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Code Names:
DECIPHERING U.S. MILITARY PLANS,
PROGRAMS
Steerforth Press
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In His Own Words On the Media (NPR/WNYC), 26 March 2005 On the Media (NPR/WNYC), 28 January 2005 The Connection (WBUR Boston and NPR), 27 January 2005 Democracy Now 27 January 2005 Talk of the Nation (NPR), 25 January 2005 Major Articles Washington Times, March 25, 2005
No security breach We reported on a cable in our Feb. 4 column stating that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, had ordered an investigation into disclosures of secrets in a new book by journalist and former Greenpeace activist William Arkin. Gen. Myers' spokesman, Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, now tells us he believes the document was forged, although the origin of the document could not be determined with 100 percent confidence because the Pentagon's computer system contains millions of classified documents. "This may have been a message at some point," Capt. Thorp said, noting that at least one part of the cable was accurate but others were outdated. The document stated that Mr. Arkin's book "Code Names" had compromised several secret programs and called for an "operational security assessment" of the disclosures. Mr. Arkin was quoted in our item as saying he had been "very careful not to reveal anything related to ongoing operations or an intelligence source and method" in the book. The Arkin book did not trigger anything close to the reaction of senior military and defense officials to the leak of the Iraq war plan in 2002, months before the March 2003 military operation began. A second senior Pentagon official said a major undercover investigation has been under way since 2002 to try to locate the source of the war plan disclosure, first reported by Mr. Arkin in the Los Angeles Times.
The Washington Post, March 17, 2005, p. C1
Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to produce a document accusing journalist and activist William Arkin of serving as a spy for Saddam Hussein. The Pentagon says the supposed Defense Intelligence Agency cable is a forgery. Arkin says it's "chilling" and is demanding an investigation. The NBC News military analyst says he became aware of the bogus document when a Washington Times reporter called about the spying allegation and sent him a copy. "There are a lot of reasons, I guess, why people would want to do me harm," Arkin said yesterday. One, he said, is the recent publication of his book "Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the 9/11 World." Another, he noted, is a series of past scoops that embarrassed the Bush administration. Bill Gertz, the Times national security reporter who called Arkin, did not respond to two messages. Managing Editor Francis Coombs said: "We don't talk about stories we haven't put in the paper. But at this point, we do not have a story scheduled to run." The document, filled with military jargon and described as "classified," says that "preliminary reporting . . . indicates possible US citizen William Arkin received monthly stipend for period 1994-1998 to report on quote United Nations Special Commission activities unquote. Entry in SSO [special security organization] ledger captured in Baghdad, no additional information." Arkin said he did look into the U.N. operation known as UNSCOM, but as a consultant to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. "Someone who put this together obviously tried to make it plausible enough to do harm and endanger me," he said. Arkin found, and U.S. officials later confirmed, that the Clinton administration had eavesdropped on Iraqi communications through equipment carried by UNSCOM weapons inspectors. The purported cable also says that "CIA exploitation of Source 8230 from Office of President SH confirms Arkin traveled to Baghdad February 1998 and November 1998 to provide information about UNSCOM plans and to discuss Desert Fox targeting," a reference to the 1998 U.S. bombing of Iraq. Arkin said he did not visit Iraq in 1998. At the Defense Department, spokesman Bryan Whitman said: "The Pentagon has looked into this and does not believe the document to be authentic." Larry DiRita, the department's chief spokesman, added that "we certainly appreciated the fact that the journalist who had it in his possession took the time to seek a better understanding of it before filing a story on it." Arkin cited several technical reasons why the cable is fake, mainly having to do with military addresses and abbreviations, and a reference to "proctor canular procedures." Canular, he discovered through a Google translation service, means hoax in French. In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Arkin said: "I am extremely concerned that someone familiar with Defense Department classified reporting has forged this document and given it to the press in the hope that it would be reported as genuine. Such an action raises deeply troubling questions about the integrity of the department's processes and raises the possibility of an organized effort to intimidate me as a journalist." DiRita said an investigation is "not likely. It is probably not possible to determine the source of such a matter, and I am unaware of any involvement in it by someone inside the department that would warrant a further look." Arkin, a former columnist for the Los Angeles Times and Washingtonpost.com, has long been a controversial figure. A onetime Army intelligence analyst now based in Vermont, he has worked for a series of groups in Washington, including Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Institute for Policy Studies. He has also taught at the Air Force's School of Advanced Air Power Studies. Before the Iraq war, Arkin broke the story of a classified Defense report outlining the obstacles to an American invasion. In his book, he discloses 3,000 military code names and many of the operations behind them, which Arkin calls a protest against excessive government secrecy that he believes contributed to the failure to stop the 2001 terrorist attacks. Gertz and Arkin have tangled before. Gertz co-authored a Washington Times column last month saying that Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had ordered an investigation of "possible national security damage" from Arkin's book. Arkin called that report "a complete fabrication." A spokesman for Myers, Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, said: "There is no investigation that General Myers initiated on the Joint Staff that I can find or that I even know about, prompted by him or by anybody else."
