Global Voices Online » Russia: War Reporter Blogs on Trauma and Politics of the Subway Attacks

Posted By Veronica Khokhlova On 2010-04-06

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Flowers at Park Kultury subway station in Moscow - April 3, 2010 (image by Veronica Khokhlova)

Olga Allenova (LJ user allenova) is a special correspondent for the Kommersant daily, author of Chechnya is Close: War Through the Eyes of a Woman ^[2] (RUS), a collection of the 1999-2007 war reportage from Russia's North Caucasus region. In the blog post ^[3] (RUS) translated below, she writes about the March 29 subway bombings in Moscow ^[4] and the 2004 Beslan school siege ^[5], the subsequent pain and trauma, and the resulting political and media responses.

Today a friend of mine […] suddenly told me that she had been [avoiding subway and taking buses and other means of land public transportation] to work this whole past week. She works at [Kolomenskaya ^[6] subway station], and lives at [Rechnoy Vokzal ^[7]]. It takes her only 40 minutes to get from home to work. But since Tuesday, she's been leaving home two hours earlier - at 6 AM, that is - to be at the office by 9 AM.

I didn't get what she meant right away. That is, I could guess she was stressed out, like many other Muscovites, as a result of [last Monday's subway blasts]. But I didn't know her condition was that serious. And when I asked her why she was so sure something similar couldn't happen on [a bus], she started crying. And I suddenly realized that I had just told her a very cruel thing. The imaginary safety of land transportation was keeping her afloat, allowed her to continue going to work, to somehow plan her life. And now she was sobbing, saying this: “I can't live! I can't live! I can't descend into the subway! I can't look at the people!” And now I could understand her. I was in a similar state in 2004, in and after Beslan. Everything that used to give my life a sense of some universal justice had collapsed then. I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat or go out into the street. In front of my eyes stood black plastic bags, and the black women screaming above them. It's impossible to express this, the words that I'm writing now seem absurd. Even now I have a lump in my throat. I don't even remember how I got out of that. Many hours, weeks, I'd been talking to all kinds of people, friends, a priest, my husband, colleagues. It was then that I decided I wouldn't be seeing psychologists - they aren't of much help. They are just doing their job, staying outside - outside your pain.

Then a year passed, and I went to Beslan again. And again, there was this terrible hurt, and these symbols - white balloons over the school, white birds over the cemetery, an old woman saying tender words to a dove that chose to sit on her granddaughter's grave, children's faces on the cold gravestones, their teddy bears, their chocolates and cola. I'm a strong person, I know that. I've seen a lot in my 33 years. War, dirt, terrorist acts, corpses that no longer looked like people. I know that I've survived all that. But I know that deep inside I still haven't recovered from Beslan. I don't like to talk about it. I try not to think about it. Because when I do, I sob from despair, from fear. I sob because I still haven't understood why it happened. I sob the way my friend did today. She's just scared. There are many people like her now. People are scared to go inside subway. They are scared of women in headscarves, even though many of these women are Moscow natives. They are scared of their own fear. Fear is an enemy that destroys a person from within. If you are scared and you give up, the fear will take full hold of you. When I'm scared to go to the Caucasus, I realize that if I give in to fear and don't go once, I'll stop going there altogether - and I'll end up stuck at home, behind the closed doors, and I'll be scared even to pick up a phone. I know people to whom this happened.

I don't understand why they aren't discussing this problem on TV. Why there are no psychologists who would talk in prime time to people about the problems that are bothering them a lot. Not every person would agree to see a psychologist. Not everyone understands that it's a disease that requires treatment.

