Friday, December 2, 2011

Yemen after Saleh.



On November 23, 2011 Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh arrived unexpectedly in Saudi Arabia, where he signed an agreement whereby he would transfer authority to his vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The United States and Saudi Arabia, the nations that brokered the agreement, hope that Saleh's departure from office would put an end to the "Yemeni revolution," which began in January 2011, inspired by the events of the Arab spring and in response to Yemen's already difficult domestic conditions. The hope is that Saleh’s exit will stop the country from deteriorating into a full-scale civil war, but it is doubtful whether this move will result in the hoped-for stability: Yemen is already a failed state, indeed, one of the most dangerous of its kind.
For the 33 years of his rule, Saleh managed to create a complex system of government patronage for the various tribes, helping him maintain effective control of the nation. He understood power relations and maintained a balance of power among the tribes in Yemen though a mix of fear and cooption; consider his memorable description that ruling Yemen is “like dancing on the heads of snakes.” In a country where the number of uncontrolled weapons is four times larger than the number of weapons in the hands of the security services, Saleh was clever enough to operate together with the tribal forces in order to maintain his power and confront internal threats, such as the separatist desires of the south and the Shiite Houthi revolt in the north. These tribal leaders who attained stability were awarded many benefits; even the opposition was bought in the same way.
The collapse of "Saleh’s order" is liable to damage this fragile fabric and spark armed competition among the tribes for control over the country’s dwindling resources. Evidence of such competition already exists, where tribes closely allied with the regime have continued to support Saleh while others have joined the opposition’s ranks. In March 2011, General Mahmad Ali Mohsen, commander of the First Armored Corps and Saleh’s close ally for the last 30 years, emerged as the opposition leader. The fact that he allegedly came out to defend the demonstrators may help him in the elections. But whoever wins the elections will have to deal with a society deeply divided among tribes, religious factions, and armed militias.
The revolution in Yemen, which began as a call for democracy by the young, has turned into a struggle between the existing elites. Political parties and figures allied with the government as well as military commanders who deserted after the turmoil began took charge of the demonstrations and the armed opposition to Saleh’s regime. Even in the most optimistic scenario of an orderly transfer of power, the governance of the nation during the transition period will likely be placed in the hands of senior officials of the old regime who will presumably try to prevent, or at least delay, the transition to a democratic form of government. This may spark a new wave of violent resistance should the young people of the revolution stick to their positions and demand a real change, and may even accelerate the deterioration of the poorest and most populated Arab nation in the Arabian Peninsula.
Since the start of the events this year the situation has only grown more acute. Oil exports have all but stopped and the Yemeni economy has sustained losses of up to $10 billion. About half of Yemen’s population already lives on less than $2 a day. Unemployment has skyrocketed (according to a number of indices it is over 50 percent), while about half of the population is under the age of 16. This reality will complicate any attempt to deal with the social unrest, at least in the foreseeable future. Oil, the nation’s only natural resource and the source of most of the income from exports, is dwindling fast: the oil reserves are expected to run dry in the coming decade. Yemen’s water sources too are expected to be depleted. The government-by-patronage overly exploited the country's resources, and lacking an alternate plan for economic development, Saleh in recent years relied on financial assistance from Saudi Arabia and the US.
Any alternative government will have to confront a whole host of internal threats to the country’s stability. Since the start of the current wave of unrest, the central government has gradually been losing control of many regions, especially in the outlying areas but even in Sana’a itself. In the south, the separatists have taken advantage of the absence of the security forces and are threatening to declare independence. Enjoying Iranian support, the Shiite rebels have also, thanks to the chaos, managed to expand the areas under their control: in practice, they control the entire Sa’dah Governorate as well as extensive areas along the border with Saudi Arabia. One of their goals is to gain access to the Red Sea, ensuring an ongoing weapons supply from Iran via the sea.
At the same time, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has expanded its areas of control; it even managed to wrest control of large parts of the Abyan Governorate, including Zinjibar, a port city in the Gulf of Aden. The Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda, is, according to the Americans, becoming the most dangerous extension of al-Qaeda’s many satellites. The concern is that under the cover of the growing anarchy in Yemen, the organization will continue to carry out deadly attacks and even hamper the freedom of shipping in the Bab El Mandeb Straits, the conduit for more than 3 million barrels of oil every day.
The international effort to confront the instability in Yemen, expected to continue after the transition of the regime, requires attention to Yemen’s problems beyond terrorism, which is but a symptom of the nation’s many ills. The US has already made it clear that it has no intention of becoming directly involved in another burning Middle East arena and that American activity in Yemen would continue to focus on aerial attacks against al-Qaeda operatives, such as the operation that killed al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki on September 30, 2011.
The state that has recently had much involvement in Yemen and even helped the sides arrive at the current agreement is Saudi Arabia, which is interested in ensuring that Yemen’s problems do not become its own. The Saudis have much influence in Yemen: over the years, Saudi Arabia established a system of patronage, including generous assistance to the Yemeni government and direct payments to tribal leaders in the country. But Saudi Arabia lacks absolute control of what happens in Yemen, as evidenced by al-Qaeda’s attempts in recent years to assassinate members of the Saudi royal family.
Saleh’s exit from the arena will raise questions about his few – though not unimportant – achievements. The man who danced so well on the heads of snakes fought al-Qaeda and the Houthis and to a large extent served as the glue that held together the divided Yemeni arena. Yemen’s neighbors – chiefly Saudi Arabia – are not interested in the a democracy-minded model in their backyard but are afraid that the situation will spiral out of control and that destitute Yemeni refugees will start pouring over the border. They have therefore promoted a somewhat different model of transfer of power than the one in North Africa; according to this model, Saleh and his cronies will enjoy immunity and his political party will be able to participate in future elections for national leadership.
Saleh’s exit, however, is not the end of the matter, if only because the agreement he signed does not respond to most of the demonstrators’ demands and because it is still unclear how much his main rivals are truly committed to it. The departure of the fourth Arab leader since the start of the upheavals sweeping the region may help lower the flames but will not resolve Yemen’s problems, which are slowly but surely becoming the problems of the Middle East.

