Raelynn Hillhouse

Last updated

Raelynn J. Hillhouse is an American national security and Intelligence community analyst, former smuggler during the Cold War, spy novelist and health care executive.

Contents

Personal history

Hillhouse taught at the University of Michigan and was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She is a founding member of the International Thriller Writers.

Hillhouse is also a health care executive who has developed behavioral health programs for children with autism. [1] She was CEO and President of Hawaii Behavioral Health. [2] She also founded Thrive Autism Solutions, one of the largest providers of autism behavioral health services in the Midwest. [3]

Hillhouse studied in Central and Eastern Europe for over six years at various institutions including Moscow State University, Moscow Finance Institute, Humboldt University of Berlin, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen (both in Germany), and Babes-Bolyai University (Cluj, Romania). She earned her undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis [4] and her MA in Russian and East European Studies as well as her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan.

When living as a student in Europe, she claims to have engaged in the black market between East and West, running Cuban rum, smuggling jewels from the Soviet Union and laundering East Bloc currencies. She claims to have been recruited by the East German secret police, the Stasi, and by the Libyan Intelligence Service. Some sources assert that she was an American intelligence officer, [5] but Hillhouse denies this. [6]

Hillhouse was born in the Ozarks and currently lives in Hawaii.

Blog

Hillhouse writes a national security blog [7] which has broken multiple national security stories. Her work has been extensively cited in global media, books and academic journals and law reviews. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

In 2007, the New York Times Week in Review republished excerpts from an exclusive interview from Hillhouse's blog with the head of the private military corporation Blackwater USA. [14]

In June 2007, Hillhouse discovered the US national Intelligence Community budget metadata in a declassified PowerPoint presentation released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. [15] [16] She broke international news stories on national security risks caused by the explosion in outsourcing governmental intelligence functions. [17] Her controversial articles have twice elicited a response from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—the only times the office of the nation's chief spy has ever publicly responded to the writings of a private citizen. [18]

Death of Bin Laden Report

On August 7, 2011, Hillhouse published an account of Osama bin Laden's death on her blog that suggested Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had been sheltering bin Laden in return for Saudi cash and that he was betrayed by a Pakistani intelligence officer. [19]

Hillhouse's sources claimed that the narrative given by the White House of the courier revealing the location of bin Laden was a cover story, created to hide involvement of US allies in sheltering bin Laden. According to The Telegraph, Hillhouse's account might explain why U.S. forces encountered no resistance on their way to and in Abbottabad, and why some residents in Abbottabad were warned to stay in their houses the day before the raid. [19] Her 2011 story received widespread international attention and was picked up by The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The National Post, The Vancouver Sun, The Sydney Morning Herald, The New Zealand Herald, and others, but had little coverage in the US. [20]

Controversy over report of bin Laden's death

In May 2015, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report in the London Review of Books in which he claimed to break the story of bin Laden's death. [21] His claims mirrored the ones which Hillhouse raised four years earlier. [22] [23] [24]

The New York Times , The Washington Post and other global media acknowledged that Hillhouse wrote about the events years before Hersh, although Hersh denied ever having seen her account. [25] [26] [27]

NBC News independently reported that a Pakistani intelligence officer was the source of the original bin Laden location report, and not the courier. [20] NBC News and Agence France-Presse both reported that their sources indicated that a walk-in was a highly valuable asset in the discovery of bin Laden. [28] [29] Pakistan-based journalist Amir Mir in the News International reported the walk-in's identity to be Usman Khalid, though that allegation was denied by Khalid's family. [20]

Publications

Articles

She has also published stories on national security in the Washington Post [30] and The Nation . In the controversial Washington Post article, Hillhouse wrote that "the private spy industry has succeeded where no foreign government has: It has penetrated the CIA and is running the show." In the Nation article, Hillhouse revealed that private companies are heavily involved in the nation’s most important and most sensitive national security document — the President’s Daily Brief. Hillhouse was also a regular contributor to Wired's national security blog, "The Danger Room".

