Book Of U.S. Code Names Challenges Secrecy

[333MP]

Washington Post
January 23, 2005
Pg. 7

Book Of U.S. Code Names Challenges Secrecy

Author Hopes to Undermine Agencies' Ability to Make Decisions in the Dark

By Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer

If you think of a hit television series when you read the words "West Wing," then you probably do not have to worry about your next security clearance polygraph.

But if it brings to mind secret U.S. bases in Jordan, you might have a problem if you have read William M. Arkin's new book, which amounts to the sort of unauthorized dump of classified information you would have to report to protect your clearance.

In "Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World," Arkin discloses and briefly defines 3,000 military code names.

Some of them are still classified. Each one represents a discrete dot in the ever-growing clandestine world of Delta Force and SEAL commandos, of spy satellites and electronic worldwide eavesdropping. Once fleshed out and connected, Arkin hopes, the dots will reveal the invisible world where billions of dollars have been spent to fight terrorism after Sept. 11, 2001, without the scantest of public debates.

This is Arkin's effort to challenge the wisdom of letting the government make so many crucial decisions in the dark.

"You either believe in democracy or you don't," said Arkin, the author of 10 other books and a columnist, military analyst and former Army intelligence officer who now works out of an office in Vermont. "There's no question that the fundamental problem that led to 9/11 was compartmentalization and secrecy -- government agencies hoarding information as power and not communicating with one another, even at the highest level."

Because of this secrecy, he said, the American public did not understand the extent of the terrorist threat. "Secrecy can have its greatest impact internally," he said. "That's what breeds all of this compartmentalization and code names."

The independent Sept. 11 commission also warned in its report about the hoarding of information, particularly by the FBI and CIA. The commission's solution: a new national intelligence czar and new national counterterrorism center to force all agencies and all agents to share their information.

Arkin's solution: Fight fire with fire. A secret held, a secret disclosed. He offers many bomblets, each of which could make up a chapter of the 600-plus-page book.

"The classification system is dysfunctional," said Gen. Charles Horner, air commander during the 1991 Persian Gulf War who has long sparred with Arkin over air power matters but describes him as a man of integrity. "Overclassification makes it hard for people to work together . . . and the fact that Arkin is able to dredge all this up says it's not working anyway."

Horner, who has read the book, said, "I didn't find anything that would really hurt the national defense." But, he said, it will no doubt "make the narrow-minded" officials in the defense establishment "very upset."

Asked to comment on the book and on the code names cited in this article, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman replied: "At any given time, there are a number of classified programs across the government that, for national security reasons, it would be inappropriate to discuss. With respect to your specific questions, it would be irresponsible for me to comment on any classified program that may or may not exist. Disclosing classified information places the nation and its citizens at risk."

Arkin gleaned his list of code names from Pentagon and intelligence agency documents he has obtained, and from similar briefings he has read and copied, or discussed with longtime sources whom he said he trusts "100 percent." In consultation with a few former military and intelligence officials, he said, he has "fuzzed up" some of the most sensitive.

Among the code names the book discloses are:

*West Wing, which refers to two remote air bases in Jordan that the U.S. military has used extensively for Special Operations aircraft, including A-10s, and for the 1,400 Special Operations personnel who poured into the country before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. The bases have become the hubs for clandestine U.S. military counterterrorism operations in the Middle East, Arkin's book says.

A spokesman for the Jordanian Embassy said she could not comment on the matter.

*Titrant Ranger, which refers to a special access program -- among the most highly guarded types of programs -- for a counterterrorism unit operating on the clandestine side of the Special Operations Command. It was assigned in July 2002, Arkin writes, replacing Capacity Gear, which had replaced Grey Fox, which is known to have engaged in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

*Toolchest, the code name for the secret technical agreement between the United States and Germany regarding the deployment of nuclear weapons. Toy Chest is the name for the agreement with the Netherlands, Stone Ax for the one with Italy and Pine Cone for the one with Belgium.

*Power Geyser, the code name for a "continuity of government" plan that would be activated in the United States to keep the government functioning in a crisis.

"Code Names" is is best absorbed in small doses. For Arkin, it is a declaration of his love affair with the footnotes of appendices to obscure, jargon-laden documents he just cannot stop combing for data points.

"Collecting U.S. code names has been a multidecade labor of love," he writes in the book. He calls the book "an anatomy, a sort of DNA map of American national security."

His campaign of disclosure has attracted more than one government leak investigation. Most recently, the Defense Department launched a massive probe after he published a top-secret code word in a column he wrote for the Los Angeles Times in June 2002. Polo Step, he revealed, was used by the Pentagon to control access to contingency planning for Afghanistan and Iraq.

Even his leak investigation had a code name, and Arkin reveals that, too: Seven Seekers.

[Field_Sailor]

I really hate seeing this type of crap.