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Table of Contents
Synopsis 2
The Latest Move in the Intelligence and the Military Technology 3 ～The Move of the Obama Administration’s Policies Seen in the Intelligence Human Networks～ Takeo Harada, (CEO, IISIA)
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Takeo Harada1
The Latest Move in the Intelligence and the Military Technology ～The Move of the Obama Administration’s Policies Seen in the Intelligence Human Networks～
●Introduction In November 2008, Barack Obama was elected as the 44th U. S. president. And now, the global focus is on how the coming Obama administration, which is to be inaugurated on January 20, 2009, will decide policies, especially on the economy in the midst of the endless financial meltdown. IISIA presented our new predictive scenario titled Lumiere2 on October 17, in which we mentioned presidential candidate Obama was likely to be elected as the U. S. president. We argued so, because it is quite probable that the U. S. establishment considered that Obama should be more convenient for them to develop the future situation. Expectation for Obama, who has advocated “Change” and finally become the head man of the U. S, is mounting even after the election. In this paper, however, we argue what the real ruling class of the U. S. is planning behind the scene to develop and achieve after the burst of the bubble of Obama’s popularity as well as the impact of their move, from the viewpoint that has never been discussed in major media (at least in Japan). We analyze the Obama team in terms of his intelligence network. If any dynamic movement worthy of attention as a “Change” is observed around the network, it can be a significant material to judge that the Obama administration will create a new world. On the contrary, if the Obama administration depends on the conventional intelligence network in the U. S., it is possible to say that the administration will never be able to change anything, or will have no intention to change things. In fact, conclusively, the Obama administration depends on the conventional intelligence network in the U. S. In particular, the network includes Hilary Clinton and
1 Mr. Takeo Harada is CEO of Institute for International Strategy and Information Analysis, Inc. He had previously served as a member of the Foreign Ministry of Japan and has published more than a dozen books on International Economy and Politics both in Japan and Germany. 2 Takeo Harada’s article –Lumiere- written in Japanese is available at the following website: http://www.haradatakeo.com/wmd/sO0gPMoR3j/iisia_lumiere.pdf 3
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many important people who made significant commitment in the Clinton administration. In other words, it is obvious that “Change,” the slogan the Obama has advocated, is just propaganda. In this article, we examine this in extenso based on the analytical method of open source intelligence.
●Facts Analyzed from Private Intelligence Human Networks There is one thing that must not be missed when you discuss the U. S. intelligence sector – the fact that right after the collapse of the Soviet Union and communist regimes in eastern Europe in the early 1990s president Clinton, the first baby-boomer generation president, ordered extensive downsizing of the manpower both in the army and intelligence institutions amid calls for “the end of the Cold War structure.”3 Actually, the downsizing process had been already begun during the Bush administration, and the CIA had been forced to reduce 20 % of its manpower for example. The following Clinton administration shifted the focus of American power from the use of armed might and spy activities to developing technology and global trades so that the initial target of the privatization of governmental institutions and reduction of governmental functions was the intelligence institutions.4 In other words, since then the “Clinton network” has been developed and deepened around the private intelligence industry. When observing the intelligence network around the president-elect Obama in this context, we can find the very central people who founded private intelligence related firms to develop the industry when a “sea change” came at the time of the privatization of intelligence during the Clinton administration. Firstly, please take a look at the figure showing the intelligence network of the president-elect Obama, created by Intelligence Online5, one of the most prominent private intelligence agencies6 in France.
In the following part, we see the people of private intelligence agencies who supported Obama during the presidential campaign in terms of intelligence.7
3 Tim Shorrock, -Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing-, 2008, p. 85. 4 See the previous comment 5 http://www.intelligenceonline.com 6 For further information about private intelligence agencies, please refer to the following. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_intelligence_agency 7 Needless to say, the advisors in the presidential campaign are not promised to be automatically given a post in the coming administration. (Intelligence Online put a note on this point too.) Since essentially the Intelligence sector never discloses all of their information and resources, however, they can have some influence in the administration even though they do not have posts. Rather, as the intelligence network will be “invisible” after 4
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＜Figure1-1：The Obama Campaign's Intelligence Advisors list＞
Source： Intelligenceonline8
The four people (John Brenna, Art Brown, Jack Devine and Robert Richer) have long experience in the industry, and now all of them have profound relationship with important private intelligence agencies in the U. S. This is not a coincidence. Actually, as mentioned earlier, it is CIA that was affected most by the big sea change of the privatization of intelligence agencies during the Clinton administration. Unlike in the Cold War era when they could produce a battle against communist regimes including
the administration launches, it is very important to check the composition and key figures at the moment. 8http://www.intelligenceonline.com/detail/detail_articles/p_detail.asp?DOC_I_ID=50883928&Context=BOI&Conte xtInfos=&Service=GRA&CodeAffilie=A_INDIGO 5
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the Soviet Union, there is a question of why the U. S. government has to keep supporting the intelligence sector financially. The people around the sector, therefore, consider that chances for them are delivered by lead the coming Obama administration into a situation that should be profoundly related to intelligence activities. That is, by analyzing what kind of business model the private intelligence agencies are developing will lead us to see probable intelligence policies of the Obama administration and sea changes in the market that will come accordingly.