Books

Hillhouse's debut novel, Rift Zone (2004), is a spy thriller about a female smuggler who becomes entangled in an East German plot to stop the fall of the Berlin Wall. The American Booksellers Association Book Sense program selected it as one of the best books of 2004 and Library Journal named it one of the year's most promising debuts. Her second novel, Outsourced (2007) is a political thriller about the outsourcing of the CIA and Pentagon and the turf wars between the two agencies. Publishers Weekly named the audio version one of the best books of the year. [31]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osama bin Laden</span> Saudi-born militant and founder of al-Qaeda (1957–2011)

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was a Saudi-born Islamic dissident and militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda from 1988 until his death in 2011. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, he participated in the Afghan Jihad against the Soviet Union and supported the activities of the Bosnian mujahideen during the Yugoslav Wars. Bin Laden is most widely known as the mastermind of the September 11 attacks in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seymour Hersh</span> American investigative journalist (born 1937)

Seymour Myron "Sy" Hersh is an American investigative journalist and political writer. He gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. During the 1970s, Hersh covered the Watergate scandal for The New York Times, also reporting on the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia and the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) program of domestic spying. In 2004, he detailed the U.S. military's torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq for The New Yorker. Hersh has won a record five George Polk Awards, and two National Magazine Awards. He is the author of 11 books, including The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (1983), an account of the career of Henry Kissinger which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Infinite Reach</span> 1998 American strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan

Operation Infinite Reach was the codename for American cruise missile strikes on al-Qaeda bases that were launched concurrently across two continents on 20 August 1998. Launched by the U.S. Navy, the strikes hit the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, and a camp in Khost Province, Afghanistan, in retaliation for al-Qaeda's August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and injured over 4,000 others. Operation Infinite Reach was the first time the United States acknowledged a preemptive strike against a violent non-state actor.

bin Laden family Saudi business family

The bin Laden family, also spelled bin Ladin, is a wealthy family intimately connected with the innermost circles of the Saudi royal family. It is the namesake and controlling shareholder of Saudi Binladin Group, a multinational construction firm. Following the September 11 attacks, the family became the subject of media attention and scrutiny through the activities of Osama bin Laden, the former head of al-Qaeda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Schroen</span> American intelligence officer (1941–2022)

Gary Charles Schroen was an American intelligence officer who spent 32 years with the Central Intelligence Agency, most notably as a field officer in charge of the initial CIA incursion into Afghanistan in September 2001 to topple the Taliban and destroy Al-Qaeda. He retired as the most decorated CIA officer in history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central Intelligence Agency</span> National intelligence agency of the United States

The Central Intelligence Agency, known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and conducting covert action through its Directorate of Operations. As a principal member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the President and Cabinet of the United States. Following the dissolution of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) at the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman created the Central Intelligence Group under the direction of a Director of Central Intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946, and this group was transformed into the Central Intelligence Agency by implementation of the National Security Act of 1947.

Osama bin Laden, the founder and former leader of al-Qaeda, went into hiding following the start of the War in Afghanistan in order to avoid capture by the United States and/or its allies for his role in the September 11 attacks, and having been on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list since 1999. After evading capture at the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, his whereabouts became unclear, and various rumours about his health, continued role in al-Qaeda, and location were circulated. Bin Laden also released several video and audio recordings during this time.

Farouk Hijazi is a former Iraqi government official who served the Iraqi government during the rulership of Saddam Hussein. Hijazi served as Hussein's Director of External Operations for the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service for many years before becoming Iraq's ambassador to Turkey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Bergen</span> American journalist

Peter Lampert Bergen is a British and American-based United States journalist, author, and producer who is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America, a professor at Arizona State University, and the host of the Audible podcast In the Room with Peter Bergen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of Osama bin Laden</span> 2011 U.S. military operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan

On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, the founder and first leader of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was shot and killed at his compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad by United States Navy SEALs of SEAL Team Six. The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out in a CIA-led mission, with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating the Special Mission Units involved in the raid. In addition to SEAL Team Six, participating units under JSOC included the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), also known as the "Night Stalkers," and the CIA's Special Activities Division, which heavily recruits from former JSOC Special Mission Units. The success of the operation ended a nearly decade-long manhunt for bin Laden, who was accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks on the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bin Laden Issue Station</span> CIA unit tracking Osama bin Laden (1996–2005)

The Bin Laden Issue Station, also known as Alec Station, was a standalone unit of the Central Intelligence Agency in operation from 1996 to 2005 dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden and his associates, both before and after the 9/11 attacks. It was headed initially by CIA analyst Michael Scheuer and later by Richard Blee and others.

Hassan Ghul, born Mustafa Hajji Muhammad Khan, was a Saudi-born Pakistani member of al-Qaeda who revealed the kunya of Osama bin Laden's messenger, which eventually led to Operation Neptune Spear and the death of Osama Bin Laden. Ghul was an ethnic Pashtun whose family was from Waziristan. He was designated by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee of the Security Council in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hamza bin Laden</span> Al-Qaeda member, son of Osama bin Laden (1989–2019)

Hamza bin Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, better known as Hamza bin Laden, was a Saudi Arabian-born member of Al-Qaeda. He was a son of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and, following his father's death in 2011, he was described as an emerging leader of the Al-Qaeda organization.

