A Defense Department-sponsored report that examined captured Iraqi documents for indications of links between Saddam Hussein and terrorist organizations is now available online.

The five-volume report affirmed that there was “no ‘smoking gun’ (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda.” But it also said there was “strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism.”

Although the report was publicly released on March 13, the Department of Defense declined to publish it online, offering instead to provide copies on disk. The full five-volume study has now been posted on the Federation of American Scientists web site. See “Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents,” Institute for Defense Analyses, November 2007, redacted and released March 2008.

The study was first reported prior to release by Warren P. Strobel of McClatchy Newspapers. The first of the five volumes was previously posted on the ABC News web site. The latter volumes include hundreds of pages of captured Iraqi documents, declassified and translated into English.

The Defense Intelligence Agency “made every effort to balance national security concerns, requirements of law, and the needs of an informed democracy and focused the redactions to the necessary minimum,” the report states.

The Iraqi documents themselves are an eclectic, uneven bunch.

One of them, a fifty-page Iraqi “intelligence” analysis, disparages the austerely conservative Wahhabi school of Islam by claiming that its eighteenth century founder, Ibn ‘Abd al Wahhab, had ancestors who were Jews.

In what must be the only laugh-out-loud line in the generally dismal five-volume report, the Iraqi analysis states that Ibn ‘Abd al Wahhab’s grandfather’s true name was not “Sulayman” but “Shulman.”

“Tawran confirms that Sulayman, the grandfather of the sheikh, is (Shulman); he is Jew from the merchants of the city of Burstah in Turkey, he had left it and settled in Damascus, grew his beard, and wore the Muslim turban, but was thrown out for being voodoo” (at page 20 of 56).

The analysis, produced by the Air Defense Security System of Iraq’s General Military Intelligence Directorate, is not a very reliable guide to Islamic or Jewish history, though it may explain something about Iraq’s air defenses.

“The Birth of Al-Wahabi Movement and Its Historic Roots” appears in volume 5 of the Defense Department report and is also directly available in this extract (large PDF).

Some noteworthy new books on intelligence policy, reform and history include these.

Former CIA analyst and outspoken CIA critic Melvin A. Goodman decries “The Decline and Fall of the CIA” in his new book “Failure of Intelligence” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008).

UCLA professor Amy Zegart examines pre-9/11 intelligence failures and their implications for intelligence reform in “Spying Blind” (Princeton, 2007).

Journalist Jefferson Morley traces “the hidden history of the CIA” through the career of Winston Scott, the CIA station chief in Mexico City from 1956 to 1969, in “Our Man in Mexico” (Univ. Press of Kansas, 2008).

The National Archives this week announced the opening of approximately 1.3 million pages of historic Central Intelligence Agency records dating from 1947 to 1977. The documents, which are described as open source publications gathered by the CIA’s Foreign Documents Division, are being released as “a part of the National Declassification Initiative program announced by the Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein in April 2006.”

On March 17, 2008, the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) heard public comments on its report Improving Declassification that was sent to the President in 2007. The meeting was covered by Lee White of the National Coalition for History.

Last year the National Intelligence Council, a component of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, sponsored a conference in Ghana on democratization in Africa. The NIC has now published the proceedings of that conference for broad public consumption and consideration. See “Democratization in Africa: What Progress Toward Institutionalization?” (pdf).

U.S. Air Force intelligence organization and functions are described in “General Intelligence Rules” (pdf), Air Force Instruction 14-202 (vol. 3), 10 March 2008.

In a blow to Justice Department prosecutors, two former directors of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) are expected to testify for the defense in the controversial trial of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) who are charged with unlawful receipt and transmission of classified information.

Steven Garfinkel (ISOO director from 1980-2002) and J. William Leonard (2002-2007) have been the voice of classification authority across three decades and five presidential administrations. They inspected, oversaw and reported to the President on the government’s classification and declassification programs. And last week they were listed among eight proposed expert witnesses for the defense in the AIPAC case, formally known as USA v. Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman.

As deeply knowledgeable classification officials, Mr. Garfinkel and Mr. Leonard might have been expected to testify for the government in a case involving classification policy. The fact that they are testifying for the defense is a startling indication that the prosecution’s case has strayed far beyond any consensus view regarding the proper protection of classified information.

