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"debunkers" #gifiles #occupywallstreet 7/7 bombings 9/11 9/11 attacks 9/11 Citizens Commission 9/11 Commission 9/11 Commission Report 9/11 Conspiracy Roadtrip 9/11 Fahrenheit 911 9/11 families 9/11 phone calls 9/11 survivor 9/11 truth 9/11 Truther 9/11 Truth Movement 9/11 victims 9/11 War 9/11 War Games 9/11 Wars 9/11 Whistleblowers 9/11 workers 9/11 Working Group of Bloomington 9/11: Press For Truth 10th Anniversary 28 pages 757 911 first responders 911 museum 911blogger 911truthnews.com 2012 Abbottabad Able Danger accountability ACLU activism activists Adam Curtis Adam Syed AE911truth ae911truth.org Afghanistan aftermath Ahmadinejad AIPAC Air Force One al-Awlaki al-Qaida Alan Colmes Alan Grayson Alec Baldwin Alec Station Alex Jones Alfreda Frances Bikowsky Alhazmi Ali Soufan Al Jazeera Almihdhar Al qae al Qaeda Amalgam Virgo American War Machine Among the Truthers Andrew Card Andrew Napolitano Andrews Air Force Base anniversary Ann Wright Anonymous Anthony Shaffer Anthony Summers Anthrax Antonio Martinez Anwar al-Alwlaki Anwar al-Awlaki Anwar Awlaki architects Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth artifacts assassination Atiyah abd al-Rahman Australia Australian Broadcasting Corporation b BAE Ban Ki-moon Barack Obama Barcelona Barnes and Noble Barrie Zwicker baseball cards BBC BCCI Behrooz Sarshar Benedict Sliney Ben Fordham Ben Sliney Bill Clinton Bill Doyle Bill Maher Bill Moyers Bill O'Reilly bin Laden Blackwater Bloomington Bob Bowman Bob Graham Bob Kerrey Bob McIlvaine books Bosnia Brett Smith Brian Kilmeade Brooklyn Bridge Bruce Ivins Building 7 Building What bureaucracy Bush Bush Administration C-SPAN Camp David cancer capitalism Cass Sunstein censorship Champion Cheney China Chip Berlet Chris Hedges Chris Mohr Christian Chuck Schumer CIA Cindy Sheehan CIT Citizen Investigation Team Civil Disobedience civil liberties Classified Woman classroom CNN Cofer Black COG Cointelpro Cold War Cole Bombing Coleen Rowley Colin Powell Colorado Colorado Public Television Condonleezza Rice Con Edison congress conspiracies conspiracy conspiracy theory Constitution consumerism contradictions Cordoba Initiative Cornell West corporate media Cosmos Counter-Terror Expo Counterpunch counterterrorism coverup cover up CPT12 cryptome.org cybersecurity Cynthia McKinney Dahlia Wasfi Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Pipes Daniel Sunjata Dave Frasca David Chandler David Long David Ray Griffin David Swanson David Weigel DC debris debunking Deep Politics Democracy Now Democratic Party demolition Demos Dennis Kucinich detainee detainees Detroit DIA Dick Cheney Dick Gregory Disconnecting the Dots disinformation documents Donald Rumsfeld donations Donna Marsh O'Connor Downing Street drones dust Dwight D. Eisenhower DynCorp Egypt Egyptian Revolution Eleanor Hill Elena Kagan Eleventh actions Emanuel Sferios Emily Louise Church empire engineers entrapment Eric Bolling Eric Holder Eric Margolis espionage act Evan Dando evidence exercises explosions extremism F-16 FAA facebook Fahrenheit 9/11 Fake Phone Calls theory FBI FDR Analysis Fealgood Foundation FEMA firefighters first responders Flight 77 flight 93 Florida FOIA foreknowledge FOX FOX News Frances Bikowsky Frank Legge Fran Townsend fraud Fred Burton fresh kills funding FX Gawker General Assemby George Bush George Tenet George W. Bush Geraldo Rivera Germany Geronimo Gladio Glenn Beck Glenn Greenwald globalization Global Jihad Unit GN Graeme MacQueen Green Party Gregg Roberts Ground Zero Ground Zero mosque groups Guantanamo Guantanamo Bay Gulf of Tonkin hackers Hamid Karzai Haqqani health Health Bill hearing Heather Penney Heroin hijackers hijacking Hilary Clinton Hillary Clinton History Commons historycommons.org hit piece Homeland Security Howie Hawkins HR 847 Huffington Post humor Hypothesis Image Comics immunity Indefinite Detention India infiltration inside job Inspire magazine Intelligence Advisory Board intelligence failures intercept International Center for 9/11 Studies investigation Iowa Iran Iran-Contra Iraq Iraq War ISI Islam Israel issues James Bamford James Gourley Jane Mayer Janet Napolitano Janette MacKinlay Jason Leopold Jay Carney Jeffery Farrar Jellyfish Jersey Girls Jesse Ventura JICI Jim Corr Jim Fetzer Joe Biden Joe Rogan John Albanese John Ashcroft John Bursill John Duffy John Feal John Gross John Judge John Lennon John Pilger John Stewart John Walker Lindh Joint Congressional Inquiry Joint Forces Intelligence Command Jonathan Barnett Jonathan Cole Jonathan Kay Jon Cole Jon Faine Jon Gold Jon Stewart Joseph Doyle journalism Journal of 9/11 Studies Joy Behar Judge Hellerstein Judy Wood Julia Gillard Julian Assange