[net-gold] Secrecy News -- 09/15/10
- From: "David P. Dillard" <jwne@xxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2010 06:01:54 -0400 (EDT)
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Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2010 09:12:33 -0400
From: Steven Aftergood <saftergood@xxxxxxx>
To: saftergood@xxxxxxx
Subject: Secrecy News -- 09/15/10
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2010, Issue No. 73
September 15, 2010
Secrecy News Blog:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
** PENTAGON DELAYS PUBLICATION OF NEW BOOK
** ARMS TRANSFERS TO DEVELOPING NATIONS, MORE FROM CRS
PENTAGON DELAYS PUBLICATION OF NEW BOOK
The Department of Defense says that a forthcoming book about the war in
Afghanistan contains classified information, and that it should not be put
on the market in its current form. Instead, the Pentagon is considering
whether to purchase and destroy the entire first printing of the book,
"Operation Dark Heart" by Anthony A. Shaffer, while a revised edition is
prepared. The controversy was first reported by the New York Times in
"Pentagon Plan: Buying Books to Keep Secrets" by Scott Shane, September 10:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/us/10books.html
Shaffer, the book's author, is a former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
officer and Army lieutenant colonel. He submitted the manuscript to the
Army for prepublication review and received permission to proceed earlier
this year. The book was printed and prepared for release at the end of
August by the publisher, St. Martin's Press.
But prior to the publication date, a copy of the manuscript was obtained by
DIA and other intelligence agencies, all of whom raised new objections to
its publication.
"DIA's preliminary classification review of this manuscript has identified
significant classified information, the release of which I have determined
could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to national security,"
wrote DIA Director Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess, Jr. in an August 6 memo.
"I have also been informed that United States Special Operations Command
(USSOCOM), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security
Agency (NSA) have determined that the manuscript contains classified
information concerning their activities. In the case of NSA, this includes
information classified at the TOP SECRET level," Gen. Burgess wrote. He
directed that Lt. Col. Shaffer be "ordered to take all necessary action to
direct his publisher to withhold publication of the book" pending a new
security review.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2010/09/dia080610.html
But the Pentagon now faces a policy conundrum due to the fact that numerous
review copies of the book are already circulating in the public domain. (We
picked up a couple of them last week.) What this means is that any effort
to selectively censor the manuscript at this late date would actually tend
to highlight and validate those portions of the text that agencies believe
are sensitive, not to conceal them.
Therefore, as a practical security policy matter, it seems that the
Pentagon's best move would be to do nothing and to allow the book to be
published without further interference.
* * *
"Operation Dark Heart" is a memoir, not a work of scholarship, policy
analysis or journalism. It describes the author's personal experiences and
perspectives in sometimes clunky, occasionally gripping prose. It often
seems formulaic or cliched, though it is quite readable and sometimes
moving. Overall, it seems unlikely to alter the prevailing understanding of
the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
It is hard to know what to make of the author. As a clandestine operator he
claims to have run one operation "deep into North Korea," and another that
penetrated the Iranian intelligence service. He also says he once recruited
a high ranking Soviet military officer while posing as a freelance
journalist. Maybe so. His most frequent cultural points of reference are
Star Wars and the action movies of Steven Seagal.
Within those parameters, he tells some pretty good stories about
intelligence gathering, impromptu clandestine operations and bureaucratic
wrangling with stuffy superiors. Operation Dark Heart was the name of a
plan to target and destroy several Taliban operational centers, in what the
author believed might have been a decisive blow to the brewing insurgency in
2003. But because the proposed targets lay across the border in Pakistan,
the operation was scuttled, to Shaffer's dismay and disgust. He believes
his intelligence career was then derailed as the result of his decision to
brief the 9/11 Commission about the Able Danger data mining program, which
he says had succeeded in identifying some of the 9/11 hijackers in advance.
Even in the present version of the book that is now in the public domain,
the author seems alert to security issues. He says that several names have
been changed or concealed. At several points in the narrative, he stops
short of full disclosure, citing classification restrictions on what he can
discuss (p. 147, 165, 180).
But at other points, he is quite chatty, in ways that might have alarmed
some officials. He describes the location of the CIA station in Kabul,
along with the name and appearance of the CIA station chief ("he reminded me
of Peter Cushing, the actor who played Governor Tarkin, commander of the
Death Star in Star Wars"). He briefly discusses the COPPER GREEN "enhanced
interrogation" program (that was first reported by Seymour Hersh in The New
Yorker). And he names quite a few unfamiliar names, not all of which have
been changed.
At the rare intervals where his assertions can be independently confirmed,
they check out. At one point he introduces a certain person as "chief of
NSA here in country" (page 150). A search of that person's name online
turns up his resume that does indeed describe the individual as "Officer in
Charge, Cryptologic Services Group (CSG), OEF, Bagram, Afghanistan" and
"Senior SIGINT advisor to Commander, JTF-180."
Last June St. Martin's Press, the book's publisher, distributed promotional
material to reviewers, including a list of "Key Background Points and New
Revelations in Operation Dark Heart." That material, obtained by Secrecy
News, is available here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2010/09/dark-promo.pdf
* * *
While national security classification arguments naturally warrant serious
consideration, the mere fact that a government official says certain
information could damage national security if it were disclosed doesn't
necessarily make it so. Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, the DIA director who is
Mr. Shaffer's current antagonist, has previously been known to make dubious
claims about classification and about the secrecy needed to protect national
security.
Last year, Gen. Burgess formally expressed the view that the size of the
National Intelligence Program budget for 2006 was properly classified, even
though the DNI had already declassified the intelligence budget figures for
2007 and 2008 and published them openly. Yet in Burgess' opinion, as he
wrote in a January 14, 2009 letter, "the release of this [2006 budget]
information would reveal sensitive intelligence sources and methods."
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2009/01/odni011409.pdf
General Burgess was wrong then. Given the present circumstances, where all
of the information in the Shaffer book is effectively in the public domain,
it would seem reasonable for him to reconsider his position now.
ARMS TRANSFERS TO DEVELOPING NATIONS, MORE FROM CRS
Noteworthy new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service
include the following.
Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2002-2009, September 10,
2010:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R41403.pdf
Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses, August 20, 2010:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL32048.pdf
China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities --
Background and Issues for Congress, August 26, 2010:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33153.pdf
China and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missiles: Policy
Issues, August 16, 2010:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL31555.pdf
Southwest Border Violence: Issues in Identifying and Measuring Spillover
Violence, August 24, 2010:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R41075.pdf
Emergency Communications: Broadband and the Future of 911, August 25, 2010:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R41208.pdf
Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) Vehicles: Background and Issues for
Congress, August 24, 2010:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RS22707.pdf
Afghanistan: U.S. Foreign Assistance, August 12, 2010:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40699.pdf
U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians, August 12, 2010:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS22967.pdf
The Federal Food Safety System: A Primer, August 18, 2010:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22600.pdf
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation
of American Scientists.
The Secrecy News Blog is at:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood@xxxxxxx
voice: (202) 454-4691
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