This article originally appears in The American Thinker
If anyone ever thought the war between the White House and the CIA boiled down to some kind of senseless, meaningless bureaucratic squabble with no real consequences for the future of our security, think again.
The partisanship, the ideological conflicts, the personality clashes, the arrogance, and the turf wars that have marked the last 5 years of bureaucratic wrangling between the two sides has now poisoned the relationship between the White House and our intelligence agencies to the point that neither trusts the other. What this means is really quite simple: As we try and figure out the best way to confront Iran, our government is hopelessly divided.
While policy makers and intelligence analysts square off over threat assessments regarding Iran and the mullah’s intentions, the distrust exhibited by both sides has spilled over into the public arena and threatens to paralyze our ability to respond to the regional challenge of Iran and the global challenges inherent in their support for terrorism:
Some senior Bush administration officials and top Republican lawmakers are voicing anger that American spy agencies have not issued more ominous warnings about the threats that they say Iran presents to the United States.The complaints, expressed privately in recent weeks, surfaced in a Congressional report about Iran released Wednesday. They echo the tensions that divided the administration and the Central Intelligence Agency during the prelude to the war in Iraq.
The criticisms reflect the views of some officials inside the White House and the Pentagon who advocated going to war with Iraq and now are pressing for confronting Iran directly over its nuclear program and ties to terrorism, say officials with knowledge of the debate.
There is plenty of fault to go around for this state of affairs. Some blame must be ascribed to the institutional myopia of our intelligence agencies that punishes “thinking outside the box” and rocking the boat. With so much emphasis placed on consensus building, it is tempting to dismiss intelligence that doesn’t fit the mold created by the necessity of having to satisfy so many interests – State, Defense, and the White House. This leads to maddening generalities and overly cautious assessments that to many in the Administration is simply unacceptable:
The new report, from the House Intelligence Committee, led by Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, portrayed Iran as a growing threat and criticized American spy agencies for cautious assessments about Iran’s weapons programs. “Intelligence community managers and analysts must provide their best analytical judgments about Iranian W.M.D. programs and not shy away from provocative conclusions or bury disagreements in consensus assessments,†the report said, using the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction like nuclear arms.Some policy makers also said they were displeased that American spy agencies were playing down intelligence reports — including some from the Israeli government — of extensive contacts recently between Hezbollah and members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. “The people in the community are unwilling to make judgment calls and don’t know how to link anything together,†one senior United States official said.
Part of the problem is certainly the Bush Administration’s belief in vending machine intelligence analysis; put a request for information into the slot and out come the answers. That may be a gross oversimplification but it is clear that there are some in the White House who believe that the CIA should be doing a much better job. In a sense, one can sympathize with the quandary our policy makers are facing. The stakes are so high that making policy decisions based on what they feel is inadequate intelligence is simply unacceptable.
In the case of Iran, they may not have much of a choice:
Several intelligence officials said that American spy agencies had made assessments in recent weeks that despite established ties between Iran and Hezbollah and a well-documented history of Iran arming the organization, there was no credible evidence to suggest either that Iran ordered the Hezbollah raid that touched off the recent fighting or that Iran was directly controlling attacks against Israel.“There are no provable signs of Iranian direction on the ground,†said one intelligence official in Washington. “Nobody should think that Hezbollah is a remote-controlled entity.†American military assessments have broadly echoed this view, say people who maintain close ties to military intelligence officers.
“Does Iran profit from all of this? Yes,†said Gen. Wayne A. Downing Jr., the retired former commander of the Special Operations Command and a White House counterterrorism adviser during President Bush’s first term. “But is Iran pulling the strings? The guys I’m talking to say, ‘no.’ â€
It is difficult to gauge how much of an independent operator Nasrallah actually is. The Hezb’allah leader definitely has his own agenda both as it relates to Lebanese domestic politics and Hezb’allah’s future as a political and military force in the region. It is not surprising that our intelligence agencies cannot find a smoking gun regarding Iran’s involvement in Nasrallah’s decision to attack the Israeli patrol on July 12th that precipitated the war. That’s because it is open to question whether Nasrallah himself knew about any such attack in advance. At the very least, he may have authorized an attack if any of the several Hezb’allah outposts on the border saw an opportunity to take Israeli prisoners. But it may be a bit of a stretch to say that he ordered the specific attack.
This uncertainty about Hezb’allah and their relationship to Iran is one thing. Trying to divine Iranian intentions as well as estimate the progress of their nuclear program is quite another. Last summer’s leak of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran discussed the probability that Iran was perhaps a decade away from being able to construct a nuclear device. There was also criticism of the NIE’s inability to say with any certainty that Iran was in fact seeking nuclear weapons in the first place. To many in the White House, the NIE appeared to be more bureaucratic CYA rather than any attempt to honestly give policy makers the information they felt they needed to counter the perceived threat from Iran.
While the Israelis believe the mullahs are now less than 3 years away from having the ability to construct a nuclear weapon, many arms control experts in this country point to the daunting technical challenges that Iran has yet to prove it can overcome in order to build a bomb anytime soon.
Who’s right and who’s wrong? Do we follow Dick Cheney’s “One Percent” scenario where if there is a 1% chance of a terrible threat we take action? Or do we take a more cautious approach and work to prevent the mullahs from making a bomb by building up international pressure through sanctions and consensus? Do we go for regime change? Do we try and talk directly to the Iranians?
The answers to these questions require cooperation and trust between those who have been elected by the people and charged with the awesome responsibility of protecting us from threats like Iran and those whose job it is to analyze and report on those threats to policymakers.
But the dysfunctional nature of the relationship between the White House and our intelligence agencies has eroded that trust over the last 5 years until it appears that cooperation is almost an impossibility. Certainly 9/11 had much to do with the initial problems between the two sides. It was only made worse by the errors made by both sides in the lead up to the liberation of Iraq. And the clear partisanship exhibited by some in the intelligence community whose leaks during the 2004 campaign, designed to bring down the Bush Administration, led eventually to the White House pushing back in the Plame Affair probably destroyed the relationship between policymakers and advisors beyond repair.
