DADT Is Dead

Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) is dead. The asinine policy ended just after midnight this morning.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

There are some folks who are still opposed to this and think that this will somehow alter the readiness of the military or that it will undermine unit cohesion or otherwise lessen the capabilities of the military, but I think it will have the opposite effect.

And the military will be operating as it did 24 hours ago, and it issued a notice to that effect, except that some people who might have not considered a military career will now get that option without fear or consequences of their sexual orientation.

That's a good thing.

Gen. McChrystal In Hot Water Over Rolling Stone Interview: UPDATE: Offered Resignation

These are the kinds of comments that should lead to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's dismissal as head of operations in Afghanistan. McChrystal and his subordinates gave interviews to Rolling Stone magazine in which he made disparaging comments about the Obama Administration and other top officials.

In the magazine profile, unidentified McChrystal aides are quoted mocking Vice President Joe Biden and Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The first victim in the growing controversy was the Pentagon's PR official who set up the interview with McChrystal. NBC reported that Duncan Boothby, a civilian member of the general's public relations team, was "asked to resign."

According to administration officials, McChrystal was ordered to attend the monthly White House meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in person Wednesday rather than over a secure video teleconference. He'll be expected to explain his comments to Obama and top Pentagon officials, these officials said.

President Obama was described as "furious" about the remarks while the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, told McChrystal of his "deep disappointment" in a conversation late Monday, a spokesman said.

Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he had confidence in McChrystal's ability as a general. However, he said the issue was whether the article would impact his ability to have a relationship with Obama and the rest of the national security staff.

Kerry, speaking on MSNBC's "Daily Rundown," described the remarks in the article as a "mistake" and "poor judgement" by the general and some of his staff. He declined to say whether McChrystal should step down.

These are the comments that should not be stated until one leaves office since the General is subordinate to the President and any disagreements he may have on policy should have been made through the proper channels.

McChrystal's administrative style has allowed his aides to openly challenge the official US policy in Iraq and questioned the very policy makers who are in charge.

That is insubordination and the White House has to take Gen. McChrystal to task for those comments and allowing the situation to present itself.

Still, for those who have followed McChrystal's background, it isn't surprising. Michael Yon, an independent journalist who has covered the Afghan and Iraq campaigns and has embedded with multiple units in both theaters of operation since 2001 found McChrystal to be wanting:

Yon believes the war can still be won, but that a change of command is in order. At this level of warfare, he says, "McChrystal is like a man who has strapped on ice skates for the first time. He might be a great athlete, but he's learning to skate during the Olympics." Yon adds that publicly denouncing the commanding general of a war is not an easy thing for him to do, especially considering it means crossing swords with General Petraeus and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, two men he greatly admires. Indeed, if anyone can turn this war around, Yon believes it is General Petraeus. He concedes such a return to the battlefield is unlikely, and suggests another general whose name fewer people have heard. "General James Mattis from the Marines. I get a good feeling about Mattis but I don't know. General Petraeus is a known entity and he is solid gold."

Not only is McChrystal is out of his element, but his management style has opened up a can of worms at a critical juncture in the Afghan war against the Taliban.

This is an unforced mess that President Obama must deal with forthwith, and it could mean a delay in his plans to reduce the size of forces in Afghanistan after 2011.

Much more fundamentally, the need for solid leadership at the highest levels of the Afghan theater of operations to keep the hammer down on the Taliban and to continue making progress against Taliban inroads requires a solid determination without distraction.

McChrystal and his staff has created a major distraction. That is intolerable.

UPDATE:
McChrystal apparently saw an advance of the story that ran in Rolling Stone and didn't object to the piece. That puts his official stamp on the piece, and adds to his complicity in the remarks.

Eric Bates, the magazine’s editor, said during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that McChrystal was informed of the quotes prior to its publication as part of Rolling Stone's standard fact-checking process — and that the general did not object to or dispute any of the reporting.

Asked if McChrystal pushed back on the story, Bates responded: “No, absolutely not.”

“We ran everything by them in the fact-checking process as we always do,” the Rolling Stone editor said. “They had a sense of what was coming and it was all on the record and they spent a lot of time with our reporter, so I think they knew that they had said it.”

McChrystal describes his first meeting with the president as disappointing in the article, telling Rolling Stone that Obama came in unprepared.

The text of the interview can be read here.

UPDATE:
According to Time, McChrystal apparently offered President Obama his resignation. Did the President accept it? Moreover, the situation in Afghanistan is affected in large part by the rules of engagement that the Administration and Pentagon have foisted on the guys on the front lines - in a bid to reduce the number of civilian casualties, but at the same time makes it much more difficult to root out terrorists and the Taliban from the midst of the Afghan population.

Michael Furlong's War

The New York Times is reporting that investigations are moving forward on whether a Defense Department official, Michael Furlong, operated his own rogue paramilitary/intel unit in Afghanistan and Pakistan to track down and kill al Qaeda and Taliban units without proper authorizations from higher in the chain of command.

The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. The contractors, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the officials said.

While it has been widely reported that the C.I.A. and the military are attacking operatives of Al Qaeda and others through unmanned, remote-controlled drone strikes, some American officials say they became troubled that Mr. Furlong seemed to be running an off-the-books spy operation. The officials say they are not sure who condoned and supervised his work.

It is generally considered illegal for the military to hire contractors to act as covert spies. Officials said Mr. Furlong’s secret network might have been improperly financed by diverting money from a program designed to merely gather information about the region.

Moreover, in Pakistan, where Qaeda and Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, the secret use of private contractors may be seen as an attempt to get around the Pakistani government’s prohibition of American military personnel’s operating in the country.

Officials say Mr. Furlong’s operation seems to have been shut down, and he is now is the subject of a criminal investigation by the Defense Department for a number of possible offenses, including contract fraud.

It isn't clear when Furlong began these operations, but they accelerated in pace during the summer of 2009, which caught the attention of investigators. The AP reports that the Penatagon put Furlong in charge of a program to use private companies to gather information about Afghanistan's political and tribal culture.

