Documents Reveal US Incompetence with Word, Iraq

notNeilCasey writes "The U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority, which formerly governed Iraq, accidentally published Microsoft Word documents containing information never meant for the public, according to an article in Salon. By viewing the documents using the Track Changes feature in Word (.doc), the author has been able to reconstruct internal discussions from 2004 which reflect the optimism, isolation and incompetence of the American occupation. Download the author's source document or look for more yourself. 'Presumably, staffers at the CPA's Information Management Unit, which produced the weekly reports, were cutting and pasting large sections of text into the reports and then eliminating all but the few short passages they needed. Much of the material they were cribbing seems to have come from the kind of sensitive, security-related documents that were never meant to be available to the public. In fact, about half of the 20 improperly redacted documents I downloaded, including the March 28 report, contain deleted portions that all seem to come from one single, 1,000-word security memo. The editors kept pulling text from a document titled "Why Are the Attacks Down in Al-Anbar Province -- Several Theories." (The security memo and the last page of the March 28 report can be seen here, along with several other CPA documents that can be downloaded.)'"

Comments

The deleted section from the sample

[morgan_greywolf]

Maybe I'm not paying enough attention, but I'm not sure why the musings about why attacks stopped in Al-Anbar in early 2004 are so particularly embarrassing. It seems to me that they were just trying to figure out what happened; I guess it might show some degree of cluelessness on the part of Intelligence, but, uh, they gotta figure stuff out at some point, right?

Re:The deleted section from the sample

[x_MeRLiN_x]

It only reads that way if you have a preconceived idea of why America invaded Iraq. ;)

Re:The deleted section from the sample

[CmdrGravy]

I think the embarrasment comes from the fact that the situation was handled incompetently.

Incompetently because the report writer doesn't appear to have a clue why the attacks in that province are decreasing which tends to suggest that the administration has no clear idea what is actually driving the attacks or why they're happening. It's possible that it's just the report writer who's in the dark about this but the complete lack of success in dealing with terrorism and insurgency in Iraq since then leads me to believe the problem was more widespread.

If you don't have the correct information or don't understand the situation on the ground then it's very hard to form any effective plan for reaching your goals which is what appears to have happened with Iraq. Given what we were told about how the war was to be fought beforehand and how everything was in place to address the aftermath I would say the handling of the situation which has led to the position we are in now speaks of great incompetence.

Re:The deleted section from the sample

[suv4x4]

Or, if anything, they want your to believe they are incompetent.

Oh nice, denial mixed with conspiracy theories. Or how about, they are normal people, like you and me. They breath air, eat food, go to the toilet, and some of them families, kids and so on trivia.

The idea that they concealed fake info in the history of a Word file which embarasses them, so a tricky hacker could accidentally decode it and spread misinformation about the US intelligence service being idiots, while they are actually super smart..

That kinda strikes me as something I'd read next to articles showing evidence green aliens control earth in some tabloid.

They have no benefit to make their nation or their enemies think they are idiots. On the contrary, they keep teaching their soldiers, that the best weapon is the one that makes your enemy give up the fight. They need to look smart, they need to look scary, they need to look like someone you don't want to play with. Those docs work in the opposite direction.

Re:The deleted section from the sample

[sumdumass]

there are several things that could have happened which lead to the confusion. In all out firefights, if the other side isn't completely obliterated, they try to cart off their dead to hide the identities of their families who might also be supporting them. It could be that another operation inadvertently killed some of the people behind the attacks and we need to asses who, why and where or if this is even the case. It had nothing to do with incompetence, rather an attempt to link unrelated activities to explain the current situation.

We have had serial rapist from other states who were caught in that other state and it took years to put the pieces together and link the two. With modern communication and all this time frame has narrowed a bunch and sometimes it can be linked before they goto trial. But this shows nothing of the incompetence of the investigators who have no evidence pointing to the person in particular and still cannot figure out who is doing it. When the guy get detained in the other state, all they know it the rapes stopped and they need to figure out why. Did someone die? did someone get arrested somewhere and so on?

But that "connecting the dots" is relatively easy compared to the situations in Iraq. You don't know a lot of times when someone dies and their body is carted off and either buried in secrete or mutilated and dropped off in the street to make it appear as if they were attacked by the insurgence or terrorist. In the later case, it makes it appear that the people behind the violence are innocent civilians caught in the cross fire. And to think that any of this shows incompetence really goes to a deeper level of you lack of understanding. Now having the changes inside the word document after it was released to the public shows incompetence. But this isn't any where near the same level as you are intending to imply.

