusing to comment on a Mother Jones article about his criminal subterfuge) wrote: "Those who speak, pay."
JAN - “Rationale and Requirements for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control” by National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP)
A product of the Reagan years, NIPP is the think tank most active promoting nuclear weapons and missile defense and played key roles in the two Rumsfeld Commissions (one promoted missile defense; the other, space weapons), and was instrumental in abolishing the government’s Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
Woolsey helped create this blueprint for Bush’s Nuclear Posture Review and then moved directly from the NIPP report into the Pentagon committee tasked with implementing the findings of the Nuclear Posture Review. Bush Jr. bolstered his administration with a contingent of neo-con "unreformed nuclear warriors": Stephen Hadley, Keith Payne, Robert Joseph, Stephen Cambone.Feb
Woolsey plays Detective - Part I : His first visit to Swansea Institute to "check fingerprints"
Building on Laurie Mylroie's conspiratorial theory that Iraq helped carry out 1993 WTC bombing on Iraq. The ex-CIA Director Attempts to Link Iraqi Government to 1993 WTC Bombing. This theory was proposed in a 2000 book praised by Woolsey (see October 2000). Woolsey visits the Swansea Institute to see if fingerprints match those of a suspect Iraqi intelligence agent now serving a life sentence in a Colorado prison.
In London, Woolsey pushed British authorities to turn over more of Abdul Basit’s records. The Brits patiently explained that they had cooperated with the FBI for years on this matter and that the fingerprint evidence was conclusive: Basit’s fingerprints matched those of Yousef’s. Woolsey remained unsatisfied. “He was being a real pain in the ass,” recalled Tyler Drumheller, the CIA’s European Division chief, who at the time received complaints from the CIA’s London station about Woolsey’s trip.
His failure to find evidence doesn't dissuade Woolsey from reopening the case in August, promoting this wild theory in the immediate wake of 9/11 and returning to London for the same purpose in the weeks after 9/11....MARCH
14 March - Capital Q&A: James Woolsey on Spies and Rogue Missiles [NEWSMAX]
Woolsey: "Reagan's original concept of directed energy in space was a very challenging technology and I think it did have the effect of frightening the Russians into spending a great deal more on their military. It was definitely one of the things that demoralized them and helped bankrupt their system. SDI had a hand in helping end the Cold War successfully. There are other ideas for doing this, including one that I support called 'Burros', which are also small satellites that move into the path of missiles but aren't as sophisticated. They're designed to deal with missile threats from Iraq, Iran, North Korea and the like."
April 24, 2001 - Origin of Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (see Sept 13th) Clifford May, a New York Times journalist-turned-Republican communications director, incorporates an organization called EMET (Hebrew 'truth') “to enhance Israel’s image in North America".MAY
May 12, 2001 - Anglo-Atlantic infighting at the AEI's ‘The European Case for European Defence’
AEI’s New Atlantic Initiative marshalled by Charles Grant, a former Economist hack in Brussels who now heads Tony Blair’s favourite Centre for European Reform in London.
It should have been an Englishman, a Frenchman and a German passionately committed to the idea of a EU 'defence capability' coming together in friendship with two veteran American politicians anxious that NATO should not be compromised. But it turned out to be a bloody battle rather than a meeting of minds because one of the Americans was James Woolsey.
Leading the American troops was Richard Perle, a former Pentagon man under Ronald Reagan who is now very close to senior members of the new Team Bush. Beside Perle was the American secret weapon: James Woolsey. If Perle was the rapier, Woolsey was the bludgeon.
Woolsey was not known to hold strong views on European defence, but it soon became clear that the merest suggestion of Euro-hegemony would have him reaching for the figurative nuclear button. Woolsey was having none of it. ‘He wasn’t sceptical, ‘ said one American admirer afterwards. ‘He was hostile.’
The Americans, Woolsey said, had made only a single request. ‘The one and only thing that the United States asked of our European friends was not to establish a separate and independent military planning capability. And, of course, that is precisely what they did.’
By this stage, Woolsey wasn’t taking potshots, he was raking his opponents with machine-gun fire. When Grant complained that the Americans could have arrived in Bosnia ‘a bit earlier than they did’, he hit back – to boos from half the audience – by saying, ‘You achieved Srebrenica.’
By the end, Woolsey had had enough.
‘Perhaps it is time – I never thought I would hear myself say this – to let our European colleagues deal with matters in Europe themselves. . . . That seems to be the way they’re pointing . . . therefore let it be.’
He had finally reached the bottom of his ammunition box.
MAYBE it was the pamphlet cover, a doctored photograph of Iowa Jima depicting that immortalised group of GIs raising a European Union flag instead of the Stars and Stripes. Or perhaps it was the sweltering spring afternoon in Washington that had left the American Enterprise Institute’s air-conditioning system struggling to cope.
Whatever it was, the result was not pretty.June 22-23, 2001 - Dark Winter exercise - Andrews AFB, Washington.
The 24-hour 'Dark Winter' LARP simulated a series of National Security Council (NSC) meetings dealing with the covert release of smallpox in American cities as the "war gamers" dealt with three weeks of simulated shock, stress and horror.
The game begins with the governor of Oklahoma notifying the NSC that his state has been hit by a biological attack. [Oklahoma is Woolsey’s home state and the 'Oklahoma National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism' was a sponsor of the event]
Roleplaying Troupe:
• President: The Hon. Sam Nunn
• National Security Advisor: The Hon. David Gergen [tied to James Baker]
• Director of Central Intelligence: The Hon. R. James Woolsey
• Governor of Oklahoma: The Hon. Frank Keating
• Correspondent, NBC News: Mr. Jim Miklaszewski
• Pentagon Producer, CBS News: Ms. Mary Walsh
• Reporter, British Broadcasting Corporation: Ms. Sian Edwards
• Reporter, The New York Times: Ms. Judith Miller
• Reporter, Freelance: Mr. Lester Reingold
The LARP included a "simulated CNN broadcast":
On Day Twelve of the worst public health crisis in America's history, demonstrations for more vaccine in hard-hit communities disintegrated into riots and looting around the nation. Interstate commerce has stopped in several regions of the nation. A suspension of trading on America's stock exchanges takes effect tomorrow. International commerce with the U.S. has virtually ceased. Iraq might have provided the technology behind the attacks to terrorist groups based in Afghanistan.
James Woolsey: “We are used to thinking about health problems as naturally occurring problems - outside the framework of a malicious actor! If you're going against someone who is using a tool —disease— and using it quite rationally and craftily toward an god-awful end — we are in a world we haven't ever really been in before.
It isn't just buying more vaccine. It's a question of how we integrate these [public health and national security] in ways that allow us to deal with various facets of the problem”
'Dark Winter' was game-mastered by CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies), the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies, and the ANSER Institute for Homeland Defense.
ANSER (Analytic Services, Inc.) is a RAND spin-off that had contracts with the Air Force (Office of the Secretary) in the late 1970s. Woolsey recruited employee Steve Schanzer from ANSER to lead his 1994 CIA 'intelligence sharing' initiative.
In March 2001, ANSER presciently moved into "homeland security" projects by creating the 'ANSER Institute for Homeland Security' - a year before the Homeland Security Act of 2002. When asked about the quirky use of 'homeland', ANSER trolled neo-con opponent Richard L. Armitage by attributing it to his 1997 report for the National Defense Panel, where the term "homeland defense" is used.
July 16, 2001 - Woolsey and Weed [Common Dreams]
Woolsey will be part of the Great Marijuana cash-in 15 years later....
Mokhiber: Okay, second question I have for you. There is a broad coalition of political leaders ranging from former CIA Director James Woolsey to consumer advocate Ralph Nader, that is pushing for the legalization of industrial hemp. This is a non-drug crop that was grown by Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. It has a wide range of uses -- clothing, fuel, among others.Farmers around the world are growing -- in China and Canada -- and importing it. It is illegal here in the United States for farmers to grow it. Does the President favor the legalization of industrial hemp?
Fleischer: I'm not aware of any statement that the President has made that would lend one to reach that conclusion.
Mokhiber: Could you look into it for me?
Fleischer: Industrial hemp?!July 2001- Defence Policy Board (DPB)
The primary neo-conservative Pentagon committee. A federal advisory committee to the Defense Department . Historically served as a method for public-private partnerships between the Pentagon and private consultants.
DefSec Rumsfled appoints Richard Perle, chairman of the Defence Policy Board Advisory Committee (DPBAC). As a non-administration post it does not need Senate approval nor force Perle to quit his jobs at the Hollinger Corporation, AEI and JINSA.
Chairman Perle recruits Woolsey to the 18-member board of "heavy hitters" who represent "the worst of the Anglo-American-Israeli geopolitical fanatics": Newt Gingrich, Henry A. Kissinger, Adm. Bill Owens, Adm. David E. Jeremiah, Dan Quayle, James Schlesinger and Harold Brown, President Jimmy Carter’s defense secretary, James R. Schlesinger and Richard Allen.
According to Woolsey, the Iraqi National Council was the primary source of DPB’s information about Iraq.
Sept 4, 2001 - Anthrax Attack precognition?
New York Times article by Dark Winter participant, Judith Miller, on Pentagon's research into weaponized anthrax. This is a teaser for Miller’s book Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War to be released on Oct 2, 2001.
Sept. 7 - "Pakistan: Leaving U.S. Sanctions in Place Would Be Grave" (Opinion nytimes.com)
by Mansoor Ijaz, R. James Woolsey and James A. Abrahamson
A reply printed Sept. 12, 2001 will lambast Woolsey et al. as an enablers of Islamic state-backed terrorism!
: What the writers are suggesting is that the United States should turn a blind eye to Pakistan's record of supporting terrorism. Granted, sanctions do not fully achieve what they intend to, but their imposition sends a strong message and has deterrent value. Past mistakes by successive U.S. administrations are no grounds for currently going soft on Pakistan. The sanctions must continue until there is clear evidence that Pakistan as a state does not support terrorism.2001 (Oct) Benador Associates (Benador Public Relations)
Woolsey helps kick-start a PR firm to specialize in neo-conservative clients.sss wrote:. Founded, with what Mrs. Benador calls “serendipity,” on September 10, 2001, Benador Associates has ridden the rising demand for such strident voices. Benador Associates’ first member was the late AM Rosenthal, an executive editor at the New York Times, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who, in the wake of the attacks on September 11, called for the bombing of the capital cities of Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Sudan. James Woolsey, former director of the CIA and the consummate Washington insider, was next to sign up.
Benador Associates was "intellectually conceived and financially funded exclusively" by a Swiss-Peruvian publicist, Eliana Benador. She left the 'Middle East Foundation' to create Benador Associates.
Benador credits Woolsey in particular, with helping her get started. "Woolsey really opened his doors for his other friends," she said.
Soon Benador represent the whole "network of neo-cons based at AEI" (Woolsey, Perle, Gaffney, Ledeen, Hillel Fradkin, Michael Rubin, Meyrav Wurmser and Laurie Mylroie) "whose hawkish opinions proved very hard to avoid for anyone who watched news talk shows or read the op-ed pages of major newspapers [during 2001-2003]." Benador clients included many Muslims who wanted Bush II to extend the "war on terrorism" to other Middle Eastern countries (Amir Taheri, Ismail Cem, Fereydoun Hoveyda, Tashbih Sayyed and Mansoor Ijaz).
Benador also represented:- Ahmed Chalabi's "close friend" Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi-British academic who told Bush I: "I think [the troops] will be greeted with sweets and flowers in the first months and simply have very, very little doubts that that is the case." Journalist Christopher Lydon would later say, "My friend Kanan Makiya was the most influential Iraqi advocate in America of the war to "liberate" his country five years ago. He is a caution to us intellectuals and wannabes against the poison of very bad ideas — like the notion of transformation by conquest and humiliation." Makiya told Charlie Rose he had "settled back" in Iraq and that he was "in it for the long run. By 2006 Makiya returned to England to teach at Brandeis University.[7] l and expressing concern over the number of Iraqi deaths since 2003 to deaths: "It's getting closer to Saddam."
- INC defector, Khidhir Hamza, an Iraqi nuclear scientist who defected to the US in 1994 and sent publishers a proposal for a book tentatively entitled “Fizzle: Iraq and the Atomic Bomb,” which described how Iraq had failed in its quest for a nuclear device. There were no takers so Hamza “started exaggerating his experiences in Iraq”and by 2000, Hamza published “Saddam’s Bombmaker,” a vivid account claiming that Iraq was far closer than had been known to the production of a nuclear weapon. James Woolsey said of Hamza, “I think highly of him and I have no reason to disbelieve the claims that he’s made.”
- John O’Sullivan - director of the Center for European Studies at the Hudson Institute the aim of which is to ‘strengthen the unity of the Atlantic alliance’. He was ‘editor-at-large’ of William F. Buckley, Jr’s National Review for ten years and the editor of the foreign policy quarterly, the National Interest, from 2003 to 2005. He was editor-in-chief of United Press International (UPI) the news agency, from 2000 to 2003. From 1998 to 2000 he was an editorial consultant to Conrad Black’s Hollinger International Inc. and and editor of Policy Review, the Heritage Foundation‘s journal (now run by the Hoover Institute).
- Judith Miller - passim
- Amir Taheri - former editor-in-chief of one of Iran’s oldest newspapers under the Shah, members of Benador Associates - In 2006 he gets an article published claiming all Iranian Jews forced to wear yellow insignia likening it to Nazi Germany. When exposed as complete disinformation, Mrs. Benador a responded, “As much as being accurate is important, in the end it’s important to be on the side that is right.”
- Ahmed Chalabi's "close friend" Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi-British academic who told Bush I: "I think [the troops] will be greeted with sweets and flowers in the first months and simply have very, very little doubts that that is the case." Journalist Christopher Lydon would later say, "My friend Kanan Makiya was the most influential Iraqi advocate in America of the war to "liberate" his country five years ago. He is a caution to us intellectuals and wannabes against the poison of very bad ideas — like the notion of transformation by conquest and humiliation." Makiya told Charlie Rose he had "settled back" in Iraq and that he was "in it for the long run. By 2006 Makiya returned to England to teach at Brandeis University.[7] l and expressing concern over the number of Iraqi deaths since 2003 to deaths: "It's getting closer to Saddam."
- Sept 11th to end of November:
2001 (Sept 11) - Woolsey claims to be at a Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel meeting when the news came of attacks; "I felt the shock waves as the third plane hit the Pentagon." Woolsey "rushed to his office" to check on his family, some of his sons were in NY, then "set out immediately to Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington to donate blood" but was turned away, so he drove "home in a rush, pass[ing] right by the smoking crater in the Pentagon".Insight on the News/ v18#20 / june 2003 / Kaufman, Paula wrote:
On Sept. 11 his youngest son, Benjamin, entered the WTC from the subway and suddenly found themselves in "the pit of hell. As Woolsey recounts the event through his son's eyes, his expression becomes increasingly dour. Behind Benjamin, he says, was one of New York's Finest unflaggingly ordering everyone to flee from the disaster. When Benjamin looked back, he realized that the policeman may have perished in the rubble."
According to Susan Woolsey, since 9/11 "Woolsey has pursued a grueling seven-day-a-week schedule unlike any period in his life since his embattled CIA tenure." [...full of passionate intensity in an era when many lack all conviction...]
That night he appeared on PBS Newshour, gave a statement to UPI and co-authored a Los Angeles Times Op Ed with Mansoor Ijaz.
All had the same agenda of pinning 9/11 on Iraq.PBS Newshour (Sept 11) wrote:We may well find that Osama bin Laden or some other terrorist group in the Mideast or elsewhere, probably the Mideast, is behind this. But they may well be a subcontractor or a junior partner. There conceivably could be a state behind this. Iran is possible.
But I think we should focus very hard on the possibility of state backing. Iraq has a lot of incentives to damage the United States heavily.
There was an FBI agent in charge of the early investigation of the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, Jim Fox, who had the view that there may well have been Iraqi government involvement in that. The Clinton administration, Justice Department, brushed that aside after the time but some of the information that came out at trial that had been under grand jury secrecy during the investigation looks as if there may well have been Iraqi government involvement.
And this time this administration, I hope and trust, will not brush aside the idea that there might be state involvement.United Press International (Sept 11) wrote: "There is a reasonable chance this was planned by a state and the terrorist group (was a) subcontractor"“Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Cold” Los Angeles Times Op Ed with Mansoor Ija wrote:
[The resources] “needed to conduct this war against the United States can only be offered by a regime whose track record against U.S. interests is proven, and Iraq comes immediately to mind” so the US shouldn’t go after “sacrificial lambs” (like al-Qaeda) instead of the state actor who obviously had to be behind it all.
"A significant probability exists that Bin Laden’s organization is a subcontractor and not the mastermind in, among others, Saddam Hussein’s anti-American chess game"Sept 12 Wednesday
- Woolsey continues his carpet-bomb of the corporate media "appearing on every major network" to pose the same argument: terrorist groups have state-sponsors, the US attacked Iraq in 1991, therefore Saddam Hussein sponsored Osama bin Laden's attack.
ABC News’s Good Morning America with Charles Gibson ("As dawn rose on September 12, via live remote"): “I think Iraq would have to be the principal candidate,” he said.
CNN ("A few hours later"): “We really need to look carefully at the possibility there may be state sponsorship here, and I think the most likely, certainly not the only, possibility is Iraq.”
CBS News (Dan Rather): Saddam Hussein was behind the 1993 WTC attack and “I hope,” Woolsey told Rather, “if he was involved in this one, he’s underestimated us again.”
ABC News: Woolsey blaming Iraq for the attacks but "Peter Jennings pushes back on the claim of Iraq's involvement. "Atlantic Monthly‘s James Fallows wrote: “The very next day, September 12, 2001, James Woolsey told me that no matter who proved to be responsible for this attack, the solution had to include removing Saddam Hussein, because he was so likely to be involved next time.”
“Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Cold” appeared in the Los Angeles Times Op Ed.
Aftermath: The Questions Begin (NEWSMAX.COM): "Woolsey echoed widespread suggestions that Saudi exile terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden was involved. But he added that a state sponsor could be involved : . "We have to look to see not only who was involved, but who was behind the curtain ... there was a possibility this was Iran this is less likely than if it was Iraq and it may have been neither."
On 12 September, Mylroie, and Charles Krauthammer wrote articles pointing fingers at Iraq. That evening, Bill Kristol echoed Woolsey's points on National Public Radio.
Sept 13 - Clifford May says he was recruited "by Jack Kemp and Jeane Kirkpatrick" to re-brand his new pro-Israeli lobby group into the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies FDD's funding (currently around $8m/year) comesfrom the traditional Zionist deep pockets: Saban, Bronfman, Steinhardt and Singer, 'Home Despot', Adelson, Schusterman and Abramson. The FDD's VP is an IDF communications officer, and they share their communications director with AIPAC.
Until 2008 FDD has Democrats members but afterwards becomes an entirely Republican organization filled with shady AEI neo-cons.
Woolsey is a Distinguished Advisor to the FDD. Starting 2013 Woolsey becomes the Chairman of the Board.
The goal of the FDD is to control the "shadowy aides" of Congress members to get “truly biting” sanctions and banking legislation to "craft the destruction of the Iranian economy". Woolsey would later "cheerfully" brag about the FDD's economic warfare: "A friend told me recently that we are the Special Forces of the Washington think-tank community. I liked that.” The FDD publishes 'The Long War Journal' military blog.
Sept 14 - Thursday
Sept 15 - Friday
Sept 16 - Saturday -Nightline with Ted Koppel wrote:Koppel: “Nobody right now is suggesting that Iraq had anything to do with this [9/11]. In fact, quite the contrary.”
James Woolsey: “I don’t think it matters. I don’t think it matters.”
Sept. 18 - Monday
Sep. 18, 2001 – Oct. 9, 2001 ANTHRAX letter attacks.
Woolsey is "one of the main proponents of the theory that the anthrax letter attacks in America were supported by Iraq's former dictator"Sept 18 - Woolsey plays Detective - Part II
Woolsey returns to London in the September/October 2001 McClatchy (published October 11, 2001) has him in London in September 2001 after the 11th with DOJ and DOD folks. While they were in England the first anthrax attack happened (9/18).
Wolfowitz sends Woolsey to Europe, to create support for IRAQ WAR! Woolsey’s "unorthodox mission was primarily to press the Brits for any evidence they might have that would validate Mylroie's theories" He took a government jet, accompanied by Justice and Defense Department officials, to London.
The Justice Dept. "reluctantly assigned a veteran prosecutor to accompany Woolsey on the mission. " The State Department and CIA Director will only find out about "Woolsey’s free-lance sleuthing" after police in Wales called the US embassy to confirm if Woolsey is indeed on an official mission as he claimed.
According to Knight Ridder, “Several of those with knowledge of the trips said they failed to produce any new evidence that Iraq was behind the attacks.” One intelligence consultant familiar with the trip will say, “It was a stupid, stupid, and just plain wrong thing to do.” Officials at the Justice Department dismissed the trip as a wild-goose chase. “These guys don’t give up,” one senior Justice Department official.
C-SPAN airs 'Defense Week'
A strange press conference held by Woolsey, Neil Livingstone (CEO of GlobalOptions whose Vice Chairman is Woolsey) and Larry Johnson (Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism). Woolsey callsfor creating a "no-fly and no-drive zone" in the north and south of Iraq, so that the Kurds and the Shi'ites can fight Saddam and reiterates his old memes: "The watchword of the day, It's the Regimes, Stupid!"Sept. 19 and 20 - Defence Policy Board votes for IRAQWAR!
DPB meets for 19 hours and all members agree on the need to attack Iraq as soon as the initial attack against Afghanistan is over, a "rolling war" that would attack Afghanistan, then Iraq, then country after country until revenge is exacted. Both Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz took part in the meetings.
The State Department, NSC, and CIA are not briefed on the two-day meeting becasue Secretary of State Colin Powell opposed to their proposal to invade Iraq.
”If we don’t use this as the moment to replace Saddam after we replace the Taliban, we are setting the stage for disaster,” said member Newt Gingrich. Like Woolsey, Gingrich is also dispatched to London to propagandize for war by talking to the London Times, owned by top British-Israeli propagandist Rupert Murdoch. He said that targeting the Afghan Taliban without defeating Iraq would be "like defeating Imperial Japan and leaving the Nazis alone."
Sept 20th - The Project for a New American Century publishes an anti-Saddam/pro- IRAQWAR! letter in the Washington Times.Sept. 22 - Bush II rejects the DPB's recommendation to declare war against Iraq
To the "Wolfowitz cabal," Bush's decision didn't really matter—senior members of the Policy Board had been selected for their broad international connections, especially to the UK and Israel, allowing them to force changes in U.S. policy through an "outside-inside" operation. If unable to change policy through advising, the network could also run covert operations as a "government within a government," as they had maneuvered during Iran-Contra.
Sep 23 - NEWSMAX/UPIWoolsey told United Press International in a phone interview Thursday, that Saddam Hussein could be "sitting there grinning with bin Laden, saying: 'This is good for both of us. I don't get blamed, and you get the credit you want. [...] To do so, he said, is to risk falling into a trap laid by bin Laden and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. "Why else would (bin Laden) issue fatwas and put out videotapes and chant poems and have all his subordinates come up on networks where they know they're being listened to and all talk about how they're carrying out terrorist operations?"
The "Washington power lawyer" commended Laurie Mylroie's opinion essay "Bin Laden Isn't Only One to Blame," which appeared in today's editions of the Wall Street Journal, the newspaper's accompanying editorial "Getting Serious," and his own pun-titled essay "The Iraqi Connection: Blood Baath," out today on the New Republic Online which expanded on the Mylroie theory.September 27-28 - Woolsey's 'Khodada/Salman Pak' Disinformation Campaign
After Woolsey failed to substantiate any Iraq evidence in his two trips to the UK, he resorted back to INC defector allegations.
"Shortly after 9/11" Iraq National Council officials took a new defector to Shea & Gardner where Woolsey then called his "friends in the Pentagon" to arrange for him to become a U.S. intelligence source. Woolsey aware of the CIA’s distrust of the INC, called the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency claiming a military component to the allegations.
Woolsey: "A lot of what is useful with respect to what’s going on in Iraq is coming from defectors have often come through an organization [INC] that neither State nor the CIA likes very much’. "We can work a lot more closely with Iraqi defectors. The Defense Department has been willing to do that ... The State Department and the CIA have been somewhat reluctant."
Khodada, a former Iraqi army captain who immigrated to the US claimed to have worked at a camp where non-Iraqi Arabs trained in “hijacking of airplanes.” The INC began pitching a 'Saddam Hussein's hijacking school for Islamic terrorists at Salman Pak'. With Woolsey cracking the door open, the INC began to guide the Pentagon by injecting Khodada’s disinformation into the U.S. intelligence stream.
September 28, in Washington, INC head Chalabi joined an underling to brief DIA officers about one of the INC’s “defectors”—"a Col. Abu Zainab al-Querery {Saddam’s elder son, Uday, closest aide and confidant}—who claimed he had trained Arab terrorists and had seen them getting trained on how to hijack airliners." INC lobbyists Francis Brooke and Zaab Sethna were escorting Khodada to the offices of various news organizations.
As for verifying the accuracy of Khodada’s claims, Woolsey remarked, “that’s not my problem.” The US intelligence agencies did not believe Khodada’s story and he INC later ceased contact with him.October 7 2001 -Attempted interview with the Taliban!
In a letter to Mr Ijaz and Mr Woolsey dated October 7 2001, seen by the FT [Financial Times], Alhaj Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, agreed to the terms of a meeting discussed earlier on the telephone and in faxed correspondence. These written terms made it clear that the Taliban would be prepared to 'expand on your expressed interest to provide us with information about the nature and extent of relationships between Iraq and terror groups in the region, including potentially to bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation'.
The US delegation was led by "Pakistani-American hedge fund manager" Mansour Ijaz with James Woolsey who "agreed to go as an observer", Khalid Khawaja, "a friend of Bin Laden who was ex-ISI" and an unnamed US journalist arrange to meet with Taliban leader Mullah Omar in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on October 8.
