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Updated below

After a congressional committee requested a copy of an unclassified internal State Department report on corruption in the Iraqi government (pdf), the Department classified the report and declined to provide it. But the document is in the public domain and widely accessible.

“The State Department initially informed Committee staff that the reports were designated ‘sensitive but unclassified’,’ wrote Rep. Henry Waxman, chair of the House Oversight Committee, in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (pdf).

“After receiving the Committee’s inquiry, however, the State Department retroactively classified the documents and refused to provide them voluntarily to the Committee.”

“The Committee subpoenaed the documents last week, but they still have not been provided to the Committee in either classified or unclassified form,” Mr. Waxman complained.

The primary document at issue is an assessment of Iraqi corruption that was prepared by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The document was first reported in The Nation magazine last month, and it was published last week on the Federation of American Scientists web site.

“Obviously, the State Department’s position on this matter is ludicrous,” wrote Rep. Waxman.

“If there is widespread corruption within the Maliki government, this is information that both Congress and the public are entitled to know.”

But according to State Department officials, “any information about corruption within the Maliki government must be treated as classified because public discussions could undermine U.S. relations with the Maliki government.”

Update: The story is picked up by Justin Rood of ABC News in ‘Classified’ Iraq Corruption Report Posted Online.

In his new book “Enemies of Intelligence,” Columbia University political scientist Richard K. Betts warns that ambitious attempts to correct failures in U.S. intelligence may cause more damage than they repair.

“The awful truth is that the best of intelligence systems will have big failures,” he writes. Eliminating failure altogether is therefore not a reasonable or achievable goal.

Nor can any one component or function of intelligence be optimized without incurring damage to others. So prudent reformers, he says, will seek incremental changes, not radical ones.

Betts hedges his account with a series of paradoxes that underlie his skepticism about the feasibility of reform.

“Experts usually are better predictors than those who know less about a question, but in unusual situations the nonexpert may do better.”

“Bureaucratization is both the great weakness and the great strength of the U.S. intelligence community.”

Centralization and decentralization of intelligence each has advantages. “But because it is necessary to exploit both forms does not mean that it is possible to do so.”

And while the paramount policy recommendation following September 11 was to improve information sharing, Betts recalls that a decade earlier, after the Aldrich Ames espionage case, overseers urged new restrictions on dissemination of information relating to clandestine operations.

The new book has some significant flaws, beginning with its title and conceptual framework.

The term “Enemies of Intelligence” refers not only to those adversaries who seek to defeat intelligence, but to anything that imposes restraints on intelligence and curtails its efficacy, from laws to physiological limits on human perception and memory. Thus, the U.S. Constitution would be an “enemy of intelligence,” an absurd conclusion that nevertheless flows directly from Betts’s odd definition, which he admits is not “normal.”

Betts distances himself from a strict civil libertarian viewpoint, which is fine, but proceeds to make startling assertions like this: “Without security, few Americans would be grateful for liberty,” he writes.

This would turn Patrick Henry’s revolutionary slogan “give me liberty or give me death!” upside down into a pusillanimous “take my liberties but don’t hurt me!” After years of fearmongering by government officials, this may turn out to be an accurate reflection of American character today. But Betts offers no data to justify such an appalling claim.

Betts makes the interesting assertion that not all liberties are equally fundamental. Due process under law, he argues, is more important than personal privacy. “Having one’s phone tapped without proper cause is not as damaging as being imprisoned for years without trial.”

Consequently, he sides with those who favor increased intelligence surveillance of the private sphere and contends that liberty can best be assured by strictly limiting the use of domestic surveillance data to counterterrorism purposes, with severe penalties for any deviations.

He has no corresponding suggestions for strengthening due process and the rule of law, which he admits have been under assault. (Granting a full pardon for Jose Padilla would be one way to punctuate the end of the Bush era, and to repudiate one of its most egregious abuses.)

Betts is a stimulating writer and his new book provides plenty of food for thought about intelligence policy.

“National security strategy is not like a chess game. For diplomats it is more like poker, and for soldiers and intelligence professionals it is more like Kriegspiel — a chesslike game in which the players are unable to see their opponent’s pieces or their moves.”

See more information on “Enemies of Intelligence” by Richard K. Betts here.