To say that this state of affairs is unacceptable is a given. One almost wants to knock the principle’s heads together and tell them to get over their differences and cooperate, so serious are the issues raised by Iranian meddling and the threat of Iranian nukes. But the paralysis that is apparently gripping our intelligence agencies – burned on 9/11, burned Iraq WMD - and policy makers that prevents them from working together to protect us needs to be addressed somehow.
Whether anything can be salvaged from this relationship before January 20, 2009 could spell the difference between living in a safer world or a more dangerous world for many years to come.
9:56 am
Rick: Hi, good post, as usual, but I have some “insight” I’d like to add.
I want to make clear, I am NOT saying I ever worked FOR the CIA; because I never did work FOR them.
But, in my previous life, I did in fact, work a lot WITH the CIA, and I was a major consumer of their products, and had access to a lot of their stuff.
Why is that important?
Because, the fact is, from the mid-1980’s, up until the Bush Administration, it was the CIA’s Official Position, that Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and some other countries, were in a MAJOR and unending quest, to develop, buy, steal, or whatever, WMD’s!
I literally read, THOUSANDS of messages, studies, analysis, etc., concerning all those countries, and their WMD programs.
ALL written as an absolute CERTITUDE! No dissension, no “alternative” views, etc. etc.
Anyone remember the “Rabta” complex in Libya?
The CIA was pushing that all thru the 80’s – 90’s!
In fact, the CIA’s WMD drumbeat, which continually led us analysts, working in other “arenas” to constantly jump thru hoops, to “prove” their accusations to our bosses; and I can tell you, CATEGORICALLY; that the CIA’s reporting on the WMD programs on those countries, nearly sparked a half dozen or more armed conflicts, wars, interventions, etc., just based upon their reporting, during the late 80’s – 90’s!
And let me tell you, us “independent” analysts, used to make a living, off of DISPROVING a lot of the CIA Bullshit they were cramming down the throats of unsuspecting, and totally believing policy makers at the National, Operational, and Tactical levels!
As soon as they would release something new, on WMD’s in Syria, or Libya, we’d immediately set out to Disprove it, and we were more often correct, and they were most often wrong!
But that didn’t stop them from continuing to publish!
So, the FIRST time, I EVER heard that the CIA didn’t believe that there was WMD’s in Iraq, was when the Bush Administration wanted to go to war with Iraq, and went to war with Iraq!
Because for the previous 20+years, we were regaled with stories on a yearly basis of their latest attempts to buy Uranium or yellowcake from Africa; the shipments to Iraq, the missles, the warheads, the VX, the Sarin, the Crop Dusters being used for poison areosals, etc., etc., etc.
So for the 20 years, the CIA had been brainwashing the entire US Intel Community, into thinking that Iraq was WMD Nirvana!
And now, the first time I’ve EVER heard, that Iran was not the second coming of WMD Nirvana, is now, from the CIA, because they think the Bush Administration is preparing to go to War against Iran!
So, to me, it’s only patentedly obvious: the CIA is at war, with the Bush Administration; they could give a damn about their previous 20+ years of WMD analysis in the region; this is pure, old-fashion, politics on the CIA’s part; and the fact of the matter is, the CIA needs to be dismantled, or shut down, and we need to start over.
It is a Bureaucratic, hidebound, anti-American entity, that has outlived it’s usefulness, and has proven it cannot be trusted.
I could tell you other stories, that would turn your hair white; but they’d look me up, and put me in jail; so this will suffice.
10:28 am
What an interesting post, Dale.
At the same time, we had Sheuer and Pillar, etc. claiming terrorism was no threat to us.And not noticing that Pakistan had nuclear weapons and Libya was about to have them.
Good thing DoD still has its own intel operation.
11:44 am
yes, very interesting comment. in fact, we know that iraq did attempt to purchase yellowcake from niger, we did find yellowcake in iraq, we did find a serial production missle factory producing missles with a range beyond that allowed, they did have a program to manufacture VX and SARIN. so what’s your point.
as to iran, is there a direct connection to hizballah, did nasrallah know? well nasralla said he told the lebanese government of the operation to attack israel prior to the attack. plenty of made in iran weapons were found, iran is resupplying them as we speak, hizballah was directed by nasrallah from the iranian embassy in beirut. so what’s your poing.
12:25 pm
Japate: my point was, and maybe I didn’t explain it clearly enough; yes, all that stuff in your first paragraph was true! And the CIA was the one that said it was true, for 20+ years; and suddenly, when Bush invaded Iraq, it was NO longer true! According to them, they knew there was no WMD in Iraq, even though for 20years, they’d been telling everyone there WAS WMD there!
Then, when no WMD’s were found; they abandoned the sinking ship like rats, and suddenly started their MSM “leak” campaign, claiming all along, that they knew there was NO WMD in Iraq, but that the Bush Administration “cherry picked” the Intel, and all that crap; and that IS my point; they’re liars, and fabricators, and political CYA animals, intent on politically damaging a President, instead of admitting one of two things:
1) either all their 20+ year Pre-War Iraqi WMD “intel” was BS; or…
2) Iraq had in fact, Destroyed all their WMD’s between the Gulf War and the Iraq War, and they MISSED it….or
3) Iraq still had it, but moved it over to Syria/Iran/Lebanon via Spetznaz or whatever,......or
4) Some combination of the above,......or
5) Some of it is still there, and has been hidden, or just plain ignored, or misinterpreted, like the cyclosarins that were found buried all over the country by US Troops, and immediately dismissed as “pesticides” by Duelfer and his totally incompetent ISG…..or…
6) Whatever….