In 'A Mighty Heart', her book on her husband Daniel, Mariane Pearl says that Ejaz and Woolsey "tried to hammer out an agreement that would have averted the war between the United States and the Taliban. The effort failed."
Woolsey, as part of his attempt to gather evidence that could tie Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, contacts the Taliban. The Taliban agree to tell Woolsey about a meeting between Iraqi and al-Qaeda officials that took place in 1997, and possibly other similar information. Apparently in return they hope to avert the US invasion of Afghanistan. However, the US bombing begins on October 7, and the meeting is called off. [Dawn (Karachi), 2/15/2002; Financial Times, 3/6/2003]
Oct 8 - An unofficial meeting scheduled to be held in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar about October 8 2001 was cancelled after the bombing started. Woolsey was supposed to meet with Mullah Omar, a meeting that the Taliban hoped would avert war by providing evidence of Al-Qaeda – Iraq conspiracy (or something) but the meeting is called off because we started bombing on 10/7. This is the point where I think Mylroie sort of said Woolsey came back to Washington.
October 11 - Anonymous officials leak against Detective Woolsey!'Former CIA Director looks for evidence that Iraq had a role in attacks' - Warren P. Strobel - Knight Ridder newspapers wrote:
"Senior Pentagon officials who want to expand the war against terrorism to Iraq authorized a trip to Great Britain last month by former CIA director James Woolsey...the unusual, semi-official trip was at least the second such mission undertaken this year by Woolsey, a leading proponent of the theory that Iraq masterminded both the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and last month's suicide hijackings.
Several officials said Woolsey's mission angered officials at the State Department and the CIA and left British authorities puzzled about whether he was representing the U.S. government. "We don't need to deputize former DCIs to play gumshoe," said one official in Washington.
In an essay published last year in the United States Naval Institute Proceedings, Zinni, who was on the eve of retirement, wrote about what it would take to "drive a stake" through the heart of someone like Saddam: "You must have the political will-and that means the will of the administration, the Congress, and the American people. All must be united in a desire for action. Instead, however, we try to get results on the cheap. There are congressmen today who want to fund the Iraqi Liberation Act, and let some silk-suited, Rolex-wearing guys in London gin up an expedition. We'll equip a thousand fighters and arm them with ninety-seven million dollars' worth of AK-47s and insert them into Iraq. And what will we have? A Bay of Goats, most likely."
Several of those with knowledge of the trips said they failed to produce any new evidence that Iraq was behind the attacks.
The State Department was unaware of the trip but confirmed that it did take place, a senior State Department official said. Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon’s chief spokeswoman, said, ”We just don’t have any information on it.”
Woolsey, in two telephone conversations this week, declined to discuss his trips to England last month and in February. "I have nothing to say about my trips to the U.K.," he said Wednesday. In a conversation on Wednesday, Mr. Woolsey suggested that he was building a legal case against Iraq.
October 11 - New York Times VERSUS Washington Post
New York Times discusses the "Wolfowitz cabal," and their 18-member Defense Policy Board, which met for more than 19 hours on Sept. 19-20 to "make the case" against Saddam Hussein and partitioning Iraq into mini-states led by U.S.-funded dissidents who would steal the proceeds from the Basra oil revenues for their quisling government. The meeting discussed how to manipulate information so as to pin the Sept. 11 attacks on Saddam Hussein.
On the other side, Washington Post chief foreign correspondent Jim Hoagland cites Woolsey's “accumulating evidence of Iraq’s role in sponsoring the development on its soil of weapons and techniques for international terrorism."
mid-October: Woolsey and Mylorie are interviewed by PBS for a documentary.
October 18 - Wall Street Journal: "KNOW THY ENEMY - The Iraq Connection"
Woolsey: "Attack Saddam? It may be one of the most momentous choices of the 21st century ... The CIA has always had an institutional bias in favour of information from recruited agents rather than volunteers and defectors"
Oct 24, 2001 - Canadian report of Woolsey's remarks at American Jewish Congress [Oct 22]'‘Absolute destruction’ of Saddam Hussein is next step in war on terrorism: top adviser ' [Ottawa Citizen / Juliet O'Neill] wrote:Washington—The man reportedly assigned by the U.S. government to give advice on whether Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 terror attacks appears to have decided that a “ruthless” war against Saddam Hussein is justified as soon as military strikes in Afghanistan are finished. “This time, no Mr. Nice Guy,” said James Woolsey, director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1993-95.“This time, no stopping short of absolute destruction of the Baath regime. ... This time, no quarter.”
These were among the many blunt statements Mr. Woolsey made in an after-dinner speech Monday to members of the influential American Jewish Congress. You could hear a pin drop through most of it, and he received a standing ovation at the end.
The ex-CIA chief cited "wisps of smoke" that point to Baghdad's complicity, but admitted he couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Iraq was involved. Another of Woolsey's wisps of smoke is Iraq's intelligence apparatus. "(I)t is quite likely that there is a government and intelligence service with Al-Qaeda in what has happened -- a government beyond the Taliban, because I don't regard the Taliban as a modern government that has an intelligence service with world-wide reach."
"I'm convinced that the American people will not only tolerate the casualties that would come from war, they will demand victory," said Woolsey who appears to be softening public opinion for a post Afghanistan assault on Iraq.
"I'm convinced that the American people will not only tolerate the casualties that would come from war, they will demand victory."
--Former CIA Director James Woolsey
In a speech to the American Jewish Congress, the ex-CIA chief cited "wisps of smoke" that point to Baghdad's complicity, but admitted he couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Iraq was involved. Another of Woolsey's wisps of smoke is Iraq's intelligence apparatus. "(I)t is quite likely that there is a government and intelligence service with Al-Qaeda in what has happened -- a government beyond the Taliban, because I don't regard the Taliban as a modern government that has an intelligence service with world-wide reach."
"Mr. Woolsey appears to be softening public opinion for a post Afghanistan assault on Iraq," said the newspaper.
Oct 26 -Building the case against Iraq - Toby Harnden [telegraph.co.uk] wrote:
"Woolsey, a former director of the CIA, ambassador and Pentagon official who now describes himself as a "private citizen", is the man entrusted with investigating Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks and anthrax outbreaks. The Iraqi National Congress, the exiled group that opposes Saddam Hussein, said it recently held meetings in London with Mr Woolsey. Administration sources have said his trip was funded and approved by Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary.
Such is the sensitivity of the Iraq issue, Mr Woolsey will make no comment about the exact nature of his brief. He told The Telegraph: "I was in London and that's it." But he made clear that he believed there were "substantial and growing indications" that a state was behind the attacks.
The milled, "weaponised" anthrax that virtually shut down Congress and killed two postal workers has increased his suspicions. So too have reports of meetings involving Mohammad Atta, a leading hijacker, in Prague. Atta travelled to the Czech Republic at least twice and was refused entry to Prague airport on another occasion. According to the Wall Street Journal, on one occasion Atta was observed meeting Ahmed Khalil Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi diplomat subsequently expelled for spying.
Mr Woolsey said: "I doubt very seriously if this was simply a social relationship or that they liked to drink Czech beer together." Having suffered thousands of civilian casualties, most Americans would prefer a pre-emptive strike against a known enemy such as Saddam than risk a biological or chemical attack that could kill tens of thousands [...] The United States has not yet decided it is at war with Saddam Hussein but Saddam Hussein may have decided he is at war with the United States."
President Clinton's response to the assassination attempt was "to shoot some Cruise missiles back into empty buildings in the middle of the night" but this type of limited, ineffective action had been discredited by September 11.The Clinton administration, he said, had had "a propensity sometimes to reason backwards from public relations to policy, to the facts one was looking at [...] I think some day - hopefully soon - they will come to the same conclusion that Admiral Yamamoto did after Pearl Harbor, which was to remark that Japan had awakened a sleeping giant."
" If the government chooses, based on the information that it has, to take military action against any other state outside Afghanistan, I believe that the world will see our reaction in that case will be ruthless, relentless and devastating. He concluded: "In the American vernacular - you ain't seen nothing yet."
Coming from the man entrusted with gathering that "information", Saddam would perhaps be well advised to mark Mr Woolsey's words.
Oct 27Hijacker \"Given Anthrax Flask By Iraqi Agent" - Rupert Murdoch’s London Times wrote:INTELLIGENCE agents from Prague to Swansea are uncovering a trail of clues that point to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq having a hand in al-Qaeda’s terrorist missions. Iraqi ministers have spent the week protesting Baghdad’s innocence to the United Nations, but will not say why some of its diplomats who met Mohammed Atta, one of the suspected September 11 hijackers, disappeared from their European posts after that date. "
London Times article by Daniel McGrory claims that not only did Mohamed Atta meet with an Iraqi agent in Prague, but that “a special FBI team” is studying “a report from Prague that anthrax spores were given to Atta." After claiming there were more contacts between Iraqi agents and agents of Osama bin-Laden, McCrory finishes the article with James Woolsey’s hunt for al-Qaeda operatives in England. One has to wonder if Woosley’s is not the source of most, if not all, of the information in the article.October 29 - CSPAN - Ideas in the War Against Terrorism
Newt Gingrich - Senior Fellow AEI
Michael A. Ledeen - Resident Scholar AEI
Richard Perle - Resident Fellow AEI
Anatoly "Natan" Sharansky - Deputy PM , Knesset Israel
James Woolsey - passimTranscript wrote:
Audience Question: If we contained/outlasted Russia "why should we adopt a different policy with respect to the petty tyrants in the Middle East?"
Woolsey: Because these guys are Nazis not communists.
Bill Jones [Executive Intelligence Review]: I was quite flabbergasted to hear what I what I heard today. Although I know the profiles of most of the individuals here I know their history, I was still overwhelmed. And the only thing I can hope is that this forum will become widely known and widely seen around the world. I think our European allies when they see this will ask themselves 'What the hell is happening to America?' Because the solutions you're putting forward, in tandem with the new doctrine of the New Imperialism that Mr Pearl hosted a panel on not too long ago, is going to be a shock for a lot of different people I think it should be and will be a shock for a lot of Americans.
I never really thought....
Woolsey: This is the Lyndon Larouche stance, right?
Bill Jones: Yes.
Woolsey: Coming out of that mouth - and your mouth - your propositions refute themselves.
[applause]
Bill Jones:Let me just let me just mention that I' going to give the panel coverage as a matter of fact a front-page story...
Woolsey (sacrasm): I please do. We're delighted
EIR: because many people have said....
Woolsey (sacrasm): You have so much influence in the world. We're all really delighted at that.
Bill Jones: ...maybe some wacko right-wing group is sending this anthrax around as a type of Reichstag fire in order to get this kind of a solution. I never put but credibility in that before but after hearing you gentlemen today, there is probably something to it.
Nov 1 - On CNN, Woolsey supports fears of terror attacks on 'suspension bridges' and agrees with Zbigniew Brzezinski: "I think Zbig is right, we can't really construct a new regime. What we have to do is get rid of one that controls there now. If I were to paraphrase Mr. Carville in 1992, I would say, "it's the regime, stupid." We need to focus on that and perhaps regimes, plural. There may be more than one regime in the Middle East that is going to have to be removed."Nov 8, 2001 - Coordinated PBS/NYT promotion of Khodada/Salman Pak Disinfo
PBS Frontline 'Gunning for Saddam' documentary and New York Times “Defectors Cite Iraqi Training for Terrorism.” are created and released "in coordination." Both feature Mylroie, Woolsey and their Khodada/Salman Pak conspiracy theories.
Chris Hedges: “We tried to vet the defectors and we didn’t get anything out of Washington that said, ‘these guys are full of shit.’” Based in Paris, Hedges said he would get periodic calls from Times editors asking that he check out “endless stable” of defectors originating from Chalabi. “I thought he was unreliable and corrupt, but just because someone is a sleazebag doesn’t mean he might not know something or that everything he says is wrong,”
The PBS documentary opens with Woolsey as the second talking head to appear.PBS wrote:NARRATOR: Has what you just laid out convinced other people?
Laurie Mylorie: The evidence did convince other people of this -- many other people, including senior people in national security circles and journalists. Then there was this recent lpptrip(sic) to London by James Woolsey, and the British provided information that is contrary to that.
So James Woolsey's trip to London, which we assume ... was to figure out who Yousef really was... Your information is that London intelligence told Woolsey that indeed, it seems that he was this Kuwaiti?
NARRATOR: The impression I have is that the British officials said that Ramzi Yousef is really the individual born Abdul Basit Karim in Kuwait.
NARRATOR: James Woolsey is a member of the Defense Policy Review Board. Like others committed to the case against Saddam, he sifts bits of information, hoping for proof. One of his most prolific sources is the author Laurie Mylroie....
November 28 - ABC News, “Nightline,” 11/28/01
John McCain echoes Woolsey on the case for invading Iraq, using the same misleading rhetoric. John McCain claiming there had “been significant involvement on the part of the Iraqis and Saddam Hussein in the acts of terror that have been committed in the past.”TED KOPPEL (NIGHTLINE 11/28/01): You are probably the hawkiest of the hawks on this. Why?
JAMES WOOLSEY: Well, I don't know that I accept that characterization but it's probably not too far off.
Last edited by Hobb on Wed 19 May 2021 - 17:22; edited 28 times in total
Hobb- Admin
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Re: R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Fri 9 Aug 2019 - 22:32
- December 2001:
DECEMBER
Paladin Capital
Washington-based private equity firm Paladin Capita the “first private equity fund to invest solely in homeland security and intelligence markets”. It was "set up three months after the terrorist attacks" [...] "to invest in companies with immediate solutions designed to prevent harmful attacks, defend against attacks, cope with the aftermath of attack or disaster and recover from terrorist attacks and other threats to homeland security [and] 'offer[s] substantial promise for homeland security investment".
Woolsey helped by Michael Steed and Mark Maloney raise $US500 million largely from union pension funds. He has served on their Board of Directors and chairs their Strategic Advisory Group. Other directors include Kenneth Miniha (Air Force general and the director of the NSA and DIA) and Alf Andreassen (naval intelligence officer who had worked at senior levels for the intelligence research firms Bell Labs and AT&T’s classified programs).
Paladin’s goal, Minihan said, “is to toughen our critical infrastructure so that we can compete in the 21st century with the same success that we had in the 20th century. We also want to make a profit."Boeing was pouring money into the Defense Policy Board. In addition to the $20 million to Perle’s Trireme, Boeing hired as consultants, DPB members Adm. (ret.) David Jeremiah and retired Air Force Gen. Ronald Fogelman. Then another DPB member, former Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey, received a multimillion-dollar investment from Boeing for his Paladin Capital investment group. Both Jeremiah and DCI Woolsey are board members of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, whose founder, Stephen Bryen, had worked under Perle in the Reagan Defense Department. Both were suspected members of the “Mr. X Committee” that steered the espionage of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard.
[http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2003/eirv30n49-20031219/eirv30n49-20031219_058-perils_pile_up_on_perle.pdf]DEC - 'Office of Net Assessment' doing dirty work in Rome
[re: Jan 2 2001]
Two Pentagon officials working for Douglas Feith's Office of Net Assessment, Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode, have a secret meeting in Rome. They are joined by Michael Ledeen in an attempt to reactivate Manucher Ghorbanifar as a Pentagon channel to the Iranian government.
The main topic was the supposed threat to U.S. forces in Afghanistan, but Ghorbanifar says one of the things discussed was regime change in Iran. Ghorbanifar says he is capable of organizing a revolution and he know where Saddam Hussein hid $340 million in cash that could be used to fund it. Ghorbanifar also claimed Osama bin Laden and Hussien were hiding in Iran ("You won't be surprised if you find that Saddam Hussein is on one of the Iranian islands.") and information about upcoming terrorist attacks.
An official from SISMI, the Italian military intelligence agency, was also present. In an interview with Italy's La Republica newspaper, SISMI Director Niccolo Pollari confirmed that he was asked to facilitate the Rome meeting and sent an aide but didn't explain why they were acting without knowledge of the U.S. embassy in Rome and without any assistance from the CIA.
When senior officials learned in 2002 about Ghorbanifar--and that regime change was on his agenda--they decided further contacts were "not worth pursuing." But Ghorbanifar says he continued to communicate with Rhode, and sometimes Franklin, by phone and fax five or six times a week until shortly after the Paris meeting last summer.
Feith would later explain in letter to the Washington Monthly, “The Department of Defense learned from the White House that there were some Iranians who had information about terrorist threats to U.S. forces in Afghanistan and who wanted to defect. The Iranians did not, however, want to deal with the CIA."
That unusual letter from Feith indicates that the White House had learned of the talkative Iranians from a source outside the usual intelligence or diplomatic channels at the CIA and the State Department. That means that Ghorbanifar may have a contact who is passing his messages directly to the White House.Dec 2 - An inside look at how the INC and Woolsey abused idealist reporters to get IRAQWAR!
After the September 11 attacks, British reporter, David Rose (Magdalen College, Oxford,) was "casting about for a strategy to stay ahead of the pack, Rose had asked Jim Woolsey for advice. Woolsey spoke highly of his friend Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. “He said, ‘Well, you should call the INC, they know all about links between Iraq and al Qaeda,’” Rose recalls. Rose was astonished at this possible rich new vein of reporting. “I thought, ‘Wow, you’re kidding me!’”
In his next visit just days later, “Chalabi had read my articles, he knew where my interests lay.” Rose was flattered. “He knew I had an interest in history. He just started talking about, you know, the second Punjab War.” Rose is convinced that the INC carefully examined and mined his background for information so Chalabi would know how to elicit his sympathy.
“If there is a leitmotif that runs through my twenty-five years of journalism,” he says now, “It’s writing about miscarriages of justice, human rights ...oppressed people getting abused through a legal system, and that’s what Chalabi saw. He researched me. He would always emphasize his implacable opposition to the death penalty.” Rose considers himself a liberal and didn’t even know what the neocons were at the time.
One day at the INC offices, Chalabi told Rose, “We have a fantastic story for you.” Not just Atta but two other terrorists involved in 9/11 had met with Iraqi intelligence, Chalabi confided. “I went, ‘Well, that’s a good story!’” Rose remembers.
Rose went to a RESPECTED SOURCE of his, who ended up “confirming” that U.S. intelligence had heard the same thing. Excited at the possible scoop, he went back to the INC, where Aras Kareem, Chalabi’s operations man, gave him more details. It was explosive information, which, if true, meant that three of the nineteen hijackers had met with Iraqi intelligence officials.
Rose became strongly sympathetic to the INC. He fully admits his enthusiasm, which became advocacy. Indeed, he could have been confused for a mouthpiece for the INC, quoting people they said were Iraqi defectors, laying out their agenda and adopting their cause as his own.He enjoyed being around Chalabi, almost as if the man were a cult guru. “He has the regal manner, but if you’re with him, you’re part of the entourage, it’s gone!”
"What kind of short-sighted, amoral positions were antiwar liberals taking?" Rose once asked. Chalabi responded reassuringly, "they don’t get it because they don’t have the moral sense, David, that you do."
Under Chalabi's guidance, Rose was soon investigating claims based on Sudanese intelligence, and flying to Beirut or Amman for exclusive interviews with alleged defectors with information about Iraq's links to anthrax and alQaeda.
"He also flew to Washington,D.C., and was astonished at how Chalabi opened doors for him. When he was with his charismatic Iraqi escort, Rose could meet anyone among this powerful new neoconservative crowd. They virtually ate from his hand. Neoconservative sources close to Chalabi gave Rose the analysis they had assembled at Douglas Feith’s
Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group, presenting it as proof that Chalabi was right and the CIA was wrong. He met a variety of government officials—senators and congressmen and intelligence analysts—as he was carried along in Chalabi’s wake. The British reporter was even introduced to the deputy secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz was certainly a fan of Chalabi, as Rose recalls it. But among the powerful neoconservatives who seemed so friendly,Wolfowitz was also the only source from whom he recalls hearing the smallest of doubts about Chalabi. Sure, he was supportive
of Chalabi, and it was not exactly criticism, but “I’m not one of the people who thinks Ahmad Chalabi is the best thing since sliced bread,”Wolfowitz confessed to him.
On December 2, 2001, David Rose wrote an editorial for the Observer calling for military action against Iraq. “There are occasions in history when the use of force is both right and sensible,” he wrote. “This is one of them.” He also penned " a vivid and terrifying profile for Vanity Fair in December 2001, called “Inside Saddam’s Terror Regime,”(February 2002) which got extraordinary worldwide publicity" and would be quoted in intelligence reports to justify the invasion of Iraq.Rose later expressed bitter regret in John Pilger's documentary The War You Don't See. wrote:
“I don’t think people quite realise how cynical the process of manipulation by those who really wanted this war was. Having been part of that process, I still feel ashamed and disgusted at having been duped to that extent and having been caught up in it.”
To my everlasting regret, I strongly supported the Iraq in vasion, in person and in print. I had become a recipient of what we now know to have been sheer disinformation about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and his purported “links” with al-Qaeda - claims put out by Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress.
I took these stories seriously because they were corroborated by “off-the-record” intelligence sources on both sides of the Atlantic. I am certain that those to whom I spoke at MI6 acted then in good faith. I remember one particular conversation I had with an official in the early summer of 2003, not long before Andrew Gilligan’s BBC broadcast about the government having “sexed up” its dossier on Iraqi WMDs in September 2002. Already it was becoming apparent that the threat had probably been a chimera. “Don’t worry,” my source said soothingly. “We’ll find them. We’re certain they’re there. It’s just taking longer than we expected. Keep your nerve.”
Full disclosure: (Quite why MI6 cut me off, I never found out, but I have been told that MI5 objected to several interviews I carried out with Britons released from Guantanamo Bay who said that MI5 staff had been complicit in their treatment and interrogation while in US custody. It wasn’t that this was untrue, but it was apparently regarded as “deeply unhelpful”.)
Since then, the cloak of plausible deniability has allowed those same spooks to claim they never believed in WMDs at all, and that they were the victims of neocon and Blairite pressure. One source in particular I find particularly hard to forgive - A VERY SENIOR US OFFICIAL who told me time and again that Saddam really did have operational links with al-Qaeda, only to state very publicly much later that the CIA had never properly endorsed this view, and that its dissemination was all the fault of the Bush administration and Chalabi.December 2 ( Sunday )
PANORAMA BBC - Deep Down and Dirty wrote:GEORGE BUSH: Our enemies are evil and they're ruthless. I want justice. There's an old poster out west, as I recall, that said "Wanted, Dead or Alive".
DUANE CLARRIDGE Chief of Counter-Terrorism Centre CIA 1986-88: I don't want him brought to trial and incarcerated in this country. I just want him to disappear. You know.. concrete shoes, dropped into the Indian Ocean ... takes care of dead part of 'dead or alive'.
PETER TAYLOR: In the aftermath of September 11th. The nation burned with anger and demanded revenge.
Admiral STANSFIELD TURNER Director, CIA, 1977-81: We are loosening a lot of controls in this country, not only on the CIA but on the FBI, on the normal
freedoms and liberties that we all have, and most of us think that's necessary...
JIM WOOLSEY Director, CIA, 1993-95: We are going to have to kill a lot of terrorists, and we are going to have to remove at least one or two regimes that now support terrorism. political correctness and fighting terrorism often don't work well together.Secret US Plan for Iraq War.\" GUARDIAN wrote:Reports that the President had already ordered the CIA and his senior military commanders to draw up detailed plans for a military operation against Iraq. The operational commander was General Tommy Franks working out of the US Central Command at McDill air force base in Florida. Apparently, other key players were, low and behold, the CIA Director James Woolsey and the Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. "The most adventurous ingredient in the anti-Iraqi proposal is the use of US ground troops . . . significant numbers of [US] troops could also be called on in the early stages of any rebellion to guard oil fields around the Shia port of Basra in southern Iraq."Dec. 13 - A CIA/State Department rival to Chalabi's INC?
Jeff Stein http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/12/13/iraq/print.html wrote:
| WASHINGTON -- A stream of ex-Iraqi military officers has been invited to Washington in recent weeks to explore options for overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
The unprecedented meetings in early November and again last Friday, held under the auspices of the Middle East Institute, a private group headed by top former U.S. State Department officials, amount to a quiet effort by some former and present Washington officials to add military teeth to -- if not supplant -- the main exile organization supported by Washington for almost a decade, the Iraqi National Congress.
Indeed, the INC, led by Ahmad Chalabi, scion of a onetime Iraqi banking family, was not even invited to the first meeting on Nov. 1, which featured about a dozen former ranking Iraqi military officers plus a half dozen onetime civilian officials in the Baghdad regime. An assistant to Chalabi showed up at the conference visibly miffed, along with some Pentagon officials who have backed the INC, officials said. Chalabi's critics, mostly in the State Department and CIA, argue that he has no following in Iraq, especially among military officers. Chalabi is also a Shiite Muslim, while the bulk of Iraq's military corps is led by Sunnis.
U.S. attendees included Whitley Bruner, a former CIA chief of station in Iraq, and Edward S. Walker Jr., the State Department's top Middle East official in the Clinton administration, now president of the Middle East Institute, which hosted the conferences. Talks were given by Kenneth Pollack, a former official of the CIA and the White House National Security Council, and Michael Eisenstadt, a specialist on Arab military affairs on temporary assignment to the U.S. Central Command.
Iyad Allawi, a former Iraqi intelligence chief and now head of the Iraqi National Accord, a London-based rival to Chalabi's INC, met with senior officials from the CIA when he was in Washington for the Dec. 7 conference, a former CIA officer with experience in Iraq said. "As far as I know, these are periodic higher-level discussions ... the DDO [Deputy Director of Operations] probably makes an appearance."
