Secrecy News Blog:  http://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/


**     CIA WILL PLACE ITS CREST DATABASE ONLINE
**     HUMAN FACTORS IN VERIFYING WARHEAD DISMANTLEMENT
**     TREATMENT OF CHEMICAL WARFARE CASUALTIES


CIA WILL PLACE ITS CREST DATABASE ONLINE

The Central Intelligence Agency said this week that it will post its database of declassified CIA documents online, making them broadly accessible to all interested users.

The database, known as CREST (for CIA Records Search Tool), contains more than 11 million pages of historical Agency records that have already been declassified and approved for public release.

Currently, however, CREST can only be accessed through computer terminals at the National Archives in College Park, MD. This geographic restriction on availability has been a source of frustration and bafflement to researchers ever since the digital collection was established in 2000. (See CIA's CREST Leaves Cavity in Public Domain, Secrecy News, April 6, 2009; Inside the CIA's (Sort of) Secret Document Stash, Mother Jones, April 3, 2009).

But that is finally going to change.

The entire contents of the CREST system will be transferred to the CIA website, said CIA spokesperson Ryan Trapani on Tuesday.

"When loaded on the website they will be full-text searchable and have the same features currently available on the CREST system at NARA," he said.

CIA was not able to provide a date for completion of the transfer, but "we are moving out on the plan to make the transition," Mr. Trapani said.

In the meantime, "The CREST database housed at NARA will remain up and running at least until the website is fully functioning," he said.


HUMAN FACTORS IN VERIFYING WARHEAD DISMANTLEMENT

Arms control agreements that envision the verified dismantlement of nuclear weapons require the availability of suitable technology to perform the verification. But they also depend on the good faith of the participants and a shared sense of confidence in the integrity of the verification process.

An exercise in demonstrated warhead dismantlement showed that such confidence could be easily disrupted. The exercise, sponsored by the United States and the United Kingdom in 2010 and 2011, was described in a recent paper by Los Alamos scientists. See Review of the U.S.-U.K. Warhead Monitored Dismantlement Exercise by Danielle Kristin Hauck and Iain Russell, Los Alamos National Laboratory, August 4, 2016.

Participants played the roles of the host nation, whose weapons were to be dismantled, and of the monitoring nation, whose representatives were there to verify dismantlement. Confusion and friction soon developed because "the host and monitoring parties had different expectations," the authors reported.

"The monitoring party did not expect to justify its reasons for performing certain authentication tasks or to justify its rationale for recommending whether a piece of equipment should or should not be used in the monitoring regime. However, the host party expected to have an equal stake in authentication activities, in part because improperly handled authentication activities could result in wrongful non-verification of the treaty."

"Attempts by the host team to be involved in the authentication activities, and requests for justifications of monitoring party decisions felt intrusive and controlling. Monitoring party rebuffs to the host team reduced the host's confidence in the sincerity of the monitoring party for cooperative monitoring."

What emerged is that verified dismantlement of nuclear weapons is not simply a technical problem, though it is also that.


TREATMENT OF CHEMICAL WARFARE CASUALTIES

"Chemical warfare agents remain a significant and continuing threat to military forces," according to a newly updated manual jointly issued by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

Islamic State fighters in Iraq set fire to a chemical factory south of Mosul, Pentagon spokesmen said last week, generating a cloud of sulfur dioxide that passed over a U.S. base in the region. ("Islamic State Burns Sulfur Stocks Near Mosul, Creating Hazard for Troops, Locals," Wall Street Journal, October 22.)

"Sulfur dioxide is injurious to the eyes and to the respiratory tract, where it acts primarily as a central pulmonary toxicant at low to moderate doses, but may also exhibit peripheral effects (pulmonary edema) at high doses," explained the newly released manual, which also discussed protection, diagnosis and treatment for SO2 exposure. See Multi-Service Tactics, Techniques and Procedures for Treatment of Chemical Warfare Agent Casualties and Conventional Military Chemical Injuries, ATP 4-02.85, August 2016.

Another new Pentagon publication described the role of the role of the U.S. military in responding to, and mitigating, the effects of unconventional weapons and hazardous materials, whether induced deliberately or accidentally. See Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Response, Joint Publication 3-41, September 9, 2016.