Re:"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along

[Prysorra]

It just floors me they feel they have to cover up even the signs of progress.

The level of utter incompetence w.r.t. "controlling the narrative" just terrifies me.

:-(

yet another reason for published formats

[mikey_boy]

Had they not heard of PDF?! Why anyone would publish Word, ODF, or anything like this I don't understand. Convert to PDF, and job done.

Re:Disallow MS Word

[symbolic]

Actually, it's a great reason to continue using Microsoft word.

Re:Can we charge MS under the PATRIOT Act yet???

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we charge MS under the PATRIOT Act yet???

Haven't you read the Patriot Act (I or II)?

Brother, you can charge anybody with the Patriot Act. Your grandma bitching about taxes? Mind control terrorist. Bill Gates giving vaccines to Africa? Funding terrorists. You for posting about the US government online? Cyberterrorist.

They got labels for everybody.

Government lawyers don't investigate whether or not someone's violating the Patriot Act, government lawyers find someone they don't like and then use general wording of the Patriot Act to jail them.

Haven't you heard? It's the new way. Senator McCarthy was a pioneer & George Bush is the new prophet to lead us.

Looks like some competent analysis there.

[wiredog]

In this excerpt the last bit (Item 2, at the bottom of the page) looks like a pretty good analysis.

Or just convert it to a PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone has access to MSWord, after all. Meanwhile, PDF readers are free.

Wrong tool for the job,

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The military is designed to attack and subjugate an enemy. It is trained fundamentally to kill the enemies and destroy their country. Take a machine like that use to build a country? To build friendship and cooperation? What a stupid idea. Military is designed to inspire fear and respect, and may be hatred as a side effect. But dont blame the politicians. Blame the Generals. The way the admin thinks, "Someone has to do it. And we have only military over there. So let them do it".The Generals should have stood firm and said, "We are not trained to get municipal sewer system running. We are trained to bomb sewage treatment plants. Dont give this shitty job to us. Send someone else".

An officer is supposed to protect the soldiers under his command. It is the duty of the Generals to make sure that the job given to his division is within the capability of his troops. Just because the civilian authority orders "Find a cure for cancer", they should not embark on ordering their colnels and majors to mess with test tubes.

Re:Disallow MS Word

[gr8_phk]

Government use of MS Word should be disallowed because some numpty pencil pusher doesn't know how some of its features work? What a compelling argument that is.

It's a perfectly good argument. Using a tool or designing a part that doesn't allow a critical mistake is standard practice. Google for Poka Yoke.

There is all type of sensitive information floating around the government. It goes to congress critters, their aids, through email, etc. Do you know another way to ensure that none of these people ever accidentally create documents with change tracking turned on? I didn't think so.

Re:Disallow MS Word

[Rakshasa Taisab]

There's probably no better way to leak information than 'fucking' up a redaction. You then have a document from official sources and the leaker can feign incompetence with technology.

One has to wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

...how previous wars would have fared had they been subjected to the microscopic scrutiny of today...

Re:One has to wonder...

[t0rkm3]

Or perhaps one should consider the damage done to a child by an overbearing micro-managing parent. Maybe you could even consider that sort of relationship between manager and working stiff.

It tends to make people uninsightful, fearful, and unimaginative. So, what do you get by over-scrutinizing the gov'ts every move? A gov't peopled by lackeys and lickspittles who lack the courage to do what is necessary to prevail.

You get what you ask for I suppose. It just saddens me to know that most people are officious enough that they can't see how they've been played into making the political process a soap-opera.

captcha: treasury

Re:Secrets?

[Thanatopsis]

No. Because they didn't actual reveal the information - the government did. No pointing out that the government has published documents that reveal them to be inept isn't treason. It would be treason if the author were actively collaborating with the enemy. It has become fashionable by the right in the last 30 years to accuse the media of treason. Re-publishing something the government has published already in the public domain isn't treason.

Re:Always see the bright side.

[Opportunist]

You show me one auditing company who would disqualify a gov agency from receiving an ISO certificate and I show you an auditing company that never gets government contracts anymore.

Re:I learned a long time ago...

[massysett]

Yikes, how to safely redact Word documents? I'm not sure that is possible. It's actually scary that NSA would dare publish guidance on this topic. Word is a proprietary black box, and all I can do is shake my head if NSA is dumb enough to keep any sensitive information in Word and then release the documents!

Re:The "U.S".?

