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ACTION ALERT: False NYT Spy Claim on Iran Nukes Needs Correction

JIM NAURECKAS,  https://fair.org/home/action-alert-false-nyt-spy-claim-on-iran-nukes-needs-correction/ 1 May 23

The New York Times (5/1/23), reporting on Iran’s execution of British spy Alireza Akbari, reported:

The spy had provided valuable information — and would continue to do so for years — intelligence that would prove critical in eliminating any doubt in Western capitals that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons.

This is not correct; as FAIR has often pointed out (FAIR.org, 10/17/17, 9/9/15, 9/24/13; 1/31/13; Extra!, 3–4/08), the position of US intelligence is that it has no proof Iran has decided to build a nuclear weapon. As the US State Department reiterated in April 2022:

The United States continues to assess that Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons–development activities it judge necessary to produce a nuclear device.

This is a serious error that deserves prompt correction.

ACTION:

Please tell the New York Times to correct its false claim that there is no doubt that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

CONTACT:

Letters: letters@nytimes.com

May 3, 2023 Posted by | media, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Foiled Escape: UC Global, the CIA and Julian Assange

Even better will be the abandoning of the entire proceeding, the reversal of the extradition order made in June 2022 by then Home Secretary Priti Patel, and a finding by the UK authorities that the case against Assange is monstrously political, compromised from the start and emptied of legal principle.

April 30, 2023, Dr Binoy Kampmark  https://theaimn.com/foiled-escape-uc-global-the-cia-and-julian-assange/

However described, the shabby treatment of Julian Assange never ceases to startle. While he continues to suffer in Belmarsh prison awaiting the torments of an interminable legal process, more material is coming out showing the way he was spied upon while staying at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Of late, the Spanish daily El País has been keeping up its exemplary coverage on the subject, notably on the conduct of the Spanish-based security firm, UC Global SL.

There is a twist in the latest smidgens of information on the alleged bad conduct by that particular company. As luck would have it, UC Global was commissioned by Rommy Vallejo, the chief of Ecuador’s now defunct national intelligence secretariat, SENAIN, to give the London embassy premises a security and technological touch-up.

Vallejo may have sought their services, but seemed blissfully ignorant that he had granted the fox access to the chicken coop. This access involved the installation of hidden microphones throughout the embassy by UC Global at the direction of its owner, David Morales. Morales, it seems, was updating the US Central Intelligence Agency with information about Assange’s meetings with his legal team throughout.

Much of this was revealed in the trial against Assange conducted at the Central Criminal Court in 2020, though the presiding Judge Vanessa Baraitser seemed oddly unmoved by the revelations, as she was by chatter among US intelligence operatives to engineer an abduction or assassination of the WikiLeaks founder.

The link between UC Global and the CIA was the fruit of work between Morales and one of his most notable clients, the casino company, Las Vegas Sands. Morales was responsible for supplying the owner of the company, the late billionaire magnate and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, with personal security. In the merry-go-round of this field, one of those on Adelson’s personal security detail was a former CIA officer.

On December 20, 2017, Michelle Wallemacq, the head of operations at UC Global, penned a note to two technicians responsible for monitoring security at the embassy. “Be on the lookout tomorrow to see what you can get… and make it work.” The request was related to a scheduled meeting between Assange and Vallejo. The theme of the discussion: to get the Australian publisher out of the embassy, grant him Ecuadorian citizenship and furnish him with a diplomatic passport. This had a heroic, even quixotic quality to it: the grant of a diplomatic passport would not have necessarily passed muster; and the chances of Assange being arrested could hardly be discounted.

Eleven months prior to Morales passing on the tip that scuttled Assange’s escape plans, Morales was already chasing up his staff from one of Adelson’s properties, The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas. One technician received the following: “Do you have status reports on the embassy’s computer systems, and networks? I need an inventory of systems and equipment, the guest’s [Assange] phones, and the number of networks.” He also warned his technicians to be wary “that we may be monitored, so everything confidential should be encrypted… Everything is related to the UK subject… The people in control are our friends in the USA.”

On June 12, 2017, Morales, enroute to Washington, DC, requested his contact to activate a File Transfer Protocol server and web portal from their Spanish headquarters. The portal in question: the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Material began being collected on Assange’s guests, eclectic and of all stripes: journalists, doctors, lawyers, diplomats. Mobile phone data was also hoovered up. After his Washington stop, Morales popped into Las Vegas Sands, where he met his eager “American friends” to reveal the information so far gathered about Assange.

Over this time, it becomes clear, in Morales’s own words, that “he had gone over to the dark side” and that “they were working in the Champions League”. Emails sent on September 8 speak of offering “our information collection and analysis capability to the American client.” Discussions with a UC Global technician focus on gathering information from the microphones in the embassy. “The guest [Assange] has three rooms and uses two quite frequently… We would have all the audio from there except in one room.”

On September 21, it was clear to Morales that they had gotten sufficiently mired in the business of spying on Assange to be wary of any potential surveillance from SENAIN. “I would like my whereabouts to be kept confidential, especially my trips to the USA.” Instructions are distributed to gather data on the embassy’s Wi-Fi network, photos of the interior and furnishings of the embassy, and any data on Assange’s primary visitors, notably any members of his legal team.

The recording of one meeting would prove critical to upending plans to get Assange out of the embassy. Present Assange, his lawyer, now wife Stella Morris, Ecuadorian consul Fidel Narváez and Vallejo. The date for the getaway was slated for December 25, with the plan that Assange leave via one of the ambassador’s cars which would make its way through the Eurotunnel to Switzerland or some designated destination on the continent. “It’s very late,” wrote one of the technicians a few hours after the meeting’s conclusion to Morales. “Because it’s so big, I put the file in a shared Dropbox folder. Someone with experience in audio can make it more intelligible.” While Vallejo could be heard fairly clearly, the voices of Assange and Morris were “very muffled”.