justice Justice Department KALW Katherine Bigelow kdub Keith Olbermann Kent Gibson Kevin Barrett Kevin Bracken Kevin Fenton Kevin Ryan Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Korey Rowe Kosovo Kristen Breitweiser KSM LaborTech Langley Larry Silverstein Laurie Manwell Lawrence Wilkerson lawsuit Lee Hamilton Leon Panetta Libya lies limited hangout Link TV Liz Cheney Lloyd's of London London Truth Action Loose Change Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup Lorie Van Auken Lupe Fiasco Mahmoud Ahmed mainstream mainstream media Manny Badillo Mark Basile Mark Bavis Mark Rossini Mark Ruffalo Matt Taibbi Media Matters Media Roots MEK Mexican drug cartel Michael Anne Casey Michael Canavan Michael Goodwin Michael Moore Michael Mukasey Michael Mullen Michael Ruppert Michael Scheuer Mickey Huff Mike Gravel Mike Huckabee milestone Military Tribunals Mindy Kleinberg MK-Ultra Mohamed Osman Mohamud Mohammad Atta Mohammed Junaid Babar Morocco Mosque Mother Jones motive msnbc Muburak Muhammad Hussain Mumbai attacks Murdoch Muslim Muslim Center My Pet Goat Nafeez Ahmed nano-thermite Naomi Klein Naomi Wolf National Institute of Standards and Technology National September 11 Memorial NATO NBC NDAA Netanyahu Newburgh 4 news News Corp New York New York City New York magazine New York TImes New Zealand NFL Niels Harrit NIST Noam Chomsky NORAD NORAD. FAA Norman Mineta Norway NSA NYC NYCCAN NYPD Obama Occupy Wall Street official account Official Government Version oil Oliver North Olympia Snowe onion Operation Dark Heart Operation Northwoods Opium Osama Bin Laden Oslo Ottawa OWS P2 Pakistan Palestine Panetta Pat Curley Patriot Act Patriot Defense Group Patty Casazza Paul Thompson Peace of the Action Pentagon Pentagon Papers PENTTBOM Peter Dale Scott Peter King Peter Phillips petition Philadelphia Philip Giraldi Philip Zelikow phone hacking photographs photos physical evidence Pilots for 9/11 Truth Pinochet Pipeline Pittsburgh Steelers plane crash PNAC podcast Political Prisoners political research associates Port Authority Preet Bharara press press release Press TV Prince Bandar Project Censored propaganda protest pseudo-journalism psychology Pumpitout Radio Qatar Quantico questions R. Leslie Deak rachel maddow radar Radio 2GB Ramzi bin al-Shibh Rap News Rashard Mendenhall Ray Kelly Ray McGovern Raymond Davis Ray Nowosielski redacted Rediscover911 remains Remember Building 7 Rescue Me Research Rethinking Counterterrorism RIBA Richard Blee Richard Clarke Richard Falk Richard Gage Richard Mellon Scaife foundation Richard Meyers Rich Blee Rick Veitch Rita Katz Robert Fisk Robert Foster Robert Parry Robert Scheer Rock Creek Free Press Rolling Stone Rory Albanese Roseanne Barr Rosie O'Donnell Rudy Giuliani Russ Baker Russia Today Saddam Hussein Saeed Sheikh Samir Khan Sarasota Saudi Saudi Arabia Saudis SCAD scads Scott Ford Scott Noble Screw Loose Change Sean Penn secrecykills.com self-deception Senate Senator Mike Gravel Sept. 11 September 11th September 11th Advocates September 11th attacks settlement Shadow Government Shanksville Shoestring shoot down Sibel Edmonds Sibel Emonds simulations SITE skepticism sounds South Park Spain speculation speech SPLC spying State crimes against democracy State Department State Of Emergency Stephen Cozen Steve Dusterwald Steven Hatfill Steven Jones Strategy of Tension Stratfor Supreme Court surveillance surveillance state Susan Rice Syed Shazad Taliban taped terrorism terror plot Terror Timeline The Big Lie The Corrs The Daily Show The Eleventh Day of Every Month The Facts Speak For Themselves The Hard Evidence Tour The Huffington Post The Jersey Girls The New Yorker The Pentagon The Post-9/11 World The Power of Nightmares Thermate The Third Stage Thierry Meyssan think tank Thomas Kean Tom Drake Tom Owen Tom Ridge Tom Wilshire Tony Shaffer Tony Szamboti Topps Top Secret America torture Toward Justice Toxic to Democracy Truth Truth Action truthaction.org Truth Action Ottawa Truth Be Told Comics truther Truth Movement truthout.org Truth Revolution Truth Rising TSA twin towers twitter U.S. UN underwear bomber United 93 United 175 United Airlines United Nations University of Colorado University of Virginia UN Watch US government US Military vaccines Valerie Plame Vanessa Lang Langer victims videos videotaped visa express visibility Visibility 9-11 Wall Street war war crimes war games warnings War on Terror Washington Post We Are Change Welt der Wunder Whistleblower whistleblowers White House Who Is Rich Blee Whoopi Goldberg Wikileaks William Blum Willie Nelson Will McCants wiretaps World Series World Trade Center WTC WTC7 WTC 7 Xe Yemen Zacarias Moussaoui Zadroga Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act Zelikow

