PUTIN, BRENNAN And US intelligence ......Sources in the Kremlin Go Quiet, Leaving CIA in Dark

 Julian Barnes  and Matthew Rosenberg’s article in the New York Times, August 24, 2018,Kremlin Sources Go Quiet, Leaving C.I.A. in the Dark About Putin’s Plans for Midterms  can serve as a useful vehicle for extending our understanding about the uses, abuses and limitations of intelligence inputs.

 At times, my involvement with the intelligence community has  been  very deep, sometimes it has been marginal, and  much

of the time it has been nonexistent.

 As many of us who participate, I have often been given a great deal of detail about a very small aspect of some intelligence problem. Thus, I have not seen the big picture until after the event unfolded. For example, when the U-2  was flying,  Amram Katz   of RAND, who  was an expert in photography, lenses, etc., was frantically trying to interest the Pentagon in a combination of photo capabilities and avionics capabilities. He was rejected on all his approaches and was very frustrated. It was only after  the U-2  was shot down by the Soviets that he discovered that his ideas had been accepted and had  been made operational. My role was related. At RAND  I worked with several other researchers on Soviet missile capabilities. I had viewed photo reconnaissance photographs of Soviet sites. These were not anywhere near commercial  aviation routes. The photography was sensational. I assumed that it was a Soviet military pilot. Only afterwards  did I learn that  this sensational photography was a result of Katz’ system design.

 Shortly thereafter, Just about everyone in aerospace in Southern California claimed that they were aware of the U-2. Katz   and I are probably the only two aerospace scientists who claimed to have 100% complete ignorance of this operation.

 Another example is the testimony of Secretary of State Colin Powell concerning the mysterious highly machined  tubes that were discovered to be in the possession of Saddam Hussein. The US Department of Energy, leading the intelligence community ,came up with certain explanations which were presented by Sec. Powell to the UN as  part of  the "conclusive proof" of Saddam Hussein’s nefarious intentions.

I and others had previously concluded that this was part of Saddam Hussein’s attempt to establish his  capability to produce nuclear weapons. AQ Kahn, in his efforts to establish a Pakistani nuclear  capability, commissioned various projects that would test the industrial capability for the precision needed to produce certain components.  Kahn issued purchase orders in order to test certain companies, certain procedures, etc.   This was exactly the same approach that we used on the CIA global Explorer program.  However, due to a shielding of Sec. Powell by his  State department office  chief of staff [a military officer who had been his public relations person in the Pentagon  and had a gigantic ego] this information  was not incorporated and thus Powell had a very public humiliation for presenting misleading testimony  to the United Nations on a crucial issue.

 It has to been my experience in the intelligence community, like in most bureaucracies, the store of  reliable information is at the bottom [working level]. When I was involved with Joe Loftus on the analysis of US intelligence failures. [including the inability of US and British intelligence to locate  the  launch sites of the German V-1  and V-2 rockets; the cascading cheerleading intelligence reports about the Germans retreating and not having any capability to launch an offensive operation just before they launched the Battle of the Bulge, etc.] we found out that compartmentalization was a problem. Another problem was that each level of  command tended to  re-write  the information to improve the grammar and to “smooth out” any ambiguities and/or doubts. That meant that at the top there was no one in the room who had any inkling of the original information and and its  sources, except for the numerical  [or other] ratings that the community itself attached to the source and to the information.

 My favorite source of information on Soviet and now Russian efforts and capabilities is the Russian Academy of Engineering. My principal source was a classmate and friend for more than 50 years.  Utilizing the Academy's robust discussions it is obvious that  energy is the big Achilles’ heel of Russian development and stability.

 Sometime back, I reported that Pres. Putin had disdain for both Hillary Clinton and  Donald Trump. However, Putin   believed that given Hillary Clinton’s announced intention to limit drilling, limit fracking, and otherwise cut back on US energy production capabilities and Putin’s direct  experience with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Putin’s preference was Hillary Clinton.Putin had a much  greater preference in sowing confusion and  dissension within the United States. Thus, well before the election  Russian efforts were primarily to create divisions. But, Russian anti- Trump and anti-Clinton efforts [which were minimal in scope and ineffective in  result] were ,early in the campaign, divided 50-50. But when it appeared certain from all the polls and commentary that Hillary was sure to win, Russian efforts were then  primarily directed against  Clinton, in their attempt to damage her, as the expected winner.

 ANY STATEMENT  THAT PUTIN/ RUSSIA ATTEMPTED TO TILT THE ELECTION TO TRUMP IS ACTUALLY CLAIMING THAT PUTIN HAD A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF US POLITICS THAN THE NY TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN AND THE REST OF THE US  MSM

The key to the entire "Russian collusion" probably  involves   a thorough of examination of John Brennan as the central player of its initiation.

