The British on intelligence: a collection (SIS, MI5, GCHQ & more)

[davidbfpo]

From a short article by an academic and he concludes:

Ultimately, Hussein saw Iran as his primary threat and WMDs as his best form of deterrence. As a result, he was willing to risk invasion by Western countries rather than admit he did not possess them.
If one lesson is to be learned from this mistake, it’s the importance of having a “red team” of critical analysts challenging assumptions and offering alternative explanations for opponents’ behaviour. It was Blair’s failing, along with the wider intelligence community, that the intelligence was not questioned and no-one pondered why Iraq might not wish to reveal its weakness in this regard.

Link:https://theconversation.com/chilcot-scolds-britains-intelligence-community-for-its-role-in-the-iraq-war-62078?

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to WoTR for this American author's commentary on intelligence after Chilcot, admittedly with an American application and he ends with:

There are no U.S. government reports that can compare with the Chilcot report. This truly stands out as a well-written, apolitical, and bluntly honest assessment of government policy, offering a great source of research for defense analysts everywhere. It probably will not change anyone’s mind about the invasion of Iraq, but it should motivate members of the national security enterprise to reconsider how they look at the general threat of adversarial countries and their developing WMD programs in context with regional stability and international relations policy.

Link:http://warontherocks.com/2016/07/chi...-on-wmd-intel/

[Azor]

From a short article by an academic and he concludes:Link:https://theconversation.com/chilcot-scolds-britains-intelligence-community-for-its-role-in-the-iraq-war-62078?

Interestingly, Hussein's FBI interrogators learned the same details from him. It was a bluff to keep Iran from moving in...

[davidbfpo]

Very few noticed this and no, it has nothing to do with the current spat over President Trump's allegations:

On 3 March 2017, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain’s signals intelligence agency, announced an authorised history, written by noted signals intelligence historian John Ferris, to be published to tie in with the organisation’s centenary in 1919.

Link to a commentary:http://www.historyandpolicy.org/opin...orised-history

Link to GCHQ's announcement:https://www.gchq.gov.uk/news-article...centenary-2019

[davidbfpo]

A curious article via Twitter by a serving GCHQ official, which opens with:

Security services across the globe struggled to keep pace with threats to public safety in the digital age, as insurgents, terrorists and criminals have moved online. Dr Paul Killworth considers the challenges GCHQ continue to face and argues for the need to bridge the ideological gaps between security specialists, academics and tech utopianists.

Link:https://quarterly.demos.co.uk/articl...article-footer

[davidbfpo]

Copied from a 2014 post in the Snowden thread to act as an introduction to the next post:

A few weeks ago, Glenn Greenwald, while working with NBC News, revealed some details of a GCHQ presentation concerning how the surveillance organization had a "dirty tricks" group known as JTRIG -- the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group. Now, over at The Intercept, he's revealed the entire presentation and highlighted more details about how JTRIG would seek to infiltrate different groups online and destroy people's reputations -- going way, way, way beyond just targeting terrorist groups and threats to national security.

Link:ttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...utations.shtml

[davidbfpo]

Spotted via Twitter a PPT presentation and talk in Germany about JTRIG. The source is:

This site offers a wide variety of video and audio material distributed by the Chaos Computer Club

Their introduction to the 31 minute talk:

The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), a unit in one of Britain’s intelligence agencies, is tasked with creating sockpuppet accounts and fake content on social media, in order to use "dirty tricks" to "destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt" enemies by "discrediting" them. In this talk, we reveal some of that content, in relation to infiltrating activists groups around the world, including during the Arab spring and Iranian revolution.

Link:https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9233-unc...media_personas

[davidbfpo]

I am always curious when a former British "insider" publishes an article abroad. This time it is the barrister David Anderson, who until recently as the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and the author of a review into the 2017 attacks.
Link:https://www.lawfareblog.com/new-appr...e-oversight-uk

Compared to the optimism of David Anderson there is a skillful dissection of the (Parliamentary) Intelligence & Security Committee, which has an odd history and the government is not always helpful:

Oversight and scrutiny depend on primary evidence: without sight of the actual documents provided to Ministers we cannot ourselves be sure – nor offer an assurance to Parliament or the public – that we have indeed been given the full facts surrounding the authorisation process for the lethal strike against Reyaad Khan.

Link:https://parliamentsandlegislatures.w...ity-committee/