Memo605: Why the Intelligence Community Will Not Be Able to Stop Another 9/11

For those who have read the "Memo" pieces written in the magazine "Foreign Policy", the following "memo" attempts to answer why the disciplines of counterintelligence and protective security remain so resistant to reform. It goes to the heart of the inefficacies of a system which, unless it is systematically overhauled and placed beyond the reach of politicization, will not only be unable to prevent another 9/11 style attack but also guard the US against its next rival superpower. I originally wrote it for an "Intelligence & Policy" class I took at the Institute of World Politics, given by former Deputy National Counterintelligence Executive and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Support, Kenneth deGraffenreid.
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The Honorable John M. McConnell
Director of National Intelligence
Office of the DNI
Washington, DC 20511

Dear Sir:

In the course of answering your question of why the disciplines of counterintelligence and protective security remain so resistant to reform, our research consistently crossed paths with answering the separate question relating to the “Kent-Kendall debate” on the nature of intelligence and policymaking. Indeed, such expansive questions can lead one pointing to many aspects which appear either underutilized or missing altogether: this, however, can easily also lead to getting lost in the minutiae, and, in turn, micromanaging the largess that is the Intelligence Community. As you will find in this submitted report, there is good reason for using each to support the other. The 4 answers are hierarchical: though, not in terms of importance; rather, in terms of systematic breakdown. They are as follows:

1) The evolution of United States foreign policy being placed more and more under the exclusive purview of the Executive Branch, particularly the Office of the President of the United States, has created an “Imperial Presidency” that is by default Realist in its policy outlook.

2) The National Security Act of 1947, by placing the daily administrative tasking of the Intelligence Community under the Executive Branch, severely affected the spatial relationship between analyst and policymaker. The “too close for comfort” Sherman Kent warned about.

3) This “too close for comfort” relationship is further engrained in the intelligence produced by the over emphasis on current intelligence production: thus, intelligence goals are increasingly linked to administration policy goals, thereby creating an intelligence horizon that changes as an administration changes. In other words, there is little strategic analysis because there is no cohesion from one administration to the next.

4) Weakness of leadership in key government positions has allowed this as well as other temporal concerns—such as, parochialism and bureaucratic digging-in-of-heels—to continue resisting change in intelligence/counterintelligence.

1) Firstly, as is often said, “what is past is prologue”. In other words, we must look at how we got here in order to know where we are going. In the field of International Relations the philosophy of Realism has long been the prism through which state actions have been seen. The placing of states centrally in international affairs was only natural, as the history of state composition was centralized in the figure of the King/Emperor/Emir. They were as many nation-states still are: authoritarian. This is not meant as an aspersion; rather, an authoritarian system is described as a:

…political system with limited, not responsible, political
pluralism, without elaborate and guiding ideology, but with
distinctive mentalities, without extensive nor intensive
political mobilization, except at some points in their
development, and in which a leader or occasionally small
group exercises power within formerly ill-defined limits
but actually quite predictable ones. (1)

In other words, only if Caesar agreed to terms did Rome agree to terms; and, only if Kim Jong-Il agrees to terms does North Korea agree to terms.

The United States, by virtue of the US Constitution, resisted such centralization by placing international concerns under the guise—to one extent or another—of all 3 branches of government. Under “Article I: Section 8”, “Article II: Sections 2 & 3”, and “Article III: Section 2” (2), the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches, respectively, were given vested interests in US actions towards other states as well as other states actions towards the US. Yet, as early as George Washington and his impressive administration of Revolutionary figures, the political weight of the presidency shrank the relative political size of the other 2 branches, who were themselves not short on having Revolutionary figures of their own.

It is not our argument that the executive branch has superseded its Constitutional definitions deliberately from the beginning (though, clearly, there are instances in its history). Rather, the effect of such political power in the hands of the presidency would have looked quite familiar to other “traditional” nation-states previously described. In other words, Realism was not only the default philosophy in US foreign policy because of presidential power beginning with Washington, but also because other nation-states mirrored their internal views of power onto the role of the US presidency. Rightly or wrongly, these 2 factors have created what has been called the “Imperial Presidency”. This is not the same “Imperial Presidency” discussed in Arthur Schlesinger’s famous book, per se. Though, as “a country’s intelligence community is a reflection of the political system it serves” (3), it does echo Schlesinger’s view of the increasingly centralizing power of the president on US foreign policy.