John Brennan9 is a highly experienced intelligence professional who worked at CIA for 25 years from 1980 through 2005. According to the Washington Post (December 12, 2005),10 he has developed his carrier mainly as a specialist of the Middle East. He worked at the U. S. embassy in Saudi Arabia “as a diplomat (an official of the Department of the State).” He began to study the Middle East at collage, spending a year at The Analysis Corp. President American University in Cairo in Egypt to study John Brennan Arabian. He served as deputy executive director Source： CNN HP of CIA and interim director of National Counterterrorism Center. As a businessperson in the intelligence community, since 2005 has served as CEO of The Analysis Corporation (TAC)11. Based in Mclean, Virginia, TAC has been awarded some $75m in government contracts since 2000, and it is said the customers include the Department of State and the FBI.12
9 See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O._Brennan 10 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/11/AR2005121100910.html 11 http://www.theanalysiscorp.com/ 12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Analysis_Corporation 6
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Very interestingly, there was uproar about the fact that a TAC contractor tried to gain access to the personal record of Barack Obama in the midst of the presidential campaign.13 In January 2009, John Brennan donated 2,300 USD in total for Obama, and it was widely believed that he was for Obama. In March, however, it was revealed that a TAC contractor gained unauthorized access to the passport records for Obama and John McCain, and Hilary Clinton. Nevertheless, it is surprising that on November 16, Obama appointed John Brennan as the director of the intelligence department of in his transition team.14
The Passport is very important, which Art Brow, Control Risks Group, US can affect one’s life during his/her Office President travel. Brennan is the CEO of the organization whose contractor tried to Source: Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan gain unauthorized access at the HP governmental database, and it is improbable that he had no relation to the case. Nevertheless, he gained that important post in the transition team. It is possible to say that this shows the unshakable power of the intelligence network around John Brennan at its center. In terms of capital structure, TAC is a 100 % subsidiary of the U. S. branch of Global Strategy Group (GSG)15. When having a look at the website of GSG, you will notice that there is a relatively detailed explanation on their activities in politics in Colombia as one of their major works.16 According to the website, at the request of the Colombian government, they produced security policies against anti-government guerrillas and offered trainings for the government officials to prepare for attacks on infrastructures. That is, for GSG, the conflict structure of “the government vs. anti-government guerrillas” has been an obvious business chance. As a private company, it is natural for them to maintain that convenient business chance as long as possible. In such circumstance, while John Brennan will actively lobby in the administration to maintain
13 See, for example, http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/22/passport.files/ 14 http://www.theanalysiscorp.com/John%20Brennan%20-%20Transition%20Team%20-%20Nov%202008(1).pdf 15 http://www.globalgroup.com/ 16 http://www.globalgroup.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=114 7
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this conflict structure, the focal point is what kind of Latin American policies the Obama administration will be forced to take.
Art Brown has been established his career in CIA as a specialist of Asia. According to Veracity Worldwide17, where he serves as senior adviser, Asia, he lived 20 years in Asia during the 25 years he worked with CIA and was the person responsible for clandestine services in East Asia. Upon retiring from government service in 2005, he
Robb Fipp has served senior adviser of Veracity Worldwide as Managing Partner for Veracity well as CEO of Control Risks Group's US-based Worldwide subsidiary in Washington DC. 18 (Control Risks Group (CRG) was founded in 1975 in UK as a Source： Vineyard Ventures HP subsidiary of insurance broker Hogg Robinson19, and later became independent.) Among the intelligence experts in the Obama team we discuss in this paper, Art Brown is one of the most experienced specialists of Asia. Still, we should note first that now he serves as CEO of the originally British private intelligence agency. In fact, it is known that CRG has a company in Japan, and the company’s website writes that it was originally founded as a branch in Japan of the British company.20 Although there seems to be a conflict structure between U. S. and UK around the leadership in the financial market on a superficial level, we should note that in terms of the intelligence network both counties connected each other through these key figures.