Within a matter of hours, Morales had relayed the material to those “American friends” of his, greasing the wheels for proceedings that would culminate in Assange’s expulsion in 2019 and the indictment listing 18 charges, 17 of which are drawn from the Espionage Act of 1917. The plan to leave the embassy was never executed.

There are two significant events that also transpired before Vallejo’s visit to Assange. The first involved an advisor to the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister who is said to have had information about the plan regarding Assange’s escape. He was assaulted by a number of hooded men at Quito Airport on his return from the United States.

On December 17, 2017, it was time for hooded assailants to turn their attention to the Madrid law offices of Baltasar Garzón and Aitor Martínez. Their target: a computer server. The timing was ominous; both lawyers had just returned from meeting Assange in the London embassy. The intruders proved untraceable by the Spanish police, despite leaving prints.

In hindsight, it does seem remarkable that Vallejo and SENAIN remained ignorant of the rotten apples in UC Global. As things stand, Morales is facing a formal complaint filed by Assange in the Spanish National Court. He is also facing an investigation for alleged breaches of privacy, the violation of attorney-client confidentiality, misappropriation, bribery and money laundering. The presiding magistrate on the case, Santiago Pedraz, has requested the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to press the CIA in supplying information about the embassy spying.

Even better will be the abandoning of the entire proceeding, the reversal of the extradition order made in June 2022 by then Home Secretary Priti Patel, and a finding by the UK authorities that the case against Assange is monstrously political, compromised from the start and emptied of legal principle.

May 1, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | 1 Comment

How The FBI Helps Ukrainian Intelligence Hunt ‘Disinformation’ On Social Media

In an interview, a senior Ukrainian official defined “disinformation” as any news that contradicts his government’s message.

LEE FANG, APR 29, 2023

The Federal Bureau of Investigation pressures Facebook to take down alleged Russian “disinformation” at the behest of Ukrainian intelligence, according to a senior Ukrainian official who corresponds regularly with the FBI. The same official said that Ukrainian authorities define “disinformation” broadly, flagging many social media accounts and posts that he suggested may simply contradict the Ukrainian government’s narrative.

“Once we have a trace or evidence of disinformation campaigns via Facebook or other resources that are from the U.S., we pass this information to the FBI, along with writing directly to Facebook,” said llia Vitiuk, head of the Department of Cyber Information Security in the Security Service of Ukraine………………….

“When people ask me, ‘How do you differentiate whether it is fake or true?’ Indeed it is very difficult in such an informational flow,” said Vitiuk. “I say, ‘Everything that is against our country, consider it a fake, even if it’s not.’ Right now, for our victory, it is important to have that kind of understanding, not to be fooled.”……………………………….

The FBI has elicited scrutiny of late for the influence it exercises over at Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms. A series of reports and congressional hearings delved into the agency’s role in shaping content moderation decisions related to the 2020 election. 

Evidence of FBI pressure on social media companies comes at a time when those companies are already taking proactive steps to hunt down alleged foreign propaganda and fabricated materials. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in Feb. 2022, social media companies have been on the alert for hack and leak operations, fake personas, and other online tricks that might be used by Moscow to sway public opinion around the conflict. But critics charge that in the drive to label and remove content planted by the Russian government, Facebook and other tech firms suppress independent reporting and dissenting views about the war. 

Last week, for instance, Facebook applied limited sharing penalties and a “false information” label to links containing journalist Seymour Hersh’s Substack story alleging NATO involvement in the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, according to Michael Shellenberger, a writer who extensively covers social media censorship. After public outcry, Facebook modified the label to “partially false.”

It is unclear how much of social media companies’ heavy-handed approach to content moderation is a direct response to government goading. 

But there is enough of a pattern of the FBI and other national security agencies leaning on tech companies to suggest that these tech firms may preemptively adopt censorious practices to avoid the disapproval of the federal government. In October, based on leaked documents from the Department of Homeland Security, I reported on government plans to lean more heavily on social media platforms to take down “disinformation” related to “the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”…………………………..

more https://www.leefang.com/p/how-the-fbi-helps-ukrainian-intelligence

May 1, 2023 Posted by | media, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Sensitive files on nuclear submarine found in English pub restroom

kk/kb 30.04.2023 British services have launched an investigation into the alleged finding of Royal Navy documents marked “official sensitive” in a Wetherspoons pub restroom in Barrow-in-Furness, England, media reported. The files reportedly concerned HMS Anson, the most recent of the navy’s cutting-edge nuclear-powered submarines.

According to “The Sun” daily, the files showed the inner workings of the ­torpedo-loaded vessel, including key details regarding its hydraulics, which control torpedo hatches.

They were reportedly found with a Royal Navy lanyard from the new GBP 1.3 bn (USD 1.63 bn) submarine………………………………  https://tvpworld.com/69544839/sensitive-files-on-nuclear-submarine-found-in-english-pub-restroom

May 1, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Free Julian Assange, member of our organisations – European Federation of Journalists

 https://europeanjournalists.org/blog/2023/04/27/free-julian-assange-member-of-our-organisations/ Our Italian FNSI affiliates were visited today in Rome by Julian Assange‘s wife, Stella Morris. The Italian journalists’ union, at the initiative of its Campania branch, presented Julian Assange with an FNSI membership card. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) passed on the initiative to its affiliates in Europe: 18 of them decided to follow the Italian example and grant Julian Assange membership (or honorary membership) of their organisations. The EFJ and its affiliates once again call on the UK authorities to release Julian Assange.