2) Here, we turn your attention to the National Security Act of 1947. If any doubt existed as to the political influence the presidency had on US foreign policy, it was all but extinguished by this massive overhaul of how the US saw the field of Intelligence: as active rather than reactive. Up until this Act, Intelligence had been seen as a wartime function. A reason for this: “Progress, to the United States, seemed built into the natural order of things; peace was perceived to be the normal state of international affairs, expressing the harmony of nature, while war was perceived to be an abnormality, an aberration caused by evil men pursuing evil designs;” “Totally alien to the American experience was the truth, understood instinctively by Europeans…given its most forceful expression by Clausewitz: war and politics are a seamless web,” (4). Intelligence, as such, was the realm of armies needing to know the size, the distance, and the composition of armies, not peaceful democratic societies. Such a view pervaded US political culture even after World War I, when, in 1929, then Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson was quoted as saying, “Gentlemen don’t read other gentlemen’s mail.”

Taken for granted, it is, the Secretaries and Directors, including their departments, agencies, and offices who currently oversee all intelligence can look to one paragraph for all their requisite functions: SEC. 2. [50 U.S.C. 401] of the NSA-47 (5). Occasional attempts by Congress to check the influence of the President on foreign policy—most notably the War Powers Act—not withstanding, NSA-47 created a web of influence unparalleled by either of the other 2 branches.

Again, we are not making ethical determinations herein. Whether or not current presidential power exceeds the framers’ intent is a political question. Our determinations are systemic: the nature of any government’s structure allows for unforeseen consequences to develop as a given government evolves—particularly a democratic one, where differing allegiances are constructed to counter each other.

3) The CIA’s DI has been the intelligence community’s chief producer for almost 50 years (until the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s creation in 2005). Without going too much into its history, along with the CIA, it was given an overhaul in the mid-1990’s which was suppose flatten out the intelligence process and make it more responsive to the needs of policymakers. Yet, these changes, which Kendall would have praised for giving the analyst more say in the policy side, have done little to prevent further intelligence failures. It has made the analyst the quarterback—to echo the spirit of Kent’s analogy—rather than the above the field coordinator by over emphasizing one kind of intelligence evaluation over the others: that of “Current Intelligence”. This problem is documented to a great degree by Richard Russell, a retired CIA political-military analyst of 17 years:

1) The DI’s concentration on current intelligence places a premium on analysts who are generalists and can write well and quickly meet tight deadlines. In evaluating analysts for promotion, managers tend to reward those analysts who work on issues that command daily current intelligence headlines. (6)

2) The excessive DI concentration on current intelligence has…over time had a corrosive and deleterious impact on the building of knowledge and expertise that is the intellectual fruit of longer-term and scholarly research. It also denies analysts practice and expertise in critical analysis, weighing of evidence, and evaluation of evidence (7)

3) The demand for current intelligence saps research needed to develop expertise, which is of practical importance because Agency’s longstanding failings in this area have come back to roost with devastating consequences to U.S. security. The Joint House-Senate Inquiry faulted the lack of analytic expertise in large measure for the intelligence failure of September 11. (8)

The same Inquiry also found that the intelligence community’s understanding of al-Qaeda was severely lacking in terms of strategic and counterterrorism analyses. These “…analytic deficiencies seriously undercut the ability of U.S. policymakers to understand the full nature of the threat, and to make fully informed decisions,” (9).

Russell’s criticism is not just confined to the CIA. It could just as well be applied to the DIA (10). This close proximity of analyst to policymaker also damages the credibility of intelligence by giving at least the appearance of impropriety. It is why accusations of politicizing intelligence have increasingly attained legitimacy. Whether or not the Bush administration had invading Iraq in its collective mind a priori to 9/11, thus leading to a cognitive bias in favor of evidence supporting invasion, or that any administration chooses a policy a priori to any event thus in effect politicizing any intelligence which supports its future actions is a legitimate concern. But, what we are speaking to is that it is only natural for evidence to be shaped by the one shaping it—thus, a member of congress or anyone else, for that matter, could make their own—sometimes opposing—argument: in other words, if the atmosphere is already conducive for intelligence analysis being a handmaiden to policy then it is only natural for that intelligence to reflect policy goals.

