Pentagon Confirms Cyber Command, Under NSA Control

eldavojohn writes "The Pentagon's been planning a cyber command for a while now but it's just been confirmed. The Pentagon will set up a Cyber Command outfit most likely around — surprise surprise — Fort George G. Meade in Maryland. From the article, 'The head of the Cyber Command would also be the director of the U.S. National Security Agency, which conducts electronic surveillance and communications interception and is also based at Fort Meade.' The Air Force has been no stranger to digital warfare."

Comments

United States Postal Service

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this stuff going under the NSA and not the USPS? They seem rather capable of guaranteeing the security of communications, and have been doing so for a very long time now.

Re:United States Postal Service

[EgoWumpus]

This is brilliant. Grouping a government agency's responsibilities by abstract task we're attempting to accomplish really is a better idea than grouping them by the mechanisms used to achieve the end - especially since those mechanisms inevitably change over time.

Re:United States Postal Service

[NotBornYesterday]

The only duty the USPS seems to do at my house is deliver dead-tree spam.

Re:United States Postal Service

[stewbacca]

It's going under the NSA because it is already an NSA mission, albeit one people never talk about. In addition to electronic surveillance, the NSA has always been responsible for "cyber-security", under the other two functions of the NSA: cryptology and counter surveillance (assuring other countries don't do to us what the NSA does to them).

Concentration

[DoofusOfDeath]

Is it just me, or does it seem like the U.S. is being foolish about over-concentrating its forces?

The NSA, FBI, CIA, Pentagon, and Pres/VP are all in/near D.C.

It seems like just one or two nukes could make the U.S. nearly incapable of defending itself against a serious attack.

Re:Concentration

[El Torico]

It seems like just one or two nukes could make the U.S. nearly incapable of defending itself against a serious attack.

Are you proposing that the DoD use some sort of decentralized command and control system? That's crazy talk.

Re:Concentration

[Satanboy]

there are plenty of other bases and stations throughout the country.

don't forget, we also have about 2 guns per person in this country, it would be very hard to disarm the country if we were invaded.

Re:Concentration

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for posting, an anti-terrorism unit has been dispatched to your location.

Sincerely, NSA/FBI/CIA

Re:Concentration

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Perhaps we could begin research into a sort of "inter-network" whereby these decentralized command and control nodes might communicate with one another...

Re:Concentration

[T Murphy]

If one or two nukes manage to hit DC and these leaders have no warning to get out or deep underground I think we've got a big enough problem that it doesn't matter if we have said leaders. I'm sure these organizations have something in place should everyone in DC get killed or isolated, but I would be worried if those in charge of our defense weren't confident in their ability to defend themselves.

Re:Concentration

[Krneki]

At least they will send the nuke in one place, hopefully leaving the rest alone.

Re:Concentration

[Shooter28]

Don't worry. Your government wants to take away your guns.

Re:Concentration

[ScentCone]

It seems like just one or two nukes could make the U.S. nearly incapable of defending itself against a serious attack

Impossible.

I live near DC, and carry a balance on my Citibank Visa card. At these interest rates, they won't let anything happen to me. The nation's capital is safe. As long as you don't ride the Metro, anyway.

Re:Concentration

[FooAtWFU]

DC is safe "as long as you don't ride the Metro"? You haven't driven on the Beltway recently, have you?

Re:Concentration

[Shooter28]

Ahh, moded flamebait.

He's talking about the difficulty in disarming the population if we were invaded.
I'm just pointing out that the government has already been attempting to disarm the population.

Re:Concentration

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

In a world with thermonuclear ICBMs(or, for cheapskates, disguised rental trucks) anybody who isn't in a bunker or in the middle of the woods several miles outside the suburbs of nowhere, is either not confident in their ability to defend themselves or is overconfident in that ability.

Re:Concentration

[mcgrew]

They have a nuke-proof bunker in Nevada, why don't they use it?

Re:Concentration

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they do and just don't tell anyone.

Re:Concentration

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me, Shooter, how many legally purchased guns have you had taken away? I mean actually taken away (or been forced to turn in)? I'm guessing no more than I have. Sure, a couple of things have been made difficult to obtain legally (full auto weapons, large capacity clips), but this "They're coming for our guuunnns!!!!!11!!" hysteria is getting a little tired...

You were modded flamebait because you posted flamebait.

Re:Concentration

[endianx]

Excuse me, but are you suggesting that drivers on the beltway put the entire city and surrounding area at a risk equivalent to nuclear war?

...yeah that's about right...

Re:Concentration

[Nathrael]

They likely are using secret nuke proof bunkers anyways. They just don't want you to know about them, preferring to tell people they have all their headquarters around DC.

Re:Concentration

[macbeth66]

Arrest this Doofus! He has revealed vital national secrets!

Don't tell anyone, but those guys have offices/bunkers all over the country. I just can't tell you where, or I would have to kill myself for this hackneyed cliche.

Re:Concentration

[stephanruby]

The NSA, FBI, CIA, Pentagon, and Pres/VP are all in/near D.C. It seems like just one or two nukes could make the U.S. nearly incapable of defending itself against a serious attack.

I wouldn't worry too much about that if I were you. Four out of those five offices are not really designed for defensive purposes.

Re:Concentration

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Is it just me, or does it seem like the U.S. is being foolish about over-concentrating its forces?

I agree.

It seems like just one or two nukes could make the U.S. nearly incapable of defending itself against a serious attack.

Nah, that's not such a big deal. They are more distributed than that with branch offices. I'm much more concerned about the financial aspects. open the base in Detroit already or one of the other areas of the US crippled by current changes to the economy.

