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‘Leaks’ Pinned On Russia And Other Issues With Them
Exactly one week ago the British news agency Reuters published the 'report' below which then was widely republished by other news sites.
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Russia likely behind U.S. military document leak, U.S. officials say – Fri, April 7, 2023 at 4:46 PM GMT+1
By Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Russia or pro-Russian elements are likely behind the leak of several classified U.S. military documents posted on social media that offer a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine, three U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday, while the Justice Department said separately it was probing the leak.
The documents appear to have been altered to lower the number of casualties suffered by Russian forces, the U.S. officials said, adding their assessments were informal and separate from the investigation into the leak itself.
The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter and declined to discuss the documents in any detail.
The author, Phil Stewart, …
… has reported from more than 60 countries, including Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, China and South Sudan. An award-winning Washington-based national security reporter, Phil has appeared on NPR, PBS NewsHour, Fox News and other programs and moderated national security events, including at the Reagan National Defense Forum and the German Marshall Fund. He is a recipient of the Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence and the Joe Galloway Award.
One wonders who initiated the contact between Stewart and those 'officials'. Did Stewart asked them for comments or did they call him up to plant the nonsense?
I have tried to contact Phil Stewart but it is unlikely that I will hear back from him.
One wonders how many other such 'Russiagate' like hoax stories, based on anonymous officials, were published by Phil Stewart and Reuters.
Meanwhile one of real purposes of the 'leak' becomes clear:
EXCLUSIVE – U.S. intel agencies may change how they monitor social media, chatrooms after missing leaked U.S. documents for weeks – NBC News
The Biden administration is looking at expanding how it monitors social media sites and chatrooms after U.S. intelligence agencies failed to spot classified Pentagon documents circulating online for weeks, according to a senior administration official and a congressional official briefed on the matter.
The possible change in the intelligence-gathering process is just one potential shift as officials scramble to determine not only how the documents leaked but also how to prevent another damaging incident.
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If the administration tries to check online chatrooms more closely, it will have to navigate legal safeguards designed to protect Americans’ privacy and freedom of expression, former intelligence officials said.
Watching a public chatroom is fair game, but law enforcement agencies don’t have the legal authority to monitor a private online chatroom without probable cause, the former officials said.
It is likely that Biden will now push for even more extreme censorship, i.e. the RESTRICT Act, to become law.
Former CIA agent Larry Johnson says that the leak can not have come from the alleged 'leaker' who worked in the military as the 'leaked' stash contained at least one CIA document that would never be distributed outside of the agency.
The leaked stash also includes many more themes than the slides on Ukraine that have so far have been discussed in the public:
A portion of the documents, which have since been widely covered by the news media, focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while others detailed analysis of potential UK policies on the South China Sea and the activities of a Houthi figure in Yemen.
And even more:
Even so, why does this unit need access to intel on such a wide range of topics: spying on Mossad, Egyptian rocket development, Wagner activities in Haiti and Africa?
So why have the media, with the help of the British intelligence outlet Bellingcat, spend so much time on hunting the purported 'leaker' instead of writing in depth stories on the 300 plus actual 'leaked' files? Why did they waste their resources on helping the justice department to find the leaker? The push for this was likely initiated by Bellingcat which published the first leads to that part of story. Bellingcat writers were later even bylined by the Washington Post and New York Times in their 'leaker' hunt stories.
My hunch:
The 'leaks' come from some high position in the 'intelligence community', likely the CIA or DNI. The young airman who was arrested yesterday was somehow used to publish them. The original leak source then contacted the British partner services to launch the 'hunt'. Their subsidiary Bellingcat was used to publish the results.
The purpose of the leaks was two fold:
- With the Ukraine slides published the Biden administration, which has no idea how to continue or shut down the war in Ukraine it had initiated, would have to admit that the war there is lost and that Ukraine must surrender.
- The second aim is to push for more surveillance, i.e. more jobs for the 'intelligence community'.
So far that scheme has worked well.
@ Richard Steven Hack | Apr 15 2023 7:04 utc | 111
Thank you. The additional Docu are non-Ukraine. Assess as authentic.
