Super CIA Agent Gary Bernsten and author of "Jawbreaker" talks about Mugniyah on Brian and the Judger

Gary Berntsen a former CIA Operative for 23 years recounts the attacks he coordinated at the peak of the fighting in eastern Afghanistan in late 2001 in Tora Bora to take out Bin Laden in an operation named Jawbreaker. On Brian and the Judge this morning former CIA Operative discusses Imad Mugniyah, his Plastic Surgery and the Israeli Defense Forces efforts to go after him for they believe he is behind the IDF soldier kidnappings and much more terror in his role as the Operational Chief of Hezbollah! Agent Gary Bernsten-who spent years leading the CIA's anti-Hezbollah unit spoke to Brian and The Judge about the possibility of Iran being involved in the rocket attacks on Israel also.

Jawbreaker

• After the Presidential debates where John "Grades D" Kerry was claiming President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld "outsourced" the fighting to Afghan warlords and The Bush' Administration's statements that they did not know where Bin Laden was. Bernsten 48, who is an avid Bush supporter and Republican retired from the agency to write this book.
• "When I watched the presidential debates, it was clear to me ... the debate and discussions on Tora Bora were — from both sides — completely incorrect," said Berntsen, who won't provide details until the agency finishes declassifying his book. "It did not represent the reality of what happened on the ground."
• Gary Berntsen, the recipient of two of the CIA's three highest medals, one for preventing Islamic extremists from assassinating the Indian prime minister in 1996 describes and recounts the attacks he coordinated at the peak of the fighting in eastern Afghanistan in late 2001. It's also about decision-making: "Who stepped up, who didn't in all of this," and includes how U.S. commanders knew Bin Laden was in the rugged mountains on the Pakistani border and the Great Escape!Per Bernsten's book Bin Laden escaped in a fog of U.S. domestic political considerations. Berntsen explains how Tommy Franks and the White House feared an unacceptable number of U.S. causalities, thus nixing his appeals to throw more special forces troops at Bin Laden.
• "As the CIA's key commander coordinating the fight against the Taliban forces around Kabul, and the drive toward Tora Bora, Berntsen not only led dozens of CIA and Special Operations Forces, he also raised 2,000 Afghan fighters to aid in the hunt for bin Laden." "In this first-person account of that incredible pursuit, which actually began years earlier in an East Africa bombing investigation, Berntsen describes being ferried by rickety helicopter over the towering peaks of Afghanistan, sitting by General Tommy Frank's side as heated negotiations were conducted with Northern Alliance generals, bargaining relentlessly with treacherous Afghan warlords and Taliban traitors, plotting to save hostages about to be used as pawns, calling in B-52 strikes on dug-in enemy units, and deploying a dizzying array of Special Forces teams in the pursuit of the world's most wanted terrorist. Most crucially, Berntsen tells of cornering bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains - and what happened when Berntsen begged Washington to block the al-Qaeda leader's last avenue of escape." As disturbingly eye-opening as it is adrenaline-charged, Jawbreaker races from CIA war rooms to diplomatic offices to mountaintop redoubts to paint a vivid portrait of a new kind of warfare, showing what can and should be done to deal a death blow to freedom's enemies.

Here's More on this Mugniyah Character....

The Washington Times

www.washingtontimes.comDeadly infiltrator's trail
By Jack Kelly
Published September 13, 2003
Imad Mughniyah reportedly is in Iraq. You may not have heard of him, but every intelligence officer in the West has.
Born in Lebanon in 1962, Mughniyah got his start working for Yasser Arafat, but soon switched to the Iranian/Syrian backed Hezbollah, for whom he currently is operations chief.
Mughniyah masterminded the bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, and the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina a decade later. Many think he was behind the bombing of the Khobar Towers barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996.
Though a Shi'ite Muslim for whom Wahhabis like Osama bin Laden purportedly have disdain, Mughniyah has had connections to al Qaeda since the early 1990s. During his trial for his role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, al Qaeda operative Ali Muhammad testified he introduced Mughniyah to bin Laden in Somalia in 1993. German terrorism expert Rolf Tophoven said last year that bin Laden has put Mughniyah in charge of al Qaeda operations in the Middle East and Africa.
Mughniyah was in Iran until early August, according to the Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat. While in Iran, Mughniyah met with Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda's second in command, and with Osama's son Said bin Laden, said Michael Ledeen, a terrorism expert for the American Enterprise Institute.
U.S. authorities have said the truck bombs used to attack the U.N. compound in Baghdad Aug. 19 and the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf Aug. 29 were virtually identical. Mr. Ledeen sees Mughniyah's fingerprints on both.
Many doubt a Shi'ite Muslim would attack the holiest of Shi'ite shrines. But, Mr. Ledeen notes, the leader of Hezbollah in Iraq, Ayatollah Moqtada al-Sadr, was conveniently absent from the Friday prayers where his archrival, the Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim, was murdered.
Wahhabis have no love for Shi'ites, and vice versa. And Islamist terrorists of both faiths despise the Ba'athists, whom they regard as apostates. But terrorists who hate each other will work together if united by a greater hatred, or a greater fear. The oldest adage in diplomacy is: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
There is no doubt that the enemies of freedom and democracy are being drawn to Iraq, like moths to a flame. I'm skeptical of reports that "thousands" of foreign terrorists have entered Iraq in the last month, but hundreds certainly have, and it only takes dozens to conduct suicide truck bombings.
The foreign terrorists should remind us we are in a world war with Islamic terrorists. Their presence in Iraq means it will take us longer, and cost us more, in blood and treasure, to achieve our objectives there. But the short-term problem may be a long-term blessing. By concentrating their forces in Iraq, our adversaries are making it easier for us to defeat them.
The terrorists are drawn to Iraq out of weakness, not strength. "Two years after the attacks on the United States, Osama bin Laden's leadership cadre has been isolated and weakened and is increasingly reliant on the violent actions of local radicals around the world to maintain its profile," wrote Peter Finn and Susan Schmidt in The Washington Post last Sunday. "But the al Qaeda network is determined to open a new front in Iraq to sustain itself as the vanguard of radical Islamic groups."
The terrorists -- and the governments that sponsor them -- realize that if freedom and democracy take root in Iraq, they are doomed. They have to fight there, even though it isn't good ground for them. As the terrorists concentrate, they become easier for our intelligence analysts to track. And our soldiers can kill them there without reading them their Miranda rights first. Geography, time, and -- increasingly -- the Iraqi people, are on our side.
In Iraq, the United States is on the tactical defensive, but the strategic offensive. The famed British strategist B.H. Liddell Hart said this was the very strongest posture in which to be. The terrorists understand this. Too bad so few of our journalists and politicians do.

Jack Kelly, a syndicated columnist, is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh (Pa.) Post-Gazette.