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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOh, look, here's a former CIA op indicted for lying about Iran/Contra making claims about Bergdahl
Last edited Thu Jun 5, 2014, 07:59 PM - Edit history (2)
. . . and selling them on FOX:
____ These 'real-time dispatches' were generated by the Eclipse Group, a shadowy private firm of former intelligence officers and operatives that has subcontracted with the Defense Department and prominent corporations to deliver granular intelligence on terrorist activities and other security-related topics . . .
The group is run by Duane R. ("Dewey" Clarridge, a former senior operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1980s best known for having been indicted for lying to Congress about his role in the tangled set of events that became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. He was pardoned by the first President Bush in December 1992 while on trial. A New York Times profile of Clarridge published in January 2011 disclosed the contractual relationship Eclipse had with the Pentagon, through subcontractors, and reported further that Clarridge's activities had included efforts to help find Bergdahl.
Clarridge told Fox News his group enjoyed a subcontract from U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, from November 2009 through May 31, 2010, and that after the contract was terminated, he invested some $50,000 of his own money to maintain the network of informants that had yielded such detailed accounts of Bergdahl's status.
Clarridge further told Fox News that by the end of 2010, he had furnished at least 13 of these detailed SITREPs, or situation reports, that his network generated about Bergdahl to Brigadier General Robert P. Ashley Jr., who in April 2010 was named director of intelligence, at the J-2 level, at CENTCOM. Clarridge said Eclipse SITREP # 3023, dated Aug. 23, 2012 -- in which a member of the Haqqani network, said to be close to Bergdahl's captors, reported that the American prisoner had declared himself a "mujahid" -- was among the reports provided to Ashley . . .
Reached by telephone, retired U.S. Marine Corps General James N. Mattis, a 45-year service veteran who served as CENTCOM commander from August 2010 to August 2012, told Fox News he may have received bits and pieces of the intelligence generated by Eclipse, but said Ashley, with whom he maintained a close working relationship, had not forwarded on to him the specific SITREPs cited by Fox News.
Mattis was also adamant that no one at CENTCOM or within the broader U.S. military or intelligence community -- despite intensive investigation of such allegations -- ever learned of anything to suggest Bergdahl had evolved into an active collaborator with the Haqqani network or the Taliban. "We were always looking for actionable intelligence," Mattis said. "It wasn't just the IC [intelligence community]. We had tactical units that were involved in the fight. We had SIGINT. Any collaborators who were on the other side and who came over to our side. We kept an eye on this. ... There was never any evidence of collaboration."
article: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/05/exclusive-bergdahl-declared-jihad-in-2010-secret-documents-show/
Simon Maloy ?@SimonMaloy 33m
Now that's how you source a bombshell exclusive (for FOX). pic.twitter.com/lA5YhYGalb
Spencer Ackerman ?@attackerman 32m
Yep MT @twpolk: @attackerman @20committee I think we should be very careful in believing any ONE eyewitness/source ever
Spencer Ackerman ?@attackerman 31m
Gotta be skeptical RT @RBStalin: Secret documents prepared based on a purported eyewitness account indicate I am freaking awesome.
Matthew Gertz ?@MattGertz 52m
Slow clap for the ridiculous number of "none of this can be trusted" caveats in this piece http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/05/exclusive-bergdahl-declared-jihad-in-2010-secret-documents-show/
Dante Apollo Atkins ?@DanteAtkins 21m
Leave no man behind, unless a private intel firm headed by Iran-contra perp says that man may have said some stuff in Arabic at some point.
James Downie ?@jamescdownie 34m
"Bowe Bergdahl is a stinky stupidface, according to documents prepared by a firm with ties to his 1st grade nemesis." -- Fox News, tomorrow.
randys1
(16,286 posts)I guess I should stop threatening to slap people who need to be slapped and shamed on live television
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)bigtree
(85,975 posts). . . culling recruits from the Rush brigades raised and bred on hate radio streamed into their barracks on AFR.
ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)riverwalker
(8,694 posts)You will drown in your own sewage.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/05/1304556/-The-GOP-is-Heading-for-a-World-iof-Hurt-on-Bergdahl-here-s-why
starroute
(12,977 posts)Last edited Thu Jun 5, 2014, 07:56 PM - Edit history (1)
I started collecting bits and pieces on him when his name came up as having possibly been involved with the Niger forgeries. In addition to that and Iran-Contra, Clarridge was also involved with Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress -- and his Eclipse Group may have played a role in the Benghazi attack. The Benghazi allegations might be a stretch, but the bit I've put in boldface, about Clarridge's reports being used to "leak" information to Fox News that could be embarrassing to the Obama administration, seems extremely relevant now.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2001/11/08/the-counter-terror-network/
Duane Dewey Clarridge, a man with an extensive background in terror, was well equipped for managing this job. A rabid right wing ideologue, he was chief of the CIAs station in Turkey in the late 1960s and 1970s, when the fascist Grey Wolves went on a terror rampage, bombing, shooting and killing thousands of officials, journalists, students, lawyers, labor organizers, social democrats, left-wing activists and Kurds. Since then, Turkey military dictatorship has been one of Americas strongest allies.