 

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Monday, September 26, 2011

Israel and its Strategic Environment: Opportunities for Political Initiative





Although the upheavals gripping the Arab world are not directly related to Israel or its ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, they intensify existing crises between Israel and the Arab and Muslim worlds. In turn, the deterioration in relations between Israel and the Palestinians as a result of the deadlocked negotiations and the Palestinians’ statehood bid to the UN are liable to further aggravate Israel’s situation with regard to its Middle East environment. Israel’s response to this situation has for the most part been passive and defensive, and there has been no attempt to identify opportunities for proactive policies that could have a positive impact on Israel’s position.
Such opportunities, however, do in fact exist, and Israel should attempt to maximize them. This essay examines the likely regional reality following the Palestinians’ move in the UN in the context of opportunities for an Israeli political initiative in the Palestinian, Egyptian, Turkish, and Saudi arenas.
The Palestinians’ appeal to the international forum has created a new dynamic. According to a reasonable scenario, after the Palestinian request is turned down by the Security Council – whether because it has no majority or because of an American veto – a proposed resolution to grant the Palestinian state observer status in the UN will be presented to the General Assembly, where it will pass with a large majority. Such a resolution would allow the Palestinian state to join other international organizations and treaties. For example, joining the International Court of Justice would allow the Palestinian state to file claims against Israel for its behavior in the territories and file suits against politicians and military personnel for bearing personal responsibility for war crimes and violations of international law. Developments of this sort would expand what in Israel is seen as delegitimization of the state, and overall, the resolution, against the background of crises with Turkey and Egypt and the tension with Jordan, will increase Israel’s isolation and the political pressure leveled against it.
There is a serious risk in the convergence of the deadlocked negotiations with the Palestinians, the bid in the UN, and the Arab spring. The day after the drama in the UN the Palestinian public along with the public in other Arab nations will understand that nothing on the ground has in fact changed and that reality in the West Bank and Gaza Strip continues as before. Thereafter the question arises, what then? How does one realize the idea of a Palestinian state that has been recognized by the UN? The Arab spring suggests that these aims are achievable via massive peaceful demonstrations. However, in the reality in the territories, where two hostile camps are pitted against one another, it is difficult to imagine that demonstrations would remain peaceful over time. The Jewish residents of the West Bank and the security forces guarding them will view oncoming demonstrators as a real threat, and it would be difficult to control ensuing demonstrations with anti-riot measures. The likely result is demonstrators being fired upon and a return thereby to the cycle of violence. Thus the concern is not of the decision by one side or another to provoke violence, rather a loss of control of the situation by the respective sides and the consequent slide into violence. It is not difficult to imagine the effect of such violent outbursts on the Arabs and Muslims, whose influence over governments has grown, and on Israel’s image in the West, given its increasing isolation.
Thus it will become clear that the situation remains what it was, yet Israel will face a Palestinian state recognized by the UN. Herein lies an opportunity to propose to the Palestinian side to engage in dialogue about the meaning of their new status and what is required for Israel to recognize it and make it a reality. Such a dialogue would constitute the renewal of the negotiations in a somewhat different manner. In certain ways, Israel would be in a better position because it is more convenient for a state to conduct negotiations with another state rather than with an organization. In other ways, Israel’s position would be less convenient because the Palestinians would be entering negotiations with wide international support (though there is little new about that). Yet in any event, Israel must suppress any notion of punishing the Palestinians by stopping to transfer the funds it collects for them or by annexing the settlement blocs. Such actions would only exacerbate the crisis and make a difficult political situation worse given the anticipated international response. The expected damage to the Palestinian Authority’s stability would also have a devastating effect on Israeli interests.
Despite its problematic internal situation, Egypt is seeking to reposition itself as a central player in regional foreign policy, both because of the effect this would have on domestic public opinion and because it would symbolize a break with the Mubarak era, when Egypt was seen as a state that had lost its standing as leader of the Arab world. Today there is also greater willingness on the part of Arab publics to let Egypt play the leading role, evidenced in Egypt’s successful mediation between Fatah and Hamas. All the while, public opinion in Egypt is greatly affected by developments in the Palestinian arena. Israel can take advantage of this situation in order to coordinate moves quietly in the Israeli-Palestinian arena with Egypt. At the same time, the shared interest in restoring law and order to the Sinai Peninsula represents an opportunity to establish a strategic dialogue that would focus on the changes that are required in the military appendix to the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement.
The bridges between Israel and Turkey have seemingly been burned, and common wisdom in Israel argues this is a result of Ankara's decision to turn its back on Europe and focus instead on the Middle East and expand Turkey’s influence in the region. While there has indeed been a fundamental change in Turkey’s foreign relations, Erdoğan’s government initially tried to effect this change together with Israel – not against it – by positioning Turkey as an arbitrator and mediator between Israel and various Arab elements. The assumption that Turkey decided to adopt an anti-Israel policy without regard for Israel’s conduct is highly questionable. Should Israel manage to find a solution to Turkey’s demands for an apology, there would be a range of opportunities to improve relations with Turkey through Israeli willingness to cooperate with Turkey desire to fulfill some key roles. Such steps are of great importance to Turkey, especially now as its “zero problems with neighbors” policy is collapsing vis-à-vis the Syrians, the Kurds, Cyprus, Greece, and Armenia. For example, it could be possible to enter into negotiations with Turkey about letting some boats sail to Gaza after a thorough security check in which the Turks would play a role in cooperation with Israel.
For its part, Saudi Arabia is very concerned by developments in the Arab world and by Iran’s ability both to exploit the situation and promote its nuclear program. Consequently, Saudi Arabia has adopted a more assertive policy. On the face of it, there seems to be a foundation for extensive cooperation and strategic understandings between Israel and Saudi Arabia, but there is a limited possibility of realizing such intentions as long as the conflict between Israel and the Arab world, and especially the Palestinians, escalates. Israel has the ability to change this reality, first by adopting the Saudi-formulated Arab Peace Initiative as a foundation for negotiations between Israel and the Arab states, using the language of Prince Turki Bin Faisal's recent article, and also by extending an opportunity for the renewal of negotiations with the Palestinians. The repercussions of such actions would not be limited to the Saudi arena but would also be the foundation for an Israeli initiative that could have regional implications as well.
It is doubtful if the current passive Israeli policy, with regard both to developments in the region and to relations with the Palestinians, serves Israel’s best interests. In any event, internal considerations (such as preserving the coalition) should not dictate the need to adopt a policy that is essentially reactive. Rather, Israel must take advantage of the windows of opportunity created by regional developments without compromising its security interests.