This is a list of activities ostensibly carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) within Pakistan. It has been alleged by such authors as Ahmed Rashid that the CIA and ISI have been waging a clandestine war. The Afghan Taliban—with whom the United States was officially in conflict—was headquartered in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas during the war and according to some reports is largely funded by the ISI. The Pakistani government denies this.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Firstfruits</span> Mass surveillance program run by the NSA

FIRSTFRUITS is a United States counterintelligence program and database that tracks unauthorized disclosures of intelligence material in the news media. The project's goal is to reduce losses of collection capability due to journalists. The database was created by the US Central Intelligence Agency, but then transferred to US National Security Agency. The database has thousands of unofficial and negative articles and authors. Maintenance of the program was outsourced to third parties like Booz Allen Hamilton. The program became known through whistleblower Edward Snowden.

<i>FDDs Long War Journal</i> US news website on the war on terror

FDD's Long War Journal (LWJ) is an American news website, also described as a blog, which reports on the War on terror. The site is operated by Public Multimedia Incorporated (PMI), a non-profit media organization established in 2007. PMI is run by Paul Hanusz and Bill Roggio. Roggio is the managing editor of the journal and Thomas Joscelyn is senior editor. The site is a project of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where both Roggio and Joscelyn are senior fellows.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osama bin Laden death conspiracy theories</span> Conspiracy theories about when and how Osama bin Laden died

The death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, gave rise to various conspiracy theories, hoaxes and rumors. These include the ideas that he had died earlier, or that he lived beyond the reported date. Doubts about Bin Laden's death were fueled by the U.S. military's supposed disposal of his body at sea, the decision to not release any photographic or DNA evidence of Bin Laden's death to the public, the contradicting accounts of the incident, and the 25-minute blackout during the raid on Bin Laden's compound during which a live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the U.S. special forces was cut off.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad</span> Former mansion in Pakistan

Osama bin Laden's compound, known locally as the Waziristan Haveli, was a large, upper-class house within a walled compound used as a safe house for Saudi militant Islamist Osama bin Laden, who was shot and killed there by U.S. forces on 2 May 2011. The compound was located at the end of a dirt road 1,300 metres southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy in Bilal Town, Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, a suburb housing many retired military officers. Bin Laden was reported to have evaded capture by living in a section of the house for at least five years, having no Internet or phone connection, and hiding away from the public, who were unaware of his presence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alleged Pakistani support for Osama bin Laden</span> Relationship between the state of Pakistan and Osama bin Laden

Pakistan was alleged to have provided support for Osama bin Laden. These claims have been made both before and after Osama was found living in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan and was killed by a team of United States Navy SEALs on 2 May 2011. The compound itself was located just half a mile from Pakistan's premier military training academy Kakul Military Academy (PMA) in Abbottabad. In the aftermath of bin Laden's death, American president Barack Obama asked Pakistan to investigate the network that sustained bin Laden. "We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan", Obama said in a 60 Minutes interview with CBS News. He also added that the United States was not sure "who or what that support network was." In addition to this, in an interview with Time magazine, CIA Director Leon Panetta stated that US-officials did not alert Pakistani counterparts to the raid because they feared the terrorist leader would be warned. However, the documents recovered from bin Laden's compound 'contained nothing to support the idea that bin Laden was protected or supported by the Pakistani officials'. Instead, the documents contained criticism of Pakistani military and future plans for attack against the Pakistani military installations.

Shakil Afridi, or Shakeel Afridi, is a Pakistani physician who allegedly helped the CIA run a fake hepatitis vaccine program in Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, in order to confirm Osama bin Laden's presence in the city by obtaining DNA samples. Details of his activities emerged during the Pakistani investigation of the deadly raid on bin Laden's residence. This account is disputed in a recent account of events which implies Afridi was implicated as a cover for the real CIA operative. Afridi was arrested at the Torkham while trying to flee the country days after the raid. On 23 May 2012, he was sentenced to 33 years' imprisonment for treason, initially believed to be in connection with the bin Laden raid, but later revealed to be due to alleged ties with a local Islamist warlord Mangal Bagh. Lawyers appealed against the verdict on 1 June 2012. On 29 August 2013, his sentence was overturned and a retrial ordered.

