Charlie Savage’s avatarCharlie Savage’s Twitter Archive—№ 13,868

    1. Newly declassified info discusses an alarming discovery that led the CIA to credit claims by Afghan detainees that Russia offered bounties to spur attacks on US troops during peace talks -- and gaps in the available evidence that worried other analysts. nytimes.com/2021/05/07/us/politics/russian-bounties-nsc.html
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  1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
    The intelligence community assessed with "high confidence" that leaders of a Taliban-linked criminal network, where the bounty claims arose, had been working with and for a notorious Russian intelligence assassination squad. w/ @EricSchmittNYT & @mschwirtz
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    1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
      That the leaders of the detainees turned out to have been been interacting with Unit 29155 of the GRU - the group accused by various European governments of orchestrating a coup attempts, sabotage operations, and poisonings - was seen a strong circumstantial evidence.
      oh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their API
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      1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
        It's not new that CIA+NCTC have "moderate" confidence in the Russian bounty assessment, while NSA+DIA are more worried about gaps so have "low." But the consensus about the most important circumstantial evidence - links between Unit 29155 and the Afghan criminal network - is new.
        oh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their API
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        1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
          It's not new that the available evidence can't prove that any particular attack resulted from a bounty operation. But the other factual gap that worried analysts - they have no info on someone in the Kremlin ordering Unit 29155 to do this - is new.
          oh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their API
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          1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
            The government apparently did not declassify everything. The statement does not include other things we have reported -- the names of two Afghan network leaders who interacted with Russians & fled to Russia, $ transfers from GRU to the network, the lack of surveillance intercept.
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            1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
              Confidence levels in an intelligence assessment accounts for complexity when trying to make sense of imperfect information. A "high confidence" assessment is not the same thing as a fact. And an analyst who assesses something with "low" confidence still believes it.
              oh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their API
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              1. …in reply to @charlie_savage
                The world of political messaging is comparatively simplistic, which leads to complexity-flattening distortion as commentators talk about intelligence assessments as if they were simply true or false, depending on which is expedient for the agenda they are pursuing.
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