Since Art Brown is the expert of Asia and senior advisor of Asia at Veracity Worldwide, we can foresee the Obama team’s strategies on Japan’s market through activities of Brown as well as the intelligence companies. Most note-worthy is the career of Robb Fipp, his partner in charge of Asia at Veracity Worldwide. According to the Veracity Worldwide Website, he earned degrees at Boston University, speaks German and has cut the mustard with venture capitals based in Asia. In particular, he has established his career in electronic communication, automobile, financial service,
17 http://www.veracityworldwide.com/about/regionaladvisors 18 http://www.hoggrobinson.co.uk/ 19 http://www.crg.com/default.aspx?page= 20 http://www.crg.co.jp/index.html 8
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high-tech equipment, and professional sports sectors. In addition, most important is that it is mentioned that the most successful case of the investment team in Asian market at Veracity Worldwide led by Fipp, who has his own venture capital separately, was the investment in biotechnology companies in China. At the same time, while noting that Veracity Worldwide is engaged in due-diligence as its main activities, we should foresee the Obama administration’s strategies on Asia based on possible lobbying by the network from Fipp to Brown.
Plus, the point is that Brown is one of the most important experts of North Korea among CIA veterans. Even in 2008, Brown has presented his view on North Korea issues on major papers (For example, on International Herald Tribune on July 15, 2008). On September 26, he delivered a lecture at Foreign Correspondent Club Japan in Tokyo. In that lecture, he said that the Japanese government should give more priority on solving abduction issues than anything. Actually, this actually shows that he intentionally hide the scenario for normalization the US-North Korea diplomatic relationship by leading the attention of the Japanese public opinion to focus on the abduction issues. Just before the inauguration of the Obama administration, the tension around North Korea seems to be increasing. Still, North Korean market is the last resort where marketization, the classic business model, can be adapted in East Asia. Therefore, we should continue to follow Brown’s remarks.
Jack Devine is former chief of worldwide operations in the CIA. Currently he is president of The Arkin Group he co-founded in 2000. While we have an impression that not much information about the career of Divine who worked for CIA for 32 years can be obtained through OSIINT, an article introducing his character was once released (on New York Sun on August 3, 2005). According to the article, Divine has fully deployed his human network with ex-CIA and FBI officers as well as retirees of intelligence agencies of other countries to offer information to companies trying to explore emerging markets. The most interesting is not the Arkin Group’s activities led by Divine. The description about the Arkin Group’s activities refers the fact that it offered extensive services for U.S. hedge funds investing in Japanese companies. According to the description, when engaged in the due-diligence activities across the Pacific, they gather information from the reputation to relationship with anti-social organizations of the relevant Japanese company, using their expansive network in judicial institutions (police and prosecutors
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office), intelligence agencies, business world in Japan. The Arkin Group led by Divine has achieved results not only in Japan but in other countries. When reading the open source information as mentioned above, however, it is clearly shown that the top expert of intelligence activities on Japan in the team supporting Obama. Once U.S. starts attacking Japan, there is no doubt that these advisors will be fully engaged in activities.
The last of the four key figures in the private intelligence community around the president-elect Obama is Robert Richer. After with U.S. marine, he worked with CIA for 35 years and became the no.2 of the operation department. After leaving CIA, he served as director of the intelligence department at Blackwater, private military company in U.S, and then co-founded Total Intelligence Solutions (TIS) with Cofer・Black, an ex-colleague and director at Blackwater.
In fact, according to the website of TIS, Robert Richer left the company in February, 2008, and the reason is not disclosed. However, it should be noted that the key document, which mentioned the connection between Sadam Hussein and Al-Quaida and consequently triggered the Iraq War, was proven fake and there was a controversy around Richer as it is suspected that he might have related to the making of the fake document. Before serving as a director with Blackwater whose soldiers’ inhuman treatment of Iraqi prisoners, Richer was chief of Middle East operations at CIA. Although the truth about the “fake document” incident has not been revealed, his career and background clearly shows that it Claudia J. Kenned, Retired Lieutenant General is very likely that Richer has strong connections in Middle Source： Wikipedia East market.