Part of the original $22 million contract that Furlong was directing remains intact, the official told the AP, because it provides the funding for nine workers involved in information-gathering, translation and similar work. Those workers are employed by International Media Ventures with offices in Florida, Texas and elsewhere.

Nine employees from International Media Ventures were hired by the U.S. military to serve as information analysts and in other administrative jobs at the International Security Assistance Force headquarters operations center in Kabul, said Maj. Steven Cole, a spokesman for the international military coalition in Afghanistan.

No one is clear whether he was authorized to run this operation, and it isn't clear whether the information he gathered was actually used by the military or CIA to engage terrorists although sources do claim that the intel was acted upon. Intel gathered by these private contractors appears to have found its way into Defense Department and CIA hands. A contractor working for Furlong claims that millions of dollars that were supposed to go to the Web site run by Eason Jordan was redirected by Mr. Furlong toward intelligence gathering for the purpose of attacking militants, in violation of his contractual obligations and orders.

In some respects, this reads like Charlie Wilson's war.

If Furlong operated outside the chain of command and exceeded his authority, then these investigations should find him in violation of the applicable law. The problem becomes whether he was authorized to do so (and who issued the authorizations) and whether the program was successful or not - and those in the Times article seems to lean towards it being not successful. If it was successful, then outing the program could lead to problems down the road and ends a potentially successful intel operation.

The Defense Department can't account for about $15 million provided Furlong for his operations.

Investigations Continue Into Fort Hood Massacre

A new report indicates that some of Major Malik Hasan's superiors were concerned about Hasan's performance.

A group of doctors overseeing Nidal Malik Hasan's medical training discussed concerns about his overly zealous religious views and strange behavior months before the Army major was accused of opening fire on soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood, Texas.

Doctors and staff overseeing Hasan's training viewed him at times as belligerent, defensive and argumentative in his frequent discussions of his Muslim faith, a military official familiar with several group discussions about Hasan said. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the meetings and spoke on condition of anonymity.

As a psychiatrist in training, Hasan was characterized in meetings as a mediocre student and lazy worker, a matter of concern among the doctors and staff at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences military medical school, the official said.

The concerns about Hasan's performance and religious views were shared with other military officials considering his assignment after he finished his medical training, and the consensus was to send him to Fort Hood, the official said. Fort Hood was considered the best assignment for Hasan because other doctors could handle the workload if he continued to perform poorly and his superiors could document any continued behavior problems, the official said.

The group saw no evidence that Hasan, 39, was violent or a threat. It was more that he repeatedly referred to his strong religious views in discussions with classmates, his superiors and even in his research work, the official said. His behavior, while at times perceived as intense and combative, was not unlike the zeal of others with strong religious views, and some doctors and staff were concerned that their unfamiliarity with the Muslim faith would lead them to unfairly single out Hasan's behavior, the official said.

Fort Hood was the choice to shuffle him off that wouldn't affect unit cohesion and preparedness because others would be able to cover for his deficiencies.

Yet, the Army still promoted him from Captain to Major in May. The Pentagon says that it has found no evidence that Hasan ever indicated that he sought separation from the Army. While he may have complained privately to colleagues that he was harassed, no official indication was proffered to his superiors.

Profilers say that Hasan was a loner and that he fits the profile of a mass murderer than a terrorist. That's playing with semantics; Hasan's ideology appears to have played a significant role in his attack on soldiers at Fort Hood. Hasan engaged in mass murder, but he also sought to fulfill what he believed was a religious obligation (the shout of Allahu Akbar immediately prior to opening fire, his statements on Muslim obligations to oppose the US efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, correspondence with the extremist imam Awlaki, etc., all inform as to motive).

At the same time, the NYT is trying to downplay the communications between Hasan and Awlaki, reporting that "[t]he dozen or so messages to the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, were largely questions about Islam, not expressions of militancy or hints of a plot, government officials familiar with the messages said." The eyebrows should have been raised because of the very communications themselves. There are thousands of imams and spiritual leaders with which to communicate in the US, and yet Hasan chose to seek guidance from an extremist with known ties to three of the 9/11 hijackers?
That's the question that investigators, the White House and members of Congress need to ask. The system put in place after 9/11 provided the groundwork for intercepting those communications, and yet the decisionmaking process to elevate those troubling communications to those in the Army chain of command to seek out Hasan and determine whether he should remain in the Army never occurred.

But a striking fact is that the system set up after Sept. 11, 2001, to make sure clues of a coming attack were not missed actually worked as intended — and still failed to stop the deadly episode. The question for investigators is whether the very fact that Major Hasan sent the e-mail messages to an imam with mysterious connections to the Sept. 11 hijackers and a Web site encouraging extremist violence should have set off greater alarms.

“The fact that they got these e-mails and acted on them shows that at least to a point, the system worked,” said Matthew M. Aid, an intelligence historian and author of “The Secret Sentry,” a new history of the National Security Agency. “Quite possibly someone dropped the ball down the line.”

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, said any contact with Mr. Awlaki should have raised red flags. “There’s no doubt that Awlaki is a vessel for the message of Al Qaeda whose goal is radicalizing others,” he said. “Any contact should generate serious concern.”

Mr. Hoffman, too, said the intelligence network, in catching the messages and passing them on, worked far better than would have been likely before the 2001 attacks. “But 13 people are dead,” he added. “What are we going to do differently next time?”

What are we going to do differently? It would appear prudent that when someone is sending email communications to a known extremist, that law enforcement take the time to ascertain whether a threat is present, as well as provide those in the military (should the person be in the Armed Forces) with the information they need to make an informed decision. It is on the latter part that the system failed.

UPDATE:
Hasan will be charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in connection with the Fort Hood shootings. Meanwhile, investigators are apparently examining Hasan's financial records and they want to know whether Hasan wired money to Pakistan.

Authorities have been examining whether Fort Hood massacre suspect Nidal Malik Hasan wired money to Pakistan in recent months, an action that one senior lawmaker said would raise serious questions about Hasan’s possible connections to militant Islamic groups.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., said sources “outside of the [intelligence] community” learned about Hasan’s possible connections to the Asian country, which faces a massive Islamist insurgency and is widely believed to be Osama bin Laden’s hiding place.