Re:Concentration

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuke-proof bunkers no longer exist...modern nuclear bunker busters can destroy any bunker.

I'm pretty sure that the military has plans how to operate without them already for a long time.

Re:Concentration

[demachina]

I think a lot of people in America are probably of the opinion that wiping out all of those agencies and Washington D.C. would be a major improvement. It would be an initial shock but if you eliminated the massive tax burden Washington D.C. and the defense industrial establishment imposes on this country chances are we would eventually have a much stronger economy.

Doesn't matter whether the Democrats or Republicans are in power, the way they squander money and set policy is retarded. The $700+ Billion squandered on that retarded stimulus plan alone proved that. If you had invested that money wisely in something useful it could have SOLVED some major problems like renewable energy, health care or maybe even education. What we got is $700 billion more in debt and nothing to show for it beyond transient spending. The $700 Billion on TARP to bail out crooked banks and insurance companies and incompetent car companies likewise was retarded.

This "cyber command" is no doubt just an excuse to pump money in to defense contractors and we wont get anything useful back for it. It will spawn a bunch of multiyear software contracts and in a few years they will all be behind schedule, over budget and the software they produce will be complete garbage, like EVERY government software development project for as long as I can remember. The combination of government and contractors, for whatever reason, always produces garbage software. It is a completely failed business model but we keep doing it because its a jobs program for government contractors who have GREAT lobbyists.

I do really cherish the prospect that instead of just spying on all our email, web surfing and phone calls now the NSA will have a charter to actively break in to our computers and intranets and poke around there too.

Re:Concentration

[ahabswhale]

Sure everything is concentrated in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia but even if those places get nuked we still have Arnold Schwarzenegger. So whatever.

Re:Concentration

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

So you're saying that grandfathering existing guns in - but preventing them from being sold in the future - does not have the net effect of taking guns away? Because there /are/ examples of that and that qualifies to me as "taking our guns away".

Re:Concentration

[Anonymous Coward]

Crazy talk, indeed. Just think how much more effective our distributed military assets would be *without* the guys in the NSA, FBI, CIA, & Pentagon home offices.

Re:Concentration

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a great idea for this future "inter-operational network": a centralized directory node that contains an index of information at all the other nodes. For a sort of alter-vista on the operational landscape.

Re:Concentration

[cheebie]

There's an easy way to tell if someone lives in the DC area. Offer them the choice between being horribly disemboweled by wolverines or driving from Greenbelt to Dulles at 5:00 on a Friday.

If they ask for a minute to think about it, they live near DC.

Re:Concentration

[ring-eldest]

There really aren't any "nuke poof bunkers" anywhere. In a nuclear exchange with a world power it won't matter anyway.

Re:Concentration

[ScentCone]

Hmm. Definitely the wolverine, no question. Thanks for the better option!

Re:Concentration

[NotBornYesterday]

In theory, yes, but then how would you keep this "inter-network" of which you speak secure? Heck, you'd probably need a whole new govt agency just to handle it.

Re:Concentration

[Cyberax]

Go on use your handguns against tanks and unmanned killer drones.

Re:Concentration

[networkBoy]

we can call it the "Advanced Research Projects Agency Network"

Re:Concentration

[timeOday]

They have a nuke-proof bunker in Nevada, why don't they use it?

Don't tell anybody, but that's where the nation's real command and control actually resides. Everything in or near Washington DC is actually just an elaborate ruse.

Re:Concentration

[NotBornYesterday]

He was probably modded flamebait because what he wrote was perceived to be against the prevailing opinions on slashdot. Most readers, writers, and mods around here have no problem with anti-government conspiracy sentiments, so the word that must have set them off was "guns".

If you are naive enough to believe that 2nd Amendment rights are freely available to all law-abiding, qualified, rational, sane, and otherwise okay US citizens, I would suggest you travel around a bit, or at least do some research. For instance, here is Massachusetts, we have "may-issue" set of laws for gun permits (ironically, considering we're home to the "shot heard 'round the world", and all that). Local police chiefs have the final say. Let me emphasize that - an unelected official may deny a qualified citizen's legal right to exercise a Constitutional right. If you live in a city or town whose chief of police opposes guns (and here in MA, that is a sizeable number) it is damn near impossible, and in some cases actually impossible, to receive the permit necessary to exercise that right without breaking the law. I live in such a place. Why do we allow this? I don't require a permit from my police chief to exercise my 5th amendment rights ... why should I for my 2nd amendment rights?

What I don't understand is the pervasive silence. When our other Constitutionally protected rights (free speech, freedom from unreasonable search & seizure, habeas corpus, etc) are abridged, there is righteous outrage. Slashdot, in fact, is a hotbed of rebellion when issues of censorship, free speech, and other human rights come up ... unless the right in question is the right to own a gun.

Americans and the American press fought harder to extend American-style rights to the detainees in Gitmo (I'm not trying to open up a Gitmo debate, just offering a comparison) than we have to defend the rights of US citizens in our nation's capitol, or MA, or any of the other areas where the 2nd amendment has effectively been repealed.

How many guns have been denied to qualified individuals because of the government? From my point of view, I think it reasonable to include those in the total of "legal guns taken away" you mention, and it would be a large number.

The President and VP have both expressed strong anti-gun sentiment. Ditto for Obama's nominee for SCOTUS. The government is interested in taking guns.

Re:Concentration

[AHuxley]

Shsss, a generation of ex Soviet bloc engineers are building McBunkers all over the world.
Please wont somebody think of the ex Soviet bloc engineers ....

Re:Concentration

[jftitan]

I propose we create a government agency to be another agency part of the NSA supervision. While doing so, we can save and monitor the costs structures using our own train financial watchdogs. That way no over spending occurs for this new agency.