For instance, throughout much of its history, Israel’s intelligence services had been organizationally as well as cognitively separated from its politics. Part of it was due to the defensive nature of their foreign policy, stemming from its perceived military weakness amongst the surrounding Arab states. After its victories in their 3 wars, Israeli policy became relatively more offensive (it should be noted that Golda Maier’s use of Mossad as, in essence, a hit squad after the ’72 Munich Olympics also inspired the country to further link its intelligence goals to foreign policy goals). Starting in the 1990’s, this barrier began crumbling more rapidly as Prime Ministers and their coalition governments began using intelligence more and more for administrative goals. A case in point is Netanyahu’s use of Mossad to assassinate a Hamas leader—Khaled Mishal—in Amman, Jordan. Not only was the assassination unsuccessful but it cost Netanyahu’s government dearly because of its lack of political necessity (11). Jordan’s new era of peace with Israel almost became too short-lived to be enjoyed.

More recently this continued breakdown between intelligence and administration goals was made apparent in Israel’s war with Hezbollah in ’06. At first, the military was given the reigns in the invasion of southern Lebanon and was winning. But, as it continued its push into Lebanon, the operation became a de facto foreign policy matter because many saw that political decisions then had to be made (thus echoing Clausewitz yet again). Intelligence—all intelligence, be it military or otherwise—became a servant to political concerns. Thus, the political success or failure (in this case, failure) could be placed on the shoulders of the intelligence instead of what it was—a politically micromanaged war of the likes of Vietnam. Instead of letting the military make the calls, the politicians made them.

The current reality is Israeli intelligence has become more and more subservient to each successive administration and its requisite policy horizon. A question must then be asked: how much coherency is there in intelligence goals, given the short policy horizons of many Israeli administrations? In short, not much.

This lack of a “Goldilocks spatiality” and its effects are not exclusive to Israel: because it allowed military analysis tasking to be directed by the Pentagon during and after the 1991 Gulf War, “By the end of the 1990’s, most CIA military analysts judged that their collective manpower was so limited by answering the daily deluge of questions…they were unable to look over the horizon to examine longer-range warning challenges for civilian policy makers,” (12).

For this and other previously given reason, the US’s intelligence community is suffering the same fate. It is not academic theorizing to state we live in an increasingly immediate world: the Internet brings information to our fingertips in a matter of seconds; 24-Hour news has made the competition for up-to-the-minute reporting in reality up-to-the-second reporting; and cell-phones and personal organizers have made possible corresponding with scores of people in any given day a matter of battery life not distance. This need for immediacy has obviously affected the intelligence community, and is detrimental for any intelligence community seeking to separate itself from the day-to-day demands of an administration reacting to a new and evolving situation. It is indeed a vicious cycle, only in having enough long-range analysis can an intelligence community see future crises as they arise but present crises always exist thus pulling in those long-range functions. But, again, it is only in having enough independence that the intelligence community can begin to have a coherency that is longer than a given administration’s policy goals.

4) Which brings us to our 4th point: As an organizational concern, the Agency’s spirit of independence—which it is not lax in touting when it gets things right—should have limited the Pentagon’s sway on its own analysts. But, when one notes Russell’s words—“…because analysts are closer to policymakers than they had been in the formative days of the Agency, they naturally gravitate toward current intelligence analysis that brings laurels and attention from policymakers,” and, “Time and time again, polls taken among decisionmakers over the years have yielded similar results: policymakers invariably value current intelligence reports the most, Estimates less so,” (13)—it becomes all too obvious the Agency’s “spirit of independence” is now more myth than reality. The monetary incentive (particularly the senior analytic service—or, SAS) is indeed a factor which must be looked at, but, as stated before, this report is focused on broader structural concepts. Understanding their deficiencies will lead to understanding what needs to be fixed within.

While measures like the Patriot Act tore down organizational walls which limited sharing, this lack of independence has created a intelligence culture which is all too typically bureaucratic in its parochialism and accepting other realities than its own. Arguably, nowhere do these aspects affect the intelligence community than in the area of Counterintelligence/Counterterrorism and their intrinsic idea of “otherness”. Before continuing, it must be stated that we put these together for the reason that having a good counterterrorism plan is partly reliant on having sound counterintelligence.