A newly updated bibliography (pdf) of published Syrian research in nuclear science and technology shows that country’s limited but persistent activity in various aspects of the field.

Along with reactor technology, nuclear physics and nuclear safety studies, the open literature also shows traces of Syrian interest in the use of lasers for isotope separation. The new bibliography was compiled by researcher Mark Gorwitz.

See “Syrian Nuclear Science Bibliography: Open Literature Citations,” September 2007.

Noteworthy new products of the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include the following (all pdf).

“Defense: FY2008 Authorization and Appropriations,” updated September 17, 2007.

“Presidential Claims of Executive Privilege: History, Law, Practice and Recent Developments,” updated September 17, 2007.

“Arms Sales: Congressional Review Process,” updated September 12, 2007.

“Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy,” updated September 10, 2007.

“Extraterritorial Application of American Criminal Law,” updated September 10, 2007.

“Currently, Iraq is not capable of even rudimentary enforcement of anticorruption laws,” according to a confidential draft assessment prepared by the United States Embassy in Baghdad.

As a result, corruption has become “the norm in many [Iraqi government] ministries.”

“All indications point to corruption as undermining the support of the population for Iraq’s government.”

The new report (pdf) presents the detailed findings of an Embassy review of corruption cases in major Iraqi government ministries and the ineffectiveness of the anti-corruption Commission on Public Integrity.

The Maliki government is an enabler of the spreading corruption, the report said.

“The Prime Minister’s Office has demonstrated an open hostility to the concept of an independent agency to investigate or prosecute corruption cases.”

“The Iraqi Government has been withholding basic support and resources” from the anticorruption Commission.

The 82-page document, which has not been approved for public release, is marked “Sensitive But Unclassified: Not for distribution to personnel outside of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Iraq.”

It was first reported by David Corn in The Nation. See “Secret Report: Corruption is ‘Norm’ Within Iraqi Government,” August 30.

A copy of the Embassy report was obtained by Secrecy News and posted today on the Federation of American Scientists web site.

“Corruption is rampant,” according to the December 2006 Report of the Iraq Study Group (at page 20). “One senior Iraqi official estimated that official corruption costs Iraq $5 to 7 billion per year.”

Late last year the Attorney General approved revised guidelines for the use of confidential informants by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (pdf).

The guidelines require that confidential human sources be subjected to a new validation process to help ensure that their information is reliable.

The guidelines also generally require that the FBI and prosecutors inform responsible law enforcement authorities if they discover that an FBI source is engaged in “unauthorized criminal activity.”

“The FBI does not have any authority to make any promise or commitment that would prevent the government from prosecuting a Confidential Human Source for criminal activity that is not authorized…..”

See “Attorney General Guidelines Regarding the Use of FBI Confidential Human Sources,” approved December 13, 2006.

The Guidelines were included in voluminous FBI answers to questions for the record of a recently published Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “FBI Oversight,” December 6, 2006 (14 MB PDF file).

Recently updated reports of the Congressional Research Service that have not been made readily available to the public include the following (all pdf).

“U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments, and Issues,” updated September 5, 2007.

“U.S.-China Nuclear Cooperation Agreement,” updated September 6, 2007.

“Venezuela: Political Conditions and U.S. Policy,” updated September 4, 2007.

“Liberia’s Post-War Recovery: Key Issues and Developments,” updated August 30, 2007.

“Australia: Background and U.S. Relations,” updated August 8, 2007.

Psychological operations (PSYOP) — military programs that seek to influence the attitudes and shape the behavior of a target audience — have the potential to increase the effectiveness of the armed forces they support while minimizing violent conflict. But the U.S. military is not notably good at conducting such programs.

To achieve their objective, PSYOP practitioners should ideally have a clear understanding of the values and thought processes of their audience (as well as their own), and they should have a credible and compelling message to deliver. These have often been lacking.

According to a 2004 Army evaluation of PSYOP activities during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, “it is clear that on the whole, PSYOP produced much less than expected and perhaps less than claimed.”

Two newly disclosed Army publications provide insight into Army PSYOP planning and procedures.

“Psychological Operations Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures,” U.S. Army Field Manual FM 3-05.301, December 2003 (a revision was issued in August 2007) (439 pages, 6.2 MB).

