Thousands of previously unrecognized civilian casualties of the war in Iraq were documented in a collection of classified U.S. military records that were published online October 22 by the Wikileaks organization.

The unauthorized release of the records was presented with Wikileaks’ usual understatement and precision.  The newly disclosed records are said to be “the first real glimpse into the secret history of the [Iraq] war,” as if there had been no declassification, no previous unauthorized disclosures of classified information, and no prior reporting on the subject in the last seven years.

But setting aside the hyperbole, it seems clear that the documents significantly enrich the public record on the Iraq war, as reported over the weekend by the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Al Jazeera, and others.

Among other things, they cast new light on the scale of civilian casualties in the Iraq war, and they document the horrific details of many particular lethal incidents.  This kind of material properly belongs in the public domain, as a last sign of respect to the victims and as a rebuke to the perpetrators and their sponsors.

“The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq,” according to Wikileaks’ summary, “comprised of 66,081 ‘civilians’; 23,984 ‘enemy’ (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 ‘host nation’ (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 ‘friendly’ (coalition forces). The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60%) of these are civilian deaths.”

The records “contain 15,000 civilian deaths that have not been previously reported,” said the non-governmental organization Iraq Body Count, which is one of several organizations that attempt to tally or estimate civilian casualties in Iraq.

But the counting of casualties is an imprecise business, permitting a surprisingly broad range of credible estimates.  Prior to the Wikileaks release, with its description of 66,081 civilian casualties, the Iraq Body Count organization had estimated between 98,585 and 107,594 civilian deaths.  The Brookings Institution put the number considerably higher, at 112,625.  Other estimates, both higher and lower, are also available from the Associated Press, the World Health Organization, and others.

A compilation and comparison of such estimates has been prepared by the Congressional Research Service in “Iraq Casualties: U.S. Military Forces and Iraqi Civilians, Police, and Security Forces” (pdf), updated October 7, 2010.  This report does not directly reflect the new Wikileaks disclosures or a Defense Department tally made public last summer, though it presents official estimates based on some of the same underlying data.  But it is more recent than a 2008 version of the same congressional report that was cited in the New York Times on October 22.

A companion report from the CRS considers “U.S. Military Casualty Statistics: Operation New Dawn, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom” (pdf), updated September 28, 2010.  This report “presents difficult-to-find statistics regarding U.S military casualties… including those concerning post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, amputations, evacuations, and the demographics of casualties.”  While some of these statistics are publicly available through the Department of Defense website, others were obtained by CRS research.

Another CRS report addresses “Afghanistan Casualties: Military Forces and Civilians” (pdf), updated September 14, 2010.

The Washington Post is publishing a rather spectacular series of stories this week tracing the flow of guns through American society and their use in criminal activity.  The Post series directly challenges — and partially overcomes — the barriers to public disclosure of gun sales that were put in place by Congress under pressure from the National Rifle Association and gun dealers in 2003.

“At the urging of the gun lobby seven years ago,” the Post explained, “Congress removed from public view a federal database that traced guns back to stores.  The blackout helped cut off a growing number of lawsuits against and newspaper investigations of gun stores.  To break this secrecy in Maryland, Virginia and the District [of Columbia], The Post relied on its own analysis of state and local records.”  See “Industry pressure hides gun traces, protects dealers from public scrutiny” by James V. Grimaldi and Sari Horwitz, October 24.

The barriers to public disclosure of gun sale data that were enacted by Congress in 2003 were analyzed by the Congressional Research Service in “Gun Control: Statutory Disclosure Limitations on ATF Firearms Trace Data and Multiple Handgun Sales Reports” (pdf), May 27, 2009.

The Israeli policy of “nuclear opacity” — by which that country’s presumptive nuclear weapons program is not formally acknowledged — is examined in the new book “The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb” by Avner Cohen (Columbia University Press, October 2010).

For a variety of reasons, the author concludes that Israel’s “nuclear opacity” is obsolete and will have to be replaced, sooner or later, with a forthright acknowledgment of what everyone already believes to be the case anyway.