Gawker: Chief of CIA’s Global Jihad Unit Revealed Online

Source: Gawker
Category: BLOG

The CIA is having trouble keeping its secret agents off the internet. First, it allowed the White House to publish a photograph of the man behind the operation to kill Osama bin Laden. And now the identity of the woman who runs its “Global Jihad Unit”—and who has a long (if pseudonymous) history of being associated with some of the agency’s most disastrous boondoggles—has been published online by two documentary filmmakers who sussed it out with the help of some “savvy internet research.”

Her name is Alfreda Frances Bikowsky and, according to independent reporters Ray Nowosielski and John Duffy, she is a CIA analyst who is partially responsible for intelligence lapses that led to 9/11. The two reporters recently released a “documentary podcast” called “Who Is Richard Blee?” about the chief of the agency’s bin Laden unit in the immediate run-up to the 9/11 attacks and featuring interviews with former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, former CIA agent Bob Baer, Looming Tower author Lawrence Wright, 9/11 Commission co-chairman Tom Keane, and others. In it, Nowosielski and Duffy make the case that Bikowsky and another CIA agent named Michael Anne Casey deliberately declined to tell the White House and the FBI that Khalid al-Mihdhar, an Al Qaida affiliate they were tracking, had obtained a visa to enter the U.S. in the summer of 2001. Al-Mihdhar was one of the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77. The CIA lost track of him after he entered the U.S.

Bikowsky was also, according to Nowosielski and Duffy, instrumentally involved in one of the CIA’s most notorious fuck-ups—the kidnapping, drugging, sodomizing, and torture of Khalid El-Masri in 2003 (El-Masri turned out to be the wrong guy, and had nothing to do with terrorism). As the Associated Press’ Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo reported earlier this year, an analyst they described only by her middle name—”Frances”—pressed for El-Masri to be abducted even though some in the agency weren’t convinced he was the terrorist that Frances suspected he was. Instead of being punished or fired for the error, “Frances” was eventually promoted to running the Global Jihad Unit by then-CIA director Michael Hayden. According to Goldman and Apuzzo’s story, “Hayden told colleagues that he gave Frances a pass because he didn’t want to deter initiative within the counterterrorism ranks.”

