More insights from one of my favorite analysts of the U.S. intelligence community, Gabriel Schoenfeld. Gabriel concludes as follows:
…The ranking official in charge of analysis at the ODNI is Thomas Fingar, a principal drafter of the misleading Iran NIE and a former State Department official with a long record of undercutting the policies of the Bush White House. It is not an accident that back in September, shortly before the NIE was issued, Mr. Fingar selected as his deputy for “analytic integrity” Richard Immerman, a professor from Temple University who had taken part in “teach-ins” against the war in Iraq, and who had accused the Bush administration of gross malfeasance in the run-up to the invasion. The “Bushites,” Mr. Immerman wrote of the White House in an essay published in January, made “every effort to ‘cook the books,’ they ‘hyped’ the need to go to war, and they lied too often to count.”
In addition to being in charge of maintaining analytic standards, Mr. Immerman also occupies the position of “ombudsman” within the ODNI. In other words, the very official responsible for investigating allegations of partisanship in the production of intelligence is himself a declared partisan in the intelligence wars. No wonder analysts are keeping their heads close to their desks.
What is Mr. McConnell doing about this mess? His attention appears to be focused elsewhere. Late last year, under his guidance the ODNI unfolded a 500-day master plan to set things right. Along with a good number of unexceptionable steps, its number one “core initiative” is to “treat diversity as a strategic mission imperative” — in other words, as the document explains, “We need to have an IC workforce that looks like America.” Toward that end, the plan calls for the design of “mechanisms to hold IC leaders accountable for excellence in EEO [Equal Employment Opportunity] and diversity management.”
Should U.S. intelligence have a workforce that “looks like America,” or would we be better off with one that looked like those of our adversaries whom we have been unable to understand, let alone to penetrate? That question is one of many that go unanswered in the 500-day plan, which focuses almost entirely on tertiary internal matters rather than on accomplishing the two most critical missions facing U.S. intelligence — stopping terrorism and nuclear proliferation.
The Bush administration, evidently cowed by the repeated and demonstrably false accusation that it is politicizing intelligence, is unlikely to address any of these problems in its waning days. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain have not even indicated that they see a problem. Nonetheless, a great deal is riding on what one of them will do.
The CIA and U.S. intelligence have gotten a lot of things wrong in recent years, at great cost to our national well-being. A significant part of the problem lies in “analysis,” where data is supposed to be interpreted but is all too often misinterpreted.
Gregory F. Treverton and C. Bryan Gabbard have written a new study of “analytic tradecraft,” published by RAND, that takes up the nature of the problem and looks at some of the solutions being put in place.
Some of the approaches to improving analysis they point to are technological. For example, there is a program called GENOA -II, designed to help intelligence analysts work better in groups. Among other things, it attempts to “automate team processes,” develop “cognitive aids that allow humans and machines to ‘think together’ in real-time about complicated problems,” and find ways to “overcome the biases and limitations of the human cognitive system.”
This sounds great. But count me deeply skeptical. Here’s why.
…Why should there be nine such mistakes when the technology is in place to produce, almost effortlessly, a zero-error rate? The United States is not going fall victim to a surprise attack because of some typos in a RAND study. But we will fall victim to another surprise attack if don’t focus on the fact that the problem facing our intelligence community is not technology but severe shortcomings in the selection of analysts themselves.
See the case of Michael Scheuer, the kooky head of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden desk in the 1990’s, for one set of illustrations. See the case of Richard Immerman, the radical professor now in charge of analytic “integrity and standards” for the Intelligence Community, for another set of illustrations.
How many more illustrations do we need?
[more from Gabriel Schoenfeld] Excellent comments - see esp. J.E. Dyer, who links to John Bolton’s commentary on the 2007 NIE.
I wish I had written this essay. But unsurprisingly, it is prof. John Wixted’s work, and not to be missed. It is a bit lengthy, because the topic is subtle — unlike typical press coverage:
The debate over waterboarding never ceases to amaze me. A sensible debate would ask this question:
What is the harshest method of interrogation that can be used against high-level al Qaeda detainees in a time of crisis?
That’s an excellent question, and phrasing it that way helps to avoid the moral exhibitionism that generally accompanies any discussion about this issue. However, to almost everyone (especially in the mainstream media), the real question is this:
Does waterboarding amount to torture?
This is a silly question that elicits copious amounts of holier-than-thou finger pointing.
Read the whole thing.
Technorati Tags: Interrogation, Torture
A WSJ editorial offers an update on the shameful political maneuvers underway to undermine this vital intelligence gathering effort.
The Senate takes up wiretapping of foreign terrorists this week, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Not only for the ability of our spooks to eavesdrop on al Qaeda, but also regarding Congressional and judicial intrusion into Presidential war powers. Some damage seems certain, but the issue is how much damage President Bush will accept.
The debate concerns an effort to revise the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to bless spying without a court order on terrorist communications that originate overseas but move through U.S. switching networks. We believe — and appellate courts have stated — that the President already has such authority under the Constitution. But the political left claims this is “illegal” under FISA, and Mr. Bush has agreed to work with Congress on a compromise.
[more]
Other Israeli sources tell Inquirer the new US assessment contradicts not only Israel’s intelligence judgments but also those of the Germans, the French and the Dutch.
Shavit echoes this point. “There were differences in emphasis. One party would tell you that Iran will have the first bomb in 2009. Another will say 2010 or 2011.
But no one in the West said anything similar to the (American) statement,” he says.