But instead of doing that, they sought to immediately distance themselves from ANY Pre-WAR WMD’s in Iraq claims, and make it all look like Bush/Cheney/Pentagon/DOD’s fault, which is total BS….
Sorry, I don’t understand your second paragraph; I never mentioned Nasrallah nor Lebanon??
2:44 pm
Dale, Clarice,
For what it’s worth, I know from personal experience that the operations directorate was scouring the world for WMD programs in the 1980s, including activities of allied countries. Some programs were discovered and others were “discouraged”.
2:46 pm
Dale,
I recall reading that wherever the Marines tested surface water in Iraq for drinkability they got high levels of “pesticide residues”. This was back in 2003, and I immediately thought that this must be from hurriedly buried nerve agents, since the agricultural sector in Saddam’s Iraq was not prolific.
3:00 pm
Donkatu: you are correct on both accounts; and as I’ve posted here before, read this eye-opening account.
Even the MSM before they became Anti-War, were reporting that right after US Troops reached Baghdad, it was an opening and running “joke”, not to drink any of the water out of the T-E river running thru Baghdad, because the level of “chemicals” dumped in it, was so high, it’d probably kill you!
CNN or someone, even had it tested, and it was steaming cesspool of precursor type chemicals….
But, that’s all “disappeared” from the MSM memory banks, now that it’s de riqeur to be anti-War and more important, anti-Bush…
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1110254/posts
3:26 pm
PS: here’s another one for you!
I was in Northern Iraq in the spring of 1991.
The Iraqis hated us being there, helping the Kurds, but they couldn’t do anything about it.
That didn’t keep them from “planning” attacks on us. They made a run a me, once or twice, probably to get the Kurdish Pershmerga guide I was with, most of the time.
They got him with a car bomb, some months after I left the country.
Anyway, when I was “in country”; we picked up, DEFINITE “Intel” that the Iraqis were contemplating a “chemical” attack upon us, using a CROP DUSTER airplane!
What/who does that sound like…..............??
Go do a little research of what was on Zachariah Mousaoui’s Computer, when the FBI had him in custody, BEFORE 9/11…...and wouldn’t search his computer, due to Jamie Gorleck and others….
Hmmmmmmm, and 9/11 and the Iraqis are/were NOT related????
As soon as it became open knowledge after 9/11, that Mousaoui was in custody, and what was on his computer, I immediately contacted people I knew on the “inside”, and passed along that bit of “Intel”, as a reminder!
People thought it was “interesting”, but no one wanted to contemplate at that time, that Iraq was actually involved; Al Qaeda made the better “bogey man”!
Me, I need no further convincing, frankly! That, and Atta’s trip to Spain.
I’m still up in the air about the Czech-possible meet, but don’t rule it out; but there was also the Malaysian meet as well!
But let me draw a “picture” for you:
It’s a FACT, acknowledged by the MSN back then, and in fact, pursued vigorously by them back then, that KSM, the planner of the WTC bombing in ‘93, had Iraqi backing/funding/logistical help, for that attack.
That’s a FACT.
KSM, and his relatives, including Ramzi Yousef, accepted/sought out the help of the Iraqis for that, and got it.
Then, KSM and his family, so-called “Baloochis”, from Kuwait, but in reality, Pakistanis, after WTC ‘93, got gobbled up by UBL/Al Qaeda; and Ramzi Yousef quite frankly told his FBI handlers, when they flew him past the WTC when he got arrested and flown back to the US by the FBI, that basically we’ll get it next time.
Meanwhile, if you’re reading all the good translation stuff Capt. Ed is doing over at Capt’s Quarters, you’ll see there is no doubt, while KSM is forging his ties with Al Qaeda, UBL was moving from Sudan, which had a relationship with Iraq, to Afghanistan, and the Iraqi Secret Service was sucking up to the Taliban, and Al Qaeda. Hecks, even the Clinton Administration/Berger et.al, were pushing it like crazy; that the Iraqis were the power behind the “Chemical†plants in Khartoum that Clinton fired the TLAMs at! And in the Clinton Administration’s legal filings of the time, they repeatedly linked the Iraqis and Al Qaeda/UBL.
Regardless, so IF KSM used Iraqi help on the WTC bombing, and the Iraqis were helping Al Qaeda in Sudan with their Chemical/WMD program (according to the Clinton Administration); and the Iraqis were sucking up to the Taliban and Al Qaeda when UBL moved to Afghanistan, as the Documents over at Capt Ed’s CLEARLY show; then my rhetorical question to you is: IF the Iraqis where that involved, all along, why the heck would they suddenly ‘back out”, and NOT be involved, in some manner (Intel, support, logistics, money, ideas, etc.) with 9/11, when they had already cooperated been involved, from all aspects, since the WTC???
Does that make sense to you??
To use an archaeology term:
Absence of Evidence is NOT Evidence of Absence…..
But if you ask the MSM, there’s no Iraqi involvement with 9/11, because Saddam was a “secular†Muslim, and UBL is a Sunni Wahhabi! (That’s totally not true, Saddam was not “secularâ€, and UBL is not a “Wahhabiâ€, he’s a Salafiyyah/Qutbiyyah; but that’s another post from me, to you all, some other time….)
So, since the “experts†in the MSM think that “secular†Muslims wouldn’t cooperate with “Sunnisâ€; ask them to explain the Sunni Hamas cooperating with the Shia Hezbollah over the past 10 years, over in Gaza/West Bank/Lebanon, and most recently on display last month and this with the Israel/Hezbollah war????
4:18 pm
Dale,
Unfortunately, Bush-hatred must blind many to what is in front of their faces. For the life of me I never understood the absolute lack of interest by the MSM in the “pesticide residue” findings. You would think that some one out there would be interested in a Pulitzer for the story. As for the ISG, I assume that this is a part of the deep illness of incompetence and political interference that has overtaken the CIA, with hacks like Larry Johnson and Michael Scheuer representing the cream of the recent crop of clowns.
