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Amateur spyhunters zero
in on agency's secret airline Updated: 1:43 a.m. ET Dec. 27, 2004 The airplane is a Gulfstream V turbojet, the sort favored by CEOs and celebrities. But since 2001 it has been seen at military airports from Pakistan to Indonesia to Jordan, sometimes being boarded by hooded and handcuffed passengers. The plane's owner of record, Premier Executive Transport Services Inc., lists directors and officers who appear to exist only on paper. And each one of those directors and officers has a recently issued Social Security number and an address consisting only of a post office box, according to an extensive search of state, federal and commercial records. Prisoners airlifted for 'rendering' The CIA calls this activity "rendition." Premier Executive's Gulfstream helps make it possible. According to civilian aircraft landing permits, the jet has permission to use U.S. military airfields worldwide. Since Sept. 11, 2001, secret renditions have become a principal weapon in the CIA's arsenal against suspected al Qaeda terrorists, according to congressional testimony by CIA officials. But as the practice has grown, the agency has had significantly more difficulty keeping it secret. According to airport officials, public documents and hobbyist plane spotters, the Gulfstream V, with tail number N379P, has been used to whisk detainees into or out of Jakarta, Indonesia; Pakistan; Egypt; and Sweden, usually at night, and has landed at well-known U.S. government refueling stops. Secretive process challenged The CIA has the authority to carry out renditions under a presidential directive dating to the Clinton administration, which the Bush administration has reviewed and renewed. The CIA declined to comment for this article. "Our policymakers would never confront the issue," said Michael Scheuer, a former CIA counterterrorism officer who has been involved with renditions and supports the practice. "We would say, 'Where do you want us to take these people?' The mind-set of the bureaucracy was, 'Let someone else do the dirty work.' " Sloppy spywork? Not only have the plane's movements been tracked around the world, but the on-paper officers of Premier Executive Transport Services are also connected to a larger roster of false identities. Each of the officers of Premier Executive is linked in public records to one of five post office box numbers in Arlington, Oakton, Chevy Chase and the District. A total of 325 names are registered to the five post office boxes. An extensive database search of a sample of 44 of those names turned up none of the information that usually emerges in such a search: no previous addresses, no past or current telephone numbers, no business or corporate records. In addition, although most names were attached to dates of birth in the 1940s, '50s or '60s, all were given Social Security numbers between 1998 and 2003. The Washington Post showed its research to the CIA, including a chart connecting Premier Executive's officers, the post office boxes, the 325 names, the recent Social Security numbers and an entity called Executive Support OFC. A CIA spokesman declined to comment. Trailing a tail The CIA's plane secret began to unravel less than six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. On Oct. 26, 2001, Masood Anwar, a Pakistani journalist with the News in Islamabad, broke a story asserting that Pakistani intelligence officers had handed over to U.S. authorities a Yemeni microbiologist, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, who was wanted in connection with the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. The report noted that an aircraft bearing tail number N379P, and parked in a remote area of a little-used terminal at the Karachi airport, had whisked Mohammed away about 2:40 a.m. Oct. 23. The tail number was also obtained by The Post's correspondent in Pakistan but not published. Bloggers pounce At 7:54:04 p.m. Oct. 26, the News article was posted on FreeRepublic.com, which bills itself as "a conservative news forum." Thirteen minutes later, a chat-room participant posted the plane's registered owners: Premier Executive Transport Services Inc., of 339 Washington St., Dedham, Mass. "Sounds like a nice generic name," one blogger wrote in response. "Kind of like Air America" — a reference to the CIA's secret civilian airlines that flew supplies, food and personnel into Southeast Asia, including Laos, during the Vietnam War. Eight weeks later, on Dec. 18, 2001, American-accented men wearing hoods and working with special Swedish security police brought two Egyptian nationals onto a Gulfstream V that was parked at night at Stockholm's Bromma Airport, according to Swedish officials and airport personnel interviewed by Swedish television's "Cold Facts" program. The account was confirmed independently by The Post. The plane's tail number: N379P. Wearing red overalls and bound with handcuffs and leg irons, the men, who had applied for political asylum in Sweden, were flown to Cairo, according to Swedish officials and documents. Ahmed Agiza was convicted by Egypt's Supreme Military Court of terrorism-related charges; Muhammad Zery was set free. Both say they were tortured while in Egyptian custody. Sweden has opened an investigation into the decision to allow them to be rendered. A month later, in January 2002, a U.S.