MSNBC , February 10,
2005 (aired on NBC Nightly News, February 10, 2005)
In a direct challenge to the U.S. government, military analyst Bill Arkin has published 3,000 U.S. code names — many of them "Top Secret" — along with brief descriptions of the Pentagon or CIA programs they represent. They are code names like, "Telephone Booth," "Distant Phoenix" and "Blue Zephyr." The former Army intelligence analyst and former senior Greenpeace researcher argues too much national-security information is hidden from the public and classified for political reasons rather than to guard vital secrets. "It's trivial secrecy. It's bureaucratic secrecy," says Arkin, who also works as a military analyst for NBC News. "These are bureaucrats trying to protect their turf. This is not national security. This is government gone wild." Among the code names Arkin reveals:
The Pentagon's reaction so far has been muted. It has launched a routine leak investigation to see if sensitive programs were compromised. "Mr. Arkin has gone a long way toward endangering national security," argues retired CIA officer Bill McNair, who until recently helped decide which documents should be kept secret. "We risk a real danger if everybody in the world feels they have the right to begin releasing this bit of classified information," says McNair. But Arkin says he deliberately did not reveal any intelligence sources or methods, technical weapons data or detailed war plans. "I don't have one bit of concern that our enemies are going to gain from the publication of this book," he says. In fact, Arkin says he found most of the code names in budget documents, obscure military journals and other materials already available to the public — which means the government isn't doing a very good job of keeping its own secrets.
Haaretz, February 10, 2005
By meticulously gathering and cross-checking readily available information, he has figured out - among other things - what the U.S. Army and the Pentagon are up to in Israel. William Arkin talks to Haaretz about his new book. From his barn in the small town of South Pomfret, Vermont, William Arkin has deciphered thousands of secret code names of the American security branches, and considerable information about what they stand for. The renovated barn is where this journalist and military researcher lives and works, connected to the world by satellite telephone. Yet he says his life and works are no different from those of any other journalist or researcherL "Maybe just becaue of the quiet and the distance and the isolation, I have to display more self-discipline than others," he says in a phone conversation. "My only advantage her e is that I don't have to go to meetings or travel to work every morning and so I may have more productive time than an ordinary worker." In his new book, "Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the 9/11 World" (Steerforth Press), Arkin reveals 3,000 secret code names. One might expect dull reading from a 608-page volume with lists of terms, names, abbreviations, definitions in military jargon and very little narrative, but that is precisely where its strength lies. For good reason, the book has attracted wide media coverage and a good deal of praise. "William Arkin makes amateurs of all of us who think we know something about America's constantly expanding hidden world," wrote investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. "`Code Names' is quite simply a stunning array of secrets and super secrets." And General Charles Horner, commander of coalition air forces in the 1991 Gulf War says "William Arkin's `Code Names' will rock the American national security community." Anyone who peruses the book will discover many secrets about the world's largest and most widely dispersed military machine. According to Arkin, over 20 countries - including Israel - secretly provide intelligence data, military bases, interrogation centers and other facilities for the use of the United States' army and its intelligence community; 76 other countries have granted landing rights to military or civilian aircraft used by U.S. intelligence. "The bigger challenge for me was deciding what not to include in the book, rather than obtaining information about the endless code names," says Arkin. Israel is only mentioned on a few pages in the book, and the number of code names connected with it (23) is relatively small. But each tells a fascinating story about the secret ties between the two countries. Most of the details are new disclosures. Among other things, Arkin reveals that in 1996, a joint military maneuver was held for units from the Israel Defense Forces and the American and French armies. Arkin, who does not pretend to know everything, says he has no further details about the maneuver. Another revelation is from 1997, when three ships of the U.S. Sixth Fleet were sailing for the Israeli coast for a joint maneuver with the Israel Navy and a Jericho missile mistakenly fired during a test landed next to one of them, the USS Anzio. Another story reveals that Israeli intelligence reaped valuable information from an agent in Iraq whose code name was "Mountain Hall." The information gleaned by the agent was relayed to the Pentagon's spy agency, the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), during the 1991 Gulf War. A horrifying leak The book shows that the U.S. Army has a permanent presence at five sites in Israel, which are signed as the code numbers 51-56: Ben-Gurion airport, the air force bases in Nevatim and Ovda in the Negev, Tel Aviv and Herzliya Pituah. And this is in addition to the regular visits by American ships and submarines to the ports of Haifa and Eilat. At some of the sites, the U.S. Army is storing half-a-billion dollars' worth of arms and equipment, as well as a state-of-the-art, 500-bed field hospital. At the Tze'elim facility in the Negev, an American company is currently building a center designated for training in urban warfare against terror. But the revelations and information in the book could prove a lot more embarrassing for the Arab countries, which are much more eager to keep the degree of their military and intelligence cooperation with the U.S. hidden from their public. For example, before the war in Iraq, King Abdullah granted units of the U.S. Special Forces