Inside Burisma Holdings: Joseph Cofer Black [career details back to 1999] Inside Burisma Holdings: Joseph Cofer Black  Oct 31 2019 by DG Dyane  https://patriotssoapbox.com/politics/inside-burisma-holdings-joseph-cofer-black/ Continuing our look at the Board Members of Burisma Holdings, we find another interesting character. Joseph Cofer Black joined the board of Burisma in February 2017. At first glance, the name may not ring any bells, and perhaps that is by design, but it is a name that has been intertwined with the U.S. Government and politics for quite some time. Black graduated from the University of Southern California in 1973. The following year he completed his Master’s Degree in foreign relations and joined the CIA sometime in 1974. He worked his way through the ranks and eventually found himself in the thick of things. In 1993 Black was made the CIA Station Chief in Sudan at a time when Osama Bin Laden was being protected by the African nation. While in Sudan, Black oversaw intelligence collection on the relatively newly formed Al Qaeda and is credited with providing the intelligence that led to the capture of “Carlos the Jackal.” He left this post in 1995 and was stationed in Asia and later in Latin America until 1999. In June of 1999, Black was promoted within the CIA to Director of their Counterterrorist Center (CTC), where he would be in charge of tracking and strategizing a comprehensive plan to take on Al Qaeda and their leader Osama Bin Laden under the leadership of then CIA Chief George Tenet. Black and Tenet had settled on a covert operation in the spring of 2001 called the “Blue Sky paper,” involving the use of intelligence and military assets to thwart the terrorist organization, and pitched it to President George W. Bush’s national security team. According to Black, in an article found in Politico Magazine he felt the Bush Administration did not understand the gravity of the impending threat Al Qaeda posed to the U.S. homeland. I think they were mentally stuck back eight years [before]. They were used to terrorists being Euro-lefties—they drink champagne by night, blow things up during the day, how bad can this be? And it was a very difficult sell to communicate the urgency to this. On July 10, 2001, Richard Blee, who worked under Black, came into his office and informed him that an attack was likely imminent. The two men went to Tenet, who then contacted Condoleeza Rice at the White House. According to the article: Tenet vividly recalls the White House meeting with Rice and her team. (George W. Bush was on a trip to Boston.) Rich [Blee] started by saying, ‘There will be significant terrorist attacks against the United States in the coming weeks or months. The attacks will be spectacular. They may be multiple. Al Qaeda’s intention is the destruction of the United States.’ [Condi said:] ‘What do you think we need to do?’ Black responded by slamming his fist on the table and saying, ‘We need to go on a wartime footing now!’ Tenet claims to have testified to the 9/11 Commission about this meeting, but there was no mention of it in the Commission’s report. Despite Black’s heroic recollection of doing all he could to stop the 9/11 attack he was certain would happen, there is a little more to the story than meets the eye. According to an article in The New Yorker from July 2008, on January 5, 2000 two of the 9/11 terrorists that were later aboard flight 77 were being tailed by the CIA. Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaf Al-Hamzi attended a meeting in Kuala Lampur that the CIA had asked the Malaysian government to surveil. On January 8, 2000 the CIA was notified that these two men had traveled together to Bangkok to meet with a terrorist named Quso (one of the suicide bombers of the USS Cole) where they received $36,000. The money was believed to be used to purchase plane tickets and pay for living expenses in the U.S. In March of 2000, the CIA learned that Al-Midhar and Al-Hamzi flew to Los Angeles on January 15, 2000. Despite having this knowledge, the CIA never followed through on their obligation to inform the FBI of their presence in the U.S. Had they done so, the entire plot may have been unraveled, so the question is why did they choose to withhold the information? Newsweek reported that in 2009, Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism adviser for both Clinton & Bush, gave an interview wherein he alleges that Tenet, Black, and Blee purposely withheld the information from the FBI because they had intended to recruit the terrorists as double agents. Had the FBI been made aware of their presence, they would have sought to arrest them, so when the recruitment failed the details of this were covered up to avoid being hit with accusations of “malfeasance and misfeasance.” Clarke is quoted as saying, ‘I believed, for the longest time, that this was one or two low-level desk officers who got this [information about Hazmi and Mihdhar] and somehow didn’t realize the significance,’ he told them. But ’50—five-oh—50 CIA officers knew this, and they included [Tenet and] all kinds of people who were regularly talking to me? Saying I’m pissed doesn’t begin to describe it.” The interview with Clarke clearly ruffled some feathers, at least enough that Tenet, Black and Blee issued a joint statement in response to the accusations of Mr. Clarke in August 2011 calling it wild speculation, reckless and profoundly wrong and preferred to lay the blame at the feet of nameless junior analysts. Regardless of the excuses, the failure and lapse of the CIA in this instance belongs solely to those in charge. Black continued in his role at the CIA after 9/11 and helped set the stage for the invasion of Afghanistan. He famously briefed the Russian government about the American invasion plans. The Russians, who had spent considerable blood and treasure in years prior in Afghanistan, had warned Black, “You’re really going to get the hell kicked out of you.” To which he replied, “We’re going to kill them – we’re going to put their heads on sticks.” Black led the CIA efforts in Afghanistan, adding a new branch to the CTC called the CTC Special Operations, where he installed Hank Crumpton, former operations head for CTC as the Agent in Charge. According to George Tenet’s book “At the Center of the Storm.” Black told Crumpton, “Your mission is to find al-Qa’ida, engage it, and destroy it.” In 2002 he left his position at the CIA, succeeded by John Brennan, and was appointed by George W. Bush as the U.S. State Department’s Ambassador-at-Large for counter-terrorism. A position he remained in until November of 2004. As the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism [at the State Department], Ambassador Black’s office, S/CT, had primary responsibility for developing, coordinating and implementing U.S. counter-terrorism policy. On behalf of the Secretary of State, Ambassador Black represented the Department on the Counter-terrorism Security Group. His office played a leading role on the Department of State’s counter-terrorism task forces organized to coordinate responses to international terrorist incidents. [His] responsibilities included coordinating U.S. Government efforts to improve counter-terrorism cooperation with foreign governments, including the policy and planning of the Department’s Antiterrorism Training Assistance Program. In 2005 he left Government Service to become Vice-Chair of the controversial Blackwater USA, now known as Academi. Blackwater, or Academi, is a private military company that provides services to the U.S. Government and the CIA under contract. As reported by The New York Times in 2007, while Black was still Vice Chair, four employees of the company were convicted for the murder of 14 Iraqi civilians and injuring 20 others in Baghdad. (article continued in comments)