http://www.dtic.mil/defenselink/locator/records/000212.html
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Title:
HARMONY : HARMONY
Originator:
Department of Defense
Office of the Secretary of Defense
Defense Information System Agency
Simulation and Assessment (D8)
Access Constraints: None. Approved for Public Release
Use Constraints: None
Abstract: Tool for managing document collection and translation resources; eliminating duplication in collection and translation efforts; analyzing foreign document marking systems; identifying available foreign source technical and military documents; and reporting document acquisitions within the community and to foreign exploitation partners.
Agency Program: The DoD is in the process of establishing a simplified baseline of the best, common information systems across the business functions of the Department. These migration systems represent a stage of process improvement designed at achieving a common set of automated processes and practices in DoD.
Local Subject Terms:
migration system
US Federal GILS
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Availability
Distributor Name: Defense Information System Agency
Distributor Organization: Simulation and Assessment (D8)
Distributor Street Address: Virginia Square, 6th Floor, 3701 N. Fairfax Drive
Distributor City: Arlington
Distributor State: VA
Distributor Zip Code: 22203
Distributor Country: USA
Distributor Telephone: 703-696-1819
Distributor Fax: 703-696-1963
Distributor Order Process: Call the DIST help desk (703-760-0303)
Available Time Period: Business Hours EST
Point of Contact
(For further information)
ContactName: SCOTT LAWRENCE
Contact Organization: VGS INC.
ContactStreetAddress: 8301 Greensboro Drive, Suite 600
Contact City: McLean
Contact State: VA
Contact Zip Code: 22901-5396
Contact Country: USA
Contact Telephone: 804-980-7749
Contact Fax: 804-980-7407
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Sources of Data: Office of the Secretary of Defense : Defense Information System Agency : Simulation and Assessment (D8)
Record Source: Defense Integration Support Tools
Date of Last Modification: Wed Jul 17 16:00:00 EDT 1996
Supplemental Information
Schedule Number: Pending
Control Identifier: DOD-DIST000212
Record Type: Automated Information System
SNIP
I DON'T REMEMBER when I first heard about the project in Doha, Qatar, but I do remember that I was very interested in learning more about it. The effort, led by Central Command with assistance from the Defense Intelligence Agency, is reviewing the detritus of the former Iraqi regime: videotapes, photographs, and many, many documents. One aspect of the effort is something called "Doc-Ex," short for document exploitation. Several intelligence analysts, together with several dozen translators, most of them from Jordan, are sifting through millions of pages of documents unearthed in Iraq after the toppling of the regime.
SNIP
Working outside formal Pentagon lines of inquiry, I soon learned more. Many of the documents from Doha had been entered into a database known as HARMONY. HARMONY is a thick stew of reports and findings from a variety of intelligence agencies and military units, and alongside the Iraqi documents were reports from contributing U.S. agencies. Eventually, I got a list of document titles that seemed particularly interesting:
1. Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) Correspondence to Iraq Embassy in the Philippines and Iraq MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
2. Possible al Qaeda Terror Members in Iraq
3. IIS report on Taliban-Iraq Connections Claims
4. Money Transfers from Iraq to Afghanistan
5. IIS Agent in Bulgaria
6. Iraqi Intel report on Kurdish Activities: Mention of Kurdish Report on al Qaeda--reference to al Qaeda presence in Salman Pak
7. IIS report about the relationship between IIS and the Kurdish Group Jalal Talibani [sic]
8. Iraqi Mukhabarat Structure
9. Locations of Weapons/Ammunition Storage (with map)
10. Iraqi Effort to Cooperate with Saudi Opposition Groups and Individuals
11. Order from Saddam to present $25,000 to Palestinian Suicide Bombers Families
12. IIS reports from Embassy in Paris: Plan to Influence French Stance on U.N. Security Council
13. IIS Importing and Hiding High Tech Computers in Violation of UN
14. IIS request to move persons, documents to private residences
15. Formulas and information about Iraq's Chemical Weapons Agents
16. Denial and Deception of WMD and Killing of POWs
17. 1987 orders by Hussein to use chemical weapons in the Ealisan Basin
18. Ricin research and improvement
19. Personnel file of Saad Mohammad Abd Hammadi al Deliemi
20. Memo from the Arab Liaison Committee: With a list of personnel in need of official documents
21. Fedayeen Saddam Responds to IIS regarding rumors of citizens aiding Afghanistan
22. Document from Uday Hussein regarding Taliban activity
23. Improvised Explosive Devices Plan
24. IIS reports on How French Campaigns are Financed
25. French and German relationships with Iraq