FWIW, it always seemed to me that Ramzy Yousef and KSM were probably phony people invented by Saddam’s intelligence service, once they got hold of the embassies in Kuwait in 1990, with their stocks of passports. I would be surpursed if there were not more of these Kuwait-created Baluchis running around with AQ.
4:20 pm
correction, even if I were really Donkatsu, I would know how to spell “surprised.”
5:34 pm
Ok, a couple of issues here.
First, the primary problem between the current administration and the IC is political meddling by policy people into intelligence. It’s pretty clear from the press reporting that if the current administration doesn’t like a particular conclusion, they will send it back to have it looked at again. One way this has a negative effect is that intelligence collection assets are specifically tasked to look for information that might support the so-called “alternative analysis†put forth by the policy maker. I don’t want to get into the weeds here, but if you focus collection assets on finding evidence for a particular point of view, then the chance is great that you will find it. What you won’t find is evidence that would contradict that view, so the data becomes skewed toward the policy position even though that may not reflect reality. Intelligence professionals are trained to avoid this pitfall, policy people are not.
To explain it another way, we have limited collection assets. If we have a room full of doors we only have the capability to open some of them to see what information they might contain. The essence of the dispute here is that the policy makers are telling the intelligence professionals which doors to open, and they’re doing it to support their own biases and in contravention of established social science principals to not only reduce bias, but also to ensure a wide range of data to make accurate judgments. As an analogy, its akin to the hospital administrator telling the doctors in the ER how to diagnose a patient.
For a more eloquent explanation, I’d turn to Paul Pillar who is a respected former CIA analyst. His interview here is very enlightening:
http://www.cfr.org/publication/10097/intelligence_policy_and_the_war_in_iraq_rush_transcript_federal_news_service_inc.html
And his article in Foreign Affairs is a must read:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85202/paul-r-pillar/intelligence-policy-and-the-war-in-iraq.html
This isn’t to say there are not problems in the IC itself, but I see the interference of non-intelligence professionals into the intelligence process as the main concern. In that kind of environment, it’s difficult for analysts to make accurate judgments. This isn’t new with this group of leaders, in fact. Consider the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile threat in 1998. http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/bm-threat.htm Look at the list of participants and read the executive summary for their main conclusions, most of which I feel are bogus. This commission was created in response to the 1995 NIE which stated that any other country besides Russia and China were 15 years away from the ability to strike America with a ballistic missile. Several prominent republicans (Gingrich, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz to name three) thought the estimate was flawed, so the commission was born. Well, we’re now 11 years since the NIE came out and its assessment looks pretty good so far. The commission’s assessment of 5 years has come and gone and it’s not like Iran, North Korea or anyone else has slowed or stopped their missile programs.
So that is a concrete example of where policy people who disagree, for whatever reason, with the intelligence inject themselves into the process, make their own assessments, and then pursue policy based on their own assessments. The 1995 NIE that produced that estimate was based on the available intelligence which was analyzed not only by intelligence professionals, but also by actual rocket scientists who know the science and what it takes to design, build and deploy a ballistic missile. No one on the Rumsfeld commission had professional intelligence experience, nor were they experts in the science, and their conclusions certainly showed their ignorance.
This type of meddling continues today and it is a sad state of affairs indeed.
Donkatsu,
The water-pesticide thing was wrong. The detection equipment our forces are issued for that kind of thing are notorious for false positives and are really designed so a grunt can check if an area might be contaminated. Determining if the chemicals present were WMD related takes sample collection and basic lab analysis. To my knowledge, the ISG sampled most of these areas, sent them back to the WMD analysis experts and they were determined not to have come from WMD.
Also, the agricultural sector was not as non-prolific as you state. The Iraqis had several crop-dusting aircraft that we kept a close watch on because they could be used to deploy certain kinds of chem and bio weapons. It’s also pretty well known (and obvious) that crop dusters make good dispersal vehicles, so it’s no surprise that AQ was looking into them. What it does not indicate is that Iraq and AQ were somehow associated in that regard, and furthermore, there is no evidence at all to support that they were.
8:22 pm
Andy: I know a little about collections, etc.; been there, done that; and I don’t know where you are getting your information, but the scenario you outline in paragraph one, I have NEVER seen happen, that is a NEVER. And I’d challenge anyone, who says that they saw “collecton assets” tasked by “policy” makers, to prove a negative point!
Paul Pillar is NOT a respected CIA analyst; Paul Pillar is a leftist partisan hack, not far removed from the Larry Johnson, Scheuer anti-Bush Administration cabal!
IF you think he’s respected “analyst”, and you take what he says as gospel, then it betrays you’re own biases.
The water-pesticide thing was NOT false, and the Agricultural sector was MORE than robust; again, I have no idea where you are getting your information!
I will remind you, I WAS IN IRAQ; in addition; I spent major time with several dozen of the best WMD experts, that the US Military had to offer; and let me tell you; their conclusions were completely opposite the politically tinged and corrupt ISG, both in the Gulf War, and in this, the Iraq War; knowning what I know about both groups; I trust the Military guys hands down.
Well, actally, there is evidence, to suggest that AQ and Iraq, were connected, in many ways, and the whole crop duster thing, is one of those pieces of evidence, that undoubtedly indicate an Iraqi Intelligence connection to AQ.
Occam’s RAzor applies; and I repeat: Absence of Evidence, is NOT Evidence of Absence!!
8:31 pm
Dale,
I second what you have said about tasking of collection assets. I know nothing more than any interested citizen about the water-pesticide findings, but the similarity of the chemical precursors and the similarity in manufacturing makes me suspicious about the consistent findings of our soldiers and marines.
Also, I think that the culinary institute had an agenda that was consistently hostile to Bush, and that this tainted even normal analytical work. Let’s face it Scheuer could not have published his nonsense without high level suppport and clearance, and has any book ever gone through the vetting process as fast as Mikey’s? One final thing, the Plame-Wilson-Niger business reeked of a third-rate black op, a blue on blue one. I suspect if we did not have a war on now the institute would be gutted and rebooted.
