Steven Harrell

First, Do No Harm

Jul 17, 2007 Updates Leave a comment

Two weeks ago, five medical doctors affiliated with al-Queda cells in the United

Kingdom planned and executed a series of spectacular attacks there. Two Mercedes Benz automobiles were filled with canisters of gasoline and propane gas, and containers filled with nails. The car bombs were parked in Piccadilly Circus in London, and the bombs used an acid-filled hyper dermic needle as the triggering mechanism. These bombs failed to explode, and London Police towed the vehicles away, where there were safely disarmed.

Had the bombs detonated as planned, though, they could have killed hundreds of people on the busy Piccadilly Circus. In another attack, two terrorists drove a gas and propane filled Jeep Cherokee into the outer airport terminal in Glasgow, Scotland. The vehicle exploded, critically injuring one terrorist, and setting the door of the outer terminal complex on fire. Fire crews put the blaze out, and a major disaster was averted at the Glasgow airport.

A few hours after this attack, police arrested two more terror suspects on the highway between Glasgow and Liverpool. Altogether, over five suspects are now in custody in the United Kingdom, and this investigation is spreading into Pakistan and Australia. A common thread running through this latest terrorist story is that it involves al-Queda, and that each of the individuals charged is in fact a medical doctor.

The British National Health Service, you see, has a shortage of physicians. The British Department of State issues thousands of visas each year to foreign born and foreign trained physicians, who then come to live and work in the U.K. The background checks done on these medical professionals is not as rigorous as it ought to be, so al-Queda has taken advantage of this soft underbelly of western security to infiltrate the U.K. with terrorist doctors.

Doctors take an oath, the Hippocratic Oath, which is an ancient oath that indicates that they are devoted to the healing arts. The oath begins with the words, “first, do no harm.” If any physician defies this oath by aiding or abetting terror organizations in making deadly attacks on innocent people, he deserves to be executed.

There is another angle to this story. As you read this column, British officials are combing the National Medical Service for Muslim doctors that may have ties to al-Queda, and to militant Muslim Mosques. Here in the U.S., the Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff was asked by the AP if the U.S. had any plans to review Muslim doctors here in the U.S. for ties or affiliations with Muslim extremist groups. When questioned on this issue, Chertoff said “no”. He later went to the press with a belief that “in his gut”, that the U.S. would receive a terrorist attack here at home this summer.

It is Chertoff’s job to head off trouble in advance, if he receives sufficient warning to do so. Over 25% of physicians here in the U.S. are foreign born and trained. Just like in the U.K., our State Department makes it quite easy for a foreign doctor to come and practice here in the U.S. Many rural communities would receive little or no medical care, were it not for the foreign born physicians that are recruited to come and work there.

My recent review of a Macon, Georgia telephone directory reveals no less than twenty three doctors there have Muslim surnames. If a foreign born and foreign trained physician wants to practice here in the U.S., our State Department should require that physician to take an oath of allegiance to the United States. In addition, our FBI should employ data mining software and other techniques to track patterns of money movement between suspected terrorist physicians, and extremist Muslim groups and Mosques.

Any doctor suspected of involvement with terror groups, if not a U.S. citizen, should be required to submit to a polygraph at the request of a law enforcement official. If such a physician is involved with that type of activity, his entire family should be deported, and the doctor involved should face substantial prison time. If the doctor chooses not to do the polygraph, that should be his instant deportation ticket out of the country. Mosques involved in the money laundering and in the financing of terror activities should have their charters revoked, and should be closed down by the federal courts. If a mosque is aggressively financing terror activities, that organization should not be allowed to hide behind our constitutional protections involving religious freedoms.

Our prosecutors and investigative agencies should learn lessons from the terror attacks in the U.K., and should take advantage of the intelligence gleaned from those arrests to break up terror cells here in the U.S. Michael Chertoff just does not have the background to serve as a successful director of Homeland Security. He is was not a law enforcement official with an investigative background, he instead was a judge. His response to Hurricane Katrina, and his response to the British terror attacks have demonstrated that Chertoff is just not up to the demands of his job. He should resign, and we should have a more capable director of Homeland Security in the near future. We need a Homeland Security Director that sees and anticipates trouble ahead, and actually has the ability to prepare his employees, and to motivate his agency to head off potential trouble in the future.

Chertoff just does not get it. The Bush Administration just does not get it, either, almost six years after 911, even though Bush and Cheney both campaigned in 2006 that the GOP was the party that would protect the American people and keep them safe from terror threats.

Steven Harrell has practiced law in Perry, Georgia since 1989.He is the author of The Unionist, A Novel of the Civil War and The Rifle Captain, A Novel of World War I. Both are available at Publish America.com, Amazon.com, and Barnes&Noble.com. You may view his weekly column at www.StevenHarrell.com. You may email him at wshj@windstream.net.