26. IIS reports about Russian Companies--News articles and potential IIS agents
27. IIS plan for 2000 of Europe's Influence of Iraq Strategy
28. IIS plans to infiltrate countries and collect information to help remove sanctions
29. Correspondence from IIS and the stations in Europe
30. Contract for satellite pictures between Russia, France and Iraq: Pictures of Neighboring Countries (Dec. 2002)
31. Chemical Gear for Fedayeen Saddam 32. Memo from the IIS to Hide Information from a U.N. Inspection team (1997)
33. Chemical Agent Purchase Orders (Dec. 2001)
34. Iraq Ministry of Defense Calls for Investigation into why documents related to WMD were found by UN inspection team
35. Correspondence between various Iraq organizations giving instructions to hide chemicals and equipment
36. Correspondence from IIS to MIC regarding information gathered by foreign intelligence satellites on WMD (Dec. 2002)
37. Correspondence from IIS to Iraqi Embassy in Malaysia
38. Cleaning chemical suits and how to hide chemicals
39. IIS plan of what to do during UNSCOM inspections (1996)
40. Secret Meeting with Taliban Group Member and Iraqi Government (Nov. 2000) There are thousands of similar documents. Most of them are unclassified. That's important: Most of them are unclassified.
Because I'd been told that these documents are all unclassified, I requested copies from the Pentagon press office. For reasons I still do not entirely understand, the Pentagon would not provide them. Captain Roxie Merritt, the director of Pentagon press operations, suggested I file a Freedom of Information Act request. I did so on June 19, 2005. Two weeks later I received a letter from the Pentagon's Office of Freedom of Information and Security Review.
The information you requested is under the cognizance of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). We have referred your request to them at the address provided below requesting they respond directly to you. Defense Intelligence Agency Attn: SVI-1, Room E4-234 Washington, DC 20340-5100
On July 22, 2005, I emailed Captain Merritt in the Pentagon public affairs office. Captain Merritt was then--and remained throughout the process--gracious and professional. I got the feeling she was being as helpful as the bureaucracy would allow her to be.
She wrote:
DIA FOIA has confirmed they have your request. Here is the challenge as they described it to me. "This is not a simple request. . . . There are multiple agencies/ organizations involved. It isn't as though the documents are laying around in a neat pile waiting for someone to ask for them. The most logical place for the requested documents to be is in a database known as HARMONY. INSCOM (NGIC) is the program manager (owner) of HARMONY, but as they are quick to point out, "anyone" can enter items into the database, so they do not consider themselves the "owner" of the information in the database. Whoever input the information into HARMONY is the release authority of that information and you can't determine who that is until you find the requested documents. For the 44 requested documents, you're talking mega-hours of searching. Of course, the documents may not even be in HARMONY, which would require searching elsewhere (our FOIA folks are looking into that as well). Our FOIA monitor is talking with INSCOM to determine the most efficient way of retrieving the requested documents."
I didn't understand it either.
For weeks I heard nothing. So on August 23, 2005, I emailed Captain Merritt again. She responded quickly.
Steve, Had my folks check. . . . DIA referred the request to Army's INSCOM which does FOIA on behalf of NGIC . . . the owner of HARMONY. I asked if they had advised you of the referral . . . they had not, but will do so. In early September I received a letter from the DIA.
This responds to your request under the Freedom of Information Act dated 19 June 2005. Therein you requested from the Department of Defense 43 documents. Your request was referred to the Defense Intelligence Agency on 1 July 2005 and assigned case number 0622-05. The thrill of having been assigned a DIA case number was short-lived. I learned in the next paragraph that the DIA was no longer handling the request.
These documents are under the purview of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command and your request has been forwarded to that organization for processing and direct response to you. On September 14, 2005, I emailed Captain Merritt and asked for a contact name at INSCOM. She tasked a subordinate to get back to me. That never happened.
Then, two weeks later, I received a letter dated September 20, 2005. It came from the FOIA office of the Army's Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Meade, Maryland. Once again, I had gotten a case number. And once again the case number was meaningless.
Since additional time is needed to search for records at another element of our command, we are unable to comply with the statutory 20-day time limit in processing your request. Therefore, you may consider this an administrative denial of your request . . . And so I did.
SNIP