One avenue of investigation is what Hasan was doing with his money. He was making $90k a year, and if he was living in quarters for $300 a month, that's quite a sizable amount he was accumulating unless the money was going somewhere else.

That somewhere else might be Pakistan.

This needs further confirmation, and investigation, but it once again raises red flags.

Obama Rules Out Large Reduction in Afghan Force

Read the headline carefully. President Obama has ruled out a large reduction in US forces in Afghanistan. It doesn't say that President Obama has ruled out any reduction of forces. It also doesn't say that President Obama will increase forces as requested by those on the front lines, including Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Meeting with leaders from both parties at the White House, Mr. Obama seemed to be searching for some sort of middle ground, saying he wanted to “dispense with the straw man argument that this is about either doubling down or leaving Afghanistan,” as White House officials later described his remarks.

But as the war approached its eight-year anniversary on Wednesday, the session underscored the perilous crosscurrents awaiting Mr. Obama. While some Democrats said they would support whatever he decided, others challenged him about sending more troops. And Republicans pressed him to order the escalation without delay, leading to a pointed exchange between the president and Senator John McCain of Arizona, his Republican opponent from last year’s election.

Mr. McCain told the president that “time is not on our side.” He added, “This should not be a leisurely process,” according to several people in the room.

A few minutes later, Mr. Obama replied, “John, I can assure you this won’t be leisurely,” according to several attendees. “No one feels more urgency to get this right than I do.”

Still, compared with the harsh debate over health care, the tone was civil and restrained during the 75-minute meeting in the State Dining Room as Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and about 30 members of Congress gathered around a large table with only glasses of water and notebooks in front of them.

Mr. Obama summoned the lawmakers to assure them that he would keep their concerns in mind as he considered the request of his commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, for as many as 40,000 more troops. The president plans to meet with his national security team on Wednesday to talk about Pakistan and on Friday to talk about Afghanistan. Aides plan to schedule one more meeting before he decides on General McChrystal’s proposal.

President Obama is in a tough position, and continued support for the Afghanistan operations is coming from Republicans, as Democrats' support is clearly wavering.

A significant number of Democrats want to see the American commitment in Iraq curtailed; they want to bring the troops home. In fact, 98 have signed on to a House bill calling for an exit strategy for Afghanistan.

Walz, for instance, has signed onto a bill by Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.), the most vocal critic among House Democrats of the Afghan war, calling on Obama to develop an “exit strategy” for getting U.S. forces out of the troubled country. The McGovern bill has 98 co-sponsors, including more than two dozen freshman and sophomore Democrats.

McGovern also released a bipartisan letter to Obama last week, urging the president to “reject any recommendation for a further escalation of U.S. military forces” in Afghanistan.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who like Walz was opposed to the Iraq war, said he signed onto the McGovern letter because boosting the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan isn’t the right solution.

Again, read this carefully; they say that the US squandered an opportunity to go after the Taliban by focusing on Iraq, and yet when the opportunity presents itself to go after the Taliban (with more troops - since that's what was diverted by Iraq according to this line of thinking), they're opting to curtail operations further.

Sen. Carl Levin makes a nonsensical argument that increased US presence in Afghanistan is counterproductive because it looks like the US is an occupying nation. Has Levin looked over to Iraq? The US troop presence is slowly declining from its peak during the surge, and Iraqis now have political and civil control over most of the country, even if they're still dealing with a tenuous security situation because of insurgents that want to kill and maim Iraqis at every opportunity.

The US presence in Afghanistan (troop authorization is 68,000) is nearly half of the number that we've seen in Iraq (which was more than 120,000), and the reason that the Taliban have been resurgent is because US, Afghan, and NATO forces have not been able to shut down the cross-border Taliban operations and the NATO forces have largely taken defensive positions, rather than striking out offensively against the Taliban to thwart their slow creep back into positions of control around the country. The US isn't seen as an occupying nation unless the US makes that its goal; and that was never the goal. It was to get the nation on its feet and set a course to being a functional state.

There is a long way to go before that happens, but cutting forces is going to severely undermine that goal. Moreover, it will give the Taliban a chance to spread, and with it bring al Qaeda back into prominence.

At the same time, you've got Democrats complaining that the war in Afghanistan didn't start until this year, a clear slam at the Bush Administration, which is playing things too cute by half given the Democrats reluctance to send troops to Afghanistan to combat the Taliban and to thwart the Taliban and al Qaeda from regaining a safe haven there.

Rangel Brings Home Bacon To CCNY

Imagine a politician managing to get $3 million in grant money for a program that the Pentagon doesn't even want. Now, imagine the uproar over such wasteful spending.

Where's the outrage when this politician happens to be none other than Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), who happened to steer the $3 million grant to the City College of New York (CCNY), where he's already directed millions of dollars to his namesake program:

Two years after creating a center in his own name at City College, Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel has come through with a $3 million defense grant for the school -- for a project the Pentagon doesn't even want, The Post has learned.

The $3 million cash infusion is going to an existing academic department, rather than to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at CCNY, a $30 million project that will immortalize Rangel's name and house his papers when he retires. Rangel had previously arranged $2 million in taxpayer funds for the center.

The latest piece of congressional pork is to fund research into new composite materials that could be used to protect Army trucks from attack. The grant is tucked into the massive Defense Appropriations Bill moving through Congress.

Word of the funding comes as the House is set to vote today on a Republican-backed resolution to strip Rangel of his Ways and Means Committee chair pending an ethics investigation, after revelations that he didn't disclose income on multiple properties, as well as failure to pay taxes and other issues.

The Pentagon doesn't want the research money, but Rangel got the funding anyway by getting the Appropriations Committee to direct the cash to CCNY.

A Long Island company hired a lobbyist to push for this spending, and Rangel obliged, even though the Pentagon wasn't interested.

How exactly is that fiscally responsible?

UPDATE:
House Republicans again attempted to get rid of Rangel as chairman of the Ways and Means committee, but fell short in their latest effort.

