FAS | Intelligence | News | 2002 ||||

February 2002 Intelligence News

• Reported disinformation plans sink Pentagon office by Richard Whittle, Dallas Morning News, February 27. "The move marked an extraordinarily rapid attempt to cut the Defense Department's losses in an incident analysts called a major embarrassment."
• Pentagon Terminates Office of Strategic Influence, DoD press briefing with Secretary Rumsfeld, February 26. "It's pretty clear to me that it could not function effectively. So it's being closed down."
• Treasury Secretary Announces Terrorist Finance Designations, press release, February 26. "Today, the Treasury Department has designated 21 more individuals as financiers of terrorism. These individuals have acted for or on behalf of ETA, also known as the Basque Fatherland and Liberty."
• U.S. Planting False Stories Common Cold War Tactic by Tabassum Zakaria, Reuters, February 25. "A CIA team produced a pornographic film featuring an actor resembling Sukarno with the intent of embarrassing him."
• Remarks by the President on the Office of Strategic Influence, press availability, February 25. " I told Secretary Rumsfeld -- I didn't even need to tell him this; he knows how I feel."
• The President's 2001 Narcotics Certification Determinations, briefing by Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers, February 25.
• New Defense Office Won't Mislead, Officials Say, by Vernon Loeb and Dana Milbank, Washington Post, February 21. "A new Defense Department office will not lie to the public or plant disinformation in the foreign or U.S. media, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said yesterday."
• Rumsfeld Comments on Information Operations, excerpts from Pentagon press briefing, February 21. "The Department of Defense does not now and has no plans to conduct any disinformation campaigns or to promulgate false or inaccurate or misleading information to domestic or foreign audiences."
• Rumsfeld Addresses Strategic Influence Criticism, Pentagon press release, February 20. "Under no circumstances will the office or its contractors knowingly or deliberately disseminate false information to the American or foreign media or publics."
• Under Secretary of Defense Feith on Pentagon Office of Strategic Influence, February 20. "Despite some of the reports about the Office of Strategic Influence that I've read over the last day or two, Defense Department officials don't lie to the public."
• DoD News Briefing on Information Policy and Deception, media availability with Secretary Rumsfeld, February 20. "The Pentagon is not issuing disinformation to the foreign press or any other press."
• State Department Comments on Proposed Pentagon Information Operations, State Dept press briefing, February 19. "We provide information. We provide accurate and truthful information."
• Justice Department News Conference on Superceding Indictment of Brian Patrick Regan, February 14. "Today a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia has returned a four-count superseding indictment charging Regan with three counts of attempted espionage and one count of gathering national defense information."
• FBI Announces Appointments of New Executives, FBI press release, February 14.
• Pentagon Press Briefing: Excerpts on Zhawar Kili Predator Attack, DoD-CIA Coordination, press briefing with Secretary Rumsfeld, February 12. "There tends to be a high degree of interaction between CENTCOM and CIA on a whole host of things, and certainly on these matters."
• Pentagon Briefing on Space Transformation with Under Secretary of the Air Force and NRO Director Peter Teets, February 7. "We're going to begin exploiting the best practices of the military space and the NRO communities to make the world's best space forces even better."