9:23 pm
WHITE HOUSE PROBLEMS WITH THE CIA
Rick Moran, over at right wing nut house, posts a compelling commentary on the problems between the White House and the CIA. As noted before, flaws with intelligence on Iraq makes the nation a little gun shy when dealing with
11:48 pm
Dale,
I’ve been there done that too, but I don’t want to get into an argument over who has more experience, because it really doesn’t matter.
Pushing through additional collection was only one of the things that happened. You could even say that Joe Wilson was a result as he was basically an open source collector sent to gather information. Whatever you may think or whatever your experience, policy people do have an effect on and can direct collections. Intelligence is subordinate to policy, which makes it hard for intelligence to be independent. Now, were policy people, for example, tasking a specific satellite to take a specific picture at a specific time of a specific target? Of course not. But policy has a huge influence on the overall collection plan which is what I was talking about.
As for Paul Pillar, I disagree with your assessment of him. Here’s a quote from the interview:
In short, the rhetoric that we have heard more recently from the administration, including President Bush’s eloquent second inaugural address about democratization, I believe is sincere and honest with regard to the major reasons and major motivations.
Yeah, that sounds like a left-leaning partisan Bush-hating political hack to me. He certainly isn’t a right-winger, and he is critical of the Bush administration in many areas, but your characterization is completely unfair. His criticisms of the administration are pretty accurate as are his criticisms of the intelligence community.
I will remind you, I WAS IN IRAQ; in addition; I spent major time with several dozen of the best WMD experts, that the US Military had to offer; and let me tell you; their conclusions were completely opposite the politically tinged and corrupt ISG, both in the Gulf War, and in this, the Iraq War; knowning what I know about both groups; I trust the Military guys hands down.
Politically tinged and corrupt ISG? That is a load of hooey. It may surprise you to know that many people in the ISG were, and remain, in the military, including three I know personally. These were no tinged and corrupt hacks. These conspiracy theories circulating about how the ISG ignored or hid evidence of WMD are ludicrous.
I’d be interested in know what unit the “several dozen†experts you were with in Iraq. I’m betting they were part of a CBRNE defense unit in which case they only have the most basic tools and expertise to identify and categorize WMD. How many of them had degrees in chemistry or biology? How many had PhD’s in chemistry or biology and have spent their careers studying WMD? The ISG military and civilian people I know all have doctorates and have done WMD research their whole careers. But they’re “politically tinged†and “corrupt†so when they found evidence of WMD, the just ignored it because they hate Bush. Or maybe they altered the test results – or maybe both. All the kool-aid has made me dizzy and I forget.
You misread my comment on agriculture, but I used a poorly worded double-negative so it’s understandable (I said “not non-prolificâ€). I agree that Iraq had a very robust agricultural chemical production capability. They used agricultural chemicals extensively for agricultural purposes. And yes, it did serve as a partial cover for their chem program. But again, that does not prove there were, or are, weapons in the country.
Well, actally, there is evidence, to suggest that AQ and Iraq, were connected, in many ways, and the whole crop duster thing, is one of those pieces of evidence, that undoubtedly indicate an Iraqi Intelligence connection to AQ.
Ok, you have a lot in this sentence; let me go through it one at a time. First, yes there is evidence to suggest that AQ and Iraq had some kind of limited connection. No, the whole crop-duster thing is not evidence of that. Just because Iraq had crop-dusters that had the potential to carry chems and AQ expressed interest in using crop-dusters, among other methods, to possibly deliver chems, does not mean that those two pieces of information are “undoubtedly†related! Until you produce some piece of evidence that the two were working together on crop-dusting, then you’re full of shit. That kind of logic is the worst kind of crap imaginable. That’s like saying the IRA used car bombs, and AQ used car bombs – OMG, they must be working together on car-bomb technology!
Since you’re a “been there, done that†kind of intel guy whose been trained to evaluate information, I’m sure you’re familiar with these concepts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disconfirmation_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_correlation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myside_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring
And here’s the big one, which we are all guilty of at one time or another:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_blind_spot
Finally, I see you ignored everything I said on the ballistic missile NIE in 1995.
PS: If you want a less “politicized†article than Pillars in the policy-analyst relationship, read this:
https://www.cia.gov/csi/kent_csi/docs/v02n2p.htm
Donkatsu,
I suspect if we did not have a war on now the institute would be gutted and rebooted.
Actually, that is pretty much happening now. Almost all of the CIA’s analysis functions are in the process of being moved under the new DNI organization. The CIA will, essentially, become a HUMINT collection agency, but even the DoD is muscling in on that action.
Actually, I don’t know why Rick and the rest of you keep talking like the CIA like it was still the lead agency in the IC – it is not.
PPS: For the record, I’ve been a pretty consistent supporter of the war, but for different reason than the administration advertised it as. It’s clear in hindsight that we would have had to take out Saddam sooner or later. When we did was as good a time as any. It’s just too bad that the post-overthrow preparation and planning was so hideously sloppy, and ignored ample warnings of what would come with rosy predictions. I guess that’s what happens when policy trumps, ignores, and thinks it knows analysis better than intelligence.
11:49 pm
Dale,
I’ve been there done that too, but I don’t want to get into an argument over who has more experience, because it really doesn’t matter.
Pushing through additional collection was only one of the things that happened. You could even say that Joe Wilson was a result as he was basically an open source collector sent to gather information. Whatever you may think or whatever your experience, policy people do have an effect on and can direct collections. Intelligence is subordinate to policy, which makes it hard for intelligence to be independent. Now, were policy people, for example, tasking a specific satellite to take a specific picture at a specific time of a specific target? Of course not. But policy has a huge influence on the overall collection plan which is what I was talking about.
