The Department of Defense did a poor job of investigating and addressing reports of detainee abuse committed in Iraq by U.S. military personnel, according to a newly declassified report (pdf) of the DoD Inspector General.

“Allegations of detainee abuse were not consistently reported, investigated, or managed in an effective, systematic, and timely manner,” the IG found.

“Reports of detainee abuse by special mission unit task force personnel dated back to June 2003, but we believe it took the publicized abuse at Abu Ghraib [in spring 2004]… to elevate the issue to the Flag Officer level.”

“There are many well-documented reasons why detention and interrogation operations were overwhelmed [including] … inconsistent training; a critical shortage of skilled interrogators, translators, and guard force personnel; and the external influence of special operations forces and OGAs [other government agencies, a euphemism for the CIA].”

The August 2006 Inspector General report, originally classified Secret, was released in redacted form last week.

See “Review of DoD-Directed Investigations of Detainee Abuse,” DoD Inspector General, August 25, 2006.

According to the Director of National Intelligence, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, the law that regulates domestic intelligence surveillance, desperately needs to be updated to accommodate the latest technologies.

“Technology and threats have changed, but the law remains essentially the same,” wrote DNI Mike McConnell in a Washington Post op-ed on May 21. “The failure to update this law comes at an increasingly steep price.”

But contrary to Director McConnell’s surprising claim, FISA has been repeatedly and substantively modified and updated over the years.

“Abiding by FISA does not mean clinging to [an obsolete] 1978 structure,” said Rep. Jane Harman, then-ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, last summer. “FISA has been modernized.”

“Each time the Administration has come to Congress and asked to modernize FISA, Congress has said ‘yes’,” she recalled (pdf).

The Congressional Research Service tabulated dozens of legislative changes (pdf) that were made to the FISA between 1994 and 2006.

Glenn Greenwald elaborated on some of the changes made to FISA in a vigorous rebuttal to the DNI’s op-ed. See “The administration’s FISA falsehoods continue unabated,” Salon, May 21.

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

“Congressional Oversight Manual,” updated May 1, 2007.

“China and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missiles: Policy Issues,” updated May 9, 2007.

“Sea-Based Ballistic Missile Defense — Background and Issues for Congress,” updated April 27, 2007.

“Freedom of Speech and Press: Exceptions to the First Amendment,” updated April 26, 2007.

“The Military Commissions Act of 2006: Analysis of Procedural Rules and Comparison with Previous DOD Rules and the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” updated January 26, 2007.

Updated Below

More than five years after it was completed, the Department of Energy last year finally released a landmark historical account of U.S. production of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from 1945 to 1996.

Conceived a decade ago as a bold initiative to set a new standard for international transparency and government accountability, the HEU study was released under pressure as an unwilling concession to the rule of law, i.e. the Freedom of Information Act.

The story of the five year campaign to win public disclosure of the HEU study and an initial assessment of its significance for nuclear nonproliferation policy were presented in a paper (pdf) by myself and Princeton physicist Frank von Hippel in the latest issue of The Nonproliferation Review.

See “The U.S. Highly Enriched Uranium Declaration: Transparency Deferred but not Denied” by Steven Aftergood and Frank von Hippel, Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, March 2007.

The paper was discussed at a forum of the Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies on May 17, with a response from Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive.

The HEU Study itself, “Highly Enriched Uranium: Striking A Balance,” is posted here.

Update: Arms Control Wonk had some interesting observations on possible next steps in international verification of past HEU production.

U.S. Government plans to establish a new military command to be known as AFRICOM with responsibility for U.S. military forces in Africa are described in a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.

“As defined by the Department of Defense, AFRICOM’s mission will be to promote U.S. strategic objectives by working with African states and regional organizations to help strengthen stability and security in the region through improved security capability, military professionalization, and accountable governance. The command’s military operations would aim to deter aggression and respond to crises.”

“This report provides a broad overview of U.S. strategic interests in Africa and the role of U.S. military efforts on the continent as they pertain to the creation of a new Africa Command. Although the command is still in the planning phase, a discussion of AFRICOM’s potential mission, its coordination with other government agencies, and its basing and manpower requirements is included. This report will be updated as events warrant.”