Despite the expected defeat Wednesday, the GOP did keep the spotlight on the New York Democrat's ethical problems, although the matter will be turned over to the House ethics committee for a long-term investigation. The House voted 246-153 to refer the resolution to remove him to that panel in a partisan vote that had no meaning except to revisit Rangel's problems.

This whole mess has been in the hands of the ethics committee for months now. They've dragged their feet on the matter, and Pelosi has demurred in taking action.

House Democrats are protecting a corrupt fellow Democrat; they'd much prefer swimming in the corruption instead of draining the swamp.

The Senate Joins President Obama In Killing the F-22 Program

President Obama wanted to see this done, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made sure that the F-22 program would be killed, eliminating follow-up purchases of this fifth generation aircraft, and 4th generation stealth fighter.



What would this aircraft bring to the table? It's an air superiority fighter, which would supersede that of the F-15, which had a similar function. The F-15 has been flown quite a bit by the US and there is cause for concern over the ability of the airframe to handle the stresses (several recent crashes involved airframe separations causing the loss of the aircraft and deaths of pilots/crew).

The F-22 would bring thrust vectoring and other advanced technologies to the forefront, and complement the F-35 JSF that is also being ordered and delivered to the US Air Force, Marines, and Navy. The F-35 would not replace the F-22.

Yet, the Senate voted 58-40 to kill the F-22 program.

Then, there's the economic angle. At a time when the US economy is hurting and the industrial base is shedding manufacturing jobs, this program is getting whacked, all to save $1.75 billion.

How many people are working on the F-22 project who will now have to find work elsewhere as the company closes down production for want of $1.75 billion, which would strengthen our national security?

The F-22 employs 1,800 in Dallas/Fort Worth alone. Tens of thousands more work on the project nationwide, and yet they're all going to be looking for work as Lockheed Martin sees that they don't need them on their payroll as the work dries up.

This is real stimulus - real jobs, real tangible goods that improve the local economy and national defense as an added bonus, and yet it's getting whacked.

Yet, President Obama says that eliminating this program will better protect our troops. How exactly is that going to be done? As noted above, the F-22 and F-35 were built for different missions and each complements the other. One cannot fully replace the other, just as surely as the F-16 does not replace the F-15 for all missions. This is a serious mistake, and believing that our nation's enemies will remain solely the Taliban or terrorist groups attacking US strategic interests from the fringes is extremely short sighted. It's complacency, pure and simple.

With all the trillions of dollars that the federal government is throwing around, they can't find $1.75 billion to continue this program?

Obama Derangement Syndrome Has No Place In US Military

Ah the nirthers have another one convinced of their lunacy. And it's going to end badly for this guy, who is a soldier in the US Armed Forces. He's going to be in for a rude awakening. I have no sympathy for him. At all.

U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, set to deploy to Afghanistan, says he shouldn’t have to go.

His reason?

Barack Obama was never eligible to be president because he wasn’t born in the United States.

Actually, Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, two years after it became a state.

Cook’s lawyer, Orly Taitz, who has also challenged the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency in other courts, filed a request last week in federal court seeking a temporary restraining order and status as a conscientious objector for his client.

In the 20-page document — filed July 8 with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia — the California-based Taitz asks the court to consider granting his client’s request based upon Cook’s belief that Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore ineligible to serve as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Cook further states he “would be acting in violation of international law by engaging in military actions outside the United States under this President’s command. ... simultaneously subjecting himself to possible prosecution as a war criminal by the faithful execution of these duties.”

President Obama is the Commander in Chief. He was duly sworn in and is our President. Period. End stop.

Disobeying an order to deploy? That's a direct violation of the UCMJ.

Budget Cuts Coming For Defense Department

The Obama Administration is wasting no time in listing programs it would love to cut in the Defense Department, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has prepared the list for the Administration. Top among those programs to be cut are the F-22 fighter and C-17 transport. Also to be cut are the airborne laser program, the Marine VH-71 presidential helicopter program, and the Future Combat Systems, which is an Army program to integrate combat systems all across the battlefield..

While the media is going to focus on the C-17 and F-22 program cuts and eliminations, I'm more concerned about the possible reduction in carrier task forces beyond the number already in active service.

Obama cutting weapons systems may make sense if they're going to dedicate more money to other needed weapons programs or to prepare for other combat scenarios.

That isn't going to be the case, as the cuts are literally all over the place and cut programs large and small.

These program cuts are going to affect military preparedness is ways large and small. They're going to make US forces more susceptible to danger from new technologies being deployed by our enemies (and they're out there and testing the US at every turn). They're going to make the US more reliant on older systems, like older transport aircraft and combat aircraft, which are nearly the end of their useful lives.

Heck, the biggest stimulus package could have been achieved through a significant weapons buildup since guess who could benefit from the defense expenditures on planes and tanks and Humvees - the unions via GM, Chrysler, GD, Boeing, and Lockheed. Instead, we get porkfest and a gutted military.

Worst of all is the idea that we're going to cut the number of active carriers still further. Time was, the US wouldn't do with less than 14 active carriers. Now we're facing the possibility of fewer than 10? There are more threats, and more demands in more places around the planet, and Obama's looking to cut carrier task forces as a cost saving measure? Indeed every President since FDR has wanted to know where the carriers are should a crisis arise, and here the Administration is looking to cut the carrier fleet even further?

How many lives will be lost as a result of that decision. All you have to do is think back to the SE Asian quake/tsunami and know that it was US Navy carrier task forces that were on scene and providing aid faster than anyone else, and lives were saved through the hard work and dedication of our sailors and Marines. That would not be possible if we scale back our carrier numbers, and it means that enemies like China, who are announcing that they've got new weapons to attack carriers from standoff distances, would have an even greater advantage.

At a time when China is announcing that they've got new capabilities to take out US aircraft carriers and surface ships, we're signaling that we're going to drop their numbers even further?

At a time when the number of threats is rising and countries like North Korea are openly flouting and ignoring UN resolutions by carrying out missile tests, we're canning airborne laser systems designed to take out those kinds of threats?