entry to Jordan and permitted them to train and operate on Jordanian soil. He also allowed eavesdroppers from the National Security Agency and U.S. Army Intelligence to set up covert positions near the Iraqi and Syrian borders. He increased liaison with CIA case officers to assist in exploiting the sizable Iraqi community inside the country. After the war began, American intelligence, with the cooperation of the Jordanian security services, established a detention and interrogation facility for Al-Qaida suspects. A few months ago, Haaretz reported on senior Al-Qaida terrorists being held in Jordan, where they were questioned by joint Jordanian-American interrogation teams. The Jordanian government vehemently denied the report, but now it can be confirmed that the code name for the Jordanian-American operation is "Scorpion." The suspects are held and interrogated at one of the two air force bases in Jordan at which the U.S. has a permanent presence: in Mafraq or near Amman. Arkin revealed his first secret code - "Polo Step" - in a June 23, 2002 article in The Los Angeles Times. "Polo Step" was then the Bush administration's most top-secret program: "Any discussion about Polo Step activities has to take place in specially cleared and `swept' rooms, and Polo Step documents must be hand-carried or transmitted over approved and restricted communication circuits. Because the existence of Polo Step was itself classified, the clearance and program were referred to outside the world of those in the know simply by the diagraph PS. Before 9/11, Polo Step was used to confine highly sensitive Iraq and counter-terrorism war planning to a small circle. Starting in the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration tasked the navy with maintaining attack submarines capable of firing long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles on call in the Indian Ocean south of Pakistan, should there be an immediate need for a strike against Osama bin Laden or other terrorist targets." News articles are written about "war plans" and "secret programs" all the time, and leaks from the top sometimes seem like a way of life in Washington. But an article that includes a never-before-published code name adds a rare authenticity, because it suggests not only a source that is close to real secrets, but also a source involved in internal government deliberations who is courageous enough or reckless enough to make an unauthorized revelation to the media. The U.S. Defense Department and intelligence agencies were horrified by the leak. General Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. Central Command and the officer responsible for Iraq war planning, demanded that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have "everyone in the office of the secretary of defense and the joint chiefs of staff who knows the details of our planning process ... polygraphed - and prosecuted if they're discovered to have leaked top secret information." Rumsfeld ordered the air force's Office of Special Investigations to determine how the tightly controlled Polo Step material had been compromised. More than $1.5 million was spent on the investigation, and by the time it was winding down at the end of 2003, the operation in Iraq was long over. "And all to protect the code word," Arkin notes cynically. `A personal urge' William Arkin, 48, is an independent journalist, consultant and expert on military and security affairs. For four years in the mid-1970s, he served in U.S. Army Intelligence in West Berlin, analyzing intelligence on the Soviet Union and East Germany. After his discharge from the army, he began the type of work that he has stuck with to this day. In addition to his journalistic writing, he has written 10 reference books, including "Encyclopedia of the U.S. Military," "The Secret U.S. Plan for Nuclear War" and "Nuclear Weapons Databook" in several volumes. He also lectured at Johns Hopkins University, taught and did research at Harvard, and was a professor at the U.S. Air Force school in Alabama. To collect information for his studies and articles, Arkin visited many countries, including Iraq recently. He has not been to Israel. "For years, I'd been tracking secret military units and bases and trying from time to time to uncover their code names," he says. "A friend suggested that I write a book about it. After September 11, I thought that there was a need for such a guide and I had a personal urge to publish what I know." How did you manage to discover and decipher the codes? Arkin: "Without revealing my sources of information and working methods, I'll just say that I worked mostly with openly available sources. Here I may have read an internal bulletin or newsletter of a squadron that participated, for instance in a joint maneuver with the Israeli air force. And there I may have seen documents of civilian companies that won a contract with the Pentagon. To be honest, gathering the information was quite simple and easy for me: I read everything that was written, I cross-checked information, I didn't make speculations and I put into the book only facts. It was like constructing a giant mosaic. I don't pretend to know what's behind every code word, but what appears in the book is accurate. Basically, I took the time to do what journalists don't have the time for and what academics don't know how to do." Do you see a pattern of operation that distinguishes the Bush administration from previous administrations? "George Bush and Rumsfeld are in love with special operations. They're in love with the James Bond approach to war. They're in love with the idea of a light, quick and small army. But in Afghanistan and Iraq, we paid a heavy price for their light and quick approach." What price? "We failed in the attempt to capture Bin Laden - we didn't close the back door and he escaped through it. About two months into the war, Bin Laden and his men were hiding in the Tora Bora caves in Afghanistan. Special Forces were sent there, but we didn't have enough forces to hermetically seal off the area and to prevent him from escaping." And in Iraq? "In Iraq a dual mistake was made. We thought we'd win the war quickly and easily, and so we didn't have enough forces to conduct operations to wipe out the regime and the insurgency right after the