As for Paul Pillar, I disagree with your assessment of him. Here’s a quote from the interview:
In short, the rhetoric that we have heard more recently from the administration, including President Bush’s eloquent second inaugural address about democratization, I believe is sincere and honest with regard to the major reasons and major motivations.
Yeah, that sounds like a left-leaning partisan Bush-hating political hack to me. He certainly isn’t a right-winger, and he is critical of the Bush administration in many areas, but your characterization is completely unfair. His criticisms of the administration are pretty accurate as are his criticisms of the intelligence community.
I will remind you, I WAS IN IRAQ; in addition; I spent major time with several dozen of the best WMD experts, that the US Military had to offer; and let me tell you; their conclusions were completely opposite the politically tinged and corrupt ISG, both in the Gulf War, and in this, the Iraq War; knowning what I know about both groups; I trust the Military guys hands down.
Politically tinged and corrupt ISG? That is a load of hooey. It may surprise you to know that many people in the ISG were, and remain, in the military, including three I know personally. These were no tinged and corrupt hacks. These conspiracy theories circulating about how the ISG ignored or hid evidence of WMD are ludicrous.
I’d be interested in know what unit the “several dozen†experts you were with in Iraq. I’m betting they were part of a CBRNE defense unit in which case they only have the most basic tools and expertise to identify and categorize WMD. How many of them had degrees in chemistry or biology? How many had PhD’s in chemistry or biology and have spent their careers studying WMD? The ISG military and civilian people I know all have doctorates and have done WMD research their whole careers. But they’re “politically tinged†and “corrupt†so when they found evidence of WMD, the just ignored it because they hate Bush. Or maybe they altered the test results – or maybe both. All the kool-aid has made me dizzy and I forget.
You misread my comment on agriculture, but I used a poorly worded double-negative so it’s understandable (I said “not non-prolificâ€). I agree that Iraq had a very robust agricultural chemical production capability. They used agricultural chemicals extensively for agricultural purposes. And yes, it did serve as a partial cover for their chem program. But again, that does not prove there were, or are, weapons in the country.
Well, actally, there is evidence, to suggest that AQ and Iraq, were connected, in many ways, and the whole crop duster thing, is one of those pieces of evidence, that undoubtedly indicate an Iraqi Intelligence connection to AQ.
Ok, you have a lot in this sentence; let me go through it one at a time. First, yes there is evidence to suggest that AQ and Iraq had some kind of limited connection. No, the whole crop-duster thing is not evidence of that. Just because Iraq had crop-dusters that had the potential to carry chems and AQ expressed interest in using crop-dusters, among other methods, to possibly deliver chems, does not mean that those two pieces of information are “undoubtedly†related! Until you produce some piece of evidence that the two were working together on crop-dusting, then you’re full of shit. That kind of logic is the worst kind of crap imaginable. That’s like saying the IRA used car bombs, and AQ used car bombs – OMG, they must be working together on car-bomb technology!
Since you’re a “been there, done that†kind of intel guy whose been trained to evaluate information, I’m sure you’re familiar with these concepts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disconfirmation_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_correlation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myside_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring
And here’s the big one, which we are all guilty of at one time or another:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_blind_spot
Finally, I see you ignored everything I said on the ballistic missile NIE in 1995.
PS: If you want a less “politicized†article than Pillars in the policy-analyst relationship, read this:
https://www.cia.gov/csi/kent_csi/docs/v02n2p.htm
Donkatsu,
I suspect if we did not have a war on now the institute would be gutted and rebooted.
Actually, that is pretty much happening now. Almost all of the CIA’s analysis functions are in the process of being moved under the new DNI organization. The CIA will, essentially, become a HUMINT collection agency, but even the DoD is muscling in on that action.
Actually, I don’t know why Rick and the rest of you keep talking like the CIA like it was still the lead agency in the IC – it is not.
7:26 am
Oops, sorry about the double post.
7:38 am
Andy: I don’t have the time, nor the patience anymore, to get into a point by point refutation of everything you say.
I’ll make a few minor points, and then move on; you believe what you belive; I know what I know, that’s the difference.
1) Joe Wilson; if you want to term Joe Wilson an OSCINT collection asset; that’s fine; I can accept that.
But in terms proving you’re point by using him as an example of “policy driving collection assets”; he’s the worst example you could use1
He was NOT tasked by the Administration, specifically Cheney; IF you’re buying that, then your moniker is, as I suspect, bogus, and you are the one drinking the Kool Aid!
Joe Wilson, was tasked by his wife, at the behest of the CIA; and Joe Wilson’s own bias, made him think that HE was proving a “negative”, when in fact, he actually proved a “positive”!
That’s the truth of the matter, nothing more, nothing less.
Of course, you’re right about policy having an influence over collections/assets, that’s true; in fact I think I remember collection assets being tasked by “policy makers” now, in two instances that I can recall; when Ron Brown’s plane went down in Ethiopia, I think Clinton tasked collection assets to find him; and if I’m not mistaken, the same thing happened when JFK Jr’s plane went down, the other year?
2) I’d be curious to know who you think is the “lead agency” in the IC? Certainly the whole time I was in the IC, if you told the CIA, who had veto authority over EVERY IC asset, if they wanted to push the issue, that they were NOT the “lead” agency, they’d just laughed in your face. I know many a people who tried to “prove” that the CIA was NOT the “lead agency”, and they lost that battle every time! And I clearly remember a time, when the Director of the CIA was appointed as the lead/unofficial head of the entire IC; if you have evidence to contradict that, I’d like to see it!
Now, I’ve NO dealings with the IC since the reorganization/Negroponte, etc.; so I really have no idea what the political-in-knife-fighting is like nowadays, nor do I care; I left that world behind, and no longer care to “play”.
3) I didn’t “ignore” the 1995 Ballistic Missile NIE you discussed; I just didn’t see how it was relevant to what I was talking about originally, nor did I care, frankly. And, I don’t mean that in the arrogant way it undoubtedly sounds in black and white, I just didn’t see it was relevant to any point I was trying to make; it may have been relevant to yours, but not mine.