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Tuesday, September 20, 2011

The Arab Spring and Russian Policy in the Middle East

In what perhaps can be heralded as a turning point in Russia's Middle East policy, seemingly coordinated statements have recently been sounded in important settings and the media by senior Russian figures (leading experts on the Middle East, politicians, and even the president himself). These statements have included criticism of the revolutionary process underway in the Middle East, portrayed as fundamentally negative and rife with risks for both regional and global stability. According to these pronouncements, the Arab spring gradually evolved into an Islamic summer by paving the way for the rise to power of forces from the radical Islamic camp in an essentially irreversible process.
In the view of these figures, while these unforeseen revolutions were jumpstarted among the younger generation by socioeconomic reasons and demands for political freedom, the younger generation does not have the power to maintain the revolutions’ achievements. The reins of government will be assumed by organized systems that joined the opposition to existing regimes, including many Islamic elements that are already poised to take advantage of the situation and are soon expected to reach influential positions in the respective countries. According to the Russians, democracy does not stand a chance in Middle Eastern countries, characterized as they are by archaic societies. Future regimes can be expected to be anti-democratic and primarily Islamic in nature. Thus, these figures predict doom and gloom for most of the region’s states, and the process underway is one that in their opinion cannot be stopped. There is a wistful longing for the previous regimes, as corrupt and authoritarian as they were, particularly for their stability and anti-Islamic stances. Likely future regimes will at best follow the Turkish model, or in a worst case scenario, the Iranian.
According to the Russians, this reality has dire consequences for regional and even global orders. The situation is likely to be influenced by the negative changes in Turkey, portrayed as striving relentlessly to reconstruct the Ottoman Empire, and the Iranian nuclear program, which apparently cannot be stopped and may be expected to be complete in 2-3 years. This has serious implications for international stability, especially since additional nations in the region will work to attain nuclear power. In turn the international arms control regime is likely to collapse – a potential development that incurs major ramifications. In such a reality, the Islamic forces likely to assume power will not be partners to a dialogue with the international community, rather will strive to realize their own geopolitical ambitions.
In this context the international system emerges as inefficient, if not impotent. International organizations such as the UN and NATO have failed to confront the evolving risk and therefore enjoy less importance. The United States is portrayed as losing its influence both in the Middle East and in the international arena. Europe too is retreating under Islamic attack, and sooner or later Islam will overpower it from within. With the West declining both in the Middle East and in the world at large, Islam is set to prevail over the West.
This new apocalyptic Russian scenario is surprising, given that until recently Russia appeared as a friend and defender of the nations of the Middle East, including those with Islamic regimes, and various radical organizations (including, for example, members of the axis of evil). Russia has displayed evident support for the collapsing regimes of the Middle East and has labored to preserve the status quo, including its attempt to impede Western involvement in Libya and even more so in Syria. In addition, it enjoys positive relations with Turkey and special relations with Iran. Its warm relations with the Palestinians include support in the United Nations and support for Hamas.
At the same time, already from the start of the revolutionary process in the Middle East, Russia has, in its ambivalent way, worked to establish cooperation with the new regimes and elements of the opposition, by laying the groundwork for relations with what will likely be the region's future regimes. For example, alongside sweeping support for Asad's regime, Moscow hosted a delegation of the Syrian opposition.
Although one mustn’t dismiss the possibility that the pessimistic assessment is an accurate reflection of prevalent opinion among Russia’s political echelon, the notion that the statements reflect a coherent policy program should also be questioned. Indeed, it seems that in Russia there is no unanimity of opinion regarding Middle East policy. One can cite the dispute of some months ago, which spilled over into the media, between Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin (an unusual event in and of itself) regarding sanctions against Libya – an  example of differences of opinion on the question of Russia’s foreign policy. Therefore, the picture presented above may reflect a rift in the Russian establishment and is not the result of a national assessment that obligates specific operational conclusions, and is rather supported by only some of the elements within the establishment or elements with a political axe to grind. A different explanation is also possible, whereby we are witnessing the making of a new reality, and the picture broadcast by the Russian spokespeople reflects true concern that Russian interests in the region might be damaged.
Overall, then, the situation assessment presented raises the following question: given the complex reality emerging in the Middle East, is Russia really harboring a sense of reduced prospects for rebuilding itself as a superpower with influence in the region?
It seems that the opposite is the case. In place of the foothold it is losing in the Middle East, Russia is working to consolidate a new camp of supporters. The road to that end goes through anti-Western rhetoric; all of Russia’s new visions and perspectives presented above amount to little more than a challenge to the West. By way of an apocalyptic scenario unfolding in the Middle East, the West is portrayed as the entity that failed to curb the Islamic threat because of its botched regional policy and its current weakening on the international scene. If so, the theory holds, it is time to allow the one remaining “responsible adult,” i.e., Russia, to handle the attempt to stabilize the region.






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Saturday, September 10, 2011

Never Forget - - - 09-11-2001 -- 09-11-2011


CHRONOLOGY OF ATTACKS OF Sept. 11, 2001

 8:55 am: The first plane, a Boeing 767 of American Airlines, hit the north tower of the WTC.
 9.16 am: Another plane, a Boeing 737 of the same company, hit the south tower of the WTC.
 9.30 am: President Bush said on TV, in Florida, "there is a terrorist attack against America." Then he embarked on Air Force One.
 9.40 am: A third hijacked airliner, United Airlines, it hits the Pentagon, in Washington. Evacuated the White House, the Capitol, the Treasury.
 9.45 am: The Abu Dhabi TV is about a Palestinian claim of the attack. Immediately denied.
 10.00 am: Collapse of the south tower of the WTC crash, a huge cloud of dust and smoke covering the whole southern part of Manhattan.
 10.05 am: It crashed in Pennsylvania, uninhabited area, a fourth hijacked airliner, American Airlines. According to rumors, was directed to hit Camp David.
 10.27 am: the second tower collapses of the WTC, and drag with him a third building. Total chaos in New York.
 10:37 am: wing of the Pentagon collapses, there is talk of a second explosion in the immediate vicinity.
 10.55 am: Conviction of Arafat. Rumors about other hijacked aircraft in flight on the U.S..