war. On the other hand, we brought in too many forces and so we managed to anger the Iraqi people and give them the feeling that they are under occupation." What was your objective in writing the book? "The American public is not aware of the extent of American military activity in the world, of the vast resources in manpower and money that we expend on what we call `the war on global terrorism.' In the name of this war, things are being done that are counter to the American spirit: Bush and his people believe that it's okay for them to strike militarily at any country, even without a provocation or aggressive move from that country, whether it is Syria, Iran or North Korea. "The time has come to reexamine all the ties, presence and relations that we have with other countries, including Israel. Why does the U.S. need, for example, to store a half-billion dollars' worth of arms and equipment in Israel? We don't need to do that. Maybe it was a good idea at the start of strategic cooperation between the two countries in the 1980s, but in my view it has continued just out of habit. The military and strategic thinking of the U.S. is dictated by old habits. When a country invites us to be its guest, we're simply incapable of saying no. And because it's all wrapped in a heavy shroud of secrecy, no questions are asked." Does the U.S. already have a plan for war against Iran? "The preparations for a military operation in Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime lasted 15 years. We don't have enough intelligence about Iran yet and there is no clear military plan of action. But the preparations for such an operation have already begun. Knowing how this administration thinks, it's clear to me that the president is considering the possibility of a preemptive strike. If information is found about a certain site or about a certain target that would enable us to conduct a pinpoint strike, the president will give the order to do so." And these are the names It's easy to guess what would happen if an Israeli journalist were to submit to the military censor a list with the following code names, signifying a whole network of secret ties between the U.S. and Israel. But since the code names were deciphered by an American citizen who published them outside Israel's borders, they can be published here and now. "Thank God I live in the U.S., where we don't have any censorship and are not subject to your Vanunu-type world," says Arkin. Cooperative Safeguard - a live exercise and seminar held in June 2004, on behalf of the NATO Partnership for Peace, with the participation of, among others, delegates from the IDF's Home Front Command, on a realistic natural-disaster scenario. Ellipse Bravo - highly classified interagency major-crisis action and management exercises held in Israel since the 1990s by units of the U.S. Army's European Command (USEUCOM), to test their response capability to a radiological attack and their ability to evacuate and quickly transfer the Special Forces from land to sea. Eloquent nugget - a series of secret seminars the U.S. has been holding since 1994 in the framework of NATO's Partnership for Peace with dozens of countries, including Jordan, Tunisia and Israel, designed to demonstrate civilian democratic control of the military and regional approaches and cooperation in combating transnational extremist groups. Have Nap - B-52 missile, a development of the Israeli Popeye missile produced by Rafael (the Israel Armaments Development Authority). Infinite Moonlight - a code name used by the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) to describe secret military relations between Jordan and the U.S. In August 1995, when two of Saddam Hussein's sons-in-law and their wives defected to Jordan, CENTCOM sent fighter jets to protect the Hashemite kingdom. Some of the jets took off from an aircraft carrier docked at the Haifa port. The Juniper series - code words used by USEUCOM to describe secret ties with Israel. "Juniper Control" was a Reagan-era exercise with the National Security Agency's involvement. Other uses referred to the deployment of Patriot missile batteries in Israel and live Patriot fire, the establishment of a joint task force, and the connection between CENTCOM's control and command systems and the IDF; and joint naval exercises, including the landing of forces from the sea on Israel's shores. Juniper Stallion - an exercise involving air-to-air and air-to-ground live training. In March 2001, the exercise involved the activation of Site 53. F-16s of the 22nd Flight Squadron trained with their F-15 and F-16 counterparts in Israel. This was reportedly the first time U.S. aircraft operated in close formations with Israeli aircraft from Israeli bases. In another exercise, eight American fighter jets took off from the Nevatim air force base in the Negev and practiced aerial combat. The Mountain Series - The Pentagon's DIA code name for Israeli-originated intelligence. "Mountain Hall" was an Israeli Iraqi source during the 1991 Gulf War. "Mountain Ivy" refers to a foreign (Iraqi) information-acquisition program involving Israeli-acquired equipment. The material was transferred to U.S. intelligence and served the American army in its preparations for the war in Iraq. Noble Series - code words used to describe joint naval maneuvers between the U.S. and Israel, including an exercise in submarine warfare. Other exercises in the past four years have included the participation of the U.S. Special Forces and Israeli fleets. In 1996, a joint maneuver took place to practice use of aerial defense systems and drill ground forces, with the participation of units from the U.S., Israel and France. Pacer Ship - the transfer of American equipment and material to Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI). Peace Dove - the transfer to Israel of intelligence equipment - electronic counter-measure pods (primarily involving the disruption of radar signals). Shining Presence - various operations designed to enhance Israel's aerial defense systems to protect against penetration by planes and missiles. Within this framework, in December 1998, during Operation Desert Fox (attacks on Iraq), a joint task force of the U.S. Army and the IDF was established. The commander of the American force was General Julian Barnes.