Re:Concentration

[jftitan]

true but that is why we have satellites. the global communication network may slow down, but it will still exist.

Re:Concentration

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah if those existed Joe Biden would have told us about them.

Re:Concentration

[endianx]

There is no reason you couldn't do both - you know, ease the pain during the drive a little.

Speaking of nukes and DC - can you imagine if they ever tried to evacuate D.C. for any reason? Think rush hour x10. I think I'd grab my bike and hop on the W&OD and just ride west. Probably be going faster than the people on 66 or 7.

Re:Concentration

[Anonymous Coward]

What countries other than the US have them? Inquiring minds want to know!

Re:Concentration

[ScentCone]

evacuate D.C.

As someone who lives northwest of town, I'd be loading up rifle magazines. It would be ugly. A total fiasco, and no doubt about it. At least I'm usually upwind of DC, so there's that (for the fallout!).

I really can't imagine any civilized way in which the handful of arteries that drain the inside-the-beltway area could handle it. I mean, think what happens when we get an inch of snow! That's all The Terrorists need: a snow making machine.

Re:Concentration

[endianx]

That's all The Terrorists need: a snow making machine.

It's all coming together now! THIS must be why so many people were upset over the Dubai Ports World deal. They have the weapon - they were just trying to get it into our cities!

Re:Concentration

[dooguls]

Wow, I don't think I've ever heard such a succinct defense of the 2nd amendment.

Well played sir.

one or two nukes in Washington

[Reality Master 201]

If there's one or two nukes in DC, we're not in a "US defending itself against a serious attack" scenario, we're in an "end of human civilization as we know it" scenario. There's plenty of folks elsewhere in the country who will be around to push the button.

Re:one or two nukes in Washington

[mcotdp]

You seem to be forgetting, the Government 2.0 cloud-based NukeButton application relies on a single WebSphere instance located in DC. Sure there will be loads of people to push the button, but their AJAX calls will all fail. >:)

Re:one or two nukes in Washington

[Dunbal]

we're in an "end of human civilization as we know it" scenario.

      I like the way you consider all of human civilization to include the northern hemisphere. We here down south would probably be just fine. Actually a bit of cool weather would be a nice change. That way we could chill out as we watch the giant man eating parrots mutate into being in our jungles.

Re:one or two nukes in Washington

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think the US won't launch an abundance of nuclear weapons in all directions as a response to a direct nuclear attack, you're mistaken.

Re:one or two nukes in Washington

[Anonymous Coward]

Or would the parrots mutate not into our jungles but into our Judges? Scarey evil mutant parrots reigning down the will of nature upon us from their tropical forest kingdom!!!

Re:one or two nukes in Washington

[Dunbal]

"Anyone without wings is guilty in my book - BWAAAAAAAK - polly wanna crack your skull - we hereby find you GUILTY"

Re:one or two nukes in Washington

[werfele]

We here down south would probably be just fine.

Hollywood says you'll have a few months at best. But at least you'll have some time to work on your bucket list (assuming northern hemisphere locations aren't involved).

Re:one or two nukes in Washington

[Repossessed]

Current thought is that if nukes are used it will be only one or two, either a rogue nation or terrorists using what they have.

Re:one or two nukes in Washington

[Anonymous Coward]

>>I like the way you consider all of human civilization to include the northern hemisphere.

I like the way you've ignored fifty years of Cold War history. A nuclear exchange between either Russia or China and the US would certainly do a lot more damage to the Southern Hemisphere than just a little global cooling. There's a reason it was called Mutual Assured Destruction, and detonating enough nukes to take out any of two of those three countries, would certainly put the rest of the globe at risk.

Are you banking on the launch being ordered by a lunatic like Kim Jong-Il who only has access to a handful of nukes at best? Even Kim--arguably the nuttiest head of state in the world--has a sense of self preservation. Someone who's nuke arsenal is that badly outnumbered would truly have to be insane to launch a nuclear attack on the US since it would be suicide. So, yes, a nuke going off in Washington DC definitely could create an "end of human civilization as we know it" scenario.

Contest!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

First one to add Cyber Command to their botnet gets 10 internet points!

Re:Contest!

[damien_kane]

First one to add Cyber Command to their botnet gets 10 internet points!

When do I get to trade those internet points in for the internet monies?

Re:Contest!

[archgoon]

Anytime! Just give us your bank account number, (and identifying information to confirm you are who you say you are) and we'll wire teh Internet Monies immediately!

Re:Contest!

[Anonymous Coward]

First one to add Cyber Command to their botnet gets 10 internet points!

How many points for adding you to cybercommand botnet? Just so I can update my totals.

Signed
Senior Botnet Operator
US CyberCommand

Re:Contest!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

-1 points

Valuelessness is the best defense!

Re:Contest!

[damien_kane]

Anytime! Just give us your bank account number, (and identifying information to confirm you are who you say you are) and we'll wire teh Internet Monies immediately!

Account number 123456

Happy Dude
742 Evergreen Terrace
Springfield

I look forward to further correspondance from you (and hope I included enough postage to get this message to Nigeria so you can read it)

Don't buy the cyber-war hype!

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out Evgeny Morozov's new piece about how all this cyber-war hysteria is just a distraction - to really improve Internet security, governments should be investing in infrastructure.

http://bostonreview.net/BR34.4/morozov.php

Rise of the machines

[Anonymous Coward]

Skynet!

Unfortunately

[copponex]

Unfortunately, if we are invaded, we wouldn't have the right to attack the invaders. At least that's the principle we live by in Iraq.