-registered Gulfstream V landed at Jakarta's military airport. According to Indonesian officials, the plane carried away Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni, an Egyptian traveling on a Pakistani passport and suspected of being an al Qaeda operative who had worked with shoe bomber suspect Richard C. Reid. Without a hearing, he was flown to Egypt. His status and whereabouts are unknown. The plane's tail number was not noted, but the CIA is believed to have only one of the expensive jets. Over the past year, the Gulfstream V's flights have been tracked by plane spotters standing at the end of runways with high-powered binoculars and cameras to record the flights of military and private aircraft. These hobbyists list their findings on specialized Web pages. According to them, since October 2001 the plane has landed in Islamabad; Karachi; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Dubai; Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Baghdad; Kuwait City; Baku, Azerbaijan; and Rabat, Morocco. It has stopped frequently at Dulles International Airport, at Jordan's military airport in Amman and at airports in Frankfurt, Germany; Glasglow, Scotland, and Larnaca, Cyprus. Paper company, real plane According to public documents, Premier Executive ordered a new Gulfstream V in 1998. It was delivered in November 1999 with tail number N581GA, and reregistered for unknown reasons on March 2000 with a new tail number, N379P. It began flights in June 2000, and changed the tail number again in December 2003. Plakias did not return several telephone messages seeking comment. He told the Boston Globe recently that he simply filed the required paperwork. "I'm not at liberty to discuss the affairs of the client business, mainly for reasons I don't know," he told the Globe. Asked whether the company exists, Plakias responded: "Millions of companies are set up in Massachusetts that are just paper companies." A lawyer in Washington, whose name is listed on a 1996 IRS form on record at the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office in Massachusetts — and whose name is whited out on some copies of the forms — hung up the phone last week when asked about the company. Three weeks ago, on Dec. 1, the plane, complete with a new tail number, was transferred to a new owner, Bayard Foreign Marketing of Portland, Ore., according to FAA records. Its registered agent in Portland, Scott Caplan, did not return phone calls. Like the officers at Premier Executive, Bayard's sole listed corporate officer, Leonard T. Bayard, has no residential or telephone history. Unlike Premier's officers, Bayard's name does not appear in any other public records. Researchers Margot Williams and Julie Tate contributed to this report. Williams has since left The Washington Post. |
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GI DISSENT SHAKES UP THE PENTAGON A series of events in early December signaled a major shift in political > consciousness within the U.S. Armed Forces. Together they struck fear in > the hearts of the general staff. A sailor, a soldier, a Marine, and two National Guard soldiers committed acts of courage. They killed no Iraqis, nor did they rescue wounded comrades under fire. This kind of courage took a different form for each GI, from refusing to kill to confronting the unpopular secretary of defense. JUST SAY 'NO' Petty Officer Third Class Pablo Paredes had received orders to ship out on the USS Bonhomme Richard and carry 3,000 Marines to Iraq. On a pier in San Diego on Dec. 6, Paredes said "no" to these orders. Paredes, who grew up in the Bronx borough of New York City, knew he would be pretty safe stationed on the ship. He knew he would probably go to prison for refusing. But he also knew at least 100 of the 3,000 Marines wouldn't come back. And he objected to the unjustified loss of > human life in Iraq. > > In 2000, Paredes had signed up at age 17 for a six-year stint in the Navy. Now, as he refused his orders, he said, "I'd rather do military > prison time than 6 months of dirty work for a war that I and many others > do not support. War should be an absolute last resort and even then must > be considered thoroughly." > > His immigrant family and his wife are 100-percent behind him. Paredes has his own web site where readers can find his position in full. > (SwiftSmartVeterans.com) > > Three hundred people cheered and applauded Victor Paredes when he spoke > of his brother's determination to refuse to go to Iraq on Dec. 11 at an > anti-war meeting of veterans' groups and military families in New York. > The Navy backed off from arresting Paredes on Dec.6 with media present. > Now, charged with desertion, he is arranging his legal defense to prepare for turning himself in. ASYLUM IN CANADA Army Pfc. Jeremy Hinzman faced Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) in Toronto for an asylum hearing the same week. He had left Ft. Bragg, N.C., months before when his paratrooper unit in the 82nd Airborne Division was ordered to Iraq. For Hinzman, the war in Iraq is illegal, and if he participates he will be a war criminal. The young paratrooper believes he deserves no punishment for taking this stand. "Serving even one day in prison for refusing to comply with an illegal order is too long." Hinzman had said on CBS' "60 Minutes" program, "I was told in basic training that if I'm given an illegal or immoral order, it is my duty to disobey it, and I feel that invading and occupying Iraq is an illegal and immoral thing to do." Hinzman is in Toronto with his Vietnamese-born wife and 2-year-old son. He is the first in court of three U.S. troops now in Canada who are publicly appealing for official asylum. The Canadian government, which has refused to join the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq, is under pressure from Washington to reject U.S. military resisters. Presiding IRB member Brian Goodman says the legality or illegality of the war will not be an issue in his ruling, to be made by February 2005. > It will be based, said Goodman, only on whether Hinzman has a reasonable > fear of persecution for his religious or political beliefs, or faces the > risk of cruel and unusual punishment if he returns to the U.S. CONFESSION OF WAR CRIMES Despite Goodman's statement, Hinzman made a strong political case. > Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey, a 12-year veteran, was at the Toronto hearing Dec. 8 testifying on Hinzman's behalf. Massey, who spent three months in Iraq, told how his unit--the 7th Marines weapons company killed more than 30 Iraqi civilians in one 48-hour period at a checkpoint in the Rashid neighborhood in southern Baghdad. "I know in my heart that these vehicles that came up, that they were civilians," he said. "But I had to act on my orders. It's a struggle within my heart." He said that Hinzman would likely be forced to commit > atrocities that violate the Geneva Conventions if