Cia

The Pentagon is creating a new intelligence service aimed at gathering information on terrorist networks, weapons of mass destruction and other emerging concerns, a senior defense official said Monday. The new Defense Clandestine Service will draw several hundred officers from the existing Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the classified program. The officers - some military, some civilian - will work alongside CIA counterparts in places such as Africa, whereal-Qaida has grown more active, and Asia, where Chinese military expansion and North Korean and Iranian weapons ambitions are drawing increasing U.S. concern.

Stanley A. Ciesielski, a retired career Central Intelligence Agency intelligence officer who was a co-founder of the Polish Heritage Association of Maryland, died Monday of lung cancer at a niece's home in Hampstead. He was 101. "Stanley Ciesielski was a great friend and adviser. I knew him through our work in the Polish community," said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a longtime friend. "He was a great patriot fighting for the freedom of Poland. He was one of the founders of the Polish Heritage Society, whose purpose was to support the Solidarity movement, particularly during those dark days of martial law," she said.

Two recent reports appearing on the same day last week in The New York Times and The Washington Post illustrate U.S. intentions in Iraq. What they reveal is that despite the heralded "end" of U.S. participation in the war there, U.S. policy continues to depend on our security apparatus to influence Iraq, at the expense of Iraqis' sovereignty and dignity. The Times report informed us that the U.S. State Departmentdecided to cut the U.S. embassy staff by 50 percent from its current 16,000 personnel.

Regarding the question posed by your editorial "A legitimate target?" (Oct. 3), my answer is an emphatic "Yes!" In the current global war against terrorism, when an American citizen such as radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was living in Yemen before being killed by a C.I.A. drone, defects and turns traitor to his country while openly supporting our enemies in al-Qaida, he becomes in my opinion a legitimate target for the U.S. military - and more power to them. Quinton D. Thompson, Towson

Arthur William Divens Sr., a World War II submariner who later worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and the Maryland Transit Administration, died June 25 of heart failure at Genesis Elder Care Center in Severna Park. He was 86. The son of a Westinghouse Electric Corp. executive and a homemaker, Mr. Divens was born in Trafford, Pa., and raised in Levelgreen, Pa. He left Penn Township High School in 1943 to join the Navy and served as a torpedo man aboard the submarine USS Queenfish, which earned a Presidential Citation and six battle stars, in the Pacific.

Every now and then, you get a press release that breaks new ground in the areas of creativity and hilarity. This is one of those times. Yesterday, the CIA sent out an Earth Day press release highlighting the agency's environmentally friendly initiatives.  Their plan? Burning documents.  Seriously. You can't make this stuff up. The release said:  "The Central Intelligence Agency’s practice of shredding and burning classified papers—often referred to in movies and books as “ burn after reading ” —is one of several ways the CIA conserves energy, reduces its impact on the environment, and lowers costs through its sustainability efforts.

President Harry S. Truman created the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947 to ensure that the policy community would have access to independent intelligence analysis that was free of the advocacy of the Department of State and Department of Defense. The CIA's most important analytic mission was the production of national intelligence estimates (NIEs) and assessments that tracked significant political and military developments and provided premonitory intelligence on looming threats and confrontations.

The United States has delivered a fleet of drone aircraft and billions of dollars in aid to coax Pakistan to do more to confront Afghan Taliban militants taking refuge inside the country. But the Islamist group's second in command was captured in Karachi last week largely because the United States was also able to provide something else Pakistan has demanded for years: solid intelligence on where Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar could be found. American and Pakistani officials said Tuesday that the capture of Baradar was driven by a rare intelligence break that enabled U.S. spy agencies to pinpoint the Taliban military chief and help Pakistan's intelligence service organize a daring operation on short notice to arrest him. Officials in Washington said the capture spotlights a heightened level of cooperation that the United States has pursued relentlessly in recent years through a campaign of diplomatic and military pressure.

WASHINGTON - -The CIA is deploying teams of spies, analysts and paramilitary operatives to Afghanistan, part of a broad intelligence "surge" that will make its station there among the largest in the agency's history, U.S. officials say. When complete, the CIA's presence in the country is expected to rival the size of its huge stations in Iraq and Vietnam at the height of those wars. Precise numbers are classified, but one U.S. official said the agency already has nearly 700 employees in Afghanistan.