Here is the joint appeal delivered to Stella Morris in Rome this morning:

We, the undersigned European unions and associations of journalists, join the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in calling on the US government to drop all charges against Julian Assange and allow him to return home to his wife and children.

We are gravely concerned about the impact of Assange’s continued detention on media freedom and the rights of all journalists globally. We urge European governments to actively work to secure Julian Assange’s release.

To show our solidarity, we declare Julian Assange a full member, an honorary member or a free member of our organisations.

Signed:

  • Maja Sever, EFJ President and TUCJ President, Croatia
  • Fabrizio Cappella, SUGC-FNSI Secretary, Italy
  • Satik Seyranyan, UJA President, Armenia
  • Borka Rudić, BHJA General Secretary, Bosnia & Herzegovina
  • Hrvoje Zovko, HND President, Croatia
  • Emmanuel Poupard, SNJ First General Secretary, France
  • Emmanuel Vire, General secretary SNJ-CGT, France
  • Tina Groll, dju in ver.di President, Germany
  • Maria Antoniadou, JUADN President, Greece
  • Laszlo M. Lengyel, HPU Executive President, Hungary
  • Pavle Belovski, SSNM President, North Macedonia
  • Luís Filipe Simões, SJ President, Portugal
  • Darko Šper, GS Kum President, Serbia
  • Dragana Čabarkapa, Sinos President, Serbia
  • Zeljko Bodrozic, IJAS President, Serbia
  • Petra Lesjak Tušek, DNS President, Slovenia
  • Miguel Angel Noceda, FAPE President, Spain
  • Urs Thalmann, impressum Director, Switzerland
  • Tim Dawson, NUJ, United Kingdom

April 30, 2023 Posted by | civil liberties, EUROPE, media | Leave a comment

Caitlin Johnstone: Australia Pays “retired U.S. military figure” Clapper to advance USA’s Military Aims

retired U.S. military figure” generally means someone who used to be paid by the U.S. government to advance the interests of the U.S. empire, and is now paid by corporations and/or foreign governments to advance the interests of the U.S. empire.

Among the American swamp monsters hired by Canberra is the Obama administration’s spy chief, who has an established track record of lying and manipulating to advance the interests of the U.S. empire.

By Caitlin Johnstone CaitlinJohnstone.com April 27, 2023 https://consortiumnews.com/2023/04/27/caitlin-johnstone-australia-pays-clapper-for-us-aims/

Australia has been paying insiders of the U.S. war machine for consultation on how to run the nation’s military, a massive conflict of interest given that Washington has been grooming Australia for a role in its war agendas against China.

In its article “Retired U.S. admirals charging Australian taxpayers thousands of dollars per day as defence consultants,” the ABC reports that, according to documents the Pentagon provided Congress last month, “dozens of retired U.S. military figures have been granted approval to work for Australia since 2012.”

For those who don’t speak imperialist, “retired U.S. military figure” generally means someone who used to be paid by the U.S. government to advance the interests of the U.S. empire, and is now paid by corporations and/or foreign governments to advance the interests of the U.S. empire.

These corrupt warmongers rotate in and out of the revolving door of the D.C. swamp, from government to war-industry jobs to punditry gigs to influential think tanks and then back again into government, advancing the interests of the U.S. empire the entire time and growing wealthy in the process.

This dynamic allows a permanent constellation of reliable empire managers to continually exert influence around the world in support of the U.S. empire, regardless of who gets voted into or out of office in the performative display of electoral politics. It’s a big part of why U.S. foreign policy remains the same regardless of who’s officially running the elected government in Washington, and it’s a big part of why the media and arms industry which support the U.S. war machine keep playing the same tune as well.

Among the American swamp monsters Australia paid for consulting work is the Obama administration’s spy chief James Clapper, who has an established track record of lying and manipulating to advance the interests of the U.S. empire:

  • In 2013 Clapper committed perjury by telling the U.S. Senate under oath that the NSA does not knowingly collect data on millions of Americans, only to have that lie exposed by the Edward Snowden leaks a few months later.
  • In 2016 Clapper played a foundational role in fomenting public hysteria about Russia with the flimsy ODNI report on alleged Russian election interference, which remains riddled with massive plot holes. He would later go on to repeatedly voice the opinion that Russians are “almost genetically driven” toward nefarious and subversive behavior.
  • In 2020 Clapper signed the infamous and now fully discredited letter from former intelligence insiders saying the Hunter Biden laptop story was likely a Russian disinfo op, falsely telling CNN that the story was “textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work” and that the emails on the laptop had “no metadata” on them.

Also among the American military consultants paid by Australia is a man we just discussed the other day, William Hilarides, who will be telling Australia how to reconfigure its navy because apparently no Australians are available for that job. We now know that according to the released Pentagon documents Canberra has already paid Hilarides almost $2.5 million since 2016 for his consulting work.

This information was originally reported by The Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock and Nate Jones, who last year also broke the remarkable story that a former U.S. navy admiral named Stephen Johnson had actually served as Australia’s deputy navy secretary, a position which needless to say is not normally open to foreigners.

This is just one of the many ways that Australia is being interwoven into the U.S. war machine, from the 2023 Defence Strategic Review which further enshrines Australia’s position as a U.S. military asset, to Australian Secretary of Defence Richard Marles saying that the Defence Force is moving “beyond interoperability to interchangeability” with the U.S. military and being suspiciously secretive about who his golfing buddies were in his last trip to the U.S., to Australian officials angrily dismissing attempts to find out if the U.S. has been bringing nuclear weapons into Australia, to the Australian media pounding Australian consciousness with anti-China hysteria to such an extent that hate crimes are now being perpetrated against Asian Australians.

