JCS Conplan 0300-97

[struggle4progress]

The New York Times Company January 23, 2005
In Terror Fight, Domestic Roles for U.S. Troops
By Eric Schmitt

<snip> As part of the extraordinary army of 13,000 troops, police officers and federal agents marshaled to secure the inauguration, these elite forces were deployed under a 1997 authorization that was updated and enhanced after the Sept. 11 attacks, but nonetheless departs from how the military has historically been used on American soil.

These commandos, operating under a secret counterterrorism program code-named Power Geyser, were mentioned publicly for the first time this week on a Web site for a new book, "Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operation in the 9/11 World," (Steerforth Press), by William M. Arkin, a former Army intelligence analyst. <snip>

The role of the armed forces in the United States has been a contentious issue for more than a century. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which restricts military forces from performing domestic law enforcement duties, like policing, was enacted after the Civil War in response to the perceived misuse of federal troops who were charged with policing in the South. <snip>

In the online supplement to his book ( codenames.org /documents.html ), Mr. Arkin says the contingency plan, called JCS Conplan 0300-97, calls for "special-mission units in extra-legal missions to combat terrorism in the United States" based on top-secret orders that are managed by the military's Joint Staff and coordinated with the military's Special Operations Command and Northern Command, which is the lead military headquarters for domestic defense. <snip>

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050123-terror-fight.htm

[Wind Dancer]

1. Amy Goodman interviewed Mr. Arkin on 1/27.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/27/1359252&mode=thread&tid=25

snip

AMY GOODMAN: You have been hit hard when you talk about issues like this. Can you talk about losing a job over naming names?

WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, I have been doing this for a long time. I think one of the first jobs I had was working for a little non-profit in Washington, DC called the Center for Defense Information. This was in the early 1980's. And I was -- I worked on an article relating to where all the nuclear weapons were in Germany, US nuclear weapons. And I pieced it together by looking at telephone books and various military manuals. And I promptly was fired from my job. You know, big deal. In a way, I can't work somewhere that's not going to support the notion of openness. As I say in the introduction to the book, you either believe in democracy or you don't. You believe in openness or you don't. There's no way I’m going to convince you of it if you don't believe in it. So I have been doing this now for almost 30 years. I wrote a book in the 1980's that revealed where all the nuclear weapons were around the world. The Reagan administration was not very happy about it and came down on me pretty hard. And --

AMY GOODMAN: How?

WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, they threatened to throw me in jail. And it took many months of negotiations with the Reagan administration to convince them that I had not used any access to classified information in order to compile that book. That was the key that they would have used as the excuse to put me in jail. So it took many, many months to do that. It was quite a hairy time.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the -stans and code names. Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan.

more

[TexasLawyer]

2. "Paranoia grips the U.S. capital"

Also check out this editorial from the Toronto Sun, February 6, 2005

Paranoia grips the U.S. capital

By Eric Margolis -- Contributing Foreign Editor


The film Seven Days In May is one of my all-time favourites. The gripping 1964 drama, starring Burt Lancaster, depicts an attempted coup by far rightists in Washington using a top-secret Pentagon anti-terrorist unit called something like "Contelinpro."

Life imitates art. This week, former military intelligence analyst William Arkin revealed a hitherto unknown directive, with the Orwellian name "JCS Conplan 0300-97," authorizing the Pentagon to employ special, ultra-secret "anti-terrorist" military units on American soil for what the author claims are "extra-legal missions."

In other words, using U.S. soldiers to kill or arrest Americans, acts that have been illegal since the U.S. Civil War.

<snip>

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Eric_Margolis/2005/02/06/pf-922316.html

[cosmicdot]

3. doubt if anyone asked Gonzales if he thought the Posse Comitatus Act

was quaint (during confirmation hearing)