Re:Unfortunately

[ArcherB]

Unfortunately, if we are invaded, we wouldn't have the right to attack the invaders. At least that's the principle we live by in Iraq.

If we were living under an oppressive dictator and another country invaded to remove that dictator and hand the country back to the American public, then yes, you would be correct.

Re:Unfortunately

[ArcherB]

Unfortunately, if we are invaded, we wouldn't have the right to attack the invaders. At least that's the principle we live by in Iraq.

Forgive me for replying twice, but the stupidity of the comment warrants it.

So, what you are suggesting is that an invading army, after taking control of a country, should grant rights to the population to shoot at them? Really? "Attention all citizens of the Solar Federation: We have assumed control. However, feel free to break out your guns and shoot at us whenever you like. We are not the type to take away your rights to kill us so please, if you see one of our soldiers walking down the street, you are well within your right to shoot at him/her. We'll understand and do what we can to make ourselves an easier target to hit. If you are unable to hit a moving target, please ask our soldiers to stand still while you hone your shooting skills."

Re:Unfortunately

[copponex]

And if the country invading us had put that dictator into power and then strangled our country with sanctions for a decade, suddenly accused him of atrocities they had allowed while they were sponsoring him, bombed our entire nation into pieces under pretense and lies, destroyed our national security by dismissing the entirety of our former armed forces, allowed terrorists to flood in from every direction, stood by idly while mobs destroyed our infrastructure, bombed our streets and cities so no one had access to clean water, proper sewage, or electricity, took control of our local natural resources and handed them over to private corporations from their home country, invited foreigners to buy up our land while it was cheap, built over seven permanent military bases worth over billion dollars each from border to border, and had mercenaries with no legal oversight roaming the streets with machine guns and RPGs, I guess you'd just sit there and take it?

Interesting.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, uncomfortable truths will see you modded troll every time.

Re:Unfortunately

[copponex]

I'll forgive nothing. The absence of perspective from your second comment is more revealing.

I'm suggesting that an invading army, who has invaded on a foundation of lies and profiteering, has no right to be there, and should be attacked viciously until they leave. You believe in the same principle, unless the invading country is us. You fail the most basic moral principle there is, and that is to expect out of others what you expect out of yourself.

A more direct comparison would be to say that Afghanistan had no right to attack the Russians who invaded in 1980. Forget the fact that the Afghan government requested Moscow's help in defeating militant fundamentalist muslims, a cause we seem somewhat attached to these days. In a country with zero moral compass, these details are simply insignificant.

Re:Unfortunately

[ArcherB]

And if the country invading us had put that dictator into power...

Please, don't let the facts change what you want to believe, but please read the following:

The meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council on July 22, 1979, started with Saddam Hussein reading a list of enemies of the state. There was a stunned silence at the Command Council, as many of the men present were listed as enemies of the state. Included were trade union leaders and religious leaders who had actually helped to consolidate the Ba'ath power. As names were read from the list, each were arrested and taken away from the council meeting. Within mere hours 21 of the men that Saddam named were dead. Not only did Saddam order the executions, but he also personally participated in the murders.

Saddam's first "cleansing" of Iraq continued for a week. And by August 1, at least 450 of Iraq's most prominent men were dead. They included members of the Ba'ath party, union leaders, financiers, army officers, lawyers, judges, journalists, editors, professors, religious leaders, and leaders of most of the smaller parties and ethnic groups.

Tell me again how we played a part in this? Jimmy Carter was President at the time. What did Carter do to facilitate this?

Google "Saddam's rise to power" and educate yourself further.

...and then strangled our country with sanctions for a decade...

UN != US. Also, note that the UN allowed for oil to be sold for food, medicine and infrastructure maintenance (It was called the "Oil for Food Program" for Pete's sake!). The Iraqi government chose to ignore those rules and built palaces, paid bribes and attempted to cheat the system by sneaking in contraband.

...suddenly accused him of atrocities...

Are you really saying that there were no atrocities?

Sorry, I just found three pieces of bullshit in the first two lines of your periodless statement. I won't go any further until you pull your head from your ass and recognize facts for what they are. Just because you make it up or really REALLY want to believe something doesn't make it true. Reality is not based on what you think. It should be the other way around.

Re:Unfortunately

[divisionbyzero]

++

Re:Unfortunately

[ArcherB]

I'm suggesting that an invading army, who has invaded on a foundation of lies and profiteering...

Profiteering? Really? We've spent $80+ Billion/year. How does $-80,000,000,000 somehow equal a profit?

Again, let me remind you that facts do not rely on what you WANT to believe.

Re:Unfortunately

[copponex]

Tell me again how we played a part in this?

Try 1963.

The coup that brought the Ba'ath Party to power in 1963 was celebrated by the United States.

The CIA had a hand in it. They had funded the Ba'ath Party - of which Saddam Hussein was a young member - when it was in opposition.

US diplomat James Akins served in the Baghdad Embassy at the time.

"I knew all the Ba'ath Party leaders and I liked them," he told me.

"The CIA were definitely involved in that coup. We saw the rise of the Ba'athists as a way of replacing a pro-Soviet government with a pro-American one and you don't get that chance very often.

"Sure, some people were rounded up and shot but these were mostly communists so that didn't bother us".

This happy co-existence lasted right through the 1980s.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/2694885.stm

UN != US.

You have no idea of how politics work between the two if you believe that. We told them if they didn't follow us into a Iraq, they would be a debating society, right? Do you think the UN does anything the United States vetoes? Are you fucking serious?

Are you really saying that there were no atrocities?

I'm saying we gave him the weapons to complete the atrocities, and that we didn't say anything about it while we watched them happen.