……………………………………… Australia has always seemed like a fairly irrelevant player on the world stage because of its impotent subservience to Washington. But it’s becoming clear it is exactly because of Australia’s blind subservience to Washington that Australia is worth paying attention to, since that relationship may well end up giving the nation a front-row seat to World War Three.

Australians are going to have to wake up to what’s being done and the abominable agendas the nation is being exploited to advance. Australians are being groomed for a military confrontation of unimaginable horror, one which absolutely does not need to take place, all in the name of something as trivial as securing U.S. planetary hegemony. Australians have got to start saying no to this, starting right now.

 

April 30, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Australia pays former US defence chiefs $7000 a day for advice

By Matthew Knott, April 27, 2023  https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-pays-former-us-defence-chiefs-7000-a-day-for-advice-20230427-p5d3lh.html

The federal government is paying retired senior American military officials up to $7500 a day for advice on major defence projects such as the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine pact.

The government this week announced that, following its sweeping defence strategic review, retired United States Navy vice admiral William Hilarides would be hired to lead a snap review of the Royal Australian Navy’s surface fleet.

The review, to be handed to the government later this year, will examine whether planned fleets of Australian-made frigates and patrol vessels should be cut to free up money for smaller and more nimble vessels.

Hilarides has previously charged the Australian government US$4000 ($6000) a day for his consulting services, according to US Navy documents first reported by The Washington Post.

Hilarides has won naval consulting contracts from the federal government worth up to $1.6 million ($2.4 million) since 2016, according to figures from the Department of Defence.

Hilarides serves as chair of the Australian naval shipbuilding expert advisory panel and advised the government over the past 18 months while it finalised the deal with the United States and Britain to build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy defended Hilarides’ appointment to the new navy fleet review this week, saying he had “a long association with Australia” and would do a good job.

In an investigation published last year The Post described Hilarides, a career submariner, as part of a large group of former senior US officials that Australia had relied upon heavily to guide its naval policies.

“To an extraordinary degree in recent years, Australia has relied on high-priced American consultants to decide which ships and submarines to buy and how to manage strategic acquisition projects,” The Post said.

Retired admiral John Richardson, who headed the United States Navy from 2015 to 2019, has received US$5000 ($7570) a day as a part-time consultant to the federal, according to documents released by the Pentagon to the US Congress.

Richardson was hired by the Department of Defence last November to provide advice on the best pathway for Australia to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

According to the documents, Richardson receives travel and lodging expenses to complete his work in Australia.

Richardson, the former US navy chief, told The Post: “I spent most of my life helping to keep America and our allies and partners safe and secure.

It’s a privilege to be invited to be able to use my experience, and help where I can to continue that work.”

Defence Minister Richard Marles on Thursday said outside advice was crucial to ensuring the government makes the correct decisions about significant defence policies.

“When we seek expert advice in relation to critical issues and challenges that we face, we have a global perspective in terms of where we seek that advice from and that’s really important because we want the very best advice,” he said.

“We make no apology for that because the kinds of challenges and decisions we’re making are profoundly important for the future of our country and where we have sought advice from those former officials in the US Navy that has been on issues of profound importance for our nation’s future.”

Greens defence spokesman David Shoebridge said he was shocked that Australia could seemingly not find local experts available to do these jobs.

“If that is true then it’s a pretty extraordinary failure on the part of the government and the ADF,” he said.

“You can only really explain this by Defence’s ongoing dependence on, and deference to, the US.”

He said it was remarkable that the US government had been more transparent than Australian government contracts than the federal government.

 

April 29, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics international, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Once Shocking, U.S. Spying on Its Allies Draws a Global Shrug

April 13, 2023, New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/13/us/politics/us-spying-allies.html

The last time a trove of leaked documents exposed U.S. spying operations around the world, the reaction from allied governments was swift and severe.

In Berlin, thousands of people protested in the streets, the C.I.A. station chief was expelled, and the German chancellor told the American president that “spying on friends is not acceptable.” In Paris, the American ambassador was summoned for a dressing-down.

That was a decade ago, after an enormous leak of classified documents detailing American surveillance programs by … Edward Snowden. The latest leak of classified documents that appeared online this year, the motive behind which remains unknown, has again illustrated the broad reach of U.S. spy agencies, including into the capitals of friendly countries such as Egypt, South Korea, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates.

Though the documents mainly focus on the war in Ukraine, they include C.I.A. intelligence briefs describing conversations and plans at senior levels of government in those countries, in several cases attributed to “signals intelligence,” or electronic eavesdropping.

Unlike in 2013, however, U.S. allies appear to be mostly shrugging off the latest examples of apparent spying. So far, the only evident political fallout from the latest leaks has occurred in South Korea, where one classified U.S. document described a debate among senior national security officials about whether to send artillery shells abroad that might wind up in Ukraine, potentially angering Russia.

April 27, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Leaks Reveal Reality Behind U.S. Propaganda in Ukraine

The inability of either side to decisively defeat the other in the ruins of Bakhmut and other front-line towns in Donbas is why one of the most important documents predicted that the war was locked in a “grinding campaign of attrition” and was “likely heading toward a stalemate.”

What U.S. intelligence officials know, but the White House is doggedly ignoring, is that, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, top Ukrainian officials running this endemically corrupt country are making fortunes skimming money from the over $100 billion in aid and weapons that America has sent them.

