Slashdot Mirror
Richard Clarke on Cyberterrorism and Iraq
An anonymous reader writes "Richard Clarke, former counter terrorism advisor to the US National Security Council, has revealed that before invading Iraq, the U.S. government used the Internet to communicate directly with Iraqi soldiers by sending them personalised messages saying, "We're about to invade. We're going to overwhelm you and if you resist us we're going to kill you. But we don't want to do that. So really the best thing for you to do when we invade is to go home." He said the soldiers got the message and most of them went home. Clarke, who many will remember for publicly criticizing the Bush administration, also emphasized the importance of cybersecurity. "Just because it doesn't create a lot of body bags, doesn't mean it's not important. It's vitally important for our economies," Clarke said."
" "Richard Clarke, former counter terrorism advisor to the US National Security Council, has revealed that before invading Iraq, the U.S. government used the Internet to communicate directly with Iraqi soldiers by sending them personalised messages saying, "We're about to invade. We're going to overwhelm you and if you resist us we're going to kill you. But we don't want to do that. So really the best thing for you to do when we invade is to go home." He said the soldiers got the message and most of them went home. "
This has been known for quite some time. Majour news didn't mention it, but it has been know for at least a year.
Richard Clarke's book is a really good read. Good insight to what has been done right (or at least better) and what is currently going wrong.
JediLuke
-Do or Do Not, There is no Try
He resigned in Jan 2003, before the invasion took place.
A SM in poly-sci. But still that might make him a slashdot type.
Umm... Not the NSA chief.
He served in the Dept of State since sometime in the late 70s and was on the National Security Council staff since '92.
(emphasis mine)
noun
2 : the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
3 : ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect
Use of the term 'propaganda' is not necessarily bashing anything. There is actually an entire sub-branch of the military dedicated to propaganda, which the original poster was referring to. They drop leaflets out of airplanes explaining to enemy soldiers that they have no hope of winning, and the best thing to do is surrender, and hey while we're at it, here's the proper way to surrender so you don't get your brains blown out.
"All warfare is based on deception."
Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"
Every single poll I've seen has more than 95% of iraqis wanting this.
I'd like to see your source for these polls. This isn't a troll, it's an honest question. You've seen one thing, I've seen something completely different.
Who am I? Why, I'm a Marine who got back from Iraq not long ago. The folks we met were nice and seemed very thankful we were there, the kids especially. The only place we weren't really welcome was in the Sunni Triangle area which is full of old Saddam loyalists who had everything to lose a nothing to gain with Saddam being kicked out.
Why should we be there fighting the desires of the Iraqi people?
Speaking as someone who's been in country and not just reading what CNN/NBC/CBS/ABC is reporting, I find it hard to believe you can ask such a question. The vast majority of the country was tired of being ruled by Saddam and his religious minority. The only way he stayed in power was by intimidation, and the people he intimidated are very happy he's gone. They're doubly happy we're there to prevent his lieutenants from trying to re-establish Ba'athist strongholds and continue his "reign."
If our goal was to get rid of Sadam, we've already done that, so why stick around?
See last two sentences in previous paragraph.
Oh, the real reason is so we can steal their oil. And I do mean steal.
If there's oil theft going on, it's not coming from the Americans. There aren't lines of Texaco supertankers sitting at port just greedily sucking the country dry all so Bush and Halliburton can make a buck. Iraqi oil is being sold to whoever wants it at market prices, the same as in Saudi, the same as in Russia and South America. If we're stealing their oil, precisely why are we paying for it? That kind of goes against the definition of stealing, don't you think?
Plus, most iraqis I've heard interviewed prefer Sadaam to the US. They say things like "at least Sadaam was an Iraqi."
If you did nothing but interview in the Sunni triangle, such reponses would be expected. I'd be shocked if it were otherwise. But outside the Sunni areas it's an entirely different story. You don't hear that story very much because the news organizations are fixated on where the problems are, not where things are going great. Blood and gore sells, but kids going to a newly-opened school don't sell. Roadside bombs boost ratings, but nobody cares whether a water treatment plant or a power plant is back online again. Insurgents shooting RPG's at our Bradley's get lots of airtime, but the kids in the streets giving soldiers and Marines food and water with smiles and thanks gets no screen time at all. You can claim it doesn't happen but I'm willing to bet you haven't been there. I have.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
That's not true. Might I point to the examples of, say the Malayan Emergency, or the reasonably successful Australian-led stabilisation operation in East Timor after their independence referendum (where you had a bunch of Indonesian-supported thugs wreaking havoc). Why did these operations succeed? By most reports, they did a lot better job of keeping the local populace on side.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Are you saying we should have allowed Saddam to continue to slaughter Iraqi kurds by the tens or hundreds of thousands? Is it not better to risk killing a few to prevent not only the death but the certain torture of thousands more?
