I failed to mention that Steven Aftergood caught ODNI passing off flimsy Russian news accounts as intelligence regarding Russian counterspace capabilities:
Some of the DNI’s statements are surprisingly flimsy. For example, he declares (question 17) that “In 2003, the Russian military prepared for an exercise that included attacking U.S. satellites to disrupt the NAVSTAR global positioning system, the Keyhole optical-electronic reconnaissance satellites, and the Lacrosse radar reconnaissance system with the intent of ‘blinding’ the Pentagon and denying it the opportunity to use precision weapons against Russia.”
This is an odd assertion, first, because intelligence officials rarely if ever use the old Keyhole or Lacrosse satellite names in unclassified public statements. And on closer inspection, it turns out that the DNI’s statement was simply lifted, almost word for word, from a news story that appeared in the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on May 14, 2003. (It was also picked up by the online Newsmax.com on May 18, 2003.) The Russian story lazily attributed its claim regarding the anti-satellite exercise to “certain reports.” The DNI repeated the Nezavisimaya Gazeta item nearly verbatim, presenting it as an established fact, with no attribution at all.
Jeff Stein at SpyTalk did a nice job
of getting a quote from DNI, whose response was pretty pathetic:
“We’re not going to provide classified information in an unclassified document.”
Of course, that doesn’t address the central issue — unclassified utterances, especially by DNI still need to be accurate. (There is also, of course, the actual instance of irony — officials usually treat the names LACROSSE and KEYHOLE as classified.)
I wanted to address the substance of the Spokesperson’s apparent disregard for whether or not DNI prepares unclassified products with rigor and seriousness. It is my contention that an inebriated monkey could have written a better unclassified statement that conveyed the same message.
By my count, DNI failed to do at least three things:
1. DNI failed to indicate that the accounts of the exercise were provided in the Russian press. The provenance of the information is not classified information. Indeed, the Open Source Center translated the report in question — full text in the commebnts — and DNI provided that translation to Stein.
2. DNI also failed to accurately convey the substance of the report. DNI indicated that the exercise included Russian forces “attacking U.S. satellites” although the text (in translation at least) reads “to put out of action the most important facilities” — which seems to imply attacks on ground stations, rather than satellites themselves.
3. DNI failed to provide any context for the exercise, which was conducted with our new best friends, India — who, according to some reports, generously agreed to play us in the exercise with Russia.
You may observe other failings in how DNI presented the information. I encourage you all, in the comments, to try your hand at writing a better statement. Here is my submission:
According to Russian press reports, Russia conducted an exercise with India in May 2003 that included simulated attacks on US facilities to deny the United States use of space-based intelligence, navigation and communications systems.
In case you want more information, Nikolai Sokov has a readable summary of the press coverage of the exercise.
Boris Berezovskiy – isn’t he Putin’s best friend ever? Just like Rupert Murdoch was a best friend of Bill Clinton and is a best friend of Barack Obamas. Perhaps Putin should use The Sun (UK red top) as a source of intelligence on the west.
Sigh. This reminds me of the DIA statements on the “BM-25”.
Mind you, I think the Russians would be insane not to include ASAT attacks in strategic-level military exercises(*) — the Soviets certainly did — and for all I know the fine folks at Miass really did transfer SS-N-6 technology.
But I do expect better of the USIC in explaining their level of certainty if not the actual sources concerning such matters.
(*) Leaving aside the question of the sanity of such exercises in the first place.
As to your summary, the way I read the contemporary press coverage the presence of Indian military forces only occurred in a second, separate phase of the exercise. I just note that because an exercise in which India simulated space denial techniques against the U.S. would be a big deal.
OT – Viktor Bout got his charges dropped and should be free in a couple of days.