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, World BEYOND War, April 19, 2023

The U.S. corporate media’s first response to the leaking of secret documents about the war in Ukraine was to throw some mud in the water, declare “nothing to see here,” and cover it as a depoliticized crime story about a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman who published secret documents to impress his friends. President Biden dismissed the leaks as revealing nothing of “great consequence.”

What these documents reveal, however, is that the war is going worse for Ukraine than our political leaders have admitted to us, while going badly for Russia too, so that neither side is likely to break the stalemate this year, and this will lead to “a protracted war beyond 2023,” as one of the documents says.

The publication of these assessments should lead to renewed calls for our government to level with the public about what it realistically hopes to achieve by prolonging the bloodshed, and why it continues to reject the resumption of the promising peace negotiations it blocked in April 2022.

We believe that blocking those talks was a dreadful mistake, in which the Biden administration capitulated to the warmongering, since-disgraced U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and that current U.S. policy is compounding that mistake at the cost of tens of thousands more Ukrainian lives and the destruction of even more of their country.

In most wars, while the warring parties strenuously suppress the reporting of civilian casualties for which they are responsible, professional militaries generally treat accurate reporting of their own military casualties as a basic responsibility. But in the virulent propaganda surrounding the war in Ukraine, all sides have treated military casualty figures as fair game, systematically exaggerating enemy casualties and understating their own.

Publicly available U.S. estimates have supported the idea that many more Russians are being killed than Ukrainians, deliberately skewing public perceptions to support the notion that Ukraine can somehow win the war, as long as we just keep sending more weapons.

The leaked documents provide internal U.S. military intelligence assessments of casualties on both sides. But different documents, and different copies of the documents circulating online, show conflicting numbers, so the propaganda war rages on despite the leak.

The most detailed assessment of attrition rates of troops says explicitly that U.S. military intelligence has “low confidence” in the attrition rates it cites. It attributes that partly to “potential bias” in Ukraine’s information sharing, and notes that casualty assessments “fluctuate according to the source.”

So, despite denials by the Pentagon, a document that shows a higher death toll on the Ukrainian side may be correct, since it has been widely reported that Russia has been firing several times the number of artillery shells as Ukraine, in a bloody war of attrition in which artillery appears to be the main instrument of death. Altogether, some of the documents estimate a total death toll on both sides approaching 100,000 and total casualties, killed and wounded, of up to 350,000.

Another document reveals that, after using up the stocks sent by NATO countries, Ukraine is running out of missiles for the S-300 and BUK systems that make up 89% of its air defenses. By May or June, Ukraine will therefore be vulnerable, for the first time, to the full strength of the Russian air force, which has until now been limited mainly to long-range missile strikes and drone attacks.

Recent Western arms shipments have been justified to the public by predictions that Ukraine will soon be able to launch new counter-offensives to take back territory from Russia. Twelve brigades, or up to 60,000 troops, were assembled to train on newly delivered Western tanks for this “spring offensive,” with three brigades in Ukraine and nine more in Poland, Romania and Slovenia.

But a leaked document from the end of February reveals that the nine brigades being equipped and trained abroad had less than half their equipment and, on average, were only 15% trained. Meanwhile, Ukraine faced a stark choice to either send reinforcements to Bakhmut or withdraw from the town entirely, and it chose to sacrifice some of its “spring offensive” forces to prevent the imminent fall of Bakhmut…………………………………….

The inability of either side to decisively defeat the other in the ruins of Bakhmut and other front-line towns in Donbas is why one of the most important documents predicted that the war was locked in a “grinding campaign of attrition” and was “likely heading toward a stalemate.”

Adding to the concerns about where this conflict is headed is the revelation in the leaked documents about the presence of 97 special forces from NATO countries, including from the U.K. and the U.S. This is in addition to previous reports about the presence of CIA personnel, trainers and Pentagon contractors, and the unexplained deployment of 20,000 troops from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Brigades near the border between Poland and Ukraine.

Worried about the ever-increasing direct U.S. military involvement, Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz has introduced a Privileged Resolution of Inquiry to force President Biden to notify the House of the exact number of U.S. military personnel inside Ukraine and precise U.S. plans to assist Ukraine militarily.

We can’t help wondering what President Biden’s plan could be, or if he even has one. But it turns out that we’re not alone. In what amounts to a second leak that the corporate media have studiously ignored, U.S. intelligence sources have told veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that they are asking the same questions, and they describe a “total breakdown” between the White House and the U.S. intelligence

community.

Hersh’s sources describe a pattern that echoes the use of fabricated and unvetted intelligence to justify U.S. aggression against Iraq in 2003, in which Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Sullivan are by-passing regular intelligence analysis and procedures and running the Ukraine War as their own private fiefdom. They reportedly smear all criticism of President Zelenskyy as “pro-Putin,” and leave U.S. intelligence agencies out in the cold trying to understand a policy that makes no sense to them.

What U.S. intelligence officials know, but the White House is doggedly ignoring, is that, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, top Ukrainian officials running this endemically corrupt country are making fortunes skimming money from the over $100 billion in aid and weapons that America has sent them.

According to Hersh’s report, the CIA assesses that Ukrainian officials, including President Zelenskyy, have embezzled $400 million from money the United States sent Ukraine to buy diesel fuel for its war effort, in a scheme that involves buying cheap, discounted fuel from Russia. Meanwhile, Hersh says, Ukrainian government ministries literally compete with each other to sell weapons paid for by U.S. taxpayers to private arms dealers in Poland, the Czech Republic and around the world…………………….

First-hand reporting from inside Ukraine by New Cold War has described the same systematic pyramid of corruption as Hersh. A member of parliament, formerly in Zelenskyy’s party, told New Cold War that Zelenskyy and other officials skimmed 170 million euros from money that was supposed to pay for Bulgarian artillery shells.