Going Scot Free

Jul 9, 2007 Updates Leave a comment

In 2002, the U.S. intelligence community was given the task of digging up evidence that would justify an invasion of Iraq to the American people, and to the world. During the Summer and Fall of 2002, Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby would selectively leak classified information to New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Miller would go out with the leaked information, and would interview Iraqi dissidents and refugees who purportedly had information concerning weapons of mass destruction in the country.

Most, if not all of the dissidents and refugees interviewed by Judith Miller had previously been interviewed and polygraphed by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The CIA and DIA concluded that all of these witnesses were either lying, or were greatly exaggerating concerning Saddam Hussein’s weapons capabilities.

Judith Miller would run stories in the New York Times anyway, outlining her reliable sources, and stating to the world that Saddam Hussein had all kinds of weapons of mass

destruction. As part of a media blitz to gain support for the upcoming war, Richard Cheney would appear on national television news programs such as Meet the Press and Face the Nation, where he would quote the New York Times articles and information that his chief of staff had leaked to Judith Miller. In this manner, the Vice President of the United States used the media of this country to spread untruths and lies concerning the alleged threats posed by Iraq.

Another story that was linked to Iraq that was also blatantly false concerned Iraq’s alleged purchase of yellow cake uranium from Niger. Former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson, upon request from the State Department, took a trip to Niger in 2002, and interviewed French engineers that ran the uranium mines there. The engineers told Wilson that there was no way that large quantities (500 tons) of uranium ore could be mined and shipped from mines under their control without their knowledge. Ambassador Wilson traveled back to Washington, and informed the CIA of these facts.

Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert operative that worked in the antiproliferation division of the CIA. When abroad, she worked as a covert operative, which meant that if she were ever caught in a foreign country and accused of spying, the CIA would deny that she was employed there. In 2001, Valerie Plame went to Iraq, where she posed as an oil company executive. While in Iraq, she found stockpiles of aluminum tubes that were supposed to be used in a gas centrifuge to enrich uranium for the production of nuclear material. These turned out to be only rocket tubes.

After the U.S. military invaded Iraq, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found there. The gigantic house of cards that the war was based on was nothing less than a lie. Those that were willing to publically expose this lie were dealt with most severely by the Bush Administration. In the summer of 2003, Valerie Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times that indicated that the Bush Administration’s claims that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium in Niger in 1999 were false. Within 48 hours after the op-ed piece hit the paper, no less than three Bush Administration officials illegally leaked Valerie Plame’s identity to the press.

One of these officials, Lewis I. “Scooter” Libby, was not indicted by the special prosecutor for violating the Foreign Agents Identities Act, or even the Espionage Act of 1917. He was indicted for obstruction of justice, because he lied about his involvement in the Plame affair to the FBI, and to a federal grand jury. A jury of his peers convicted Libby of four counts of obstruction of justice, and a Bush appointed U.S. District Judge sentenced him to 30 months in a federal prison.

Libby appealed the judge’s ruling that he had to report to serve his prison time immediately. The D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals denied his request for a stay of the execution of the sentence, and it appeared that Libby was going to prison. President Bush last Monday immediately intervened to commute the prison time of Libby’s sentence. He did this without consulting the Justice Department, or the federal judge that sentenced Libby. President Bush has even left open the possibility that he might pardon Libby for his crimes.

The federal judge that sentenced Libby wants the Justice Department and the defense lawyers to file briefs which would address the legal ramifications of Libby’s commuted sentence. The judge has reason to believe that if all of Libby’s jail time is commuted, then the court cannot place Libby on five years of probation. In anticipation of going scot free, Libby has immediately paid his $250,000.00 fine. This sorry affair proves beyond all doubt that Libby was promised executive clemency in exchange for doing the dirty work that Dick Cheney could or would not do himself. Cheney and President Bush despised Joe Wilson for writing his critical op-ed piece in the New York Times, and they arranged for Libby to illegally leak Plame’s identity as a CIA agent in retribution. Libby’s sentence commutation was promised to him up front by his boss, Dick Cheney.

While loyal, hard working Americans die and shed their blood daily in Iraq, one of the criminal architects of this debacle has gone scot free after being convicted by a jury of his peers. It is the responsibility of the President of the United States to faithfully execute the law of the land. This president, and Dick Cheney in particular, believe that they are a law unto themselves. They both will face a rocky road with the Congress during the remainder of their terms of office. The Scooter Libby affair has all but guaranteed that.

Steven Harrell has practiced law in Perry, Georgia since 1989.He is the author of The Unionist, A Novel of the Civil War and The Rifle Captain, A Novel of World War I. You may view his weekly column at www.StevenHarrell.com. You may email him at wshj@windstream.net.