A copy of the new report was obtained by Secrecy News.

See “Africa Command: U.S. Strategic Interests and the Role of the U.S. Military in Africa,” May 16, 2007.

Delay and dysfunction in the personnel security clearance system are an old story, and the Government Accountability Office has been describing and updating that story for at least two decades, including new congressional testimony today (pdf) focusing on Department of Defense (DOD) contractors.

“DOD is responsible for about 2.5 million security clearances issued to servicemembers, DOD civilians, and industry personnel who work on contracts for DOD and 23 other federal agencies.”

“GAO’s analysis of timeliness data showed that industry personnel contracted to work for the federal government waited more than 1 year on average to receive top secret clearances, longer than OMB- and OPM-produced statistics would suggest.”

See “DoD Personnel Clearances: Delays and Inadequate Documentation Found for Industry Personnel,” [GAO-07-842T], May 17, 2007.

New guidance on declassification marking (pdf) of documents and materials originating in Department of Defense special access programs was issued by the new Under Secretary of Defense (Intelligence) James R. Clapper, Jr. on April 26.

A Joint Chiefs of Staff publication presents doctrine on “barrier, obstacle, and mine warfare.” The document, newly updated, “greatly expands coverage of improvised explosive devices, mines, and other unexploded explosive ordnance.” See “Barriers, Obstacles, and Mine Warfare for Joint Operations” (pdf), Joint Publication 3-15, 26 April 2007.

A U.S. Army “smart card” (pdf) provides soldiers a summary overview of the threat from Improvised Explosive Devices. The unclassified smart card on “The IED and VBIED [vehicle borne IED] Threat” dated January 2004 — not the latest edition — is available here.

Although it “has stirred significant controversy in recent years,” the Congressional Research Service policy of restricting direct dissemination of its products to members of Congress is well-founded, argued CRS director Daniel P. Mulhollan in a lengthy internal memorandum (pdf) last month.

“The reasons for limiting public distribution of our work can be summarized as follows,” he wrote.

“First, there is a danger that placing CRS in an intermediate position [between Congress and the public] would threaten the dialog on policy issues between Members and their constituents.”

“Second, the current judicial … perception of CRS as ‘adjunct staff’ of the Congress might be altered if CRS were seen as speaking directly to the public, putting at risk Speech or Debate Clause constitutional protections afforded the confidential work performed by this agency.”

“And third, if CRS products were routinely disseminated broadly to the public, over time these products might come to be written with a large public audience in mind and would no longer be focused solely on congressional needs.”

A copy of Director Mulhollan’s seven page memorandum on “Access to CRS Reports,” dated April 18, 2007, was obtained by Secrecy News and is available here.

The arguments detailed by Mr. Mulhollan seem singularly unpersuasive to an outsider. CRS is not being called upon to mediate between Congress and the public or to engage in a public dialog on policy issues. Rather, proponents of broader dissemination are simply asking for the same public access that commercial vendors of CRS reports already enjoy.

For now, the Congressional Research Service still does not make its products directly available to the public. Americans who want online access to CRS reports have to make their own arrangements.

Some noteworthy new CRS reports obtained by Secrecy News include the following (all pdf).

“Defense: FY2008 Authorization and Appropriations,” May 11, 2007.

“Nuclear Weapons: The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program,” updated May 11, 2007.

“International Reaction to the Palestinian Unity Government,” May 9, 2007.

“Coast Guard Deepwater Program: Background, Oversight Issues, and Options for Congress,” updated April 30, 2007.

“Underlying Strains in Taiwan-U.S. Political Relations,” updated April 20, 2007.

“The Speech or Debate Clause: Recent Developments,” updated April 17, 2007.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration earlier this year attempted to block public access to a comprehensive report on planetary defense against asteroids, but the document found its way into the public domain anyway.

NASA undertook the study in response to a 2005 Congressional mandate “to provide an analysis of alternatives to detect, track, catalogue, and characterize” potentially hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs) and to submit “an analysis of possible alternatives that NASA could employ to divert an object on a likely collision course with Earth.”

An abbreviated version (28 pages, pdf) of the resulting report, which generally recommended against initiation of a new planetary defense program, was provided to Congress and the public in March 2007.