Dec 20 - A NATION CHALLENGED: SECRET SITES; Iraqi Tells of Renovations at Sites For Chemical and Nuclear Arms - Judith Miller [NYT]
Miller interviewed Saeed Haideri on December 17 and published an article on December 20, 2001, describing how Haideri had visited twenty biological and chemical sites which provided evidence that Saddam was still engaged in illegal WMD activity. The interview with Mr. Saeed [Haideri] was arranged by the Iraqi National Congress,
Saeed Haideri came to the US's attention when Woolsey called up a contact at the Defense Department to alert him to the defector. The initial DIA agents who interviewed Haideri knew nothing at all about Iraq or WMDs. By late December, a DIA official working out of the embassy in Thailand took up the case and the Thai security service spotted the DIA operation and alerted contacts at the CIA who "bigfooted" the small DIA component. The CIA cabled home with a tone of bureaucratic victory that “We are now considering this a joint case.”
Haideri secretly boarded a jet headed to the United States shortly thereafter, and despite whatever U.S. law may say about bigamy, his two wives accompanied him on the plane. The two women, Haideri, and the children were soon ensconced in a Fairfax, Virginia, home at U.S. government expense. “He was scooped up in the furor of the moment. There was no adult supervision,” a former CIA official said. The decision to bring both wives caused some stir at the agency, and an intelligence source says trouble arose quickly. “The wives didn’t get along.
A State Department analyst cleared for Haideri’s material cautioned, “Beware,” but the civil engineer with his two unhappy wives was one of Ahmad Chalabi’s greatest PR successes and Haideri’s information found its way into the National Intelligence Estimate on nuclear weapons in October 2002 as the Bush administration prepared its case for war.
Judith Miller’s version of the sensational charges made by Chalabi-aided defector al-Haideri was immediately seized on by Woolsey, appearing that same evening on CNBC’s “Hard Ball,” he breathlessly told Chris Matthews, “I think this is a very important story. I give Judy Miller a lot of credit for getting it. This defector sounds quite credible.” Within a week, he was telling the Washington Post that the case that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons was a “slam dunk.” He continued confidently, “There is so much evidence with respect to his development of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles… that I consider this point beyond dispute.”
Dec. 21 - "Keep Terror Trials Fair" [WSJ] Mr. Woolsey, an attorney in Washington, was CIA director, 1993-95. wrote: All four sides in this dispute have reasonable points.
The administration is right that its measures deal with an extraordinary situation and are almost certain to be found constitutional under a long line of Supreme Court decisions upholding executive branch prerogatives in such cases. The Congress is right that, even so, any substantial changes would be better undertaken with Congressional approval to ensure broad acceptance and objective and periodical review. Civil libertarians from both right (William Safire) and left (Laurence Tribe) are right that we must carefully guard the procedural rights of the accused and the incarcerated even, indeed especially, in wartime, when it is most likely that individual rights will be overridden.
There are some parallels between being a young Muslim male in the U.S. today and being a British soldier in revolutionary Boston -- fair treatment depends on effective representation.December 21 - The midnight ride of James Woolsey [Asla Aydintasbas - Salon.com]
The midnight ride of James Woolsey - The former CIA director presents himself as the Paul Revere of the terrorism age, trying to waken America to its greatest threat -- Saddam Hussein. Should we be listening?
While Secretary of State Colin Powell, leader of the administration's dovish faction, has tried to keep Woolsey at arm's length, his views are increasingly influential in the Bush White House.
Woolsey has not held government office since leaving the CIA in 1995, but this consummate Beltway insider has worked effectively over the years in Washington's shadow government. A conservative Democrat (or a liberal conservative, depending on where you stand), Woolsey has served on every commission and board that matters in the world of defense and national security, such as the Defense Policy Board and the Rumsfeld Commission on missile defense. He is widely respected in a town riven by spiteful feuds.
If the United States finally decides to extend its war on terrorism all the way to Baghdad, it will be thanks in no small part to former CIA Director James Woolsey.
Isn't the recent bin Laden tape a setback for those who want to shift the focus of the war against terrorism toward the removal of Saddam Hussein -- on the tape, the al-Qaida leader clearly boasts about his leadership in Sept. 11?
That's a particularly stupid conclusion.
We know the administration is split into two factions on Iraq - doves and hawks. Any clues on who is winning the internal debate?
I have no idea. I intentionally asked friends in the administration that they give me no feedback.
Let's turn to Sept. 11. You've spent some time investigating possible Iraqi connections to the hijackers. What is there?
There are yet no smoking guns, but there are indicators that Iraq may well have been involved. Personally, I don't think that's necessary.
This is summed up as a hawkish position.
It's a wise position. It's up to the people who want to characterize it one way or the other.
You assign a key role to the Iraqi National Congress led by Ahmad Chalabi, in overthrowing the regime there. But some high-ranking State Department officials express doubts.
These opponents of the INC are too cowardly to use their own names. I am not.
No country in the Middle East today -- at least no Arab country -- supports attacking Iraq. What would such a step mean for U.S. interests in the region and to the U.S.-led coalition on terrorism?
I think one nutty way to make foreign policy is to collect a large number of nations and decide to do what the lowest common denominator wants.
Dec 24, 2001 - A revised Chalabi plan - now with Special Forces and Iran!The Iraq Hawks | The New Yorker wrote:In recent weeks, Chalabi's revised war plan, augmented and modified by a Pentagon planning group authorized by Paul Wolfowitz, has made its way to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for evaluation. It has left some military men cold, and prompted a debate about the lessons learned from Afghanistan and how they can be applied to Saddam. "There's no question we can take him down," a former government official told me. "But what do you need to do it? The J.C.S. is feeling the pressure. These guys are being squeezed so hard."
Chalabi has now given the Bush Administration an updated war plan, which calls not only for bombing but for the deployment of thousands of American Special Forces troops. Once inside Iraq, according to Chalabi's scenario, the I.N.C. would establish a firebase and announce the creation of a provisional Iraqi government. The United States would then begin an intense bombing campaign and airlift thousands of Special Forces troops into southern Iraq.
The attack plan was worked out with the help of a retired Army general, Wayne Downing, and a former C.I.A. officer, Duane Clarridge, who have served as unpaid consultants to the I.N.C. (Downing was appointed by President Bush in October to be the deputy national-security adviser for combatting terrorism.)
There is a second significant addition to the plan: the participation of Iran. The government of President Mohammad Khatami has agreed to permit I.N.C. forces and their military equipment to cross the Iranian border into southern Iraq. An I.N.C. official told me that the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control gave the organization special approval to open a liaison office in Tehran. (American companies are forbidden under federal sanctions law to do business with Iran.) The office opened in April. "We did it with U.S. government money, and that's what convinced them in Tehran," the I.N.C. official said.
The Pentagon officials, buttressed by Perle and Woolsey, are at odds with the State Department-specifically, with their fellow letter-signer Richard Armitage, who has now become, in private, an opponent of the revised Chalabi plan. "I've got to believe that Wolfowitz and Feith are angry" at Armitage, one friend of all three men told me. "They feel he's betrayed a fundamental conviction they shared." Armitage views the I.N.C.'s eagerness to confront Saddam, the former official told me, as ill-considered.
"We have no idea what could go wrong in Iraq if the crazies took over that country," the former official said, referring to religious fundamentalists. "Better the devil we know than the one we don't." He described Armitage as confident that he could block the plan, and frustrated by the amount of time he has been forced to spend on the issue. "Dick says no way. He's going to win it." Otherwise, he added, "he knows it's going to be a political disaster."
A former high-level intelligence official... "It's the revenge of the nerds," he said, "They won in Afghanistan when everybody said it wouldn't work, and it's got them in a euphoric mood of cockiness. They went against the established experts on the Middle East who said it would lead to fundamental insurrections in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Not so, and anyone who now preaches any approach of solving problems with diplomacy is scoffed at. They're on a roll."December 27 - The Hawk - Nina J. Easton / Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2001/12/27/the-hawk/5de6f623-2e71-4c6e-88f7-c8f7425e2683/ wrote:Working the sleek auditorium of the Cato Institute's glassy headquarters on 10th Street and Massachusetts Avenue NW earlier this month, Woolsey, 60, is trying to prove that any delay in launching a war against Iraq will endanger Americans.
He offers just enough home-spun color -- describing what weapons are in Hussein's "kit bag," for example -- to assure his listeners that he's not just another dry Washington hack. (No remarks about the bald head, please; he doesn't like his own jokes upstaged.) The former spook is a likable charmer to me -- even as he's denouncing as "stupid" or "silly" the alternatives to war his audience raises.
To worries that storming Baghdad will incite Islamic radicals and broaden their support, Woolsey counters that the silence of the Arab public in the wake of America's victories in Afghanistan proves that "only fear will re-establish respect for the U.S. . . . We need to read a little bit of Machiavelli."
To those hand-wringing internationalists who fret that America's allies won't support U.S. military action against Iraq, he answers, undiplomatically: "We need Turkey [for base support], but we really don't need the Europeans. Anyways, they will be the first in line patting us on the back following our success, and saying they were with us all along."
Prosecutor Woolsey lays the groundwork of his case with what he calls "the slam dunks":
First, Iraq is developing biological and nuclear weapons...
Second, Iraqi government been involved with terror, especially terror against the United States...
Now comes the most difficult argument. Woolsey insists there is a "reasonable" chance that Iraq was involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, aided al Qaeda in the Sept. 11 hijackings and was behind the fatal distribution of anthrax through the U.S. postal system. But this very morning, news media have aired the videotape of Osama bin Laden boasting of his involvement in the hijackings. "Is this a slam dunk? Is this a smoking gun? I would say it is suggestive only, but it is very suggestive," he says. As the comic timing of his delivery suggests, Woolsey has problems with this theory, though he concedes it's not impossible that Americans were involved in the plot.
It is a Saturday morning, the only time Woolsey can squeeze in an interview. Fox News is coming at noon. After that he's on a plane to Israel...
He wheels his chair around his desk to pluck photos of his three grown sons and his wife, Suzanne Haley Woolsey, the chief operating officer for the National Academy of Sciences (and a former editorial writer for The Washington Post). The Woolseys' sailboat, a 35-foot vessel named Amniarix, the code name for a World War II female spy, stars in family vacation scenes.
Unlike other neoconservatives, Woolsey remains a Democrat. "I'm not sure why," he says, "nostalgia, perhaps hope. I see people in the Democratic Party, like Joe Lieberman, and I see people like John Kerry. A lot of Democrats have come around to a very tough view-- I think that's great. And on domestic issues, I'm really not that conservative."
"Give war a chance!"
"I wish I didn't feel so much like a prophet," he told his wife.
- 2002 Jan to Sept:
Feb. 8-11 - Woolsey injects another INC defector into the intelligence system
A senior U.S. official summarized portions of a classified Pentagon report for Knight Ridder on condition of anonymity because it's top secret.
Back in Washington Woolsey reached out to his connections for a third time to inject another INC defector into the intelligence system. He says he doesn’t recollect doing this, but on February 8 he contacted a Defense Department official who then passed the information on to the DIA.
The report said that on Feb. 11, Woolsey telephoned head of the DIA (Linton Wells), with word that the INC had produced another defector (Maj. Mohammad al-Assef Harith) with instructions how to contact him. Wells then relayed Woolsey's instruction through an DIA "executive referral" and two DIA officers met with Chalabi later that day, where he arranged for them to contact Harith through the INC's headquarters in London.
Wells confirmed details of the report in an e-mail to Knight Ridder saying he didn't know that the DIA, the CIA and the State Department had warned policymakers for years that they considered the INC's information unreliable. Woolsey denied in a brief exchange with a Knight Ridder reporter that he brought Harith to the Defense Department's attention and declined to respond to multiple efforts to contact him this week after Knight Ridder learned new details of the Harith case.
A later Senate committee's report only said that an "INC source" was brought to the DIA's attention "by Washington-based representatives of the INC in February 2002." So the leak of Woolsey's undisclosed role in the case casts new light on his Pentagon contacts and ties to senior officials in the Bush administration, allowing him to provide a direct pipeline that bypassed the CIA. Francis Brooke said intermediaries such as Woolsey and Perle contacted the Bush administration multiple times on the INC's behalf.
After Woolsey intervention, an INC agent (Zobaidy) in Amman was told to get in touch with a man named Mr. Dan, a U.S. intelligence operator in the embassy. Zobaidy drove Harith to the embassy. At the Amman Embassy, Mr. Dan suspected that Harith "had been coached on what information to provide." When he was done, he told Harith something important: don’t talk to journalists for the moment. After several meetings, the DIA debriefer concluded that some of Harith's information "seemed accurate, but much of it appeared embellished."
The INC decided that as usual it wanted a double impact with it's latest defector: maximum news coverage and his story injected into U.S. intelligence that policy-makers were lapping up. So the INC decided to share its new defector with two trusted news outlets, violating the requests of the DIA official. David Rose who could publish the material in Vanity Fair and in the Observer of London. And a new team from the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes (producers Richard Bonin and Adam Ciralsky) who joined the list of journalists Chalabi could trust after they had been introduced to the INC by an "intermediary in the U.S. government" who had "long-standing ties to the INC and vouched for the 60 Minutes team completely."
Somehow Harith passed a polygraph test so Harith's claim - that in mid-1996 Iraq set up a mobile biological research laboratory disguised as yogurt and milk trucks - was included in an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate and cited by Bush in his January 2003 State of the Union message. However, further intelligence assessments in April, May and July 2002 questioned his credibility—including a "fabricator notice" issued by the DIA.
Feb 16
Crescent Investment - under their division 'Global Internal and External Investment Project Applications Inc. (Global İç Dış Yatırım Proje Uygulamaları A.Ş) - buys controlling interest in Turkey's giant chicken slaughterhouse 'Mudurnu Chicken'.
The Turkish report says that Woolsey's nickname in the USA is "Şahin" {HAWK}Feb. 22 - WESTERN CIVILIZATION:Where's the Posse? WSJ - James Woolsey
Paris, Berlin and Brussels are unhappy with the United States. Leftist members of the European elite have craws in which plain talk gets stuck--they gagged on Ronald Reagan's characterization of the Soviet Union as an evil empire and they are gagging again now".
"Life is imitating art here--the particular piece of art being the classic Western of half a century ago: "High Noon."
Many other Europeans will find excellent models in the film to help them perfect both their excuses for inaction and their condescension toward their protector. Fred Zinnemann, the director of "High Noon," knew this moral territory well--as a refugee from Austria he had seen all the techniques for rationalizing appeasement and the deadly consequences of not challenging evil regimes before they can wreak total havoc.
"Ah," anti-American Europeans reading this very piece this morning will likely respond, "you see how the Americans idealize the impulsive Wild West cowboy and his unilateralist approach to dealing with the world. How naive. How droll."
Like the U.S. today in moving against the axis, the marshal in "High Noon" was trying very hard to be multilateral--he desperately wanted a posse. He just had no takers. What the marshal was unwilling to do is to give up doing his duty just because everyone else found excuses to stay out of the fight.
Go on home to your kids, Europeans. Go on home to your kids. And then start praying that when it's over we won't drop our badge in the dirt".
One of the first film heroic frames for Iraq policy was James Woolsey’s witty essay, “Where’s the Posse?” (Wall Street Journal, 2/25/02, A20). He invoked High Noon (1952) as a salient allegory justifying the president’s policies on Iraq. A few months later, Professor Donald Kagan of Yale, an elite pedagogue, simplified the identification further: “We’re Gary Cooper." (“Invasion Would Mark the Next Step Toward An American Empire," The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 9/29/2002.) An interesting revelation of Bravo Channel’s All the Presidents Films broadcast (8/08/2003) is that High Noon (1952) was the most frequently screened film at the White House between 1953-1986.
Conservatives embrace the image of the cowboy (Engeman 2003). This is merely a colorful metaphor for the neoconservatives' general principle that a Hobbesian world can only be faced by a strong and hard-headed Anglo-American alliance, with most of Europe being too weak and naive to defend the West from barbarism (Kagan 2002).
MARCH - Defense Intelligence Analysis center [Bolling Air Force Base, Washington
Six months after it occurs, Bill Gertz [THE BALTIMORE SUN] will discuss the closed-door meeting of 350 U.S. intelligence officials in March [Infiltrate terrorists with American spies, Spet 15th] where he quotes Woolsey saying: "We were on a national beach party. The country wasn't any more ready for Sept. 11 than it was for Pearl Harbor. And for a lot of the same, underlying reasons. The tactics were different, the intelligence was different, but the country was asleep." The most disturbing news of the meeting was presented by Linda Flohr (CIA, RENDON, BushII NSC, General Wayne Downing)
March 12 - Americans for Victory Over Terrorism (AVOT)
AVOT is a "educational project" of the 'Empower America' think-tank run by drug czar William J. Bennett and funded by real-estate baron Lawrence Kadish, a chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Their March 12th press announcement stated: "AVOT's objective is to sustain and strengthen American public opinion as the war on terrorism moves forward. [AVOT aims to] ‘take to task those who blame America fist and who do not understand – or who are unwilling to defend – our fundamental principles’."
Their open letter published in a full-page New York Times stating that their target was the 'enemy within': "The threats we face today are both external and internal: external in that there are groups and states that want to attack the US; internal are those who 'blame America first.' Both threats stem from a hatred for the American ideals of freedom and equality or a misunderstanding of those ideals. Our goal is to address the present threats so as to eradicate." AVOT also hosted 2 C-SPAN 'fourms' with James Woolsey. (AVOT) associates and advisers include Bremer, Gaffney; and Woolsey.
March 18, 2002 - Goldberg, Safire and Mintz help Woolsey's Disinfo Campaign
New Yorker magazine features Jeffrey Goldberg's "new evidence of Saddam Hussein’s genocidal war on the Kurds—and of his possible ties to Al Qaeda" (The Great Terror) and offers a Q&A with Goldberg (In Saddam’s Shadow).Goldberg wrote:”He’s the home address for anyone wanting to make or use chemical or biological weapons. He’s going to be the person to worry about. He’s got the labs and the know-how. He’s hellbent on trying to find a way into the fight, without announcing it,” Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi dissident, said.
When I asked the director of the twenty-four-hundred-man Patriotic Union intelligence service why he was allowing me to interview his prisoners, he told me that he hoped I would carry this information to American intelligence officials. “The F.B.I. and the C.I.A. haven’t come out yet,” he told me. Anya Guilsher, a spokeswoman for the C.I.A., told me last week that as a matter of policy the agency would not comment on the activities of its officers.
James Woolsey, a former C.I.A. director and an advocate of overthrowing the Iraqi regime, said, “It would be a real shame if the C.I.A.’s substantial institutional hostility to Iraqi democratic resistance groups was keeping it from learning about Saddam’s ties to Al Qaeda in northern Iraq.”
Goldberg's special report is joined by “Protecting Saddam" By WILLIAM SAFIRE at the NYT and "Iraq, Al Qaeda Run Extremist Group In Kurdish Territory" by Mintz at the Washington Post.Washington Post Report: Iraq, Al Qaeda Run Extremist Group In Kurdish Territory wrote:A new report in the New Yorker magazine suggests that Iraqi intelligence has been in close touch with top officials in Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group for years, and that the two organizations jointly run a terrorist organization that operates in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq.
James Woolsey, a former CIA director who favors military action against Iraq and is critical of the CIA's performance on Middle Eastern terrorism, called the Jeffrey Goldberg's article "a blockbuster."
"The CIA has, over recent years, not been real enthusiastic about the Iraqi resistance, and I think that's a shame," Woolsey said on CNN's "Late Edition." "If they got beat on this story by the New Yorker and Jeff Goldberg, three cheers for the fourth estate."“Protecting Saddam By WILLIAM SAFIRE wrote:Soviet propagandists used to touch up photographs to remove the face of a Kremlin official who had fallen from favor, making him a ''nonperson.''
The same disinformation technique is now being used to wipe out the fact of a meeting in Prague in April, 2001 -- five months before the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. -- between Mohamed Atta, the leading Qaeda hijacker, and Ahmed al-Ani, the Iraqi consul in Prague, who was Saddam Hussein's intelligence case officer there.
On ''Meet the Press'' yesterday, Sergei Ivanov, Russia's foreign minister (like his boss, a former K.G.B. disinformation specialist) said of this widely reported Iraqi-Qaeda connection: ''That is wrong information.''
That denial of an observed connection between bin Laden's suicide bomber and Saddam's spymaster was preceded by a David Ignatius column in The Washington Post last week deriding such reports by me and by James Woolsey, former C.I.A. chief, in The Wall Street Journal. Pooh-poohing the notion of a meeting that ''supposedly took place,'' Ignatius asserted ''there is no solid evidence'' of such a link. On the contrary, he opined, ''hard intelligence to support the Baghdad-bin Laden connection is somewhere between 'slim' and 'none.' ''
March 29 - James Mann interviews Woolsey for his book 'Rise of the Vulcans'Rise of the Vulcans wrote:Although Perle and Woolsey were outsiders, the network of personal ties connecting them to some of the Vulcans (particularly Wolfowitz, but also Rumsfeld and Cheney) was intricate and long-standing. As a result, when they called for military action against Iraq, they were seen as reflecting views inside the administration. Wolfowitz and Perle had been allies since their arrival in Washington as students in 1969, and Woolsey had befriended both men during the late 1970s. The three were not just intellectual soul mates but neighbors.
“We all live within a stone’s throw of each other in Chevy Chase,” said Woolsey, a conservative Democrat who served a brief, unhappy tenure as President Clinton’s first director of central intelligence. Woolsey had also become acquainted with Cheney and Rumsfeld when all three men served as team leaders and would-be White House chiefs of staff in the clandestine doomsday exercises of the Reagan administration. In the 1990s Woolsey served on Rumsfeld’s missile commission; after 2001 he served with Perle on the Defense Policy Board.
Woolsey dismissed suggestions that in his television interviews and newspaper articles about Iraq he was serving as a conduit for the views of Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld. “There are no secret meetings, or secret hand-shakes or conclaves or anything,” he explained in an interview in the spring of 2002. Since the beginning of the new administration, he had seen Wolfowitz only rarely, usually at meetings of the Defense Policy Board. Their proposals for military intervention in Iraq—Perle and Woolsey outside the administration, Wolfowitz inside—were similar simply because their views were so alike, not because they were coordinated with one another, Woolsey explained.
April 26, 2002 - Speaker @ Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory - Colloquium Topic: Possible U.S. Responses to Terrorism
June 3 - 'Woolsey Wary Of More Attacks' by Paula Kaufman a free-lance writer for Insight MagazineInsight: What is the Ba'ath Party?
JW: It is a despotic organization modeled after the fascist regimes of Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. Essentially, Ba'athists are modern-day fascists.
Insight: You state that terrorist organizations have declared war on the United States. Why are they at war with us, and who are they?
JW: They hate us not for what we do wrong but for what we do right. Our ideals and values are potent indicators of a modern civilization that is democratically responsive to its citizens. We are committed to preserve the Constitution of the United States — the document that provides every American with liberties and freedoms unmatched in world history. They hate this form of government.
Insight: Did the CIA equip and train Yasser Arafat's security forces?
JW: From press reports, apparently so. This occurred after I left the CIA seven years ago. The CIA has a close relationship with Israeli intelligence dating back to the inception of the state of Israel.
Insight: How do you bring about regime change in the Mideast, yet avoid catastrophic upheaval?
JW: For the last 40 or 50 years we have tolerated Mideast tyrants because of the U.S. thirst for oil. For us to win this war the entire face of the Mideast must change. But, first, all this hinges on our success in bringing down Saddam. [...] I would hope that by this autumn we would have rid the region of Saddam. So sometime in the early fall would be reasonable. First, we need to build our stockpile of smart weapons and prepare logistically to put 100,000 to 200,000 troops on the ground. Each day that passes, Iraq gets more of an opportunity to build longer-range missiles. If Saddam has to produce fissionable material himself, it may be another few years. If he buys it, for example from Russian organized crime, he could have a bomb very soon.First Weekend in May - Council for National Policy conference
A "theocratic organization" based out of Fairfax, Virgina, serving as the "conservative version of the Council on Foreign Relations" held their highly secretive conference in "a ritzy hotel in Tyson's Corner, Virgina" where 500 members heard private, unvarnished presentations from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, Frank Gaffney debating Pat Buchanan about Israel, somebody from the White House's Public Liaison, and James Woolsey.
There are no public announcements or comments except for a conservative writer who “reported a complete uniformity of judgment—at a meeting attended by Bush administration officials when the Bush administration would still pretend for several months to try diplomacy—that Saddam needed to be deposed with military force."
The CNP was funded in 1981 by Rev. Tim LaHaye (Left Behind series), the billionaire son of billionaire oilman H.L. Hunt, T. Cullen Davis (Texas oil baron), and William Cies (wealthy John Bircher). At its first meeting in May of 1981, the CNP "gave an award to Reagan budget guru David Stockman & strategized about judicial appointments." Considered 'conservative king-makers' both Steven Harper and George Bush Jr. gave very right-wing speeches to the CNP (in 1997 and 1999 respectively) before taking control of Canada and the USA.
June 15 - Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI) founding announced (Washington Post)
Mike Ledeen founded the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI) calling for "regime change" and an Iran Liberation Act, similar to the 1997 one for Iraq. His partners in the coalition include Dr. Rob Sobhani (Georgetown University and president of Caspian Energy Consulting), Frank Gaffney (Center for Security Policy) Joshua Muravchik (AEI) and James Woolsey. The group has strong ties to the son of Shah of Iran who was overthrown by the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Jul 31, 2002 - Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing
Senate Foreign Relations Committee uses testimony from a INC defector Hamza despite his tales being "rejected by all intelligence services at the time" and his name not appearing on any listing of Iraqi senior administrative personnel.
Seymour HERSH: "When I spoke to Jeff Stein, a Washington journalist who collaborated on the book, he told me that Hamza’s account was “absolutely on the level, allowing for the fact that any memoir puts the author at the center of events, and therefore there is some exaggeration.” James Woolsey, the former head of the C.I.A., also told me that month, “I think highly of him and I have no reason to disbelieve the claims that he’s made.”
UN weapons inspector Scott RITTER: "And here we are, someone who the CIA knows is a fraud, the US Government knows is a fraud, is allowed to sit in front of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and give testimony as an expert witness. I got a problem with that, I got a problem with the American media, and I've told them over and over and over again that this man is a documentable fraud, a fake, and yet they allow him to go on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and testify as if he actually knows what he is talking about. He didn't work for the Iraqi Nuclear Program . He had no knowledge of it because he worked as a kickback specialist for Hussein Kamel in the Presidential Palace. "July 15, 2002 ( to March 2008) - Woolsey hired as Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton's 'Global Assurance Practice' section.