4) I guess we won’t agree on Paul Pillar; I know people who know him; he can write whatever he wants; I trust their judgements; so no use arguing ad nauseum about that.
5) If the CIA becomes nothing but a HUMIT collection Agency; and focuses on that; that, in my humble opinion, would be a good thing; they’ve lost their “way” over the years, with Ops, and Sci & Tech; etc., etc.
6) Your whole Cropduster/AQ vs. IRA/car bomb analogy, I reject completely out of hand.
I was, THE LEADING Islamic Fundalmentalist Analyst in the IC for a period of time. Let me state that unequivocally! To this day, I’m still sought for my expertise, and my knowledge on that subject, by dozens of people on the inside.
I don’t do “talking head” interviews; I don’t write books, and I don’t “publish”. My knowledge, was gained, over the past 30 years the hard way! Been there, done that!
I don’t seek “recognition”, book contracts, movie rights, nor acknowledgement; but I know, what I write, and who else knows it, and that is very few.
I’m also the person who stirred up the Military Intel community, for refused to adhere to the “...find out what your CO wants to know, and then tell him that….” type of attitude.
I’m also the person who pissed off the DIA, because I refused to write analytical pieces, where the end analysis had been determined BEFOREHAND, and then go out and FIND the facts to fit it!
That’s despicable, wrong, and ill serves the very people we were sworn to protect and serve.
So, I don’t need a “lecture” on how to be an analyst, nor how to do “intel”!
Been there, done that; my conclusions, were, and always will be; where the facts take me!
7) You have your opinion of the ISG, I have mine; frankly, I’ll take mine. Your guess, as to who, and what I was with, and the abilities of some of the Military CBR experts I’ve known, and served with, is completely, and thorougly off base!
I worked with CIA experts, in different fields, ALOT; they are ALWAYS, just like their buddies in the State Department, pushing some type of Political Agenda! Always…
The professional, knowledgeable, experience Military guys I worked with, NEVER pushed a Political Agenda; they wanted to take care of their people/troops, get their job done, and get home!
Again, if I had to choose, I’d take the people I served with, in a heartbeat!
You mention the people you knew/know, as PhD’s, etc., to prove your point; in fact, that proves MY point; memebers of Academia; primarily liberal; anti-Bush; pushing an Agenda! It’s that simple, and that sad; knew dozens of them in the CIA, and State Department; all “experts”; and when you scratched the veneer, all pushing a Political Agenda.
Anyway, this is my last post on this subject; we’ve worn it to death; and further discussion will advance the cheese, nowhere!
You have your opinions, based upon your experience and knowledge; I have mine.
I respect you’re right to your opinions, even if I disagree with some of them.
Additionally, this is Rick’s forum, and I don’t want to get started in a Blogwar point-counterpoint that eats up reams of eSpace.
You’ve made your points, I’ll take them into consideration.
7:50 am
Andy: I’ll PROVE to you how smart I am! I read BOTH your posts; I thought they were different!
10:17 am
Again, sorry about the double posts – I added a couple of things to the first that, when I thought it didn’t go through, I didn’t bother retyping for the second.
I’ll be back in a while with some counterpoint and further comments.
3:18 pm
Dale,
Joe Wilson is admittedly not a great example, but it’s the only one I can thing of that is unclassified.
And like I said in my previous comment, the administration isn’t tasking individual collection assets – they set the collection priorities, which in turn sets the collection plan, which CM’s then use to task the actual collectors. My point is, in reference to Rick’s original piece, is that such influence skews the final analysis product because it generates biases in the data that are not correct by the policymaker. Here’s what I hope is a better and simpler example to explain this effect:
Let’s say you’re an analyst who monitors a specific country’s military activity. This country doesn’t have a high priority, so few collection and analysis resources are tasked to monitor it. Now let’s say that over the period of a year, a crisis in this country slowly builds. As the crisis comes closer to fruition, the collection priority for this country goes up. As a result, more intelligence data points are collected and the rate of intelligence gathered increases over time. Now, what frequently happens with inexperienced analysts and policy people who attempt to analyze this unfinished intelligence, is that they conclude that the military activity by the target country has increased over the course of that year. They look at the beginning of the data, which, let’s assume, shows this country conducted two patrols of a certain type a day. At the end of the year, the data shows they conducted 6 patrols day. These inexperience people will naturally assume that the target country has increased their patrols as the crisis increased. They may fold this bit of analysis into other crisis analysis and make a judgment that the country has increased its readiness in response to the crisis. But that is not necessarily the case because of the collection biases I’ve been talking about. What frequently happens is that the country was doing 6 patrols a day all along, but because of the limited collection at the beginning of the year, 4 out of the 6 patrols were not observed or were otherwise missed by collectors. Experienced intelligence professionals know to account for this and adjust their analysis accordingly – policy people do not. This is one type of bias that crept into the Iraq WMD “assessments†the policy people in the administration advocated. The collection in Iraqi WMD was increased dramatically. As a result, a lot more data on WMD’s was collected which gave the false impression that the Iraqi programs were not only active and robust, but were expanding. The administration failed to take the collection bias into account as did many analysts, unfortunately. There were many other mistakes made on both the policy and intelligence side, primarily involving confirmation bias.
2) I’d be curious to know who you think is the “lead agency†in the IC? Certainly the whole time I was in the IC, if you told the CIA, who had veto authority over EVERY IC asset, if they wanted to push the issue, that they were NOT the “lead†agency, they’d just laughed in your face. I know many a people who tried to “prove†that the CIA was NOT the “lead agencyâ€, and they lost that battle every time! And I clearly remember a time, when the Director of the CIA was appointed as the lead/unofficial head of the entire IC; if you have evidence to contradict that, I’d like to see it!