References

  1. ↑ "Leadership Series: Growing Your ABA Business | Autism & Behavior Training Solutions". Archived from the original on 2014-04-20. Retrieved 2014-04-19.
  2. ↑ "Hawaii Behavioral Health, LLC; Npi #1881742104".
  3. ↑ "Liz Kinsella with Thrive Autism Solutions in St. Louis Urges Companies to Hire Workers with Autism". Hawaii News Now. July 29, 2016. Archived from the original on September 20, 2016. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
  4. ↑ John McGuire (September 8, 2004). "The Spy who Loved it." St. Louis Post-Dispatch', page E1
  5. ↑ (McGuire, 2004; Adler, 2004)
  6. ↑ (Nolan, 2004)
  7. ↑ The Spy Who Billed Me blog
  8. ↑ Clark, Abigail (Spring 2009). "RECLAIMING THE MORAL HIGH GROUND: U.S. ACCOUNTABILITY FOR CONTRACTOR ABUSES AS A MEANS TO WIN BACK HEARTS AND MINDS". Public Contract Law Journal. 38. American Bar Association.
  9. ↑ Windsor, Lindsay (June 2013). "James Bond, Inc. Private Contractors and Covert Action". Georgetown Law Review. 101.
  10. ↑ Dickinson, Laura (Winter 2010). "MILITARY LAWYERS, PRIVATE CONTRACTORS, AND THE PROBLEM OF INTERNATIONAL LAW COMPLIANCE". New York University Journal of International Law and Politics. 42.
  11. ↑ Chesterman, Simon (2008). "′We Can′t Spy … If We Can′t Buy!′: The Privatization of Intelligence and the Limits of Outsourcing ′Inherently Governmental Functions′". European Journal of International Law. 19 (5). Oxford University: 1055–1074. doi: 10.1093/ejil/chn055 . hdl: 1814/11403 . S2CID   145705473.
  12. ↑ Clarke, Richard A. (2009). Your Government Failed You. New York, NY: Harper Perennial. ISBN   978-0061474637.
  13. ↑ Klein, Naomi (2008). The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism . Picador. ISBN   978-0312427993.
  14. ↑ Weiner, Tim (April 29, 2007). "A Security Contractor Defends His Team". The New York Times. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
  15. ↑ Paglen, Trevor (2010). Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World. New York: NAL. ISBN   978-0451229168.
  16. ↑ Teeter, Dwight L. (2009). Law of Mass Communications. Foundation Press. p. 500.
  17. ↑ Hillhouse, Raelynn (July 8, 2007). "Who Runs the CIA? Outsiders for Hire". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
  18. ↑ Sanders, Ronald (July 18, 2007). "The Value of 'Private Spies'". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
  19. 1 2 Crilly, Rob (August 10, 2011). "Osama bin Laden 'protected by Pakistan in return for Saudi cash'". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved August 11, 2011.
  20. 1 2 3 Schwartz, Jon (May 11, 2015). "Sy Hersh's bin Laden Story First Reported in 2011 — With Seemingly Different Sources". The Intercept. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
  21. ↑ Hersh, Seymour (21 May 2015). "The Killing of Osama bin Laden". London Review of Books. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
  22. ↑ Lerner, Adam (11 May 2015). "Blogger accuses Seymour Hersh of 'plagiarism' for bin Laden raid story". Politico. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
  23. ↑ Calderone, Michael (11 May 2015). "Seymour Hersh's Bin Laden Raid Bombshell Draws White House, Media Pushback". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
  24. ↑ "Why We Need to Take Sy Hersh's bin Laden Bombshell Seriously". The Nation. ISSN   0027-8378 . Retrieved 2016-08-06.
  25. ↑ Rosenberg, Matthew (May 11, 2015). "Seymour Hersh Article Alleges Cover-Up in Bin Laden Hunt". The New York Times. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
  26. ↑ Farhi, Paul (May 15, 2015). "The ever-iconoclastic, never-to-be-ignored, muckraking Seymour Hersh". The Washington Post.
  27. ↑ Trotter, JK (19 October 2015). "New York Times Ignores Pivotal 2011 Blog Post About Osama bin Laden Raid". Gawker. Archived from the original on August 11, 2016. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
  28. ↑ Cole, Matthew (11 May 2015). "Pakistani Asset Helped in Hunt for Bin Laden, Sources Say". NBC News. Retrieved 2016-08-06.
  29. ↑ AFP (2015-05-12). "Pakistan military officials admit defector's key role in Bin Laden operation" . Retrieved 2016-08-06.
  30. ↑ Washington Post
  31. ↑ "The Listen Up Awards The Best Audios of 2007". Publishers Weekly. 2008-01-07. Retrieved 2016-08-06.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.