Associated Press, February 9, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States quietly removed the last of its nuclear bombs from Greece early in President Bush's first term, making Greece the first NATO ally where nuclear weapons have been completely withdrawn, according to a new study by private defense experts. The change, which the Pentagon has not publicly confirmed, was disclosed in a book published last month - "Code Names," by William Arkin. The Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group that advocates arms control, described the change in detail in a study released Wednesday. Arkin said he believes the withdrawal from Greece could lead to an unraveling of NATO's long-standing policy of "burden sharing" in the hosting of U.S. nuclear weapons, which are meant to deter an attack on Europe but are highly unpopular among segments of the European population. Enormous political battles were fought in Germany and other European NATO countries over the early 1980s deployment of new U.S. ground-launched missiles capable of striking the former Soviet Union. Those weapons were withdrawn in the early 1990s, but air-launched bombs remained. The NATO countries that still host U.S. nuclear weapons are Belgium, Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. Reports on the number of these weapons vary. The study released Wednesday said the total is as high as 480, but others believe it is about 200. "It is a bit of a mystery," Arkin said, about whether the correct total is 480 or something lower. He said it is possible that 480 is the authorized maximum but the actual number deployed is in the 150-200 range. A Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said Wednesday that as a matter of policy the U.S. government does not discuss the numbers, capabilities or locations of its nuclear weapons abroad. The only nuclear weapons deployed beyond U.S. borders are in Europe and aboard ballistic missile submarines. "Nuclear weapons support the general deterrence goals of the NATO alliance," Whitman said. The defense council study said 20 U.S. nuclear bombs were airlifted out of Araxos air base in southern Greece in the spring of 2001. President Bill Clinton authorized the removal of the bombs in a top-secret document dated Nov. 29, 2000, according to a person who has seen the document. U.S. nuclear weapons also were removed from two air bases in Turkey in 1991 and one air base in Italy in 1993, the study said, but other nuclear bombs are still stored elsewhere in those countries. "The trend seems clear: Nuclear burden-sharing in NATO, in as far as host country nuclear strike missions are concerned, is on a slow but steady decline toward ending altogether," the study said. The United States has stationed nuclear weapons in Europe since 1954. The weapons that were at Greece's Araxos air base were intended for use by the Greek air force, in coordination with the United States. But when Greece scrapped its older A-7E warplanes as certified to carry nuclear bombs in the late 1990s, it did not replace them with a new certified nuclear-capable aircraft, thus prompting removal of the weapons, Arkin said in an interview from his home in Vermont. Arkin, a former Army intelligence officer, has written numerous books on nuclear weapons and other military topics. In "Code Names," he discloses the classified code name - Flaming Arrow - of the U.S.-only UHF communications network that is installed at all main operating bases and munitions support squadrons in Europe where nuclear warheads are stored. The high-frequency nuclear weapons radio communications system that would be used to transmit a U.S. presidential authority for the launch of nuclear weapons in Europe is code-named Regency, Arkin wrote. Those two code names are still being used today. Arkin justifies revealing them by saying his information was gathered from documents in the public domain or through interviews with government officials.
St. Petersburg Times, February 6, 2005
WASHINGTON - To make a point that the government is too secretive, William Arkin has published 600 pages of its secrets. In his book Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the 9/11 World, Arkin reveals more than 3,000 codes ranging from Gray Fox (a clandestine Army intelligence effort) to Busy Lobster (an aerial refueling operation). Code Names doesn't have a plot, and it's hard to keep track of the characters.
