Republicans call for dismantling CIA
WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- Nine Republican U.S. senators have called for a security and intelligence reorganization that would effectively shut down the CIA.
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate intelligence committee announced the plan Sunday, and said eight other committee Republicans backed it.
The proposal calls for the removal of three of the agency's main directorates, to be turned into separate entities reporting to separate directors. The Pentagon would lose control of three of its largest operations as well, including the ultra-secret National Security Agency.
"No one agency, no matter how distinguished its history, is more important than U.S. national security," Roberts said. "We are not abolishing the CIA. We are reordering and renaming its three major elements."
The plan was welcomed by the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who has endorsed the changes advocated by the Sept. 11 commission, the Washington Post said. Campaign spokesman Rand Beers said in a statement the proposal "is very similar to the reforms offered by John Kerry but needs to become bipartisan to be fully successful."
Sept. 11 terror financing revealed
WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- Details of how 19 al-Qaida hijackers got into the United States and financed their deadly attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, have been released.
The independent National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States concluded preparations for the attacks cost somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 -- of which about $300,000 was spent in the United States. The costs do not include expenses for terrorist camp training, the report said.
The origin of Sept. 11 funds is unknown but no money for the attacks was raised in the United States, CNN reported. The hijackers did not self-finance or have jobs.
Al-Qaida, which the CIA suspects spent an estimated $30 million a year, was funded primarily by donors and corrupt charities, and not Osama bin Laden's personal wealth, the report says.
It also said the al-Qaida terrorist network favored using Saudi passports for its operatives because irregularities in the country's passport issuance system made the passports more readily available.
Guantanamo terror trials to begin
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- Military lawyers prepared Monday for the first trials of four suspected al-Qaida terrorists at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison.
The trials that begin Tuesday will be very different than those in the domestic criminal justice system, and are based on a military justice system that has not been used in nearly 60 years -- last for suspected Nazi saboteurs, the Washington Post reported.
The commission system was first used to try the conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Hearsay evidence is allowed, conversations between defendants and lawyers can be monitored, and exculpatory evidence can be kept secret from suspects.
Despite criticism the commissions do not follow internationally accepted rules of law or procedures commonly used in military courts, U.S. officials vowed the trials will be fair.
"Each of the accused will be given full and fair trial in a manner that protects our national security," Navy Lt. Susan McGarvey, a spokeswoman for the commissions, told reporters at the Navy base.
'Jackal' aide acquitted in bombings
BERLIN, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- A German court has acquitted the right-hand man of terrorist Carlos the Jackal in a trial for two fatal bombings in France in the 1980s, Sky News said Monday.
Citing a lack of evidence, the Berlin court cleared Johannes Weinrich, 56, of six counts of murder and 22 counts of attempted murder.
He was accused of involvement in twin New Year's Eve blasts at the main train station in Marseilles that killed five people in 1983 and a car bombing the previous year in Paris that killed a pedestrian.
Weinrich once headed European operations for Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the man known as Carlos, who is now in jail in France. German authorities determined it would be too much of a security risk to bring Carlos to Berlin for the trial.
Weinrich is serving a life sentence for a 1983 attack on a French cultural center in then-West Berlin that killed one man. He refused to testify at the most recent trial, which began in March 2003.
For a time, Weinrich topped Germany's most-wanted list, and was captured and extradited from Yemen in 1995.