Nowosielski and Duffy also contend that Bikowsky is the unnamed “particularly overzealous female officer” described in Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side who traveled to personally view Khalid Sheikh Muhammed’s interrogation despite having “no legitimate reason” to be there. Mayer reported that she attended the sessions because “she thought it would be cool”; her supervisors later reprimanded her with the admonition, “It’s not supposed to be entertainment.”

Chief of CIA's 'Global Jihad Unit' Revealed OnlineMichael Anne Casey, according Nowosielski and Duffy, is the name of the CIA analyst who sat on information about Al-Mihdhar obtaining a visa in 2001, at one point telling an FBI agent detailed to the agency, “Listen, it’s not an FBI case. It’s not an FBI matter. When we want the FBI to know, we’ll let them know. And you’re not going to say anything.”

The disclosures appear to have been inadvertent. In the “Who Is Rich Blee?” podcast, as well as a transcript of it available online, both Bikowsky and Casey are referred to exclusively as “[Frances]” and “[Michael].” But at some point this week, Nowosielski and Duffy posted on their web site a cache of email correspondence with the CIA’s public affairs office generated while pursuing the story. Among them was an email Nowosielski wrote to an unnamed CIA official last month laying out their argument for revealing Bikowsky and Casey’s names—and revealing that they were able to identify them not through a whistleblower or anonymous leak but “through internet research.” Here it is in full:

From: FF4 Films

Date: Thu, Aug 8, 2011 at 10:00 AM

Subject: CIA Public Affairs

To: (CIA Email Form)

To CIA Public Affairs Media Relations:

We wish to make you aware that we plan to release an investigative podcast on iTunes on Sunday, September 11, and a written piece in Truthout shortly thereafter which will name two of your employees, Alfreda Frances Bikowsky and Michael Anne Casey. Please take appropriate steps to ensure their safety, though our sources tell us both are currently working from CIA headquarters in Langley.

Evidence we have uncovered demonstrates that each failed to follow standard operating procedure on multiple instances with regard to an operation that surveilled two future 9/11 hijackers, one that many we interviewed feel was the single best opportunity to stop those attacks. Some of those failures appear to have been deliberate choices. Both women then failed to tell the full story to and/or ensure the full story was known by subsequent investigations.

Both were analysts, not operatives, before Sept 11th, so the CIA could have chosen to allow them to be named and held to account by subsequent government investigations. Instead, the Agency put them in the cover status, retroactively protecting their identities and allowing them to continue in important terror-related assignments in the field. We understand that Ms. Casey has multiple family members also working in the Agency.

Regarding Ms. Bikowsky specifically, we have learned that she may have misinformed the Congressional investigation on certain details. We have also confirmed that she is the CIA employee described in Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side as having been reprimanded for making herself involved in the waterboarding of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed without officially being assigned to do so. And another source who has read the CIA OIG Report into the Camp Chapman attack says she was named for accountability in that incident as well.

We wish to make clear that no source provided us with these names. We were given descriptions and various background details by multiple sources about two officers inside Alec Station in 1999-2001, one a red-headed thirtysomething supervisor later promoted to Deputy Chief and the other a young staff operations officer. We were then able through internet research to identify likely candidates for the names of these people. During interviews with those who might know, we would describe what Ms. Bikowsky did in this instance or Ms. Casey did in that and ask a question about it. The failure to correct us provided confirmation.

We are officially requesting to interview Ms. Bikowsky and Ms. Casey so that they might set the record straight in detail if we have been given bad information or misinterpreted the often murky facts surrounding these incidents. We are willing to move back our release date in order to include their interviews, though we would need to know that within twenty-four hours.

When you reply, we will send you a transcript of the podcast so that CIA may choose to respond. This response will be included on our web site, mentioned at the end of the podcast, and referenced in the Truthout piece. If you provide new details or explanations that are significant enough, we will re-work the podcast and Truthout write-up to reflect these revelations before release. We can be reached by reply email or at 317-698-xxxx.

Thank you,

Ray Nowosielski

FF4 Films

The reporters also posted the CIA’s reply, which seemed to confirm the identities: “We strongly believe it is irresponsible and a potential violation of criminal law to print the names of two reported undercover CIA officers whom you claim have been involved in the hunt against al Qa’ida.” Nowosielski and Duffy interpreted this as a threat and an attempt to censor their reporting, writing: “The federal law in question was later stated: the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. The law has never before been applied to journalists who find information in open-source materials. This possible expansion of precedent fits an ongoing pattern of intimidation and redefining precedent regarding leaks and whistleblowers from the White House.”