Booz Allen Hamilton is a "consulting firm" found in 1914 in Virginia, that makes 99% of its revenue from the US government. It is considered the "Shadow Intelligence Community” because it employees 10,000 people with Security Clearanc and has “more former secretaries of this and directors of that” than the entire government. It also where CIA officers from the “CIA within the CIA” like Miles Copeland (and Woolsey?), can "return to private life ... while remaining a non-official cover operative for the CIA." (Peter Dale Scott - The Hidden Government Group Linking JFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra and 9/11)
In "a fortuitous moment for Woolsey" Booz Allen launched a 2003 initiative to “shape and implement public-private partnerships” and chose him to lead it as V.P of its new 'Global Strategic Security' unit.As a former Booz Allen employee wrote:As a former Booz Allen employee, I worked in a non-defense area (environmental, a decreasing part of the firm's employment and revenue). They really toot tooted hiring Woolsey, and picking up former politicos is a major part of their marketing strategy (as it is for all the beltway banditos). BAH was worse than the others to work for, though. They rely on a complicated scheme that requires salaried employees to work uncompensated hours to increase their profit margin, a strategy they lovingly referred to as "dilution." Of course, they needed the cash to pay salaries of revolving door types like Woolsey.
Woolsey new job was "to help" major CEOs "integrate security into their strategic business planning." Woolsey's team included "former leaders of the natuion's highest security and intelligence agencies, experts in cyber-secuirty, global-supply chain management and wargame-scenario planning." War-games remain one of Booz Allen’s specialties; Mike Copeland is credited with organizing some of the first war games in the U.S. Intelligence Community as head of a five-man 'political action unit' in Washington, he ran a “games room” particularly those concerning the Middle East, could be played out; Woolsey has also run several such scenarios for Booz Allen’s corporate clients and the Department of Homeland Security.
Booz Allen won several Pentagon contracts in post-invasion Iraq, including as a subcontractor on a telecommunications project managed by Lucent Technologies.
29 July - Institute of World Politics / Insider Report: Enron at the CIA [NEWSMAX]
Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey told attendees of the Institute of World Politics symposium that World War IV began on Sept. 11 and that the new world war should target Saddam Hussein as its first major adversary. Before his speech, NewsMax editor Christopher Ruddy chatted with Woolsey.
Woolsey has been touted as a possible candidate to replace current CIA Director George Tenet, if Tenet resigns. Asked if there was a need for leadership shakeup at the CIA, Woolsey told Ruddy there was no need for one.[because] the CIA bore no culpability since the terrorist operations took place within the borders of the U.S.
Another CIA official, who has been critical of the agency's role in 9-11, told Ruddy he was perplexed by Woolsey's response. The Sept. 11 attacks were planned and orchestrated outside the U.S. – well within the clear jurisdiction of the CIA.
[...]
"Are you one of those Enron guys?" We hear this is a common question put to new employees at CIA headquarters by their fellow colleagues. At least a dozen top Enron operatives have joined the CIA. Better put, these officers have [returned to Enron] as Enron recruited heavily from the CIA. With Enron having gone bust and the economy in turmoil, Enron has turned out to be a source of veteran CIA officers the agency desperately needs in the aftermath of 9-11.Sept 3 - FDNY's new 'Terrorism Preparedness Task Force'
NY Mayor Bloomberg named James Woolsey and the ex-boss of Mossad - to FDNY's new 'Terrorism Preparedness Task Force'. Woolsey wasted no time getting started yesterday, touring the Maspeth, Queens, firehouse of Squad 288/Hazardous Materials Co. 1 and making a point of the task force's advisory mission. "We are not doing an investigation. We are putting together a group of people who will be available to advise the commissioners and the chiefs on these counterterrorism technology issues." Auxiliary Lieutenant Fireman, Paul Isaac Jr. says Woolsey, as the Fire Department’s Anti-terrorism Consultant, is sending a gag order down the ranks about any bombs in the WTC. The Woolsey gag order created an Omerta-like mob silence that Firefighters and Police Officers have had to deal with to this day.
Sept 10 - Pravda discusses Woolsey & Ermarth relationship to Jewish-Russian oligarch Berezovskyhttp://www.pravdareport.com/news/russia/13442-n/ wrote:"British special services “handed Berezovsky over” to American colleagues. We have information that Fritz Ermarth, former CIA officer and specialist on special operations in the East-European region, is in close contact with the oligarch. Russiagate, the scandal on Russian budgetary finance laundering through BONY in August to September of 1998, was one of his projects. He is in contact with Former CIA Director Woolsey, who has no official job in Washington but is known as a person close to Cheney. It is not ruled out that it was Ermarth who suggested that Berezovsky switch his attention from the weak and unpromising micro-party Liberal Russia to financing and cooperation with the Communist Party."
September 15 - In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue [Washington Post/International Herald Tribune]Dan Morgan and David B. Ottaway wrote: "It's pretty straightforward," said former CIA director R. James Woolsey, who has been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein from power. "France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them." But he added: "If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them."
Ahmed Chalabi, the INC leader, went even further, saying he favored the creation of a U.S.-led consortium to develop Iraq's oil fields, which have deteriorated under more than a decade of sanctions. "American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil," Chalabi said. The INC, however, said it has not taken a formal position on the structure of Iraq's oil industry in event of a change of leadership.
Mid-September [CSPAN]
Back in mid-September, I was flipping on the TV at the end of the day – after a few beers – trolling on SPAN. And I happened to come upon a House hearing on the pending war with Iraq. I think I missed the first couple hours of the hearing because chairman Henry Hyde announced that it was Congressman Ron Paul’s chance to ask a question. Paul scorned the hearing as “very one sided” and said “This turns out to be more propaganda for war than anything else. We’re willing to go to war over phantom weapons.” And then he asked the two witnesses – Richard Perle and James Woolsey – whether they would personally be wiling to risk their lives for the war they so strongly advocated.
Woolsey answered first. He mentioned that he “flew a desk” during his two years in the army – but then stressed that it was not up to private citizens to decide whether to go to war – it was up to Congress.
Then Perle answered. Perle was in London at the time – and they had a giant video screen up there for him to be seen. The hearing setting looked like a scene out of Dr. Strangelove. And there was a giant flag just to Perle’s right – sort of like the Fox News Network on amphetamines.
Perle opined: “Well, I find the question a particularly troubling question because the suggestion is that somehow it is illegitimate to make recommendation with respect to what one believes is in the best interest of the country and all of our citizens except in some intensely personal context. And if I were in a position to serve, I would do so. But, that seems to me quite the wrong question, Congressman. The question is how do we best protect the citizens of this country.”
Woolsey chimed in: “This so-called chicken-hawk argument does seem to me to be an extraordinarily unworthy argument. And I think Senator John McCain has put it exactly where it belongs. For one thing it says that if an American women or an openly gay American man supports the war that an opinion is unworthy or an over military-age American man, that that is an unworthy and ought to be an unconsidered opinion because none of those people are going to serve in combat. And I join Mr. Perle in saying that I think that it’s an extraordinarily unworthy ad hominem argument.”
Now – congressman Paul had not accused the two distinguished witnesses of being chicken-hawks – they were the ones that brought this up. But simply to directly challenge them made both Perle and Woolsey go strutting as if they had suffered some terrible insult. I mean – since they were advocating killing foreigners – of course they had good intentions, right?
Sept. 24 - Weldon, Woolsey and Itera
Kurt Weldon gives "a glowing report" about Russian gas trader 'Itera International Energy' to the House of Representatives/Congress after they pay him and hire his daughter's PR firm. In March 2002 the U.S. Trade and Development Agency cancelled a grant to the company after questions were raised about how they received the assets and capital of Gazprom. Weldon claims he persuaded Woolsey and former Energy Secretary James Watkins (Chief of Naval Operations) to become advisors to the company on good corporate governance, which would improve its credibility and reputation. However, Watkins said he did not work for Itera because the company did not respond to his request for information. Woolsey said he rejected Itera’s offer because he no longer wants to work on company boards (?!?).
26 September
The Independent has learnt that the Russian government – which is friendly towards Iraq – recently dispatched a diplomat to hold talks with a senior official from the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the US-backed opposition umbrella group. At that meeting in Washington on 29 August – the first for seven years – the diplomat expressed worries that Russia would be kept out of the oil markets by the US after comments by James Woolsey to The Washington Post.
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Re: R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Fri 9 Aug 2019 - 22:32
- 2002 Oct/Nov/Dec:
October - Born-Again Zionists [Mother Jones September/October 2002 Issue]Of course, the administration’s pro-Israel stance is not entirely the result of evangelical lobbying. Israel has long been the largest recipient of American aid, receiving $3 billion last year. “The evangelicals are important,” says former CIA director James Woolsey, an adviser to the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, “but less in a political sense than as a reflection of the widespread support that Israel has in this country.”
Oct 3 -The Man Who Knew [FRONTLINE | PBS]As an FBI agent who specialized in counter-terrorism, John P. O’Neill investigated the bombing of the American embassies in Africa...
WOOLSEY: We now know that he was planning an operation to crash a dozen American airliners virtually simultaneously with bombs. Now, one version of this, I believe, from the Philippines, has it that he was planning on crashing one of the 12 not in the Pacific but into the CIA headquarters in Langley. What's interesting is whether that was part of his plan or not. If you look together at crashing airliners and at Ramzi Yousef's plot to blow up the World Trade Center in '93 by explosives, what happened in September 11th, 2001, is some kind of a weird amalgam of those two Ramzi Yousef plots.
NARRATOR: Another of O'Neill's friends worked in the upper reaches of the Justice Department...Oct 9 - The Pentagon Muzzles the CIA [Robert Dreyfuss/prospect.org]
Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, John E. McLaughlin (Aspen Homeland Security Group/Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University) declassifies an Oct 7th letter summarizing information from an October 2nd closed hearing.Voice crackling over his cell phone, Jim Woolsey is trying hard to sound objective and analytical, but he is, well, gloating. The former CIA director and 'not quite a private citizen' has been one of the leaders of the get-Saddam Hussein faction for years, promoting a unilateral U.S. strike against Baghdad. What's got him excited is an Oct. 7 letter, recently declassified, from CIA that put the CIA on record for the first time as saying that there have been "high-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade"; that Iraq and Osama bin Laden's gang have "discussed safe haven"; that members of al-Qaeda have been present in Baghdad; and that Iraq has "provided training to al-Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases."
"The CIA has started saying things that the Defense Department has been saying all along, but up until that letter, I hadn't seen any evidence publicly that the CIA was acknowledging all these contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda," says Woolsey. "What I read the Tenet letter as saying is that they are starting to. The CIA has started to come around to point out some of the things that the Pentagon has been talking about."
Oct 10 - CNN Wolf Blitzer ReportsWOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Is it unusual to offer that kind of assessment, declassified, to the Senate Intelligence Committee to be made public?
JAMES 'HAWK' WOOLSEY : Well, I think what happened was that this was given in testimony before the committee behind closed doors, and then the chairman, Senator Graham, I think, pressed for it to be released, and if the agency doesn't have a reason to protect sources and methods, and it doesn't sound like there were any given away here, this is really basically their judgment -- not a piece of intelligence, not a stolen secret, it is just what they think. And I must say, I see it differently.
BLITZER: Well, what do you see?
WOOLSEY: Well, I think that they overstress the difference between the likelihood that Saddam might use (or let terrorists use) weapons of mass destruction whether we attack or don't. They say if we attack, it's reasonably likely. If we don't, then it's reasonably unlikely. I think that's wrong. I think that Saddam is a megalomaniac surrounded by sycophants. He does not have an accurate picture of the outside world. He started two wars that went quite badly for him, thinking it would be easy.
BLITZER: I've spoken to people in the intelligence community in the U.S., and they say there's really no hard evidence that he's done that in the past, given weapons of mass destruction capabilities to terrorist groups.
WOOLSEY: I think that's true, but [we] have to make judgments about capabilities and intentions, and on both of those counts he [Saddam] is about as bad as one could have.
We do see, in this new CIA document, that the Iraqi intelligence has been training al Qaeda in the use of, as they put it, poisons and gases. So, it's -- they're at least backing off this position, apparently, that they had for some months there was no contact between al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence,
BLITZER: Let me read to you an e-mail we got from John in Fort Pierce, Florida. A question for you -- "how much of this Iraq business is about oil?
WOOLSEY: I think that if the French and Russians, whose oil companies are very much in bed with Saddam right now, make it hard for us to move with allies to replace this regime. You know what I think? I don't see any particular reason that we should give the Russians and French the idea that we're going to do all the work and make things easy for Total and Elf Oil to profit greatly by Iraq's oil.October 17- SILENT VECTOR Wargame
Two-day exercise held at Andrews Air Force Base, the goal of the is to improve the government's effectiveness in the days before a terrorist incident. SILENT VECTOR was a unique homeland security exercise, because the attack does not occur during the scenario. With James Woolsey reprising his role as 'National Security Adviser'....
In the simulation, the “NSC” was informed of credible intelligence that indicated an attack was highly likely in two days and that the likely target was energy infrastructure someplace on the East Coast of the United States. The most important component of the intelligence was in doubt because it rested on the verbal report of a so-called walk-in at an American embassy in a foreign capital, and the informant failed a polygraph test administered at the time of his report. The NSC had to contemplate two questions at the outset: Is the threat credible in light of the shallow intelligence basis? If it is credible, what are the terrorists likely to attack, and where should we place our priorities?
The false flag consumer is a difficult issue highlighted by the scenario used in Silent Vector. In the scenario, the terrorists posed as legitimate businessmen who needed to charter aircraft from commercial services. The would-be terrorists chartered aircraft of increasing size over an extended period, always paying promptly. Their cover story was plausible, so it did not raise suspicions among charter operators. The problem posed by the false flag consumer is that it does not fall into a normal regulatory activity of the government and any obligation for a private company to conduct a background investigation on another private entity is strongly resisted in today’s business culture.
SILENT VECTOR was a joint effort led by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (John Hamre and Phil Anderson) and the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security (Dave McIntyre and Randy Larsen). AIR Worldwide Corporation (AIR), the technological leader in catastrophe modeling and weather risk management, announced today that AIR's Terrorism Loss Estimation Model was used to support Silent Vector, an executive-level terrorism preparedness exercise held October 17 and 18 at Andrews Air Force Base.
Roundtable participants argued that a disciplined approach to define and “manage” risk would assist with the challenge of designing homeland security procedures for critical facilities. The risk is categorized and arrayed against a mix of facility construction, process design, operating procedures, and indemnification to strike a balance that is seen as most cost effective, given the likelihood and consequences of the event. Roundtable participants believe this same disciplined process would be profitable if introduced into homeland security preparations.
A crosscutting issue to emerge during our seminars was the question of the tension between commercial incentives and the imperative for security. In the United States, most critical infrastructure resides in the private sector. Managers that address the demands of the marketplace most effectively are those who profit most handsomely compared to competitors.We favor this approach because of the inherent efficiency that comes from a marketplace philosophy. his philosophy, however, makes potentially hazardous materials relatively accessible to the general public. Consider the neighborhood gasoline station.
"Most bureaucracies aren't good at dealing with stuff they've never seen before. It throws everybody," said former CIA director James Woolsey, who will serve as national security adviser for Silent Vector. But, he added, government groups' performance increases the more they've seen a situation. "This is clearly the sort of attack that the folks who pulled off 9/11 could certainly do," said Randy Larsen, director of the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security . Coming up with new methods for releasing information to the press is a key goal of the exercise, Larsen said.
Nov 1 - The Fifty-First State? [James Fallows - Atlantic Monthly]
James Woolsey claims, “This could be a golden opportunity to begin to change the face of the Arab world.”
4 November - Committee for the Liberation of Iraq [Peter Slevin / Washington Post Staff Writer]
At a time when polls suggest declining enthusiasm for a U.S.-led military assault on Hussein ... with the administration's blessing, a new group is forming to press the case "that things could be a lot better if he [Saddam] wasn't around."
Called the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, the organization is modeled on a successful lobbying campaign to expand the NATO alliance. Its methods will borrow heavily from the NATO effort, including sessions with opinion makers, contacts for journalists and mass marketing when the time is ripe. The approach is a familiar one to the Bush administration as Bush's deputy national security adviser, Hadley, co-founded the NATO project
The committee is just getting started, installing telephones and computers last week to go with fresh business cards and stationery.
The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq was founded by Lockheed vice president Bruce Jackson, who by his own admission, "knew nothing about Iraq" and so turned the it over to Republican operative Randy Scheunemann, who took the position of executive director. Scheunemann was on the PNAC board of directors, a consultant on Iraq to Rumsfeld and had authored the Iraq Liberation Act ($97 million in Pentagon aid to the Iraq National Congres) as a staffer for senate majority leader Trent Lott.
15 November - US Newswire releases a 'Committee for the Liberation of Iraq' press release.
FOUNDER - Bruce Jackson (VP for strategy and planning for Lockheed, created the 2000 Republican National Convention's foreign policy platform, )
TREASURER - Julie Finley (Jackson's "old friend", Atlantic Council, "grande dame" of Washington Republicans)
BOARD MEMEBER - James Woolsey
BOARD MEMEBER - Jeanne Kirkpatrick22-22 November - NATO Prague Summit used as recruiting grounds by the newly formed 'Committee for the Liberation of Iraq' cabal
The Havel Paradox - Martin Simecka Published in Slovak in SME on 26 November 2002. wrote:At this conference of the "NATO-mafia" (a term that those determined to convince Western politicians to enlarge the Alliance eastward use ironically), Vaclav Havel ... stated that if we resolve to take action against a state in the name of defending human life, we should pause for a moment "and plumb the depths of our souls to ask ourselves whether or not we're really doing this as 'brotherly help.'" He was referring to the euphemism used for describing the Russian occupation of Czechoslovakia and the impending American invasion of Iraq.
Julie Finley was first off her chair to give him an ovation, and we all joined in. In the following two days no one returned to this remark. The applause wasn't as much for Havel's words as for Havel himself. Would NATO be in such a pickle over Iraq if its members had listened to the former Czech president's parting words?
At the banquet I was seated next to the elegant Jeanne Kirkpatrick, whose conservatism is as evident on her face as it is on Margaret Thatcher's. "Do you think Bush has already decided to invade Iraq?" I asked rudely. "I don't represent the American government," she snapped. I tried to explain my question. "Isn't it poetic that one person gets to decide the fate of the world?" "I rather think that he hasn't decided yet," she said as if to show forgiveness. "But he's more like Reagan than his father. He won't rely on the bureaucrats for answers."
I stayed to listen to Bruce Jackson: "The year 1989 represented a moral revolution, not a political one, and this we must bear in mind," Later it was Jackson who dragged me off to a pub for a beer. Jackson reprimanded us: "The world needs vision and visionaries, you must speak up!" I immediately felt guilty because I had no vision, but Michnik was more resistant. "I did my best work under Communism, Simecka under Meciar. We're not visionaries, we just analyze dictatorships," he said astutely. Jackson pressed on. "So join a commission which I'm just setting up for the liberation of Iraq," he said, raising his beer in a pledge. "OK then," we replied, disarmed.
"My father was a politician and my mother was an opera singer," said Julie Finley. I put my two cents in. "That doesn't explain your huge influence on American politics." "Yes it does. My parents educated me to respect values." She was sincere, but at 2 a.m. it didn't make sense to try to explain to her how implausible her statement sounded in a pub in Mittel-Europa.
The next day I noted that the 60 people discussing the future of the world (and hence giving it form) were all white. James Woolsey maintained that democracy will spread regardless of skin color or religion. All we need to do is democratize the remaining 73 nations. Then there'll be peace all over the world. "I advise Europeans to take part of the money from farm subsidies and buy airplanes. The American press is already complaining about America being forced to play Sparta while Europe plays Athens," said Woolsey. [At a NATO conference in Prague last November, Woolsey declared "Iraq can be seen as the first battle of the fourth world war" - Jim Lobe]
Chairman of the Military Committee of NATO, Klaus Naumann offered, "Germany listened to what the Americans kept telling us since World War II, and became pacifists." Though he was frowning, this general had a sense of humor.
An army of waiters never left my glass half-empty. They feed our bodies so that they can pick our brains, I thought with a twinge of my old paranoia when I found myself back in the marble bathroom. How comfortable and disarming it is, though, to live in Athens, not Sparta.
December 18 - CSPAN - Missile Defence and Russian Relations
Mr. Woolsey spoke about implementing a national missle defense system and the potential impact on US-Russia relations [18 views]
Dec 19 - Bolton and the 'neo-con espionage network'
Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, John Bolton plants discredited 'Niger yellowcake' in a State Department sheet titled "Examples of Omissions From the Iraqi Declaration". Two years later Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) asked for a committee investigation into State Department efforts to conceal the role of Bolton in the creation of the Fact Sheet, Bolton’s potential connection to a neo-con espionage network, and his persistent role in “fixing” intelligence which he and his friends did not like.
- 2003:
January 13, 2003 - Chairman of 'Freedom House'
Woolsey made chairman of Freedom House [until mid 2005]. He targets Eastern Europe for colour coups and compares Putin's Russia to "fascism".
A Roosevelt-era "human rights" institution incorporated into the NED's 'soft-power' coup apparatus. In 2002, the White House announced that Freedom House assessments of political and civil liberties will be used in determining which countries qualify for foreign aid.
"Woolsey has had a distinguished career in 'public service' and in the 'private sector'. We are certain he will make an outstanding chairman and will build on the progress the organization made under Bill Richardson's tenure," said Freedom House Vice Chairman Mark Palmer, who participated in the work of the organization's search committee.
"Jim Woolsey is respected across the political spectrum, " said Freedom House Vice Chairman Ned Bandler.
Bill Richardson is a Catholic Democrat who and will join Woolsey on the board of Genie Energy, both are part of the same clique of 'intelligence/law/energy/Israel' Democrats.
Mark Palmer, NED co-founder, as Reagan's Ambassador to Hungray, "Palmer was well-known [and] maintained close links with opposition groups and took part in the first mass demonstration for democracy on March 15, 1989. Although he was expected to remain in post for the first free elections in March and April 1990, he resigned suddenly in late January, following his appointment as Chief Executive of a Prague-based investment company, the Central European Development Corporation. Palmer then went on to co-found Central European Media Enterprises, which financed the establishment of independent television stations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Ukraine, and later continued his 'advocacy work' in the Africa, Belarus, Cuba and joined AEI & Paul Wolfowitz in calling for arming Syrian rebel in 2012, he died the next year."
Immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mark, together with several leading U.S. and Canadian businessmen, established the Central European Development Corporation. He served as the corporation’s president from 1990 to 1997, during which time the group developed the American Business Center at Checkpoint Charlie, a 2 million square foot mixed-use, nine-building site in the heart of the unified Berlin. Around the same time, with his wife of 47 years, Dr. Sushma M. Palmer, Mark co-founded the Center for Communications, Health and the Environment (CECHE) and served as the organization’s vice chairman and treasurer.
Freedom House has a staff of over 80, maintains offices in Washington and NY, with outposts in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Romania, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Algeria.
Under Woolsey’s term, Freedom House targeted the Russia, using "some very strong language in regards to President Putin and Russia, fascism, more than once", ranking Russia as "unfree" and "play[ing] a crucial role in the pro-US revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan – drawing on its experience covertly supporting the first “color” revolution in Serbia in 1999 and Chechnya". Freedom House was a major sponsor of the "orange" revolution in Ukraine (2004-5) setting up a printing press in Novermber 2003 to flood the country with 60 "independent" opposition journals, while funding opposition radio and TV.Radio Free Europe Interview wrote:
Mr. Nikolai Patrushev of the FSB said this year the West is trying to destabilize Russia and the near abroad with the help of its intelligence services working under the guise of NGOs. From your experience and your knowledge how much truth is in this statement?
Well President Putin was particularly kind to an NGO that I headed at the time, Freedom House- he criticized Freedom House especially for its work in Ukraine. I consider that a badge of honor. We are really quite honored that President Putin, who is increasingly coming to head a government that is edging towards fascism in Russia, would be critical of what the NGOs, including Freedom House, were doing to help bring about a movement toward democracy in Ukraine.
RFE/RL: But is there a connection between the intelligence and the NGOs?
Woolsey: There was no connection between the intelligence services and Freedom House, but this is a typical kind of paranoid kind of blame-the-outside-world approach that the Russian security services are lapsing back into.
We had a period of time in the early 1990s when we were working cooperatively with the Russian security services, but now apparently they have decided to try and blame the security services in the West for their own movement toward fascism. And it’s a real shame and unfortunately it’s an historic pattern....We are really quite honored that President Putin, who is increasingly coming to head a government that is edging towards fascism in Russia....But Mr. Putin and his movement toward fascism in Russia are on the wrong side of history. They are not going to succeed....Now there are always going to be some dictatorships, and unfortunately Russia is coming to be again a dictatorship, that will try to work to undermine advances toward freedom and there are countries that will lapse back from freedom and democracy to dictatorship -- it’s happening in Venezuela now and certainly happened in Germany in 1933.
RFE/RL: You have used some very strong language in regards to President Putin and Russia, fascism, more than once.
Woolsey:
Jan 28 - BushII’s 2003 State of the Union
BushII highlights the disinfo from Italian intelligence as laundered through British intelligence ("The British government has learned that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”).
Three days later Bush meets with Blair in the Oval Office to discuss provoking war by “flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours"; assassinating Saddam (possibly using "CIA-trained Scorpions based in Jordan"); or producing “a defector who could give a public presentation about Saddam’s WMD.”
