Don't really know what to make of this. The observer is reporting that the NSA put out a special tasking order on UN Security Council members' UN missions during the first few weeks of February.
They have a memo. But as Drudge points out in his inimitable style, the released text of the memo doesn't seem to be written by an American:
ALLEGED 'TOP SECRET' TEXT OF NSA EMAIL...
BUT WAIT: WOULD AMERICAN NSA EMPLOYEE SPELL FAVORABLE 'FAVOURABLE', RECOGNIZE 'RECOGNISE' AND EMPHASIZE 'EMPHASISE' IN BRITISH TONGUE?...
WOULD NSA REALLY TIME STAMP EMAILS '31/01/2003 0:16' IN EUROPEAN FORMAT?...
NAME IN ALLEGED EMAIL IS 'KOZU' AND OBSERVER STORY CLAIMS TO HAVE CONTACTED A 'KOZA'?...
The other thing I don't understand is if this is supposed to be an e-mail or a paper memo. Look at the "From:" line: From: FRANK KOZU@Chief of Staff (Regional Target) CIV/NSA on 31/01/2003 0:16 . That's not an Internet e-mail address, nor is that Internet time format. If it's supposed to be a paper memo, what's with the '@' sign? Or does the NSA use Lotus Notes?
If so, we're all in very big trouble.
And ultimately, what's so outrageous about this? Doesn't every country try to read other countries' mail? Certainly I expect that all five permanent UNSC members have ordered their intelligence services to predict the likely votes of the rotating members.
Most of all, I don't get the Observer's title. "Dirty Tricks"? How? Are we going to organize the delivery of 10,000 pizzas to Angola, COD?
Colby's just wrong on this one.
"Miraculous" indeed seems an understatement for the Cathedral's survival of the initial 1000-bomber raid. But its later survival did involve some care on the part of allied bomber crews. Here's an aerial view of Cologne, before and after the war. Note that up is approximately south in these photographs (see map of modern Cologne).
The cathedral is near the main railway station, a railway bridge, and the Duetzer bridge. These military targets were not totally destroyed in the thousand bomber raid, or were subsequently rebuilt. We know this because subsequent raids targeted them: for example, this documents a Jan 6, 1945 mission by the USAAF 92nd bomb group which targeted the Duetz briges. Here's an account (click "Missions" on the left, then "October, 1944", then "October 14") of three successive days of raids on Cologne's rail yards in late 1944:
October 14: Cologne
The marshalling yards were hit by 30 planes with unobserved results. Flak was heavy.October 15: Cologne
A return visit saw fair results on the marshalling yards. "Lady Luck" (41-29128) received severe flak damage and returned on 2 engines. Upon landing, it crashed, killing 3 crewmen.October 17: Cologne
The marshalling yards were again hit, with unobserved results.
This brings me another claim of Colby's. What did he say? Ah yes: Of course it's nice to avoid bombing churches during the day late in the war, when you have command of the skies. His sneering implication is that these raids were milk runs. Nope. There was heavy flak. Certainly the establishment of air superiority over Germany helped protect allied bombers from German fighters, but air superiority doesn't mean no enemy planes flew. Consider the report of 401st Bomb Group's mission 196 (Jan 15, 1945), which targeted the railroad bridge:
Once again the 1st Air Division was spared Luftwaffe attacks, which again were directed at B-17's of the 3rd Air Division. Six 3rd Air Division bombers were shot down, but the Luftwaffe was decimated by the guns of the bombers and by the Allied fighter escort
By the way, the cathedral is only 300m from the east side of the railroad bridge. The bridge itself is over 400m long. The report states that 96% of the bombs fell within 1000 feet (300m) of the target. High-accuracy bombing probably prevented unnecessary damage to the cathedral.
As regards daylight bombing, The Military History of WWII sums it up thus:
The USAAF suffered far greater losses than the RAF during the bombing raids, mainly due to their insistence on carrying out attacks during daylight, when the fighters and gunners found it easier to defend.The focus on daylight bombing was not because the USAAF loved German civilians (witness Dresden). USAAF command was trying to use its bombs in the most efficient way possible. But a side-effect of this was a reduction in harm to the civilian population.