Obama administration blocks Washington Times FOIA request on Syria chemical weapons

The Obama administration is blocking The Washington Times from obtaining detailed information about Syria’s extensive chemical weapons arsenal, which was used to kill thousands of innocents and changed the course of the country’s savage 4-year-old civil war.

Critics within advocacy groups, and within the journalism establishment, have lambasted the administration for its slow, or lack of, responses to Freedom of Information Act requests. Yet in 2009, President Obama pledged to run the most transparent administration in US history and told FOIA administrators to err on the side of releasing data, The Washington Times reported on Monday.

The Times has been turned down in its requests under FOIA with the Defense Department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The agency led the Obama administration’s mission, along with international groups, to remove and destroy Syria’s stocks of ricin, sarin, mustard gas, hydrochloric acid and other components in 2014. It compiled extensive intelligence on what was one of the world’s largest stockpiles.

The Times is interested in the history of Syria’s elaborate chemical weapons industry. It wants to know the role of any third parties, such as rogue scientists or other countries, in producing and/or acquiring chemical weapons components and weaponizing them in bombs and artillery shells.

The Times first asked the Pentagon to provide detailed information on what components were removed. The Pentagon referred questions to the UN-supported Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which launched a joint mission to oversee the Syria operation.

The Times asked the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for information about the history of the arsenal. A spokesman replied that as a matter of practice it does not provide such details. The organization did post on its website a series of “progress reports” as the removal proceeded.

The Times’ first FOIA request to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency asked for any and all information it possessed stemming from its removal work. The request was denied as being too general.

The Times first said it was “requesting all documents related to the Defense Department’s collection and disposal of Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons. The Times is interested in an inventory of each component and its origins. A list of each component, the size or number, and from where they came, either domestically produced inside Syria or imported from another country, if from another country.”

After being told the request was too broad, The Times narrowed it to this: “The Washington Times is asking the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to provide any reports — created by DTRA’s team in charge of disposing of Syria’s chemical weapons components and submitted to DTRA headquarters — that contain information on the components handled and their origin, be it Syria or from a third party or country to Syria. I assume DTRA’s team must have filed reports on its mission, to include the types and amounts of chemical weapons components removed from Syria.”

The agency again responded with a denial. But this time, it acknowledged it had some applicable information. It cited a US law that allows it to withhold “certain sensitive information of foreign governments and international organizations.”

Source: MENA