Here's a typical passage: "Sea Nymph - Former navy AN/WLQ-4 submarine ELINT
program. Sea Nymph was phased out and replaced by Cluster Spectator. See
also, Barnacle." A former Army intelligence
"The sad truth is that code names are not just used to confuse and confound the enemy," he writes, "but to build power inside various bureaucracies and keep prying eyes, even congressional ones, from understanding what is really going on." But the Pentagon and national security experts say Arkin's unusual book may have jeopardized military and intelligence efforts. "I see no value in exposing a whole bunch of code words, which in some cases might reveal things about programs," says Richard Kerr, a former CIA official. "It could lead to an unraveling of things." Arkin's book raises a fundamental question about the United States in the information age. How open should we be? Code names allow people to discuss sensitive missions or secret weapons
without revealing critical details. They also provide a convenient shorthand.
It's easier to say "Constant Vigil" than "the
The Germans used code names extensively in World War I (they had a fondness for religious and mythological names, including Archangel and Valkyrie), but the United States didn't use them much until World War II. As the United States used them more often, a few rules evolved. The names could not refer to living persons, Arkin says, and could not be too triumphal, insulting or vulgar. Today, many military code names have two words and follow certain patterns.
For example, first words that begin with "In" usually refer to operations
of Tampa-based Central Command. Sometimes, those words also indicate a
location. "Inspired" refers to a Centcom operation in
The second word is often chosen at random. Inspired Gambit was an exercise with the Pakistani army. Inspired Alert was with Pakistan's air force. The military also uses nicknames that are not based on the standard rules. Often, the names imply strength. Toltec Spear is an Army counterintelligence program. Dragon Hammer was a NATO exercise. Flaming Arrow is a communications network for nuclear weapons. Arkin's book, which is available at major bookstores and online retailers, says the United States increasingly chooses powerful words to build public support for its missions, such as Operation Iraqi Freedom and Desert Shield. "The traditional letter-block system is slowly being eroded by the political," he says. "If you look at our day-to-day operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, virtually all are given triumphant names." A few code names sound lighthearted. Fig Leaf was an exercise involving continuity of government after a nuclear war. Grandma Beguile was a project involving the Army Foreign Science and Technology Center. An operation of the Air Force Materiel Command was called Have Doughnuts. "Nearly unreadable' Arkin, an analyst for NBC News and a journalist who specializes in defense, says the government is obsessed with secrecy. A case in point: Special Operations Command, a Tampa-based group that oversees the military's special forces. "Virtually everything about SOCOM is classified," he says. "The toilet-paper consumption is classified." Another example: the Bush administration's censoring of the congressional report on the 9/11 attacks. On one page, for example, the government redacted everything but the words "The Joint Inquiry also found". Arkin says the Bush administration has hidden behind secrecy to build support for the Iraq war and other initiatives. Congress has not provided enough scrutiny of the administration, he says. "Democracy works better, and a brighter and safer future is more likely to be achieved, when the people understand what is being done in their name," he writes. Arkin decided he would be more successful making his point by defiantly publishing a glossary of secret names rather than a long rant. "The only way you are going to get a grasp of the totality of government operations is to have a map of it," he says. Steven Aftergood, the director of the government secrecy project at the Federation of American Scientists, helped Arkin compile the list. He says the book "is not casual reading. In fact, the text as a whole is nearly unreadable." But he calls it "a reminder of just how much we don't know about what our government is doing." Arkin says he collected the code names from public documents and government sources. He says he was "mindful of my responsibilities as a citizen" and did not publish anything that could compromise a current program or reveal intelligence sources. The government is not amused. A Defense Department spokesman declined to comment on the book's accuracy but said, "Any release of classified information would be referred to the Department of Justice to investigate. It is unfortunate that individuals in the media seek to profit on the publication or broadcast of information that may put American lives at risk." Andy Messing, executive director of the National Defense Council Foundation, a military think tank, says authors should be careful what they publish. "I believe in a free press. But there's a certain amount of secrecy you must have to run operations and counteroperations." Kerr, the CIA's deputy director from 1989-92, was skeptical of Arkin's claim that he did not reveal sensitive information. "How does he know? I don't think he's in a position to make a judgment that a particular program is important or unimportant," Kerr says. Individual elements of Arkin's book might seem innocuous, Kerr says, but they might still be enough to reveal a crucial detail that uncovers a sensitive mission. Each revelation is "another little thread to follow," he says. "Maybe that thread is then pulled out and you find another connection and pretty soon you have three or four and pretty soon you have a better picture." Kerr says he agrees with Arkin that some things are unnecessarily kept secret. But for the most part, he thinks the United States is too open with sensitive information. "We just talk too much."
