Captured documents, part II

A follow up to my initial post, here are some more tidbits from the captured Iraqi and Al Qaeda documents.

From a transcript of an audio tape, we have what appears to be Saddam Hussein (Male 1) discussing various diplomatic, economic and security issues.

Saddam, like all great megalomaniacs, is a boring rambler to listen to. Cut to Page 8, where after talking about the hide-and-seek games they played with inspectors, he complains that Iraq has destroyed all of its atomic, chemical and biological projects, but now the UN is changing the rules.

Flip to Page 10. He starts discussing diplomatic overtures to Iran as a way to get around sanctions or maybe find common cause against a common enemy. He notes the international pressure over Iran's nuclear projects and says the international community is "talking about Iran just like they did with (Iraq) in the beginning."

Finally turn to Page 11 for a humorous finish. He mulls the possibility of asking Iran for his planes back -- the planes he had flown to Iran for safekeeping during the first Gulf War and never got back. He talks about taking the planes apart and trucking them back to Iraq, because they can't fly them thanks to the no-fly zones. It's kind of pathetic, really.


Iraq, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Captured Iraqi and Al-Qaeda documents released

Like every other political blogger out there, I can hardly wait to start checking out the collection of captured documents released by the government today.

Though not all the documents come with translations from the Arabic, they could shed some interesting light on the state of things in Iraq and within Al-Qaeda at various points.

The collection is here.

I'll come back to this when I've had more time to dig through the archive, but for now the most interesting thing I've found is an Al-Qaeda employment contract.

Enjoy.


Al-Qaida, Iraq, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Archives halts reclassifying of documents

Speaking of government openness, in a follow-up to this post, the National Archives does the right thing.

After complaints from historians, the National Archives on Thursday directed intelligence agencies to stop removing previously declassified historical documents from public access and urged them to return to the shelves as quickly as possible many of the records they had already pulled.

Allen Weinstein, the nation's chief archivist, announced what he called a "moratorium" on reclassification of documents until an audit can be completed to determine which records should be secret.

What's sad is that this is even an issue in 2006.

Technorati tags
terrorism, national archives, politics, midtopia

U.S. reclassifying National Archive documents

The government continues to exhibit its penchant for excessive secrecy:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 -- In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians.

(snip)

Mr. Leonard said he ordered the audit after reviewing 16 withdrawn documents and concluding that none should be secret.

"If those sample records were removed because somebody thought they were classified, I'm shocked and disappointed," Mr. Leonard said in an interview. "It just boggles the mind."

Things like this are why I'm generally unimpressed by the mere fact that a leaked document is classified. The government routinely classifies stuff that has no business being classified. Leaking such information is against the letter of the law, but it does not violate the law's spirit, nor is it unethical or treasonous.

To determine if a leak is wrong, you have to first determine if the information in question deserved to be secret to begin with. Allowing the government to keep every little thing secret makes it impossible to know what the government is up to, and thus impossible to monitor or regulate it. This can be poisonous to democracy.

For instance, here's an example of a "reclassified" document:

a 1962 telegram from George F. Kennan, then ambassador to Yugoslavia, containing an English translation of a Belgrade newspaper article on China's nuclear weapons program.

Government information should be viewed with the presumption that it is a public record, and only classified if the administration can show sufficient cause. This is in fact the case:

Under existing guidelines, government documents are supposed to be declassified after 25 years unless there is particular reason to keep them secret.

But without oversight and review, nothing stops an official from classifying anything they want.

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national archives, terrorism, politics, midtopia