Appear to be selected extracts, in progress updates, again apparently cobbled together for briefing/presentation notes by a highly privileged subordinates staffers/analysts. Essentially classified notes/refs, IMV. Note the reference to likely parent primary Docu on bottom of each summarized extract, paragraph/s. Again, these are further restricted/highly protected & other means (SI, FISA, etc), various ie multiple Codeword & compartmented access. Very limited distribution. As a collection, a lot, very highly limited finite distributed access.
No way should an E-3 Guardsman ever have access granted to Codeword & SCI material. And certainly never to collection in toto. And if so in some alternate universe, never without constant direct control & supervision, at all times. NO. Doesn’t float. The pattern of ‘carelessly’ folded Docu ‘imaged’ continues.
Re Haines & ONI, lotsa staff & almost all would be required to have extremely broad access given top of the pyramid. Whether CIA like it or not, since creation of ONI they are subordinate, as are all other agencies/depts. And what was tight silo process 20+ odd years ago, unlikely IMV to be the case increasingly since Mid 2000’s. ‘Twas the very reason why the Office of the Intelligence Tsar was created … The One Ring … as well as to massage, pre-select, force-feed, manufacture & formalize & formally champion the ultimate ‘approved’ ‘politicized’ Intel product as required by White House/etc policies/etc. See: Steele Dossier, absolute puerile BS from the get go, championed by DNI & FBI, on your TV screen … Brennan, Clapper, etc.
TL&DR: Background/explainer re classified/codeword/compartmented access & real world realities …
General comment, explainer: Nothing is however one or the other, black n white, only. The various assertions that anomalous highly siloed material is never accessible outside an Agency/Dept/etc, never cross-pollinates, is in reality not quite true in practice. Especially with 1M+ holding TS clearances … & the transition to distinct ‘secure’ data systems(plural) & creation of ONI & subsequent subordination.
Codeword & SCI Docu periodically/intermittently discovered in Confidential/Secret/Top Secret (Vanilla, ie Zero Codeword/SCI allowed! Verboten!) secure physical holdings ’60’s thru ’90’s. Until a few years after 9/11 all classified Docu/Intel was highly siloed due internecine jurisdiction/rivalry/turf wars/etc. Subsequently in combination with full-on moving to multiple distinct computerized ‘secure’ data networks those turf war silos were somewhat broken down. Hence ‘anticipate’ the Situ now in ’23 is worse than back then, IMV. Efficiency of internal access & control monitoring systems ? Collection & storage is one thing, effective monitoring & access control, another (1M+). See: Manning, MI Private, UNSUPERVISED, CD music player headphones, actually downloading data to CDs, over extended period … Secret & State secure nets … undetected. See: Snowden, NSA contractor, undetected … See: Numerous others over the decades until accidentally discovered subsequently, often due other agencies external monitoring/surveillance & counter-intel OPs …
Ie, Granted, ‘ultimate trust’ & therefore, ‘Trusted’ by fellow ‘workplace’ Humans … oops.
A C/S/TS clearance grants ‘zero’ actual access to any classified materiel whatsoever. There is NO default ‘right’. It merely means, the possibility of specific & limited access, only as required for an explicit role/function/time period, is able to be granted, when necessary, and when no longer required, revoked. Same same re Codeword & SCI yet even more very tightly restricted & ONLY ever as definitively required/necessary due role/function, periodically reviewed, & when no longer so, formally debriefed & revoked.
ISA. C/S/TS ‘vanilla’ is on average ~85% sourced from open-source. Once assessed, corroborated(As necessary by other means(Codeword/SCI)(the other ~15%) & formally graded re credibility of the data & the reliability of the source/s over time, receives & formal classification & finalized formal ‘product’. Nothing remarkable. Codeword/SCI is a whole ‘nother ballgame.
BTW there can be & typically usually are, multiple classified Docu on a specific subject, C,S,TS,Codeword,SCI & S/codeword, TS/codeword, TS/Codeword/SCI, for access/distribution re the intended recipients actual level of clearance/access, pared down as appropriate.
YMMV.
Posted by: Outraged | Apr 15 2023 10:45 utc | 121
@ First Time Poster | Apr 15 2023 17:56 utc | 135
According to the charge sheet, at age ~19 our Guardsman was granted a TS-PV clearance as well as briefed into numerous codewords & in addition multiple special compartmented access, in 2021. Which miraculously meant he obtained online secure network access to briefing Docu for the CJCS & JCS. Barf!