“Tactical Psychological Operations: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures,” U.S. Army Field Manual 3-05.302, October 2005 (255 pages, 11.2 MB).

These documents have not been approved for public release, but copies were obtained by Secrecy News.

A related document that was previously disclosed by Secrecy News is “Psychological Operations,” U.S. Army Field Manual 3-05.30, April 2005.

In the worst cases, poorly executed PSYOP activities are not merely futile but may actually be counterproductive.

In 2003, a U.S. information operations officer produced posters picturing Saddam Hussein as Homer Simpson and other figures of ridicule. “The posters enraged Iraqis and led to conflict that resulted in casualties for U.S. forces,” according to a 2005 study of PSYOP lessons learned.

See “Review of Psychological Operations: Lessons Learned from Recent Operational Experience” by Christopher J. Lamb, National Defense University Press, September 2005.

Attorneys for Khaled El-Masri, who was allegedly subjected to “extraordinary rendition” by the Central Intelligence Agency, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the dismissal of his lawsuit against the Agency last year on asserted “state secrets” grounds.

If the petition (pdf) is granted, the Court’s review has the potential to alter the judiciary’s handling of “state secrets” claims generally.

“The proliferation of cases in which the government has invoked the state secrets privilege, and the lack of guidance from this Court since its 1953 decision in Reynolds, have produced conflict and confusion among the lower courts regarding the proper scope and application of the privilege,” the petitioners argued. See Petition for Certiorari, May 30, 2007.

The government replied last week that the petition is an “extravagant request” to overturn “settled precedents” and should be rejected. See Government’s Opposition to Petition for Certiorari (pdf), September 2007.

The historical and legal background of the controversy over use of the state secrets privilege was examined most recently by legal scholar Louis Fisher in “The State Secrets Privilege: Relying on Reynolds,” Political Science Quarterly, Fall 2007 (subscription required).

A critical view of state secrets policy was presented by journalist Barry Siegel in “State-Secret Overreach,” Los Angeles Times, September 16.

Critics of the new Protect America Act who wonder if it will be used to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans have misunderstood the legislation, according to a Department of Justice official, but he also admitted the law may be susceptible to such a misunderstanding.

“Contrary to some reports, the new legislation does nothing to change FISA’s prohibition against targeting a person in the United States for surveillance without a court order,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth L. Wainstein (pdf) at a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee last week.

At the same time, he indicated that ambiguities in the language of the law may lend themselves to just such an interpretation.

“To the extent that the statute could be construed to allow acquisitions of domestic communications, we would be willing to consider alternative language,” Mr. Wainstein said in his prepared statement (at page 10).

A copy of Mr. Wainstein’s September 6 statement is here.

The text of his oral remarks is here (pdf).

The ambiguities in the Protect America Act are far more extensive than what has yet been officially acknowledged, according to Morton H. Halperin of the Open Society Institute. (The Open Society Institute helps fund Secrecy News.)

“Congress enacted legislation the meaning of which is simply not deducible from the words in the text,” he told (pdf) the House Judiciary Committee last week.

Will the new law “lead to the interception of phone calls and emails that the intelligence community should not be reading”?

“I have no idea if that is the case or not but neither does anyone else in the public and most of the Congress,” said Mr. Halperin. “That very uncertainty is simply unacceptable and a threat to both our liberty and our security.”

“Legacy of Ashes,” the best-selling new history of the Central Intelligence Agency by Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Tim Weiner, has been almost universally praised by prestigious book reviewers as a ground-breaking, comprehensive, reliable and insightful account of the CIA from its inception to the present. It was favorably cited in Secrecy News too.

In a detailed and sharply-worded critique, author Jeffrey T. Richelson dissents.

The book “makes ill-supported claims, issues grandiose judgments, and gives only cursory attention to important episodes,” says Richelson, who himself has produced several volumes of intelligence history.

“The kudos lavished on Weiner’s book… are just as disturbing as the volume’s shortcomings,” writes Richelson, and “the uniform praise … leaves one with a sinking feeling.”

“An intelligent debate about the strengths and shortcomings of the CIA, as well as its future, requires an unbiased understanding of its performance — something missing both from Legacy of Ashes and its reviews.”

See “Sins of Omission and Commission” by Jeffrey T. Richelson, published in the Washington DeCoded blog.