Eric Schmitt

 

Schmitt, Eric. "Airman Is Charged as Spy for Syria at Guantanamo Camp." New York Times, 24 Sep. 2003. [http://www.nytimes.com]

Following the arrest of Senior Airman Ahmad I. Halabi on espionage charges, it remains unclear whether his arrest is related to that of Army Chaplain Capt. James Yee, also known as Youssef Yee, taken into custody on 10 September 2003.

[SpyCases/U.S./Guantanamo]

Schmitt, Eric. "Bush Selects General to Run Spy Agency." New York Times, 27 Sep., 2005.

On 26 September 2005, President Bush nominated Army Maj. Gen. Michael D. Maples "to be director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the first time in decades that someone who is not a career intelligence officer has been picked to lead the agency." General Maples would succeed Navy Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, "who is stepping down in November after heading the agency for more than three years."

[MI/DIA]

Schmitt, Eric. "C.I.A. Holds Talks on '62 Cuban Crisis." New York Times, 20 Oct. 1992, A4 (N).

[GenPostwar/60s/MissileCrisis]

Schmitt, Eric. "Clash Foreseen Between C.I.A. and Pentagon." New York Times, 10 May 2006. [http://www.nytimes.com]

"President Bush's selection of Gen. Michael V. Hayden to be the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency sets the stage for new wrangling with the Pentagon, which is rapidly expanding its own global spying and terrorist-tracking operations, both long considered C.I.A. roles.... [I]n interviews,... officials from intelligence agencies, the Defense Department and Congress provided new details of what they described as a strong effort by the Pentagon to assert a much broader role in the clandestine world of intelligence.... This activity has stirred criticism from some lawmakers who express concern that the Pentagon is creating a parallel intelligence-gathering network independent from the C.I.A. or other American authorities, and one that encroaches on the C.I.A.'s realm....

"A central figure in how this debate plays out is [Stephen A.] Cambone,... who as undersecretary of defense for intelligence oversees 130 full-time employees and more than 100 contractors. His office's responsibilities include domestic counterintelligence, long-range threat planning and budgeting for new technologies. Mr. Cambone emphasized that his office did not collect or analyze intelligence itself; it oversees those who do, assessing the quality of what organizations like the N.S.A. and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency collect and analyze."

[CIA/00s/06; MI/00s/06]

Schmitt, Eric. "Congressional Pact Alters Energy Department to Protect Nuclear Secrets." New York Times, 6 Aug. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]

"House and Senate negotiators reached agreement on [5 August 1999] on a significant revamping of the Department of Energy, establishing a new agency within the department to oversee nuclear weapons programs in response to accusations of Chinese espionage."

[GenPostCW/90s/China/Aug99]

Schmitt, Eric. "Human Error: Aim, Not Arms, at the Root of Mistaken Strike on Embassy." New York Times, 10 May 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]

Bombs from a B-2 bomber struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade on 7 May 1999 "because C.I.A. analysts misidentified the building, and military databases used to catch such mistakes had the wrong address for the embassy."

[GenPostCW/90s/ChiEmb]

Schmitt, Eric. "In a Fatal Error, C.I.A. Picked a Bombing Target Only Once: The Chinese Embassy." New York Times, 23 Jul. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]

Speaking at a public hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on 22 July 1999, DCI George Tenet "disclosed ... that the agency had selected just one target in the 11-week air war over Yugoslavia, and its decision led to the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in May....

"The CIA team [that selected the target] used a flawed technique for locating the [Yugoslav] arms agency headquarters, Tenet said ... [T]o pinpoint that location, the analysts used a technique of comparing the number sequence on parallel streets. Tenet said this practice offered only 'an approximate location' and was 'inappropriate' for selecting aerial targets."

[GenPostCW/90s/ChiEmb]

Schmitt, Eric. "In Shift, Secretary Supports Bill that Overhauls Energy Dept." New York Times, 28 Sep. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]

"Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says he will recommend that President Clinton sign a $289 billion Pentagon budget bill that overhauls the Energy Department, creating an agency within the department to oversee nuclear weapons programs."

[GenPostCW/90s/China]

Schmitt, Eric. "Lab's Laxity in Spy Case Outrages Lawmakers." New York Times, 29 Apr. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]

"Senior lawmakers expressed outrage and frustration on [28 April 1999] over the government's failure to monitor a scientist suspected of spying for China, who officials now say may have given away secrets to virtually every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal."