January 29 - Powell's Speech - The NEOCON draft
Colin Powell is given a 48-page draft script for his UN speech by Libby & Cheney. Powell instructs his senior aide Wilkerson to working with Will Tobey (National Security Council), John Hannah (Cheney’s office), and Tenet and McLaughlin (CIA). This draft might have come from the CTPG or OSP (see below)Powell's aide Wilkerson wrote:
“It was clear the thing was put together by cherry-picking everything from The New York Times to the DIA" also included were "stories cited from The Washington Times by Bill Gertz, the conservative paper’s defense writer, who specialized in receiving leaks from hard-liners inside the Pentagon" and the referenced New York Times article quoted a DIA report out of context. Wilkerson concluded that much of Libby’s draft, "had come from the Iraqi National Congress—laundered through Feith’s operation at the Pentagon."
January 30 - Powell's speech - NIE/CIA Draft
'Libby draft' was discarded and the National Intelligence Estimate (from Oct 2002 entitled "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs") was used which "gave Wilkerson some comfort [and] an illusion of professionalism" but it was an illusion. David Kay, a Iraq weapons inspector said was this "probably the worst of the modern NIEs."
The 2002 NIE was created in just 3 weeks using fragmentary ancient intelligence after the CIA had 'missed' the September 11 attacks, and Cheney and Rumsfeld were creating "autonomous intelligence unit(s)" in the Pentagon to produce the intelligence they wanted: the Defense Policy's Counter-Terrorism Evaluation Group (CTE) and office of Special Plans and Near East and South Asia Affairs (OSP). Both units were neo-con "Team B" designed to provide fixed intelligence to counter sane analysis, so they were run by Zionist spooks/weirdos - Wurmser-Maloof (CTE) and Luti-Shulsky (OSP) - who contracted dozens of 'neo-con operatives from the AEI and DIA to "data-mine" until they arrived at two fixed conclusions: Saddam worked with Bin Laden (CTE) and that an Iraq War was necessary and cheap (OSP). The smaller CTE promoted the "Atta in PRauge" disinfo, while the OSP did everything else especially spreading INC disinfo. Both "cells" were Pentagon shells around Likud/AEI/MTC innards. Cheney-Libby, Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz, Rice-Hadley, and Newt Gingrich were the eager patrons and consumers of this intelligence. With the CIA run by long time "careerist" George Tenet, and his spooky "right-hand man" Richard Armitage, CIA analysts were undefended from the political pressure to include CTE & OSP's disinfo.
This NIE even managed to use the same type of filtered newspaper reports generated by Woolsey's efforts as "neo-con draft" had, containing statement like "a recent newspaper interview shows that terrorists were trained at the Salman Pak facility or "we have reliable clandestine reporting and press sources that: direct meetings between senior Iraqi representatives and top al-Qa'ida operatives were held between the early 1990s and the present."
Boxed in by CTEG and OSP's disinfo, undermined by White House statement, and undefended by Tenet, the CIA's NIE managed to falsely conslude that Iraq:
*possessed chemical and biological weapons
*had unmanned-aerial-vehicle delivery systems for WMDs
*sought to reconstitute their nuclear program.
*made uranium ore purchases from Niger
*had aluminum tubing for uranium enrichment
*had the expertise to do the anthrax mail letters
Any cavets around these lies were dropped as parts of the NIE were leaked to the media or made into unclassified 'white paper' summaries for politicans ("we access Iraq has" became "Iraq has") and "as the draft NIE went up the intelligence chain of command, the conclusions were treated increasingly definitively." Unclassified version dropped any reference to the dissenting opinions of the Department of Energy, U.S. Air Force, or the extensive dissenting views of the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)Woolsey interview - pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/themes/tenet.html wrote:: You can be likable - and a lot of people are likable and call it straight - and I have no reason to believe George didn't do that, but you can't skew anything at all because you want to be liked. The amount of time George spent in the job is a long time for that job. I only spent two years. And I take my hat off to George for staying in the job as long as he did.
February 1-2 - Libby (Cheney) and Hadley (Rice) still intent on inserting the ATTA-IN-PRAGUE charge into Powell's speech. Feith’s office sends Powell a 25-page “genealogy” on Saddam’s connections to terrorists assisting Cheney and Libby's efforts to insert connections between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Powell refuses to add it, “This is crazy.” Wilkerson remembered that is was incomprehensible—and possibly meaningless: “It was like the Bible. It was the Old Testament. It was ‘Joe met Bob met Frank met Bill met Ted met Jane in Khartoum and therefore we assume that Bob knew Ralph.’ It was incredible.”
Powell had mentored Condoleezza Rice, but in the battles that weekend, Rice consistently siding with her neo-con deputy, Hadley, and dismissed Powell, so Powell asks Richard Armitage to join him. When Tenet was pressed on evidence, his deputy McLaughlin "would jump in" to assure him.
February 3 - CURVEBALL defector
The CIA tries to “touch base” with CIA stations in Berlin and elsewhere to get a fix on the “current status/whereabouts” of Curveball: “we want to take every precaution against unwelcome surprises that might emerge concerning the intel case; clearly, public statements by this émigré, press accounts of his reporting or credibility, or even direct press access to him would cause a number of potential concerns.” McLaughlin wanted to be certain that after Powell displayed artist’s renderings of the mobile BW labs to the whole world, Curveball wouldn’t pop up in the media and say something to undermine the case. It is later revealed that CURVEBALL is a Iraqi con-artist.
Key parts of the 'disinfo' rely haved international intelligence agenices: Atta-in-Prauge (Czech), CURVEBALL (German), Niger Yellowcake (Italy) and Britain.
Compounding this is the fact that the CIA's section in charge of analyzing CURVEBALL's claims is WINPAC (Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Center). WINPAC was a Gates-Woolsey "fusion center" that Woolsey boasted was "more corporate, efficient, and focussed" than regular intelligence units. It was run by a neo-con and Woolsey associate (CSP and Congress), Robert Joseph, who created a WINPAC "Team B" obsessed with proving that Iraq bought 'dual-use' tubes to get back into nuclear production. WINPAC was supported by the DIA’s directorate for human intelligence which passed 95 DIA 'disinfo' reports to them.
Feb 5 - Powell's infamous address
THE day of the speech, Libby calls the UN to make one last attempt to get the Atta-in-Prague allegation and other deleted sections of the neo-con draft back into Powell’s speech. Even without these elements Powell's speech is still regurgitated neo-con disinfo. “We must not shrink from whatever is ahead of us,” Powell said trying to convince himself and the world of war's inevitability. The Whitehouse gives a special plaque to everyone who had worked on the speech.
Feb 5 - Council on Foreign Relations seminar
The night of Powell's disgrace, Woolsey attends a Council on Foreign Relations seminar in Washington on the "moral and legal questions of U.S. intervention in world affairs." After a debate between a Catholic Progressive priest (Fr. Bryan Hehir) and a Jewish Washington Post columnist (Charles Krauthammer) At the end "Woolsey ... exhaled with satisfaction and said, “That was major league.”
Last December, HEHIR, former dean of Harvard Divinity School, had a similar debate with Christopher Hitchens on the topic: “Would War Be Just?” The stances Hitchens and Hehir held last night are not ones they have consistently adopted. Hehir endorsed the Gulf War while Hitchens opposed it. Hehir also supported intervention in Afghanistan earlier this year. Hehir nonetheless maintained that St. Augustine would say the United States should consider war only as a final resort. Hehir acknowledged that with increasing precision and conscientiousness in U.S. military operations, attacks probably would not endanger civilians’ safety.
February 9 - Da Ali G Show 'Law and Order'
British-Israeli Sacha Cohen "fake" questions Woolsey ("Let's talk about some conspiracy things. Let's go back to the grassy knoll. Who actually shot JR?") who politely corrects him.
Feb 21 - Neocon book-launch at Metropolitan Club
At one of Washington's oldest gentlemen's clubs, the Metropolitan Club, Wolfowitz regaled the crowd with stories of raped Iraqi women then predicted that Saddam Hussien "a madman" and "terrorist" would use chemical weapons. "There was a collective intake of breath at the starkness of what Mr Wolfowitz said." Woolsey waxed about how only the USA "can only make the world safe for democracy by finishing the job of democratising it". The occasion was the launch of a book called The War Over Iraq by Kaplan and Kristol.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1422742/Saddam-will-use-germ-warfare-on-US-troops.htmlMarch - On the eve of war, Woolsey uses the head of the DIA's super-spy phone
Woolsey said his only role as an intermediary occurred shortly before the invasion of Iraq, when he heard about "an urgent threat" by Iraq to U.S. naval forces in the Middle East. "I called a military officer" and passed on the information, he said. A former senior U.S. government official confirmed that Woolsey called Vice Adm. Thomas R. Wilson, then the DIA director, just before the war. Woolsey went to Wilson's house that evening, and the DIA chief put him in touch by secure phone with a DIA Iraq analyst, said the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said he felt that Woolsey was sincerely concerned and trying to get the information to the U.S. government in a legitimate way. He said he also recalled "a referral or two" from Woolsey regarding defectors.
This bizarre move seems closer to establishing an alibi or a signal that Woolsey has the DIA's blessing.
(March 17) - IRAQ WAR
March 19- PNAC document 'Statement on Post-War Iraq'
An attempt to justify the invasion as least as much by humanitarian concerns as weapons of mass destruction. Signatories to the statements included Woolsey and several Democrats.
March 27 - Dismantling the "IRAQWAR" disinfo infrastructure
After it is revealed that 9 of 30 members of the Defense Policy Board have ties to companies that have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts in 2001-2, the board’s chairman, Richard Perle (Trireme Partners) resigns and Woolsey (Paladin Capital Group) tells the Wall Street Journal that he does no lobbying during Defense Policy Board meetings. Boeing committed $20 million to both Paladin Capital Group and Trireme Partners.
March 28 - PNAC “Second Statement on Post-War Iraq,”
With its grudging acceptance that the United States must look to the international community for help with reconstruction and pacifying the country. One concern of the neocons at the time was the mounting calls for an early exit from Iraq.
April 1-2 - "Americans for Victory Over Terrorism" holds "teach-in" at UCLA
Woolsey told the group of students that the invasion of Iraq was the beginning of the “fourth world war.” "As we move toward a new Middle East," Woolsey said, "over the years and, I think, over the decades to come ... we will make a lot of people very nervous. Our response should be, 'good!'" Singling out Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, he said, "We want you nervous. We want you to realize now, for the fourth time in a hundred years, this country and its allies are on the march and that we are on the side of those whom you -- the Mubaraks, the Saudi Royal family -- most fear: We're on the side of your own people." UCLA Republicans co-sponsored the event.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1426512/Pentagon-gets-tough-in-fight-over-post-war-vision-of-Iraq.htmlApril 3 - Woolsey nominated (and rejected) for Iraqi Ministry of Information
Rumsfeld vetoes roles for eight State Department officials but "pencilled in" James Woolsey for a "a senior position in a new Iraqi information ministry." Leaked State Department cables reveal the immediate fall-out in Arabic media of Woolsey's nomination coming right after his fascistic UCLA speech:wikileaks wrote:"al khaleej" on 4/6: "... Perhaps the statement of the former cia director, james woolsey, two days ago, indicates u.s. Intentions for the region, since welsey(sic) is nominated to become minister of information in the post-saddam american government ..."
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/03ABUDHABI1656_a.html
Serdar Turgut commented in mass appeal Aksam (4/: "In the post-Saddam government, we should expect a group of Americans serving as ministers in Iraq. The US is very determined to implement its `new world order,' and the formation of the new Iraqi government will demonstrate this fact. According to the CIA, James Woolsey is the leading name for the new Information Minister in Iraq. It is interesting to see that certain elements within the Washington administration do not even care about possible uneasiness in the world concerning the appointment of a former CIA chief as a minister in Iraq.
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/03ANKARA2269_a.html
Realizing the bad optics, White House PR expert Karl Rove quickly vetoed Woolsey. :lol!:
May 1 - FDD Broadcast - James Woolsey Discusses CIA’s role in Fighting Terrorismddd wrote:Director Woolsey, does any of it matter, no significant clear definitive proof?
Mr. JAMES WOOLSEY (Former CIA Director): Well, it doesn’t matter yet because the only way we’re going to find this is by talking to people who are in the program. If Hans Blix had done that before the war, he might have found something. But he refused to do it. Now we have to do it inside the country in circumstances where these people will feel safe. And I think we will find a good deal. Judy Muller (sic) had a front-page story a week or so ago in The New York Times that’s been followed up that, as far as I’m concerned, is at the heart of this matter. And a good deal may have been destroyed by the Iraqis just as the war started, just as that New York Times story said. But we will find something, and we’ll find important things. But we have to get hold of the various people in the program
6th May - Strategic Dialog Center's "Global Terrorism - The Way Ahead" Netanya Academic College's Strategic Dialog Center
Netanya Academic College's Strategic Dialog Center holds first US conference "Global Terrorism - The Way Ahead" at Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Featuring Distinguished speakers: Swedish PM (Bildt), Indonesian President (Wahid), Israeli PM (Barak), Mossad Director (Danny Yatom), CIA Director (Woolsey), FBI Director (Freeh), Israeli Police Commissioner and Jordanian General. Founding co-chairman is Michael Gorbachev.
The SDC is part of a wider Zionist/neo-con strategy to show the world that Washington decisions are all "vetted" (or "outsourced" to) by Israel and its neo-con operatives.
May 7 2003 (UPI) - US courts accepts Woolsey-Mylroie conspiracy theory
A NY federal judge finds that Iraq had "barely" provided material support to Osama bin Laden but enough to ruled that the two 9/11 families were entitled to $104 million in compensation.
It was a default judgment against Iraq, al-Qaida, and the Taliban movement on Dec. 23, 2002, after they failed to show up to contest the case. The case was brought by relatives on behalf of the estates of George Eric Smith, (SunGard Asset Management), and Timothy Soulas, (Cantor Fitzgerald Securities). Lawyers for the two families said they would attempt to recover the money from the $1.7 billion in Iraqi assets frozen in the United States.
Judge Harold Baer said his decision was based solely on the 'opinion testimony' of the families' two expert witnesses, James Woolsey Jr., and author Laurie Mylroie.
"I think that in many respects, al-Qaida acts as a front for Iraqi intelligence ... Iraq provides the direction, the training and the expertise," Mylroie told the court. Woolsey was more circumspect. "I believe it is definitely more likely than not that some degree of common effort in the sense of aiding and abetting or conspiracy was involved (in the Sept. 11 attacks) between Iraq and al-Qaida," he weaseled.(May) CSIS/Booz Allen Hamilton seminar: "Companies on the Ground: The Challenge for Business in Rebuilding Iraq"
80 corporate executives paid $1,100 to attend a seminar about BushII's plan to transform Iraq into a free market - a “generational challenge” that would "combine the economic scope of the Marshall Plan with the moral clarity of the civil rights movement." Held in the conference room of the CSIS in Washington, it featured a string of Pentagon and White House officials, who spelled out to the assembled businessmen how they were rewriting Iraq’s business, property, and trade laws “in a way very conducive to foreign investment,” as David Taylor, a top Treasury official, put it.
Woolsey delivered the keynote address in the only off-the-record part of the conference. "Basically, he said to hell with France, to hell with Germany, and to hell with the United Nations; the United States is going to do this alone,” said an Arab banker who asked not to be identified.July 19 - At war for freedom | World news | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jul/20/usa.terrorism
The former Director of the CIA says that America should make no apology for its robust response in the "war on terrorism". And if that makes other states nervous, so much the better
No doubt if you were in al-Qaeda, in Iraqi intelligence, or one of Khamenei's advisers assessing things at the end of the twentieth century, you would have had to say that the Americans - from this wealthy, feckless, spoiled country - would not fight. We want you to ... realise that now, for the fourth time in a hundred years, the democracies are on the march.
I am the Chairman of Freedom House, the oldest human rights organisation in America.
We undermined [the Soviet Union and its allies] over a long period by convincing the Lech Walesas, the Vaclav Havels, the Andrei Sakharovs, the Solidarities, that this was not a clash of civilisations, not even a clash of countries, but a war of freedom against tyranny, and that we were on their side.
If we want to be successful in this long war, we will have to take on this issue of democracy in the Arab world. We will have to take on the - and I would use the word 'racist' - view that Arabs cannot operate democracies.
[This article was also published in the August/September 2003 issue of The World Today, published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House.]
August 2003 - Naval Postgraduate School speech[David Henderson, a Hoover Institution fellow and a professor of economics in Naval Postgraduate School talking at a Mont Pelerin Society Meeting at Fort Worth, Texas, on May 21, 2019] wrote:During his speech, Woolsey had stated that the war with militant Islam had begun in November 1979 when some Iranians took over the U.S. embassy. I asked him whether he didn’t think it might have begun in 1953, when the CIA helped depose Mossadegh. Laughing, Woolsey replied that, as Winston Churchill had said, when it came to the Middle East, the Americans, after doing many wrong things, would always end up doing the right thing. In other words, Woolsey seemed to admit CIA complicity, but dismissed the idea that this mattered because the U.S., at some point, (he didn’t specify when) had gotten it right. But Woolsey’s answer evades the issue: did the U.S. government’s 1953 actions have bad unintended consequences? The bad consequences of the U.S. government’s intervention in 1953 have been horrendous and cannot be laughingly dismissed.Aug. 4 -The Next Korean War -Woolsey and McInerney [WSJ]
In a move of stunning chutzpah Woolsey and McInerney use the unfolding disaster in Iraq to justify a possibly invasion of North Korea
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB105995440375645300 wrote: We judge that the U.S. and South Korea could defeat North Korea decisively in 30 to 60 days with such a strategy. Importantly, there is 'no doubt on the outcome' as the chairman of the JCS, Gen. Meyers, said at his reconfirmation hearing on July 26 to the Senate.
"The key point is that the base infrastructure available in the region and the accessibility of North Korea from the sea should make it possible to generate around 4,000 sorties a day compared to the 800 a day that were so effective in Iraq. ... North Korea's geriatric air defenses--both fighter aircraft and missiles--would not last long. As the Iraqis understood when facing our air power, if you fly, you die. ... the U.S. forces that would have the greatest immediate effect are Expeditionary Air Forces and Carrier Battle Groups, most of which have now been removed from the Iraqi theater.
In 2004 Woolsey and McInerney are advise/direct Mansoor Ijaz's ultra-spooky 'Crescent Technology Venture PLC'.
In September a Seoul newspaper (The Monthly Chung'ang) gives an even more bellicose version of the WSJ story, providingan "extremely detailed military analysis" of an American blitzkreig ("flash of lightening") ready to invade North Korea by 2005. They re-assure readers that the US is already redeploying to prepare for this attack and that new technologies make "war scenarios from ten years ago which predicted the outcome of a huge disaster ... nothing more that a old useless memory".September - Miniter's 'Losing Bin Laden' Media Campaign
Miniter promotes his book 'Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror' that co-stars Mansoor Ijaz and Jim Woolsey as two Cassandras trying to warn a corrupt Bill Clinton about Bin Laden's coming attack.
Chapter 6, 'The Friend of Bill' is devoted to "self-made millionaire named Musawer Mansoor Ijaz" and his narrative that Clinton failed to grasp his "three self-styled diplomatic overtures" by him to nab Bin Laden from Sudan. Ijaz had pushing those claims since May 2002 to NEWSMAX, Don Imus and FOX.
Miniter leaves out that "these 'startling revelations' bagged [Ijaz] his only 'real job' as an analyst at Fox TV for an undisclosed sum" and white-washes Ijaz's own classically spooky background: born to wealthy immigrants involved in Pakistan's nuclear projects, he got a degree in nuclear physics(University of Virginia) and neuro-mechanical engineering! (MIT) which leads to a "segment of Mansoor's life is quite vague" followed by his hiring as the Vice President of a transnational hedge-fund (Van Eck Associates)....
Also unmentioned is Benador Associates the neo-con PR firm that represents Ijaz and Woolsey.
Miniter's reliance on Woolsey and the neo-cons is clear from his acknowledgements, Woolsey was interviewed twice and the author personally thanks him because he "spent a lot of time (that he didn’t really have to spare) talking to me", also thanked for "advice and leads" are Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, and Laurie Mylroie. Woolsey takes the oppurtunity to settled old scores by blaming Clinton's refusal to meet him daily and lack of funding for CIA translator as leading to 9/11, he even offers a lame excuse why he forced to resign - he resisted Clinton's nepotism by refusing his preferred candidate for
the CIA’s general counsel post.
This 'scoop' of "Clinton’s secret motivation" is revealed to Mitner in a "a series of off-the-record interviews" with Woolsey. A Clinton official confirms he "talked to Woolsey
about a possible vacancy at the CIA’s general counsel office, but says that filling that post had “no effect” on President Clinton’s relationship with Woolsey" but this does not stop Mitner from finding "Woolsey’s account is credible because it was standard Clinton
practice" but his endnote offers a simpler reason...Losing B wrote:44. One source, who knows Clinton well, suggests that it was Woolsey’s persistent visits to the White House that might have turned him against Woolsey.
Promoting his book on C-Span (Sep 7, 2003), doing a National Review interview entitled 'Clinton's Loss' on the anniversary of September 11th, particiapting in a 'Democracy Now!' discussion (Sept 23), and having the Woolsey part of his book excerpted by the WSJ (Unheeded Warning, Sept 30). In all of these media oppurtunity Miniter talks about Woolsey's frustration with Clinton.
Sept 29 - Woolsey gives an introductory speech of a CSPAN thing about "terrorism financing" and drug traffickingOct. 29 - "King and Country" [WSJ editorial-page essay by Bernard Lewis and Woolsey]
Princeton prof. Bernard Lewis and Woolsey "target Iraq for the installation of a "palatable" Hashemite king to bring some semblance of legitimacy to the occupation of Iraq" despite the failure of this same strategy when it was tried after WWI. Basically an attempt to extend the CIA-allied Jordanian monarchy into Iraq.November 12 - Woolsey: Why not use 1925 constitution? [CNN]
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/11/12/cnna.woolsey.cia.report/ wrote:WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Wednesday, on a day when a suicide truck bomb struck an Italian military police barracks and U.S. troops struck a suspected guerrilla headquarters, a Bush administration source told CNN that the CIA projects the security situation throughout Iraq to worsen.
BLITZER: So what must the U.S. and its coalition partners do now that they haven't been doing over these past six months?
WOOLSEY: Well, Bernard Lewis, the great expert at Princeton on the Middle East, and I wrote a piece in The Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago that said why not use the 1925 constitution and appoint the governing council as the senate under the constitution? It's appointed by a constitutional monarch. And there's an elected parliament under it. They can amend the constitution.
[We] need really excellent intelligence, particularly there among the Tikritis, the Baathists and the Sunni triangle. They're starting from one down, because they should have trained a lot of Iraqis to go in with them, which the State Department had the money to do, back in -- it was long ago -- it was 1998, but didn't do it. Now, they're having to catch up.
BLITZER: Where do you stand on this debate whether NATO should take over? Or the U.N., for that matter.
WOOLSEY: Well, NATO couldn't even reinforce Turkey before the war, when they were under threat last spring, because even though they requested it, the French vetoed it. So we can't just wave a wand and say NATO will do such and such.MISC 2003
'The National Interest' on International Law and Order [Transaction Publishers/Ford Foundation]
A reprinting of articles from ''The National Interest' ' magazine (founded by Irving Kristol in 1985). Edited by Woolsey.
American Center for Democracy (ACD) founded in 2003
Created as "a vehicle" for neocon Rachel Ehrenfeld to promote her 2003 book (Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop it) which posits a "close working relations [between] Islamic radicals and left-wing South American terrorists". The board of directors are all Pentagon neocons - Gen. McInerney, Gen. Vallely, Hawkins (DIA), Rick Pearl,ect... - including Woolsey who bizarrely claims "the ACD’s ability to predict future threats is second to none"
[In a 2013 blog post hyping a May 2013 WSJ op-ed by Woolsey, Ehrenfeld claimed that both North Korea and Iran “present a real threat of an EMP attack."]
The foundation second goal was insulating themselves from libel charges arising from Ehrenfeld's book. A British court ordering Ehrenfeld to pay damages to a Saudi businessman she had accused of supporting al-Qaeda. The ACD convinced Joe Lieberman to create “Rachel’s Law” to block enforcement of British libel rulings by U.S. authorities. Ehrenfeld, an Israeli-American, said her libelous claims came from "classified sources" and could not be discussed. A third goal is their "flagship project" an "Economic Warfare Institute".WOOLSEY, R JAMES contributed $1000.00 to Joe Lieberman (D) in 2003 for his Presidential Run in 2004
6808 Florida St CHEVY CHASE MD 20815
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Re: R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Fri 9 Aug 2019 - 22:34
Let's return to the Woolsey Watch....
May 2019 - Woolsey late-night hotel Rampage!
In a story that should have a Ralph Steadman illustration, Woolsey went on a late-night hotel rampage in Kazakhstan on the night before the Eurasian Media Forum debate (May 23). Woolsey must have been there in support of his fellow naval intelligence alumni, Steve Bannon, but what sent him on a rampage trying force his way into George Galloway's room in the middle of the night is a mystery. Bannon and Woolsey had never met in 2017 (according to Woolsey) but they were recently seen fist-bumping at the 4th reserruction of the Committe on Present Danger. Like an undead franchise villain CPD 4.0 is back again and this time its eyes are set on China.
The morning after Woolsey went amok, Bannon gave a chilling speech at the Eurasian Summit. His strange narrative was that America should ally with the Chinese working class to overthrow the "CCP criminal junta" and thus free the global proletariat from being undercut by Chinese slave labour! Bannon's neo-conservative Trotskyism allows him to boast that US is rejecting "globalist-enforced imperialism" to reclaim its true "revolutionary" origins.
As Galloway worryingly notes, Bannon (and the CPD:China)'s basic idea is that China is going to have to follow the path of Germany and Japan - world war followed by US occupation - if it wants a seat at the table. The current US position is to put China, Iran, Venezuela in severe headlocks and hope one of them tries to 'pearl harbor' their way out.
Despite last seen been dragged off by hotel security, repeatedly screaming "I'm Ambassador, Woolsey!" (read Galloway's account yourself!), Woolsey was soon back on-air at NEWSMAX uncharacteristically preaching caution about any Iranian airstrike plans.
