Preservation of Iraq War Records, and More DoD Doctrine
The Joint Chiefs of Staff recently reaffirmed the requirement to preserve historically valuable records pertaining to the Iraq War.
“Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and NOBLE EAGLE and current operations pertaining to Iraq are a prominent part of American and world history. It is important that we preserve the historical records of these continuing operations and we obtain information and lessons that can be applied in planning, shaping, and implementing our national defense in the future.”
See Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Notice 5760, Preservation of Historical Records of Operations Enduring Freedom and Noble Eagle and Pertaining to Iraq (pdf), 7 September 2006, current as of 31 January 2008.
A new Army Regulation defines policies and procedures governing military civilians who are engaged in human intelligence and counterintelligence activities. See Army Regulation 690-950-4, “Military Intelligence Civilian Excepted Career Program” (pdf), 20 February 2008.
A revised new Army Field Manual 3-0 on “Operations” has not yet been released. The Defense Department has released its own revised doctrine on Joint Operations. See Joint Publication 3-0 (pdf), change 1, 13 February 2008.
January saw us watching whether the government would fund science. February has been about how that funding will be distributed, regulated, and contested.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.