Cohen, an Israeli scholar who was trained as a philosopher, provides a lucid account of how nuclear opacity has “worked,” i.e. served Israeli interests, by providing the benefits of deterrence without the negative political and strategic consequences that could ensue from overt disclosure.  But its time has passed, he says.

“I argue that the old Israeli bargain with the bomb has outlived its usefulness, that it has become increasingly incompatible with contemporary democratic values at home and with the growth of international norms of transparency, and that it is time for Israel and others to consider a new bargain.”  Among other things, he says, the continuing development of nuclear weapons-related technology in Iran is likely the force the issue to a new degree of clarity.

For the time being, however, there is no sign of any change in Israel’s position on the matter.  “Israel has a clear and responsible nuclear policy, and it has frequently reiterated that it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East,” David Danieli of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission told Haaretz last month.  “Israel neither adds to nor subtracts from this statement.”

Avner Cohen’s “The Worst-Kept Secret” was reviewed recently in the New York Times and the Forward.

The recently enacted 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act requires the Director of National Intelligence to prepare a directive concerning access by the congressional Government Accountability Office (GAO) to intelligence information.  The forthcoming directive, the content of which was not clearly specified by Congress, could enable GAO investigators to play a more significant role in intelligence oversight, or it could effectively shut the door on them.

According to a newly disclosed May 27, 2010 letter (pdf) from then-National Security Advisor James L. Jones to Rep. Anna Eshoo, the GAO should be excluded from nearly every aspect of intelligence oversight that involves… intelligence.

While GAO is nominally free to address “a broad range of issues and topics” that concern the intelligence community, Gen. Jones wrote, “There are four areas where we look to the intelligence committees to exercise exclusive jurisdiction: (1) the evaluation, review, and audit of intelligence activities, capabilities, programs, and operations; (2) activities involving intelligence sources; (3) activities involving intelligence methods; and (4) the analysis of intelligence funding.”

So except for intelligence activities, capabilities, programs, operations, sources, methods and funding — everything else is eligible for GAO oversight.

The exclusions advanced by Gen. Jones “essentially cut GAO out of the game,” a congressional staffer told Secrecy News.  “And believe me, DOJ, FBI and DHS have been using this position as a rationale for denying GAO information. This does not give me much hope as we start ramping up to work with ODNI on the access protocols they are required to write.”

However, DNI James R. Clapper expressed a considerably narrower view of what should be off-limits to GAO in public remarks (pdf) earlier this month:  “I am more concerned or sensitive about GAO getting into what I would consider sort of the core essence of intelligence – that is, evaluating sources and methods, critiquing national intelligence estimates, doing this sort of thing, which I think strikes at the very essence of what the intelligence committees were established to do.”

Even so, he suggested that individual GAO staff members could also pursue such highly sensitive matters if this was formally done under direction of the intelligence committees:

“Now, [if] they want to have the GAO assist, detail GAO staff to – if they have the subject matter experts – to the committees. I think that’s fine as long as it’s done under the auspices of the committees when you’re getting at the core essence of what intelligence is and does,” Gen. Clapper said.

This view seems to allow much greater space for compromise, especially since there is much that GAO could do in terms of intelligence program audits and reviews that would not involve “evaluating sources” or otherwise impinge on “the core essence of intelligence.”  The new DNI directive is to be coordinated with the GAO and submitted to Congress by May 1, 2011.

There were 5,135 inventions that were under secrecy orders at the end of Fiscal Year 2010, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office told Secrecy News last week.  It’s a 1% rise over the year before, and the highest total in more than a decade.

Under the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951, patent applications on new inventions can be subject to secrecy orders restricting their publication if government agencies believe that disclosure would be “detrimental to the national security.”

The current list of technology areas that is used to screen patent applications for possible restriction under the Invention Secrecy Act is not publicly available and has been denied under the Freedom of Information Act.  (An appeal is pending.)  But a previous list dated 1971 and obtained by researcher Michael Ravnitzky is available here (pdf).

Most of the listed technology areas are closely related to military applications.  But some of them range more widely.