Try some elementary moral exercises in your brain, if you can. Very quickly you'll discover that "the enemy of the enemy is my friend" has come back to haunt us so many times it's now sheer irony to watch any international political event involving the United States.

Re:Unfortunately

[winomonkey]

Wow. A few bits of information. Consider them fact or call them a lie, but they kind of contradict your post and back up the parent. Almost 30 years of intervention in Iraq, leading up to the first Gulf War. Citation

1963 -
"To pave the way for the new regime, the CIA is claimed to have provided to the Baathists lists of suspected Communists and other leftists. The new regime is claimed to have used these lists to orchestrate a bloodbath, systematically murdering untold numbers of Iraq's educated eliteâ"killings in which Saddam Hussein himself is said to have participated. The victims included hundreds of doctors, teachers, technicians, lawyers and other professionals as well as military and political figures.[28][31][32] According to an article in the New York Times, the U.S. sent arms to the new regime, weapons later used against the same Kurdish insurgents the U.S. supported against Kassem and then abandoned. American and U.K. oil and other interests, including Mobil, British Petroleum and Bechtel, were once again conducting business in Iraq."

1968 -
"Roger Morris in the Asia Times writes that the CIA deputy for the Middle East Archibald Roosevelt (grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt and cousin of Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.) stated, referring to Iraqi Ba'ath Party officers on his payroll in the 1963 and 1968 coups, "They're our boys, bought and paid for, but you always gotta remember that these people can't be trusted."[20] General Ahmed Bakr was installed as president. Saddam Hussein was appointed the number two man."

1980 -
"Investigative journalist Robert Parry reports that in a secret 1981 memo summing up a trip to the Middle East, then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig wrote: "It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Prince Fahd" of Jordan." "

1980s to '92 -
"A review of thousands of declassified government documents and interviews with former U.S. policymakers shows that U.S. intelligence and logistical support played a crucial role in arming Iraq. The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous dual use items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague. Opinions differ among Middle East experts and former government officials about the pre-Iraqi tilt, and whether Washington could have done more to stop the flow to Baghdad of technology for building weapons of mass destruction. "Fundamentally, the policy was justified," argues David Newton, a former U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, who runs an anti-Hussein radio station in Prague. "We were concerned that Iraq should not lose the war with Iran, because that would have threatened Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Our long-term hope was that Hussein's government would become less repressive and more responsible."
[...]
"Everybody was wrong in their assessment of Saddam," said Joe Wilson, Glaspie's former deputy at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, and the last U.S. official to meet with Hussein. "Everybody in the Arab world told us that the best way to deal with Saddam was to develop a set of economic and commercial relationships that would have the effect of moderating his behavior. History will demonstrate that this was a miscalculation."

According to reports of the U.S. Senate's Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, the U.S., under the successive presidential administrations sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992. The chairman of the Senate committee, Don Riegle, said: "The executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licences for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think its a devastating record."
[...]
"U.S. officials publicly condemned Iraq's employment of mu

Re:Unfortunately

[lgw]

What are "private military contractors"? Individual civilians who chose to work in a war zone were certainly well paid - that doesn't strike me as wrong, or even odd. Companies like Haliburton didn't make a noteworthy profit. It's *expensive* to operate in a war zone (see above). Haliburton had unremarkable years, financially, during the war.

I care about democracy in Iraq because it was a great idea and it worked. Iraq *is* a shining beacon of democracy in the Middle East now. It sure wasn't easy to make that happen, and the ordinary people of Iraq, the US troops over there who brought initial stability, and the Iraq troops now taking over that role all deserve much credit for making it happen.

Sorry to interrupt your unhinged rant about hitlerburton and oil, but agreeing with your friends doen't make you smart, you know.

Re:Unfortunately

[NotBornYesterday]

I suppose I could argue against some of the factual errors and the one-sided nature of the half-truths and exaggerations you use here, but frankly, I couldn't care less. I am most offended not as an American, but as an english major, and not by your intended message, but by that rambling paragraph of a run-on sentence. Did you consider breaking that up a bit? It might help with the flow. At the very least you could have listed all those comma-delimited phrases as bullet points.

Re:Unfortunately

[copponex]

It's a blatant ripoff of a letter sent by MLK. Some say it was a good device to demonstrate the feeling of oppression - which I believe is inherent in military invasion. As an English major, you should probably understand that dogmatic adherence to grammar will net you nothing but a by-the-numbers Grisham novel, which in my opinion, is soulless and not worth the advertising budget it was sold with.

He's quite a bit more eloquent:

"We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait."

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

Re:Unfortunately

[NotBornYesterday]

I completely missed that you used that as a template. I certainly can't argue with your choice of inspiration.

Re:Unfortunately

[myowntrueself]

Profiteering? Really? We've spent $80+ Billion/year. How does $-80,000,000,000 somehow equal a profit?

LOL

Who do you imagine gets that cash? Iraqis?

Most of it will go into the pockets of multinational corporations. They are 'profiteering'.

Re:Unfortunately

[ArcherB]

Profiteering? Really? We've spent $80+ Billion/year. How does $-80,000,000,000 somehow equal a profit?

LOL

Who do you imagine gets that cash? Iraqis?

Most of it will go into the pockets of multinational corporations. They are 'profiteering'.

So you think GWBush/Hitler/Cheney:

1. Cooked up scheme to make it look like there were WMD's in Iraq. (Knowing that Saddam Hussein wouldn't let UN inspectors in and that the UN would apply sanctions for ten years because of it)
2. Convinced many other countries to join in
3. Flawlessly executed a war, but not the after-war to maintain MNC presence
4. Hire MNC's to handle the day-to-day operations in Iraq
5. Somehow keep MNC stock from skyrocketing (Haliburton Stock is close the same level today as it was in 2003)
6. Prolong war to increase MNC profits at cost of tax dollars, the lives of soldiers and innocents, and the political career of yourself, your friends, and your political party
7. ????
8. Profit!

