The DIA Documents Mystery

This article is to be read in continuation of my earlier two articles on six recently-declassifieddocuments of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the US relating to Pakistani sponsorship of the Al Qaedaand the Taliban before 9/11.

When the US intelligence community and lower level officers of the US State Department and the Pentagonfeel aggrieved by what they perceive as the failure of their political leaders and senior policy-makers to acton any disquieting piece of information or assessed intelligence, they resort to one of two methods forbringing the information/intelligence to the notice of the public in the hope of thereby having pressureexercised on the decision-makers to act.

The first method is to have the information/intelligence leaked to media correspondents enjoying theirconfidence. They resort to this when the report containing the information/intelligence has no chance of beingdeclassified in the near future. Examples of such reports are the intercepts of the National Security Agency (NSA),which is responsible for technical intelligence (TECHINT). Among instances of the use of this method, onecould cite the leakage to sections of the US print media in 2001 of TECHINT showing that China had illegallysent to Pakistan a convoy carrying missiles and spare parts along the Karakoram Highway and the leakageearlier this year of a report about the use of a US-supplied C-130 plane by the Pakistan Air Force forairlifting missiles/spare parts from North Korea in August last.

The second method is to tip off analysts enjoying their confidence about the existence of classifieddocuments containing serious information/intelligence and suggesting to them that they should apply for theirdeclassification under the Freedom of Information Act, with a promise that the US intelligence agencyconcerned would not oppose their declassification.

In the US, all classified documents are automatically reviewed for declassification by the recording agencyor department 25 years after they were recorded. In the case of documents less than 25 years old, a review fordeclassification is done on the receipt of an application for its declassification under the Freedom ofInformation Act.

Whether the documents are more than 25 years old or of recent origin, an agency or department cansuccessfully oppose declassification on any of the following grounds: it will endanger an on-going clandestineoperation or the life and/or career of a source or damage State-to-State relations.

Amongst such favoured analysts is a well-known writer on the US intelligence community, who generallywrites positively of the performance of the intelligence community. In a book written by him in mid-1990s, hehad levelled some allegations against Indian intelligence officers, evidently on the basis of a tip-off by theFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). His allegations were not noticed by the Indian policy-makers or mediaeven though A.G.Noorani, the eminent columnist, had drawn attention to them in a commentary on the bookwritten by him for the Frontline of Chennai.

In 2000, some documents of the sensitive NSA were declassified and made available on a web site with whichhe is reportedly associated. These documents, nearly 20 years old, showed that in the 1980s the USintelligence was keeping an electronic surveillance of Indian nuclear scientists and tapping their telephoneconversations, not only when they travelled abroad, but also when they were in India, thereby indicating thatit apparently had access to their land lines. The motive for the declassification of these documents was notclear.

There is reason to believe that the six DIA documents relating to Pakistan's links with the Al Qaeda andthe Taliban have been declassified now at his instance because they were first displayed on the web site withwhich he is reportedly associated and other analysts tipped off about it.

What is interesting about this is that all the six declassified documents are hardly two years old and atleast two of them contain sensitive information reflecting adversely on Pakistan, which is being projected bythe US policy-makers as the USA's frontline ally in the war against terrorism. Before and after 9/11, theremust have been hundreds of reports and messages sent by the DIA officers based in Pakistan to theirheadquarters. How did the applicant for their declassification under the Freedom of Information Act know oftheir existence and the inclusion in them of information about Pakistan's paternity of not only the Taliban,but also the Al Qaeda?

Most probably, some officers in the DIA, disturbed over the role of Pakistan in Afghanistan and aggrievedover the reluctance of the State Department to act against Musharraf, themselves tipped off the applicantabout them and prodded him to apply for their declassification, with a promise that they would not oppose it.

What is the likely reason for their action? Since December last, reports from reliable sources inAfghanistan have been speaking of unhappiness amongst junior and middle level officers of the US Army deployedin Southern and Eastern Afghanistan over the continued backing of their superiors in the State Department andthe Pentagon to Musharraf despite strong evidence of Pakistani complicity with the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.This unhappiness has increased after the Taliban and Gulbuddin Heckmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami (HEI) stepped uptheir hit and run raids into Afghanistan from sanctuaries in Pakistan in recent weeks.

There is anger amongst the US troops over the reluctance of their superiors in Washington DC to give them afree hand and to let them exercise their right of hot pursuit into Pakistani territory. Compare thetrigger-happy actions and reactions of the US troops in Iraq, which have been given total freedom of action bythe Pentagon and the State Department to do whatever was called for, with the tremendous restraint in wordsand actions with which they have been operating in Afghanistan, lest any over-reaction by them destabiliseMusharraf.

Unable to give public expression to their unhappiness over their hands being tied, these officers, throughtheir friends in the DIA, have probably tipped off the applicant to apply for the declassification andfacilitated it.

While these documents have definitely created some embarrassment for Musharraf, he is unlikely to spendsleepless nights over them so long as he is certain that Gen. Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, and othersenior US policy makers look upon him as indispensable at present.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director,Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Convenor, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter.