INFORMATION REVIEW & RELEASE (IRR) NEWS FOR 23-27 FEBRUARY 2004 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05578198
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: March 8, 2023
• Document Release Date: April 2, 2019
• Case Number: F-2010-01471
• Publication Date: February 27, 2004

Approved for Release: 2019/03/27 C05578198
ADMINISTRATIVE INTERNAL USE ONLY
Information Review & Release (IRR) News for 23-27 February 2004
Executive Summary
Future Planninz Calendar
(UHArtIrte)) 9 March 2004: Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP): Next Liaisons'
meeting at site TBD.
(U//AIM) 23 March 2004: Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP): Next Principals'
meeting at EEOB in Washington, DC.
(UHA-1110) 31 December 2006: The Automatic Declassification Date per Executive Order 12958, as amended.
Overview of IRR Activities--Last Week
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(UHA1011) FOIA Requests
(U) CIA Shines in GAO's FOIA Report
(U) The General Accounting Office (GAO) recently released its 2002 report (FY 2003) to Congress on the status of
the FOIA programs in the US Government. The GAO evaluated "trends" and the "progress" of 25 federal entities,
including the CIA. According to the report, which covers the period through 2002, "the Central Intelligence Agency
is the only agency that over the past three years has consistently decreased the number of requests in its backlog of
pending requests." The report also identified the CIA as one of 10 agencies that "had a decrease in median
processing times between 2001 and 2002." In 2002, the CIA's cost per FOIA request was third among the agencies
reviewed�only the National Regulatory Commission and the Department of State had higher cost-per-request figures.
Each FOIA case cost CIA a little over $2,500 to process.
� The GAO report indicates that the Veterans Administration accounts for 60 percent of all FOIA requests
received and processed in the Government. Also, the GAO report notes that FY 2003 marks the sixth
consecutive year that the CIA has reduced its backlog of FOIA/Privacy cases.
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HUIVIIINiTRATiv -1
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�
11 The requester is being advised to
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submit a FOIA request to the Department of Defense'
(U/ht1+51.0.) Request for CIA Service/Death Information on Uncle
(U///tItlitr) Writing at his mother's behest, the requester seeks to learn what happened to his "Uncle Doyle"�who
[allegedly] died on 2 September 1958 while serving the CIA on the island of Cyprus.
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(U//A1110) Interest in India's Sale of Chemical Weapon Precursors to Iraq
(U//O) The National Security Archive, a frequent user of the FOIA, is asking for all documents on "India's sales
to Iraq of chemical weapon precursors, including thionyl chloride and thiodiglycol, used to manufacture mustard gas
and nerve agents, from 1980 through December 1990."
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� The FOIA case mana� er accepted the request
(U//A1110) CDC Declassification Center
(UHAIIIIS9 One Million Pages Scanned at Carter
(U/Mettle) On 20 February, Declassification Conversion Center (DCC) technicians concluded a six week trip to the
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, where they processed 908 boxes of records and scanned 134,159 pages of
presidential records. A milestone was realized during this trip�the image count for the Carter Library has surpassed
one million pages scanned. To commemorate this achievement, library personnel hosted a celebration attended by
the Director of the Carter Library, Mr. Jay Hakes. The records will be indexed in the DCC and provided to the CIA
Declassification Center (CDC) for review in the IWAS (Image Workflow Automated System) or CADRE (CIA
Automated Declassification and Release Environment) database. The team plans to return to Atlanta in July for
additional scanning.
(U//A44544) From The Archives:
(U//A4.13Q) The Price of Looking Casual
(U///feelQ-) An unattached 23 September 1975 'buck slip from National Security Council (NSC) Deputy Assistant to
the President for National Security Affairs, Brent Scowcroft, to Assistant to the President, Henry Kissinger, states:
"This is [DCI] Colby's idea to jazz up the daily intelligence digest. He would like your reaction to the format. The
change is a gimmick, and I see two problem areas: (1) This will replace the President's Daily Brief. While I doubt
that he read it in the old format, I find it even more difficult to imagine that he will look at something so casual
looking as this. (2) While this is not directly our concern, a format of this type is more apt to result in informal
handling, like a newspaper, rather than as a highly classified document. There is also no cover page to keep
codeword articles away from curious eyes when the paper might be on someone's desk." Scowcroft then listed for
Kissinger's convenience four responses: "(1) The change is OK; (2) I don't like it; (3) I don't care; (4) Other."
Kissinger chose to initial "(2) I don't like it."
� (U) Although the originally attached document is missing, it likely was a prototype for the National
Intelligence Daily (NID), that first appeared on 10 January 1974. The NID was "a new high-level publication
in newspaper format engineered by Mr. Colby. It was produced by the Office of Current Intelligence, printed
on large sheets of two to four pages, and served the NSC and top levels of the intelligence and policymaking
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community." President Nixon, along with Kissinger and one or two senior officials, continued to receive the
separate President's Daily Brief. Via the FOIA, the 73 heavily-redacted NIDs in newspaper format from 1974
now reside in the public domain. (see link:
(U//.0.1.130) An Intelligence Indicator
(UHAVe:IQ) A Current Intelligence Bulletin (CIB), August 1970, on South Vietnam reports that "The Communists
appear to be losing ground in Tay Ninh Province. They reportedly can no longer tax or recruit the villagers of the
province.. .the Communists' take from their agricultural tax has been declining in recent months."
� (U) The ability, or inability, to successfully levy and collect taxes has been an important indicator of political
power for centuries. Some historians included Rome's decreasing ability to collect corn taxes from the
periphery of the empire as an indicator of its decline. Reports during the late 1980s assessing the prospects
for Soviet economic reform documented cases in which the Soviet republics were refusing to send tax revenues
to Moscow�and, in which Moscow could not, or would not, enforce collections. We note the same 'indicator'
in the item above. Indicators, however, require interpretation and appropriate context. An important question
� left unanswered in this short CIB item is whether this event was a trend (or the beginning of one) or an
anomaly. Ultimately, history alWays provides the answer.
CC:
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