News of the World politics blog: alleged CIA intelligence sharing threat and the Operation Pathway intelligence failure

How many people read the News of the World tabloid newspaper ? Quite a lot on Sundays, when the weekly paper edition is published . How many people read the News of the World's multi-authored "politics blog" on a Saturday ? At guess, hardly anyone at all.

Even the usual blog search engines do not seem to pay much attention to that newspaper blog.

However, when an online article published on the Saturday is picked up by a "real political blogger", in this case Iain Dale, then other bloggers and commentators (and the search engines) will take note. This precisely the opposite of the usual information relationship between newspapers and bloggers.

This particular News of the World blog article seems to scream "disinformation", and deserves some sceptical comment, which will end up in the search engines for posterity.

Politics

News of the World

CIA freeze intel over Libya Saturday, September 5

BRITAIN was facing the likelihood of an increased terror threat last night -- after America's CIA chiefs threatened to stop sharing vital intelligence with us following the Lockerbie bomber's release.

The Americans have already warned British intelligence services that sending cancer-stricken Abdelbaset al-Megrahi home to Libya has destroyed our "special relationship".

What "special relationship" ? The one where US politicians and officials blab details about alleged terrorist plots in Pakistan, which force the UK authorities to arrest their suspects here in the UK far too soon to gather any real evidence against them, like the mythical "gas limos" plot ?

But the fallout following the bomber's release has now worsened with the CIA threat to stop sharing information on terrorists gathered by their agents.

What threat ? Made by whom, exactly ?

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton seems to have obliquely threatened our useless UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, with something similar, at the end of July, over the Binyam Mohamed torture allegations High Court case, but that has nothing to do with Libya.

How could such a nonsensical threat ever be justified ? It would weaken US national security as well as that of the UK - which would be a victory for the terrorists.

They have also warned they may not pass on vital information picked up by their sophisticated eavesdropping satellites.

The United States "sophisticated eavesdropping satellites" arerun by the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Security Agency, but not just for the benefit of the CIA alone.

The Americans are furious at the bomber's release -- and at revelations this week that the Libyans had been told privately that Gordon Brown did not want al-Megrahi to die in jail.

As are many people in the United Kingdom.

Now senior security sources in Britain have told the News of the World the row threatens to put Britain's security at risk.

This anonymous briefing of mainstream newspapers is utterly counterproductive.

Why should anyone ever trust such anonymous "senior security sources" ?

If they were really serious about the "Prevent" strand of the the National Security Strategy, then they would have a proper, much more open press and internet strategy, with named official press spokesmen..

They say American intelligence was vital in Operation Pathway -- which thwarted a possible UK al Qaeda operation in April.

Operation Pathway was an utter intelligence disaster !

14 people were arrested at gunpoint, not in dawn raids, but during the early evening, thereby putting the general public at more danger than necessary, in a rushed operation brought forward because of the former head of the Metropolitan Police counter terrorism command, Bob Quick's security breach which exposed secret briefing papers about Operation Pathway to the digital zoom lenses of press photographers on his way in to a meeting at Number 10 Downing street.

Not one of those 14 people has been charged with any terrorism offences, nor any other criminal offences, presumably because not a trace of any explosives, weapons, terrorist plans or money was found after their arrests.

How the CIA are meant to have been involved in the supposedly intercepted emails about a wedding, which were seemingly interpreted as a coded list of unnamed explosives ingredients, is a mystery. This farcical theory was put forward to the Special Immigration Appeal Commission, when it considered the deportation of several of the Operation Pathway arrestees, who were not charged and then released, but still held under immigration regulations..

It also helped foil the plot to blow up an airplane flying out of Heathrow in 2006.

How exactly ? Which airplane plot was that ?

Surely not the rushed Operation Overt , the security theatre over-reaction to which, lead to the multi-million pound collateral damage to the airline industry, and increased danger risk to passengers (lots of baggage was flown on planes , without the corresponding passengers just like the Lockerbie Pan Am Flight 193 bomb), as a result of the farcical and ever changing bans on even the most harmless liquids carried by passengers ?

Patrick Mercer, chairman of the House of Commons' counter-terrorism sub-committee, also says: "We depend upon the US for much of our intelligence gathering. Gordon Brown must not let the co-operation be ruptured.

"To do so will endanger this country and its citizens."

The Conservative opposition spokesman Patrick Mercer always seems ready with a quote for the media, even when there is utter silence from Labour Government Ministers.

One security source revealed: "A large number of CIA agents are effectively British intelligence officers. They are doing a terribly important job."

How are we meant to assess the reliability of this anonymous "security source" ?

Is this an oblique reference to the Sunday Telegraph story which claimed that the CIA was running its own agents within Pakistani communities here in the United Kingdom, thereby sidestepping the legal framework of the Security Service Act 1989 (and 1996) , the Intelligence Services Act 1994 and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 etc