he goes to Iraq. > > A large majority of Canadians and Quebecois oppose the war on Iraq. In > addition, there are over 30,000 former U.S. citizens who took asylum in > Canada during the Vietnam War who side with Hinzman, including Hinzman's > attorney, Jeffry House. (SoldierSayNo.org) 'SHOCK AND AWE' FOR RUMSFELD Spec. Thomas Wilson is with the 278th Regimental Combat Team, composed > mainly of members of the Tennessee Army National Guard. Secretary of > Defense Donald Rumsfeld spoke to 2,300 of these Guard members in a > hangar in Kuwait before television cameras. > > Rumsfeld asked the troops to pose some "tough questions." He must have > expected them to remain humble before his authority. Instead of being > held in awe, Rumsfeld got shocked. > > Wilson brought up the unarmored Humvees that the resistance regularly > blows up in Iraq. He asked Rumsfeld why do "we soldiers have to dig > through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised > ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?" > > The 2,300 troops applauded and cheered him. Rumsfeld looked stunned. His > quick answer failed to hide his indifference toward the fate of the > ordinary GIs: "You go to war with the Army you have," blustered the > Pentagon boss. "They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a > later time." > > He looked like he wished he had an army of robots. Rumsfeld hustled off > to his armored car and left. His answer to the troops became the butt of > late-night comedy routines. It was another nail in the coffin of the > Rumsfeld Doctrine that planned for a cost-effective, high-tech world > conquest. > > The defense secretary was the architect of the war. He had rushed into > it prepared only for a quick, brutal victory over Iraq. Along with the > neocons in the Bush administration and the bulk of the U.S. ruling > class, Rumsfeld had completely underestimated the courage and > determination of the Iraqi people to fight for their sovereignty. > > The Bush administration tried to spin Rumsfeld's televised disaster to > show that the troops were pro-war but wanted the best weapons. Bush said > he agreed with the troops' desire for armor. > > Yet the clash was in an imperialist army, not a debating society. Troops > are forbidden to sass their lieutenant, let alone embarrass the Pentagon > CEO. The Kuwait meeting with Rumsfeld was supposed to be a pro-war > public relations ploy. It turned instead into an exercise in > insubordination in a war zone. SUE THE ***** National Guard Spec. David Qualls from Arkansas went beyond questioning > the Pentagon brass. On Dec. 6, Qualls and seven still unnamed U.S. > soldiers sued the government to challenge its "stop loss" policy that > has forced thousands of soldiers to remain in the military beyond their > scheduled retirement. Qualls had been in Iraq since last March, in a combat zone north of Baghdad. After five years of active duty, Qualls had signed up for a > one-year stint in the Guard. His year was up, but the military forced an extension on him. The court ruled against Qualls' request for a restraining order to stop him from being sent back. As of Dec. 14, Qualls was in a hospital in > Arkansas, suffering from distress. According to media reports, he fears retribution from the military in Iraq. The Pentagon generals can still intimidate the troops, but they have > shown signs of their own fear. They recently decided to use only non- judicial Article 15s to punish the 23 members of the 343rd Quartermaster > Company who refused to drive their unarmored trucks on what they considered a "suicide mission" across Iraq last October. > > The punishments for Article 15s are loss of rank and pay, but no jail time and no loss of honorable discharge. If the Pentagon brass wanted to > avoid court-martialing these troops, it's because they feared a massive rush of support for what under different circumstances the officers > might call "mutiny." SUPPORT FROM ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT People active in GI organizing in 1968 would probably agree that the > mood among the troops now is even more anti-war than it was then. All > the symptoms of big problems in the military are there. > > The Pentagon reports 5,500 deserters. Only 50 percent of troops are re- > enlisting. As many as one-third of the Inactive Reserve, called now to > unexpected duty, are failing to show up. Even the news that Iraqi war > veterans are already beginning to show up among the homeless, many > suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, is a reminder of the > Vietnam days. > > The International Action Center (IAC), with the youth group FIST and the > GI support group SNAFU, on Dec. 4 devoted an afternoon session to GI > organizing and support work. The 300 mostly young people present were > enthusiastic both about stopping any draft and about supporting GIs and > anti-war veterans. > > On Dec. 11 a similar sized but somewhat older gathering pulled together > by Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Military > Families Speak Out and others spent over three hours on the problems and > conflicts of anti-war GIs and veterans during the current occupation of > Iraq. > > Master Sgt. Stan Goff, a Special Ops veteran and anti-war activist, told > the Dec. 11 crowd that it was time to "delegitimize, disobey and > disrupt" the military. (BringThemHomeNow.org) > > Tom Barton, who has been publishing the web newsletter GI Special for > over a year, read aloud letters from troops in Iraq who have been > pasting up anti-war stickers on battle ruins. (militaryproject.org) > > Dustin Langley of SNAFU reported his group's web site had recently > doubled its "hits," and repeated his message to resisting GIs and > civilian supporters: "We've got to show the troops we have their back." > (join-snafu.org) ICatalinotto was an organizer with the American Servicemen's Union > from 1967-1970. </I> > > Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and > distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not > allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, > NY 10011 |
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