In the lead up to the Iraq War, the Bush Administration gathered more than 100,000 immigration records.

The details remain murky on this effort, but it involved at least two programs: Operation Darkening Clouds, run by the FBI, and Operation Liberty Shield, which was run by the Department of Homeland Security.

There is not much information available on Operation Darkening Clouds.

In fact, the New York Civil Liberties Union sued the FBI on June 24 for improperly withholding information about it.

There is one reference to Operation Darkening Clouds in a Department of Homeland Security document that the NYCLU obtained after it was released to Yale law students in response to their Freedom of Information Act request.

That document, entitled “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services/Fraud Detection and National Security Unit Automated Systems,” mentions the two operations in the following paragraph:

“During the pre-invasion of Iraq, FDNS [Fraud Detection and National Security] personnel pulled together over 130,000 immigration records which were the cornerstone for Operation Darkening Clouds (FBI) and Operation Liberty Shield (DHS).”

Last year, the New York Civil Liberties Union submitted its own Freedom of Information Act seeking additional documents on Operation Darkening Clouds.

The FBI refused to cough any up.

“The existence or nonexistence of Operation Darkening Cloud(s) is classified,” the FBI told the group.

The single document on Operation Darkening Clouds does contain some other startling
revelations.

First, it alleges that radical Muslim clergy were infiltrating the country.

“”The Religious Worker or R nonimmigrant visa is commonly misused by radical fundamentalist clergy to immigrate to the United States in furtherance of proselytizing and fundraising that amounts to material support,” it stated. “Lead information developed out of Guantanamo reveals a particular mosque to be of interest, and the resulting immigration database sweep identifies eight ‘clergy’ that entered the United States through that mosque and are now subject to full field investigation.”

Second, it alleges that a hostile nation infiltrated students into Midwestern universities to gather intelligence and urged them to change majors so they could be more helpful in that nation’s “prohibited nuclear arms program.”

Students “at three different universities” switched their majors in this fashion, and the U.S. government made “a successful pitch to two of those students to assist the USG in exchange for permanent resident alien status in the U.S.”

These revelations did not pertain to Operation Darkening Clouds itself but were contained in the same document that mentioned it.

About Operation Liberty Shield, there is more information.

It lasted one month.

The White House announced it on March 17, 2003.

The fact sheet outlined numerous steps the Executive Branch was taking, including detaining asylum applicants “from nations where Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda sympathizers, and other terrorist groups are known to have operated,” and holding them “for the duration of the processing period.”

But what is perhaps most notable about this document is its date, which just so happened to be two days before Bush launched the Iraq War, and the paragraph pertaining to that.

It states: “In order to advise members of the Iraqi community of the FBI’s responsibilities in protecting them from hate crimes, and to elicit information that may be useful to the U.S. Government in the event of hostilities in Iraq, the FBI, working with the Department of State and immigrant officials, has identified a number of Iraqi-born individuals in the U.S. that may be invited to participate in voluntary interviews.”

The phrase, “in the event of hostilities,” is particularly striking, as is the polite invitation for Iraqi citizens to participate in “voluntary” interviews.

How many Iraqis got called in for such interviews I do not know.

On April 17, 2003, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had terminated Operation Liberty Shield.