These are bad policy choices and the result of an Administration that would rather remake the US as a far weaker version of itself that is incapable of waging war overseas. After all, if you have an army but have no way of deploying it, you can't start wars (or finish them).

UPDATE:
Of course, if you've been paying attention to the Democratic party for the past decade, you'd know that they were looking to cut the military wherever possible. Now, they've got the knives out and are looking to carve up the capabilities at a time when our enemies are probing to see what we're made of.

A Debt of Gratitude

Charles Johnson reminds me that today is Medal of Honor day, honoring those recipients who received the nation's highest military decoration. Recipients often receive the honor posthumously as they have given their lives in order to save comrades from certain death or overwhelming odds.

The most recent recipients, from the Iraq and Afghan campaign are:

Ross McGinnis, Private First Class, U.S. Army, War In Iraq
Michael A. Monsoor, Master-at-Arms, U.S. Navy, War In Iraq
Michael P. Murphy, Lieutenant, U.S. Navy, War In Afghanistan
Jason L. Dunham, Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps, War In Iraq
Paul R. Smith, Sergeant First Class, U.S. Army, War In Iraq

We are in your debt and in awe of your sacrifices and courage in the face of the enemy.

The full list of recipients is here.

Preemptive Disarmament: The New Democratic Party Playbook

Get set for not only a 25% reduction in defense spending, but the Department of Peace. This is the agenda of the modern Democrat party. They have no interest in hiding their intentions.

Democrats want to see the Defense Department gutted, so that they can instead have a Department of Peace, which promotes such novel ideas as the Office of Peace Education and Training; Office of Domestic Peace Activities; Office of International Peace Activities; Office of Technology for Peace; Office of Arms Control and Disarmament; Office of Peaceful Coexistence and Nonviolent Conflict Resolution; and Office of Human Rights and Economic Rights.

This is the Denis Kucinich far left playbook, and he's hoping that more Democrats sign on. That is, beyond 70 Democrats already cosponsoring the legislation. That's nearly 1/3 of the Democratic party caucus. So, what was once the far left playbook is now the party playbook.

Supporting peace and nonviolence is all well and good, but unless terrorists, terror regimes, and enemies of the US decide to use nonviolence as a means of opposing the US, this is as destructive and corrosive an idea to US national security as any proposed in the history of the nation. It's based on hope and wishful thinking rather than hundreds of years of history and the course of human events.

The Democrats are engaging in Preemptive Disarmament.

Essentially, the Democrats are hoping to force the US to use harsh language to combat our enemies, instead of killing them on battlefields around the world. This will be destructive to US foreign policy as our allies will be unable to rely on the US to come to their aid should they be attacked and we will have less capacity to handle conflict should it be waged against us.

This is the same Democratic party that claims that they support the war in Afghanistan, and yet they're proposing cutting defense spending 25% in a time of war, primarily because of their opposition to the war in Iraq, and yet it would have an adverse effect on military preparedness not only in Iraq, but in Afghanistan and for the US defense posture for years to come. It took more than a decade to rebuild the US military following the Vietnam drawdown that Democrats pushed with such vigor. Similarly, it took a decade for the Clinton cuts to be stemmed, and yet the portion of the US spending on military items is a fraction of GNP that it once was.

Don't Take My Word

Read what the Democrats have planned for what they assume will be an Obama victory in two weeks:

1. Massive tax increases.
2. Massive cuts in defense spending. Defense spending cuts on the order of 25%? Are you kidding me? Thanks Barney Frank. You're not only responsible for aiding and abetting the toxic paper scandal by pushing lenders to give loans to subprime borrowers without regard to the ability to repay, you now want to gut America's national defense.
3. Democrats are considering playing Socialism: Take 401(k).

None of this is sound policy judgment, but yet that is precisely the direction Democrats want to head. The most extreme elements of the Democratic party are hoping that an Obama presidency gives them the opportunity to remake the government in their distorted image.

Let's also point out that the most ethical Congress ever (as claimed by none other than Speaker Nancy Pelosi) continues to do nothing about Tim Mahoney (or delve into what Rahm Emanuel knew and when he knew), Charlie (I'm the tax man, but wont pay my taxes) Rangel, William (Cold Cash) Jefferson, or investigate the toxic paper meltdown until after the elections precisely because so many Democrats are up to their necks in enabling that mess.

Do we really want these people in charge:

These people are not for honest leadership, for if they were, Rangel would have been tossed from his chairmanship, Jefferson would have been booted, and the Democrats would have disassociated themselves from Mahoney. Instead, we've got Pelosi enabling these corrupt politicians by dragging her feet and doing nothing to stop the cesspool of corruption among her own caucus.

What Is Iran Up To?

We know that Iran is busy working towards nuclear enrichment. We know that with sufficient time, they can produce weapons grade uranium for use in nuclear weapons.

We know that the Iranians are busy working with long range missiles and looking to extend the range of those missiles.

What we don't know, and what we can't quite explain is what Kenneth Timmerman is reporting.

One group of tests that troubled Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, were successful efforts to launch a Scud missile from a platform in the Caspian Sea.

“They’ve got [test] ranges in Iran which are more than long enough to handle Scud launches and even Shahab-3 launches,” Dr. Graham said. “Why would they be launching from the surface of the Caspian Sea? They obviously have not explained that to us.”

Another troubling group of tests involved Shahab-3 launches where the Iranians "detonated the warhead near apogee, not over the target area where the thing would eventually land, but at altitude,” Graham said. “Why would they do that?”

Graham chairs the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, a blue-ribbon panel established by Congress in 2001.

The commission examined the Iranian tests “and without too much effort connected the dots,” even though the U.S. intelligence community previously had failed to do so, Graham said.

“The only plausible explanation we can find is that the Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it,” he said. “And that’s exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3 or other missile, and you wanted to explode it over the United States.”

In plain English, rather than a direct nuclear weapons attack on the US or other enemy of Iran, the Iranians are looking at the possibility of attacking the economies of its enemies with an EMP attack since it would fry key electronics and would have potentially catastrophic results to countries heavily dependent upon technology.