[smittyoneeach]

We're so quick to:

• Accept whatever the media publishes as gospel
• Believe any negative report about the US government
• Understand that no good whatsoever can come of US involvement in the Middle East

but they still want us to somehow vote for candidates that promise extend government meddling in areas such as retirement and health care.
Hm. Not as flexible with these mental gymnastics as I used to be. Request additional kool-aid here.

And this is why...

[ericferris]

This is why it's hard to subscribe to these huge conspiracy theories about anything involving the Federal Government. I mean, if you want to successfully lead a conspiracy, you have to be competent and you have to cover your tracks.

This latest example of bumbling incompetence shows us that you cannot trust the Feds to do either.

That's why we should fear the Feds when they want to help us: considering their track records at taking care of their own problems, only a suicidal madman would trust them to manage other people's lives.

Re:This "Feature" Has Been Known For Years

[PopeRatzo]

Perhaps it is time that word processors kept twin files - one the actual document, and if the user wants to track changes, another that stores deleted text. Or maybe encrypt the deleted text.

Or, just publish your documents as PDF files, no?

Close, but no cigar.

[replicant108]

So...Iraq has been invaded by MSCEs?

Actually, it was liberated by MBAs.

Re:History repeating

[soundhack]

I think the world would be a significantly better place if more people were happier looking at breasts than waging war.

I'm not a "make love not war" hippie, but in this current example I think it fits.

DMCA violation

[jridley]

Wouldn't that make the reporter guilty of circumventing an access control mechanism?

That DMCA sure is a versatile tool, isn't it?

That's actually a pretty good analysis

[DG]

Having read my share of int briefs, that's actually a pretty good analysis with what looks to me like an honest attempt at figuring out what is going on.

I see no incompetence there - I see good, honest staffwork. Perhaps a touch informal in places, but that's about it.

Intelligence is a slippery fish, not an exact science. It is normal to have a great deal of uncertainty.

DG

Re:Those who don't learn from history...

[sumdumass]

It seems rather foolish to think that ignorant people are all bush supporters. Keep on living in this world and blame Bush for everything you let go wrong with your life. After all he is at the same time the dumbest president alive that was able to conspire and outsmart most of the people in the US including all the opposing congressional leaders who non bush supporters seem to support. So it really doesn't say much about the big picture and neglect a lot of the little picture.

Re:This "Feature" Has Been Known For Years

[sumdumass]

People are already doing this. If you have the same political beliefs as they do, you will see everything in the news eventually. But if your looking for an unbiased review, You better clear your schedule and start making it happen yourself.

Re:This "Feature" Has Been Known For Years

[networkBoy]

When I'm publishing a world readable document from sensitive source (NDAs can be really sticky things) after I have all my text that I want I copy and paste the whole load into notepad, save as a file, close all editors, re-open file, copy and paste back into (sigh) word and format it.
I like my job and if I was the reason "track change" text got into the wild I'm sure my job would be at risk.
More often than not I've gotten information I shouldn't have because of higher managers not understanding what track changes really does.
-nB

Re:Those who don't learn from history...

[Analogy Man]

I agree it is foolish to assume all idiots are Bush supporters...there are so many idiots and so few Bush supporters left. His approval rating is down to the hardcore loyalists that would eat glass before they spoke ill of any Republican from Texas.

I commend you for not going down the "when Clinton was president path" with your response. That is also an equally flawed bit of logic along the lines of a 9 year old justifying throwing rocks at cars with "Jimmy did it too!"

Re:Those who don't learn from history...

[Scrameustache]

he is at the same time the dumbest president alive that was able to conspire and outsmart Why is there people in this world unfamiliar with the concept of a "front man"?
You really think the Bush Administration is a one-man show?

Re:Those who don't learn from history...

[spun]

We don't blame Bush for the things that have gone wrong with our lives. We blame him for invading a sovereign nation on trumped up charges, dismantling constitutional protections of our most basic and precious rights, providing welfare in the form of tax relief to the wealthiest individuals and corporations, usurping power for the executive branch, presiding over the most secretive administration in US history, botching the job in Afghanistan, letting Osama escape, botching the job in Iraq, fucking up the economy, raising the deficit to undreamed of heights, fucking over the environment, billions of dollars of cash missing in Iraq, no WMDs, increased threat of domestic terrorism, fucking up on port security, firing republican DAs midterm for investigating republican wrongdoing and/or not investigating democratic wrongdoing, squandering international good-will and alienating our allies, setting back the progress of science in America, pandering to the religious right, imposing un-republican ideals of Federal power over States rights, borrowing against future generations of citizens to fund his fiscally irresponsible policies, and being a smarmy, self congratulatory, ignorant frat-boy with a track record of business failures and DWI convictions.

a real security failure

[Jon Kay]

My grumble is that, note, CPA only cared about attacks on Coalition troops, not about attacks on Iraqis, which were steadily increasing the whole time. I mean, generally speaking, the point of an occupation isn't just to have lots of annoying foreign troops arround, but to KEEP THE OCCUPIED PEOPLE SECURE.