Revealing the Family Jewels

Jul 5, 2007 News Leave a comment

Last week, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency declassified over 693 pages of

Cold War era materials relating to CIA violations of the National Security Act of 1947. These materials involved the documentation of CIA actions that were done in violation of the CIA charter enacted by Congress in 1947. Their in-house code name for these files was ‘The Family Jewels’. I have reviewed half of the declassified materials, and will now report some of the juicy details to you. Some of the materials were downright boring, but other details of CIA operations were fascinating. Here are some of the most noteworthy:

1. Johnny Roselli.

In August of 1960, the Office of Security of the CIA was approached about a “sensitive mission”, requiring “gangster-type” action. Roselli was a mobster who owned and controlled all of the ice making machines on the Strip in Las Vegas. He was approached by the CIA, and he reported that he would be willing to recruit associates to journey to Cuba and to see about the assassination of Fidel Castro.

Roselli was told that businesses that lost property to nationalization in Cuba would be willing to put up $150,000.00 for Fidel Castro’s assassination. Roselli discussed how to accomplish the mission with his mob contacts. A shooting attempt was ruled out. It was later determined that a Cuban physician would be recruited, and some effort would be made to put a poison into Castro’s drink or his food. The CIA produced the poison pills, and sent them to the person that was detailed to bring them into Cuba.

The mission was scrubbed, though, after the failed CIA Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. It was never rescheduled.

On December 2, 1968, Johnny Roselli was convicted of conspiring to cheat members of the Frier’s Club of $400,000.00 in a rigged gin rummy game. After his appeals were exhausted, Roselli’s attorney asked for assistance from the CIA.

CIA Director Helms declined, and Roselli’s involvement with the CIA was leaked to columnist Jack Anderson in 1970. Jack Anderson ran two columns dated January 18, 1971, and February 22, 1971, which alleged that no less than six attempts were made on the life of Fidel Castro by the CIA.

2. Project Mockingbird.

Between March of 1963 and June of 1963, the CIA illegally tapped the telephones of two Washington D.C .based journalists. During the period under wiretap, the journalists received contact from the following persons:

Thirteen newsmen, twelve of whom were identified; twelve U.S. Senators, and six members of Congress, all identified; twenty one Congressional staff members, of whom eleven were identified. Sixteen government employees, including a staff member of the White House, the Vice President’s office, and an Assistant Attorney General, all of whom were identified by the CIA.

3. Yurly Ivanovich Nusenko.

Nusenko, an officer of the KGB, defected to the CIA in Geneva, Switzerland on February 4, 1964. He was brought to a safe house in Clinton, Maryland in April of 1964 where he was confined. Convinced that he was a double agent, the CIA confined and interrogated him there until August 13, 1965. He was then moved to a specially built “jail”, in a remote wooded area. He was interrogated in a hostile fashion for many months there, until the CIA ‘s attorneys and leadership decided that his “hostile” interrogations were illegal here in the U.S.

Nusenko was later moved to a safe house in Washington, where he cooperated fully with the CIA and the FBI, and where he conveyed valuable intelligence about KGB worldwide operations. He divorced his Russian wife, and later married an American woman. He continues to live here in the U.S.

4. Operation Celotex II. At the direction of the Director of Central Intelligence, surveillance was carried out at the residence and at the offices of columnist Jack Anderson, from February 15, 1972, to April 12, 1972. Anderson’s runners, or “leg-men”, Britt Hume, Leslie Whitten, and Joseph Speer, were also watched by CIA agents during this period. The purpose of the surveillance was to identify the sources for the investigative articles and columns written by Jack Anderson.

5. Hunt goes Hunting. One of the famous Watergate burglars, E. Howard Hunt, was formerly employed by the

CIA. On July 8, 1971, he was named security consultant at the White House. He was then detailed to work for the Republican Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP). In the Spring of 1972, he requested information from the CIA Office of Security on any lock pickers that might be retiring from the CIA during that period. The purpose of the information was to provide E. Howard Hunt with an available pool of trained and employable lock pickers that could work for Hunt at CREEP. (This was before the famous Watergate break in.) Information on lock pickers was sent to E. Howard Hunt from the Office of Security, and the contact with Howard Hunt was reported to the DCI later on October 4, 1972.

On June 17, 1972, E. Howard Hunt and James W. McCord (both former CIA employees), along with G. Gordon Liddy and others, were arrested after they broke into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.

After the Congressional Watergate hearings began, inter-office memos began to circulate within the CIA about the type and nature of assistance that E. Howard Hunt obtained from the CIA before the Watergate break-ins. The inquiry at the time began from the DCI, and went on