A body-builder and certified member of the Old Boy clique that runs the CIA, Clarridge in August 1976 helped ADDO Ted Shackley recruit Albert Hakim, later a member of Secords Enterprise, to spy in Iran. (Shackley was soon thereafter forced into retirement due to his association with rogue elephant Ed Wilson, the CIA officer who sold tons of explosives to Libya.) Clarridge was serving as the CIAs station chief in Rome when the Pope was shot, and was chief of Latin America Division from 1981 until 1984, when Nicaraguan harbors were mined and the psyops murder manual was distributed to the Contras, with his approval. In this capacity Clarridge helped Richard Secord move PLO weapons captured by Israeli forces during their bloody invasion of Lebanon, through Noriega in Panama, to the Contras.
Clarridge, as chief of the Europe Division, next played a pivotal role in the illegal Iran-Contra operation, by providing the back channel, through his station chief in Lisbon, that allowed North and Secords Enterprise to sell HAWK and TOW missiles to the Iranians, at a huge profit for Secord and his Israeli counterparts, in exchange for the release of several American hostages. The operation, which subverted the U.S. Constitution and the Bolland Amendments passed by Congress, made Ronald Reagan into the worlds biggest, but most adorable, liar.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq-downing.htm
In November of 1993, Ahmad Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, presented the Clinton Administration with a detailed, four-phase war plan entitled "The End Game," along with a request for the money to finance the plan. In March, 1995, Chalabi's insurrection was launched, and failed dramatically. In late 1998 President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act, which allocated $97 million for training and military equipment for the Iraqi opposition. . . .
Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, and the quick success of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, the INC plan was modified. The new plan was developed with the help of a retired four-star Army general, Wayne Downing [who ran a Special Forces command during the Gulf War], and former CIA officer Duane (Dewey) Clarridge, who have served as unpaid consultants to the INC. Clarridge ran the U.S.-backed contras who fought the leftist Sandanista regime in Nicaragua during the Reagan administration. Downing was appointed by President Bush in October 2001 to be the deputy national-security adviser for combatting terrorism. General Downing resigned in July 2002, reportedly frustrated by the administration's lack of action against Iraq. . . .
In December 2001 Chalabi's revised plan, modified by a Pentagon planning group authorized by Paul Wolfowitz, was presented to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for evaluation. Anthony Zinni, the retired general who had served as head of Central Command responsible for US forces in the Middle East, had dismissed the plan as the "Bay of Goats."
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/11/04/the-mystery-behind-the-benghazi-attack/
The Mystery Behind the Benghazi Attack
Were the Obama administration and Ambassador Stevens set up?
A reporter found the evidence of our folly in the ruins of the American consulate in Benghazi, scattered on the floor where it had been overlooked by looters. Amid the rubble and ashes were documents left there since the attack clearly State Department correspondence including two unsigned draft letters both dated Sept. 11: the missives express strong fears about the security situation and dissatisfaction with the response from higher ups. . . .
The security arrangements for the Benghazi consulate, and indeed for all our operations in Libya, are under scrutiny, and one detail is being seized on: the hiring of a small and little-known outfit, Blue Mountain Security, based in the UK, to guard the Benghazi consulate. . . .
Unarmed security guards who ever heard of that? How the heck did Blue Mountain get this contract? Thats the really interesting part
.
The Libyan government had previously been hostile to the idea of allowing foreign security companies to operate within their borders, but modified the rules by granting access to those who could find a local (presumably Libyan) partner. Blue Mountain, described by UPI as leading the way for foreign mercenaries in Libya, found such a partner: the Eclipse Group, according to several news accounts. However, Eclipse isnt local, not by any stretch of the imagination: the Eclipse Group is Duane Clarridges private CIA, which up until recently had a $6 million DoD contract withdrawn after Eclipse embarked on a campaign to prove Afghan President Hamid Karzais drug addiction. After the cut-off of Pentagon funds, Clarridge one of the Iran-Contra defendants, indicted and later pardoned found undisclosed private donors to run his gang of international cowboys. His reports, regularly issued to Pentagon insiders and journalists, have been used to target militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan: they have also been utilized by Fox News and others to leak information embarrassing to the Obama administration.
. . . good stuff
Cha
(296,848 posts)those who want to seek their revenge because they have such shitty lives.
bigtree
(85,975 posts). . . with several other Iran/Contra related folks speaking out against Bergdahl.
Or, it may be that there's nothing more to the right-wing rabble than discredited operatives from the Reagan-Bush years.