They'd tell me - what TV discussions do you expect when on the day of the attacks they didn't even air special newscasts on TV. I live in this country, so I'm not surprised. A year after Beslan, exactly on the anniversary, Moscow was celebrating its birthday. And when I wrote a text about it, outraged readers responded to me: “What, do you want us to forget our own birthdays, anniversaries, weddings?” My friend, by the way, was also celebrating her birthday on that day. And now she is sobbing from fear. It's just that at that time it all seemed too distant. And now it's very close. […] And I'm not surprised by how the federal channels were covering the subway attacks. If you remember Nord-Ost [theater hostage crisis of 2002 ^[8]] and the live broadcasts on [NTV ^[9]] - and what they did to NTV afterwards - it becomes clear that no live broadcasts are possible in this country under this regime. I'm not gonna get hysterical and scream about why the officials aren't showing me the truth - the way Beslan mothers did at one point. I simply despise this regime. I don't see them as authorities. For me, they are a cowardly bunch of people who couldn't even get out of the Beslan airport, but were sitting there, in the hastily set up headquarters (just in case, so that they could get out if the terrorists suddenly besiege the whole city) - at the time when the children were being shot at by tanks and grenade launchers. These same cowardly people were trying to convince the citizens whose relatives were taken hostage in the besieged Nord-Ost [theater]: “Colleagues! Calm down! All the terrorists are waiting for is for you to hold a rally on Red Square! We won't allow this!” A quote from [Valentina Matvienko ^[10]]. They, of course, couldn't allow such a blow to their image. A rally against the war in Chechnya, and right on Red Square. Against the sacred and on the sacred.

I don't expect anything from these people. I even understand why they disliked the publications in the media claiming that the Moscow attacks were acts of revenge for the Caucasus. [Boris Gryzlov] is very displeased with hearing all the time about the regime's cowardliness. And about the mistakes they had committed but wouldn't admit to. […]

But - again - this isn't what I wanted to say. I wanted to say that people need help. Professional psychological help as well as simple moral support from [family and friends]. If you have a friend who is scare to take subway, talk to him about it. Help him. Maybe you'll save him from trouble. We can only rely on ourselves, on our dear ones, on fellow citizens. Because there's no one else in this country that we can rely on.

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Article printed from Global Voices Online: http://globalvoicesonline.org

URL to article: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/04/06/russia-war-reporter-blogs-on-trauma-and-politics-of-the-subway-attacks/

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: http://globalvoicesonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/park-kultury.jpg

[2] Chechnya is Close: War Through the Eyes of a Woman: http://www.kommersant.ru/Library/books-authors.aspx?AuthorID=51

[3] the blog post: http://allenova.livejournal.com/3340.html

[4] the March 29 subway bombings in Moscow: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/04/05/russia-reflections-on-the-subway-bombings-and-politics/

[5] the 2004 Beslan school siege: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis

[6] Kolomenskaya: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolomenskaya_%28Metro%29

[7] Rechnoy Vokzal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechnoy_Vokzal_%28Moscow_Metro%29

[8] theater hostage crisis of 2002: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis

[9] NTV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTV_%28Russia%29

[10] Valentina Matvienko: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentina_Matviyenko

For Moscow's Ethnic Minorities, A Fresh Sense Of Fear - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Moscow's Muslim community is concerned about an increase in racist attacks.

April 01, 2010

By Brian Whitmore

In the aftermath of this week's twin suicide bombings in Moscow, Uzlipat Gebekova is very careful about what she wears in public.

A resident of Makhachkala, the capital of the North Caucasus republic of Daghestan, Gebekova is living in Moscow temporarily while she studies jewelry-making. And she doesn't want anybody associating her with the two female suicide bombers who wore long black skirts to cover the explosive belts they detonated on the Moscow Metro, killing 39 Monday-morning commuters.

"The situation is very dangerous for us," Gebekova says. "Wearing a head scarf is a risk. I think even wearing a skirt would be dangerous. It's best just to wear trousers. To come here [to Moscow] now -- whether for business, education, or medical treatment -- is dangerous."

Life in Moscow is never easy for ethnic minorities, particularly people from the Caucasus. They are routinely subjected to discrimination, harassment, attacks, and humiliating document checks by police. But their situation gets even worse when terrorism strikes, returning the public focus to Russia's long-simmering conflict in the North Caucasus, and heightening resentment between ethnic Slavs and other city residents.

The Moscow-based Sova Center, which monitors racially motivated attacks, has recorded assaults on five members of ethnic minorities in three separate incidents since the March 29 attacks. Among those attacked were three females, including a 17-year-old Armenian girl and two Muslim women who were wearing head scarves.

For them, it doesn't matter where in the Caucasus somebody is from.

