FAS | Intelligence | News | 2004 ||||

February 2004 Intelligence News

• Senate Intelligence Committee Statement on New York Times Article, SSCI news release, February 27. "Today�s New York Times article entitled 'Senate Panel Presses Bush on War�s Plan' is inaccurate."
• Justice Intelligence Coordinating Council: Fact Sheet, Justice Department release, February 25. "The JICC Will Be the Senior Level Coordination Mechanism for All Intelligence Related Activities Conducted by the Department and Its Subordinate Organizations."
• Remarks by Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President, before the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security, February 24. "The Administration�s detractors fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the threat this country is facing. America confronts a lethal but unfamiliar enemy, sometimes hidden here in our neighborhoods, waiting to hurt innocent people."
• Pentagon's terrorism research lives on at other agencies by Michael J. Sniffen, Associated Press, February 23. "Despite an outcry over privacy implications, the government is pressing ahead with research to create ultrapowerful tools to mine millions of public and private records for information about terrorists."
• Attorney General Ashcroft Statement on the Padilla Case, news release, February 20. "The Department of Justice is pleased the Supreme Court has granted the government's petition and will review the decision issued by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the Jose Padilla case."
• Cutler, Named to Independent WMD Commission, Is Also Member of CIA Chief's Advisory Group by Justin Rood, CQ Homeland Security, February 16. "Lloyd Cutler, the establishment Democrat appointed by President Bush to an independent commission that will study the administration's pre-war claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, has also for several years been a member of a group assembled by CIA Director George J. Tenet to review classified intelligence matters, CQ Homeland Security has learned."
• Senate Intelligence Committee Statement on Iraq Intelligence Review, news release, February 12. "We will address the question of whether intelligence was exaggerated or misused by reviewing statements by senior policy makers to determine if those statements were substantiated by the intelligence," Rockefeller said.
• President Bush Names Two More Members of Intelligence Commission, February 12. "President George W. Bush today announced the final two members of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction."
• President Announces New Measures to Counter the Threat of WMD, February 11. "President Bush today proposed seven new steps to help combat the development and spread of weapons of mass destruction." (Fact Sheet)
• The FBI is hiring more Intelligence Analysts than ever, FBI news release, February 9. "The FBI is tailoring its recruiting initiative to identify men and women who possess critical skills such as critical reasoning, computer literacy, sound judgment, research, and information gathering and manipulation."
• Bush Names Panelists in Iraq Intel Probe by Deb Riechmann, Associated Press, February 6. "President Bush appointed a conservative former judge and a moderate former Democratic senator Friday to head a special commission to 'figure out why' inspectors haven't found the weapons that intelligence experts said Saddam Hussein was hiding in Iraq."
• President Bush Announces Formation of Intelligence Commission, February 6. "Today, by executive order, I am creating an independent commission, chaired by Governor and former Senator Chuck Robb, Judge Laurence Silberman, to look at American intelligence capabilities, especially our intelligence about weapons of mass destruction."
• Justice Department Statement on Dismissal of the Edwin Wilson Case, news release, February 6. "In a hearing today in the Southern District of Texas, the Department of Justice announced that it will not pursue a retrial of the 1983 prosecution of Edwin Wilson."
• Camera Phones a National Security Threat? by Chuck McCutcheon, Newhouse News, February 3. "First it was locker rooms, then corporations and courthouses. Now cell phones featuring digital cameras are being officially banned from some military sites."
• Data Sought for Secret Spending by Richard Benedetto, USA Today, February 3. "After a dubious conclusion that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction just before the war in Iraq, critics say there should be more financial accountability for the government's spying."