Seriously, wouldn't it have just been easier and cheaper to simply hire these unnamed uber-powerful MNC's directly to do something else, like build shuttle parts or something? Really, if Haliburton can run Iraq, couldn't they run Somalia or Rwanda? I mean, if the goal is simply to give these guys tax money, why not give them tax money to do something that won't cost your political career? They could build a space port, air port, naval port, sea port, big-ass bridge, air craft carrier, homeless shelters, inner-city skyscraper farms, inner city schools or a billion other things that would not only overpay your fictional MNC's but actually make you a hero in the eyes of the people who hate you because they they thought you stole the election.

Seriously! Why a war? You are claiming that Bush/Hitler/Cheney are some kind of evil geniuses for starting this whole thing (which would have been impossible to pull that many strings), yet complete dumb-asses for not finding a better way like that many I've mentioned. They can't be both.

(Oh, and since you don't seem to know... Multinational Corporations... or MNC's... span across multiple nations (thus the name). Why would the president of the US want to give profits to MNC's? Wouldn't Bush want to give the money to a purely American company? Sorry, but your theory is stupid)

Re:Unfortunately

[myowntrueself]

So... you are saying that there was no profiteering?

Re:Unfortunately

[ArcherB]

So... you are saying that there was no profiteering?

No, I'm saying that there was no conspiracy to fake a war for the purpose of "profiteering". Sure, there was that Iraqi that sold Haliburton a case of Cokes that averaged out to about five bucks per can... yeah, that guy "profiteered". I'm sure that some of the companies that were working over there showed a profit. That is the purpose of business, after all. But the primary motivation for the war was not profits. (Truth be known, it was about oil. Not that we wanted the oil, but the fact that Saddam Hussein was a loose canon and his oil could finance one hell of a thorn in the side of the free world. Saddam really could have taken over the mid-east within 10 years without the UN getting all in his business. The UN was tiring of the Oil-for-Food thing and the US was losing support where Iraq was concerned. That Saddam vs. Hitler comparison we kept hearing about wasn't made up. The man could have swept across the Mid-East like the Blitzkrieg swept across Europe... all because of the funding from oil)

Also, re-read the original statement where the term "profiteering" came from:

I'm suggesting that an invading army, who has invaded on a foundation of lies and profiteering

Iraq was not invaded on foundation of lies and profiteering. First, there was the WMD thing. Call that a mistake if you wish, but it certainly wasn't lying. If you are going to call Bush a liar, then there's a whole shitload of other people that you need to call liars as well, starting with former President Clinton, Al Gore and our current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Next, as I've proven repeatedly, the war in Iraq was not for the purpose of "profiteering". There are much easier and safer ways to "profiteer" than to start a war. Ending hunger in Africa would be a fine example. Plenty of "profiteering" to go around and you get called a saint by everyone and have statues of yourself built all over the world for all time. Why would you want to start a war? Again, the conspiracy theory sux.

Re:Unfortunately

[Foobar of Borg]

Why would the president of the US want to give profits to MNC's? Wouldn't Bush want to give the money to a purely American company? Sorry, but your theory is stupid

No, you are the one who is stupid. George W Bush, as well as the entire Bush family, doesn't give a flying fuck in a rolling donut about America. Their best friends are the Saudi "royal" family and they only care about other "elite" people in the world. Nations don't matter to people like that.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Profiteering? Really? We've spent $80+ Billion/year. How does $-80,000,000,000 somehow equal a profit?

Again, let me remind you that facts do not rely on what you WANT to believe.

Perhaps the profiteering comes into play when massive contracts are awarded to companies that also happened to make some large campaign contributions to the administration responsible for sending the country to war...

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

War moves money from the public purse into private hands.

  You have to be a troll. You are aren't you? You couldn't really be really for real now could you? Sigh.

Re:Unfortunately

[myowntrueself]

The post I was replying to seemed to suggest that the money spent on the war had merely evaporated, vanished, burnt.

I was merely pointing out that it was a highly profitable thing for many American companies to get involved in.

War is good for business. They were profiteering from the 'captive market' of the belligerent American government.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you think the billions go ?
Do you think they vanish ?

Re:Unfortunately

[ArcherB]

Where do you think the billions go ?
Do you think they vanish ?

They pay for the three B's in military supply: beans, bullets and bandaids.

They also pay for candy for the kids, fuel for the tanks, hummers, predators, transport planes and ships, salaries, hazard fire pay, those Iraqis and Bangladeshis serving chow, sodas for morale, double-A batteries, missiles, body armor, helicopter maintenance, tank treads, warlord bribes, encryption dongles and the list goes on and on and on and on. Supplying a military is not cheap. Supplying a military in a combat zone is even less cheap.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

If we were living under an oppressive dictator and another country invaded to remove that oil and not hand the country back to the American public, then no, that wouldn't be correct.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

The US taxpayers have spent $80B/year. Do you think that money went to the troops? Or do you think it went to the likes of KKR, Halliburton, mercenary companies and construction firms?

1. Orchestrate a war based on lies and deceit
2. Spend billions of taxpayers dollars on no-bid contracts with companies that are run by your cronies, building stuff in an environment where the US public has little or no oversight to see that the money was spent well.
3. ???
4. Profit!

