Former CIA deputy director says US misjudged Al Qaeda's resurgence after bin Laden's death

A forthcoming book by the former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency argues that the U.S. underestimated Al Qaeda's ability to regain its former strength following the killing of Usama bin Laden in 2011.
According to The Washington Post, Michael Morell writes that the CIA compounded its failure to anticipate the Arab Spring movement in the Middle East and North Africa by predicting that the unrest would deal a devastating blow to the terror network.
"We thought and told policy-makers that this outburst of popular revolt would damage Al Qaeda by undermining the group’s narrative," Morell writes in his book "The Great War of Our Time," due out later this month.
The protests resulted in the overthrow of governments in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Tunisia. In Syria, demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad led to a bloody civil war that has spawned several terror groups. Most notoriously, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has overrun large parts of Syria and Iraq since last summer. As a result, the Post reports that U.S. officials expect regional conflicts exploited by extremists, like those roiling Syria, Libya and Yemen, to take at least a decade to resolve.
Morell writes that the collapse of several governments removed those countries' ability to contain militant groups linked to or inspired by Al Qaeda.
"Arab Spring was a boon to Islamic extremists across both the Middle East and North Africa," he writes. "From a counterterrorism perspective, the Arab Spring had turned to winter."
Morell writes that the U.S. failed to predict the Arab Spring because it had become too reliant for intelligence on the very regimes that would be toppled.
"We were lax in creating our own windows into what was happening, and the leadership we were relying on was isolated and unaware of the tidal wave that was about to hit," Morell writes, according to the Post, which obtained a copy of Morell's book.
Morell's book also discusses the 2012 terror attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. He accuses Republicans of distorting the agency's analysis of the attack that resulted in the deaths of four people, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Morell dismisses the notion that CIA officers and the military "were ordered to stand down" and not come to the aid of their comrades in Benghazi. And he said there is no evidence the agency had conspired with the White House to spin the Benghazi story to protect then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
But he also wrote that the White House embellished some of the talking points provided by the CIA about the attack and blocked him from sending an internal study of the agency's conclusions to Congress. The New York Times reports that Morell also criticizes the State Department for not increasing security in Libya for its diplomats as the country's violence spiraled out of control.
Morell retired from the CIA in 2013 after a 33-year career. He served as deputy director during the final years of his tenure, with two brief stints as acting director following the departures of Leon Panetta and David Petraeus.

Two suspects killed, officer injured after shooting outside Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas

Two armed men were killed after opening fire on a security guard outside an exhibit of artistic depictions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in suburban Dallas Sunday evening.
The City of Garland said in a statement posted on its Facebook page that the men drove up to the Curtis Culwell Center and began shooting at the security officer. Garland Police Department officers returned fire, killing both gunmen, the statement said.
The Garland Independent School District, which owns and operates the Culwell Center, identified the wounded security officer as Bruce Joiner in a statement. The statement added that Joiner was shot in the ankle, was treated and released from a local hospital.
The statement did not say whether the shooting was related to the event, a contest hosted by the New York-based American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) that would award $10,000 for the best cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
Authorities said they were worried that the suspects' car could contain an incendiary device. Several nearby businesses were evacuated as a precaution and a bomb squad was on the scene early Monday. Police had cordoned off a large area and at least three helicopters circled overhead.
The bodies of the gunmen, who have not been identified, still lay where they fell early Monday because they were too close to the car to be removed before the scene was clear, according to Officer Joe Harn, a spokesman for the Garland Police Department.
"Because of the situation of what was going on today and the history of what we've been told has happened at other events like this, we are considering their car (is) possibly containing a bomb," Harn told reporters. He added that police are are not aware of any ongoing threat and had not received any credible threats before the event, Harn said.
"Texas officials are actively investigating to determine the cause and scope of the senseless attack," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement issued late Sunday.
The event featured speeches by Pamela Geller, president of the AFDI, and Geert Wilders, a Dutch lawmaker known for his outspoken criticism of Islam. Wilders received several standing ovations as he quoted former President Ronald Reagan and Texas founding father Sam Houston.
"Muhammad fought and terrorized people with the swords. Today, here in Garland, we fight Muhammad and his followers with the pen. And the pen, the drawings, will prove mightier than the sword," Wilders said during his speech.
Geller said during the event that her group had spent thousands of dollars on private security guards, several of whom could be seen standing on stage. Wilders left immediately after his speech, and Geller was not seen by an Associated Press reporter inside the hall after the shooting.
After the shooting, about 75 attendees were escorted by authorities to another room in the conference center. A woman held up an American flag, and the crowd sang "God Bless America."
They were then taken to a separate location, where they were held for about two hours until they were questioned briefly by FBI agents who took brief written statements from most people. Police officers drove some attendees to their homes and hotels, and arranged hotel rooms for others whose cars remained under lockdown.
The FBI is providing investigative assistance and bomb technician assistance, Dallas FBI spokeswoman Katherine Chaumont said.
Johnny Roby of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was attending the conference. He told the AP he was outside the building when he heard around about 20 shots that appeared to be coming from the direction of a passing car.
Roby said he then heard two single shots. He said he heard officers yell that they had the car before he was sent inside the building.
Geller told the AP before Sunday's event that she planned the contest to make a stand for free speech in response to outcries and violence over drawings of Muhammad. Though it remained unclear several hours after the shooting whether it was related to event, she said Sunday night that the shooting showed how "needed our event really was."
In January, 12 people were killed by gunmen in an attack against the Paris office of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which had lampooned Islam and other religions and used depictions of Muhammad. Another deadly shooting occurred the following month at a free speech event in Copenhagen featuring an artist who had caricatured the prophet.
Geller's group is known for mounting a campaign against the building of an Islamic center blocks from the World Trade Center site and for buying advertising space in cities across the U.S. criticizing Islam.
When a Chicago-based nonprofit held a January fundraiser in Garland designed to help Muslims combat negative depictions of their faith, Geller spearheaded about 1,000 picketers at the event. One chanted: "Go back to your own countries! We don't want you here!" Others held signs with messages such as, "Insult those who behead others," an apparent reference to recent beheadings by the militant group Islamic State.