[CIA/90s/99/ChinaFallout]

Schmitt. Eric. "Mapping Unit Failures Laid to Reorganization." New York Times, 12 May 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]

"Formation of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency from parts of the Pentagon and the CIA three years ago ignited an uproar among intelligence officials.... [M]any senior CIA photographic analysts perceived their new assignments to the mapping agency as drudge work, and they either retired or sought transfers to other government jobs....

"The agency is a hybrid of eight defense and intelligence agencies, principally the Pentagon's Defense Mapping Agency and the CIA's National Photographic Intelligence Center.... [C]ombining the two organizations has been a bumpy process.... The cadre of scientific and technical experts who analyzed the satellite data dwindled through resignations and retirements, intelligence experts said, and was gradually supplanted by a younger work force steeped more in political science than scientific testing.

"As a result, the intelligence analysts responsible for interpreting spy satellite photographs are less skilled and less experienced than their predecessors of 10 years ago.... NIMA officials insist the criticism is unfair and say that as trouble spots erupt around the world, their analysts are being asked to analyze more and faster, while Congress in recent years has kept cutting the agency's budget."

[GenPostCW/90s/ChiEmb]

Schmitt, Eric. "Pentagon Admits Its Maps of Belgrade Are Out of Date." New York Times, 11 May 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]

According to government officials on 10 May 1999, "[i]n confusing the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade for a Yugoslav arms agency, the CIA relied on old maps and educated guesses rather than on first-hand information....

"[T]he Pentagon agency that drew up the map of Belgrade, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, is the same one that prepared the maps for the Marine Corps jet that struck a ski-lift cable last year near Aviano, Italy. Defense lawyers contended that the crew was not to blame because the cable did not appear on the Pentagon map....

"[I]ntelligence experts said [that] a decision made in 1996 may have contributed to the problem of reading [airborne reconnaissance] photographs: The CIA photographic intelligence center, which analyzes reconnaissance photographs, was folded into the Pentagon's mapping agency, prompting many of the government's most experienced photographic analysts to leave."

[GenPostCW/90s/Kosovo]

Schmitt, Eric. "Pentagon Sends Own Spy Units into Battlefield: Role May Encroach on Territory of CIA." New York Times, 24 Jan. 2005, A1.

Senior Defense Department officials said on 23 January 2005 that the Defense Department "has created battlefield intelligence units that ... work directly with Special Operations forces on secret counterterrorism missions." The officials said that the "clandestine teams, drawn from specialists within the Defense Intelligence Agency, provide ... Special Operations units with battlefield intelligence using advanced technology, recruit spies in foreign countries, and scout potential targets."

[MI/00s/05; MI/Humint/00s]

Schmitt, Eric. "Spying Furor Brings Vote in Senate for New Unit." New York Times, 22 Jul. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]

[GenPostCW/90s/China/Jul99]

Schmitt, Eric. "U.S. Drones Crowding the Skies to Fight Insurgents in Iraq." New York Times, 5 Apr. 2005. [http://www.nytimes.com]

Military officials say that "the number of remotely piloted aircraft -- increasingly crucial tools in tracking insurgents, foiling roadside bombings, protecting convoys and launching missile attacks -- has shot up" in the skies over Iraq "to more than 700 now from just a handful four years ago."

[MI/Ops/Iraq; Recon/UAVs]

Schmitt, Eric. "$1.8 Billion Asked to Help Bolster Embassy Security." New York Times, 22 Sep. 1998. [http://nytimes.com]

"The Clinton administration will ask Congress this week for $1.8 billion for emergency security improvements at most of the nation's 260 embassies and consulates worldwide.... That money, about twice the amount Congress has appropriated for diplomatic security since 1985, reflects the administration's conclusion that no country can be considered safe for U.S. diplomats following the fatal bombings in East Africa last month. But the request is far below the full amount the State Department has said is needed to modify or build embassies meeting the security standards established in the 1980s. In 1985, the department put the cost of converting or replacing all embassies at $3.5 billion."

[Terrorism/98]

Schmitt, Eric, and David E. Sanger. "Analyst Questioned Target Before Chinese Embassy Bombing." New York Times, 24 Jun. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]

A "senior Government official" has stated that a report from the CIA Inspector General's office "had concluded that the ... cautions" raised by a mid-level analysts "indeed went unheeded -- in large measure because he departed for two days of training and returned to discover, to his horror, that the bombers were already on their way."

[GenPostCW/90s/Chi/Emb]

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