Washington Times, February 4, 2005
The Joint Staff at the Pentagon last week ordered an investigation into the compromise of several programs that were revealed in a book by author William Arkin. According to a Jan. 25 cable from the Joint Staff to 14 military units, most of them involved in special operations, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has asked for an "opsec" or operational security assessment of possible national security damage to special access programs and other "operational compromises" in the book, "Code Names." The U.S. Special Operations Command will be the lead agency in reviewing the compromise of special access programs called Power Geyser and Footprint, along with other secret programs and activities. Power Geyser is a special counterterrorism commando group, and Footprint is another commando counterterrorism activity. At least one Pentagon security official was outraged that nothing was done for months to try to identify the source of the compromises. The official said Mr. Arkin was linked to a senior Pentagon official but that the Office of the Secretary of Defense protected the official. "So just let the secrets hemorrhage," the official said. "God bless America." Mr. Arkin, a liberal Greenpeace political activist turned columnist, was investigated by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations in 2002 after he disclosed the code-named program Polo Step, on the war planning for Iraq. Several suspects in the leak, including a three-star officer, were allowed to retire rather than face questioning over the leak. Mr. Arkin told us he does not think he damaged U.S. national security. "I've been very careful not to reveal anything related to ongoing operations or an intelligence source and method," he said. Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said grumbling from Pentagon security officials over the book is misguided. He noted, "I wonder if they are the same ones who gave him his clearance in the first place." Mr. Arkin was an Army intelligence analyst in the 1970s.
Aviation Week & Space Technology, January 31, 2005, p. 19 Washington Outlook: Code Breaker William Arkin, who successfully challenged a number of Air Force claims about its bombing results during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, is continuing his role of informed critic and irritant with the book Code Names. It is a gold mine of brief descriptions of classified military and government programs, including Panther Den, a special access program to develop informaiton warfare weapons with the ability to penetrate enemy computer networks. Panther Den is run by the AF's reclusive Big Safari program, long renowned for its black Cold War reconnaissance. Products include Project Suter, which demonstrated tools for cyberwarfare attack of time-critical targets and integrated air defenses. Other cyberwar projects include Pirate Sword, Steel Puma and Panther Vision. Arkin also names the Senior Prom program, shown in unauthorized Lockheed Martin photographs as a subscale, unmanned F-117 lookalike that was carried by and presumably launched from a DC-130 drone mothership for reconnaissance missions. There are also lots of international secrets, including Jordan's training of Yemeni counter-terrorism forces and basing of U.S. warplanes and intellignece-gathering aircraft during the 2003 war with Iraq at Shaheed Mwaffaq AB and Prince Hassan AB. Jordan denies these U.S. operations during the war.
The New York Times, January 23, 2005, Sunday, Section 1, p. 1 Eric Schmitt, "Commandos See Duty on U.S. Soil In Role Redefined by Terror Fight" WASHINGTON - Somewhere in the shadows of the White House and the Capitol this week, a small group of super-secret commandos stood ready with state-of-the-art weaponry to swing into action to protect the presidency, a task that has never been fully revealed before. As part of the extraordinary army of 13,000 troops, police officers and federal agents marshaled to secure the inauguration, these elite forces were poised to act under a 1997 program that was updated and enhanced after the Sept. 11 attacks, but nonetheless departs from how the military has historically been used on American soil. These commandos, operating under a secret counterterrorism program code-named Power Geyser, were mentioned publicly for the first time this week on a Web site for a new book, ''Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operation in the 9/11 World,'' (Steerforth Press). The book was written by William M. Arkin, a former intelligence analyst for the Army. The precise number of these Special Operations forces in Washington this week is highly classified, but military officials say the number is very small. The special-missions units belong to the Joint Special Operations Command, a secretive command based at Fort Bragg, N.C., whose elements include the Army unit Delta Force. In the past, the command has also provided support to domestic law enforcement agencies during high-risk events like the Olympics and political party conventions, according to the Web site of GlobalSecurity.org, a research organization in Alexandria, Va. The role of the armed forces in the United States has been a contentious issue for more than a century. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which restricts military forces from performing domestic law enforcement duties, like policing, was enacted after the Civil War in response to the perceived misuse of federal troops who were policing in the South. Over the years, the law has been amended to allow the military to lend equipment to federal, state and local authorities; assist federal agencies in drug interdiction; protect national parks; and execute quarantine and certain health laws. About 5,000 federal troops supported civilian agencies at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City three years ago. Since Sept. 11, however, military and law enforcement agencies have worked much more closely not only to help detect and defeat any possible attack, including from unconventional weapons, but also to assure the continuity of the federal government in case of cataclysmic disaster. The commandos here this week were the same type of Special Operations forces who are hunting top insurgents in Iraq and Osama bin Laden in the mountainous wilds of Afghanistan and Pakistan. But under the top-secret military plan, they are also conducting counterterrorism missions in support of civilian agencies in the United States. ''They bring unique military and technical capabilities that often are centered around potential W.M.D. events,'' said a senior military official who