John  Brennan was the CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia on June 25, 1996 when Islamic terrorists bombed the Khobar Towers [Location‎: ‎Khobar, Saudi Arabia ] killing 20 and injuring 496.  Most of the dead and injured were US service personnel.   Brennan’s  conversion to Islam, while on  CIA duty in Saudi Arabia is still a story to be explored.

John Brennan was the original US contact with British intelligence which was then  used as the "source of information" which served as the basis for the opening of US intelligence surveillance under FISA warrants. John Brennan was the source of the so-called "dossier" which he then transmitted to James Comey. John Brennan and James Comey selected the ad hoc committee which claimed  to   have special access to a close associate of Putin in the Kremlin [and reported that the committee had direct knowledge that Putin had either directly ordered or had explicitly approved Russian meddling in the US 2016 presidential election].

Later, John Brennan testified that the Russian interference was intended to help tip the election away from Hillary Clinton and to Donald Trump. Since Donald Trump's election victory, John Brennan has become much more outspoken as a public critic , claiming that there was direct collusion by Donald Trump and Trump’s election committee with the Russians, etc. etc. Placing John Brennan under oath and intensively   questioning him as to his full involvement from beginning to end would do a lot to clear up current national division  could help put the nation on a course that would effectively allow the US counter North Korea, Iran, and China.

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Kremlin Sources Go Quiet, Leaving C.I.A. in the Dark About Putin’s Plans for Midterms

 JULIAN E. BARNES and MATTHEW ROSENBERG New York Times  Aug. 24, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/us/politics/cia-russia-midterm-elections.html?nl=top-stories&nlid=60863050ries&ref=cta

Vital C.I.A. informants in or close to the Kremlin have largely gone silent ahead of November’s midterm elections, American officials said.Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — In 2016, American intelligence agencies delivered urgent and explicit warnings about Russia’s intentions to try to tip the American presidential election — and a detailed assessment of the operation afterward — thanks in large part to informants close to President Vladimir V. Putin and in the Kremlin who provided crucial details.

But two years later, the vital Kremlin informants have largely gone silent, leaving the C.I.A. and other spy agencies in the dark about precisely what Mr. Putin’s intentions are for November’s midterm elections, according to American officials familiar with the intelligence.

The officials do not believe the sources have been compromised or killed. Instead, they have concluded they have gone to ground amid more aggressive counterintelligence by Moscow, including efforts to kill spies, like the poisoning in March in Britain of a former Russian intelligence officer that utilized a rare Russian-made nerve agent.

Current and former officials also said the expulsion of American intelligence officers from Moscow has hurt collection efforts. And officials also raised the possibility that the outing of an F.B.I. informant under scrutiny by the House intelligence committee — an examination encouraged by President Trump — has had a chilling effect on intelligence collection.

Technology companies and political campaigns in recent weeks have detected a plethora of political interference efforts originating overseas, including hacks of Republican think tanks and fake liberal grass-roots organizations created on Facebook. Senior intelligence officials, including Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, have warned that Russians are intent on subverting American democratic institutions.

But American intelligence agencies have not been able to say precisely what are Mr. Putin’s intentions: He could be trying to tilt the midterm elections, simply sow chaos or generally undermine trust in the democratic process.

The officials, seeking to protect methods of collection from Russia, would not provide details about lost sources, but acknowledged the degradation in the information collected from Russia. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal classified information. A spokesman for the C.I.A. declined to comment.

To determine what the Russian government is up to, the United States employs multiple forms of intelligence, including intercepted communications and penetrated computer networks.

Emergency crews investigate the site where Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found poisoned in Britain. C.I.A. informants in Russia are believed to be underground, fearing aggressive campaigns by Moscow to hunt spies.Ben Stansall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The United States continues to intercept Russian communication, and the flow of that intelligence remains strong, said current and former officials. And Russian informants could still meet their C.I.A. handlers outside Russia, further from Moscow’s counterintelligence apparatus.

But people inside or close to the Kremlin remain critical to divining whether there is a strategy behind seemingly scattershot efforts to undermine American institutions.

Spies and informants overseas also give American intelligence agencies early warning about influence campaigns, interference operations or other attempts to compromise the United States. That information, in turn, can improve the ability of domestic agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I., to quickly identify and attempt to stop those efforts.

Because clandestine meetings can take months to set up and complete, a lengthy lag can pass before the C.I.A. realizes a key source has gone silent, according to former officials. It is rare for the agency to discover immediately that informants have eroded or are running scared. Only after several missed meetings might C.I.A. officers and analysts conclude that a source has decided it is too dangerous to pass information.