Was not Saddam openly offering $25k to the family of each suicide bomber to blow up Israelis and Americans, in the name of Palestine, anywhere in the world?
Well, you get what you ask for. How about a poll conducted by the CPA itself?
e k/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5217874/site/newswe
If you don't believe that the US has been privatizing (i.e., selling to foreign interests) Iraq's industries, well, you're allowed to deny reality all you want. We've privatized everything from the ports at Umm Qasr to Kimadia (Iraq's pharmaceutical industry which provided the country with cheap drugs). Read Bremer's Order 39, which privatized over 200 state-run companies by selling them off to the highest bidder (most of the bidders being US firms)
The *special* hell.
Where in Iraq did you serve? What unit? The "Sunni Triangle" contains about 4 million people. And it excludes the equally-if-not-more dangerous Sadr City, of ~3 million people.
e k/
h tm
.. is back online again
f m? story_id=3352814
What sort of selection bias did you have? I.e., if you served in the Green Zone, you're not exactly going to be encountering those hostile to you very much, just as diplomats in Saigon didn't exactly find most people there to express hatred to their face. In fact, when the US began evacuating from Vietnam, the helicopters were swarmed with US supporters trying to escape the country.
> There aren't lines of Texaco supertankers
> sitting at port
Read Order 36 by Bremer.
> I'd be shocked if it were otherwise
Be shocked.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5217874/site/newswe
> kids going to a newly-opened school
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0628/p01s02-woiq.
Lovely school job there.
> water treatment plant
You mean, like the one that we opened that was immediately hit by a suicide bomber trying to kill the US troops on site?
> power plant
Like how the country's energy is far *lower* than before the war? I can get you graphs if you want. It's especially bad right now.
In short, you need to quit spinning and look at the numbers. Another number you might be interested in: 98,000
http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.c
Please discuss the methodology if you wish to complain about it; note that if you find fault in its methodology, you also need to fault pretty much every third world epidemiology study out there.
The *special* hell.
Richard Clarke made repeated attempts at trying to show Condoleeza Rice and Bush that Al-Qaeda was a major threat; the April 2001 date was one of the times where he brought up the topic with the Bush administration, only to be ignored and brushed aside.
m ission/
... We could have caught those guys and then we might have been able to pull that thread and get more of the conspiracy. I'm not saying we could have stopped 9/11, but we could have at least had a chance. "
After the book came out (and I'm not doubting some things were stretched to sell more copies), numerous news agencies asked Condoleeza Rice about whether Richard Clarke had pleaded with the Bush administration; she can't seem to recall any of those NSC meetings - odd considering her position has National Security Adviser to the president.
See CNN here: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/24/911.com
Slate has a great op-ed piece too:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2097685/
"To an unusual degree, the Bush people can't get their story straight. On the one hand, Condi Rice has said that Bush did almost everything that Clarke recommended he do. On the other hand, Vice President Dick Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's show, acted as if Clarke were a lowly, eccentric clerk: "He wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff." This is laughably absurd. Clarke wasn't just in the loop, he was the loop."
Another great tidbit:
"The Principals meeting, which Clarke urgently requested during Bush's first week in office, did not take place until one week before 9/11. In his 60 Minutes interview, Clarke spelled out the significance of this delay. He contrasted July 2001 with December 1999, when the Clinton White House got word of an impending al-Qaida attack on Los Angeles International Airport and Principals meetings were called instantly and repeatedly:
In December '99, every day or every other day, the head of the FBI, the head of the CIA, the Attorney General had to go to the White House and sit in a meeting and report on all the things that they personally had done to stop the al Qaeda attack, so they were going back every night to their departments and shaking the trees personally and finding out all the information. If that had happened in July of 2001, we might have found out in the White House, the Attorney General might have found out that there were al Qaeda operatives in the United States. FBI, at lower levels, knew [but] never told me, never told the highest levels in the FBI.
>> Women were well treated
- 20 04Jan15?language=printer
h tm l
t m
a n9 402.htm
r _a buse
- fg -shooting17nov17,0,6820799,print.story?coll=la-hom e-headlines
> Um. No.