Assuming that we've spent about $500B in Iraq at this point in time, that's about $1700 per man/woman/child in the US population that has been neatly funnelled through those previously mentioned organisations. It isn't difficult to find a step 3 at this point. ( "Own a large share in KKR, Halliburton etc").
b
If you haven't got the point yet, you never will. It's not the US taxpayer that is profiting here. You're correct, we're taking a bath.

I'm particularly bitter today. I found out last night that one of my friends lost her brother over there last week. My friend and her family are hurting because of a pack of lies, and that has me pissed.

Re:Unfortunately

[ArcherB]

I'm saying we gave him the weapons to complete the atrocities, and that we didn't say anything about it while we watched them happen.

Oh. Well then we shouldn't have done anything at all.... EVER. I mean, if we installed the guy (which is BS) and supplied him with weapons (which is more BS), then we shouldn't do anything about it all at any point EVER.

How's that for a "moral exercise"?

Re:Unfortunately

[copponex]

Oh. Well then we shouldn't have done anything at all.... EVER.

Yes, let's get dramatic. You're late to the exasperation party.

I mean, if we installed the guy (which is BS) and supplied him with weapons (which is more BS), then we shouldn't do anything about it all at any point EVER.

Here's a load of the BS you speak of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Iraq

Here's a source document discussing the fact that Carter gave the green light to Saddam to invade Iran through a crowned prince of Saudi Arabia.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/haig-docs.html

Here's a congressional report detailing the biological agents we sent to Iraq.
http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/report/riegle1.html

A nice quote: Records available from the supplier for the period from 1985 until the present show that during this time, pathogenic (meaning "disease producing"), toxigenic (meaning "poisonous"), and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Records prior to 1985 were not available, according to the supplier. These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction. According to the Department of Defense's own Report to Congress on the Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, released in April 1992: "By the time of the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq had developed biological weapons. It's advanced and aggressive biological warfare program was the most advanced in the Arab world... The program probably began late in the 1970's and concentrated on the development of two agents, botulinum toxin and anthrax bacteria... Large scale production of these agents began in 1989 at four facilities in Baghdad. Delivery means for biological agents ranged from simple aerial bombs and artillery rockets to surface-to-surface missiles."

How's that for a "moral exercise"?

You actually succeeded. Unless you want other countries meddling in our sovereign affairs, we should not EVER mess with theirs. That's how principles work.

Re:Unfortunately

[ArcherB]

Records available from the supplier for the period from 1985 until the present show that during this time, pathogenic (meaning "disease producing"), toxigenic (meaning "poisonous"), and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce

Um... that's nice, but it doesn't say how much. It is not uncommon to send samples of biotoxins and dangerous organisms such as anthrax to countries all over the world. This is not banned. Hell, anthrax grows naturally in the soil. The key point is "research materials". This means samples in small containers. You make it sound like we sent them artillery shells pre-loaded with sarin gas or something. From the very liberal site, CommonDreams.org:

"I don't think it would be accurate to say the United States government deliberately provided seed stocks to the Iraqis' biological weapons programs," said Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N. biological weapons inspector.

"But they did deliver samples that Iraq said had a legitimate public health purpose, which I think was naive to believe, even at the time."

From the same site:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent samples directly to several Iraqi sites that U.N. weapons inspectors determined were part of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program, CDC and congressional records from the early 1990s show. Iraq had ordered the samples, claiming it needed them for legitimate medical research.

The CDC and a biological sample company, the American Type Culture Collection, sent strains of all the germs Iraq used to make weapons, including anthrax, the bacteria that make botulinum toxin and the germs that cause gas gangrene, the records show. Iraq also got samples of other deadly pathogens, including the West Nile virus.

Wait... The CDC sent SAMPLES to Iraq? (Wait! Rumsfield didn't work for the CDC.) I thought we armed them. That's what you said, right? Here's is your quote:

I'm saying we gave him the weapons to complete the atrocities

GASP!!! Oh my goodness. You said we gave them WEAPONS to complete the atrocities. Turns out that the CDC gave them samples. You said "weapons"... Facts say "samples". Weapons != Samples. Hmmmm... Either you are ignorant of the facts or you exaggerated with the intent to mislead and place blame where it doesn't belong. That's called lying! So, tell me, are you ignorant or dishonest?

Look, it doesn't matter so there no point arguing it. I don't give a rat's ass if the CIA placed the Baath party in power in the 1960's. That was over forty five years ago. Besides, it was the Baathists or the Russians. Nikita Khrushchev was in charge of the Soviets then. Remember, the guy who tried to put nuclear missiles in Cuba? Also keep in mind that this was about 10 years after Stalin's death and his iron fist still echoed rule in The Soviet Union. You remember Stalin, right? The guy that killed more people than Hitler? (Oh, wait, are you going to point out that we were allies with Stalin too? We sent Stalin weapons also.) Why were we allies with Stalin? Because he was the enemy of our enemy!!! Just like the Baathists, and just like Saddam Hussein. So are you going to say that America is bad because we were Stalin's ally?

Anyway, I don't give a rat's ass because it so friggin long ago that it doesn't matter. But you know what? I'll let you have it. Let's say we not only installed the Baathists, but we installed Saddam Hussein too (I already proved we didn't, but let's pretend). Let's even say that we completely armed Saddam, begged him to invade Kuwait, and controlled his every move up until 2002. Let's pretend all that is true. So what? Are you saying that we can no longer do anything about him? Do we let him kill his own people, rape the mothers and wives

Re:Unfortunately

[ArcherB]

Oh, and your "congressional report detailing the biological agents we sent to Iraq", here's the very first thing it said:

Iraq was believed to have been manufacturing mustard gas at a production facility in Samarra since the early 1980s. It also began an extensive program to produce nerve agent precursor chemicals, taking advantage of its own natural resources. Phosphate mines/industries are at Akashat, Al Qaim, and Rutbah. The Iraqi Al Fallujah gas warfare complex was believed to be capable of producing up to 1,000 tons per month of Sarin, as well as the nerve agent VX. In addition, with the assistance of foreign firms, Iraq developed the capability to experiment with hydrogen cyanide, cyanogen chloride, and lewisite.