has been briefed on the units' operations. A civil liberties advocate who was told about the program by a reporter said that he had no objections to the program as described to him because its scope appeared to be limited to supporting the counterterrorism efforts of civilian authorities. Mr. Arkin, in the online supplement to his book (codenames.org/documents.html), says the contingency plan, called JCS Conplan 0300-97, calls for ''special-mission units in extra-legal missions to combat terrorism in the United States'' based on top-secret orders that are managed by the military's Joint Staff and coordinated with the military's Special Operations Command and Northern Command, which is the lead military headquarters for domestic defense. Mr. Arkin provided The New York Times with briefing slides prepared by the Northern Command, detailing the plan and outlining the military's preparations for the inauguration. Three senior Defense Department and Bush administration officials confirmed the existence of the plan and mission, but disputed Mr. Arkin's characterization of the mission as ''extra-legal.'' One of the officials said the units operated in the United States under ''special authority'' from either the president or the secretary of defense. Civilian and uniformed military lawyers said provisions in several federal statutes, including the Fiscal Year 2000 Defense Department Authorization Act, Public Law 106-65, permits the secretary of defense to authorize military forces to support civilian agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in the event of a national emergency, especially any involving nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. In 1998, the Pentagon's top policy official, Walter B. Slocombe, acknowledged that the military had covert-action teams. ''We have designated special-mission units that are specifically manned, equipped and trained to deal with a wide variety of transnational threats,'' Mr. Slocombe told the Senate Armed Services Committee. ''These units, assigned to or under the operational control of the U.S. Special Operations Command, are focused primarily on those special operations and supporting functions that combat terrorism and actively counter terrorist use of W.M.D. These units are on alert every day of the year and have worked extensively with their interagency counterparts.'' Spokesmen for the Northern Command in Colorado Springs and the Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., the parent organization of the Joint Special Operations Command, declined to comment on the plan, the units involved and the mission. ''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,'' said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. ''It would be irresponsible for me to comment on any classified program that may or may not exist.'' But the Northern Command document that mentions Power Geyser is marked ''unclassified.'' The document states that the purpose of the Department of Defense's contingency planning for the inauguration is to provide ''unity of D.O.D. effort to contribute to a safe and secure environment for the 2005 inauguration.'' The Northern Command missions include deterring an attack or mitigating its consequences, and coordinating with the Special Operations Command. In a telephone interview from his home in Vermont, Mr. Arkin said the military's reaction to the disclosure of the counterterrorism plan and its operating units reflected ''the silliness of calling something that's obvious, classified.'' ''I'm not revealing what they're doing or the methods of their contingency planning,'' he said. ''I don't compromise any sensitive intelligence operations by revealing sources and methods. I don't reveal ongoing operations in specific locales.'' Mr. Arkin's book is a glossary of more than 3,000 code names of past and present operations, programs and weapons systems, with brief descriptions of each. Most involved secret activities, and details of many of the programs could not be immediately confirmed. The book also describes American military operations and assistance programs in scores of countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. The murky world of ''special access programs'' and other secret military and intelligence activities is covered in the book, too. Some code names describe highly classified research programs, like Thirsty Saber, a program that in the 1990's tried to develop a sensor to replace human reasoning. Others describe military installations in foreign countries, like Poker Bluff I, an electronic-eavesdropping collection station in Honduras in the 1980's. Many involve activities related to the survival of the president and constitutional government. The book, for instance, describes Site R, one of the undisclosed locations used by Vice President Dick Cheney since the Sept. 11 attacks. Site R is a granite mountain shelter just north of Sabillasville, Md., near the Pennsylvania border. It was built in the early 1950's to withstand a Soviet nuclear attack. The book also describes a program called Treetop, the presidential emergency successor support plan, which provides survivors of a nuclear strike or other attack with war plans, regulations and procedures to establish teams of military and civilian advisers to presidential successors. A White House spokesman declined to comment on the continuity of government activities cited in the book. People who advocate that the government declassify more of the nation's official documents said the book would fuel the debate over the balance between the public's right to know and the need to keep more military and intelligence matters secret in the campaign against terror. ''This is part of an ongoing tug of war to define the boundaries of public information,'' said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy. ''There has been a steady withdrawal of information from the public domain in the present administration, and a reluctance to disclose even the most mundane of facts.''
The Washington Post, January 23, 2005 Sunday, A Section, p. A7 Dana Priest, "Book of U.S. Code Names Challenges Secrecy; Author Hopes to Undermine Agencies' Ability to Make Decisions in the Dark" 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.
Harper's Magazine, January 2005 Readings: "Unleash The Lobster" From a directory of official code names for current or recent U.S. military
and intelligence operations culled from Code Names: Deciphering U.S.
Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World, by William
M. Arkin, to be published next month by Steerforth Press.
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