The surprising participation of these former classification officials was first reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the New York Sun. See “Key New Witnesses Sign on for the Defense in AIPAC Case” by Josh Gerstein, New York Sun, March 17.

In another sign that the government’s case may be unraveling, the lead prosecutor quit last month to take a job in the private sector. See “Top prosecutor in AIPAC case quits,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 28.

Selected case files from the AIPAC prosecution may be found here.

Update: Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency elaborated:

Two former staffers of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who are facing charges that they traded in secrets now have on their side the two most recent arbiters of what is and isn’t a U.S. secret. […]

The agreement of Garfinkel and Leonard to serve as experts for the defense sets up the trial as a precedent-setting fight over the limits of secrecy.

Attorneys representing employees of the Central Intelligence Agency who are suing the Agency are obliged to sign a non-disclosure agreement and to comply with CIA secrecy requirements.

The CIA has prepared an introduction to its security policies (pdf) for non-governmental attorneys. It includes answers to questions such as: How do I know when information is classified? What restrictions are there on how I handle my client’s information at my office? And so forth. See “Security Guidance for Representatives,” Central Intelligence Agency, 2007.

The document was filed last week in the case of Franz Boening v. CIA, which alleges unlawful prior restraint by the Agency. The CIA is refusing to provide access to key case documents to the plaintiff’s attorney in the case, Mark S. Zaid, despite the fact that he holds a security clearance.

“Since 1830, the House has met behind closed doors only three times,” according to the Congressional Research Service: “in 1979 to discuss the Panama Canal, in 1980 to discuss Central American assistance, and in 1983 to discuss U.S. support for paramilitary operations in Nicaragua.”

On March 13, the House went into secret session once more to consider classified matters concerning the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. After some extended discussion of the unusual practice, followed by a security check, public access to the proceedings was barred.

For related background see “Secret Sessions of the House and Senate” (pdf), Congressional Research Service, updated May 25, 2007, and “Secret Sessions of Congress: A Brief Historical Overview” (pdf), updated May 30, 2007.

Since 2006, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has assumed growing responsibilities as a collector of foreign intelligence, FBI budget documents (pdf) indicate.

“In May 2006, the Director of the Office of National Intelligence tasked the FBI to use its collection authorities, consistent with applicable laws and protection of civil liberties, to collect FI [foreign intelligence] information against the National Intelligence Priorities Framework and pursuant to the National HUMINT Collection Directives.”

Prior to that time, “there were no concerted efforts to collect FI exclusivly, nor did the FBI have an investigative program that solely focused intelligence collection activities on FI.”

Today, the FBI is “the primary or supporting collector on ninety-eight (98) national intelligence topics that implement the [National Intelligence Priorities Framework],” according to the FBI’s remarkably detailed congressional budget justification for fiscal year 2009 (page 6-48).

Virtually all foreign intelligence gathered by the FBI comes from confidential human sources. The Bureau requested $3.2 million to pay for source recruitment, or “approximately $16,000 per Agent for 200 Agents” (page 6-50).

The FBI Counterterrorism Division validated — i.e. checked the reliability — of 60% of its confidential human sources in FY 2007. This was an increase from 0% the year before, but short of the target of 100% validation (page 4-31).

Among other notable details, the FBI budget request states that in FY2007 there were over 21,000 “positive encounters” with known or suspected terrorists (page 4-29). “A positive encounter is one in which an encountered individual is positively matched with an identity in the Terrorist Screening Data Base.”

The budget document also reports on threats to government and private information systems, stating that “more than 20 terabytes of sensitive information has been stolen to date, disrupting military operations and significantly impacting the confidence in the integrity of our national information infrastructure” (page 6-20).

A recent national security computer intrusion investigation determined that “computers were compromised at a sensitive policy making government entity” (page 6-23).

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which is responsible for interpreting the law for executive branch agencies, has played an influential role in the development of Bush Administration policy, and an unusually secretive one.

