U.S. Central Command has responded to The Anniston Star's requests for information on alleged security and intelligence failures at the base in the late 1990s, 15 months after the requests were made.
For nearly all of the requests, the answer was the same: No documents responsive to the request were found.
CentCom's Freedom of Information Act office had 20 days to respond to The Star's October, 2002, requests. By September of 2003, most of the requests still were unanswered.
The FOIA officer handling the requests, Master Sgt. Gregory McCullough, has said his office had been struggling with a backlog of requests. The Star's requests were the oldest pending at CentCom, he has said.
Dennis Bailey, an attorney for the Alabama Press Association, said such long delays are common for federal agencies like the military.
"It is almost the rule that federal agencies do not respond in a timely fashion to FOIA requests," Bailey said. "And it is also the rule that they will have removed documents that should not have been removed under any FOIA exception."
The Department of Defense is granted several exceptions to open-records law. It can withhold any information deemed capable of compromising national security.
The newspaper's FOIA requests were based on a 1999 internal military investigation. The investigation, which was obtained by The Star through intelligence sources close to the case, showed that members of the senior leadership had several mid-level officers removed shortly after they discovered a string of problems on base.
Those problems took place in CentCom's Intelligence Directorate, which is responsible for overseeing U.S. military intelligence in more than two dozen countries in the Middle East and southwest Asia. They included:
About 67 Army Reserve positions (more than two-thirds of the total needed in the directorate) were not assigned. As many as 100 answering machines with a remote-monitoring function were installed throughout the highly sensitive areas of the directorate and went unnoticed for about a year. CentCom's branch of active-duty satellite imagery analysts was half-empty of staff, a finding that some intelligence officers said may help explain the inability to pinpoint weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.The intelligence officers who made the discoveries, Navy Capt. Chris Koury, of Weaver, Navy Cmdr. Rita Syzymanski, of Nebraska, and Army Sgt. First Class Doraine Dorman, of Virginia, allege that they were removed in retaliation for bringing the problems to light.
The senior leaders responsible for the officers' removal were CentCom's former director of intelligence, Army Gen. Keith Alexander, and two subordinates, former Air Force Col. Stanley Silverman, now retired from active duty, and a division chief, John Ward, who is currently in charge of resources in the Intelligence Directorate.
They have repeatedly refused comment on the allegations against them, referring The Star to the base public affairs office, which also has repeatedly refused comment.
The Star made a total of 15 requests for information on CentCom's 1999 internal investigation and alleged reprisals. The requests asked for information on everything from alleged complaints against the senior leadership to copies of internal e-mails to money spent on renovations to the intelligence area.
CentCom's FOIA office did release some records showing money spent on the intelligence area.
When requests are delayed or denied, federal law provides a specific procedure to follow, Alabama Press Association attorney Bailey said.
"If you don't get what you need in a timely fashion, you can take that agency to federal court."