The corruption reportedly extends to bribes to avoid conscription. The Open Ukraine Telegram channel was told by a military recruitment office that it could get the son of one of its writers released from the front line in Bakhmut and sent out of the country for $32,000.

As has happened in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and all the wars the United States has been involved in for many decades, the longer the war goes on, the more the web of corruption, lies and distortions unravels…………………………….

These leaks and investigative reports are not the first, nor will they be the last, to shine a light through the veil of propaganda that permits these wars to destroy young people’s lives in faraway places, so that oligarchs in Russia, Ukraine and the United States can amass wealth and power.

The only way this will stop is if more and more people get active in opposing those companies and individuals that profit from war–who Pope Francis calls the Merchants of Death–and boot out the politicians who do their bidding, before they make an even more fatal misstep and start a nuclear war.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.  https://worldbeyondwar.org/leaks-reveal-reality-behind-u-s-propaganda-in-ukraine/

April 20, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Ukraine-Russia war – live: Damning Pentagon leak has not affected relations, Kyiv says

Sravasti Dasgupta,Liam James,Vishwam Sankaran, Independent UK, 15 Apr 23

Documents hinted Ukraine faced challenges in massing troops, equipment, and ammunition

Top officials in Kyiv said that information on Ukraine’s war efforts against Russia — that was part of leaked US Pentagon documents — was already known and not surprising.

The leaked documents hinted that Ukraine faced challenges in massing troops, equipment, and ammunition and that Kyiv may fall short of counter-offensive goals.

A senior Ukrainian official told BBC that the problems faced by the country were already known, adding that the leaks would not affect relations between the two countries.

Meanwhile, Moscow’s defence ministry has claimed that military pilots from Belarus have completed training to use Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons.

Belarusian defence minister Viktor Khrenin threatened the West that “it could be the next step” to also host part of Moscow’s strategic arsenal, claiming: “We are already preparing the sites that we have.”

On the battlefield in Ukraine, Kyiv has been forced to concede ground in the bloody battle for Bakhmut after being bombarded with “particularly intense” Russian artillery fire over the past 48 hours, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said.

It suggested Ukraine may fall short of its goals to launch a counter-offensive against Russia.

Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council head Oleksiy Danilov said the leaks did not affect the military’s plans, adding that “everything will be decided at the last moment”.

Sravasti Dasgupta,Liam James,Vishwam Sankaran

April 15, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

‘No Business In The Public Domain’: National Security Council spokesman Kirby Warns Journalists Not To Report On Leaked Pentagon Documents

Biden administration and National Security Council spokesman John Kirby addressed the media on Monday, asking in so many words that pretty please would journalists not report on the trove of highly classified documents which were leaked online. 

“This is information that has no business in the public domain… It has no business… on the front pages of newspapers or on television.” But Kirby is a bit late, given already days ago major outlets from the NY Times to Washington Post to foreign outlets like The Guardian and RT have widely reported on them. They classified reports have circulated widely on English-language and foreign social media as well.

Independent media outlets have also widely shared images of the documents, which Pentagon officials claim could have been altered by the Kremlin to make the US look bad……….

Some observers have speculated that given the high number of documents marked SECRET/NOFORN, which literally means Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals (and thus it can’t be shared with even close allied services of the US), this points to the leak originating within the US chain of command. Others have said the leak may have come from the Ukrainians, given the high numbers of Ukraine-related battlefield assessments that were part of the trove that appeared online.

The Pentagon and DOJ meanwhile says they are still “working around the clock” to assess the source and scale of the massive breach of highly classified data. New bombshell documents have continued to trickle out in media stories into Monday and Tuesday, likely with more revelations to come throughout the week.

FT and others have called the breach the “most significant since Edward Snowden released a trove of classified documents about US intelligence activities a decade ago — included apparently highly classified documents.” Officials have also noted they “appear mostly authentic”. 

“These photos appear to show documents similar in format to those used to provide daily updates to our senior leaders on Ukraine and Russia-related operations as well as other intelligence updates,” Meagher explained, though agreeing with other officials that some of them appear doctored. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/kirby-asks-journalists-pretty-please-dont-report-leaked-pentagon-documents

April 14, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | 1 Comment

Leaked documents expose US-NATO Ukraine war plans

Perhaps the most notable piece of information contained in the leaked documents relates to military death tolls, with Ukrainian and Russian losses estimated at about a 4:1 ratio. According to one document, 71,500 Ukrainian troops have been killed in action.

That figure is close to the 100,000 KIA’s cited by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a November 2022 speech, before her comments were retracted.

ALEXANDER RUBINSTEIN·APRIL 7, 2023, https://thegrayzone.com/2023/04/07/leaked-documents-us-nato-ukraine-war-plan/

Classified Pentagon documents containing information about US and NATO plans for a Ukrainian offensive and key details of the ongoing war have leaked. And the Biden administration is reportedly demanding they be scrubbed from the internet. Is there a hidden agenda behind the leak?

Update: We have added a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency document at the end of this article outlining potential scenarios in which Israel would provide Ukraine with lethal weapons. [on original]

The New York Times has reported “a significant breach of American intelligence in the effort to aid Ukraine” through the leak of classified documents which have been shared on social media. It correspondents cited “senior Biden administration officials” who apparently tipped the outlet off to the story. Documents circulating on Telegram which closely resemble those referred to by the Times are reproduced at the end of this article.

The Times writes, “Military analysts said the documents appear to have been modified in certain parts from their original format, overstating American estimates of Ukrainian war dead and understating estimates of Russian troops killed. The modifications could point to an effort of disinformation by Moscow, the analysts said… The analysts warned that documents released by Russian sources could be selectively altered to present the Kremlin’s disinformation.”