And this shows in the document. Lots of speculation and thought about ATTACKS ON THE COALITION. You can't even begin to guess what the security situation for Iraqis on the street is from this document.

Re:Those who don't learn from history...

[hardburn]

And if congress was a single person instead of a collective entity, that would be relevant.

Re:Those who don't learn from history...

[smilindog2000]

Heck, that's the short list. You didn't even mention stealing two elections in a row, his oh-so-qualified appointments, or his role as puppet for truely scary neo-cons. You missed pandering to Big Oil, the Katrina fiasco, and 3,000 dead soldiers in Iraq. I guess it's hard to get all the really horrible stuff in only one short paragraph...

Those numbers include democrats

[spun]

A lot of us don't think the supposedly democratic congress is doing enough, so those numbers don't mean what you imply they mean.

Re:Those who do learn from history...

[smilindog2000]

Sorry to have caused any infuriation. I don't easily get upset over posts on /. Please don't consider my following comments as an attack or meant to upset you:

- "Concerns over global warming are frequently overblown" - To me, the scary part about global warming is the massive and highly successful campaign by Bush and friends to convince us that it's a) not happening, and b) we're not causing it. For example, his efforts to corrupt and/or bury the results of his own scientific inquiry scare the heck out of me. Humans making the Earth warmer is just one of the truly scary hurdles in front of us. The Middle East building nukes is another one, as is controlling the world's population before we strip it of all it's resources. From that point of view, I agree, it is sometimes overblown. If that's you're position, it's reasonable. If you think we're not causing it, you should become better informed.

- Almost nobody at this point that I run across thinks that things are rosy over in Iraq. Anyone who thinks we've handled Iraq well should become better informed. If you hold out hope that the world will be a better place than if we'd not invaded Iraq, then I'd say your an optimist, though not unreasonable. If you feel we should stay and try to complete the mission, even if Iraq is a mess, then you agree with many other reasonable people, just not most.

- All the government has to do to keep the Internet neutral is nothing. Even better would be a law enforcing no change. If it meddles with what has been working for over 10 years, the value of the Internet could drastically fall. In particular, we need to insure that ISPs do not discriminate against packets based on their origin. That's all. They can still do traffic shaping, charge more for higher levels of service, etc. But, if they want to block all the Democrat web sites, and only allow through the Republican ones, that's a problem. That's exactly what will happen if Murdoch gets control, and packet origin discrimination is allowed. I find that a compelling argument for keeping the status quo, which has been working so well.

- Are you also upset that the Supreme Court ended segregation? It's the court's job to fill in context when laws are unclear. In Rowe v Wade, they tackled the toughest issue: defining when human life begins. It's a slippery area to rule in, and highly contentious, since many of us believe God gives us a soul at conception, while others of us believe that we gain our humanity as our brain develops and we become conscious of our environment. Jews traditionally believed that God gives us a soul at the quickening. I believe life begins when my kids go to college :-) I bet we would agree that having the Supreme Court rule correctly about when human life begins would be a good thing. We just may not agree about what that correct answer is. Unfortunately, it's not an easy area to find agreement, and it's probably more productive to collaborate on reducing unwanted pregnancies, which is probably common ground.

Re: Nothing for you to see here. Ultimate Irony is

[cvos]

The ultimate irony is Microsoft helping expose the tyrannies of untouchables in government and providing a true level of transparency. Combine total MS vendor lock in with data archiving and tech-ignorant workers and you have a solution that, in this instance, has given the people actual real information. Much like Nixon did himself in through a tape recorder, the Bush administration is doing the same thing, aided by Microsoft software.

This would not have happened if presidential staffers were using Linux.

Linux=security
Microsoft=(inadvertent)transparency

Re:"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along

[Simon Garlick]

It really is a pity Bush, Cheney et al did not pay attention during the Vietnam war

Oh they paid attention all right, they did everything they could to ensure they didn't get sent to serve there.