So, what is a country trying to defend against this kind of threat to do? Plan and position defensive capabilities. Those include missile defense systems that have the ability to take out approaching missiles in their launch and apogee phases, before they have a chance to strike.

It also means that one has to take a closer look at preemptive attacks against the Iranian nuclear and missile tech infrastructure.

Perhaps most importantly, it means beefing up intel assets capable of figuring out what Iran is up to, how close they are to successfully obtaining weapons grade uranium, assembling nuclear warheads, mating such warheads to long range missiles, and possible targets.

As it stands now, there is a sword of Damocles hanging over the world, and only a few are cognizant of that threat. Far too many think that the real threat is America's enterprise in the Middle East and our alliance with the Israelis and our efforts to bring democracy to Iraq. These people may realize far too late that the enemy was telling them all along what he was going to do.

Kicked Upstairs

It remains to be seen whether General David Petraeus' selection to head up US Central Command will be a good thing in the long run. I suspect that it will be - and that his successors will continue to push home the hard fought lessons and continue to carry on the mission.

Gen. David Petraeus has been tapped to become the next commander of U.S. Central Command.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced his decision Wednesday at a press conference in Washington.

He also announced several other shifts in military leadership affecting Iraq.

Taking Petraeus' position as the senior commander in Iraq would be Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, who had until recently been serving as Petraeus' deputy.

"I respectfully ask the Senate to move on them expeditiously, hopefully by Memorial Day," Gates said. Both positions will require Senate confirmation.

If confirmed by the Senate, Petraeus would replace Navy Adm. William Fallon, who abruptly stepped down in March after a magazine reported that he was at odds with President Bush over Iran policy. Fallon said the report had become a distraction.

Petraeus, 55, is widely hailed by the Bush administration and members of Congress for developing and implementing a new strategy in Iraq, including the deployment of some 30,000 additional troops, that dramatically improved security.

After all, his change in strategy and tactics helped stabilize Iraq and allowed the Iraqi government to begin advancing on its benchmarks, including the 2008 General Amnesty Law, which provides reconciliation between Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds who had been torn apart by decades of Saddam's ruinous reign and the subsequent sectarian violence perpetrated by al Qaeda and various Sunni groups seeking to bring about anarchy.

Contortions

The Democrats have a big problem. Success in Iraq is a problem for them politically.

Clyburn noted that Petraeus carries significant weight among the 47 members of the Blue Dog caucus in the House, a group of moderate to conservative Democrats. Without their support, he said, Democratic leaders would find it virtually impossible to pass legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal.

“I think there would be enough support in that group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us,” Clyburn said.

Clyburn is the House Whip, so it's his job to count heads for votes. He has to know that the cut and run leftists in his party do not have the numbers, and the facts on the ground are such that the rest of the party is in a bind. If they want to keep the House in 2008, they've got to show that they are committed to winning in Iraq. Cutting and running - aka defeat and retreat - are not an option, especially when the media reports and military briefings are encouraging that the surge is working and Iraq is stabilizing. The situation is by no means perfect there, but it is heading in the right direction.

This situation is a huge problem for the Democrats in Congress. It would be great for the US if the good news continues to flow from Iraq.

Therefore, with the continuing good news from Iraq, if you're a Democrat you have to engage in Escher/Mobius contortions to stay ahead of the changing tide.

The Democrats have predicated their entire Congressional efforts on cut and run. They've followed the Murtha wing of the party into a quagmire of recriminations and empty threats, which has only enraged the far left of the party because it shows their impotence. That, in turn, gets them frothing at the mouth even more and gets the likes of Sheehan to come out and demand impeachment or else she'd run against Speaker Pelosi.

Trying to defund a war that we're looking like we're able to win is a losing proposition for the Democrats, which is why they're changing strategies - instead of going after Bush on Iraq, they're trying for the low hanging fruit of other Administration officials - AG Gonzales for example - claiming that they've lied or withheld information, etc., because they simply have no where else to turn.

They can't lead on the issue of Iraq since they've been leading towards defeat and retreat and the facts do not warrant such a position. Even some Democrats in the House, including Rep. Ellison, are noting the progress.

What this also does is put people like Obama and the other anti-war candidates in a bind going into 2008. Hillary can stand by her support of the war and use it as a club against the others who have either flipped on the issue, or were against the war - showing that she knew that holding the course was the right decision (yes, I know she's flipped as well, but she can pull this off better than the other Democrats).

Still, all this does is show that the Democrats cannot lead on the issue of national security since they continue to put politics ahead of national security.

All these folks on the Left who keep frothing and demanding impeachment and investigations and those on the Right who attack the Administration's policies seemingly ignore the fact that Bush isn't running in 2008. This goes double for the Presidential candidates for 2008 - from both parties.

Most people know this - and as the 2008 elections move closer, that will hit home. Trying to run against Bush may sound great now, but he's not in the field. It is, however, a great way to separate yourself from other candidates in the field and make you sound tougher on an issue than you really are. It's real easy to run against a guy who is prohibited against running for President.

It's far more difficult in coming up with a coherent foreign policy that maintains national security and takes into account the fact that al Qaeda continues to pose a threat and that AQ considers Iraq to be a main battlefield for the fight.

Don Surber notes that Speaker Pelosi, who prior to November 2006 was calling for FISA reform, is now ignoring calls to amend the intel law to deal with the ongoing threats posed by international terrorist organizations.

The Price of GitMo Freedom

Opponents of the detention facilities of Guantanamo Bay have been trying to close the facility for years. They've demanded that the US military reduce the numbers of detainees, which has resulted in quite a few being released.

Well, it turns out that the release of quite a few of those detainees wasn't such a good idea.

AT LEAST 30 former Guantanamo Bay detainees have been killed or recaptured after taking up arms against allied forces following their release.

They have been discovered mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but not in Iraq, a US Defence Department spokesman told The Age yesterday.

Commander Jeffrey Gordon said the detainees had, while in custody, falsely claimed to be farmers, truck drivers, cooks, small-arms merchants, low-level combatants or had offered other false explanations for being in Afghanistan.