A great recent Karen Deyoung WAPO article on the NCTC pretty much explains how things work now, which is great since I hate plowing through the 2004 Intelligence Reform Act (which is what mandates these changes). I’d highly recommend reading the DeYoung article for its own sake. Relevant quotes are below:
But the Sept. 11 commission found that long-standing tensions within and among the CIA, the FBI and the rest of the community, along with institutional firewalls constructed during the Cold War, meant that “information was not shared” and “analysis was not pooled” that might have warned of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
The CIA’s responsibilities for integrating and analyzing all-source intelligence have now been transferred to the DNI and the NCTC. All members of the intelligence community—including the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and other Defense Department agencies and the FBI —are restricted to analyzing only what they need to accomplish the “tactical missions” specific to their own assignments. For the CIA, that means concentrating on building the clandestine network and human resources that Congress and a series of outside studies have found lacking, especially in the Middle East.
But things change slowly in bureaucratic Washington:
There’s more there, here’s the whole article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/08/AR2006080800964_pf.html
And as a point of contention, before 2004, the CIA certainly did not have “veto authority over every IC asset.†Nothing could be further from the truth. The CIA’s responsibilities as the “head†of the IC were more administrative than operational. A book I highly recommend is “The US Intelligence Community†by Richelson. It’s the definitive book on the IC. The latest edition is 7 years old, so hopefully he’s working on a new edition to reflect the changes since 9/11. In any event, here are some relevant quotes:
Through the 80’s and 90’s, the CIA’s share and control of the intelligence budget continued to decrease. The Clinton administration attempted in 1996 to give the DCI more control over budget execution, but it failed. So no, the CIA does not, and never did “control†the intelligence community.
And I clearly remember a time, when the Director of the CIA was appointed as the lead/unofficial head of the entire IC
So, you were around when the DCI was created in 1947?
) I didn’t “ignore†the 1995 Ballistic Missile NIE you discussed; I just didn’t see how it was relevant to what I was talking about originally, nor did I care, frankly. And, I don’t mean that in the arrogant way it undoubtedly sounds in black and white, I just didn’t see it was relevant to any point I was trying to make; it may have been relevant to yours, but not mine.
I brought that up not to directly answer anything you said, but as a clarification of Rick’s post and the comments in general. It was intended to show a concrete example of policy people meddling in, influencing, and changing intelligence. The same kind of meddling by many of the same people took place before the Iraq war.
6) Your whole Cropduster/AQ vs. IRA/car bomb analogy, I reject completely out of hand.
I was, THE LEADING Islamic Fundalmentalist Analyst in the IC for a period of time. Let me state that unequivocally! To this day, I’m still sought for my expertise, and my knowledge on that subject, by dozens of people on the inside.
For a leading analyst, I’m surprised at your apparent ignorance of the CIA’s role in the IC as well as basic analysis principles. In any event, if you have something linking AQ and Iraq in crop-dusting efforts, then by all means provide a link to that evidence. If this is something you learned about in your position as an analyst, then you have probably violated the NDA you signed when you left the community.
The professional, knowledgeable, experience Military guys I worked with, NEVER pushed a Political Agenda; they wanted to take care of their people/troops, get their job done, and get home!
You mention the people you knew/know, as PhD’s, etc., to prove your point; in fact, that proves MY point; memebers of Academia; primarily liberal; anti-Bush; pushing an Agenda! It’s that simple, and that sad; knew dozens of them in the CIA, and State Department; all “expertsâ€; and when you scratched the veneer, all pushing a Political Agenda.
First off, I never said the military people pushed a political agenda or didn’t want to take care of their troops. What I said is that they didn’t have the training, education or equipment to do forensic-level analysis of WMD. Their role is WMD defense and their training and equipment reflect that role. The military does not have deployable task-oriented units with the capability to do the kind of analysis we’re talking about here, which requires an advanced laboratory environment. The military experts (like the scientists I know) work in labs and agencies in the US as WMD experts, not with CBRNE units.
Finally, members of the ISG were not liberal college academics as you describe. Just because they have a doctorate does not mean they teach at Berkely and do sit-ins. Many serve in uniform either on active duty or the reserve, and many more work as DoD or government civilians who work on WMD every day. So your characterization there is way off.
3:45 pm
Does this sound familiar?
Some policy makers have accused intelligence agencies of playing down Iran’s role in Hezbollah’s recent attacks against Israel and overestimating the time it would take for Iran to build a nuclear weapon.
The complaints, expressed privately in recent weeks, surfaced in a Congressional report about Iran released Wednesday.
From (NYT – registration required): http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/24/washington/24intel.html?_r=1&ei=5094&en=430690629595a3e0&hp=&ex=1156478400&oref=slogin&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
The Congressional report referenced in the article can be found here:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/2006_rpt/iran-report_060822v2.htm
This is exactly how the ballistic missile fiasco starting in 1995. I never realized Congress and administrations officials knew more about what it takes to build a nuclear weapon than actual nuclear engineers.
3:48 pm
I would like to add that I pretty much completely disagree with the rest of the NYT article except was is quoted above.
5:11 pm
Although peppered with generalities, this analysis of the dysfunctionality of the relationship between the administration and its intelligence agencies is probably not far off the mark. It could probably be extended the relationship between the administration and the state department. My question is what does this tell you about the management skills of this administration. Basically we have a complete collapse of the relationships between the two main professional operational units of our foreign policy apparatus and the Bush/Cheney administration. Is this intended to make us safer? Do the intelligence officials know absolutely nothing? Do the state department professionals know absolutely nothing? Why do we employ all these people? Perhaps we should replace them with the staffs of the NRO and Bill Kristol. At some point this stupidity will be over. Thank god.
6:12 pm
I get sick to hearing everytime when a plane gets diverted or they find something explosive, ect, ect, ect …. the f.b.i. says this is not terrorism related.
What the hell?
3:09 pm
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