Giuliani warns against rushed News Corp. judgment (AP)

MANCHESTER, N.H. – Observers shouldn't rush to judgment in the growing investigation of the media conglomerate News Corp, the New York City mayor at the time of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks said late Thursday.

"Give people the presumption of innocence," Rudy Giuliani said before an evening meeting with New Hampshire voters. "I think just how high up it goes is a big question, and it's one we shouldn't be jumping to conclusions about."

But Giuliani was making more than a casual observation. He and New Corp's chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, have shared a political and personal relationship for nearly two decades.

Murdoch endorsed Giuliani in his 1993 mayoral race and was a guest at the mayor's 2003 wedding. Giuliani acknowledged the close relationship Thursday.

"I'll probably see him some point in the next couple of days — or a week — I see him all the time, at various functions," he said during the taping of an interview for CNN at Manchester Harley Davidson as dozens of supporters and reporters watched.

Giuliani said he has confidence in Murdoch despite allegations that one of Murdoch's companies may have tapped into the voicemail of 9/11 victims.

"He's a very, honorable, honest man. This can't be something that he would have anything to do with," Giuliani said.

The FBI has begun a preliminary inquiry into the hacking allegations.

Giuliani's comments came during the final stop on the first day of this week's New Hampshire tour. The 2008 presidential candidate is exploring a second run for the White House, but says he won't make a decision until the end of the summer.

His relationship with Murdoch and his media companies is well documented.

As mayor, Giuliani advocated for Fox News in a New York cable dispute. And once he left elected office, his law and lobbying clients included Murdoch's News Corp. Further, Fox News Channel Chairman Roger Ailes was Giuliani's media consultant in his unsuccessful 1989 mayoral bid, and the two have maintained close ties over the years.

Giuliani, the former U.S. Attorney for the district that includes New York City, noted Thursday that there's already an active investigation of News Corp.

He offered some advice to the American people: "I think what they shouldn't do, as we've learned recently with a bunch of criminal cases of different kinds — don't rush to judgment."

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China and allies back Russia against U.S. missile shield (Reuters)

ASTANA (Reuters) – Russia won the backing of China and other members of a regional security body in criticizing U.S. plans for a missile shield, saying on Wednesday it could undermine global security.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a security bloc grouping Russia, China and four ex-Soviet Central Asian states, signed a declaration condemning any unilateral build-up of missile defenses after their leaders met in the Kazakh capital.

"The unilateral and unlimited build-up of missile defense by a single state or by a narrow group of states could damage strategic stability and international security," the six members of the SCO said in the declaration.

Apart from regional heavyweights China and Russia, the SCO also includes the mostly Muslim ex-Soviet Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Iran, Pakistan, India and Mongolia have observer status in the body, set up 10 years ago to promote regional cooperation.

Moscow has recently stepped up criticism of U.S. plans to deploy missile defenses in Europe and has pressed for binding guarantees that the system would not weaken Russia's nuclear arsenal.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has threatened a new Cold War-style arms race if Moscow and Washington fail to resolve the missile defense spat.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said SCO members had been unanimous in their criticism of the missile shield and that the declaration referred not only to the European system.

"It is part of a global shield, and the global missile defense system being set up by the United States, which also covers East and South Asia," he said.

The United States says its planned shield is meant to reduce the threat of a missile attack by Iran. Moscow says it fears the true aim is to neutralize Russia's own nuclear arsenal.

"The Russian bear sits in its lair, and the NATO huntsman comes over to his house and asks him to come hunt the rabbit. .... Why do your rifles have the caliber to hunt the bear, not the rabbit?" Russia's NATO envoy Dmitry Rogozin said at a panel talk at London's Royal United Services Institute think-tank.

U.S. officials say the proposed shield could not neutralize Russia's vast arsenal, so Moscow has nothing to fear.

"If we tried go in that direction it would not work, it would bankrupt us, it would not be in our interests .... and it is not going to happen," James Miller, U.S. principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy, told the panel.

ANTI-WESTERN STAND

Russia and China have often voiced unity in opposition to perceived U.S. global dominance. As permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, they have expressed opposition to Western-led resolutions, including an effort to condemn Syria's bloody crackdown on anti-government protests.

"The task of preserving global peace and promoting common development is getting more arduous and more onerous," Chinese President Hu Jintao said.

Nevertheless, China and Russia have supported four rounds of U.N. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, effectively blocking full Iranian membership of the SCO when Tehran tried to join last year.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has upstaged previous SCO meetings, delivered a fiery 10-minute speech calling on members of the bloc to unite against Western powers.

"I believe that, through concerted actions, it is possible to change the general course of the world order in favor of peace, justice and peoples' prosperity," Ahmadinejad said at the end of a tirade against Western countries.

Russian news agency Interfax quoted Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari as reiterating his country's wish to become a fully fledged SCO member. A source in the Russian delegation, who asked not to be identified, said neither India nor Pakistan could join until they resolve their own territorial row.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov, Ben Blanchard and Chris Buckley in Astana and Mohammed Abbas in London; Writing by Robin Paxton and Steve Gutterman; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Pakistan to use 'all means' against terror (AFP)

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistan has authorised the use of "all means" to wipe out militants, following a string of humiliating Taliban attacks on security forces, but stopped short of unveiling specific new measures.

Six guerrillas stormed the naval air base in Karachi on Sunday, killing 10 personnel and destroying two US-made aircraft each costing 36 million dollars in an attack that took hundreds of troops 17 hours to quell.

It was the worst siege on a military base since militants besieged the army headquarters in 2009 and heaped humiliation on commanders still reeling from the disclosure that Osama bin Laden was found living under their noses.

Pakistan's main Taliban faction have claimed a string of attacks on the security forces to avenge the Al-Qaeda chief's killing on May 2 in an American special forces raid that apparently unfolded without the military realising.

On May 13, 98 people were killed in a bombing outside a police training centre in the northwest. A week later, the Taliban bombed a US convoy in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing one Pakistani and wounding 11 people.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani convened a meeting of the defence committee of the cabinet on Wednesday to review security measures, attended by cabinet ministers, army, navy, air and intelligence chiefs.

On the same day, nine security personnel were killed and a police station flattened in a massive suicide truck bomb in Peshawar.

Gilani admitted that "serious concerns are being expressed about our ability to deal with the gravity of problems posed due to terrorism".

But a statement issued after the meeting failed to list any specific policies and appeared largely confined to rhetoric.

"Security, defence and law enforcement agencies will be authorised to use all means necessary to eliminate terrorists and militants," it said.

Possibly alluding to ground operations against militants along the Afghan border it added: "All arms of the government will ensure that terrorist hideouts are being destroyed using all appropriate means."

The United States has long put pressure on Pakistan to lead a major air and ground offensive in North Waziristan, the most notorious Taliban and Al-Qaeda bastion used to launch attacks across the border in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has always maintained that any such operation would be of its own time and choosing, arguing that its 140,000 troops committed to the northwest are too overstretched fighting against militants who pose a domestic threat.

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Report warns against cutting intelligence budget (AP)

By KIMBERLY DOZIER, AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier, Ap Intelligence Writer – Tue May 24, 6:26 am ET

WASHINGTON – With America's top terror target eliminated, the nation's intelligence agencies fear they will look like a fat target for budget cuts. Their chief argument: Gutting intelligence budgets led to the shortfalls that allowed Osama bin Laden to carry out attacks in the first place.

Lawmakers say they are well aware that the terror war is not over but warn that cuts are coming.

Congress approved an intelligence budget of $80.1 billion in 2010, but lawmakers are keeping that roughly the same, slightly north of $80 billion for the next two years — and south of the White House's request, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified budget figures.

Those who lived through the purge of what is known as human intelligence — on-the-ground spies, informants and go-betweens — after the fall of the Soviet Union fear a rerun of the 1990s. Then, the spy world saw across-the-board cuts, agency by agency, on the theory that their main reason for being had ceased to be.

"There was very little effort to look across the community and say if one organization is cutting analysts deeply in one area, let's make sure another organization isn't doing the same," said former Pentagon intelligence official Joan Dempsey.

The last time the budget masters took a buzz saw through the intelligence agencies, the White House was blindsided by al-Qaida's strike on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, Dempsey said. She's among a wide spectrum of intelligence professionals warning against a repeat of such cuts, in a report released Tuesday by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.

"After the victory against the Soviet Union, we cut deeply across our capabilities in Africa, because people said we were in Africa because of the Soviet Union," Dempsey said. That left the intelligence community practically blind during "an entire decade of unrest, and turmoil, in which U.S. troops had to intervene" in fragile states like Somalia, and al-Qaida built in strength, she said.

The former chairman of the House intelligence committee, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., agrees. He remembers meeting resource-starved CIA officers in his first trips in 2001.

"They told me they had no capability," Hoekstra said, in a continent where the human intelligence needed to penetrate tribal and gang-supported unrest far outweighed the usefulness of the satellite and signals intelligence that was so popular at the time. "We let human intelligence die on the vine."

After al-Qaida attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, "we tried to hire quickly to make up for the damage," he said, "and sent a lot of people on dangerous assignments with not enough mentoring."

But Hoekstra also warned against cuts to satellite and signals intelligence investment, citing the lead time needed to develop and launch satellites to replace an aging fleet. New satellite systems are attractive to cut in the short term, because a single system often runs into the billions. But when the older satellites start failing, leaving gaps, the rush to replace them quickly can cost even more, he said.

"I had about $2 for every dollar (former CIA Director George) Tenet had when al-Qaida struck on Sept. 11," said retired Gen. Michael Hayden, who led the CIA from 2006 to 2009. Hayden oversaw one of the largest periods of expansion the intelligence agencies have ever seen.

"So the record shows it paid off, but everyone recognizes it would be hard to sustain," Hayden said.

James Clapper, director of national intelligence, told Congress in February that he'd be making cuts across the community, signaling that the post-Sept. 11 rate of growth had come to an end.

Several DNI officials were part of a task force that helped write the industry report released Tuesday.

Clapper was careful not to identify what areas he has been thinking of cutting, Dempsey said, for fear the power of his suggestion might drive congressional committees to beat him to it.

The intelligence budget has risen steadily since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the precise figures are classified. Clapper published the 2010 figure, at $80.1 billion, up from $75 billion the year before.

The current version of the 2011 intelligence authorization act does cut some of the personnel requests made by the CIA, but adds millions of dollars and thousands of civilian positions, including "critical counter-terrorism positions at the CIA and a significant increase to the National Counterterrorism Center," said a House intelligence committee member, Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I.

Key programs like the CIA unit that hunted down bin Laden have been funded, but the lawmakers have started weeding out what they've decided are unnecessary duplications, said Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., the intelligence committee's minority chairman: "There is duplication of programs. There are some programs we can't afford, or that might have to be delayed for a few years."

Hayden said the cuts to the military make it all the more important to guard against cuts to intelligence, after Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that a budget-reduced U.S. military may no longer be able to fight a two-front war.

"If forces are going to be drawn down, then how you use those forces will be much more limited," Hayden said. "So strategic intelligence is all the more important."

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