Thus, the 1971 list indicates that patents for solar photovoltaic generators were subject to review and possible restriction if the photovoltaics were more than 20% efficient.  Energy conversion systems were likewise subject to review and possible restriction if they offered conversion efficiencies “in excess of 70-80%.”

One may fairly ask if disclosure of such technologies could really have been “detrimental to the national security,” or whether the opposite would be closer to the truth.  One may further ask what comparable advances in technology may be subject to restriction and non-disclosure today.  But no answers are forthcoming, and the invention secrecy system persists with no discernible external review.

Secrecy News was pleased to receive the following books, though we have not yet had a chance to read them closely.

“The Reagan Files: The Untold Story of Reagan’s Top-Secret Efforts to Win the Cold War” edited by Jason Saltoun-Ebin is a rich collection of declassified letters, transcripts and National Security Council meeting minutes gleaned from the Reagan Library concerning U.S.-Soviet relations and the end of the Cold War,

“Torture, Terror, and Trade-Offs: Philosophy for the White House” by Jeremy Waldron investigates questions of law and security, public safety and individual rights.

“Continental Defense in the Eisenhower Era: Nuclear Antiaircraft Arms and the Cold War” by Christopher J. Bright builds on declassified files to tell the story of the thousands of nuclear antiaircraft weapons which were deployed around U.S. cities during the Cold War.

I’m very grateful to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for naming me as one of the four recipients of its 2010 Pioneer Awards, which are intended “to recognize leaders on the electronic frontier who are extending freedom and innovation in the realm of information technology.”

EFF is not only a prominent voice of online freedom, but is itself a pioneer in confronting unlawful domestic surveillance, the use of the state secrets privilege by the Bush and Obama Administrations to foreclose litigation, and other difficult issues.  So it’s an honor to be recognized by this outstanding organization.

The EFF Pioneer Awards ceremony will be held November 8 in San Francisco and is open to the public.  For ticket information and other background see here.

The problem of overclassification — in which inappropriate restrictions are imposed on the disclosure of information in the name of national security — is at the root of many current disputes over access to government information, including controversies over leaks, FOIA litigation, prepublication review, and others areas of contention.

This has been true for many years, but there is still hardly any systematic method for confronting and correcting overclassification.

In a new article at ForeignPolicy.com, I take a critical look at the current policy landscape, including the newly enacted Reducing Over-classification Act and the pending Fundamental Classification Guidance Review.  See “Telling Secrets,” October 15.

It seems that some disclosures of classified information can lead a person to poverty, ignominy and a jail sentence, while others provide a royal road to fame and fortune.  Some leaks are relentlessly investigated, while others are tolerated or encouraged.

This apparent inconsistency, as notably illustrated once again in the phenomenon of author Bob Woodward, was examined by Michael Isikoff in “‘Double standard’ in White House leak inquiries?”, NBC News, October 18.

In the wake of an earlier Woodward book in 2007, Rep. Henry Waxman noted a similar discrepancy in the Bush Administration’s response to leaks.

“The administration seems to be inconsistent in their approach in these cases, and it’s troubling,” Rep. Waxman said at a March 16, 2007 hearing. “They raise very serious questions about whether White House policies on sensitive information are driven by political considerations. If it’s a critic [who discloses classified information] they are going to investigate, they’re going to really stop it. When it comes to people in-house, people they like, people they trust, well, the investigation hasn’t even started with regard to those people.”

The Central Intelligence Agency has filed a lawsuit against one of its own former employees after he published a book on intelligence without first getting the CIA’s prior approval, the Washington Times reported today.

A book called “The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture” was written by a former CIA clandestine services officer under the pen name Ishmael Jones.  It was published earlier this year, the government says, “in defiance of the CIA’s Publications Review Board’s disapproval and instructions not to publish.”  See “CIA sues ex-agent for book’s breach of ‘secrecy'” by Bill Gertz, Washington Times, October 19, 2010.

The CIA’s complaint (pdf) against Jones, filed in July, says that he violated the terms of the non-disclosure agreement that he signed as a condition of his employment and that, as a result, he is in breach of contract.