Black Men and Cops Cartoon

Maryland Gov. Hogan can't say whether 'stand down' order given in Baltimore

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan could not say Thursday whether Baltimore police were ordered by the mayor to stand down earlier this week as rioters wreaked havoc on the city.
Hogan, a Republican, was asked about the claims amid lingering questions over whether local law enforcement could have done more to contain the violence on Monday. Initially, Hogan appeared to deny the "stand down" claims, in effect defending the city's mayor.
"There was no stand down order at all," Hogan told reporters at first.
He explained that local law enforcement were simply "overwhelmed" when the violence started. He noted the state has since brought in resources, including the National Guard, and helped restore order.
However, ‎the governor’s office later said the governor was referring to current policing policy, and that he does not know if there was a stand down order given Monday.
Earlier, a senior law enforcement source involved in the enforcement efforts told Fox News that there was in fact a direct order from Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to her police chief Monday night, effectively tying the hands of officers as they were pelted with rocks and bottles.
Asked directly if the mayor was the one who gave that order, the source said: "You are God damn right it was."
A senior law enforcement official also told Fox News that the mayor told police commanders, "let them loot, it's only property."
The claims followed criticism of the mayor for, over the weekend, saying they were giving space to those who "wished to destroy."
But the mayor has defended her actions amid the unrest, and likewise denied there was any order to hold back.
"You have to understand, it is not holding back. It is responding appropriately," she told Fox News on Tuesday, saying there was no stand-down directive.
Earlier in the week, there appeared to be some tension between the mayor and Hogan, who suggested Rawlings-Blake waited too long to seek a state of emergency.
But on Thursday, he stressed that he has praised the mayor and said he doesn't want to talk about what happened Monday.
"What we are talking about now is trying to keep the neighborhood safe now," Hogan said.
Meanwhile, Baltimore police said Thursday their investigation into the events leading to the death of Freddie Gray, the black man whose death in police custody sparked the protests and later rioting, has been turned over to state officials.
Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts did not give details of the report or take questions, but did say some 30 detectives worked on the probe and that the police wagon Gray was being transferred in April 12 made a previously undisclosed stop. He shed little other light on the sequence of events leading up to the injuries that later proved fatal to Gray a week later.

FEC head under fire for women’s forum ‘stacked’ with Dems

The chairwoman of the supposedly nonpartisan Federal Election Commission is under fire for planning a forum next month on women in politics "stacked" with Democrat-leaning speakers and apparent Hillary Clinton supporters.
One conservative lawyer already is calling for an inspector general investigation; another group is urging Chairwoman Ann Ravel to call off the event.
To Ravel's detractors, the forum is yet another example of the allegedly partisan turn being taken by the FEC under her leadership.
"There are so many things wrong with this," Cleta Mitchell, a prominent conservative lawyer in Washington, D.C., told FoxNews.com.
The FEC is supposed to act as an independent regulatory arm to enforce campaign finance law. So it raised eyebrows when Ravel put out a notice on the May 12 forum at FEC headquarters in Washington, D.C. The event is described as an "open discussion" with scholars and others on why women are "significantly under-represented in politics."
Mitchell said this alone goes beyond what the FEC should be doing. She questioned how it would reflect on the agency's impartiality going forward -- in, for instance, a case involving a male and female candidate.
But the roster of invited participants raised more questions.
They include:

• Rebecca Traister, a New Republic editor, who once described herself in The New York Times as a "devoted Hillary Clinton supporter." 
• Victoria Budson, founding executive director of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She has contributed to the campaigns of both Clinton and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren -- they were relatively modest contributions, including $250 for Clinton's 2008 White House campaign and $500 for Warren's 2012 Senate campaign. 
• Darren Rosenblum, a Pace University professor, who has taken shots at Republicans on his Twitter account. This includes an April 14 tweet in which he said of likely GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina: "The Republican field must have agreed to put Fiorina in the cabinet if she'd be an attack dog against Hillary" 

Ravel's office defended the planned forum in an email to FoxNews.com.
"We selected participants for the FEC's Women in Politics Forum because of their expertise and experience in this field with no regard to political affiliation, if any," her office said.
Ravel pointed out that "two distinguished Republican women, Christine Matthews and Rep. Mimi Walters, have agreed to be panelists at the event, as have international experts on women in politics."
Indeed, Walters is a Republican California congresswoman. And Matthews is a Republican campaign consultant.
But they appear to be outnumbered. The Daily Caller reported on the affiliations of other invited participants, including Marni Allen, once part of a group that backed former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich for Massachusetts governor.
Mitchell said she thinks the forum is an effort to boost Clinton's presidential candidacy.
She told FoxNews.com she wants to see an inspector general investigation, and is considering filing a formal complaint.
"It is a misuse of taxpayer money," she said.
Independent Women's Voice, a nonprofit tied to the conservative Independent Women's Forum, put out a statement saying the FEC event is "stacked" mostly with "women with one ideological view."
The group said the forum "seems outside the scope of the FEC's mandate" to begin with, and should either be overhauled or called off.

US Navy to accompany US-flagged ships in Persian Gulf after Iran seizes vessel

U.S. Navy ships will begin to accompany U.S. flagged commercial ships as they travel the Strait of Hormuz, a defense official confirmed to Fox News, on the heels of Iran seizing a cargo ship.
The Obama administration is closely monitoring Iran's takeover of the ship, as it involved a Marshall Islands-flagged vessel. The Marshall Islands and the U.S. have a longstanding security agreement, and officials said Thursday the two nations are in contact.
But, in a clear response to that incident, a defense official said the U.S. Navy will now accompany all U.S.-flagged ships going through the area. The move is the latest development in a high-stakes chess match in the region, with the Iran nuclear talks continuing to play out in the background.
The Navy makes a distinction between accompanying ships and escorting them. Officials told the AP the Navy won't technically escort these ships but will let them know in advance that they will monitor the situation as they transit the narrow Strait from the Persian Gulf toward the Arabian Sea.
The Navy already has dispatched a guided-missile destroyer, the USS Farragut, to the region. Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said Wednesday the destroyer is "keeping an eye on things," and in close enough proximity to the seized ship that they "will be able to respond if a response is required."
When pressed on what kind of incident aboard the ship would elicit a U.S. Navy response, he was vague, saying: "These [U.S. military] assets give commanders options." He said he didn't know "what the possibilities are," and the U.S. government is "in discussions with the Marshall Islands on the way ahead."

More on this...

• Why did Iran seize cargo ship?

Earlier this week Iranian naval vessels reportedly fired warning shots near the Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship and detained it and its crew. Iranian officials say the Maersk shipping line owes it money.
Maersk Line, the Danish shipper that chartered the cargo vessel, acknowledged in a written statement that the reason for stopping the ship could be related to a 2005 cargo case.
Maersk Line spokesman Michael Storgaard said the company learned Thursday that an Iranian appeals court had ruled Maersk must pay $3.6 million for a 10-container cargo delivered a decade ago on behalf of an Iranian company in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. However, the cargo never was collected, according to Storgaard, adding it eventually was disposed of by local authorities.
"As we do not have the details of the ruling, we are not able to comment hereon, nor at this point speculate on our options," Maersk Line said of the latest ruling.
"Our paramount concern remains the safety of the crew and the safe release of the vessel. We will continue to do everything we can to resolve this matter with the relevant Iranian authorities."
Storgaard told The Associated Press that the ship and crew aren't theirs. MV Maersk Tigris, operated by Rickmers Ship Management in Singapore, was boarded on Tuesday.
Cors Radings, a spokesman for Rickmers, told Fox News that as of Thursday, there has been no change in the status of the ship and her crew, and that the company has not spoken with the crew in the past 24 hours.
The Marshall Islands -- officially known as the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and a former U.S. trust -- enjoy "associate state" status with the United States, meaning the U.S. agrees to defend the islands, and provide economic subsidies and access to federally funded social services. The U.S. initially gained military control of the Marshall Islands from Japan in 1944.
According to the State Department, "The security compact between the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands gives the U.S. authority and responsibility for security and defense matters that relate to the Marshall Islands, including matters related to vessels flying the Marshallese flag."