Last night the former FBI linguist and whistleblower Sibel Edmonds caught wind of the correspondence and posted Bikowsky’s name on her blog: “Boiling Frogs Post has now confirmed the identity of the CIA analyst at the heart of a notorious failure in the run-up to the September 11th tragedy.” Cryptome’s John Young also published Nowosielski’s letter in full. At this point, Bikowsky and Casey’s identities as CIA analysts are fully disseminated across the internet. A Google search for either name immediately turns up web sites reporting their CIA affiliations. Likewise, a search for “Who is the director of the CIA’s Global Jihad Unit?” returns Bikowsky’s name in the first result.

(Their digital trails are, as one might expect, scant. A “Michael Anne Casey” turns up on LinkedIn as an “Independent Think Tanks Professional” in the Washington, D.C. area. In 2003, someone by that name was nominated as a foreign service officer for the State Department. In 2004, she was listed as a consular officer in Rome by the U.N.’s Committee on World Food Security, of which she was a member. Bikowsky was nominated to the foreign service in 2008.)

Unfortunately for Nowosielski and Duffy, they never intended to post the email containing Bikowsky and Casey’s names. Though they had hoped to publish the identities, the CIA’s threats had successfully intimidated them. Nowosielski wrote to Cryptome’s John Young at some point last night or this morning explaining that the email was posted in error and asking that he remove his copy; Young complied.

Nowosielski told Gawker via email, “We chose to censor the name at the request of CIA. Sibel chose to run the name for her story. We’ve asked that she remove any reference to our web site, where we did in fact censor the names for both the podcast and transcript. The post of the correspondence was an accident, a miscommunication with our webmaster that was quickly corrected. We frankly were scared of the CIA repercussions (regardless of the ethical issues involved here) and decided to censor. Simple as that.”

We contacted the CIA seeking comment about the disclosures, Nowosielki and Duffy’s reporting, and to ask if the agency did in fact threaten them with criminal prosecution if they published the names. Spokesman Preston Golson responded in a statement:

The CIA does not as a rule comment on the names of reported undercover officers.

The Central Intelligence Agency has a very different assessment, as you might expect, on these events, as did the 9/11 Commission. The CIA’s counterterrorism efforts have significantly degraded al Qaeda and produced valuable and timely intelligence, which has allowed the United States and others to take action countless times to save lives and disrupt plots.

Any suggestion that the CIA purposely refused to share critical lead information on the 9/11 plots with FBI is baseless.

Speculation and allegations such as these diminish the hard work and dedication of countless CIA officers who have worked tirelessly against al Qaeda both before and after 9/11-hard work that culminated in the operation that found Bin Ladin.

Golson did not ask us not to publish Bikowsky and Casey’s names.

The Associated Press’ Goldman, when asked if the “Frances” he referred to in his February story with Matt Apuzzo was indeed Bikowsky, referred us to AP spokesman Paul Colford. Colford declined to comment. It’s notable that Goldman, who presumably knows Frances’ identity, posted on Twitter a link to the correspondence while it was up on Nowosielski and Duffy’s site: “Web site reveals names CIA officers involved in 9/11 intelligence failure.” UPDATE: After we published this story, Goldman wrote on Twitter that “Retweeting is not a confirmation of anything.”

We asked Jane Mayer if Bikowsky was the woman she described as having crashed Khalid Sheikh Muhammed’s interrogation. She replied, “I identified everyone I felt was appropriate in my book, and am sorry not to be of more help but need to leave it at that.”

  1. Jon Gold says:

    The CIA might want to listen to 9/11 Commissioner Thomas Kean who was interviewed for “Who Is Rich Blee?” when he said this was one of the most “troubling aspects” of the 9/11 Report (in a footnote in the back of the report), and asked “does it surprise you that the CIA was brought up to lie?”

    The CIA may want to read the CIA Inspector General’s report that suggests that people “failed to meet an acceptable standard of performance, and recommends that an internal review board review their conduct for possible disciplinary action,” and ask Porter Goss why he refused to release the report, and “asked Helgerson to modify the report to avoid drawing conclusions about whether individual CIA officers should be held accountable.”

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