In any case, swinging back around to the core issue, & reality. The classified materials were transient ‘point in time’, prepped in order to brief the CJCS, JCS & high level military staff & civilian officials, yet this has been buried in a storm of BS. We have heard NOTHING from CJCS Milley or Secretary Austin or DOD/DIA. Hence, the most likely source of the ‘real’ leak (~47 Docu) is somehow directly related to the briefing preparation, delivery & those present prior, during & post, IMV. These Docu were not formalized finished Intel product, nor ever meant for wider distribution. Yet, that does not explain the unrelated Docu …
The leak decidedly undermines the ludicrous narrative fiction re AFU not facing imminent collapse/defeat or it’s mythical imagined Crimean ‘counter-offensive’. Damages allied nation, agency & military relationships/trust re Ukraine conflict as well as the grenade tossed re Egypt, Hungary, Israel, Sth Korea, et al.
Cui bono ? DOD/DIA/Intel ?
Sound of Silence on this issue. A mountain of ‘Look over there, a squirrel!’. Why ?
Breakdown Between Biden and US Intel Community Behind Pentagon Leaks
Somebody in the White House or the Pentagon apparently got weary with Team Biden’s Ukraine adventurism and instructed the US mainstream press to publish the “Pentagon leaks,” argued former CIA analyst Ray McGovern commenting on Sy Hersh’s recent op-ed about a breakdown between Biden and the US intelligence community.
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“Well, [Zelensky’s] a sleaze,” McGovern told Sputnik. “The very telling part of what Sy writes here is that [CIA Director] Bill Burns (…) was sent to see Zelensky tête-à-tête, one on one. And he says: ‘Look, you’re taking too much of a cut and the other guys are getting mad, including the generals, you’ve got to pare down your own cut.’ And someone who knows told Sy Hersh that. Another thing Sy talks about is the advisers, Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken and the others – you know, I call them sophomores – and Sy has promoted them to juniors, calls them juniors now. But he says, you know, they had no experience, no judgment, no moral integrity. They just tell lies, make up stories, diplomatic deniability or something else. But then they just lie through their teeth. Well, you know, there’s a breakdown in trust between these guys who have been able to do what they want until now and the intelligence people who see something really bad is coming. And that ‘really bad thing’ is the Russian offensive that is likely to start late May, early June, as soon as the mud is okay to traverse. And what’s going to happen then is going to force decisions on the administration, most unwelcome decisions.”
“This notion that they got another year in these documents that were released – not Sy’s, but others – they talk about DIA assessing – it’s a great word, isn’t it, ‘assessing’ – and they assess that this will drag on into 2024 for sure,” McGovern continued. “This is coming to a head, as soon as the Russians can move on the dirt roads, as well as the highways, they’re going to go all the way to the upper river. And then it’s going to be decision time. And if the American people are completely unprepared for this – and those documents show that our key leaders have been lying through their teeth about all this – that is going to be really hard for Biden to decide, his juniors to decide what to do. This is very very dangerous because they have a lot of capital sunk in this business about doing it for as long as necessary. So it’s coming to a head. This is nothing funny at all about this. And the total breakdown, as Sy puts it, between the White House leadership and the intelligence community is really key.”
“I may have said this before, but I’ll emphasize it. The New York Times ran with these leaked documents. So did The Washington Post. They could have simply submerged them. They could have ignored them, but they didn’t. Now, the New York Times never does anything without checking with the White House these days. That’s a fact. Okay, so somebody in the White House or the Pentagon said: ‘Yeah, you lay it all out, let people see. Yeah, let people see that Milley, Sullivan, Blinken, Biden, all these guys, have been lying through their teeth. Let them see that now and maybe more sensible decisions will be made because they’re going to have to be made in the next couple of months’,” McGovern concluded.
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Intriguingly, the original six Docu for the CJCS/JCS leaked, linked to below, on Telegram channel Zoka200, are yet still live … Donbass Devushka (DDGeopolitics) copies on the other hand, are gone … so there was no truly serious effort to erase the leaked Docu on Telegram. Hm …
Ukraine Open Thread 2023-83 – April 06, 2023
Posted by: Outraged | Apr 15 2023 17:59 utc | 135
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