Greg Sheridan on Israel’s intelligence view of the now-famous NIE:
THE US intelligence assessment that the Iranians have abandoned, for the moment at least, their nuclear weapons program has burst like a clap of biblical thunder over troubled Israeli skies.
Frankly, there is hardly a senior Israeli who believes the US.
One sceptic is Shabtai Shavit. He was for seven years the head of Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad. Now in his late 60s, he has a range of commercial affiliations but just recently has been called back by Israel’s security ministry to advise the Government on Iran.
I spent a morning this week at his modestly sized but beautiful Tel Aviv villa. He was frankly shocked at the American assessment, which he does not believe is correct, and at its public release.
The new US view, that Iran is acquiring the nuclear technology that could produce weapons but has given up its specific weapons program, and in any event probably could not produce a weapon until 2015, is the opposite of the Israeli assessment. Jerusalem believes Iran will have enough nuclear fuel for a weapon by 2010 at the latest.
Says Shavit: “I believe we should be very hesitant in accepting this (US assessment). First, intelligence exists to err. Second, American intelligence time and again has made mistakes in the past. Three, we shouldn’t rule out the possibility that often intelligence is being used for political purposes and hidden agendas.”
This is a perfect circle of irony and history. The international Left believes the Bush administration misused intelligence to justify striking Iraq. Now Israelis suspect the Bush administration may be misusing intelligence because it doesn’t want to strike Iran.
Other Israeli sources tell Inquirer the new US assessment contradicts not only Israel’s intelligence judgments but also those of the Germans, the French and the Dutch.
Shavit echoes this point. “There were differences in emphasis. One party would tell you that Iran will have the first bomb in 2009. Another will say 2010 or 2011. But no one in the West said anything similar to the (American) statement,” he says.
Shavit outlines some of the difficulties in scrutinising the Iranian program: “Countries all over the world, when they go for a nuclear capability, they at first put civilian agencies in charge, not the military. These agencies pursue scientific capabilities, not military ones, such as enriching uranium, producing plutonium. It’s always in civilian hands.
“When a country then decides to use nuclear technology for military purposes, a military body comes and does it on a separate track. From an intelligence point of view, following any country’s nuclear program, you have to look for research and development to enrich uranium. To know if they are going for the bomb you have to look in other places, especially in defence infrastructure. It is far harder to track the military track than the civilian track. The Iranians say every day, yes, they are pursuing the civilian track. The military track is entirely hidden: geographically, financially, it’s somewhere else.”
Other Israeli sources tell Inquirer that Israel has identified Iran’s military nuclear track and it is active. They point out how often the CIA has made fundamental mistakes in this kind of assessment. When Robert Gates, now US Defence Secretary, was deputy director of the CIA, it substantially overestimated Soviet strength. It did not know about India’s or Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in advance. It first underestimated, then overestimated, Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
For Israel, an Iranian nuclear weapon is a far deadlier proposition than for the Americans. Says Shavit: “Israel cannot live with the threat of Iran with a combination of a nuclear weapons capability and the present regime. It means to live under the threat of a leadership which is extremely religious, fundamentalist in its views, that believes its No1 duty, which came straight down from heaven, is to fight the infidels, and infidels is everyone who is not the right kind of Muslim, and to create the new world caliphate. It sounds like a fairytale but this is true. They say it, they believe it, they educate their kids about it.
“Israel is only 20,000sqkm. Most of its population is around Tel Aviv. What I am describing is an unbearable threat.
“So we should do everything we can to build an international coalition to deal with this. The threat is not only against Israel but against Europe, and soon, when Iran acquires ballistic missles, against the US. The international coalition should deal with it, first diplomatically. If that doesn’t work, then through sanctions. If sanctions don’t work, then it must deal militarily.”
Excellent analysis by federal circuit judge Richard A. Posner. One excerpt
So the problem with fisa is that the surveillance it authorizes is unusable to discover who is a terrorist, as distinct from eavesdropping on known terrorists–yet the former is the more urgent task. Even to conduct fisa-compliant surveillance of non-U.S. persons, you have to know beforehand whether they are agents of a terrorist group, when what you really want to know is who those agents are.
Fisa’s limitations are borrowed from law enforcement. When crimes are committed, there are usually suspects, and electronic surveillance can be used to nail them. In counterterrorist intelligence, you don’t know whom to suspect–you need surveillance to find out. The recent leaks from within the FBI, expressing skepticism about the NSA program, reflect the FBI’s continuing inability to internalize intelligence values. Criminal investigations are narrowly focused and usually fruitful. Intelligence is a search for the needle in the haystack. FBI agents don’t like being asked to chase down clues gleaned from the NSA’s interceptions, because 99 out of 100 (maybe even a higher percentage) turn out to lead nowhere. The agents think there are better uses of their time. Maybe so. But maybe we simply don’t have enough intelligence officers working on domestic threats.
I have no way of knowing how successful the NSA program has been or will be, though, in general, intelligence successes are underreported, while intelligence failures are fully reported. What seems clear is that fisa does not provide an adequate framework for counterterrorist intelligence. The statute was enacted in 1978, when apocalyptic terrorists scrambling to obtain weapons of mass destruction were not on the horizon. From a national security standpoint, the statute might as well have been enacted in 1878 to regulate the interception of telegrams. In the words of General Michael Hayden, director of NSA on September 11 and now the principal deputy director of national intelligence, the NSA program is designed to “detect and prevent,” whereas “fisa was built for long-term coverage against known agents of an enemy power.”
<more> [$$] I haven’t found a way to link that doesn’t require a TNR subscription.
Latest Comments
RSS