Strangely, however, NASA sought to prevent public disclosure of the full 272-page report that provided the underlying analysis for NASA’s conclusions.

To prevent uncontrolled dissemination, NASA did not distribute a soft copy version of the report. And altogether, no more than around 100 copies of the hard copy document were published.

Public requests for the document were denied, though it is unclassified.

“The document you requested was distributed in hard copy as a ‘thank you’ to [NASA working group] team members and is not an official, distributable NASA publication,” Marcus Shaw, a contractor at the NASA Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation, told Secrecy News.

“Copies beyond those for the study team are not available. An electronic copy will not be distributed or posted by NASA,” he wrote in a March 13 email from NASA headquarters.

In fact, however, the report is clearly marked as a NASA product and is presumptively subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

A legal challenge proved unnecessary, however, as the report soon leaked out through unauthorized channels.

It was obtained by the private B612 Foundation, an organization that advocates a more pro-active planetary defense program. (“Our goal is to significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner by 2015.”)

The full document (in a large 23 MB PDF file) was posted this month, along with the organization’s technical critique of NASA’s analysis, here.

B612 is the asteroid home of Saint-Exupery’s Little Prince.

The identification of deceased military and civilian personnel killed on or around the battlefield is one of the grim functions routinely performed in wartime.

It is so grim, in fact, that the U.S. Army decided it should be shielded from public awareness.

A U.S. Army Field Manual on “Identification of Deceased Personnel” (large pdf) was not supposed to be made publicly available. The manual is not classified, nor does it impinge on personal privacy. It is rather less graphic than a typical medical school anatomy textbook. But to the Army, it is still not suitable for public consumption.

The cover page says it should be destroyed by any method that will “prevent disclosure of contents or reconstruction of the document.”

“This [manual] begins with discussions of basic gross human anatomy, antemortem and perimortem trauma, human osteology, and dental anatomy and morphology. These chapters provide the mortuary affairs specialist with the basic knowledge to proficiently assist human identification experts (such as the forensic pathologist, medical examiner, forensic odontologist, and forensic anthropologist) with identifying human remains.”

A copy of the proscribed manual was obtained by Secrecy News. Thanks to Entropic Memes.

See “Identification of Deceased Personnel,” U.S. Army Field Manual 4-20.65, July 2005 (220 pages in a very large 32 MB PDF file).

The presiding judge in the closely-watched prosecution of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) charged with unlawfully receiving national defense information has denied a defense motion to dismiss the case on grounds of alleged constitutional violations by the government.

The defense had argued that the case should be dismissed because the government pressured AIPAC, the defendants’ former employer, not to pay their legal fees and thereby violated their constitutional rights to due process and the right to counsel.

The alleged interference occurred in 2004 and 2005, when “the government was actively investigating defendants and AIPAC,” Judge T.S. Ellis III explained in a new memorandum opinion (pdf).

According to the defendants’ account, “prosecutors implicitly or explicitly threatened AIPAC with criminal charges, and/or threatened further intense scrutiny of AIPAC in the event the government perceived AIPAC’s cooperation as unsatisfactory.” To demonstrate its “cooperation,” AIPAC subsequently fired the defendants and ceased to pay their legal fees. The organization was not charged in the indictment.

The court essentially validated the defense account. “Defendants have adequately shown a wrongful [government] interference with their contractual relations with AIPAC” (p. 16).

The government’s policy (under the so-called “Thompson Memorandum”) of pressuring employers to withhold legal fees to support their employees “is unquestionably obnoxious and is fraught with the risk of constitutional harm in specific cases,” Judge Ellis wrote (p. 26).

But in this case, the practice did not prejudice the defendants, he said, since they nevertheless managed to assemble an extremely capable defense team.

“A mountain of evidence convincingly demonstrates that defense counsel’s zealous, thorough, and effective representation of defendants has not been adversely affected by the loss of AIPAC’s fee payments,” he wrote in his May 8 opinion.

The motion to dismiss was therefore denied.

The AIPAC trial, previously scheduled for June 4, has been postponed. A closed hearing is scheduled for June 7.