NEVER FORGET...

September 11, 2001
-
September 11, 2011




We shall never forget
We shall keep this day,
We shall keep the events and the tears
In our minds, our memory and our hearts
and take them with us as we carry on.


Dr. Roberto Polastro

NATO Requests Cyber Security Cooperation From India



In the absence of international cyber crimes treaty and international cyber security treaty, the next best thing is to have mutual cooperation between various countries. However, nothing can benefit more than an international cyber security cooperation that is urgently required.

In the absence of international harmonisation, the concept like cyber warfare still haunts the international community. This is also the main reason for blame game for various cyber attacks. However, mere suspicion or blame without actual authorship attribution for cyber attacks can produce only insignificantly beneficial results.

Recently India and US had signed a cyber security cooperation agreement. Now North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has sought stronger cooperation with India to counter growing cyber threats, particularly emanating from China. Top NATO officials listed cyber security very high on the list of possible areas of cooperation, which included counter-terrorism, missile defence and anti-piracy operations.

"The cyber world does not recognise alignments. It only understands switches," said a top NATO official during a briefing to visiting Indian journalists, while making a strong pitch for joint efforts to combat cyber threats.

The NATO official made this remark in context of India's sensitivity against military alliances and its commitment to non-alignment. He suggested this could be a functional alignment in which both sides could give and take.

"India has an advanced cyber and IT industry and is very strong in cyber issues", he said, hinting that India and NATO can cooperate in this field. Democracies face challenges that are common. As democracies we can have a dialogue, as we deal with issues differently... We need to work together, because individually we cannot. It is better to deal with such issues commonly than deal with them individually."

He added that even though the threats were different, the nature of our responses could be similar, while seeing India as a strong partner with NATO on various issues. Though he did not mention any of India's neighbours from where the cyber attack challenge came, he hinted at China from where such threats had come in the recent past.

Seeking a partnership on matters relating to cyber security, the official pointed out that India and NATO had already reached at a tactical level understanding in dealing with piracy and shared a strategic level understanding in countering terrorism. Incidentally, in July this year some anonymous hackers had targeted NATO in a cyber attack and it decided recently to create a special task force to detect and respond to such attacks by beefing up its cyber defence network. While the United States has already signed a cyber security collaboration with India this July, the 28-nation political and military alliance is of the view that it can collaborate with it in protecting its cyber systems. NATO's 2010 Summit in Lisbon also recognised the growing threat of cyber attacks and sought to ally with partner nations to step its cyber security.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Friday, September 9, 2011

Holder, Napolitano, Clapper: We're safer post-9/11


The following Op-Ed by Attorney General Holder, Secretary Napolitano and Director of National Intelligence Clapper, was published on the website of USA Today on Thursday, September 8, 2011
Holder, Napolitano, Clapper: We're safer post-9/11
By Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano and James Clapper
Thursday, September 8, 2011 - USA Today
All of us who are old enough remember exactly where we were on September 11, 2001, at the moment we first learned that terrorists had taken control of commercial jetliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center in Manhattan, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pa.
On that day, our lives, our country, and our world fundamentally changed.
Today, a decade later, we remember the loss of the nearly 3,000 innocent victims of the attacks, honor the firefighters, police, and many other first responders, who showed such courage and conviction on that tragic day, and take stock of the fundamental changes that have reshaped our country and improved security for all Americans. While there are no guarantees — and there never will be — we have accomplished much to minimize the risk that a successful terror attack like 9/11 will ever occur on American soil.
Ten years ago, our intelligence and law enforcement communities were aware of potential threats to the homeland from terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda, but we lacked the focus necessary to anticipate and prevent the attack. Sharing essential information to confront this threat was impeded by long-standing cultural, legal and institutional barriers, stove-piped government organizations, and a lack of coordination and cooperation.
In the decade since 9/11, an unprecedented international partnership has emerged. Together, the United States and our allies have captured or killed most of those responsible for the events of 9/11; we continue to pursue those who remain at large; and the organization that orchestrated these attacks, while still a serious threat, has been significantly weakened.
Today, we are working together as never before to share information, tactics, and training to fight terrorists and prevent them from putting their plans into practice, while affirming our support for security, prosperity and universal rights around the globe. We owe a great debt to our men and women in uniform who are working tirelessly and effectively in many places around the world to protect us from harm.
At home, we have made equally important strides to build the capacity to protect our country and the American people in an age of rapidly evolving threats, and we have made critical enhancements to our nation's counterterrorism capabilities.
New federal agencies like the Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center, and a robust information-sharing environment, have strengthened analysis, improved terrorist watch lists and databases, and created a "need to share" culture, leading to enhanced coordination, tools, and capabilities. Indeed, the entire Intelligence Community is producing better intelligence than at any time in history.
In 2009 and 2010, as a result of investigations by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, more defendants were charged in federal court with the most serious terrorism violations than in any two-year period in our history. And the Department of Homeland Security, created in 2003 as part of the largest reorganization of the federal government since the start of the Cold War, is working daily with its federal, state, local, tribal, and private sector partners to enhance the security of communities across the country. One recent study found that between 1999 and 2009, 86 terrorist plots against Americans have been foiled.
Our nation has continued to strengthen and expand information sharing, intelligence, and public awareness efforts since 9/11. We have supported the creation of 72 state and local fusion centers, where information about threats can be gathered, analyzed, and shared among federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and private sector partners. We have expanded the number of Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) around the country from 35 to 104 and increased the number of JTTF personnel from roughly 1,000 to nearly 4,500. In addition, the Justice Department has implemented a series of far-reaching legal, structural and cultural changes over the past decade, including the creation of the Department's National Security Division and the FBI's National Security Branch, to more effectively combat national security threats through intelligence.
We have established a new Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, which trains law enforcement across our country to recognize behaviors and indicators related to terrorism-related crime. It also standardizes how those observations are documented, analyzed and shared.
We have worked to engage the broadest possible set of partners in security by expanding the "If You See Something, Say Something™" campaign, a nationwide effort originally implemented by New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, to increase public awareness and the reporting of suspicious activity to the authorities.
In short, we have created a much stronger framework for managing threats to our nation. The capabilities that we have today are far greater than what existed 10 years ago, and they have helped us thwart numerous terrorist plots, from the attempt to bomb New York City subways to the foiled attacks against air cargo, Times Square, and a parade in Seattle. And these capabilities continue to contribute to the security of the American people every day.