"We are aware of dozens of cases where they have returned to militant activities, participated in anti-US propaganda or engaged in other activities," said Commander Gordon.

His comments follow the death this week of Taliban commander and former detainee Abdullah Mehsud, who reportedly blew himself up rather than surrender to Pakistani forces. In December 2001, Mehsud was captured in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo Bay until his release in March 2004. He later became the Taliban chief for South Waziristan.

Commander Gordon said the US did not make it a practice to track detainees after their release, but it had become aware through intelligence gathering and media reports of many cases of released detainees returning to combat.

"These former detainees successfully lied to US officials, sometimes for over three years," he said. "Common cover stories include going to Afghanistan to buy medicines, to teach the Koran or to find a wife. Many of these stories appear so often, and are subsequently proven false, that we can only conclude that they are part of their terrorist training."

An analysis of 516 Guantanamo detainees found that while there was no evidence linking six of them to terrorist activities, 95 per cent were a potential threat to US interests. This was based on their affiliations with groups such as al-Qaeda, their enthusiasm for violent jihad, their having undertaken small-arms training or having been willing to perform a support role for terrorism.

But only one in three could be definitely identified as a fighter for the Taliban, al-Qaeda or associated groups, according to the analysis by the Combating Terrorism Centre based at the West Point Military Academy.

How many Afghans, Americans, and NATO forces were killed as a result of the detainees going back to their old ways? How many of these detainees, who claimed to be innocents picked up off the streets and were nothing more than farmers or innocent bystanders were actually hard core members of the Taliban?

Well, we haven't exactly been tracking where all the detainees have gone once they've been released, but we know the hard numbers of those who have been killed or recaptured in the fighting in Afghanistan. That is quite troubling as is the possibility that there are still more former detainees lurking in Afghanistan or elsewhere that are plotting attacks against US interests around the world.

That should be enough to give pause as to how detainees are released from GitMo - the vetting process used to determine whether they should continue to be held or not.

Andrew Bolt, The Jawa Report, and LGF all echo the sentiment.

Arms for Saudi Arabia?

Who exactly thinks that it's a good idea for the Administration to package $20 billion in arms over the next number of years for the Magic Kingdom (Saudi Arabia) especially in light of the fact that the Saudis aren't exactly cracking down on the Islamists in house unless you consider that their export of jihadis to Iraq where they're killing US soldiers or are being killed in significant numbers to be a crackdown.

The rationale being given for the arms deals? Iran:

The proposed package of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to its fighters and new naval vessels, has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous. Senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years.

But administration officials remained concerned that the size of the package and the advanced weaponry it contains, as well as broader concerns about Saudi Arabia’s role in Iraq, could prompt Saudi critics in Congress to oppose the package when Congress is formally notified about the deal this fall.

In talks about the package, the administration has not sought specific assurances from Saudi Arabia that it would be more supportive of the American effort in Iraq as a condition of receiving the arms package, the officials said.

The officials said the plan to bolster the militaries of Persian Gulf countries is part of an American strategy to contain the growing power of Iran in the region and to demonstrate that, no matter what happens in Iraq, Washington remains committed to its longtime Arab allies. Officials from the State Department and the Pentagon agreed to outline the terms of the deal after some details emerged from closed briefings this week on Capitol Hill.

The folks pushing this deal with Saudi Arabia are doing so by saying that they're easing concerns over in Israel by giving them even more weapons than they're giving Saudi Arabia.

I find this to be poor logic. Iran is a threat to Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East, but Saudi Arabia remains a threat to the US as well. 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis, and the ongoing flow of jihadis into Iraq contains a large percentage of Saudis. Their prime export, beyond oil, is jihadis.

That's got to stop, and providing them with state of the art weapons systems isn't exactly in the best interests of the US.

The weapons sales may happen over a period of a decade so as to provide a direct comparison with the sales to Israel, but last time I checked, Israel wasn't sending suicide bombers and jihadis to kill US forces in Iraq. Israel was dealing with suicide bombers, terrorists, and thugs firing rockets and mortars into Israel on a near daily basis.

The Raid That Wasn't

Is the media actually suggesting we ignore international law and invade a foreign country, even though it is an ally, to go after al Qaeda? The US has been having issues with al Qaeda/Taliban crossing the border from Pakistan in to Afghanistan, and Musharraf has been walking a fine line on the matter. He is providing some support for the counter terrorism missions, but not too much that it might cause those areas to rise up against him. We've been leaning heavily on him to do more to crack down on the Taliban and al Qaeda along the border, and have worked out a deal to allow US forces to engage in hot pursuits across the border.

Zawahiri is supposedly one of the targets in the mission that was called off.

A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials.

The target was a meeting of Qaeda leaders that intelligence officials thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group’s operations.

But the mission was called off after Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, rejected an 11th-hour appeal by Porter J. Goss, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said. Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was canceled, said a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning.

Mr. Rumsfeld decided that the operation, which had ballooned from a small number of military personnel and C.I.A. operatives to several hundred, was cumbersome and put too many American lives at risk, the current and former officials said. He was also concerned that it could cause a rift with Pakistan, an often reluctant ally that has barred the American military from operating in its tribal areas, the officials said.

This is supposed to be a hit piece against Rumsfeld and the Administration, but what exactly are the alternatives, considering that the NYT doesn't like when the US invades countries when we have declarations of war.

I completely sympathize with the members of the special forces who were ready to go into Pakistan and attempt to get Zawahiri and other al Qaeda in Pakistan, but was this mission going to have ramifications that might lead to Musharraf being ousted or cause an Islamist uprising in Pakistan? Those are issues that the Administration had to consider in making the raid.

UPDATE:
Ed Morrissey makes the good point that GOPers often accuse the Clinton Administration of bungling an attempt to get Osama when he was in Sudan and that the failure of the Bush Administration to do the same here requires the same tough questions to be asked of the Administration. I agree. I also agree that the Administration needs to provide details on the incident to determine whether the Times got the story right.

