Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 1. december 2005 / Time Line December 1, 2005
Version 3.5November 2005, 2. December 2005
12/01/2005
Det er nu 31 måneder siden, at USAs præsident Bush
erklærede krigen i Irak for vundet.
12/01/2005
Fredsfangerens dag, etableret af WRI, 1956.
12/01/2005
Tonkin Gulf Intelligence "Skewed" According to Official History
and Intercepts
National Security Archive Update, December 1, 2005
http://www.nsarchive.org
Newly Declassified National Security Agency Documents Show Analysts
Made "SIGINT fit the claim" of North Vietnamese Attack Washington
D.C., December 1, 2005 - The largest U.S. intelligence agency, the
National Security Agency today declassified over 140 formerly top
secret documents -- histories, chronologies, signals intelligence
[SIGINT] reports, and oral history interviews -- on the August 1964
Gulf of Tonkin incident. Included in the release is a controversial
article by Agency historian Robert J. Hanyok on SIGINT and the
Tonkin Gulf which confirms what historians have long argued: that
there was no second attack on U.S. ships in Tonkin on August 4,
1964.
According to National Security Archive research fellow John Prados,
"the American people have long deserved to know the full truth
about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The National Security Agency is
to be commended for releasing this piece of the puzzle. The
parallels between the faulty intelligence on Tonkin Gulf and the
manipulated intelligence used to justify the Iraq War makes it all
the more worthwhile to re-examine the events of August 1964 in
light of new evidence." Last year, Prados edited a National
Security Archive briefing book which published for the first time
some of the key intercepts from the Gulf of Tonkin crisis.
The National Security Agency has long resisted the declassification
of material on the Gulf of Tonkin incident, despite efforts by
Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer Carl Marcy (who had
prepared a staff study on the August 4 incident); former Deputy
Director Louis Tordella, and John Prados to push for
declassification of key documents. Today's release is largely due
to the perseverance of FOIA requester Matthew M. Aid who requested
the Hanyok study in April 2004 and brought the issue to the
attention of the New York Times when he learned that senior
National Security Agency officials were trying to block release of
the documents. New York Times reporter Scott Shane wrote that
higher-level officials at the NSA were "fearful that
[declassification] might prompt uncomfortable comparisons with the
flawed intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq." The glaring
light of publicity encouraged the Agency's leaders finally to
approve declassification of the documents.
Hanyok's article, "Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying
Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964," originally
published in the National Security Agency's classified journal
Cryptologic Quarterly in early 2001, provides a comprehensive
SIGINT-based account "of what happened in the Gulf of Tonkin."
Using this evidence, Hanyok argues that the SIGINT confirms that
North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked a U.S. destroyer, the USS
Maddox on August 2, 1964, although under questionable
circumstances.
The SIGINT also shows, according to Hanyok, that a second attack,
on August 4, 1964, by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on U.S. ships
did not occur despite claims to the contrary by the Johnson
administration. President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara
treated Agency SIGINT reports as vital evidence of a second attack
and used this claim to support retaliatory air strikes and to
buttress its request for a Congressional resolution that would give
the White House freedom of action in Vietnam.
Hanyok further argues that Agency officials had "mishandled" SIGINT
concerning the events of August 4 and provided top level officials
with "skewed" intelligence supporting claims of an August 4 attack.
"The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the
story that no attack occurred." Key pieces of evidence are missing
from the Agency's archives, such as the original decrypted
Vietnamese text of a document that played an important role in the
White House's case. Hanyok has not found a "smoking gun" to
demonstrate a cover-up but believes that the evidence suggests "an
active effort to make SIGINT fit the claim of what happened during
the evening of 4 August in the Gulf of Tonkin." Senior officials at
the Agency, the Pentagon, and the White House were none the wiser
about the gaps in the intelligence.
Hanyok's conclusions have sparked controversy among old Agency
hands but his research confirms the insight of journalist I.F.
Stone who questioned the second attack only weeks after the events.
Hanyok's article is part of a larger study on the National Security
Agency and the Vietnam War, "Spartans in Darkness," which is the
subject of a pending FOIA request by the National Security
Archive.
12/01/2005
CONTRACTS from the United States Department of Defense
Kellogg, Brown & Root Services, Arlington, Va., is being
awarded Modification P0020 to Task Order 0016 in the amount of
$6,500,000 under a cost reimbursement, indefinite delivery,
indefinite quantity emergency construction capabilities contract
for Hurricane Katrina stabilization and recovery at Naval Support
Activity (NSA) New Orleans, Joint Reserve Base (JRB) New Orleans,
and other Navy installations in the South Region. Award of this
modification brings the total not to exceed amount of the task
order to $84,461,021. Work will be performed in the areas noted
above, and is expected to be completed by September 2007. Contract
funds expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The basic
contract was competitively negotiated with 59 offers solicited,
three proposals received and award made on July 26, 2004. The total
contract amount is not to exceed $500,000,000, which includes the
base period and four option years. The Naval Facilities Engineering
Command, Southern Division, North Charleston, S.C., is the
contracting activity (contract number N62470-04-D-4017).
ITT Industries, Advanced Engineering and Sciences Division,
Alexandria, Va., is being awarded a Cost Plus Award Fee contract
for Lethality Testing and Criteria Development. This effort will
define kill modes, determine lethal damage requirements, and
develop/validate lethality criteria for threat configurations
designated as targets for the Ballistic Missile Defense System
elements and components. The work will be performed at the ITT
Industries facility in Huntsville, Ala. Work also will be performed
in Huntsville by ITT Industries subcontractors Dynetics, Physitron,
3 D Research, East West, Morgan Research, Applied Research, and KBM
Inc. The period of performance is from November 2005 through
November 2006 with an additional four option years. The
government's best expectation of the total value of the contract,
including all options, is $57,251,716. The U.S. Space and Missile
Defense Command is the contracting activity (W9113M-05-C-0219). The
contract is in direct support of the mission of the Missile Defense
Agency.
 |
 |