Make no mistake: Our nation is stronger and more secure than it was on 9/11, better prepared to confront the challenges we face, and more resilient than ever before. But despite these improvements, we do not have the luxury to rest on our laurels. There are still terrorist groups around the world who wish us ill, and are plotting attacks against us.
Our success in confronting these threats in the future will depend on those who work on the frontlines, day and night, at home and abroad, to keep us safe. As important, it will depend on the American people and our collective determination to stand firm against threats, united in our resolve, free from fear, and resilient should we be attacked again.
Eric Holder is the U.S. Attorney General. Janet Napolitano is the Secretary of Homeland Security. James Clapper is the Director of National Intelligence.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

With CIA help, NYPD moves covertly in Muslim areas






NEW YORK — Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the New York Police Department has become one of the nation's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies, targeting ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government, an Associated Press investigation has found.

These operations have benefited from unprecedented help from the CIA, a partnership that has blurred the line between foreign and domestic spying.

The department has dispatched undercover officers, known as "rakers," into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program, according to officials directly involved in the program. They've monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as "mosque crawlers," to monitor sermons, even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing.

Neither the city council, which finances the department, nor the federal government, which has given NYPD more than $1.6 billion since 9/11, is told exactly what's going on.

Many of these operations were built with help from the CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans but was instrumental in transforming the NYPD's intelligence unit.

A veteran CIA officer, while still on the agency's payroll, was the architect of the NYPD's intelligence programs. The CIA trained a police detective at the Farm, the agency's spy school in Virginia, then returned him to New York, where he put his new espionage skills to work inside the United States.

And just last month, the CIA sent a senior officer to work as a clandestine operative inside police headquarters.

In response to the story, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a leading Muslim civil rights organization, called on the Justice Department to investigate. The Justice Department said Wednesday night it would review the request.

"This is potentially illegal what they're doing," said Gadeir Abbas, a staff attorney with the organization.

The NYPD denied that it trolls ethnic neighborhoods and said it only follows leads. Police operations have disrupted terrorist plots and put several would-be killers in prison.

"The New York Police Department is doing everything it can to make sure there's not another 9/11 here and that more innocent New Yorkers are not killed by terrorists," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. "And we have nothing to apologize for in that regard."

AP's investigation is based on documents and interviews with more than 40 current and former New York Police Department and federal officials. Many were directly involved in planning and carrying out these secret operations for the department. Though most said the tactics were appropriate and made the city safer, many insisted on anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak with reporters about security matters.

In just two episodes showing how widely the NYPD cast its net, the department sought a rundown from the taxi commission of every Pakistani cab driver in the city, and produced an analytical report on every mosque within 100 miles, officials said.

One of the enduring questions of the past decade is whether being safe requires giving up some liberty and privacy. The focus of that debate has primarily been federal programs like wiretapping and indefinite detention. The question has received less attention in New York, where residents do not know for sure what, if anything, they have given up.

The story of how the NYPD Intelligence Division developed such aggressive programs begins with one man.

___

David Cohen arrived at the New York Police Department in January 2002, just weeks after the last fires had been extinguished at the debris field that had been the twin towers. A retired 35-year veteran of the CIA, Cohen became the police department's first civilian intelligence chief.

Cohen had an exceptional career at the CIA, rising to lead both the agency's analytical and operational divisions. He also was an extraordinarily divisive figure, a man whose sharp tongue and supreme confidence in his own abilities gave him a reputation as arrogant. Cohen's tenure as head of CIA operations, the nation's top spy, was so contentious that in 1997, The New York Times editorial page took the unusual step of calling for his ouster.

He had no police experience. He had never defended a city from an attack. But New York wasn't looking for a cop.

"Post-9/11, we needed someone in there who knew how to really gather intelligence," said John Cutter, a retired NYPD official who served as one of Cohen's top uniformed officers.

At the time, the intelligence division was best known for driving dignitaries around the city. Cohen envisioned a unit that would analyze intelligence, run undercover operations and cultivate a network of informants. In short, he wanted New York to have its own version of the CIA.

Cohen shared Commissioner Ray Kelly's belief that 9/11 had proved that the police department could not simply rely on the federal government to prevent terrorism in New York.

"If anything goes on in New York," one former officer recalls Cohen telling his staff in the early days, "it's your fault."

Among Cohen's earliest moves at the NYPD was making a request of his old colleagues at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. He needed someone to help build this new operation, someone with experience and clout and, most important, someone who had access to the latest intelligence so the NYPD wouldn't have to rely on the FBI to dole out information.

CIA Director George Tenet responded by tapping Larry Sanchez, a respected veteran who had served as a CIA official inside the United Nations. Often, when the CIA places someone on temporary assignment, the other agency picks up the tab. In this case, three former intelligence officials said, Tenet kept Sanchez on the CIA payroll.

When he arrived in New York in March 2002, Sanchez had offices at both the NYPD and the CIA's station in New York, one former official said. Sanchez interviewed police officers for newly defined intelligence jobs. He guided and mentored officers, schooling them in the art of gathering information. He also directed their efforts, another said.

There had never been an arrangement like it, and some senior CIA officials soon began questioning whether Tenet was allowing Sanchez to operate on both sides of the wall that's supposed to keep the CIA out of the domestic intelligence business.

"It should not be a surprise to anyone that, after 9/11, the Central Intelligence Agency stepped up its cooperation with law enforcement on counterterrorism issues or that some of that increased cooperation was in New York, the site of ground zero," CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said.

Just as at the CIA, Cohen and Sanchez knew that informants would have to become the backbone of their operation. But with threats coming in from around the globe, they couldn't wait months for the perfect plan.