Um. Yes. Iraq had one of the most progressive legal system toward women in the arab Middle East. It predated the Baath party, and remained in place during it. What do they have now?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A21321
US-appointed people trying to force Sharia family law on them. Even though the IGC is gone, SCIRI isn't going to be any better.
Not just sharia, either:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0613/p01s04-woiq.
> Twenty-six million Afghans believe it
I'm always very impressed by a country that has more registered voters than citizens, like Afghanistan did:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3600742.s
No real shock, given who's in charge:
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/09/28/afgh
> What "international law" is that, exactly?
The Nuremberg principles established the basis that wars of aggression are illegal.
> There was nothing unprovoked about it
You mean, the time we were punishing Iraq for its evil secret weapons programs, and for "lying" when saying that it didn't have weapons?
> There was nothing aggressive about it
Oh, how amusing. You're calling a war "unaggressive"? What's next, violent peace? Loving hate? Blackish white?
> I don't recall any Coalition forces kidnapping people
I'll give you a minute to take that obviously poorly thought out statement back before the several tens of thousands of people we've taken and locked up (of which according to Amnesty International, about 80% were simply family members of suspects, people rounded up on the streets where attacks occurred well after the event, or other cases without reasonable cause) smack you upside the head for that one.
> torturing people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_prisone
> Sawing off their heads
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la
Close enough for you?
The *special* hell.
> Their uncertainty range is NEAR ZERO
, 69 03,1263830,00.html
...
Apparently you didn't read the article; some key quotes:
1) the study concludes with 90% certainty that more than 40,000 Iraqis have died.
2) the true value is as likely to be larger than 98,000 as it is to be smaller.)
3) (all of the stuff discussing the methodology, and the views of professional statisticians that this method - the same used in epidemiology studies - is correct)
4) the estimate of 98,000 was made without including the Fallujah data.
Address all of these, or accept the results.
> families that Saddam killed, which of course have no survivors
Everyone is related. Be serious here. How many degrees of separation do you think there are between people in, say, Sadr City? Which, BTW, was one of the most oppressed areas under Saddam, and yet is also one of the most fiercely resisting areas in Iraq.
How can we tell how many Saddam killed? Just ignoring your patently silly "kill everyone that ever knew you" notion, you can look at the bodies. Well, how can we find the bodies? In Iraq, overturned soil exposes gypsum, which leaves a distinct spectral line. The US has been systematically analyzing all potential grave sites. The count? Blair used to say 400,000. However, he has since admitted this was untrue:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0
How many were there, then? Thusfar, about 5,000. Of these, most were from the shiite uprising.
Gee, the Iraqi National Congress exaggerating their arses off? Who would ever have guessed that an organization headed by a known felon would make stuff up to get money and power!
Where are the wood chippers for shredding bodies? Where are the vats of acid? Where are all of these horrific things that we were lied to about? All we ran into were a bunch of security offices that were no worse than what you find in every middle eastern nation from Egypt to Saudi Arabia to Yemen to Syria to Qatar to Kuwait...
> I would argue that a huge fraction
You'd be wrong. You obviously haven't read much about the study. The vast majority of violent deaths were due to US bombing.
The *special* hell.
My mistake; it was Order 39. Sorry about that - it's been a while since I read over it, and I was typing from memory.
2 0_ CPAORD_39_Foreign_Investment_.pdf
3 1Publ ication\PDFUpload208\8907\Iraq SEP 2003.pdfT L_Guides/g uide-iraq.pdf
http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/200312
Here are two analyses of it:
http://www.pillsburywinthrop.com/files/tbl_s
http://www.lexmundi.com/publications/IN
The *special* hell.
We were told WMD's were the main reason - no WMD's have been found in Iraq.
Actually, we have found them. Interestingly enough, USA Today has pictures of cache of sarin gas located in Iraq. Sure, it's not much sarin. It would barely fill a suitcase. But it's enough sarin to kill tens of thousands of people if properly dispersed, or maybe only a few thousand if released in a crude fashion via something like an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) in a metropolitan area. Why isn't this getting more press? Damned if I know. Not even Fox is covering it. But the pictures are there. Check (I think) picture #2 of the Flash presentation.
#2 Lack of international consenus before going in/impact on post-war rebuilding.
Everyone, including those in the Bush administration, would've preferred it not go down the way it did. But at some point you have to ask yourself a fundamental question: at what point is enough enough? There were 14 separate resolutions requiring, demanding, and finally threatening Iraq to comply. Suppose you break the law, get convicted, and the judge says to you "don't do it again or I'll throw you in jail." But you do do it again, yet the judge simply says the same thing. After about the fourth or fifth time, you kind of get the idea the judge really doesn't mean it when he says it, so his authority to enforce the law is essentially nullified.
