WARgrams released: How NSA used Iraq War as springboard for global intel gathering

Wednesday, September 7, 2016
By Paul Martin

RT.com
7 Sep, 2016

Newly published documents from the beginning of the Iraq invasion reveal how the NSA used the “war on terror” to develop its global intelligence capabilities and strengthen the surveillance network exposed by Edward Snowden.

The information was revealed in a series of documents dating back to 2003-2004, referred to as WARgrams. This was essentially a series of newsletter-style communiqués distributed to a vast number of NSA employees by the agency’s former director, Michael Hayden. These short messages, which number close to 70, contain colorful (when not redacted) descriptions of the NSA’s plans to insert itself into the Iraq war effort. The revelation was made by VICE’s Motherboard, which obtained the documents through an FOI request from back in 2008.

The documents were published online on Tuesday.

While earlier communiqués deal explicitly with improving communications and information safety on the Iraq battlefield, later WARgrams look toward expanding the agency’s grasp globally, with Al Qaeda as the established boogyman.

The objective of the WARgrams, according to Hayden, was to achieve “unprecedented degrees of cooperation” in US intelligence. They were “designed to keep us all ‘in the loop’ with the latest developments during the campaign,” he wrote.

In one document, Hayden writes: “We will become a pervasive and integral part of the fight.” In others – namely 7, 8, and 9 – the former director describes insertion of NSA agents into the midst of the military as a “force multiplier.” Some documents allude to the agency’s use of encryption technologies to relay battlefield communications.

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