The Sova Center's deputy director, Galina Kozhevnikova, says the number of actual attacks is undoubtedly much higher, since minorities are often afraid to report such attacks and police are reluctant to investigate them.

"We know that many people who don't have a Slavic appearance have consciously avoided going out in public in the days following the attack. They are afraid of attacks," Kozhevnikova says.

Stress, Fear, And Grief

Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov has claimed responsibility for the March 29 suicide bombings in a video posted on the Internet and said attacks on Russia would continue.

And with Moscow bracing for possible follow-up attacks, some politicians are making pointed statements that it is time for the government to take the gloves off and deal harshly with those responsible for plotting and carrying out terrorist attacks.

In remarks reported by the website gzt.ru, State Duma Deputy Aleksandr Gurov claimed that concerns over political correctness were preventing the authorities from dealing with terrorism effectively. "How much can we play with this so-called tolerance?" he said.

But tolerance is the last thing ethnic minorities are experiencing, according to Abdullah Duduyev, editor of the Chechen-language magazine "Dosh."

Duduyev says he and other Chechens in Moscow are "saddened by what happened," adding that those who perished in the blasts were "innocent people." He adds that "now it is the Chechens who will suffer, as they always do" in the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

"Attitudes toward us have gotten worse," Duduyev says. "When two Muslim women were beaten in the metro, not a single person in the crowded wagon stuck up for them. This shows the mood of society. Stress, fear, and grief are visible on people's faces. It is impossible to hide the aggression people feel toward outsiders."

The twin suicide bombings killed 39 people

Central Asians living in the Russian capital are also fearful. "The atmosphere for our compatriots in Moscow is depressing. People are afraid and are going out less. We canceled a meeting two days ago due to security concerns," says Abdullo Davlatov, a leading member of Moscow's Tajik migrant community. "Police are checking documents more, but we have not yet had any complaints about attacks by nationalists or skinheads."

Outhouses And Sewers

Aleksandr Verkhovsky, director of the Sova Center, says the rhetoric used by the authorities has contributed to the climate of fear among minorities. This includes recent remarks by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who pledged on March 30 to "drag" terrorists "from the depths of the sewer." The comments were an echo of his notorious pledge in 1999 to "wipe out" terrorists while they were sitting "in the outhouse."

Verkhovsky says that instead of such provocative phrases, Putin should be using language that unites society.

"So this time the prime minister isn't going to wipe out terrorists in the outhouse. Instead he is going to get them in the sewer," Verkhovsky says. "Of course you need to go after the terrorists, but this over-the-top rhetoric is destructive. It encourages negative emotions. This is the prime minister speaking, not some common citizen talking in the kitchen."

Initially, Russian officials said they were focusing on the North Caucasus, where Moscow has been battling separatists for nearly two decades, to find those involved with the recent attacks. But Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the National Security Council, suggested that Georgian involvement in the attacks "could not be excluded."

Russia and Georgia fought a bitter five-day war in August 2008 and relations between the two neighbors remain tense. The Georgian government -- which immediately condemned the attacks, offered condolences to the victims, and said it was prepared to assist in any investigation -- denied Patrushev's claim.

Johny Karatskhelia, president of Lazare, a Moscow-based Georgian community organization, says Patrushev's remark shows that all people from the Caucasus living in Moscow are under suspicion -- and therefore in danger.

"For them, it doesn't matter where in the Caucasus somebody is from. They don't make a distinction between a Chechen, an Ingush, a Georgian, or an Abkhaz," Karatskhelia says. "All Georgians and all people from the Caucasus are afraid of what will happen next."

RFE/RL's North Caucasus, Russian, Tajik, Georgian, and Echo of the Caucasus services contributed to this report

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CQ - Behind the Lines, Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Image via Wikipedia

By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

Three dead in Juarez: "The most imminent and certainly dangerous war threatening Americans today finally made its way home" . . . Department of reasonable questions: Could parachute-wearing bears sniff out Osama bin Laden? Just ask the Pentagon . . . OK, everyone strip: O'Hare TSA chief predicts all boarding airline passengers will eventually be required to undergo a full-body scan. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.