In 2016, American intelligence officials began to realize the scope of Russia’s efforts when they gathered intelligence suggesting that Moscow wanted to use Trump campaign officials, wittingly or not, to help sow chaos. John O. Brennan, the former director of the C.I.A., testified before the House Intelligence Committee in May 2017 about a tense period a year earlier when he came to believe that Mr. Putin was trying to steer the outcome toward a victory for Mr. Trump.

Mr. Brennan described the broad outlines of the intelligence in his congressional testimony, and his disclosures backed up the accounts of the information provided by the current and former officials. “I was convinced in the summer that the Russians were trying to interfere in the election. And they were very aggressive,” Mr. Brennan told lawmakers.

This year, Mr. Coats issued a series of warnings saying the Russian government, and Mr. Putin in particular, is intent on undermining American democratic systems.

At an appearance this month at the White House, Mr. Coats said intelligence agencies “continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try and weaken and divide the United States.” He added that those efforts “cover issues relevant to the elections.”

We know that trolls on social media are trying to sow discord on contentious subjects like race, guns and abortion, but how do they do it? Here is a visual guide to their strategy.Aug. 21, 2018

But officials said there has been no concrete intelligence pointing to Mr. Putin ordering his own intelligence units to wade into the election to push for a certain outcome, beyond a broad chaos campaign to undermine faith in American democracy. Intelligence agencies do not believe Mr. Putin has changed his strategy; instead, officials believe they simply do not have the same level of access to information from the Kremlin’s inner circle.

Intelligence collection appears to have suffered after Russia expelled officials from American diplomatic outposts there in retaliation for the United States removing 60 Russian officials this year, said John Sipher, a 28-year veteran of the C.I.A. who served in Moscow in the 1990s and later ran the agency’s Russia program.

The C.I.A.’s Moscow presence, according to former officers, was always small, at least in light of the importance of the target, the difficulty of spycraft and the amount of counterintelligence the Russians dedicated to thwarting American spies.

“The Russians kicked out a whole bunch of our people,” Mr. Sipher said. “Our station in Moscow is probably really small now and they are under incredible surveillance.”

Mr. Putin has also said he is intent on killing so-called traitors, comments he made just ahead of the high-profile assassination attempt of the former Russian intelligence officer, Sergei V. Skripal.

“The Russians are very focused and upset,” Mr. Sipher said. “They have shown they are willing to kill sources.”

Informants close to Putin are very rare, according to current and former officials. The United States, in recent years, has had only a few, and at times been reliant on only one or two for the most important insights on Mr. Putin, according to former officials. If those people go silent for their own protection, it can make it very hard for the agency to look inside Moscow.

The United States still should have a clear view of Mr. Putin’s strategies and intention to interfere in Democratic elections, said Michael Carpenter, a Russia expert and former Obama administration official. He pointed to fake social media accounts created as part of Russian intelligence operations that have drummed up support for white nationalists and the Black Lives Matter movement, and have supported far right, far left and pro-Russian candidates in the United States and in Europe.

Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, issued warnings in recent weeks that Russia is intent on undermining American democratic systems.Erin Schaff for The New York Times

“Clearly Russia is playing both sides of controversial issues precisely to sow chaos. But that said it is not just chaos, there are certain candidates Russia prefers to see in office,” said Mr. Carpenter, now at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. “The Russians are trying to support anti-establishment and pro-Russian candidates, not just in the U.S. but everywhere.”

Still, there is little doubt about the crucial nature of informants, said Seth G. Jones, who leads the transnational threats project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy research organization.

“It is essential to have sources coming from inside the government. It was during the Cold War and it is today,” Mr. Jones said. “There are multiple ways to collect intelligence against your adversary, in this case the Russian government. But sources can provide you things you might not otherwise get, like documents, intelligence assessments.”

Sources can provide photographs of Russian documents and intelligence that are hard to intercept electronically, and that can help the United States figure out what Russia is targeting, not just with its election meddling but with its attempts to infiltrate financial systems, the power grid and other critical infrastructure, Mr. Jones said.

The full reasons the sources have gone silent are not known. But current and former officials also said the exposure of sources inside the United States has also complicated matters.

This year, the identity of an F.B.I. informant, Stefan Halper, became public after House lawmakers sought information on him and the White House allowed the information to be shared. Mr. Halper, an American academic based in Britain, had been sent to talk to Trump campaign advisers who were under F.B.I. scrutiny for their ties to Russia.

Current American officials said there is no direct evidence that the exposure of Mr. Halper has been cited by overseas informants as a source of concern.

But the officials said that some allies have cited the exposure of the informant and other intelligence leaks in curbing some of the intelligence they share. And former spies believe that, long-term, the exposure will hurt overseas collection.

“Publicizing sources is really bad for the business,” Mr. Sipher said. “The only thing we can offer people is that we will do anything in our power to protect them. And anything that wears away at that trust, hurts.”