So it is (or was) with the U.N. The U.N. apparently had little or no intention of actually enforcing its resolutions. It apparently expected Saddam to simply obey and that was it. Saddam was far too crafty (or daft, either way) to fall for that, and once he figured out the U.N. didn't want armed conflict, he became determined to see just how far he could push things. After all, if you know your adversary has a limit on what he or she will do, it's in your best interests to hit that limit as often as possible.
In my opinion, diplomacy with the U.N. was destined to fail to begin with, because the U.N. had no intention to ever enforce it's own laws. It is essentially an impotent organization. The fact that numerous high-ranking U.N. officials were also making massive amounts of money from the oil-for-food scandal further complicates the matter, don't you think?
Now, we have no one but the Bush Administration for the shitty post-invasion botchup.
Again, I think we're not having enough patience here. Iraq has never had a functioning modern democracy. Bringing order to a former dictatorship is not an easy task, and no matter how many U.N. countries you may have or whoever's in the Oval Office, that task is going to be difficult, bloody, and long. The Marshall plan in Europe took over a decade to restore Germany and Japan. We should give the Iraqi situation at least that much time before passing judgement on whether this was a "botched" invasion.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
How many innocent people did you kill while you were over there? People that were no threat to you or your country?
For your information, I didn't kill any innocent civilians, but thanks for asking. And we never fired at anyone who wasn't pointing a weapon at us first. Remember that when you condemn us.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Deceptive. Not surprising, coming from USAID. Here's a running graph from the CPA:
r 9. pdf
_ it em&itemid=345
http://www.iraqcoalition.org/ES/consolidated/Ap
It goes up to the last day that they made CPA graphs like this (April 9th).
Furthermore, the "prewar" numbers don't mention that this is discussing "immediately before we invaded". Before we flattened Iraq's power infrastructure in the first gulf war, they produced 9500 MW. On Thursday, Iraq's acting minister of Electricity stated that current electricity production ranges between 3,600 and 4,000 MW:
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show
It's particularly bad right now because several oil installations have been hit, both power and gasoline are in short supply.
The *special* hell.
I call bullshit. Just because you supposedly went over to Iraq doesn't mean you know shit about what's going on. In a previous post of yours, you dismissed the Abu Gharib atrocities as not really atrocities, saying:
"Wearing panties on your head and being forced to pose nude for photographs is not an attrocity -- except in your morally twisted mind."
Forgetting that there was at least one Iraqi prisoner beaten to death and then posed with, as well as numerous instances of proven sexual abuse and many allegations of rape and torture. You don't think that's an atrocity? I don't think your opinion is very valid.
You're taking the opportunity to quote me out of context, so I'll take the time to correct you where you're wrong. The fact that you actually quoted one thing but then said I said something else ought to have been evidence enough of the innaccuracy of your post. I stated exactly as you quoted: wearing panties on your head and being forced to pose nude is not an attrocity, and I still stand by that. Being beaten to death is an attrocity and should be punished as such. I never once said or indicated anything otherwise, and I am angered that you would portray my feelings otherwise.
That's funny. I was pretty sure al-Sistani and al-Sadr, who have nothing to do with the Sunnis or the Sunni triangle area were pretty pissed at the continued American presence. Oh, I'm sure they're just an exception too, right? Or maybe you'll claim they're all foreign al Qaeda fighters, even though most media reports say otherwise.
Al-Qaeda is taking advantage of the unrest in an attempt to push its agenda, much like you're taking advantage of misquoting me to serve yours.
In past posts, you've also made the claim that the sarin gas that was fired at troops constitutes weapons of mass destruction.
Sarin gas is a WMD, and you don't need a supertanker full of it for it to be a threat. A single vial the size of your index finger of this stuff can kill hundreds of people. Is that not enough to qualify it as a WMD? If not, what's the lowest limit of deaths you'd accept for a WMD? A thousand? Ten thousand? A million? How many people have to be dead before you'd consider it to actually be a threat? What if it was just one person, but that person was you? As you lay there dying, I'm sure you'd think it was a WMD.
Oh, by the way, USA Today has an article up right now showing actual photographs of a cache of sarin. Forty vials of the stuff, enough to kill several thousand people if properly dispersed. Doesn't that qualify as a WMD? If not, what does? Or are you arbitrarily setting the bar just a little bit above whatever it is we're finding in Iraq so as to discredit what's going on?
