Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
USA Today
November 12, 2007
Pg. 1
Report pushes $195M fix for processing evidence in Iraq
By Richard Willing, USA Today
WASHINGTON — The military could save troops' lives and taxpayer money by improving how it gathers and analyzes DNA samples and fingerprints from captured weapons, equipment and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Pentagon report says.
The Defense Department needs to spend $195 million over the next two years to overhaul and centralize its CSI-style forensic science program, the report recommended.
Iris scans and DNA samples from detainees and fingerprints from captured cellphones and improvised explosive devices are "among the most valuable data" the military has for "tracking and targeting" the enemy, says John Young, the Pentagon's research and engineering director, in the September report.
The programs, which began in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2004, are "exorbitantly expensive" and "duplicative," the report says.
The military spends $400,000 annually each on about three dozen civilian contractors who staff the military's crime labs. The report recommends creating a "forensics academy" in the Defense Department to cut costs and train its own specialists.
The forensic science report was prepared after about 100 military and civilian scientists met in August at Fort Gillem in Georgia. The group found that technicians must produce intelligence for the military and analyze evidence for prosecutors. Priorities sometimes clash, the report says, citing a dispute over a captured cellphone in Iraq as an example. Criminal investigators wanted labs to lift fingerprints to pursue a prosecution. Intelligence officers wanted the phone's call records to identify relationships among insurgents.
The group's report proposes:
*Placing forensics programs run by the Army, Navy, Defense Intelligence Agency and others under a central Pentagon office.
*Opening four new labs in Iraq and Afghanistan, and developing a database to match DNA samples from 30,000 detainees tested each year to people and evidence seized in combat zones.
*Performing DNA analysis at the military's Rockville, Md., lab that can track relatives of detainees through a genetic profile.
*Enabling users of other government databases — fingerprint, iris scan and DNA — to access one another's databases.
*Hiring more specialists to lift fingerprints from bomb fragments and to collect telephone numbers and text messages from electronic devices seized on the battlefield.
Thomas Dee, the Pentagon's director of defense biometrics, said in an interview that the military has created a team to study how to implement some of the recommendations.
November 12, 2007
Pg. 1
Report pushes $195M fix for processing evidence in Iraq
By Richard Willing, USA Today
WASHINGTON — The military could save troops' lives and taxpayer money by improving how it gathers and analyzes DNA samples and fingerprints from captured weapons, equipment and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Pentagon report says.
The Defense Department needs to spend $195 million over the next two years to overhaul and centralize its CSI-style forensic science program, the report recommended.
Iris scans and DNA samples from detainees and fingerprints from captured cellphones and improvised explosive devices are "among the most valuable data" the military has for "tracking and targeting" the enemy, says John Young, the Pentagon's research and engineering director, in the September report.
The programs, which began in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2004, are "exorbitantly expensive" and "duplicative," the report says.
The military spends $400,000 annually each on about three dozen civilian contractors who staff the military's crime labs. The report recommends creating a "forensics academy" in the Defense Department to cut costs and train its own specialists.
The forensic science report was prepared after about 100 military and civilian scientists met in August at Fort Gillem in Georgia. The group found that technicians must produce intelligence for the military and analyze evidence for prosecutors. Priorities sometimes clash, the report says, citing a dispute over a captured cellphone in Iraq as an example. Criminal investigators wanted labs to lift fingerprints to pursue a prosecution. Intelligence officers wanted the phone's call records to identify relationships among insurgents.
The group's report proposes:
*Placing forensics programs run by the Army, Navy, Defense Intelligence Agency and others under a central Pentagon office.
*Opening four new labs in Iraq and Afghanistan, and developing a database to match DNA samples from 30,000 detainees tested each year to people and evidence seized in combat zones.
*Performing DNA analysis at the military's Rockville, Md., lab that can track relatives of detainees through a genetic profile.
*Enabling users of other government databases — fingerprint, iris scan and DNA — to access one another's databases.
*Hiring more specialists to lift fingerprints from bomb fragments and to collect telephone numbers and text messages from electronic devices seized on the battlefield.
Thomas Dee, the Pentagon's director of defense biometrics, said in an interview that the military has created a team to study how to implement some of the recommendations.