What happened that night is unclear. It could be as bathetic as some form of dementia or a mistaken room, and Woolsey is 77, but Galloway's account is of someone who started with a knock and escalated to full shoulder-checks until grabbed by security. The fact that neither Woolsey nor the CPD:China gave Galloway any explaination have led him to both air this story and to seek legal redress. :)
- 2015-2018 (click to open):
2015
2015 (20 February) - Woolsey tells a CNN audience that Obama is the "world champion of political correctness" and is "frightened" or "looks scared" to called members of Middle Eastern terrorist groups 'Islamic,' just hours after the conclusion of a White House 'Countering Violent Extremism' summit that studiously avoided pinning terrorism on Islamist. Sitting FBI director James Comey was not invited to the event, but his counterpart from Russia – Aleksandr Bortnikov, the director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) attended. Woolsey alleged that Obama is not "taking a stern position in the Middle East and elsewhere, that are causing huge problems."
2015 (Sep 17) Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn advises Trump in person at Trump Tower ahead of a debate focused on foreign affairs, according to a Trump associate familiar with the discussions. Flynn said his foray into politics began when he volunteered to advise five Republican candidates. He said that he first met Trump and that he spoke with him by phone several times before being asked to speak at the Republican convention.
2015 (June) - Restarted Flynn Intel Group with Bijan R. Kian (Iranian-American businessman who served until 2011 as a director of the U.S. Export-Import Bank) & Philip Oakley (former Army intelligence analyst, longtime Flynn friend, and owner of two small companies that provided software for defense and intelligence clients).
Woolsey was a member of Flynn’s firm, the Flynn Intel Group, according to a Justice Department filing by the firm and an archive of the company’s website, although a spokesman for Woolsey disputed that characterization, saying he was an unpaid adviser and his affiliation was “loosely defined.”
June 13, 2015 - FRANCE, Paris: Former CIA director James Woolsey spoke at a major Iran Freedom rally in Villepinte on Saturday. A rally in support of Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi’s 10-point plan for a future free Iran.They indicated that the prevention of nuclear proliferation and the defeat of Islamic fundamentalism call for supporting Iran’s Parliament-in-exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), to bring about regime change.
2015 (Oct) - Ted Cruz’s foreign policy adviser is Woolsey
2015 (Oct 15) Institute of World Politics's (neocon graduate school in Washington)'s anniversary gala, Woolsey elected by the board of the to serve as the first chancellor of the Institute. Flynn gives "fire and brimstone talk" about Obama's “floundering … no one is in charge” foreign policy.2016
2016 (Jan) - Flynn met again with the Trump team in January. Clovis, a retired Air Force colonel and former Iowa Senate candidate, leads a policy team of two that works with campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to connect Trump to experts and former officials like Daniel Pipes and Israel’s current envoy to the UN Danny Danon, among others.
2016 (JAN 15) - JOEL ROSENBERG (Washington, D.C.) — Woolsey told me he’d read the entire Iranian nuclear deal carefully and that as an arms control agreement, “It would be fine if it was a deal that had been made with Denmark.
February 12, 2016
Underestimating Nuclear Missile Threats from North Korea and Iran (www.nationalreview.com)
by R. James Woolsey (CIA disinfo artist), William R. Graham (Rumsfeld Commission), Henry F. Cooper, Fritz Ermarth (CIA disinfo artist) & Peter Vincent Pry (Intelligence Officer with CIA)
"Naïve reliance on their transparent disavowals could end up costing millions of American lives."
2016 (Feb 15) - Westminster Institute - Woolsey talks about his love for South Park at 58:52 and sings "I'm so Lonely" from Team America:World Police at 1:00:43. Woolsey: "We tried to adopt a rather familiar tactic at least to those of you who have children or grandchildren who watch South Park, namely to blame Canada."
2016 (16 May) - Imperial Pacific International Holdings Ltd. the mother company of Best Sunshine International, has announced in a May 16 filing that Woolsey has been appointed as its independent non-executive director - in what it said was an effort to “enhance its integrity.” “Imperial Pacific holds the 40-year exclusive integrated Casino Resort Development License in Saipan. Though we must pay a fee of $15 million a year, it was quite a bargain," Trump-protege and CEO of Best Sunshine International Ltd, Mark Brown commented on the relatively low tax of Saipan recently. He added that currently the VIP players at the temporary casino are “100 percent” mainland Chinese customers.
Large-scale capital flight may be what accounts for the revenues at Best Sunshine, according to executives at three Macau gambling promoters, who spoke on the condition they not be identified bad-mouthing a competitor. The numbers are simply impossible if they are not inflated or facilitating money-laundering, they said. Four analysts who focus on Macau’s gaming industry and have examined Imperial Pacific’s figures said they can’t understand how it could report VIP bets totaling HK$105 billion ($13.5 billion) and revenue of HK$3.8 billion in the first half of the year.
2016 (late June) - “Trump is in the process of making a new Republican Party, and Jared will be part of it,” Myers Mermel, a fellow real-estate executive told me. “And it’ll be a much different Republican Party than we had in the past.” Kushner comes from a well-known Democratic family - Charles Kushner, founded the family real-estate company and was a mainstay of Democratic politics in New Jersey until he pled guilty to 18 counts of tax evasion.
2016 (June 28th) - Woolsey on ISIS: "This is a worldwide terrorist movement now." #KellyFile #Istanbul
2016 (June 29) - Woolsey criticizes the Obama administration’s reluctance to assess the scope of the threat of radical Islamic terrorism in straightforward terms while discussing CIA Director John Brennan’s recent congressional testimony, wherein Mr. Brennan warned that “our efforts have not reduced [ISIS’s] terrorism capability and global reach, and the group would have to suffer even heavier losses on territory, manpower and money for its terrorist capacity to decline significantly.” “I think he was calling it straight, and the administration is not,” Mr. Woolsey said.
2016 (July 8th) - Gen. Flynn joins Trump campaign. Woolsey: “Mike plays it straight, and I don’t think he does so in an offensive way, trying to make a scrap. He is straightforward and clear. And if he thinks X is going badly, he will say, ‘that seems to be going badly for the following three reasons.’ He doesn’t dance around and try to say what the boss may want to hear.”
2016 (July 15) - Woolsey: "And we on the other hand are treating [terrorism] sometimes sort of like a crime with all the procedural rights and so forth, that criminals have. And sometimes we regard it as more serious than that but the President won't call it a war, he won't say it's Muslim terrorists, there is just a disjunction between the seriousness and our response."
2016 (July 15) - Appears on Fox News’s “Your World” with Gen. Michael Flynn. Woolsey: “I completely agree with Mike. The Administration cannot keep its mouth shut on these things [...] you ought to keep their mouths shut in the White House.”
2016 (July 28th) - Under a tradition started by President Harry Truman in 1952, the nominees of both major political parties receive classified briefings to prepare them for the presidency. Those briefings are expected to start soon.
2016 (August 18) - Korkmaz, a Turkish businessman who had known Woolsey for some years, invites Woolsey first to a meeting in California in August 2016. Korkmaz told Woolsey that he was looking for someone who could handle a lobbying and public relations project related to Gulen. Woolsey's spokesman Franks confirmed the August meeting but described it as “brief” and “not a pitch.”
In an email sent from Nancye Miller to Woolsey on Aug. 18, which printed out and shown by Woolsey to Korkma and forwarded to Alptekin. Korkmaz, they propose getting Washington insiders like Senator Jeff Sessions to co-author articles on the situation in Turkey, engaging with influential lawmakers such as Republican Senator Bob Corker, and getting Woolsey on Fox News and CNN, the memo said.
2016 (Sept 9) - Woolsey claims Trump and his campaign “got in touch last Friday and he and I met briefly and I agreed to advise him on, I’m sure, principally if not exclusively national security such as matters of intelligence, maybe some aspects of energy.”
2016 (Sept 12) - CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) - Ex-CIA dir. James Woolsey advising Donald Trump campaign, says he's not in the business "of dispensing endorsements" https://t.co/vSl8AP83DK
2016 (Sept 12) - Trump campaign press release from Woolsey:
Spokesman Franks said Woolsey is an unpaid adviser to the campaign.“I have been a ‘Scoop Jackson,’ ‘Joe Lieberman,’ Democrat all of my adult life, but I am pleased to be asked to participate with others I respect in advising GOP candidate Donald J. Trump on the urgent need to reinvest in and modernize our military in order to confront the challenges of the 21st century [...] Mr. Trump understands the magnitude of the threats we face and is holding his cards close to the vest. Bravo Zulu, Mr. Trump"
Politico: "James Woolsey will serve Donald Trump as a senior adviser on national security, defense and intelligence, the campaign announced today."
Woolsey on CNN: “First of all, [Trump] seems to be, more so than his opponent, in favor of a strong defense budget. [...] The other, he seems willing to keep a secret and not to blab everything to the public and to our opponents. "
Reuters - Former CIA chief who urged Iraq war signs on as Trump adviser: "Woolsey’s hiring contrasted with Trump’s repeated assertions that he was a stalwart opponent of the invasion, although he initially supported it. In the announcement, Woolsey said he supports Trump’s plan to expand the U.S. military, which calls for ending Pentagon budget caps and spending billions of dollars for additional troops, ships and aircraft. In an appearance on CNN, however, he called Trump’s plan to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States “a bad decision.” He also has warned about the threats posed by climate change, something Trump has called a hoax that benefits China."
Mother Jones - Donald Trump’s Newest Adviser Says Global Warming Is a Huge Threat to National Security (But don’t get too excited.)
Mother Jones reached out to Woolsey to ask how he feels about Trump’s climate change denialism. He did not immediately respond. In a statement distributed by the Trump campaign, Woolsey criticized Hillary Clinton for how she ran the State Department. Trump, Woolsey insisted, “understands the magnitude of the threats we face and is holding his cards close to the vest.”
2016 (Sept 19) - On CNN to defend Trump's support for police profiling
2016 (Sept 20) - jewishworldreview.com - Why this neocon spy chief has joined Team TrumpWhy this neocon spy chief has joined Team Trump wrote:Last week, Woolsey made headlines when the Trump team announced that he would be advising the campaign in the homestretch of the election. In an interview Monday, Woolsey told me that he did not technically endorse Trump. "I agreed to advise the candidate," he told me. "I don't think of myself as someone who puts an imprimatur on candidates."
Rather, Woolsey said, he sees himself akin to a lawyer willing to advise a client.
That said, Woolsey did make clear that in a choice between Clinton and Trump, he favored Trump. "Unless you are going to sit at home and twiddle your thumbs on Election Day, you are either going to vote for him or vote for her, and I disagree with a lot of what Hillary has done," he said.
When I brought this up with him on Monday, the former spy chief smiled. Woolsey couldn't quite bring himself to say, though, that Trump would be a sound president. "I think he is going to be a far sounder president than his opponent and that's the only issue," he said. Many of Woolsey's old friends don't see it that way. Some are even coming around to the political party the first generation of neocons left in the 1970s. But Woolsey already left the Democrats once. In 2016, he has no intention of returning to their fold.
2016 (Sept 19) - Woolsey as a member of Flynn’s firm, the Flynn Intel Group, and sat in on a Sept. 19, 2016 meeting with Alptekin to discuss how best to carry out its $600,000 contract to smear Gulen, which the two parties had entered into in August.
2016 (Sept 20) - The very next day, Woolsey held his own lunch meeting with Alptekin and his associate Sezgin Baran Korkmaz over lunch at the Peninsula Hotel in New York, Woolsey then [repeated his August?] pitch of a $10 million contract to two Turkish businessmen to help discredit Gulen (said three people familiar with the proposal).
In an email memo seen by Reuters, Woolsey and Miller sketched a plan to “draw attention to the cleric’s possible role in the coup attempt” and encourage an official investigation into his activities. At the Sept. 20 meeting, Miller said she and Woolsey were in a better position than Flynn to influence decision-makers about Gulen’s alleged role in the coup. “The cost of this engagement will be $10,000,000,” the memo said. Woolsey and Miller did not win the contract.
2016 (Last Week of Sept) - Dom Giordano Program - "Former Director Jim Woolsey joined discussing the benefit of stop and frisk and the confidential information sent to Hillary Clinton's private servers."
2016 (Oct 15) - FRANCE 24 - Trump is not cozying up to Putin but trying to distance himself from the failed Obama policy. In complete contradiction to recent remarks made by Trump, who said it was a “big mistake” to bomb the Serbs, Woolsey urges the use of US air power to tilt the balance of power in Syria using the example of the policy pursued against Serbia in the 1990s.
November 8 - Flynn raised eyebrows when he wrote an op-ed article for The Hill, published November 8, alleging that Gulen helmed a "vast global network" that "has all the right markings to fit the description of a dangerous sleeper terror network." At that point, Flynn's work for Inovo had not yet made news so the op-ed seemed out of place amid his work with the Trump campaign. Flynn's DOJ filing says the op-ed "was not written or published at the request of, or under the direction or control of, Inovo, the Republic of Turkey, or any other party."Trump elected
2016 (Nov 9): On CBC's 'As It Happens': It is necessary “to get straight who our friends and adversaries are.” He asserted that “Israel is our friend,” while he called Iran “the world’s leading terrorist state” and insisted that the nuclear agreement with Iran “is so bad it needs to go.”
2016 (Nov 10) -opinion piece in the South China Morning Post - Woolsey writes that ideological differences between China, U.S. should be "better managed" and discusses the emergence of grand bargain where U.S. accepts Chinese political, social structure and commits not to disrupt it in return for Chinese commitment not to challenge the status quo in Asia" which "may not be a spoken agreement but a tacit understanding" Woolsey says he hopes for "much warmer" response from Trump administration to "One Belt, One Road" initiative, understands China’s desire to reform global institutions, and sees U.S. opposition to the China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank widely seen as "strategic mistake."
10 Nov 2016 - newstalk.com - Article entitled "Meet-Trumps-potential-cabinet" suggests Woolsey for NSA
2016 (Nov 11) - Toronto Sun - Trump is ‘perfectly reasonable’: Former CIA director - Exclusive interview with the Sun
“I think a lot of people’s concerns about some of the things he’s said, probably they have to relax and give him a chance to get going here in this new and very big job. I think his style is that he is perfectly reasonable and easy to talk to in small groups and when he’s one-on-one, When he gets behind a podium and particularly if he’s in a stadium full of 30,000 young people cheering him, he basically performs and he has what in vaudeville is called shtick.” The presence of advisers such as Woolsey in his circle indicates he’s not afraid to reach out and learn from top-notch experts.
2016 (Nov 11) - BBC Radio 4' s World at One - Woolsey, who will be advising the new US president on national security matters, told the BBC he believed Donald Trump would be a different man in the Oval Office than he was on the campaign trail. Woolsey: "He seems to favour Theodore Roosevelt's dictum of speak softly and carry a big stick. I know he doesn't speak softly from the podium but I think that is part of...his shtick."
2016 (Nov 12) - REUTERS - James Woolsey, a former CIA director who has advised Trump on foreign policy, said several of Trump’s campaign promises were “advocacy of a general direction” that may require compromise—including his signature pledge to build a wall on the border with Mexico.
2016 (Nov 12) - CNN -Woolsey told CNN that border security could be achieved with a combination of fence and wall. “I don’t think we ought to fall on our sword about the difference between a wall and fence. Maybe this will be cheaper because it’s mainly fence, but it’s a good fence. I wouldn’t have any problem with that myself,” he said.
Nov 12 - Italian newspaper La Stampa -Woolsey: “L'America tornerà ad avere l'esercito più forte del mondo”Woolsey: \"America will again have the strongest army in the world wrote:
"The first objective, in terms of national security, will invest over the armed forces to strengthen them. Then we'll have to crush the Isis on the ground in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and better control the flow of migrants in the Mediterranean. As for Russia, the statements made by President-elect Trump during the campaign does not represent a political position. We will ask the Europeans to do more to NATO, but this does not mean that we will fall short of our obligations to the Allies. "
James Woolsey does not speak from hearsay, when listing the priorities of the new White House. Former CIA director has served the presidential campaign of Trump as Senior Adviser on National Security, and is now part of its Transition Team. The "Washington Times", well informed of these Republicans environments, it indicates one of the possible candidates for the leadership of the Pentagon.
"The inflitrazione of refugees from Syria is a serious problem for Europe, and for the US, because there a passport you buy with $ 10. We need to better control them. "
And on the ground?
"The key is to work with the new government, but there are difficulties. This is a serious historical problem for Italy, and we must all be prepared to do more. "
2016 (Nov 14) - politico.com - Sessions leading choice for defense secretary
"Establishment Republican defense officials may still try to push back against a Sessions nomination as Pentagon chief, sources close to the transition say. The main alternative is Stephen Hadley, one of George W. Bush's former national security advisers, who unlike many other Bush alums shrewdly refrained from criticizing Trump during the campaign. Other possibilities include Bill Clinton's hawkish CIA director, Jim Woolsey, who endorsed Trump in September"
2016 (Nov 14) - THE PHONE CALL
Woolsey said Flynn began the Nov. 14 phone call, which occurred a couple of days before Flynn was formally named national security adviser, by saying the Trump administration would be “restructuring the intelligence community” and asked if he would “be willing to be director of the CIA” if he report directly to Flynn, a stipulation that prompted Woolsey to turn down the job because there are times that he would need to “call on the president face to face.”.
Robert Kelner, Flynn's lawyer, disputed Woolsey's account, suggesting that the former CIA director's statements to the Journal could be sour grapes after he was passed over for jobs in the Trump administration. "Mr. Woolsey’s claim in The Wall Street Journal that he was offered the position of the CIA director if he would agree to report only to Gen. Flynn is entirely false. Woolsey was passed over for any position in the Trump administration and that may be coloring this and other untrue allegations he has made against Gen. Flynn."-------- UFOlogical Perspective on the Trump Transitions (click to open):
Dan Smith relays comments from Ron Pandolfi on Woolsey's role in the Trump Transition:"Ron and I were able to converse occasionally during the lunch. He spoke of two consulting teams or ... intelligence briefing teams. The smaller group that includes him [Ron Pandolfi] also includes Jim W[oolsey] and Mike P[illsbury] who is formerly of net assessments. Mike is going to visit with Joe Firmage.
Trump said he was tired and didn't want to talk anymore with them. At the same time, a member of the software team, Woolsey said he didn't want to be on a briefing team if they weren't doing any actual briefings.
Although the media reports that he has left the Trump intelligence team, I am told he, is still active and is helping to brief Trump on the UFO issue."
Despite the topic being UFOs Smith's contact with Woolsey was being arranged through the notorious neo-con outfit Foundation for Defense and Democracy:"Princess and I are getting up nerve to arrange a meetup with Jim. Something about the goodie bag, perhaps. Cliff M[ay] @FDD has been asked to facilitate a contact. He questioned my choice of Cliff, as an intermediary, but then turned it around and suggested that Cliff might suggest others at the FDD who would be more interested in my topic, than Jim. Hmmm......
Am I supposed to sit by the phone, waiting for Jim to call? I keep saying that such and such a day is the first day of Disclosure. Now I'll say it again..... the day we meet with Jim will be the first day.
It seems that this particular bag of goodies has been around for awhile. Jim took his job at the agency, hoping he could persuade Bill Clinton to farm out some of its contents.... but to no avail. No rationale for the hesitance was offered by Ron. I asked if he expected there to be any public speculation concerning the provenance of the goodie bag. He was non-committal, as usual. I still need to meet with Jim. Now he's gonna play hard to get..... serves me right, yes?
Am I in charge of the goodie bag? It seems not. Oversight on the goodie bag may have been granted to the pres[ident] in exchange for oversight on disclosure."
Dan Throop Smith is the son of an Eisenhower administration Treasury advisor and claims familial links to the Bushes, the Galbraiths and a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He also says he is working for the CIA. Smith seems to be a born-again Presbyterian who sees UFOs as a "psychological/metaphysical phenomenon ... pressuring us to develop our own PSI abilities ... and related directly to the biblical prophecies of the Book of Revelation." Smith philosophy has fused UFO and Christianity into the combination "Disclosure/Revelation" and Pandolfi has promised him some role in bringing it about. Smith/Pandolfi are the team who also stated that Woolsey briefed Bush Sr. on UFO.
Since meeting Pandolfi in 1977 (other sources say the early 90s), Smith has acted as a long-term outlet for his messages. Pandolfi is a Roman Catholic and a legitimate spook working as scientist for the CIA, DIA and Los Alamos Lab, acted as team leader for JASON/ONDI projects and conducting non-CIA investigation into dual-use exports to China. He is interested in UFO and NewAge topics and has stated that "UFO-related activities might be a cover for a foreign spy operation to penetrate government facilities". In 2015 he was setting up drones programs in Kashmir after marrying the daughter of a Pakistani diplomat. Smith was his best man.
Like Woolsey, Pandolfi mixes cutting-edge spy technology and counter-intelligence and Smith claims that "Jim had taken one of the 'philosophy' courses that Ron had taught for the agency."
UFOlogy is inseparable from post-WWII American intelligence and national security. Pilkington's Mirage Men are Bishop's Project Beta are key books in this area. The Californian overlap between New Age beliefs & cults, Cold War paranoia, CIA interest in Hollywood films and secret "Skunkwork" aerospace projects proved the fertile milieu for many shadowy conspiracies.
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2016 (Nov 15) - Reuters: "Woolsey reported to be in the running for U.S. director of national intelligence [...] Woolsey did not respond to requests for comment."
2016 (Nov 16) -Woolsey at AIPAC's Annual Real Estate Luncheon in Boston
2016 (Nov 16) - the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said that President Obama had authorized that the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) materials also be provided to Trump, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and “designated” members of Trump’s transition team. Flynn was not in attendance on Tuesday when Trump received his first PDB briefing at Trump Tower, according to a source familiar with the matter.
2016 (Nov 16) - Clapper tells a hearing of the House intelligence committee on Wednesday that “I submitted my letter of resignation last night, which felt pretty good,”. Clapper’s final day will be the day of the presidential inauguration on 20 January. While the job is formally non-political, Clapper in 2014 played a leading role in firing Donald Trump’s aide Michael Flynn from the directorship of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was responding to rumors that the panel’s ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff, heard that Clapper might stay on into a Trump Administration.
As Clapper’s resignation became public, two intelligence committee members, independent Angus King of Maine and Republican James Lankford of Oklahoma, wrote to Trump to urge the president-elect to prioritize the selection of Clapper’s replacement. "Nominate an experienced DNI [...] Most importantly, if selected early, your DNI could advise on candidates for directors of the intelligence agencies he or she will work with most often,” they wrote.
Clapper has nearly two months left in his term. Clapper's resignation "was expected and does not today appear to indicate that Clapper is in any trouble or is being forced out," NPR National Security Editor Philip Ewing says. "Everybody needs to take a deep breath," a DNI spokesperson tells NPR. "Clapper is resigning effective Jan. 20. He will finish out his term."
2016 (Nov 16) - RussiaToday wt/ Oksana Boyko - Woolsey: "I think he will do a good job of finding excellent people, That's what several of us having been working on, when we're working for the transition - which is what is what I have been working on for the couple of three weeks (sic) [...] I'm optimistic about [Trump's appointments], having helped do some surveys of who might be available and so on". The administration will be made up of “individuals who would normally be regarded as part of the establishment, but who are willing to work for him, with him to make some changes in American policy.” We love Israel, hate Iran (and Syria) and worry about "threats in the Mediterranean".
Q: Would you like to add a fifth President to your resume (Carter, Regan, Bush Sr, Clinton)?
A: "If I should be asked to do something, I'd look at it. I'd be honoured to be asked, it's an exciting time in American politics."
2016 (Nov 17) Gen. Mike Flynn becomes Trump's National Security Adviser. Flynn was not in attendance on Tuesday when Trump received his first PDB briefing at Trump Tower, according to a source familiar with the matter. Director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, without notifying superiors, traveled to New York to meet with Trump on Thursday at Trump Tower. In a move apparently unprecedented for a military officer. That caused consternation at senior levels of the administration, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal personnel matters.
2016 (Nov 17) - China Daily (Official State Opinion) - "The possibility of a policy U-turn by Washington to embrace the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank following Donald Trump's win in the US presidential election is to be welcomed, since it would be in the interests of the United States and Asia at large. Donald Trump's national security adviser, James Woolsey, has reportedly called the Barack Obama administration's decision not to join the AIIB "a strategic mistake", sparking speculation that the country will reconsider its reluctance to become a member of the newly created institution."
2016 (Nov 18th) - CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" - Woolsey calls Trump's picks for CIA, National Security and Attorney General "good choices". Says he does not know Pompero on FOX BUSINESS. It's not clear what, if anything, the appointments indicate about Trump's foreign policy priorities. "It doesn't, and it shouldn't," James Woolsey told VOANEWS.COM.
2016 (Nov 20) - FOXNEWS on Sunday -They can call anything, on the spur of the moment, to be a military facility and therefore can’t be inspected. If I’m an inspector and I start out to go inspect something, before I get there they turn it into a military facility.
The Iranians never don’t cheat. Negotiations for them are not about a deal where there’s a quid pro quo and each side goes away more or less satisfied. That’s totally alien. From their point of view, it’s about dominance. It’s about showing dominance. And this agreement they are very pleased with because they believe it shows their dominance.
During the interview, Woolsey praised Vice President-elect [Pence]’s 2014 comments on Israel, calling the US-Israel relationship the “most cherished” one with a foreign power. “I think that that’s a good statement. I would put Britain and Israel together in that.”
He added that the Trump White House would strengthen the US-Israel relationship, repairing damage done during the Obama administration.
“I think that we’re headed back towards the old days that some of us lived through and worked on matters in the Middle East where the US and Israel worked very closely together and had each other’s back. I think that’s coming back again. It’s excellent and we will hopefully get away from the Obama administration propensity to treat your friends – like Israel - as enemies and your enemies – like Iran – as friends.”
Nov 21 - ACU Verified account @ACUConservative
Former CIA director James Woolsey says @ktmcfarland would make great Ambassador to the UN: ACU couldn't agree more! #transition #tcot
Nov 22 - KT McFarland @ktmcfarland great outside the box thinking by fmr CIA head Jim Woolsey: Could Putin be an ally in the war on terrorism?