Neither the New York Times nor the “military analysts” it cited explain how the documents were altered, or why they have the appearance of tampering. However, because the leaked documents have arrived in the form of photographs of printed documents, rather than original files, the possibility of forgery or alteration must be considered.

The leaked documents claim that Russia has sustained troop losses ranging from 16,000 to 17,500 while Ukrainian losses amount to as many as 71,500 – a staggering differential that stands at odds with the triumphalist narrative projected by Kiev. They are dated March 1 2023 and appear to be part of an ongoing briefing effort to analyze the war’s progress and plan a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The Grayzone obtained the documents from a public Telegram channel. Though they resemble those described by the Times, we can not confirm their authenticity.

According to the New York Times, the Pentagon is investigating the leak while the White House is “working to get them deleted.” Twitter owner Elon Musk appears to have confirmed the pressure campaign, sarcastically commenting, “Yeah, you can totally delete things from the Internet – that works perfectly and doesn’t draw attention to whatever you were trying to hide at all.”

Perhaps the most notable piece of information contained in the leaked documents relates to military death tolls, with Ukrainian and Russian losses estimated at about a 4:1 ratio. According to one document, 71,500 Ukrainian troops have been killed in action.

That figure is close to the 100,000 KIA’s cited by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a November 2022 speech, before her comments were retracted. It also tracks closely with statements by one of Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky’s top advisers, Mykhailo Podolyak, who told the BBC in June of last year that Ukraine was losing between 100 and 200 soldiers per day (200 deaths per day over the course of 370 days between the launch of Russia’s military operation and the date of the documents would total 74,000.) 

Other American and EU state officials have offered dramatically different figures placing Russian KIA’s over the six figure mark. For instance, Norway’s defense chief has charted 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers dead to Russia’s 180,000, while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Miley asserted that Russian losses are “significantly well over 100,000.” 

Another key detail in the documents pertains to the size of the front lines in Donetsk: Russia maintains 91 battalions in the “Donetsk axis” with around 23,000 total personnel, while Ukraine maintains eight brigades and 40 battalions, with 10,000 to 20,000 total personnel.

The documents also outline expectations of weapons deliveries to Ukraine from the US and other NATO countries along with training schedules for Ukrainian forces as a Spring counteroffensive approaches. The timeline spans from January through April, detailing twelve Ukrainian brigades under construction and the weapons they have been or will be supplied. Nine brigades are said to be armed and trained by the US and NATO allies, and six are said to be ready by the end of March, while the rest will be in action by the end of April. The brigades are said to require 253 tanks, 381 mechanized vehicles, 480 motor vehicles and more.

While the documents distributed on Telegram contain important details about NATO and Ukrainian military capacity, and highlight the astounding depth of American involvement in the war, their publication raises a number of questions.

If the documents were partially faked, were they disseminated to help Russia advance its public relations goals, perhaps by minimizing their casualty numbers or inflating those of their foe? They certainly would not be fooling anyone at the Department of Defense, since they obviously have the original files on hand. Or could it be that the United States leaked the documents with faulty intelligence strewn throughout their contents to confuse Russia ahead of a Ukrainian offensive? 

There is also the possibility that they are one hundred percent authentic. If so, Ukraine and its Western patrons may have more serious problems than a few leaked documents.

April 14, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Zelensky losing control of intelligence agents – media

Rt.com 12 Apr 23,

The US believes that the Ukrainian intelligence service attacked a Russian plane in Belarus without Kiev’s permission, Breaking Points reported.

The US believes that elements of Ukraine’s intelligence service carried out a cross-border attack on a Russian spy plane in Belarus without approval from the Ukrainian government, Breaking Points journalist Saagar Enjeti reported on Monday, citing leaked documents. 

The attack saw a drone inflict minor damage to a Russian A-50 early warning and control aircraft stationed at the Machulishchy air base in Belarus last month. Belarusian authorities arrested a number of suspects, one allegedly linked to the Ukrainian secret police organization, the SBU, which Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accused of orchestrating the attack with help from the CIA.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry “categorically” denied any involvement by Kiev, while Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podoliak blamed the attack solely on “local partisans.”

The Pentagon, however, assessed that the SBU carried out the attack without seeking the approval of President Vladimir Zelensky or his officials, Enjeti said in a video report on Tuesday. The alleged Pentagon documents containing the assessment were leaked on social media last week, and have since received considerable media attention.

The report on the plane attack raises the question of “how much control does Zelensky actually have” over his own intelligence apparatus, Enjeti said. “Perhaps this lends credence to the idea that there are a bunch of rogue elements inside the [Ukrainian] government that are basically doing whatever they want,” he continued, citing a string of terrorist attacks within Russia as potential SBU operations.

The Kremlin has repeatedly blamed Ukraine and its intelligence services for these attacks, which include the bombing of the Crimean Bridge and the assassinations of journalist Daria Dugina and military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.

……………….. Other files in the leak detail the US’ war plans in Ukraine, its surveillance of its allies, Kiev’s rapidly depleting ammunition situation, and other “sensitive” material related to Ukraine, China, the Middle East, and terrorism.  https://www.rt.com/russia/574502-ukraine-attacked-plane-belarus/

April 14, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Corruption in the Ukraine government, as Zelensky skims $millions from USA for diesel, while buying cheap diesel from Russia

“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. “And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it.

Many government ministries in Kiev have been literally “competing,” I was told, to set up front companies for export contracts for weapons and ammunition with private arms dealers around the world, all of which provide kickbacks.

