SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2004, Issue No. 104
November 24, 2004
** THE COLLAPSE OF INTELLIGENCE REFORM
** CRS ON NAVY FORCE STRUCTURE
** NAVY DIRECTIVE ON FOREIGN DISCLOSURE
** MCCAIN ON BOEING TANKER LEASE
** MANHATTAN PROJECT PHYSICIST ROBERT BACHER
THE COLLAPSE OF INTELLIGENCE REFORM
Psychoanalysis, wrote Viennese polemicist Karl Kraus, is itself the
mental illness that it proposes to cure.
Similarly, "intelligence reform" has now come to embody many of the
defects that it was presumably intended to rectify, including
irreconcilable priorities, lack of accountability, and contempt for
democratic decisionmaking. Neither the unanimous recommendations of
the bipartisan 9/11 Commission nor the subsequent months of public
deliberation were sufficient to dislodge the intelligence bureaucracy
and it congressional allies from their entrenched positions.
Yet the failure by Congress to approve an intelligence reform bill
also comes as a relief, because the final version of the bill
contained numerous unexamined and objectionable provisions that were
inconsistent with the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Among others,
the bill endorsed the false claim that disclosure of the intelligence
budget total is inconsistent with national security, a claim that is
refuted annually by the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands and
other countries, all of which routinely publish their intelligence
expenditures.
With the collapse of congressional deliberation, the White House has
stepped in energetically to fill the void, proposing a massive
expansion of CIA personnel.
"I direct you to implement within the CIA measures to... increase, as
soon as feasible, the number of fully qualified, all-source analysts
by 50 percent... [and to] increase, as soon as feasible, the number
of fully qualified officers in the Directorate of Operations by 50
percent," President Bush wrote in a November 23 memorandum to the
Director of Central Intelligence:
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2004/11/wh112304dci.html
A second memorandum instructs the Attorney General to strengthen the
investigative capabilities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation:
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2004/11/wh112304ag.html
A third White House memorandum calls for an interagency review of
whether lead responsibility for conducting covert paramilitary
operations should shift from the Central Intelligence Agency to the
Defense Department:
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2004/11/wh112304dos.html
CRS ON NAVY FORCE STRUCTURE
Several new reports from the Congressional Research Service address
aspects of U.S. Navy force structure.
"Navy-Marine Corps Amphibious and Maritime Prepositioning Ship
Programs: Background and Oversight Issues for Congress," November 15,
2004:
http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL32513.pdf
"Navy Ship Deployments: New Approaches -- Background and Issues for
Congress," updated November 15, 2004:
http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RS21338.pdf
"Potential Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and
Issues for Congress," November 8, 2004:
http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL32665.pdf
NAVY DIRECTIVE ON FOREIGN DISCLOSURE
U.S. Navy policy on the disclosure of classified information to
foreign governments is set forth in a new Secretary of the Navy
Instruction.
See SECNAVINST 5510.34A, "Disclosure of Classified Military
Information and Controlled Unclassified Information to Foreign
Governments, International Organizations, and Foreign
Representatives," October 8, 2004:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/navy/secnavinst/5510_34a.pdf
MCCAIN ON BOEING TANKER LEASE
In an unusually vigorous and confrontational display of congressional
oversight, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) last week described how U.S. Air
Force officials and the Boeing Corporation colluded on a contract to
supply aerial-refueling tanker aircraft that would have cost
taxpayers unnecessary billions of dollars.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2004/s111904.html
Sen. McCain placed in the Congressional Record a series of internal
Air Force email messages and other records of a sort that is hardly
ever seen in public, including embarrassingly explicit efforts to
manipulate press coverage of the proposed tanker lease deal.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2004/s112004.html
These records "raise serious questions about the undue influence that
industry exerts on procurement decisions in the Pentagon," Sen.
McCain said.
MANHATTAN PROJECT PHYSICIST ROBERT BACHER
Robert Bacher, a leading Manhattan Project physicist and later a
member of the Atomic Energy Commission, died last week.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-me-bacher20nov20,1,1491299.story
As a member of the Tolman Committee, Bacher co-authored what was in
effect the first declassification guide pertaining to nuclear weapons
science, technology and production.
"Using a topical list of production and research activities in the
Manhattan project, the Committee assigned each subject to one of
three categories: information recommended for immediate
declassification; information whose declassification would be
conducive to the national welfare and to long-term national security;
and that not recommended for declassification," according to the
official history of the Atomic Energy Commission ("The New World,
1939/1946," by Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., p.
647).
"Before the end of 1946, the committee of reviewers held three
meetings and declassified about 500 documents. Scientists outside the
project were probably correct in dismissing this accomplishment as an
insignificant gesture, but they could not have appreciated the amount
of work the reviewers had devoted to studying the great variety of
complex technical categories and preparing detailed guides."
Those initial declassification actions are reflected in the Department
of Energy's comprehensive compilation of "Restricted Data
Declassification Decisions, 1946 to the Present," January 1, 2001:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/rdd-7.html
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
Secrecy News has an RSS feed at:
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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood@fas.org
voice: (202) 454-4691