They came up with a makeshift solution. They dispatched more officers to Pakistani neighborhoods and, according to one former police official directly involved in the effort, instructed them to look for reasons to stop cars: speeding, broken tail lights, running stop signs, whatever. The traffic stop gave police an opportunity to search for outstanding warrants or look for suspicious behavior. An arrest could be the leverage the police needed to persuade someone to become an informant.

For Cohen, the transition from spying to policing didn't come naturally, former colleagues said. When faced with a decision, especially early in his tenure, he'd fall back on his CIA background. Cutter said he and other uniformed officers had to tell Cohen, no, we can't just slip into someone's apartment without a warrant. No, we can't just conduct a search. The rules for policing are different.

While Cohen was being shaped by the police department, his CIA background was remaking the department. But one significant barrier stood in the way of Cohen's vision.

Since 1985, the NYPD had operated under a federal court order limiting the tactics it could use to gather intelligence. During the 1960s and 1970s, the department had used informants and undercover officers to infiltrate anti-war protest groups and other activists without any reason to suspect criminal behavior.

To settle a lawsuit, the department agreed to follow guidelines that required "specific information" of criminal activity before police could monitor political activity.

In September 2002, Cohen told a federal judge that those guidelines made it "virtually impossible" to detect terrorist plots. The FBI was changing its rules to respond to 9/11, and Cohen argued that the NYPD must do so, too.

"In the case of terrorism, to wait for an indication of crime before investigating is to wait far too long," Cohen wrote.

U.S. District Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. agreed, saying the old guidelines "addressed different perils in a different time." He scrapped the old rules and replaced them with more lenient ones.

It was a turning point for the NYPD.

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With his newfound authority, Cohen created a secret squad that would soon infiltrate Muslim neighborhoods, according to several current and former officials directly involved in the program.

The NYPD carved up the city into more than a dozen zones and assigned undercover officers to monitor them, looking for potential trouble.

At the CIA, one of the biggest obstacles has always been that U.S. intelligence officials are overwhelmingly white, their mannerisms clearly American. The NYPD didn't have that problem, thanks to its diverse pool of officers.

Using census data, the department matched undercover officers to ethnic communities and instructed them to blend in, the officials said. Pakistani-American officers infiltrated Pakistani neighborhoods, Palestinians focused on Palestinian neighborhoods. They hung out in hookah bars and cafes, quietly observing the community around them.

The unit, which has been undisclosed until now, became known inside the department as the Demographic Unit, former police officials said.

"It's not a question of profiling. It's a question of going where the problem could arise," said Mordecai Dzikansky, a retired NYPD intelligence officer who said he was aware of the Demographic Unit. "And thank God we have the capability. We have the language capability and the ethnic officers. That's our hidden weapon."

The officers did not work out of headquarters, officials said. Instead, they passed their intelligence to police handlers who knew their identities.

Cohen said he wanted the squad to "rake the coals, looking for hot spots," former officials recalled. The undercover officers soon became known inside the department as rakers.

A hot spot might be a beauty supply store selling chemicals used for making bombs. Or it might be a hawala, a broker that transfers money around the world with little documentation. Undercover officers might visit an Internet cafe and look at the browsing history on a computer, a former police official involved in the program said. If it revealed visits to radical websites, the cafe might be deemed a hot spot.

Ethnic bookstores, too, were on the list. If a raker noticed a customer looking at radical literature, he might chat up the store owner and see what he could learn. The bookstore, or even the customer, might get further scrutiny. If a restaurant patron applauds a news report about the death of U.S. troops, the patron or the restaurant could be labeled a hot spot.

The goal was to "map the city's human terrain," one law enforcement official said. The program was modeled in part on how Israeli authorities operate in the West Bank, a former police official said.

Mapping crimes has been a successful police strategy nationwide. But mapping robberies and shootings is one thing. Mapping ethnic neighborhoods is different, something that at least brushes against what the federal government considers racial profiling.

Browne, the NYPD spokesman, said the Demographic Unit does not exist. He said the department has a Zone Assessment Unit that looks for locations that could attract terrorists. But he said undercover officers only followed leads, disputing the account of several current and former police and federal officials. They do not just hang out in neighborhoods, he said.

"We will go into a location, whether it's a mosque or a bookstore, if the lead warrants it, and at least establish whether there's something that requires more attention," Browne said.

That conflicts with testimony from an undercover officer in the 2006 trial of Shahawar Matin Siraj, who was convicted of planning an attack on New York's subway system. The officer said he was instructed to live in Brooklyn and act as a "walking camera" for police.

"I was told to act like a civilian — hang out in the neighborhood, gather information," the Bangladeshi officer testified, under a false name, in what offered the first narrow glimpse at the NYPD's infiltration of ethnic neighborhoods.

Officials said such operations just made sense. Islamic terrorists had attacked the city on 9/11, so police needed people inside the city's Muslim neighborhoods. Officials say it does not conflict with a 2004 city law prohibiting the NYPD from using religion or ethnicity "as the determinative factor for initiating law enforcement action."

"It's not profiling," Cutter said. "It's like, after a shooting, do you go 20 blocks away and interview guys or do you go to the neighborhood where it happened?"

In 2007, the Los Angeles Police Department was criticized for even considering a similar program. The police announced plans to map Islamic neighborhoods to look for pockets of radicalization among the region's roughly 500,000 Muslims. Criticism was swift, and chief William Bratton scrapped the plan.

"A lot of these people came from countries where the police were the terrorists," Bratton said at a news conference, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. "We don't do that here. We do not want to spread fear."

In New York, current and former officials said, the lesson of that controversy was that such programs should be kept secret.

Some in the department, including lawyers, have privately expressed concerns about the raking program and how police use the information, current and former officials said. Part of the concern was that it might appear that police were building dossiers on innocent people, officials said. Another concern was that, if a case went to court, the department could be forced to reveal details about the program, putting the entire operation in jeopardy.

That's why, former officials said, police regularly shredded documents discussing rakers.

When Cohen made his case in court that he needed broader authority to investigate terrorism, he had promised to abide by the FBI's investigative guidelines. But the FBI is prohibited from using undercover agents unless there's specific evidence of criminal activity, meaning a federal raking program like the one officials described to the AP would violate FBI guidelines.

The NYPD declined to make Cohen available for comment. In an earlier interview with the AP on a variety of topics, Police Commissioner Kelly said the intelligence unit does not infringe on civil rights.