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“The most imminent and certainly dangerous war threatening Americans today finally made its way home,” Conchita Sarnoff writes in The Huffington Post, characterizing the gunning down of U.S. consulate officials in Juarez last weekend. The escalating drug cartel conflict sparks fear amongst Americans living in the Rio Grande Valley who have relatives just across the border or worry about spillover violence, The Brownsville Herald’s Ildefonso Ortiz surveys — while The Texas Tribune’s Brandi Grissom has Gov. Rick Perry activating a secret spillover contingency plan and seeking federal reinforcements, which request was brushed off by DHS’s Janet Napolitano, The Dallas Morning News’ Todd J. Gillman adds.

Homies: Napolitano also announced yesterday that DHS will halt new work on the so-called virtual border fence, diverting $50 million in planned economic stimulus funds for the project to other purposes, The Washington Post’s Spencer Hsu reports. President Obama’s vow to double U.S. exports over the next five years would create more work for ICE, the enforcer on intellectual property theft and sensitive technology controls, top cop John Morton, reminds Homeland Security Today’s Mickey McCarter. “The quality of Obama’s nominees to head the TSA has been so poor that even a normally compliant Senate is refusing to roll over and accept his picks,” James Corum chides in The Daily Telegraph.

Feds: A House homeland hearing slated for today relies upon “witnesses sympathetic to Islamist extremist organizations here in America,” IPT News complains. Following a federal air marshal case, Congress is moving to give whistle-blowers better safeguards against retaliation, USA Today’s Peter Eisler reports. Obama probably will veto legislation authorizing the next intel budget if it mandates a new probe of the 2001 anthrax attacks, Bloomberg’s Jeff Bliss relates — while the Post’s David Ignatius sees the outsourcing of counterterror ops highlighting “some big problems that have developed in the murky area between military and intelligence activities.” New internal e-mail messages suggest his superiors had reason to suspend the Fort Hood shooter’s training, and perhaps re-evaluate his suitability as a military physician, but failed to do so, The Washington Times’ Rowan Scarborough recounts.

State and local: “The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency misspent nearly $18 million in Hurricane Katrina reconstruction grants, federal auditors say, and they want the money back with interest,” The Jackson Clarion-Ledger leads. Local South Carolina officials dislike an amendment to a state bill allowing public access to EMS records that would withhold first responders’ names, The Columbia State recounts. The Pentagon “established the U.S. Cyber Command in 2009 based on the theory that the next war will be waged on the information superhighway [and] the bulk of that defense will be based in western Anne Arundel County,” The Annapolis (Md.) Capital crows. The Edwardsville Fire Department’s chief will step down next month to become Illinois’ first“Fire Service Intelligence Officer” on the State Terrorism Task Force, St. Louis’ KMOX Radio notes.

Follow the money: A Danish court has convicted a left-wing group’s spokesman of violating terror laws by raising funds for Marxist rebels in Colombia and Palestinian militants, The Copenhagen Post reports. Saudi Arabia has warned citizens to be wary of Web and cell phone scams involving bogus charities possibly aimed at funding terrorism, Agence France-Presse relates. In Afghanistan, “Islamic terrorists have partnered with tribe-based drug gangs to produce most of the world’s heroin. This sort of thing is nothing new,” The Strategy Page surveys. “Terrorism and militancy are being deliberately fanned to destabilize the Indian economy,” which is at the threshold of a double digit growth, Indian Express hears the home minister maintaining. An Islamist-linked Somali bizman who may have pocketed ransom bucks intended for kidnapped French aid workers was a contractor for U.N. agencies, Reuters reports.

Bugs ‘n bombs: A Florida theater student was arrested earlier this month after discovery in his car of fake dynamite, a prop project for school, prompted the evacuation of a multiplex theater, The Ocala Star-Banner reports. Taliban commanders have claimed that homemade bombs in Afghanistan are now being salted with anthrax, though there is as yet no evidence of this, Britain’s Sunday Express says. “Before we start building reactors we need to address another urgent matter. We need to make current reactors secure,” Charles S. Faddis advises in a CNN op-ed. “The slow, dull work of keeping nuclear warheads and weapons-grade uranium and plutonium protected from terrorists goes on almost unnoticed,” The Washington Post leads.