Many questions still remain in death of Freddie Gray

Many questions surrounding the death of Freddie Gray still remain as authorities refuse to provide more than a few sketchy details about its investigation into the Baltimore man’s death as many people in the city were finding it hard to be patient Thursday when police revealed next to nothing about the case they turned over to the Maryland attorney’s office.
The public still does not know much more than it did on Day One, nearly two weeks after Gray’s death. The central question – what caused his deadly spinal cord injury – still remains.
"The transparency is just not there," the Rev. Cortly "C.D." Witherspoon said after Police Commissioner Anthony Batts refused to answer any questions Thursday.
Batts said his department’s report was delivered a day ahead of time to the State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, and that any questions about it should go to her.
Mosby decline to speak publicly Thursday as she issued a statement asking for "for the public to remain patient and peaceful and to trust the process of the justice system."
With rumors flying about how Gray's spine was "80 percent severed," as his family's lawyer Billy Murphy put it, police did release a new piece of information Thursday, but it served mostly to raise more questions about how truthful the six suspended officers have been with investigators.
Deputy Commissioner Kevin Davis said investigators discovered a security camera recording showing that the police van carrying Gray had made a previously undisclosed, second stop, after the 25-year-old black man was put in leg irons and before the van driver made a third stop and called for help to check on his condition. The van then made a fourth stop, to pick up another passenger, before Gray arrived at the police station with the spinal-cord injury that left him unresponsive.
However, a new report from ABC affiliate WJLA said that Gray died after slamming his head inside a police van, breaking his neck. The station reported that the medical examiner’s report was consistent with the bolt inside the back of the police van.
Last week, Batts said the additional passenger who was picked up along the way had told investigators the driver did not speed, make sudden stops or "drive erratically" during the trip, and that Gray was "was still moving around, that he was kicking and making noises" up until the van arrived at the police station.
Other than the chronology of events, police have not discussed any evidence, details or statements from the six suspended officers.
"I understand there are questions people want to have answered, but unfortunately, we can't release any more about it," Capt. J. Eric Kowalczyk said.
The forensic pathologists who studied Gray's body for clues also aren't making official statements.
Bruce Goldfarb, a spokesman for the Maryland State Medical Examiner's Office, told the AP on Thursday that the office has completed Gray's autopsy, but the forensic investigation is still in process and no conclusions have been sent to police or prosecutors. When the report is complete, Goldfarb said, a copy will be sent to the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office.
"The autopsy has been done, it only takes about two and a half hours," Goldfarb said. "The autopsy is only one part of the forensic investigation. The whole point is to determine cause and manner of death, and there are lab tests and lots of other things that have to be done."
Legal experts and the Gray family lawyers say secrecy is appropriate at this point in the probe, when it's still possible that some witnesses haven't been questioned, or even found.
"By releasing too many details, you run the risk that witnesses' testimony will change to mirror the details you have released," said David S. Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Miami. He said investigators must verify or corroborate much of the information they receive, and meanwhile the public could be misled that the probe is leading to a particular outcome.
Investigators are facing the challenge of determining whether an officer acted “reasonably” in the death of a civilian. Investigators cannot simply force officers to give statements because that would mean their testimony is coerced and would not hold up in court, Weinstein said.
If they are compelled to give a statement as a condition of their employment, you cannot then use those statements against them in a criminal proceeding," he said. "This is where the decision to grant immunity comes into play."
The Gray family's lawyers sought to dispel the idea that the police report would be made public at this point.
"This family wants justice, and they want justice that comes at the right time and not too soon," attorney Hassan Murphy said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, protesters over Gray’s death continue to spread across the nation. Aside from gatherings in Baltimore, demonstrations spread into Philadelphia and New York Thursday.
Philly.com reports that Philadelphia police made three or four arrests after hundreds of protesters marched through the city to show support for Gray.
More demonstrations are planned through the weekend.

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