2016 (Nov 24)
The president of Jerusalem Capital Studios is flanked by former CIA Director James Woolsey and his wife Nancye at a cocktail party at United Nations headquarters in New York for the opening of the International Emmy World Television Festival (in NY). The theme for the prize is ‘Women Making Peace,’. At the event last Friday celebrating women and peace, JCS partnered with the UN Women for Peace Association
Nov 25 - Trump names former Pentagon spokeswoman KT McFarland deputy national security advisor
Nov 27 - FOXNEWS Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo
Nov 27 - Joel C. Rosenberg @JoelCRosenberg
Enjoyed good long chat today with former CIA Director James Woolsey on Putin's ambitions. Grateful as always for Jim's insights and counsel.
DECEMBER - Flynn reportedly attended a meeting in December in which he was offered up to $15 million if he could orchestrate Gulen’s return to Turkey. Flynn disclosed the September meeting in filings with the Justice Department, but he made no mention of the December session. Woolsey did not attend the December meeting, his spokesman Jonathan Franks told TheDC earlier this month. The meeting allegedly took place at the upscale 21 Club restaurant in New York, just blocks away from Trump Tower, where Flynn was serving on the presidential transition team.
Dec 7-10 - A participant in the diplomatic meetings MEDays, organized from 7 to 10 December at the Mövenpick Hotel in Tangier according to the Amadeus Institute chaired by Brahim Fassi Fihri. Press calls Woolsey "sherpa de Trump au Maroc" and "un-des-hommes-forts-de-donald-trump."
Rachel Marsden: "Honored to speak again at this year's #MEDays in Morocco, alongside former @CIA Director James Woolsey and others."
http://townhall.com/columnists/rachelmarsden/2016/08/10/former-cia-leaders-should-stay-out-of-presidential-election-n2203424 (oh the irony!)
DEC 8 - Woolsey's pal Leonardo DiCaprio mets with Trump to discuss how jobs centered on preserving the environment can boost the economy.
Dec 11 - CNN Outfront - Woolsey: “I think Iran is our main problem in that part of the world and I think that it’s going to be for some time because it’s a theocratic totalitarian set of revolutionaries and, I’d say, imperialists. They want to build an empire.” He said that Iran is the main problem in the Middle East and predicts that it will be for the foreseeable future. The Iranian regime needs to be stopped and he is sure that worse it to come. He added: “It is important to fracture Iran’s support for any of its proxies in the Middle East.” Woolsey said it would be fair to say there is evidence that Russia was guilty of disinformation. He described it as using sophisticated means to spread lies about the Pope, Jews and others who hold values Russia opposes and said he believes the practice "was probably going on in a lot of places, not just in politics." But Woolsey argued there is no concrete evidence that Russia hacked or attempted to hack voter records in the presidential election. James Woolsey, Trump surrogate, rolling his eyes when @ErinBurnett says Trump "may have a point," makes me think he won't be on TV much.
DEC 13- Fox @marthamaccallum asks James Woolsey about Tillerson relationship with Putin. Woolsey: 'I think it's really kind of a nothing-burger.'
- SiriusXM News & Issues - James Woolsey Discusses Russian Hacking: "The Russians are terribly anti-Semitic because the Jews started the rule of law essentially."
- NT News Time: more Russian "lying" to "distort history" about Jews and Catholics
- http://www.larslarson.com - Former CIA Director James Woolsey on the Russian Election Hacking Situation
DEC 15 - NPR (Steve Inskeep) - "Jim Mattis and I have been email buddies dealing with energy and strategy for some time now, years. And he has a very fine list of people who understand, I think, these issues about oil. A number of countries that that we would like to see run into difficulty - and not be as aggressive as they sometimes are - would behave very differently."
DEC 18 - ABC’s This Week -
[On Russia]
“there’s strong chance the Russians are behind it [...] looks like there’s a building consensus on this [...]This is really an NSA decision. And if -- I think more than anything else. And if NSA is confident that it’s the Russians, then it almost certainly is. Depends on them.”
[On Chinese Drones]
WOOLSEY: I don’t know. I can’t keep up with the tweets. I don’t do the social media myself, so who knows.
RADDATZ: OK, better start reading those Donald Trump tweets, then.
DEC 19 - Breitbart News Daily, host Alex Marlow -
Woolsey expressed doubt that the “regular, and in my experience, perfectly fine and patriotic and decent CIA officers” were targeting Trump with leaks to the media, but said “somewhere at the upper reaches, there may be somebody who has a bit of an agenda.”
DEC 20 - ABC’s JONATHAN KARL and RICK KLEIN -
"ask the tough questions to former CIA Director James Woolsey who is a Donald Trump advisor and an expert in Russian-Turkish relations."
December 20, 2016 — FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) -- Jim Woolsey, former CIA director: We'll never be able to defeat terrorism if we keep playing defense, deploy "our entire team as goalies" pic.twitter.com/48MFlJEUSv The U.S. needs to “lead from the front” Army Gen. Raymond Odierno a former U.S. Army Chief of Staff said Wednesday “I believe this is a time of proactive leadership,” Retired said in a Fox News interview
DEC 21 - Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,”
During an appearance on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,” James Woolsey was asked if Merkel handled the Muslim migrant crisis incorrectly.
"The Germans have let in 1.2 million refugees into their country, and … they got 30-some thousand jobs for those," Woolsey said. "They've just massively overextended their spirit of generosity — and one can admire their spirit, but in terms of practicality I think they're in very bad shape," he added.
“ISIS through its various measures is able to draw on oil. Oil is the lifeblood of terrorism and it’s the lifeblood of Russia as well,” he told the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo.2017
Jan 05
Woolsey declares he is no longer a "senior advisor" to Trump
"I’ve been an adviser and felt that I was making a contribution….. But I’m not really functioning as an adviser anymore. " People close to Woolsey said that he had been excluded in recent weeks from discussions on intelligence matters with Trump and Flynn.
David CornVerified account @DavidCornDC
Why did Woolsey, an advocate for climate change, back Trump?
As a former Director of CIA he was visibly very uncomfortable on CNN tonight.
He was visibly uncomfortable in a PBS Newshour segment last night.
Jan 06
Trump selects Dan Coats to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence DNI. The person with knowledge of Trump's decision was not authorized to discuss the pick publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Coats' nomination is likely to soothe those who fear Trump will significantly overhaul the intelligence community.
Jan 07
Montel Williams, who sits on a marijuana legalization board with Woolsey, sends out a tweet saying that people interested in the #theresistance & #nevertrump should follow the twitter account of Woolsey's spokesman, Jonathan Franks...
Jan 16
“The top-level people are very disappointed Hillary Clinton did not win the election,” said Woolsey. “I think they were quite ready to work for her.” Perhaps most ready was CIA Director John Brennan.
Feb 1 - www.dailymail.co.uk - He spoke before a luncheon panel on U.S.-Israel relations held by the Gatestone Institute -one of the most important hubs in America’s Islamophobia industry. The transatlantic dimensions of Gatestone’s influence include close links to several British groups, including the Quilliam Foundation, Stand for Peace and the Henry Jackson Society. A former CIA director said Tuesday that the Trump administration's removal of the director of national security and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from the 'Principals Committee' of the National Security Council 'doesn't make sense.' 'It's on national security, and you'd exclude the chairman of the joint chiefs! What? What's going on? Why would you do that?' James Woolsey told DailyMail.com. 'It is odd, I think,' he said, twisting his face into a grimace.Asked if he has heard a plausible explanation from his network of friends, he said: 'No. None. None.'
Woolsey is staying out of the formal discussion in government circles. 'Not a word,' he said, laughing. 'I don't offer gratuitous advice to White Houses.' He noted that he has never met Bannon.
Feb 6th - TALKRADIO 570 KVI wt/ Kirby & Carlson - GUEST: former CIA director, James Woolsey, talks about Russia, Putin and Trump.
February 13 - FLYNN RESIGNS
Flynn resigned as National Security Advisor, following reporting on his communications with the Russian ambassador. Flynn's 24-day tenure as National Security Advisor was the shortest in the 63-year history of the office.
Mar 7 - After reports that he was fired because he misled the Vice President about his communications with the Russian ambassador, Flynn’s Turkey connection now comes to light.
Mar 15 - Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark said on Tuesday that the United States has become a part of Turkey's problems for letting Fethullah Gülen, wanted by Turkey, stay in America. Clark's comments, made during a televised interview on CNBC broadcaster.
Mar 24 - WOOLSEY SELLS OUT FLYNN over Turkey
WSJ interview: Woolsey describes a Flynn Intel Group meeting where Mike Flynn and others discussed a covert plan to kidnap Fethullah Gülen for the Turkish government. (see Sibel Edmonds for Gulen's deep, deep ties to the CIA)
The idea was “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away," Woolsey said, it was "naive". "You don’t send out folks to haul somebody overseas." Woolsey's spokesperson, Jonathan Franks, confirmed that Woolsey had notified Vice President Joe Biden, through a mutual friend, of what he thought could be an illegal discussion. Biden was the Obama White Houses' main contact with Erogan.
“Jim said that at best, that was a bad plan, at worst it was criminal,” Nayce Miller will later claim. “As a result of that, General Flynn became very focused in making certain that Jim Woolsey and Candidate Trump never spent time together.”
A spokesman for Flynn, strongly denied that such a discussion ever took place, telling Business Insider on Friday that Flynn was contracted by Turkish interest, in part, "to gather information on Gulen and turn it over to legal authorities to take action."
Mar 25
CNN Tonight: "What I saw and heard was sort of the end of the conversation -- it's not entirely clear what transpired because of that. But it looks as if there was at least some strong suggestion by one or more of the Americans present at the meeting that we would be able, the United States would be able, through them, to be able to get hold of Gulen, the rival for Turkey's political situation." A spokesman for Flynn flatly denied Woolsey's characterization of the meeting.
March 29 - How North Korea could kill 90 percent of Americans - By R. James Woolsey and Vincent Pry, opinion contributors
May 2017 - Nancye Miller registers as lobbyist for the Congolese government. Underneath her signature, the form indicates that the paperwork was signed by “RJ Woolsey,” or Robert James Woolsey. Miller said that Woolsey signed the documents on her behalf because she was traveling and feeling ill when the deadline neared to register with the Justice Department. “I was out of town and was sick so I asked Jim to file my documents,” she said in a telephone interview. Miller said her services were sought because of her past experience as an advisory leader for the UN Women for Peace Association.
May 16 - Laura Ingraham Show: Woolsey said Trump had “the right to declassify material” during a meeting last week with Russian officials, and the only debate can be over whether it was “wise for any of a host of reasons ... It can be serious. On the other hand, this could all be just kind of a flap that got started up without having any underlying substance. I don’t know,” Woolsey added.
May 17
Spotted outside House GOP meeting: former CIA director James Woolsey asking someone what all the cameras are for.Dave Weigel Verified account @daveweigel May 17
May 23
FOX News accuses Woolsey of politicizing Manchester attacks!
JAMES WOOLSEY: Things are kind of coming to a head. I think the radical Islamists, and I would call them that, have decided to pick up the pace with the terrorist attacks, and I think we'll probably see some more. And we now have a president who is pretty straightforward that he is at war with them. He's not going to soft-pedal that. He calls them "evil," and we haven't had a situation like that. We did not have, in the eight years of the Obama administration, a president who wanted to fight and win a war, and --
SHEPARD SMITH (HOST): President Obama fought a number of wars and certainly didn't say that he didn't want to win them. It's very early -- Mr. Woolsey, with great respect, it's very early to make this a political matter.
May 24
Woolsey on Manchester Attack: You Have To Fight Them, Being Nice Won’t Work! (radio.foxnews.com)
MAY 25 - NEW YORK DAILY NEWS - Woolsey writes a gushing article praising Trump's alliance with the Saudis entitled: "Trump’s bracing clarity on terrorism: His Saudi speech, rallying the world, brings necessary boldness to the fight."Woolsey wrote:Trump’s text showed none of [Obama's] mewling rhetoric. In Riyadh, he opted instead for an extended treatment of Islamic extremism, the frequent use of the word “evil” in speaking to the terrorists’ ideology and motivations, and a laserlike focus on Iran as an outlaw regime and chief breeding ground of Mideast mayhem.
One sour note in assessing the President’s trip came from Richard Clarke, who, writing in this newspaper, said Trump had abandoned American values and then speculated, contrary to what the Arab leaders actually said about Trump’s address, that they found the President’s call to “drive out” terrorists “sophomoric.” Clarke’s take on the speech was a lonely outlier. In fact, it was a courageous speech in Riyadh — just as, in sum, it was a courageous trip to the holiest places in the three Abrahamic faiths.
31 May - Erin Burnett on CNN - Woolsey would have advised against any Trump campaign officials talking with Russia when he was on the transition team because "it's just probably not all that wise." "I didn't know about it," Woolsey.
June 1 - WOOLSEY SELLS OUT FLYNN Part II
WSJ (Woolsey's leaking spot of choice): Woolsey claims that Flynn offered him the CIA after Trump’s victory. The offer, Woolsey said, was to lead the CIA and report directly to Flynn, a stipulation that prompted Woolsey to turn down the job. The Nov. 14 phone call occurred a couple of days before Flynn was formally named national security adviser. Flynn said the Trump administration would be “restructuring the intelligence community” and asked if he would “be willing to be director of the CIA.”
Flynn's lawyer suggested that Woolsey's statements were sour grapes after he was passed over for jobs in the Trump administration. "Woolsey was passed over for any position in the Trump administration and that may be coloring this and other untrue allegations he has made against Gen. Flynn."
June 7 - Fox Business Network - "I don’t think it’s a smoking gun," Woolsey said about COmey's testimony. "It could have been a josh," Woolsey also suggested of Comey’s claim Trump asked for the former FBI director’s loyalty. "I mean, it could have been, you know, kidding.
June 11, 2017 Woolsey: Rebellious Intelligence Agencies Need To Be Reined In Quickly To Preserve Democracy (RealClearPolitics.com)Woolsey wrote:Many people in the intelligence community don't oppose President Trump's policies as much as they oppose his personality, and their blind hate towards him is leading them to tear down the fabric of the federal government's normal division of power. Woolsey also said certain agencies, without naming examples, were no longer serving the interests of the U.S. government, but were now serving their own goals and agendas.
"It is certainly something that we have to get our hands on, and we have to do it now. Because the next time the Russians try to interfere with our elections is a year and a half from now. We are going to lose our ability to choose our leaders if we don't understand and deal with it," Woolsey said about the threat from Russia, which most intelligence agencies are hopelessly distracted from.
"We have to get the executive branch, in particular the intelligence agencies and the law enforcement community, pulled together, working together, and behind the president in pulling things into a working order. We don't have that now. And I think some elements of both the intelligence community and the law enforcement community have veered off looking for the own interests, and not looking for the interests of the country. This has to get repaired, and it has to get repaired quickly."
Aug 23 2017 - Woolsey: Trump better President than than JFK
Sept 25 - Interconnection Commerce pays $60,000 to Liberty International Group to have former Florida congressman Connie Mack IV arrange a “panel discussion” to discuss alleged money laundering by leaders at the National Bank of Ukraine. Two Ukrainians, a former member of parliament and a former employee at the bank, were part of the panel - and so was James Woolsey who had been invited by an associate of Mack’s and spoke briefly to the audience about the issue but did not respond to a request for comment.
Oct 5 - BUSTED by BuzzFeed reader
Elise Thomas, an Australian freelance writer tips off Buzzfeed who confront Woolsey & Miller about attending lunch and dinner events involving US policy toward the Democratic Republic of Congo. Woolsey has not registered as a lobbyist for the DRC, or any other government. Miller said the only reason Woolsey attended a lunch and a dinner related to her work was to be with her. “We’re married. When there’s a meal function, Jim shows up for meals because he doesn’t like to eat alone,” she said.
Miller responded to questions after BuzzFeed reached out to Woolsey directly. “I’m the point of contact for the media and anyone who wants to reach Jim for a speech or a doctor’s appointment,” she said. Nancye Miller directed questions to Kazeminy (who bribed Sen. Norm Coleman), Kazeminy’s secretary directed inquires to Jim McGuire, president of Kazeminy’s investment firm NJK Holding Corporation.
Miller’s name also appears on other organizations that her husband is involved in, including the Nowruz Commission, a DC non-profit that throws an annual gala to “promote and preserve” the Persian New Year. For the ticket price of $500 or a sponsorship of between $2,000-$50,000, guests are invited to gather in D.C. ballrooms for a night of drinks, live performances and delicacies from the countries represented on the commission. When informed about her appearance on the Nowruz Commission’s website, Miller expressed surprise and said the group should’ve removed her name because she “sent a formal resignation last year.” She said she left the group due to its associations with Flynn, with whom her husband had a falling out.
The group was founded by Bijan Kian, a former business partner of Michael Flynn at the Flynn Intel Group. Woolsey is an ambassador to the commission, while Alptekin serves as the commission’s vice chairman, a member of the board of directors and an ambassador representing Turkey. Flynn attended and spoke at a number of the commission’s annual events.
OCT 26th - FRANKS DENIES INVESTIGATION
A source familiar with the matter told NBC News that Woolsey's allegations came under investigation by the FBI, and that Mueller's team inherited that aspect of the wide-ranging probe into Flynn's activities.
Jonathan Franks, a spokesman for Woolsey and Miller, said his clients were not under investigation. He also said Woolsey had pursued with Turkish interests an “economic development proposal in the wake of the coup that centered around reassuring folks that Turkey was a safe place to do business” but that the project’s focus was not on Gulen. Franks said Woolsey was an unpaid adviser to the campaign, had no obligation to report any efforts to pursue work for Turkish interests, and was now being smeared. “With growing speculation that indictments could be handed down soon, it’s not a surprise that others are attempting to accomplish in the press what they cannot in the grand jury room,” Franks added.
Jonathan FranksVerified account @jonfranks
This isn't news - Ambassador Woolsey stands by his account to @wsj and @cnn in March. His decades long reputation for integrity in public service speaks for itself. - Jonathan Franks, Spokesman.
Further, Woolsey is NOT under investigation.
[[http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/25/politics/james-woolsey-mike-flynn-cnntv/index.html]]
Oct 27 - FRANK CLARIFIES that FBI and Office of the Special Counsel are interviewing Woolsey
Former CIA Director James Woolsey has been interviewed by FBI agents working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller about allegations that Mike Flynn discussed the potentially illegal removal of a Turkish cleric from the U.S., Woolsey's spokesman told NBC News.
"Ambassador Woolsey and his wife have been in communication with the FBI regarding the Sept. 19, 2016 meeting Ambassador Woolsey was invited to attend by one of Gen. Flynn's business partners," Woolsey spokesman Jonathan Franks said in a statement. "Ambassador Woolsey and his wife have responded to every request, whether from the FBI, or, more recently, the Office of the Special Counsel."
Franks clarified that the FBI has been "in communication" with Woolsey both before and after the matter was taken over by Mueller's office.
"Ambassador Woolsey and his wife have responded to every request, whether from the FBI, or, more recently, the Office of the Special Counsel," he said. "It is unfortunate, yet predictable," Franks added, "that in an effort to defend themselves, certain individuals have attempted to impugn the Woolseys' integrity in the media."
INTELLIGENCE
Friday, 27 Oct 2017 - Woolsey said Friday he believes JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald "may have not acted alone" because he was a KGB agent,....
November 10, 2017 -Jerusalem Post - Ex-CIA director Woolsey explains why Iran needs to be taken down a notchJP wrote:“The next time the IRGC looks cross-eyed at us... we should turn loose six to 12 MOAB bombs on their facilities,” said Woolsey. He spoke to the Post in the famous Rotunda Room of the Pierre Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. “Given what a source of terrorism the IRGC is... instead of talking and proportionality – the hell with proportionality. We should destroy virtually everything we can that has to do with the IRGC,” he said.
Woolsey, wearing a gray charcoal coat and a red sweater, said, “I think their seizing of a US ship was an act of war. We went to war on less than that in the War of 1812,” The intensity of Woolsey’s aggressive program [shocked us, but when] pressed that this approach could drag the US into a highly volatile and unpredictable war with Iran and its proxies, he was unfazed. In intelligence you need to “speak softly, carry a big stick and sometimes use the big stick.”
Though Hayden was a Republican appointee and Woolsey a Democratic one, on the Iran deal, Woolsey outflanked Hayden from the right, saying that “the Iran nuclear deal is worse than worthless.” Woolsey was disappointed that Trump did not scrap the deal entirely.
Commenting on a new book by Shurat Hadin director which featured a Woolsey quote on the book’s back cover, he said “to ‘follow the money. Offense is the key thing, not just to play defense." This concept of financially attacking adversaries is also a major part of how Woolsey conceives of fighting terrorism.
Reviewing his current successor at the CIA, director Mike Pompeo, he said, “So far, so good.” Woolsey was critical of Trump for leaking Israeli intelligence to Russia and for his propensity for broadcasting so much of his national security strategy.
November 11, 2017 - Woolsey joined a massive Moonie rally in Seoul on November 11, 2017 titled the “2017 Global Rally for the Peaceful Reunification of the Korean Peninsula.”. The event was organized by the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification and headlined with a speech from the widow of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the leader of the Unification movement and its' commercial empire comprising real estate, manufacturing and agricultural operations, and media properties including The Washington Times.
Woolsey referenced the newspaper in his own remarks and embraced a faith-filled tone.https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/nov/11/interfaith-rally-seoul-held/ wrote:“I’m here in part because The Washington Times’ hard hitting news and commentary is strengthening the resolve of America’s leaders to achieve peace and — God willing in time — freedom as well for the entire Korean Peninsula. The danger of harsh talk slipping suddenly into all out war is much greater today than it has ever been. We never forget that what divides North and South in this country is an artificial and arbitrary political wall of tyranny. All the men women and children of the Korean Peninsula are one people and they have been for some 4,000 years. You have existed as one family since the dawn of recorded history and you will continue as one family for millennia to come.
God is checking us to see if the men and women of God have the strength of faith to pull together to unite as one to rally together, not for ourselves or what we will get out of it, but unselfishly for the peace, prosperity and freedom of both South and North Korea. The reason heated rhetoric between the United States and North Korea is so dangerous today stems from the reality that the speed at which information, misunderstandings and events move in the world of advanced technology is unprecedented.
Now that the North has successfully put satellites into orbit and has successfully tested nuclear weapons, they have the technology needed to launch an Electromagnetic Pulse attack against the South or against Japan or against the U.S. Such an attack could destroy the attack area’s electric grid, putting us instantly back into the 19th Century and leaving our cities with no way to communicate or to get food and water. The world came to Korea at one time to protect this country and the world has once again gathered together on this sacred ground. May God bless all of us and fulfill the dream of a unified and free Korean Peninsula.”
Nov 20, 2017 - DENVER — Woolsey was the keynote speaker during an industrial hemp webinar. “It's time to end the federal prohibition and scheduling of this plan under the Controlled Substances Act,” Woolsey said. “It's time to bring back hemp to America's farms.
NOV 27th - tipster told Politico's Playbook - SPOTTED at Mar-a-Lago
SPOTTED AT MAR-A-LAGO: Trump and first lady Melania Trump were seated at the main dining table Saturday night with Marvel Entertainment Chairman Ike Perlmutter and his wife Laurie, according to a tipster. Trump and former CIA Director James Woolsey had a “lengthy conversation” at his table.
NEARBY DINERS INCLUDED: Eric and Lara Trump, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and his wife Hilary Ross with Howard and Michele Kessler, Newsmax CEO and President Trump's longtime friend Chris Ruddy hosting Woolsey and his wife Nancye Miller Woolsey and Kimberly Reed, Lee and Erika Lipton with Jack and Barbara Nicklaus and Bret and Amy Baier, and Robin and Richard Bernstein.
“He was at my table as my guest,” said club member and Newsmax President Christopher Ruddy. “He did chat with the president, but it was social chit chat and there were always three to five people present when they chatted. Jim popped over to the president’s table to just say ‘hello,’” added Ruddy, also a friend of the president’s. The media executive also said that neither knew the other were going to be at the club, considered the Winter White House.
DEC. 1, 2017 - Michael Flynn’s plea on Friday to a single count of lying to the F.B.I.
Feb. 13 2018 - The Sandra Day O’Connor Institute Distinguished Speakers Series will present former Director of Central Intelligence, James Woolsey at a luncheon Tuesday. Individual tickets for the luncheon start at $75 and tables of 10 are also available online.
May 2019 - Woolsey late-night hotel Rampage!
In a story that should have a Ralph Steadman illustration, Woolsey went on a late-night hotel rampage in Kazakhstan on the night before the Eurasian Media Forum debate (May 23). Woolsey must have been there in support of his fellow naval intelligence alumni, Steve Bannon, but what sent him on a rampage trying force his way into George Galloway's room in the middle of the night is a mystery. Bannon and Woolsey had never met in 2017 (according to Woolsey) but they were recently seen fist-bumping at the 4th reserruction of the Committe on Present Danger. Like an undead franchise villain CPD 4.0 is back again and this time its eyes are set on China.
The morning after Woolsey went amok, Bannon gave a chilling speech at the Eurasian Summit. His strange narrative was that America should ally with the Chinese working class to overthrow the "CCP criminal junta" and thus free the global proletariat from being undercut by Chinese slave labour! Bannon's neo-conservative Trotskyism allows him to boast that US is rejecting "globalist-enforced imperialism" to reclaim its true "revolutionary" origins.
As Galloway worryingly notes, Bannon (and the CPD:China)'s basic idea is that China is going to have to follow the path of Germany and Japan - world war followed by US occupation - if it wants a seat at the table. The current US position is to put China, Iran, Venezuela in severe headlocks and hope one of them tries to 'pearl harbor' their way out.
Despite last seen been dragged off by hotel security, repeatedly screaming "I'm Ambassador, Woolsey!" (read Galloway's account yourself!), Woolsey was soon back on-air at NEWSMAX uncharacteristically preaching caution about any Iranian airstrike plans.