I'm just glad they found the stuff (a) before it could be used on any Marines and (b) after I left.
You also dismiss the idea of globalization entirely
I'm not a fan of this "global test" stuff, if that's what you mean, and I'm unapologetic about it. The United States is a sovereign nation. We have no obligation to get anyone's permission to do anything. If we can get others on board for things like Iraq, great. If we can't, we're going to do what we think is right regardless. Too many other countries have agendas that are in conflict with ours for me to feel comfortable submitting our policy to their approval mechanisms.
and then you go on to tell all those who oppose you "Go burn a flag and worship Stalin or something."
All true. Were you expecting me to be sorry? Oh, but you forgot to post the other side of that conversation where the guy was being a complete jerk. Perhaps you were that jerk, and you're just trying to get back at me now. Since you posted AC, we'll never know. Me? I don't hide behind AC. You should try it sometime.
How are you dif
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I've read Order 39, have you? It makes no mention of allowing theft of Iraqi oil or other natural resources. You can try and read it as such, but that's not what it says. I understand it's a hot topic on democraticunderground.com, though. It's supposed to be some sort of talisman to use against anyone claiming we're not there to rape and pillage the country. Sorry, but your interpretation is wrong.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Is that so?
"You're taking the opportunity to quote me out of context, so I'll take the time to correct you where you're wrong. The fact that you actually quoted one thing but then said I said something else ought to have been evidence enough of the innaccuracy of your post. I stated exactly as you quoted: wearing panties on your head and being forced to pose nude is not an attrocity, and I still stand by that. Being beaten to death is an attrocity and should be punished as such. I never once said or indicated anything otherwise, and I am angered that you would portray my feelings otherwise."
That's funny. Even if I take a look at your whole comment, you not only say Abu Gharib wasn't an atrocity, but go on to say that just because the soldiers posed with a badly beaten body, doesn't mean it's bad, because perhaps they didn't do it (forget the fact that it's now been largely accepted that they did beat that man to death). It's not out of context. It's right in context and consistent with your views.
"Al-Qaeda is taking advantage of the unrest in an attempt to push its agenda, much like you're taking advantage of misquoting me to serve yours."
Here's a great manuveour. I mention al-Sistani and al-Sadr, neither of them al Qaeda, neither Sunni, though you just claimed that only those from the Sunni triangle give American soldiers trouble, so rather than account for that inconsistency in your claim, you just give me some line about al Qaeda that could have been taken straight from George W's campaign website. You don't bother to address what I actually said.
"Sarin gas is a WMD, and you don't need a supertanker full of it for it to be a threat."
Great, except we didn't invade because of sarin gas. If you remember what the President, Rumsfeld, Powell, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz and all the others were saying it was primarily that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear program already in the works and also that we'd find "tons" of WMD. All of a sudden, you found what you claim to be 40 vials of sarin, and that's enough? Even though I'd claim it's not, let's go ahead and investigate your claims. NPR was one of the news sources that broke the 40 vials of sarin being found in Fallujah. If you follow your own link, the caption under the photo says "40 vials of suuspected sarin". Why is this important?
I'll tell you why. Because, it turns out, they weren't vials of sarin at all. Oh, that must burn a little. Go to that link, upper left hand corner. Yep, click right up there where it says "Troops' Discovery Found Not to be Sarin Gas". What that is, my friend, is vials of a chemical used to test for sarin gas. Not exactly the stuff that a single vial of "can kill hundreds of people". But don't let that get in the way of your dleusions. I'm glad that they found that stuff after you left though!
So, with your WMD argument thoroughly thrown aside, what else do you have to offer?
"I'm not a fan of this "global test" stuff, if that's what you mean, and I'm unapologetic about it."
No, I was using the word you used: "globalization". Globalization has nothing to do with the "global test stuff" made so popular by John Kerry. If you have no idea what glboalization means, which it's clear you don't, maybe you shouldn't dismiss it so quickly like you have.
"All true. Were you expecting me to be sorry? Oh, but you forgot to post the other side of that conversation where the guy was being a complete jerk."
Ah, the "he did it first" argument. I didn't know they allow four year olds to enlist in the Marines.
"No doubt you're basing your numbers on the Lancet report, which has been widely discredited."
Finally, no I'm not. What I'm sure happened here is that you read another user's comment that said the Lancet document was discredited and thought he was responding to me. Not so. The Lancet document, which I doubt you