"We're doing what we believe we have to do to protect the city," he said. "We have many, many lawyers in our employ. We see ourselves as very conscious and aware of civil liberties. And we know there's always going to be some tension between the police department and so-called civil liberties groups because of the nature of what we do."

The department clashed with civil rights groups most publicly after Cohen's undercover officers infiltrated anti-war groups before the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York. A lawsuit over that program continues today.

During the convention, when protesters were arrested, police asked a list of questions which, according to court documents, included: "What are your political affiliations?" ''Do you do any kind of political work?" and "Do you hate George W. Bush?"

"At the end of the day, it's pure and simple a rogue domestic surveillance operation," said Christopher Dunn, a New York Civil Liberties Union lawyer involved in the convention lawsuit.

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Undercover agents like the rakers were valuable, but what Cohen and Sanchez wanted most were informants.

The NYPD dedicated an entire squad, the Terrorist Interdiction Unit, to developing and handling informants. Current and former officials said Sanchez was instrumental in teaching them how to develop sources.

For years, detectives used informants known as mosque crawlers to monitor weekly sermons and report what was said, several current and former officials directly involved in the informant program said. If FBI agents were to do that, they would be in violation of the Privacy Act, which prohibits the federal government from collecting intelligence on purely First Amendment activities.

The FBI has generated its own share of controversy for putting informants inside mosques, but unlike the program described to the AP, the FBI requires evidence of a crime before an informant can be used inside a mosque.

Valerie Caproni, the FBI's general counsel, would not discuss the NYPD's programs but said FBI informants can't troll mosques looking for leads. Such operations are reviewed for civil liberties concerns, she said.

"If you're sending an informant into a mosque when there is no evidence of wrongdoing, that's a very high-risk thing to do," Caproni said. "You're running right up against core constitutional rights. You're talking about freedom of religion."

That's why senior FBI officials in New York ordered their own agents not to accept any reports from the NYPD's mosque crawlers, two retired agents said.

It's unclear whether the police department still uses mosque crawlers. Officials said that, as Muslims figured out what was going on, the mosque crawlers became cafe crawlers, fanning out into the city's ethnic hangouts.

"Someone has a great imagination," Browne, the NYPD spokesman, said. "There is no such thing as mosque crawlers."

Following the foiled subway plot, however, the key informant in the case, Osama Eldawoody, said he attended hundreds of prayer services and collected information even on people who showed no signs of radicalization.

NYPD detectives have recruited shopkeepers and nosy neighbors to become "seeded" informants who keep police up to date on the latest happenings in ethnic neighborhoods, one official directly involved in the informant program said.

The department also has a roster of "directed" informants it can tap for assignments. For instance, if a raker identifies a bookstore as a hot spot, police might assign an informant to gather information, long before there's concrete evidence of anything criminal.

To identify possible informants, the department created what became known as the "debriefing program." When someone is arrested who might be useful to the intelligence unit — whether because he said something suspicious or because he is simply a young Middle Eastern man — he is singled out for extra questioning. Intelligence officials don't care about the underlying charges; they want to know more about his community and, ideally, they want to put him to work.

Police are in prisons, too, promising better living conditions and help or money on the outside for Muslim prisoners who will work with them.

Early in the intelligence division's transformation, police asked the taxi commission to run a report on all the city's Pakistani cab drivers, looking for those who got licenses fraudulently and might be susceptible to pressure to cooperate, according to former officials who were involved in or briefed on the effort.

That strategy has been rejected in other cities.

Boston police once asked neighboring Cambridge for a list of Somali cab drivers, Cambridge Police Chief Robert Haas said. Haas refused, saying that without a specific reason, the search was inappropriate.

"It really has a chilling effect in terms of the relationship between the local police department and those cultural groups, if they think that's going to take place," Haas said.

The informant division was so important to the NYPD that Cohen persuaded his former colleagues to train a detective, Steve Pinkall, at the CIA's training center at the Farm. Pinkall, who had an intelligence background as a Marine, was given an unusual temporary assignment at CIA headquarters, officials said. He took the field tradecraft course alongside future CIA spies then returned to New York to run investigations.

"We found that helpful, for NYPD personnel to be exposed to the tradecraft," Browne said.

The idea troubled senior FBI officials, who saw it as the NYPD and CIA blurring the lines between police work and spying, in which undercover officers regularly break the laws of foreign governments. The arrangement even made its way to FBI Director Robert Mueller, two former senior FBI officials said, but the training was already under way and Mueller did not press the issue.

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NYPD's intelligence operations do not stop at the city line.

In June 2009, a New Brunswick, N.J., building superintendent opened the door to apartment No. 1076 and discovered an alarming scene: terrorist literature strewn about the table and computer and surveillance equipment set up in the next room.

The panicked superintendent dialed 911, sending police and the FBI rushing to the building near Rutgers University. What they found in that first-floor apartment, however, was not a terrorist hideout but a command center set up by a secret team of New York Police Department intelligence officers.

From that apartment, about an hour outside the department's jurisdiction, the NYPD had been staging undercover operations and conducting surveillance throughout New Jersey. Neither the FBI nor the local police had any idea.

The NYPD has gotten some of its officers deputized as federal marshals, allowing them to work out of state. But often, there's no specific jurisdiction at all.

Cohen's undercover squad, the Special Services Unit, operates in places such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, officials said. They can't make arrests and, if something goes wrong — a shooting or a car accident, for instance — the officers could be personally liable. But the NYPD has decided it's worth the risk, a former police official said.

With Police Commissioner Kelly's backing, Cohen's policy is that any potential threat to New York City is the NYPD's business, regardless of where it occurs, officials said.

That aggressiveness has sometimes put the NYPD at odds with local police departments and, more frequently, with the FBI. The FBI didn't like the rules Cohen played by and said his operations encroached on its responsibilities.

Once, undercover officers were stopped by police in Massachusetts while conducting surveillance on a house, one former New York official recalled. In another instance, the NYPD sparked concern among federal officials by expanding its intelligence-gathering efforts related to the United Nations, where the FBI is in charge, current and former federal officials said.

The AP has agreed not to disclose details of either the FBI or NYPD operations because they involve foreign counterintelligence.