●Facts Analyzed from US Forces Human Networks
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Although CIA has been drawing attentions when discussing the U. S. intelligence community, it is, in fact, the intelligence institution of the U. S. Army that should be noted in terms of the quality and quantity of its activities. When considering the relationship between the coming Obama administration and intelligence community, we should never fail to check how the U. S. army’s intelligence network has built the presence within the administration. Firstly, we should notice Claudia Kennedy. Born in 1947 in Frankfurt, Germany, Kennedy studied philosophy at collage and enter the U. S. Army in 1968. Since then, she has been engaged in the intelligence department for most of her life in the army. In June, 1997, she attracted attentions as the first female to reach the rank of three-star general in the U.S. Army. At the same time, she is known as a harsh critic on the treatment of female soldiers in the army, and actually she made a sexual harassment claim against a fellow male officer. In this regards, she has been talked much in public. In 2000, she took early retirement from the army, and was critical of the Bush administration’s military policies. It has not disclosed what kind of operations she was engaged during her life in the army. Judging from her speedy promotion, however, it is not hard to tell that she made a considerable contribution in the army’s intelligence activities. During the presidential campaign of 2008, Kennedy was eyed as a prospective candidate for vice president of the Obama team. However, Kennedy had expressed her support for Hilary Clinton even earlier. In other words, it should be noted that Kennedy is not a genuine member of the “Obama network.” Secondly, we should notice Donald Kerrick. Kerrick is a genuine military Lieutenant General Donald L. Kerrick man – Upon graduating from Florida Southern Collage, Kerrick entered the Source: White Hose HP military and served at the White House as the Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs from January 1997 to August 1999. It is known that he was engaged in a wide variety of operations in Europe and Asia. In fact, in 1995 and 1996, Kerrick served as the Director for Operations for the Defense Intelligence Agency where he directed the Defense HUMINT
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Service and the Defense Attache System. As mentioned above, Kerrick held an important post in the Clinton administration, even though in its final phase. More than that, when important army veterans held a meeting to express their support for Hilary Clinton in Iowa in November, 2007, Kerrick was there one of the key members. Although it is military man’s mission to follow the power-that-be, it is very hard to say that Kerrick is a genuine member of the network supporting Obama from the very beginning. Rather, Kerrick belongs to the Clinton network.
●Conclusion By examining what we mentioned above, we can foresee the coming situation in terms of the intelligence network around the president-elect Obama. Firstly, although the president-elect Obama himself has gad almost no contact with East Asia including Japan so far, there are important figures supporting the coming administration to bridge the U. S. and East Asia including Japan on the level of intelligence that is fairly invisible to the public. In particular, Art Brown and Jack Divine have been deeply engaged in the activities of the U. S. companies that were trying to penetrate into the market in Japan in the last several years. If the U. S. trumpeting the economic slowdown in the midst of financial meltdown and proposing an exit plan to making the Japanese market a better place, Japan will never be able to disobey the move. Considering that the president-elect Obama has presented a soft image advocating “Change,” Japan will be daunted by the new move from the U. S. More than that, when observing the intelligence network around the coming Obama administration in detail, it is very likely that the coming move of the U. S. to Japan has already prepared even before Obama was elected. We should note again that the members of the intelligence network around the coming Obama administration has been engaged in the due-diligence activities in Japan’s market in the past years. So, we should get ready for the situation following a scenario that will start working very soon – it is likely that U. S, will intensify M&A activities in Japan’s market despite expectations of most Japanese people. Secondly, at home and overseas many has expressed disappointment that the president-elect Obama has been selecting his administration’s key members among the Clinton network, and the intelligence network is no exception. In such circumstance, intriguing is that Senate Hilary Clinton, who is said to have accepted the post of the State Secretary, has shown the most demanding attitude on policies on Iran. As we
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mentioned in IISIA predictive scenario Lumiere released on October 17, it is likely that as a result of coping with financial meltdown, the Obama administration will finally be forced to start limited air attacks against Iran by 2012, the end of the first term, at latest. When this comes true, there must be seen activities deployed by the key figures of the Clinton intelligence network. In other words, as long as these figures have penetrated in the heart of the coming Obama administration, we can conclude that a “climax” around the Iran issues has already set. In the past presidential elections, the military and intelligence institutions have exerted significant influences. The network around the coming administration at White House clearly shows a really conservative, conventional set-ups, which is far from what major media have often hyped. In the background, there are the two very influential groups – military and intelligence institution – and their scenario, regardless that it is set deliberately or unconsciously. By keeping this in our heart, we are now required to keep analyzing the market and situations at home and overseas more seriously than ever, as private investors and business men living in Japan.
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