Wait, you said we sent them to Iraq. Why was Iraq producing them? That doesn't make sense. Also, while it does list the NBC (WMD to you civilians) capabilities of Iraq before the war, I didn't see anything in there about what we sent them. Maybe you should read it again.

OH, and I can't blame Carter for giving the green light to invade Iran. Remember the whole Iran/Hostage thingie? Were you even born yet? Hell, if Carter gave the OK that's the best move Carter made... EVER! I wish he would have done more! Remember, we gave Stalin the green light to invade Germany. Was Roosevelt wrong to do so?

Re:Unfortunately

[jafac]

. . . yeah. I was actually hoping that when US troops found WMD in Iraq, that they'd also find the Purchase Orders signed-off by Don Rumsfeld in the '80's. Must have gotten lost in the shuffle somewhere.

Uh-oh...

[Christoff9]

Is this when Skynet takes over? I'm not ready for Judgment Day. I just signed a 6 month lease on my apartment...I can't walk away from a commitment like that.

Re:Uh-oh...

[Dunbal]

I can't walk away from a commitment like that.

      No, you will literally be blown away from that commitment. But then said apartment won't exist anymore anyway so what's to worry?

Re:Uh-oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just signed a 6 month lease on my apartment...I can't walk away from a commitment like that.

Kudos for the Futurama reference.

Re:Uh-oh...

[Hurricane78]

You sound like the narrator in Fight Club. With his IKEA catalog life.

But don't worry. You will get to your zero point.

Re:Uh-oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this when Skynet takes over? I'm not ready for Judgment Day. I just signed a 6 month lease on my apartment...I can't walk away from a commitment like that.

+1 for Futurama reference.

Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

I just read an article that said the new head of the Cyber Command COMES from the NSA, Lt Gen Alexander, and that the new Cyber Command will be under U.S. Strategic Command, not the NSA.

Re:Correction

[megamerican]

While technically correct, operationally it makes zero difference. This is why the Director of the National Cybersecurity Center resigned mid March.

NSA effectively controls DHS cyber efforts through detailees, technology insertions, and the proposed move of NPPD and the NCSC to a Fort Meade NSA facility. NSA currently dominates most national cyber efforts. While acknoledging the critical importance of NSA to our intelligence efforts, I believe this is a bad strategy on multiple grounds. The intelligence culture is very different thana network operations or security culture. In addition, the threats to our democratic process are significant if all top level government network security and monitoring are handled by any one organization...

This is really old news because they are simply implementing everything that was proposed months ago. Someone should really edit the summary to include this resignation from months ago because this was precisely what he was warning about. It is very significant.

NOT under NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Cyber Command will be under STRATCOM, just led by the same director as NSA. You're confusing people and offices.

Top Gun 2: Cyber Command

[spencerg83]

The story of a team of nerds who get sent to Fort Meade for Cyber Defense training. This ain't your typical boy-gets-cyber-instructor-action flick!

not really

[commodoresloat]

cockroaches will survive a nuclear war. I'd like to see a cockroach try to cross the beltway.

Re:not really

[Anonymous Coward]

cockroaches will survive a nuclear war. I'd like to see a cockroach try to cross the beltway.

So your saying most of Congress will survive? (Sorry, just had to throw that in).

Re:not really

[Proteus Child]

That's easy! The Beltway's a parking lot for six hours out of every day, so they don't really run a risk of being squished.

Where's the Cybermen?

[Dan541]

So we have Cybercommand,
we have a /cybercontroller now wheres the Cybermen?

Re:Where's the Cybermen?

[Anonymous Coward]

The black vans outside people's houses.

The NSA in command

[nurb432]

Now, why does that scare the hell out of me.

Hey, what is that black van outs... *click*

Excellent use of taxpayers money

[afxgrin]

Just imagine how much time will be wasted idling on IRC channels.

Aware of this

[Anonymous Coward]

The NSA has recruited a university friend of mine to drive (blindfolded, he joked) to Maryland to participate in their cyber warfare program. He told me four months ago that it was NSA organized. The news isn't exactly a big secret: rather, recruiting very young people into the program sounds like it is.

Myth: BOSTED

[RobertLTux]

actually roaches are not all that tough its been covered in "That Show"

Cybering is none of their business

[Anonymous Coward]

How two (or more) consenting adults choose to engage in some cybering in the privacy of their own chatroom is none of the governments business.

Is the U.S. going virtual?

[azgard]

That's exciting news!

After virtual economy, which created virtual wealth for everyone, comes virtual warfare, which will allow the U.S. to maintain its virtual supremacy everywhere in the world.

NSA is the natural choice

[stewbacca]

For those of you wondering why this is being put into the hands of the NSA, it's because they already do this stuff.

Our Information Assurance mission confronts the formidable challenge of preventing foreign adversaries from gaining access to sensitive or classified national security information. Our Signals Intelligence mission collects, processes, and disseminates intelligence information from foreign signals for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations. This Agency also enables Network Warfare operations to defeat terrorists and their organizations at home and abroad, consistent with U.S. laws and the protection of privacy and civil liberties.

Strange World

[HTH NE1]

Come to that, why not put it under USAMRIID? Doesn't their charter include military investigations into criminal abuses of science and technology?