Both Mueller and Kelly have said their agencies have strong working relationships and said reports of rivalry and disagreements are overblown. And the NYPD's out-of-state operations have had success.

A young Egyptian NYPD officer living undercover in New Jersey, for example, was key to building a case against Mohamed Mahmood Alessa and Carlos Eduardo Almonte. The pair was arrested last year at John F. Kennedy Airport en route to Somalia to join the terrorist group al-Shabab. Both pleaded guilty to conspiracy.

Cohen has also sent officers abroad, stationing them in 11 foreign cities. If a bomber blows himself up in Jerusalem, the NYPD rushes to the scene, said Dzikansky, who served in Israel and is the co-author of the forthcoming book "Terrorist Suicide Bombings: Attack Interdiction, Mitigation, and Response."

"I was there to ask the New York question," Dzikansky said. "Why this location? Was there something unique that the bomber had done? Was there any pre-notification. Was there a security lapse?"

All of this intelligence — from the rakers, the undercovers, the overseas liaisons and the informants — is passed to a team of analysts hired from some of the nation's most prestigious universities. Analysts have spotted emerging trends and summarized topics such as Hezbollah's activities in New York and the threat of South Asian terrorist groups.

They also have tackled more contentious topics, including drafting a report on every mosque in the area, one former police official said. The report drew on information from mosque crawlers, undercover officers and public information. It mapped hundreds of mosques and discussed the likelihood of them being infiltrated by al-Qaida, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups.

For Cohen, there was only one way to measure success: "They haven't attacked us," he said in a 2005 deposition. He said anything that was bad for terrorists was good for NYPD.

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Though the CIA is prohibited from collecting intelligence domestically, the wall between domestic and foreign operations became more porous. Intelligence gathered by the NYPD, with CIA officer Sanchez overseeing collection, was often passed to the CIA in informal conversations and through unofficial channels, a former official involved in that process said.

By design, the NYPD was looking more and more like a domestic CIA.

"It's like starting the CIA over in the post-9/11 world," Cohen said in "Securing the City," a laudatory 2009 book about the NYPD. "What would you do if you could begin it all over again? Hah. This is what you would do."

Sanchez's assignment in New York ended in 2004, but he received permission to take a leave of absence from the agency and become Cohen's deputy, former officials said.

Though Sanchez's assignments were blessed by CIA management, some in the agency's New York station saw the presence of such a senior officer in the city as a turf encroachment. Finally, the New York station chief, Tom Higgins, called headquarters, one former senior intelligence official said. Higgins complained, the official said, that Sanchez was wearing both hats, sometimes acting as a CIA officer, sometimes as an NYPD official.

The CIA finally forced him to choose: Stay with the agency or stay with the NYPD.

Sanchez declined to comment to the AP about the arrangement, but he picked the NYPD. He retired last year and is now a consultant in the Middle East.

Last month, the CIA deepened its NYPD ties even further. It sent one of its most experienced operatives, a former station chief in two Middle Eastern countries, to work out of police headquarters as Cohen's special assistant while on the CIA payroll. Current and former U.S. officials acknowledge it's unusual but said it's the kind of collaboration Americans expect after 9/11.

Officials said revealing the CIA officer's name would jeopardize national security. The arrangement was described as a sabbatical. He is a member of the agency's senior management, but officials said he was sent to the municipal police department to get management experience.

At the NYPD, he works undercover in the senior ranks of the intelligence division. Officials are adamant that he is not involved in actual intelligence-gathering.

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The NYPD has faced little scrutiny over the past decade as it has taken on broad new intelligence missions, targeted ethnic neighborhoods and partnered with the CIA in extraordinary ways.

The department's primary watchdog, the New York City Council, has not held hearings on the intelligence division's operations and former NYPD officials said council members typically do not ask for details.

"Ray Kelly briefs me privately on certain subjects that should not be discussed in public," said City Councilman Peter Vallone. "We've discussed in person how they investigate certain groups they suspect have terrorist sympathizers or have terrorist suspects."

The city comptroller's office has audited several NYPD components since 9/11 but not the intelligence unit, which had a $62 million budget last year.

The federal government, too, has done little to scrutinize the nation's largest police force, despite the massive federal aid. Homeland Security officials review NYPD grants but not its underlying programs.

A report in January by the Homeland Security inspector general, for instance, found that the NYPD violated state and federal contracting rules between 2006 and 2008 by buying more than $4 million in equipment through a no-bid process. NYPD said public bidding would have revealed sensitive information to terrorists, but police never got approval from state or federal officials to adopt their own rules, the inspector general said.

On Capitol Hill, where FBI tactics have frequently been criticized for their effect on civil liberties, the NYPD faces no such opposition.

In 2007, Sanchez testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee and was asked how the NYPD spots signs of radicalization. He said the key was viewing innocuous activity, including behavior that might be protected by the First Amendment, as a potential precursor to terrorism.

That triggered no questions from the committee, which Sanchez said had been "briefed in the past on how we do business."

The Justice Department has the authority to investigate civil rights violations. It issued detailed rules in 2003 against racial profiling, including prohibiting agencies from considering race when making traffic stops or assigning patrols.

But those rules apply only to the federal government and contain a murky exemption for terrorism investigations. The Justice Department has not investigated a police department for civil rights violations during a national security investigation.

"One of the hallmarks of the intelligence division over the last 10 years is that, not only has it gotten extremely aggressive and sophisticated, but it's operating completely on its own," said Dunn, the civil liberties lawyer. "There are no checks. There is no oversight."

The NYPD has been mentioned as a model for policing in the post-9/11 era. But it's a model that seems custom-made for New York. No other city has the Big Apple's combination of a low crime rate, a $4.5 billion police budget and a diverse 34,000-person police force. Certainly no other police department has such deep CIA ties.

Perhaps most important, nobody else had 9/11 the way New York did. No other city lost nearly 3,000 people in a single morning. A decade later, police say New Yorkers still expect the department to do whatever it can to prevent another attack. The NYPD has embraced that expectation.

As Sanchez testified on Capitol Hill: "We've been given the public tolerance and the luxury to be very aggressive on this topic."


Font: Associated Press writers Tom Hays and Eileen Sullivan in Washington contributed to this report.