Friday Night News Dump

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is calling on a replacement of the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday he has decided to replace the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rather than see contentious renomination hearings before Congress.

Speaking to reporters, and referring to the debate over the war in Iraq, Gates said he had wanted to renominate Marine Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff but then concluded doing so would create "a confirmation process that would not be in the best interest of the country."

"I concluded that because Gen. Pace has served as chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the last six years, the focus of his confirmation process would have been on the past rather than the future," Gates said.

"There was the very real prospect the process would be quite contentious," he said. "A divisive ordeal at this point is not in the interest of the country."

Admiral could replace Pace
Gates said he had recommended that President Bush nominate Adm. Mike Mullen, chief of naval operations, to replace Pace, whose term expires in September.

Mullen has the "vision, strategic insight and integrity to lead America's armed forces," Gates said.

Gates said his choice of Mullen required him to also not seek the renomination of the vice chairman, Adm. Ed Giambiastiani, since it would create an imbalance among the armed forces, which each get a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He will instead recommend to Bush that Gen. James E. Cartwright, currently the commander of the Strategic Command, become vice chairman.

So, politics is going to trump sound military judgment and policy? Lovely.

I don't have a problem with the Administration shifting and adjusting the Joint Chiefs, but if Pace is the best man for the job, fight to keep him there instead of claiming that you want to avoid a fight over his confirmation because you want to look forward instead of what he's done until now.

The fact is that we have to look at who is best capable of providing solid military judgment on all the facts of national security, and that means reviewing their prior decision making. How else is anyone to be judged sufficiently capable of holding such an important post?

Developing: Major Al Qaeda Leader Captured By CIA

This is a developing story, but it is breaking that the CIA has captured a major al Qaeda leader. The information was released by the Pentagon.

UPDATE:
Via Breitbart:

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the captive is Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi. He was received by the Pentagon from the CIA, Whitman said, but the spokesman would not say where or when al-Iraqi was captured or by whom.

The Pentagon took custody of him at Guantanamo Bay this week, Whitman said.

Whitman said the terror suspect was believed responsible for plotting cross-border attacks from Pakistan on U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and that he led an effort to assassinate Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

"Abd al-Hadi (al-Iraqi) was trying to return to his native country, Iraq, to manage al-Qaida's affairs and possibly focus on operations outside Iraq against Western targets," Whitman said, adding that the terror suspect met with al-Qaida members in Iran. He said he did not know what time period al-Iraqi was in Iran.

Who exactly is al-Iraqi? Regime of Terror has more.

Once again, the links between Iraq and al Qaeda's worldwide operations come to the forefront as this thug was not only a member of the Iraqi military, but was involved in al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan as well.

UPDATE:
Hot Air has more details.

UPDATE:
He was captured back in 2006 and the information related to his capture wasn't released until now. It would seem that someone has decided that national security trumps the purely partisan political advantages that releasing this information might have on their domestic agenda. As for the importance of al-Iraqi, Ace notes that the US considered him an extremely high value target. From Hot Air (link above):

Executive Order 13224, executed by Bush on September 23, 2001 to block assets held by certain groups and persons in connection with 9/11. Or click and scroll just a bit and you’ll find him named, again a few lines below Osama, in a UN document posted a month before 9/11 regarding terrorists operating in Afghanistan. Newsweek published a blockbuster article about him last April that claimed he was dispatched to Iraq, where he was born, along with Saif al-Adel by Osama himself to set up AQ’s organization there after the homegrown insurgency had already broken out.

In fact, al-Iraqi rates higher on the September 23, 2001 list than Zawahiri, who many consider to be running al Qaeda these days with Osama MIA. That gives you some context as to how important and high ranking this thug was.

Also, he was captured while trying to get back into Iraq. That means he was coming from somewhere else. Where could that have been, especially considering that intel believed he had met with Iranian agents.

But here is where things get real interesting. Just what exactly was the relationship al-Iraqi had with Saddam's government after he went and joined up with al Qaeda? Read that whole post as he runs through other questions that this terrorist can shed light upon.

Here's a few more:
1) What was your relationship with the Iranians and what assistance, if any, did the Iranians provide to your group.
2) To what extent is al Qaeda operating with, or providing assistance to, the following terrorist groups: Hamas, Hizbullah, Fatah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Abu Sayaaf, Muslim Brotherhood, and their subsidiary terrorist groups?
3) Where are the terrorists able to obtain the funds in order to continue their operations and who is providing the funding?
4) Who is providing the training and outfitting for al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan? Who is providing al Qaeda with weapons and intel? How is such intel gathered and has al Qaeda penetrated the Afghan government? Do they have moles within the Iraqi government?

Those are just a few of the many questions that need to be asked and answered.

UPDATE:
Seems that the British government might want to talk things over with al-Iraqi, as they're noting that he appears to have been behind the 7/7 London Underground bombings.

Abd al-Hadi recognised the potential for turning young Muslim radicals from Britain who wanted to become mujahidin in Afghanistan or Iraq into terrorists who could carry out attacks in their home country. He realised that their knowledge of Britain, possession of British passports and natural command of English made them ideal recruits. After al-Qaeda restructured its operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas he sought out young Britons for instruction at training camps. In late 2004 Abd al-Hadi met Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, from Leeds, at a militant camp in Pakistan and, in the words of a senior investigator, “retasked them” to become suicide bombers.

They were sent back to Britain where they led the terrorist cell that carried out the 7/7 bombings, killing 52 Tube and bus passengers.

Pakistani intelligence sources said that Abd al-Hadi was also in contact with Rachid Rauf, a Birmingham man now in prison in Pakistan and alleged to be a key figure in last summer’s alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in mid-flight.

Abd al-Hadi has also been linked to a number of other foiled al-Qaeda plots to carry out attacks in Britain. But the Security Service, which has previously sent officials to question detainees at Guantanamo Bay, may not have the opportunity to question him directly.

The Government’s recently adopted position in favour of closing Guantanamo Bay is likely to act as a bar on agents travelling there. British Intelligence would have to rely on relaying questions it would like asked by American interrogators.