[Infowarrior] - Seeking Iran Intelligence, U.S. Tries Google

[Richard Forno]

Seeking Iran Intelligence, U.S. Tries Google
Internet Search Yields Names Cited in U.N. Draft Resolution
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/10/AR2006121000
959_pf.html

By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 11, 2006; A01

When the State Department recently asked the CIA for names of Iranians who
could be sanctioned for their involvement in a clandestine nuclear weapons
program, the agency refused, citing a large workload and a desire to protect
its sources and tradecraft.

Frustrated, the State Department assigned a junior Foreign Service officer
to find the names another way -- by using Google. Those with the most hits
under search terms such as "Iran and nuclear," three officials said, became
targets for international rebuke Friday when a sanctions resolution
circulated at the United Nations.

Policymakers and intelligence officials have always struggled when it comes
to deciding how and when to disclose secret information, such as names of
Iranians with suspected ties to nuclear weapons. In some internal debates,
policymakers win out and intelligence is made public to further political or
diplomatic goals. In other cases, such as this one, the intelligence
community successfully argues that protecting information outweighs the
desires of some to share it with the world.

But that argument can also put the U.S. government in the awkward position
of relying, in part, on an Internet search to select targets for
international sanctions.

None of the 12 Iranians that the State Department eventually singled out for
potential bans on international travel and business dealings is believed by
the CIA to be directly connected to Iran's most suspicious nuclear
activities.

"There is nothing that proves involvement in a clandestine weapons program,
and there is very little out there at all that even connects people to a
clandestine weapons program," said one official familiar with the
intelligence on Iran. Like others interviewed for this story, the official
insisted on anonymity when discussing the use of intelligence.

What little information there is has been guarded at CIA headquarters. The
agency declined to discuss the case in detail, but a senior intelligence
official said: "There were several factors that made it a complicated and
time-consuming request, not the least of which were well-founded concerns"
about revealing the way the CIA gathers intelligence on Iran.

That may be why the junior State Department officer, who has been with the
nonproliferation bureau for only a few months, was put in front of a
computer.

An initial Internet search yielded over 100 names, including dozens of
Iranian diplomats who have publicly defended their country's efforts as
intended to produce energy, not bombs, the sources said. The list also
included names of Iranians who have spoken with U.N. inspectors or have
traveled to Vienna to attend International Atomic Energy Agency meetings
about Iran.

It was submitted to the CIA for approval but the agency refused to look up
such a large number of people, according to three government sources. Too
time-consuming, the intelligence community said, for the CIA's Iran desk
staff of 140 people. The list would need to be pared down. So the State
Department cut the list in half and resubmitted the names.

In the end, the CIA approved a handful of individuals, though none is
believed connected to Project 1-11 -- Iran's secret military effort to
design a weapons system capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The names of
Project 1-11 staff members have never been released by any government and
doing so may have raised questions that the CIA was not willing or fully
able to answer. But the agency had no qualms about approving names already
publicly available on the Internet.

"Using a piece of intel on project 1-11, which we couldn't justify in
open-source reporting, or with whatever the Russians had, would have put us
in a difficult position," an intelligence official said. "Inevitably,
someone would have asked, 'Why this guy?' and then we would have been back
to the old problem of justifying intelligence."

A senior administration official acknowledged that the back-and-forth with
the CIA had been difficult, especially given the administration's desire to
isolate Iran and avoid a repeat of flawed intelligence that preceded the
Iraq war.

"In this instance, we were the requesters and the CIA was the clearer," the
official said. "It's the process we go through on a lot of these things.
Both sides don't know a lot of reasons for why either side is requesting or
denying things. Sources and methods became their stated rationale and that
is what they do. But for policymaking, it can be quite frustrating."

Washington's credibility in the U.N. Security Council on weapons
intelligence was sharply eroded by the collapse of prewar claims about Iraq.
A senior intelligence official said the intelligence community is determined
to avoid mistakes of the past when dealing with Iran and other issues. "Once
you push intelligence out there, you can't take it back," the official said.

U.S., French and British officials came to agree that it was better to stay
away from names that would have to be justified with sensitive information
from intelligence programs, and instead put forward names of Iranians whose
jobs were publicly connected to the country's nuclear energy and missile
programs. European officials said their governments did not rely on Google
searches but came up with nearly identical lists to the one U.S. officials
offered.

"We do have concerns about Iranian activities that are overt, and uranium
enrichment is a case in point," said a senior administration official who
agreed to discuss the process on the condition of anonymity. "We are
concerned about what it means for the program, but also because enrichment
is in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution."

The U.S.-backed draft resolution, formally offered by Britain and France,
would impose a travel ban and freeze the assets of 11 institutions and 12
individuals, including the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the
directors of Iran's chief nuclear energy facilities, and several people
involved in the missile program. It would prohibit the sale of nuclear
technologies to Iran and urges states to "prevent specialised teaching or
training" of Iranian nationals in disciplines that could further Tehran's
understanding of banned nuclear activities.

The text says the council will be prepared to lift the sanctions if Mohamed
ElBaradei, the IAEA's director general, concludes within 60 days that Iran
has suspended its enrichment and reprocessing of uranium and has halted
efforts to produce a heavy-water nuclear energy reactor.

Many Security Council members are uneasy about the sanctions. The Russians
and the Chinese -- whose support is essential for the resolution to be
approved -- have told the United States, Britain and France they will not
support the travel-ban element of the resolution, according to three
officials involved in the negotiations. Russia is building a light-water
nuclear reactor in Iran and some people on the sanctions list are connected
to the project.

"The Russians have already told us it would be demeaning for people to ask
the Security Council for permission to travel to Russia to discuss an
ongoing project," a European diplomat said yesterday.

U.S. and European officials said there is room for negotiation with Russia
on the names and organizations, but they also said it is possible that by
the time the Security Council approves the resolution, the entire list could
be removed.

"The real scope of debate will be on the number of sanctions," one diplomat
said. "Companies and individuals could go off the list or go on."

Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.