Foro de Inteligencia, Espionaje y Servicios Secretos

Craig Johnson
Director - Due Diligence

Mr. Johnson joins Total Intelligence Solutions (TIS) as the Director for Due Diligence, Business Investigations and Legal Compliance after twenty-seven years of service with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). As an area-knowledge expert for Central and South America, Mr. Johnson had extensive travels to the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, west and central Africa, the Middle East, and European countries conducting asset validations in support to United States government national security interests. Mr. Johnson has held assignments as the Special Agent-in Charge (SAIC) for investigative elements in the western domestic field; Chief of Polygraph elements for "classified and sensitive" programs in the domestic field; Chief of Technical Integration and Countermeasure Deployments; and, served two tours overseas in high threat areas as the regional Chief for Operations for polygraph examinations for all of Latin America and the Caribbean. Mr. Johnson also served two Directors for Central Intelligence as the executive protective officer for personal security. Mr. Johnson's last assignment in the CIA was the Executive Officer for the Office of Military Affairs (OMA). OMA was responsible for the establishment of infrastructure for all US military armed and coalition forces deployed to Iraq during Gulf War II.

Prior to his joining TIS, Mr. Johnson was the former President and CEO of the consulting firm CJ & Associates, LLC. The firm was licensed for operations in the states of Maryland and California. This firm provided asset validation, VIP executive security protection, due diligence, physical, vulnerability, risk, threat, and behavior assessments for unique clients. The firm was recognized in 2002 and 2003 by Who's Who Historical Society of Entrepreneurs for having demonstrated exemplary professional achievement and distinguished contributions to entrepreneurial endeavors. Prior to government service, Mr. Johnson served as a police officer with the Sacramento Police Department.

Mr. Johnson, a native San Franciscan, received his Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Criminal Justice from Sacramento State University. He is a graduate from the distinguished CIA Polygraph School for Deception and Detection; and, a graduate from the U.S. Army War College in Strategic Studies. Mr. Johnson is a doctoral degree candidate with the University of Phoenix in Educational Leadership and is currently an adjunct professor for two universities where he designed curriculum and instructs on the subjects of Criminal Justice and Information Security respectively. Mr. Johnson received the CIA's Career Intelligence Medal for distinguished career service, received two Meritorious Unit Citations, and numerous exceptional performance awards. Finally, he was inducted into the Halls of Fame in both high school and university as a distinguished alumnus.

Mr. Johnson is a certified Private Investigator for the state of Maryland; two term Vice President and current member for the Maryland Polygraph Association; member in good standing with the American Polygraph Association, California Association of Polygraph Examiners, American Society of Industrial Security, Maryland Investigators and Security Association, and the Professional Investigators Alliance Of Maryland.

Melinda K. Redman
Senior Director - Intelligence & Analysis

Prior to joining Total Intelligence Solutions, Ms. Redman served in several senior assignments with the Drug Enforcement Administration from August 1988 to February 2007. During an 18-year career with DEA, Ms. Redman focused on identifying, targeting and dismantling international drug trafficking organizations, as a Special Agent and then as an Intelligence Analyst and Supervisor. Most recently, Ms. Redman's work as a Supervisory Intelligence Research Specialist focused on developing operational policy for, and implementing the U.S. Department of Justice's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Fusion Center. Ms. Redman was assigned as a Supervisory Intelligence Research Specialist at DEA Headquarters from January 2003 to February 2007. Ms. Redman was also assigned as a Special Agent at the Los Angeles Field Division from July 1990 to January 1999, and served as an Intelligence Analyst at the Tulsa, Oklahoma Resident Office from January 1999 to June 2001. Ms. Redman received her Bachelors of Arts degree in Mass Communications from Northwestern Oklahoma State University in May 1987. In August 2004, Ms. Redman completed course work toward a Master of Science degree in Strategic Intelligence at the National Defense Intelligence College (formerly the Joint Military Intelligence College). Ms. Redman has received numerous awards and commendations from her work at DEA including the Administrator's Award, which is DEA's highest award for group achievement

Due Diligence

Bhutto tried to hire U.S. security guards
December 30, 2007
By Philip Sherwell - LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

NEW YORK — Benazir Bhutto was so fearful for her life that she tried to hire British and American security firms, including Blackwater, to protect her, but Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf refused to allow the foreign contractors to operate in Pakistan, her aides said.

"She asked to bring in trained security personnel from abroad," said Mark Siegel, her U.S. representative. "In fact, she and her husband repeatedly tried to get visas for such protection, but they were denied by the government of Pakistan."

Her entourage discussed deals with North Carolina-based Blackwater Corp., sources said.

"We were approached to provide [former] Prime Minister Bhutto's security, but an agreement was unfortunately never reached," a Blackwater spokeswoman (Anne Tyrrel) said, confirming the negotiations. She declined to go into the precise details.

Sources within the British private security industry said she also had negotiations with the London-based firm Armor Group, which guards British diplomats in the Middle East. The company, however, said last night it had no knowledge of any talks.

Mrs. Bhutto frantically contacted officials, diplomats and friends in the United States, Europe and the Persian Gulf to urge Mr. Musharraf to improve her security in the wake of the suicide bomb attack that killed more than 140 during her homecoming parade on Oct 18.

Indeed, U.S. diplomats took the highly unusual step of providing her directly with confidential U.S. intelligence about terrorist threats to her life, knowledgeable sources said. Pakistan's Interior Ministry also passed on details of plots against her, and aides said letters containing death threats had been smuggled into her home.

Husain Haqqani, a U.S.-based Bhutto adviser, director of the Center for International Relations and a professor at Boston University, confirmed that she wanted to use private international security contractors but said the Musharraf regime would not approve the plan.

He said the United States, which has arranged for private contractors to guard Afghan President Hamid Karzai and top leaders in Iraq, was reluctant to pressure Mr. Musharraf, an ally in the war on terrorism, to change his mind, despite the view that U.S. officials considered Mrs. Bhutto a linchpin in their crucial diplomatic bid to encourage Pakistan to return to democracy.

Officials from Mrs. Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party have complained that security arrangements for her were woefully inadequate, given the seriousness of the threats against her from al Qaeda, the Taliban and others. She relied largely on using a "human shield" of loyal followers who would form a ring around her, but as the attack Thursday proved, it was little protection against a determined assailant.

Some security industry specialists have suggested, however, that there may have been other reasons why the help of foreign security firms was not enlisted.

To be surrounded by an entourage of foreign bodyguards would have added to criticisms that Mrs. Bhutto was in the pocket of the West — an accusation leveled at Mr. Karzai — and might not have been welcomed by her own Pakistani security staff. But the firms could have taken a background role as consultants and trained locals in bodyguarding techniques to maintain a Pakistani face to her entourage.

"It's odd and disturbing that the Pakistan government did not do a better job of protecting her and that the U.S. apparently could not do more to persuade them," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and former National Security Council director for South Asia. "She made it very clear privately and publicly that she did not have enough security. That was abundantly clear after the attack on her return."