Coming and going: The Association of American Railroads has named TSA’s acting general manager of mass transit as its assistant VP for security, Progressive Railroading reports. “A visit to the driver’s license office has always been a little slice of hell. Now it’s gotten even worse,” The South Florida Sun Sentinel summarizes in re: new Real ID-friendly licensing rules. With the population of foreign citizens in Texas prisons at an all-time high and a state budget crisis looming, the idea of deporting some of them is getting another look, The Austin American-Statesman spotlights. The number and scope of pirate attacks is increasing worldwide and could trigger more joint military operations to keep shipping lanes safe, Reuters quotes a top NATO official.

Close air support: The debut of full-body scanners at O’Hare International on Monday was marked by two American Muslim groups asserting that they violate Islamic law, The Christian Science Monitor spotlights — while The Chicago Tribune has that airport’s TSA chief predicting that all boarding airline passengers will eventually be required to get virtually naked. “General aviation poses no more of a threat than any other vehicle such as a car or truck and indeed, perhaps is less of a threat,” an op-ed in The Officer soothes. The future of airport customs security could be a German company’s e-passport equipped with an AMOLED display, CNET News notes — while the Tribune, again, reports United Airlines shifting to paperless boarding passes.

Terror tech: “Could parachute-wearing bears sniff out Osama bin Laden? That’s one suggestion the Pentagon has received,” Stars and Stripes notes in a feature on tactical advice volunteered by concerned citizens. “The Internet grew 20 percent uglier last year, with terrorists and racists increasingly turning to social media sites . . . and targeting children,” FOX News relays from the “2010 Digital Hate Report.” In recent Senate testimony, an anthropologist urged the feds “to engage social scientists more directly in open, peer-reviewed studies of terrorism, rather than relying on clandestine intelligence and anti-terrorism technology,” Science Insider informs. Spotting a terrorist by reading his mind sounds like science fiction, but a University of Dayton researcher tells the Daily News technology exists for detecting brain wave patterns indicating an intent to do harm.

Gadgetronica: An Israeli start-up has developed a “potentially game-changing” surveillance camera that can both monitor a panoramic field and zoom in on details, Israel 21c spotlights. Spearheaded by DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate, an app called Cell-All aims to equip your cell phone with a sensor capable of detecting deadly chemicals at minimal cost, National Terror Alert spotlights — while The Somerville (N.J.) Courier-News profiles an iPhone app that would allow users to alert the authorities when they see potentially terroristic suspicious activity. Crowd-image analysis advances by the University of Reading’s Computational Vision Group, highlighting unusual behavior in crowds, would be ideal for securing events like the 2012 Olympic Games, Info4Security informs.

Courts and rights: A key figure in the ongoing U.S. investigation connected with the November 2008 Mumbai terror assault plans to plead guilty in Chicago this week, The Southtown Star says. An organized theft case allegedly linked to terrorism in the Middle East devolved into a racketeering case with the word “terrorism”seldom heard during sentencing, St. Louis’ KMOX Radio, again, reports. In what would be bad news for the struggling towns surrounding Illinois’ Thomson prison, possible host of a mainland terror detention center, studies suggest “prisons have done little to change the economic realities of rural communities,” The Christian Science Monitor mentions. Two of seven suspects arrested in connection with an alleged Swedish cartoonist plot have been charged in Ireland, BBC News notes.

Over there: The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan successfully lobbied for a ban on ammonium nitrate fertilizer, a common ingredient for homemade explosives, though it could be smuggled in easily enough, Danger Room discusses. Last summer, the Taliban’s Mullah Omar issued a new ethics code for Taliban fighters, but those moral guidelines are being ignored by some fighters, another CSM item recounts. A South Africa-Israel standoff continues over Johannesburg’s concern that El Al’s security operations were run by Shin Bet spooks, The Cape Argus updates. Pakistan’s annual National Games, scheduled in Peshawar this month, have been postponed because of security concerns, The Dawn hears the country’s National Olympic Committee ruling.