In a December 7 floor statement, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) described the contents of three OLC opinions that he had been able to review. One of them discussed the nature of executive orders as a category. Sen. Whitehouse characterized the conclusions of that OLC opinion as follows:

“An Executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new Executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous Executive order.”

We requested a copy of that seemingly innocuous, if questionable, opinion under the Freedom of Information Act. But the request was denied.

“We are withholding the document in full because it is classified and thus exempt under Exemption 1 of the FOIA,” the OLC responded (pdf).

“The OLC should publicly release more of its opinions, as was routinely done during Janet Reno’s tenure as attorney general during the 1990s,” the Washington Post editorialized today. “Too many Bush OLC memos remain secret, with only a handful of administration officials being privy to their conclusions.”

“During the Bush administration, the OLC has become known as a partisan enabler of legally and ethically questionable presidential policies, including those involving the use of torture.”

Sunshine Week, a national campaign to promote openness and access to information, is March 16-22, 2008. Numerous events at the national and local level, as well as online, have been scheduled to encourage a public dialogue on transparency. More information and abundant resources can be found here.

National Freedom of Information Act day will be observed on March 14 with a day-long conference sponsored by the First Amendment Center.

The recently-formed Collaboration on Government Secrecy at the American University’s Washington College of Law will hold a conference on Monday March 17.

OpenTheGovernment.org will hold a webcast conference on Government Secrecy at the National Press Club on March 19.

Other national and local Sunshine Week events are noted here.

The U.S. Army today restored public access to the Reimer Digital Library, as it had promised to do in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Federation of American Scientists.

At first glance, the site appears to be complete. Or at least as complete as it was before it was closed to the public last month. But there are some anomalies.

Among the items listed under “New Documents” is Field Manual Interim (FMI) 3-04.155, “Army Unmanned Aircraft System Operations.” Oddly, the link to this document is marked as Restricted, and it cannot be downloaded from the Reimer site. However, Secrecy News obtained a copy independently, and it is posted here (9 MB PDF file). The document is clearly marked “approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.”

Seemingly arbitrary restrictions on public access to online records continue to appear, and we try to swat them down when we can.

Yesterday, the Federation of American Scientists filed a Freedom of Information Act request (pdf) asking the U.S. Marine Corps to release all of the unclassified contents of its online doctrine library. That site, which had previously been available to the public, no longer is.

Using open sources and a wiki-based approach, students at Mercyhurst University prepared an unofficial “intelligence estimate” on the role of Non-State Actors in Sub-Saharan Africa in the next five years.

The exercise in collective, collaborative analysis was coordinated by Mercyhurst Professor Kristan J. Wheaton, who described the background to the activity in his blog.

The distinguished scientist Frederick Seitz who died this week was not only an accomplished physicist, global warming skeptic and tobacco industry-funded medical researcher, as obituaries in the New York Times and Washington Post observed.

He was also an early, incisive critic of government secrecy.

In 1969-70, Dr. Seitz chaired the Defense Science Board Task Force on Secrecy, leading a stellar panel of defense scientists and technologists such as Edward Teller, Jack Ruina, Marshall Rosenbluth and others, who identified fundamental defects in the secrecy and security policies of the time.

Their Task Force Report on Secrecy presented an acute critique of secrecy policy that remains pertinent.

“When an otherwise open society attempts to use classification as a protective device, it may in the long run increase the difficulties of communications within its own structure so that commensurate gains are not obtained,” the Report stated.

“Classification of technical information impedes its flow within our own system, and, may easily do far more harm than good by stifling critical discussion and review or by engendering frustration. There are many cases in which the declassification of technical information within our system probably had a beneficial effect and its classification has had a deleterious one.”

“In the opinion of the Task Force the volume of scientific and technical information that is classified could profitably be decreased by perhaps as much as 90 percent through limiting the amount of information classified and the duration of its classification.”

“The Task Force noted that more might be gained than lost if our nation were to adopt– unilaterally, if necessary– a policy of complete openness in all areas of information, but agreed that in spite of the great advantages that might accrue from such a policy, it is not a practical proposal at the present time.”

A copy of the 1970 Final Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Secrecy, chaired by the late Dr. Frederick Seitz, is posted here.