Military
Report: DoD Bomb
Hunters Pried into US Firms, Citizens
PAUL McLEARY5:42
p.m. EST December 18, 2014
(Photo: US Army)
WASHINGTON — During
some of the bloodiest days of US combat in Afghanistan and the roadside bomb
threat there, the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO)
"improperly collected" intelligence on US citizens and corporations
to try to stem the threat, a Pentagon Inspector General (IG) report has found.
The collection
activities, which were conducted by JIEDDO's Counter-IED Operations
Intelligence Integration Center (COIC), took place "at the direction"
of the organization's leadership the report states, adding that "analysts
collected information on US companies and their CEOs, US hostages held by
foreign extremists, and specific US persons. In addition, COIC analysts
improperly collected intelligence using aliases and uncoordinated cover."
The US hostage was US
soldier Bowe Berghdal, who was at the time being held by Taliban fighters in
Pakistan, one person familiar with the issue told Defense News.
The report, released
in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Defense News and other
news organizations, has been redacted to omit the names of the US companies and
names of people who were subject to the collection.
One company name that
was not redacted, however, is the Fatima Fertilizer company, a Pakistan-based
entity with ties to various US suppliers. JIEDDO analysts looked into the
business dealings and stock trading activities of the company and US companies
that had dealings with it, looking for links to terrorist activity.
For years, US and NATO
military leaders had been frustrated by the inability to stem the amount of
fertilizer-based roadside bombs in Afghanistan, which had taken a bloody toll
in coalition lives.
JIEDDO leaders had
gone so far as to attend fertilizer industry events and convened a series of
meetings with executives in the Pakistani fertilizer industry to try to get a
hold of the issue, to frustratingly little effect.
During the height of
the war in 2010 and 2011, a full 80 percent of the IEDs planted in Afghanistan
and 90 percent of US casualties could be traced to IED bomb-making chemicals
that come from two legal fertilizer factories operating in Pakistan.
Those factories churn
out about 400,000 metric tons of ammonium nitrate — a common farming fertilizer
— a year, about 1 percent of which would eventually make its way over the
border to insurgents who use it to build explosive devices.
While the information
that JIEDDO collected came from open sources, including newspapers, websites
and other publicly accessible material, the actions still ran afoul of DoD
intelligence collection rules, the IG report said.
In August 2012, JIEDDO
analysts contacted the CIA to obtain "any links between the Fatima Group
and US companies and any observable terrorist activity," only to be
rejected by the spy agency.
JIEDDO wanted all of the
financial information it could obtain about Fatima to give the agency
"potential direct/indirect actions that could be leveraged though JIEDDO's
Whole-of-Government partners and [government] allies," according to the IG
report.
Staffers at JIEDDO
learned that Fatima was interested in expanding operations in the United
States, and according to internal documents published by the IG, "applying
pressure to these [American] partner companies is a possible course of action.
By approaching these partner companies – and their shareholders – and making
them aware that they are associated with a company whose product is being
misappropriated causing 10,840 casualties in 2011 alone, Fatima may be
encouraged to become more cooperative."
While JIEDDO struggled
to make inroads with Fatima, a relationship was eventually forged and the
company has since stopped the distribution of ammonium nitrate on the
Pakistan/Afghan border, and has created a less explosive fertilizer, according
to one person familiar with the interactions. As a result, ammonium nitrate
IEDs have fallen markedly, a source said.
The COIC also
collected information on a Marine Corps Reserve lance corporal who was arrested
near the Pentagon in June 2011 with suspected bomb making materials, a domestic
collection that violated a DoD regulation that prohibits the collection of
intelligence on US citizens, but was done in conjunction with other US
agencies.
When asked about the
report, JIEDDO spokesman David Small said that since the report was issued, the
organization has increased its focus "on intel oversight, including
ongoing training for the entire workforce. We have published a new standard
operating procedure, appointed an inspector general and have conducted a number
of spot checks of our IO program."
He reiterated that no
laws were broken, and that 'the incidents involved regarded technicalities of
policy and process and were corrected as soon as it was recognized. Many of the
IG's recommendations to assure such actions do not occur in the future have
already been acted upon."
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