What happened that night is unclear. It could be as bathetic as some form of dementia or a mistaken room, and Woolsey is 77, but Galloway's account is of someone who started with a knock and escalated to full shoulder-checks until grabbed by security. The fact that neither Woolsey nor the CPD:China gave Galloway any explaination have led him to both air this story and to seek legal redress. :)
Last edited by Hobb on Fri 9 Aug 2019 - 22:40; edited 1 time in total
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Re: R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Fri 9 Aug 2019 - 22:34
Quotes on WOOLSEY
Goose-stepping....nut-case...raving loon...neoconservative extremist.....really weaselly laugh, it's odious...unmitigated disaster in any setting....arrogant, tin-eared and brittle...fucking egomanic...He’ll fight you about a comma....'The World According To Jim Woolsey'.....abrasive personal style....tendency to oversell, also had a tendency to over-advocate....graceless....prophet of war....he wants to win every battle, instead, he loses the war....a classic example of how treason can proceed in plain sight....- CLICK for an antidote if you are sickened by the endless 'wise men' circle-jerks of self-congratulations in Congressional reports and the media:
Eric Margolis (National Security reporter): "Well, I've met Woolsey on a number of occasions, been on TV programs with him in Washington, and I would be very nervous to have this man anywhere in a high-level government position. The reason is that he's one of the point men for the extreme right wing of the Republican Party. They're almost so far right-wing you can hear goose-stepping. They want a very militaristic foreign policy. They want to use American power to destroy all of Israel's perceived enemies. Well, that McCain has appointed an advisor who's about as far right as you can get in the American political spectrum [...] It's hard to tell whether Woolsey's speaking at times for Israel or for the United States, he's so preoccupied with the Middle East." [Monday May 12th, 2008]
Scott Horton (libertarian radio host): "Woolsey is historically a raving loon."
Andrew Cockburn (journalist): "a nut-case"
James Bovard (Investigative columnist): "a really weaselly laugh, it's odious ... [his theories that 'Iraq did 911'] hurt his credibility in DC something horrible, suffered almost as much as Max Boot has done".
Vincent Cannistraro (CIA Counterterrorism): "The policymakers were greatly influenced by neoconservative beliefs that Saddam had been involved with the sponsorship of terrorism in the United States ... None of this is true, of course, but ... they continue in large measure to be the conceits of a lot of people like Jim Woolsey."
[ Incredibly the Wikipedia page on "Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations" does not even mention Woolsey!]
Patrick Lang (Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East): "Woolsey is an unmitigated disaster in any setting."
Anthony Lake (National Security Adviser): "Arrogant, tin-eared and brittle."
Sandy Berger (National Security Adviser): "Jim’s an advocate, a lawyer, a litigator. He’ll fight you about a comma. I think there was a feeling that Jim was too rigid, and that what he was giving us was not so much the analytical assessment of the intelligence community as it was 'The World According To Jim Woolsey'"
Les Aspin (Secretary of Defense): "He's a fucking egomanic. He has a trial attorney's mentality. He wants to win every battle. Instead, he loses the war"
Strobe Talbott (Rhodes Scholar/Brookings): "Jim had a tendency to oversell. He also had a tendency to over-advocate."
Michael Scheuer (CIA): "James Woolsey was a neocon ideologue"
Melvin A. Goodman (CIA division chief): "Woolsey was a disaster as CIA director in the 1990s and is now running around this country calling for a World War IV to deal with the Islamic problem"
Karon von Gerhke-Thompson: "Mr. Woolsey is notorious for replacing his name tag at public events with his IQ, two points above Einstein!"
"Leon Panetta’s senior staff officer": “I’ve never seen a more graceless stonewall…[in preventing budget cuts]"
R. Jeffrey Smith (Washington Post): “Many of Woolsey’s friends and supporters blame his troubles on what they see as his argumentative and sometimes abrasive personal style. An ambitious, driven litigator, Woolsey is frequently said to be unable or unwilling to strike a compromise.”
Glenn Greenwald (journalist): a "neoconservative extremist"
James “Mel” Rockefeller (international businessman): "Woolsey offers a classic example of how treason can proceed in plain sight."
Michael Ruppert (LAPD & journalist): "I have interviewed him in person.... James Woolsey is a friend of corporations and major banks... James Woolsey is the consummate career bureaucrat and front man.... Woolsey was and remains a front-man for corporate rather than public interests.”
Tim Weiner (national security reporter): "His bulging temples and biting wit gave the impression of a highly intelligent hammerhead shark"
Asla Aydintasbas (NY journalist): "a consummate Beltway insider [who] has worked effectively over the years in Washington's shadow government."
Harold Brown (Carter's secretary of defense): "He is a good example of someone who sets out to be successful and who does it."
Former C.I.A. case officer who served under Woolsey: "He had an obvious love of spookery, an affection for the idea of clandestine service."
Richard Curtiss (Washington Report on Middle East Affairs): "James Woolsey may see himself as a latter day Old Testament prophet. Needless to say, this fits in very nicely with the beliefs—and actions—of his fellow neoconservatives. Together, many of Woolsey's beliefs, along with his sense of destiny, make him a potentially dangerous, or at least a highly unusual, public figure."
David Corn (Mother Jones magazine): "Woolsey is something of a prophet of war."
Woolsey on Woolsey: I'm a "conservative Democrat - more southern than not."
Last edited by Hobb on Wed 19 May 2021 - 2:47; edited 14 times in total
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Re: R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Fri 9 Aug 2019 - 22:34
NEW INFO (Summer 2019)
*information about 1993 UFO meeting. Remember that "ECM + CIA = UFO" and that 'skunkworks' is full of counter-intelligence and disinfo....
*Haiti Disinfo disaster of 1993. A bit of forgotten history that explains why Woolsey was so disliked by Clinton and Congress.
*How Woolsey inherited a CIA that been made pliable under Casey/Gate's 'Regan Revolution purge' of the analysis division.
*I was happy to find that Joel van der Reijden concurs that Woolsey was already a 'deep CIA officer' before he was appointed Clinton's Director of Central Intelligence. [See Buzzy Kongard for another example of 'deep CIA' being recruited into 'official CIA']
NEW INFO (Fall 2019)
*just how badly did Iranian intelligence penetrate the Neocons? Woolsey championed at least TWO assets who were later revealed to be Iranian double-agents!
*the Clintons should have added Woolsey to their #clintonbodycount because he spends all his time bitterly attacking the Administration once he is fired.
*three times the CIA has almost been disassembled: the JFK administration, post-Watergate, and post-Cold War. Woolsey was at ground zero for the last two.
NEW INFO (Spring 2020)
* After Woolsey did his dark-op against Trump's NSA director (Flynn), he went straight to report to.... Joe Biden.
* Woolsey was an earlier profiteer of marijuana legalization (from 'industrial hemp' to Montell William's weed to Israel-grown buds....)
* Woolsey calls everyone who disagrees with him "stupid" while bemoaning to his ex-wife that, "I wish I didn't feel so much like a prophet."
* Micheal Bloomberg calls in Woolsey in 2002 to enforce an "Omberta-like silence" amongst the NY firefighters who are convinced the 9/11 was a demolition job
* watch as Woolsey claims all the rights and advantages of being a "private citizen" whiles his whole 'career' is predicated and funded by on blurring the public/private line into meaninglessness.
* MOST of the CIA/Intelligence stuff I'm encountering is conducted in the blurry realm of "privitization', 'contracting', 'public-private partnerships'.
NEW INFO (Summer 2020)
* Starting around 2004 Woolsey is on the board of two companies - Ijaz's Crescent Ventures & BioDefense Corp - that are later indicated by state and SEC regulators so they move to Britain and keep scamming investors. Woolsey uses his influence to get good PR for two 'companies' later found to be criminal enterprises. Joining Woolsey in these companies are high-ranking ex-military officers, some of who share a by-line with Woolsey in neo-con WSJ articles. What exactly are these "companies"?
NEW INFO (Fall 2020)
MAJOR REVISION (1941-2003) posted
NEW INFO (WINTER-SPRING 2021)
The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West (OUP 2020) by Australian-American intelligence officer David Kilcullen is flaming garbage - it's kiss-ass ("the Woolseyan security landscape") and does a neo culpa white-wash describing Woolsey as a lawyer who did make a mistake about Iraq but apologized ("Where Woolsey differed from others, however, was in his willingness to recognize flaws"). Now he's a eco-hawk worried about the rise of Trump and China (and EMPs). He's an old (wise) man turned from external war to internal grid resiliency.... Kilcullen was recruited by Wolfowtiz in 2004 and acted as their 'kept' critic of the Iraq war giving "lip service to neo-con tenets". Kilcullen interviews of Woolsey were arranged by Nadia Schadlow who sits with Woolsey on the board of 'America Abroad Media' and serves on the staff of Kilcullen's "friend" (and blurb-provider) Lt. Gen H. R. McMaster. Read more about Kilcullen's COIN grifting from Tim Shorrock and Stephen Reyna's damning critiques.
Pick any thread in Woolsey's long career and start tugging on it and you'll start seeing the death's head of the US national security state start surfacing.... Watergate ... Nuclear War ... Iran-Contra .... Military-Industrial corruption ... Secret Satellites ... Drones ... Mockingbird ... Al Gore ... PNAC .... AIPAC ... Invading Iraq ... Color/NGO Coups ... Wars to Spread 'Democracy' ... Continuity of Government ... Clinton's CIA ... Targeting Syria ... Targeting Iran ... Legitimizing Trump ... Knee-capping Trump's NSA... Targeting China... Accusing Everyone else of "disinformation"....
*information about 1993 UFO meeting. Remember that "ECM + CIA = UFO" and that 'skunkworks' is full of counter-intelligence and disinfo....
*Haiti Disinfo disaster of 1993. A bit of forgotten history that explains why Woolsey was so disliked by Clinton and Congress.
*How Woolsey inherited a CIA that been made pliable under Casey/Gate's 'Regan Revolution purge' of the analysis division.
*I was happy to find that Joel van der Reijden concurs that Woolsey was already a 'deep CIA officer' before he was appointed Clinton's Director of Central Intelligence. [See Buzzy Kongard for another example of 'deep CIA' being recruited into 'official CIA']
NEW INFO (Fall 2019)
*just how badly did Iranian intelligence penetrate the Neocons? Woolsey championed at least TWO assets who were later revealed to be Iranian double-agents!
*the Clintons should have added Woolsey to their #clintonbodycount because he spends all his time bitterly attacking the Administration once he is fired.
*three times the CIA has almost been disassembled: the JFK administration, post-Watergate, and post-Cold War. Woolsey was at ground zero for the last two.
NEW INFO (Spring 2020)
* After Woolsey did his dark-op against Trump's NSA director (Flynn), he went straight to report to.... Joe Biden.
* Woolsey was an earlier profiteer of marijuana legalization (from 'industrial hemp' to Montell William's weed to Israel-grown buds....)
* Woolsey calls everyone who disagrees with him "stupid" while bemoaning to his ex-wife that, "I wish I didn't feel so much like a prophet."
* Micheal Bloomberg calls in Woolsey in 2002 to enforce an "Omberta-like silence" amongst the NY firefighters who are convinced the 9/11 was a demolition job
* watch as Woolsey claims all the rights and advantages of being a "private citizen" whiles his whole 'career' is predicated and funded by on blurring the public/private line into meaninglessness.
* MOST of the CIA/Intelligence stuff I'm encountering is conducted in the blurry realm of "privitization', 'contracting', 'public-private partnerships'.
NEW INFO (Summer 2020)
* Starting around 2004 Woolsey is on the board of two companies - Ijaz's Crescent Ventures & BioDefense Corp - that are later indicated by state and SEC regulators so they move to Britain and keep scamming investors. Woolsey uses his influence to get good PR for two 'companies' later found to be criminal enterprises. Joining Woolsey in these companies are high-ranking ex-military officers, some of who share a by-line with Woolsey in neo-con WSJ articles. What exactly are these "companies"?
NEW INFO (Fall 2020)
MAJOR REVISION (1941-2003) posted
NEW INFO (WINTER-SPRING 2021)
The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West (OUP 2020) by Australian-American intelligence officer David Kilcullen is flaming garbage - it's kiss-ass ("the Woolseyan security landscape") and does a neo culpa white-wash describing Woolsey as a lawyer who did make a mistake about Iraq but apologized ("Where Woolsey differed from others, however, was in his willingness to recognize flaws"). Now he's a eco-hawk worried about the rise of Trump and China (and EMPs). He's an old (wise) man turned from external war to internal grid resiliency.... Kilcullen was recruited by Wolfowtiz in 2004 and acted as their 'kept' critic of the Iraq war giving "lip service to neo-con tenets". Kilcullen interviews of Woolsey were arranged by Nadia Schadlow who sits with Woolsey on the board of 'America Abroad Media' and serves on the staff of Kilcullen's "friend" (and blurb-provider) Lt. Gen H. R. McMaster. Read more about Kilcullen's COIN grifting from Tim Shorrock and Stephen Reyna's damning critiques.
What is Woolsey?
- Click to Open:
- Woolsey is a southern conservative Democrat. That's what he calls himself. His is an Anglophile Okie who read Edmund Burke's 'address to the colonies' at Tulsa High, just like his mother did before him. He was raised by three dominate Scot-Irish women while his father did military service. He has a H.P Lovecraft vibe.
- Woolsey's father was a defense lawyer who had clerked with Samuel Boorstein. This theme of Jewish patronage would also define Woolsey Jr.'s life, who proudly declared he was a Presbyterian Zionist and the most prominent non-Catholic gentile among the neo-conservatives. Samuel's son, Daniel, would be an early neo-con historical philosopher.
- Daniel Boorstein was a Rhodes Scholar, so were Woolsey and his friends Scott Thompson, Luger, Talbot, Slocombe. So many of Clinton's administration, including Bill Clinton, were Rhode Scholars they joked about at Woolsey's nomination. Rachel Maddow continues this Democrat Party-Rhodes Scholar lineage.
- Stanford, the Hoover Institute and its branch the American Enterprise Institute will be an early Woolsey power-base.
- It is at Stanford that the Woolseys will begin working in Allard Lowenstein's political troupe that focused on the student movement, civil rights, and Lowenstein's own anti-war Democrat candidacy. Woolsey and Lowenstein were both Democrat operatives working to 'sheep-dog' the anti-war movement into official Democrat electoral politics. At Stanford Woolsey worked with Lowenstein to influence the National Student Association - this was an intelligence operation funded by CIA fronts. [See The Pied Piper : Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal dream (1985) by Richard Cummings]
- The dominance of Israel-first policy in neo-conservatism should not obscure the 'military-industrial-think tank-congressional' half of that movement. Woolsey is an Army Captain and part of MacNamara's 'whiz kid' recruitment where he was working at the top-secret National Recon Organization in his late 20s. Ultra-classified billion-dollar spy satellite programs would remain a priority in Woolsey's life. He also joined the nuclear 'Strangelove' monkhood when he ran early computerize game-theory simulations of nuclear war surviability. He will nerd-out on these topics with Al Gore in the early 1980s.
- Despite his Army rank Woolsey was so closely affiliated with the Navy that he is mistakenly called 'Admiral'. Woolsey ran naval intelligence under Carter where he liaisoned with P2 (according to Wikileaks'), a job he got on the strength of his patronage from Paul Nitze's network. Woolsey called Nitze "a second father" and joined him in Soviet arms negotiations. Nitze was a Cold War demi-god.
- Nitze's naval network united with the Democrat 'Scoop' Jackson, the "Senator from Boeing" and his Israel patronage to create that spot in the Venn diagram where Pentagon welfare, militarist Democrats and Israel-first politics have their very prim orgy in "neo-conservatism". Woolsey is the dictionary definition of a neoconservative but he prefers the old school term "Scoop Jackson Democrat". Serving Israel and keeping military spending on an unlimited tap are Woolsey's pole stars. Read up on ur-neocon Fritz Kraemer's 'provocative weakness' theory if you want to see the basis for many of Woolsey's speeches and metaphors.
- Woolsey is a Military-Corporate-Intelligence defense lawyer. He deferred the draft at Stanford until he finally got his LLB at Yale in 1968 and then immediately served in the top-secret bowels of Pentagon to fulfill his ROTC commitment. He then joined Shea & Gardner 1973 (a firm allied to the Democrat since the FDR) and kept re-joining every time he left government - just like fellow firm member, Anthony Lapham, another CIA/naval intelligence operative.
- As a defense lawyer Woolsey's clientele includes mostly major defense corporation .... as well as useful Iraqi exiles. The Iraqi exiles were a regime change operation that turned out to be led by an Iranian double-agent. Compare Woolsey with Lee Wolosky the Obama admin lawyer who represents Iranian and North Korean exiles (even as they break into embassies!) under a layer of official secrecy. New York/Wall Street lawyers dominated the first generation of the OSS-CIA, Washington/MIC lawyers dominated the next...
- Woolsey's clientele also includes disgraced Iran-Contra operators & 'Italian fascist'-expert Micheal Ledeen. Woolsey was busy in the 1980s as 'the Republican's favorite Democrat', he wrote bi-partisan senate deals, acted as ambassador-at-large for the National Security council, fatten his military-industrial portfolio, and still found time to act as lawyer for the Iran-Contra black-op crew.
- Woolsey's clientele is mostly aerospace arms-merchants (BAE & Dynacorp, Kevlar) and various Import-Export negotiations. The ImEx business is very spooky and Woolsey will be seen in MaraLargo with Trump's Import-Export bank appointee.
- Woolsey is 'Mr. 911'. From the literal day of the attack (when he got a 'blame iraq' editorial printed) onwards Woolsey was the primary figure feeding propaganda and disinfo into both the US media and intelligence networks: endless editorials and interviews, PBS documentaries, spinning the anthrax attacks, conducting private quasi-judicial investigation in England, inserting a motley crew of defectors & grifters through Shea&Gardner and the Defense Policy Board into intelligence reports. New York firefighter say he was working with Israel military security to control their narratives in the wake of the WTC collapses.
- Woolsey personally profits from the Military-Industiral Complex he promotes. From aerospace (BAE), mercenaries (Dynacorp) investing in homeland security (Paladin Capital) and bio-security corporations ect, ect.... His war-profiteering (and his wife's) was so blatant during the 2003 Iraq invasion that mainstream articles talked about it.
- Woolsey is a hustler. There is a touch of Glengarry Glen Ross or 'ol' Gill' to him especially in his failed political attempts (fired as Clinton's CIA direction for many reasons, floated and rejected as a 'minister of information' for neo-Baghdad in 2003, rebuffed in his attempt to get a slot in Trump's cabinet in 2016...). He's rhetorical habits like calling people 'stupid' and sarcastically saying 'hello?' sound like Biff Tannen. Woolsey's real-life singing and acting attempts are pure cringe (at least Hitler could passable paint) and he was a dedicated 'disaster scenario' LARPer. Also the UFO stuff....
- Woolsey is the 'Washington Wiseman' who shepherded Trump into power. It was Woolsey acting as Trump's media representative who spoke on Canadian's national radio-program the night after the election saying Donald Trump was "perfectly reasonable". Was he just sniffing around for a cabinet position? Or was he a double-agent working with the Democrat/MI-6/Neocon elements who launched black ops against Trump (Mullergate, Russia, Steele dossier)? His accusation against Trump's loopy NatSec advisior Flynn were personally delivered to Joe Biden....
- Woolsey is the living incarnation of the American deep-state. He works in government looking at top secret threat assessments, he travels the world to drum-up threat assessments that fit his needs, he funds and promotes threat assessments he likes, he drafts inflammatory think-tank papers and apocalyptic editorials about those threats, he is legal counsel/advisors to both the government committee assessing these threats and to the government committee procuring arms to stop these threats, he is on the board of multiple military-industrial contractors that finally receive the massive government funding.
- Woolsey is 'Continuity of Government', Peter Dale Scott lists him with Rumsfled and Cheney in planning COG exercises - including ones in 2000. He seems to have been recruited to spookery in university (through student union politics via Lowenstien) and soon became a NRO/Pentagon high-priest of nuclear Armageddon and an early proponent of drones. Security clearances and 'pocket vest' secret ops are his oxygen. Presidents come and go but Woolsey remains.
- Woolsey is part of the 'real CIA'. I suspect, as does Joel van der Reijden, that he was already part of the CIA before being assigned Director of Central Intelligence, much like Buzzy Krongard was already CIA before being selected as CIA counsel. This is only a hypothesis. Woolsey is loyal to his neo-con network above all and has no great love for the CIA as a institution - and many CIA officers seem to return that emotion.
- Woolsey gave this insight during a 1980 AEI interview: "I often suggested that I wanted to try to be a party theoretician. That position does not really exist on our side of the iron curtain, but it is one that has always intrigued me." A "party theoretician" is a communist or socialist who acts as "a journalist and "agitator" who was deeply party-dependant, and not an academic" [Leftism Reinvented - Stephanie L. Mudge]. Woolsey's political masters were the 'War Party'/Pentagon/MICC, his was 'deeply party-dependant' for his income and status, he had no commitment to academia preferring the incestuous sophistry of the media and think-thinks, and was never afraid to take a extreme position to agitate...
- Woolsey is a southern conservative Democrat. That's what he calls himself. His is an Anglophile Okie who read Edmund Burke's 'address to the colonies' at Tulsa High, just like his mother did before him. He was raised by three dominate Scot-Irish women while his father did military service. He has a H.P Lovecraft vibe.
Pick any thread in Woolsey's long career and start tugging on it and you'll start seeing the death's head of the US national security state start surfacing.... Watergate ... Nuclear War ... Iran-Contra .... Military-Industrial corruption ... Secret Satellites ... Drones ... Mockingbird ... Al Gore ... PNAC .... AIPAC ... Invading Iraq ... Color/NGO Coups ... Wars to Spread 'Democracy' ... Continuity of Government ... Clinton's CIA ... Targeting Syria ... Targeting Iran ... Legitimizing Trump ... Knee-capping Trump's NSA... Targeting China... Accusing Everyone else of "disinformation"....
Last edited by Hobb on Wed 19 May 2021 - 3:21; edited 12 times in total
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Re: R. James Woolsey
by Hobb Wed 13 May 2020 - 17:28
Have some click-bait....
- Is Woolsey the son of a Nazi intelligence chief?:
One of the wildest theories about Woolsey is that he is the literal son on a Nazi intelligence chief....
https://www.educate-yourself.org/cn/ottdyncorpunholytrinity21feb10.shtml wrote:.....Following the signing of the “secret” “Treaty of Ft. Hunt.” General Gehlen became the de-facto head of the CIA’s German office, after he and his family (he reportedly had a son born in 1941) allegedly assumed the surname of Woolsey and received U.S. citizenship papers listing a residence in Oklahoma. Reinhardt’s alleged son, R. James Woolsey (born in 1941), appears to have followed in his father’s proud footsteps, and became the Director of DynCorp Intl. (While I was not able to fully corroborate Woolsey’s father actually being Nazi intelligence chief Gehlen, (certain PaperClip details are still unavailable) I must say only that the family resemblance is quite remarkable)
This cannot be true (even the theorist admits he has no evidence) -- but it does remind me of the strangely German-centered focus of Woolsey's early life.
In grade 11 Woolsey went to Sweden to do 'American Field Service' work, then at 18 years old he attended Standford University's newly opened, Ford Foundation-funded, campus Stuttgart, Germany where he spent a summer at the "Red Cross Refugee Camp in Berlin" and six months on-campus studying German history. Woolsey says German is the "the only foreign language that I speak at all."
Woolsey returns to Standford's US campus to major in History "focusing on modern Europe, focusing especially on the years between the World Wars" and becomes head of Stanford's German Club. During this period Standford also sets up the American Enterprise Institute, dedicated to fighting "the evils of Karl Marx - whether Communism, Socialism or atheism."
In 1968, Alain Enthoven (Standford, Rhodes Scholar) recruits Woolsey to work on "highly classified" war game model produced by the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA). The IDA is said to based out the “'paperclip' building on the Virginia side of the Potomac River." The “paperclip building" likely refers to 'Project Paperclip' recruitment of Nazis and the near-by Fort Hunt's infamous "P.O. Box 1142" where Nazis where debriefed and recruited.
Throughout the rest of his life Woolsey is connected with Italian fascists including Italy's P2 'masonic club' a "clandestine, anti-communist, anti-soviet, anti-leftist, pseudo-Masonic and radical right organization" (according to Wikipedia), who he will liaison with under Carter, and was the associate and lawyer for Michael Ledeen, a neo-con spook who professes "universal fascism" and (again) has deep ties to the Italian right.
Woolsey specializes in deploying the term "fascist" against US enemies - especially the 'Islamo-fascist' variant applied to Iraq and Syria. Woolsey: "First of all, there are the Middle East Fascists. I use that term advisedly about the Ba'athists in Iraq and Syria, because they are Fascists." And Russian is always "edging toward Fascism" under Putin accord to him. Even the US is fascist when it refuses to allow in his favorite intelligence pasties! [''God,'' he suddenly growled, ''this is such a fascist country.'] But Woolsey's real hate is for Iran "the term `Islamo-fascist' is not severe enough for Mr. Ahmadinejad because the Italian fascists, although terrible, were not genocidal, not explicitly genocidal. Mr. Ahmadinejad and the Iranian regime are genocidal."
His jughead ears don't make him Gehlen's biological spawn buta s a connoisseur of 'fascism' and a real-world practitioner of it at the highest levels of the US Empire, Woolsey is Gehlen's political offspring.
Here is the simplest truth about the USA: in order to create a World Empire to defeat Communism the US adopted all the Fascists they had just defeated and a whole bunch more. They embraced the Japanese fascists in Asia, the (ex)Nazi Germans in Europe, a whole grab-bag of Italian fascist-mafia in the Mediterranean, they loved Spain under Franco, the Islamo-Fascist of Indonesia, the used fascists as 'death squads' in Central America and 'presidents' in South America. 'Project Paperclip' was only a small component of this strategy.....
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R2N :: Woolsey Watch
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