Spring forward and die: Citing a ‘mistake of Biblical proportions,’ the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is reporting that the famous Doomsday Clock, which measures how close humanity is to annihilation, was accidentally moved one hour forward this past weekend during the Daylight Savings Time change,” CAP News notes. “As a result, it is now 12:54am and it looks like we’re goners. ‘It appears the janitor at our doomsday offices changed the time on the microwave and the clock hanging in the lobby like he was supposed to, but he should have known not to touch the clock above the mantel, I mean, there’s a sign right below it that says Doomsday Clock — Don’t Touch’ said BAS spokesperson Dr. Philip Schnell. ‘I know it’s not good, but you’ll be happy to know that we did discipline him,’ added Schnell. ‘We docked his pay an hour and sent him home early.’ ” See also, at Glossy News: “Doomsday Clock Sold on eBay to Anonymous Bidder.”

Source: CQ Homeland Security

For Intelligence Officers, A Wiki Way to Connect Dots - washingtonpost.com

Image via Wikipedia

By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 27, 2009

Intellipedia, the intelligence community's version of Wikipedia, hummed in the aftermath of the Iranian presidential election in June, with personnel at myriad government agencies updating a page dedicated to tracking the disputed results.

Similarly, a page established in November immediately after the terrorist attack in Mumbai provided intelligence analysts with a better understandinsg of the scope of the incident, as well as a forum to speculate on possible perpetrators.

"There were a number of things posted that were ahead of what was being reported in the press," said Sean Dennehy, a CIA officer who helped establish the site.

Intellipedia is a collaborative online intelligence repository, and it runs counter to traditional reluctance in the intelligence community to the sharing of classified information. Indeed, it still meets with formidable resistance from many quarters of the 16 agencies that have access to the system.

But the site, which is available only to users with proper government clearance, has grown markedly since its formal launch in 2006 and now averages more than 15,000 edits per day. It's home to 900,000 pages and 100,000 user accounts.

"About everything that happens of significance, there's an Intellipedia page on," Dennehy said.

Intellipedia sprung from a 2004 paper by CIA employee Calvin Andrus titled "The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community."

Dennehy listened to a presentation by Andrus and recalled the skepticism among colleagues about adapting Wikipedia to the intelligence community. He shared their skepticism. "But something he said interested me enough to look into it further," Dennehy said.

Context was also a factor. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, intelligence agencies had come under intense criticism for failing to pull together disparate strands of information pointing to the possibility of a major incident.

"We were all doing it in stovepipes," Dennehy said.

Dennehy described 9/11 not so much as a catalyst but as a selling point to explain how Intellipedia could help collate information. "Cal used 9/11 as a backdrop," said Dennehy. "It was really more about what was happening on the Web."

In 2005, Dennehy was given the job of leading the effort and persuading the intelligence community to use it, a task likened to "promoting vegetarianism in Texas" by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group devoted to improving the federal government.

Cultural resistance to Intellipedia includes concerns that foreign intelligence agents could hack into the system. Many intelligence officers, particularly of the older generation, simply do not trust it.

"There isn't any one agency that is more or less prone to use it. It's really a product of individuals," said Don Burke, a fellow CIA officer who helps promote the Intellipedia initiative.

Burke said Intellipedia remains largely the province of early adopters. While some pages are robust and balanced, he added, "there are other pages that leave a lot to be desired, to put it bluntly."

A CIA officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of his work, said Intellipedia "makes it very real-time. You can move down the road fast and focus on catching bad guys. We can really bring our expertise right to the war without leaving our desks."

Intellipedia, which uses the same software as Wikipedia, operates on three levels: an unclassified version, a secret version and a top-secret version. Beyond that, there are "bread crumbs" that could lead a user with proper clearance to additional information offline, Burke said.

Burke said that beyond major incidents such as the Mumbai attack, the biggest advantage is in connecting users seeking information on small, obscure subjects, something he described as "a thousand small wins a day."

Burke and Dennehy have been chosen as finalists for the 2009 Service to America Medals, sponsored by the Partnership for Public Service. The recipients of the medals, which are awarded in eight areas of public service, will be announced next month.

Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, described Intellipedia as an important post-Sept. 11 reform, but one that did not involve a major bureaucratic shake-up, as with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

"It's the kind of work we need to see more out of government," Stier said. "They're connecting the dots without rearranging the deck chairs."

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