posted 07-31-2003 01:51 PM            

CONTRA-GATE CRIMINAL FINALLY AT THE BREAKING POINT!

Poindexter to Quit Pentagon Post Amid Controversy
41 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John Poindexter, the retired Navy admiral who spearheaded two sharply criticized Pentagon projects,(DARPA/TIA) intends to resign from his Defense Department post within weeks, a senior U.S. defense official said on Thursday.

"It's my understanding that he ... expects to, within a few weeks, offer his resignation," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters.

Poindexter was involved with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's abandoned futures-trading market for predicting assassinations, terrorism and other events in the Middle East, and earlier with the so-called Total Information Awareness program (TIA)that drew fire from civil rights groups.

The official indicated that Poindexter had become a lightning rod for criticism. Poindexter served as President Ronald Reagan national security adviser in the 1980s and was convicted for his role in the Iran-contra scandal, a conviction that later was set aside.

"Everybody certainly recognizes Admiral Poindexter's background. And in the context of that background, it became in some ways very difficult for him to receive an objective reading of work that he was doing on behalf of finding terrorists," the official said.

BYE BYE!!

posted 07-31-2003 09:29 PM            

Congress zeros in on Poindexter over terror futures flap

By GEORGE EDMONSON
COX NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON -- As Congress continues looking into the just-killed Pentagon project to create a futures market for speculating on possible terrorist acts, a key question on many legislators' mind is this: Was John Poindexter involved?

For the naval officer who was a major figure in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, controversy has been a companion since he joined a Defense Department research agency after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

It visited again this week.

"We believe that he was responsible for it," Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., one of the senators whose revelation of the program led to its demise, said yesterday. "But we've asked for an investigation. We've asked the Pentagon to explain to us who was accountable, who was responsible. I think those who were responsible for doing this ought not be on the public payroll."

At a hearing Tuesday on Iraq, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., asked Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to identify who was responsible for the proposed Policy Analysis Market in which traders would speculate on the possibility of terrorist and other actions in the Middle East.

When Wolfowitz replied that he didn't know, Nelson, who has been critical of Poindexter in the past, shot back: "Is it Admiral Poindexter?"

The 66-year-old retired admiral who served as President Reagan's national security adviser was at the center of a storm when critics began to focus on his data-mining project called Total Information Awareness late last year. The program, later renamed Terrorism Information Awareness, involves a massive effort to analyze vast volumes of data on individuals in search of terrorists. Poindexter brought the idea to defense officials after Sept. 11 and it landed him the position at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

A wide range of public interest groups spoke out against the project, citing privacy concerns. Poindexter was excoriated on the floor of Congress and defended at the White House and the Pentagon.

He even became the subject of the "John Poindexter Awareness Office" on the Web that urged people to send in information about him, such as sightings and personal items he purchases.

Poindexter gained national attention, along with his aide, Lt. Col. Oliver North, when the Iran-Contra scandal broke in 1986. Iran-Contra was a tangled foreign-policy affair that involved covert arms sales to Iran and illicit diversion of funds to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

Poindexter's convictions for charges that included lying to Congress were overturned on appeal when the court determined that his congressional testimony, given under a grant of immunity, was improperly used against him.

Poindexter graduated first in his class at the Naval Academy in 1958, and later earned a doctorate in nuclear physics from the California Institute of Technology. He achieved the rank of vice admiral and served Navy secretaries at the Pentagon before going to the White House. He is said to be a computer expert as well.

The Pentagon research agency where Poindexter works, known commonly by its acronym, DARPA, is involved in a vast array of high-tech projects and works closely with numerous research universities and businesses.

It was started after the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1958 and played a major role in the development of the Internet.

Poindexter lives in the Maryland suburbs north of Washington and worked for Syntek Technologies Inc. in Northern Virginia before going to work at DARPA.

Whether he'll continue working there is an open question, according to a number of key lawmakers.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who chairs the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, said yesterday that he will explore that issue with DARPA officials and Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense.

posted 08-02-2003 01:26 PM            

Enough of Poindexter

Interntional Herald tribune

Thursday, July 31, 2003

The latest idea hatched by John Poindexter's wacky espionage operation at the Pentagon - an online futures trading market where speculators could bet on the probabilities of terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups - would be terrifying if it wasn't so patently absurd. The idea was quickly canned by embarrassed Pentagon officials. The obvious next step is to close down Poindexter's spy shop, and to send him packing.
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In testimony before the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, disowned the futures project. The idea is mind-boggling. Quite apart from the utter insensitivity of equating terrorist attacks with, say, corn futures, the plan would allow speculators - even terrorists - to profit from anonymous bets on future attacks. The project's theoretical underpinnings are equally absurd. Markets do not always operate perfectly in the larger world of stocks and bonds. The idea that they can reliably forecast the behavior of isolated terrorists is ridiculous.
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The "Policy Analysis Market" would actually have opened for business on Oct. 1 had Senators Ron Wyden and Byron Dorgan not blown the whistle. Despite Wolfowitz's pledge to kill it, however, the problem of Poindexter remains. He is a man of dubious background and dubious ideas. A retired rear admiral, he served as President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser and helped devise the plan to sell arms to Iran and illegally divert the proceeds to the rebels in Nicaragua. He was sentenced to six months in jail for lying to Congress, a conviction overturned on appeal. He resurfaced under the second Bush administration at the Pentagon. His first big brainstorm post-9/11 was a program known as Total Information Awareness, designed to identify potential terrorists by compiling a detailed electronic dossier on millions of Americans.
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Congress agreed earlier this year to subject that program to strict oversight and prohibit it from being used against Americans. In light of the revelations about the latest Poindexter scheme, Congress obviously did not go far enough. It has to close his operation for good. The Senate recently agreed to do just that, adding an amendment to a Defense Department appropriations bill that would terminate funds for the program. The House should follow suit.
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This man must go.