TRADING WITH THE ENEMY Amid rampant corruption in Kiev and as US troops gather at the Ukrainian border, does the Biden administration have an endgame to the conflict? Seymour Hersh, Substack, Apr 12

The Ukraine government, headed by Volodymyr Zelensky, has been using American taxpayers’ funds to pay dearly for the vitally needed diesel fuel that is keeping the Ukrainian army on the move in its war with Russia. It is unknown how much the Zelensky government is paying per gallon for the fuel, but the Pentagon was paying as much as $400 per gallon to transport gasoline from a port in Pakistan, via truck or parachute, into Afghanistan during the decades-long American war there.

What also is unknown is that Zelensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments. One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, “although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from the Ukraine.”

“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. “And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it.

Many government ministries in Kiev have been literally “competing,” I was told, to set up front companies for export contracts for weapons and ammunition with private arms dealers around the world, all of which provide kickbacks. Many of those companies are in Poland and Czechia, but others are thought to exist in the Persian Gulf and Israel. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are others in places like the Cayman Islands and Panama, and there are lots of Americans involved,” an American expert on international trade told me. 

The issue of corruption was directly raised with Zelensky in a meeting last January in Kiev with CIA Director William Burns. His message to the Ukrainian president, I was told by an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting, was out of a 1950s mob movie. The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky’s greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because “he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals.” 

Burns also presented Zelensky with a list of thirty-five generals and senior officials whose corruption was known to the CIA and others in the American government. Zelensky responded to the American pressure ten days later by publicly dismissing ten of the most ostentatious officials on the list and doing little else. “The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official told me………………………………………………………………………….. https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/trading-with-the-enemy?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1377040&post_id=114123549&isFreemail=false&utm_medium=email

April 13, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Westminster keeps nuclear secrets to avoid upsetting Scottish Government

The Ferret, Rob Edwards, April 10, 2023

The UK Government is refusing to say why it is keeping nuclear safety reports secret because it is worried about “anti-nuclear arguments from the Scottish Government”.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) won’t give its reasons for failing to release annual assessments of the safety of nuclear weapons on the Clyde so as not to “prejudice relations between the UK and Scottish governments”.

The secrecy has been condemned by the Scottish Greens as “outrageous, undemocratic and frankly dangerous”. It was akin to nuclear policies in Russia, China and North Korea, according to a campaigner — and it was described as “totally unacceptable” by a former nuclear submarine commander.

The Scottish Government urged the MoD to be “open and transparent” about the handling of nuclear materials in Scotland. The MoD said it had to “strike a balance” between public interest in safety and protecting information about nuclear weapons.

Annual reports from the MoD’s internal watchdog, the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator (DNSR), were released for ten years, but ceased being published in 2017. A freedom of information appeal to a UK tribunal to force the MoD to again release the reports was rejected in July 2021.

The Ferret previously revealed that the reports for 2005 to 2015 highlighted “regulatory risks” 86 times, including 13 rated as high priority. One issue repeatedly seen as a high risk was a shortage of suitably qualified and experienced engineers.

Now the MoD has rejected another freedom of information request asking for documents that set out the rationale for refusing to release more recent DNSR reports. It disclosed that the decision was taken in 2017 by then secretary of state for defence, Michael Fallon, but has withheld information on why……………………………………..

The MoD letter also argued that information on reasons for withholding the reports should be kept secret “for the purpose of safeguarding national security”. Secrecy was also necessary so as not to prejudice “the defence of the UK” or “the relationship between the UK and the US” as well as to allow a “safe space” for officials to advise ministers.

Nuclear secrecy ‘totalitarian’

The Scottish Greens argued that the people of Scotland have a “fundamental right” to know the risks they face from hosting weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde. Suppressing information that may support arguments against nuclear weapons poses a “clear and present danger” politically, it warned.

“The extraordinary admission in this letter that the MoD and UK Government are actively concealing key pieces of information from the Scottish Government is outrageous, undemocratic and frankly dangerous,” said Green MSP, Mark Ruskell.

“The MoD is basically saying they won’t share this information because they are scared Scotland won’t like it and it might upset the US. You simply can’t get any more totalitarian than that and this should be challenged further.”

Ruskell added: “If they want to reassure people that there are no unnecessary added dangers, they should share the information urgently and transparently. If not they should pack up and ship out. Scotland doesn’t want nukes here and they know it.”

The nuclear researcher and campaigner who has been challenging the MoD’s refusal to release the nuclear safety reports is Peter Burt. UK citizens are allowed to know “virtually nothing” about the hazards of nuclear weapons despite paying billions of pounds for them, he said.

“We’re not allowed to know whether the Ministry of Defence’s safety watchdog thinks the nuclear weapons programme is complying with public protection arrangements, and Scottish Ministers are not trusted to know what is going on at the Navy’s nuclear bases in Scotland,” Burt told The Ferret.

“It’s pretty clear that this has more to do with politics than security. While the US government regularly releases information about its nuclear weapons programme, the UK Government has decided to model its own nuclear policies on those of countries like Russia, China, and North Korea.”

Rob Forsyth, a former Royal Navy nuclear submarine commander who now campaigns against nuclear weapons, described the MoD’s justifications for secrecy as “totally unacceptable”.

He said: “The way to avoid any misinterpretation is to be honest and fully transparent over matters affecting public safety and our national defence. The notion that government should not allow public discussion is not conduct expected of a democracy.”

The Scottish Government reiterated its opposition to the possession of nuclear weapons and its support for world-wide nuclear disarmament. ……………………………………………………………….. more https://theferret.scot/nuclear-secrets-scottish-government/

April 12, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

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