As a first order of business, the CIA sought (pdf) and gained the Court’s approval (pdf) to proceed against Jones using his pseudonym since, the Agency argued, disclosing his real name could compromise national security.

“For CIA officers to effectively and securely collect foreign intelligence and conduct clandestine foreign intelligence activities around the world, they cannot openly admit that they work for the CIA,” the government brief explained.

But “if defendant’s true name and affiliation with the CIA were officially acknowledged, foreign governments, enterprising journalists, and amateur spy-hunters would be able to discover and publicly disclose the cover methods defendant used to conceal his true status as a CIA officer,” the brief said.

The class of persons who constitute “amateur spy-hunters” was not further identified.

The unauthorized release of tens of thousands of classified U.S. military records from the war in Afghanistan last July on the Wikileaks website did not result in the disclosure of sensitive intelligence sources, according to a mid-August assessment by the Department of Defense that has just been made public.

“The review to date has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised by this disclosure,” wrote Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates in an August 16 letter (pdf) to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin.

This is consistent with the fact that the Afghan war documents disclosed by Wikileaks were classified at the collateral Secret level and were not compartmented intelligence records.  Intelligence source identities and related information would normally not appear in Secret documents.

On the other hand, Secretary Gates wrote, “the documents do contain the names of cooperative Afghan nationals and the Department takes very seriously the Taliban threats recently discussed in the press.  We assess this risk as likely to cause significant harm or damage to the national security interests of the United States and are examining mitigation options.”

The Taliban threats mentioned by Secretary Gates include a statement by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who said on July 29 that the Taliban were studying the Wikileaks documents in order to identify and punish Afghan collaborators.  “We will investigate through our own secret service whether the people mentioned are really spies working for the U.S. If they are U.S. spies, then we know how to punish them,” the Taliban spokesman said.

“People named in those documents have a reasonable belief that they are going to get killed,” said author and New Yorker writer Steve Coll, who has reported extensively from the region.  See “Taliban Study WikiLeaks to Hunt Informants” by Robert Mackey, New York Times The Lede, July 30.  However, there is no evidence to date that the Taliban has carried out any such threats against individuals who were named in the Wikileaks documents.

The release of the August 16 Gates memo was reported on October 15 by the Associated Press and Bloomberg News.

It is to be expected that national intelligence services will sometimes fail to identify and discover a threat to the nation in a timely fashion.  But when intelligence warns of a threat that isn’t really there, and then nations go to war to meet the phantom threat — that is a serious, confounding and deeply disturbing problem.

But in a nutshell, that is the story of the war in Iraq, in which the U.S. and its allies attacked Saddam Hussein’s Iraq because of the supposedly imminent threat posed by Saddam’s stockpile of weapons of mass destruction — a threat that proved illusory.

A new book published in the United Kingdom called “Failing Intelligence” provides a remarkable account of the British experience of how intelligence on the Iraqi WMD program was shaped and packaged to support the decision to go to war in Iraq.  The book’s author, Brian Jones, was the chief specialist in weapons of mass destruction on the UK Defence Intelligence Staff.  He was also a skeptic of the stronger claims made about the existence of Iraqi WMD stockpiles.  The book documents his mostly unsuccessful attempts to register that skepticism, to moderate the extreme claims made by government officials, and later to hold those officials accountable for their actions.

He provides a detailed first-hand account of how his efforts were consistently deflected in the rush to war, and how intelligence declined into propaganda.  It’s a grim but instructive case study in the overlapping failure of intelligence gathering, intelligence production, and intelligence oversight.

The National Security Archive has recently published three richly informative collections of declassified U.S. and British government documents on the lead-up to the Iraq war (including several key documents cited or relied upon by Brian Jones).

“The more deeply the processes of creating the government reports on the alleged Iraqi threat are reconstructed — on both sides of the Atlantic — the more their products are revealed as explicitly aimed at building a basis for war,” wrote John Prados of the National Security Archive and journalist Christopher Ames in an analysis of the documents.

“In the light of a decision process in which no serious consideration was given to any course other than war, the question of whether American and British leaders set out to wage aggressive war has to be squarely faced,” they wrote.