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Home Front: WoT
How the CIA Blew Its Prisons Cover
2005-12-08
If true, there are a number of CIA employees who should be taking forced early retirement.
WASHINGTON - While Secretary of State Rice fends off questioning in Europe over CIA-run air flights of prisoners in the war on terror, some analysts outside the CIA are asking how the flights were exposed so easily. The CIA's legendary capacity for stealth, celebrated in so many cloak-and-dagger books and films, seems to have been all but absent as hooded prisoners were zipped from one airport to another by agency airplanes, a journalist who helped prepare one of the first detailed reports on the air transfer program said. "I would say they didn't give a damn," Fredrik Laurin, a producer with a Swedish television show, "Kalla Fakta," or "Cold Facts," said when asked what priority the agency gave to keeping the air operation secret. "If I was an American taxpayer, I would be upset," Mr. Laurin said in a telephone interview from Sweden yesterday.
I certainly am.
In May 2004, the Swedish show reported on the CIA's involvement with the expulsion of two men from Sweden to Egypt in December 2001. The tail number of an aircraft involved in the transfer led quickly to information about at least six other occasions on which the same small Gulfstream V jet was used to move prisoners from various locations to countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. "Once we had the identity of the plane, which we were able to find out in many ways - a plane leaves a lot of traces - it was obvious the plane was fishy," Mr. Laurin said.

When a producer working on the broadcast called one of the American firms involved in leasing the plane, the call was returned 15 minutes later by the Swedish intelligence service, which said it was calling at the request of its "U.S. cooperation partners."
Posted by:Steve White

#16  John---Saw that guy crying in his beer at the Board of Trade Saloon in Nome on Monday. He is running out of time on his phone card, though, and the local paper already tagged him as a disgruntled fruitcake.

This CIA prisons thing is just another installment in the MSM's trying to destroy the President and the war effort.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2005-12-08 21:04  

#15  works for me
Posted by: Frank G   2005-12-08 20:16  

#14  Sometimes I worry about you John.
Posted by: Shipman   2005-12-08 17:31  

#13  Cause to effect. The leaks may be the effect of housecleaning, not the cause. We do not see the housecleaning itself because much is handled internally without public knowledge. But it is clear that someone very knowlegeable with transportation and logistics just got transferred from Langley to Nome and has let a few reporters know what and where to look.

Posted by: john   2005-12-08 16:56  

#12  Digital Tail Numbers Now!
Posted by: Shipman   2005-12-08 16:47  

#11  "The CIA is both sloppy and stupid. That can get a lot of people killed in the world we live in today."

They do not care. I suspect they see this aspect as a feature and not a bug. After all, it serves to discourage those people that would otherwise be willing to help us from an Intelligence basis, and undermines our ability to defend ourselves

Makes sense really, when you accept that what they want is to destroy the administration and the country.

Posted by: Doitnow   2005-12-08 16:20  

#10  motherfucking bastards
Posted by: Grolung Flereger3604   2005-12-08 15:12  

#9  The leaks don't come from peons, either - it's always the Big Boys that spew their guts to the press at every opportunity. Porter Goss needs to bring in a squad of Marines and clean Langley out from top to bottom - in that order.

As for "forced early retirement", anyone caught leaking classified information should be shown the door with NO compensation and a sore a$$.

Planespotting in England is a hobby enjoyed by several thousand people. When I was there in 86-87, we discovered that a couple of "planespotters" near RAF Molesworth were in fact Soviet agents. The US began changing tail numbers on any plane flying into or out of Molesworth, including the SR-71's that operated out of there. The Soviets were upset that we'd "mis-stated" the number of SR-71s at Molesworth, because they knew for certain there were 12, not the two the US acknowledged, and indeed, had, there. We also "increased" our inventory of C-5, C-141, and C-130 aircraft by "several dozens".

The CIA is both sloppy and stupid. That can get a lot of people killed in the world we live in today.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2005-12-08 13:41  

#8  Its sad when you start to think the war effort might go better without the CIA. You never hear about leaks from the NSA or Naval Intelligence.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2005-12-08 12:34  

#7  the Swedish show reported on the CIA's involvement with the expulsion of two men from Sweden to Egypt in December 2001. The tail number of an aircraft involved in the transfer led quickly to information


That right thier is the problem how did they get that original info. A leak dont come written and pre prepared all set it puts a journalist on the trail just like this. The leakers should be rounded up arrested imprisoned and gaged, tried for Sedition or Treason. This is a Swedish reporter so I dont think we could scoop him up and hold until he gives up the source but we could maybe sanction the Sweedes until they give the info or turned over the guy to get the leak name.

The incompetence of the CIA however is pitifull I mean how many private airline companies are thier in the US why couldnt the CIA just paint the tail number of one they know are sitting on this or that runnway in the states and randomly change numbers. If someone called on the plane the company would say thier plane is in Houston by the time the discrepency was figured out the plane would have a new number and out of country. Confusion is a great weapon.
Posted by: C-Low   2005-12-08 11:58  

#6  One blog I read frequently is Howard Veit's Oraculations. I like his commentary and he's not shy about stating exactly what's on his mind. He had an interesting post that relates to this story:

The Party of Parasites is Angry
Posted by: Seafarious   2005-12-08 10:37  

#5  Zhang, I don't think yesterday's WaPo article that the detention facilities moved to North Africa was deduced by inspecting tail numbers. Off to Alaska with 'em.
Posted by: ed   2005-12-08 10:14  

#4  The next time the Swedes or any other Euro wants to expel one of their islamic infestations, the US gov should tell them we are busy washing our hair repainting tail numbers. Problem solved (for the US anyway).

The next item of business is to open a plane painting operation in Nome Alaska and transfer the majority of the CIA there for some hands on work. I nominate Alaska Paul to supervise.
Posted by: ed   2005-12-08 10:07  

#3  The old "Southern Air" Caribou didn't have any pesky tail numbers. I remember seeing it alot when I worked at a nursery near MIA. Always thought there goes the CIA flight. A course years later the sandies shot it down on a supply mission to the contas.
Posted by: bruce   2005-12-08 10:05  

#2  These guys are trying to cover for their sources inside the CIA. Their approach appears to be to try to show that they could have arrived at their material independently of any leakers. The reality is that the CIA leaks like a sieve when Republicans are in power. (A former spy noted that most CIA operatives are liberal, decades ago - it appears that this is still the case). And it's not Republicans - for the most part - who are doing the leaking, unless it's guys who are nominally Republican, but haven't voted for a Republican in a while.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2005-12-08 09:34  

#1  When a producer working on the broadcast called one of the American firms involved in leasing the plane, the call was returned 15 minutes later by the Swedish intelligence service, which said it was calling at the request of its "U.S. cooperation partners."

This is always a bad sign.
Posted by: Besoeker   2005-12-08 09:26  

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