[Intelforum] Secrecy News -- 09/15/10

Wed Sep 15 09:33:34 EDT 2010

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SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2010, Issue No. 73
September 15, 2010

Secrecy News Blog:  http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

**      PENTAGON DELAYS PUBLICATION OF NEW BOOK
**      ARMS TRANSFERS TO DEVELOPING NATIONS, MORE FROM CRS

PENTAGON DELAYS PUBLICATION OF NEW BOOK

The Department of Defense says that a forthcoming book about the war in
Afghanistan contains classified information, and that it should not be put
on the market in its current form.  Instead, the Pentagon is considering
whether to purchase and destroy the entire first printing of the book,
"Operation Dark Heart" by Anthony A. Shaffer, while a revised edition is
prepared.  The controversy was first reported by the New York Times in
"Pentagon Plan: Buying Books to Keep Secrets" by Scott Shane, September
10:

	http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/us/10books.html

Shaffer, the book's author, is a former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
officer and Army lieutenant colonel.  He submitted the manuscript to the
Army for prepublication review and received permission to proceed earlier
this year.  The book was printed and prepared for release at the end of
August by the publisher, St. Martin's Press.

But prior to the publication date, a copy of the manuscript was obtained
by DIA and other intelligence agencies, all of whom raised new objections
to its publication.

"DIA's preliminary classification review of this manuscript has identified
significant classified information, the release of which I have determined
could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to national
security," wrote DIA Director Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess, Jr. in an August
6 memo.  

"I have also been informed that United States Special Operations Command
(USSOCOM), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security
Agency (NSA) have determined that the manuscript contains classified
information concerning their activities.  In the case of NSA, this
includes information classified at the TOP SECRET level," Gen. Burgess
wrote.  He directed that Lt. Col. Shaffer be "ordered to take all
necessary action to direct his publisher to withhold publication of the
book" pending a new security review.

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2010/09/dia080610.html

But the Pentagon now faces a policy conundrum due to the fact that
numerous review copies of the book are already circulating in the public
domain.  (We picked up a couple of them last week.)  What this means is
that any effort to selectively censor the manuscript at this late date
would actually tend to highlight and validate those portions of the text
that agencies believe are sensitive, not to conceal them.

Therefore, as a practical security policy matter, it seems that the
Pentagon's best move would be to do nothing and to allow the book to be
published without further interference.

		*	*	*

"Operation Dark Heart" is a memoir, not a work of scholarship, policy
analysis or journalism.  It describes the author's personal experiences
and perspectives in sometimes clunky, occasionally gripping prose.  It
often seems formulaic or cliched, though it is quite readable and
sometimes moving.  Overall, it seems unlikely to alter the prevailing
understanding of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

It is hard to know what to make of the author.  As a clandestine operator
he claims to have run one operation "deep into North Korea," and another
that penetrated the Iranian intelligence service.  He also says he once
recruited a high ranking Soviet military officer while posing as a
freelance journalist.  Maybe so.  His most frequent cultural points of
reference are Star Wars and the action movies of Steven Seagal.

Within those parameters, he tells some pretty good stories about
intelligence gathering, impromptu clandestine operations and bureaucratic
wrangling with stuffy superiors.  Operation Dark Heart was the name of a
plan to target and destroy several Taliban operational centers, in what
the author believed might have been a decisive blow to the brewing
insurgency in 2003.  But because the proposed targets lay across the
border in Pakistan, the operation was scuttled, to Shaffer's dismay and
disgust.  He believes his intelligence career was then derailed as the
result of his decision to brief the 9/11 Commission about the Able Danger
data mining program, which he says had succeeded in identifying some of
the 9/11 hijackers in advance.

Even in the present version of the book that is now in the public domain,
the author seems alert to security issues.  He says that several names
have been changed or concealed.  At several points in the narrative, he
stops short of full disclosure, citing classification restrictions on what
he can discuss (p. 147, 165, 180).

But at other points, he is quite chatty, in ways that might have alarmed
some officials.  He describes the location of the CIA station in Kabul,
along with the name and appearance of the CIA station chief ("he reminded
me of Peter Cushing, the actor who played Governor Tarkin, commander of
the Death Star in Star Wars").  He briefly discusses the COPPER GREEN
"enhanced interrogation" program (that was first reported by Seymour Hersh
in The New Yorker).  And he names quite a few unfamiliar names, not all of
which have been changed.

At the rare intervals where his assertions can be independently confirmed,
they check out.  At one point he introduces a certain person as "chief of
NSA here in country" (page 150).  A search of that person's name online
turns up his resume that does indeed describe the individual as "Officer
in Charge, Cryptologic Services Group (CSG), OEF, Bagram, Afghanistan" and
"Senior SIGINT advisor to Commander, JTF-180."

Last June St. Martin's Press, the book's publisher, distributed
promotional material to reviewers, including a list of "Key Background
Points and New Revelations in Operation Dark Heart."  That material,
obtained by Secrecy News, is available here:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2010/09/dark-promo.pdf

		*	*	*

While national security classification arguments naturally warrant serious
consideration, the mere fact that a government official says certain
information could damage national security if it were disclosed doesn't
necessarily make it so.  Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, the DIA director who is
Mr. Shaffer's current antagonist, has previously been known to make
dubious claims about classification and about the secrecy needed to
protect national security.

Last year, Gen. Burgess formally expressed the view that the size of the
National Intelligence Program budget for 2006 was properly classified,
even though the DNI had already declassified the intelligence budget
figures for 2007 and 2008 and published them openly.  Yet in Burgess'
opinion, as he wrote in a January 14, 2009 letter, "the release of this
[2006 budget] information would reveal sensitive intelligence sources and
methods."

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2009/01/odni011409.pdf

General Burgess was wrong then.  Given the present circumstances, where
all of the information in the Shaffer book is effectively in the public
domain, it would seem reasonable for him to reconsider his position now.

ARMS TRANSFERS TO DEVELOPING NATIONS, MORE FROM CRS

Noteworthy new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service
include the following.

Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2002-2009, September
10, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R41403.pdf

Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses, August 20, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL32048.pdf

China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities --
Background and Issues for Congress, August 26, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33153.pdf

China and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missiles:
Policy Issues, August 16, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL31555.pdf

Southwest Border Violence: Issues in Identifying and Measuring Spillover
Violence, August 24, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R41075.pdf

Emergency Communications: Broadband and the Future of 911, August 25,
2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R41208.pdf

Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) Vehicles: Background and Issues
for Congress, August 24, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RS22707.pdf

Afghanistan: U.S. Foreign Assistance, August 12, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40699.pdf

U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians, August 12, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS22967.pdf

The Federal Food Safety System: A Primer, August 18, 2010:

	http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22600.pdf

_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.

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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web:    www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email:  saftergood at fas.org
voice:  (202) 454-4691