Understanding how the “other” side thinks, gathers its intelligence, and even conducts its counterintelligence—whether they be friend or foe—is a necessity for any country desiring successful counterintelligence operations. We do not do this well. There has long been a stigma about the “Ugly American”; a word which is to reflect the America-centric ignorance of US citizens towards other cultures. Borrowing words of Tim Weiner, New York Times journalist and writer of “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA”, “Americans want foreigners to think like us, to speak like us, to be like us,” (14). Make what you will of his biases, but these words are to be found in the September/October 2007 issue of “Foreign Policy”, a preeminent publication in the field which is published in many languages. Point is, if the argument becomes myopically focused on the relative biases of the author—as so many arguments in Washington are—it will miss the point: that is, how others perceive our intelligence capabilities matters as much if not more as how we perceive our intelligence capabilities. Its effects are felt in all areas of counterintelligence.

Take security, for instance. As detailed by Russell and Weiner, the CIA’s security precautions have been based on an internal mindset that has little to do with reality. Russell relates the fact that—paraphrasing—many of his graduate students try to fulfill their job requirements with the Boren fellowship program by applying with the CIA and other intelligence services but are turned down because they are deemed risks. Why? Because many get their language training in the countries they learn the language of and come into contact with their respective peoples (15). It is a telling consequence of the ad hoc nature of the intelligence community’s security priorities. Instead of making the system of intelligence more secure, these checks have often worked to keep talent away. The kind of talent the CIA—and others—have said is needed for making a stronger and more robust community. Similarly, Weiner relates a story about Robert Gates trying to get an Agency job for an American citizen raised in Azerbaijan. “The recruit was rejected because he failed to score high on the English test. Gates was furious. ‘I’ve got thousands of people here who can write English,’ he fumed, ‘but I don’t have anyone here who can speak Azeri,’” (16).

We acknowledge the argument that, as in the Katrina Leung and Peter Lee cases, the intelligence community has good reason for being averse to American citizens of foreign backgrounds. Yet, it is the case that much of what is called “security” is “compliant-based”—“just going through the motions”; rather than “performance-based”—“was espionage prevented” (17). The Leung case is just one of many examples where intelligence agents did not adhere to security policy and were not called to account by those who oversee security functions (in fact, the fact agent James Smith did take sensitive materials home overnight yet was not reprimanded for doing so became crucial later on as an example of missed warning signs of his duplicity). Also, if we are to start denying clearances for any and all those with foreign lineage and/or foreign experience then we risk the absurdity of hiring men/women who have little foreign ancestry, no language mastery, and have never been further than 5 miles from home.

It would be one thing if these were anomalous cases, but they are not. They are symptoms of a much larger ignorance. Turning again to Russell, there is a culture in the CIA which is—quite simply—fatally averse to intellectual curiosity. Devil’s advocacy is all but shunned inside the Agency. Indeed, this affects the testability of the intelligence which is produced. It also affects the ability of counterintelligence to do its job because it is the prerogative of the CI to be the Internal Affairs police when things go wrong.

The dual issues of an ad hoc security apparatus and lack of intellectual curiosity loomed large in the Leung case, for they revealed the intel community’s weaknesses in both the piece meal nature of their security apparatus and its understanding the nature of the threat faced. An intelligence community with a strong sense of CI would know how Chinese intelligence operates—that every Chinese citizen and/or person still having an allegiance to the PRC is a potential operative. Often times having good CI is the best security. That said, again, if our security apparatus was proactively performance-based such measures would act as trip-wires, alerting us to intel being compromised.

Another area of CI which is affected by a lack of “otherness” is knowing how another country chooses to gather intel. While US intelligence has been admonished in many committee reports for our lack of human intelligence (HUMINT), other countries—particularly ones with a history of bartering and/or lack of economic resources for technical intelligence (TECHINT)—have long invested heavily in HUMINT either because their social norms are conducive to human exchanges of info and/or it is cheap. Also, knowing another country’s collection priorities are is just plain good budgeting. By putting more resources into our relative strengths we can fully exploit their weaknesses, and, in turn, compromise their ability to get good intel.

Lost, all this is in the myopia that is bureaucracy. In focusing on their small corners (or, as is more often the case in government, cubicles) and corner offices, so to speak, instead of how they fit in the larger scheme, those in key management and decision making positions in the intelligence community have allowed the status quo to continue; and allowed their analysts to be dictated to by everyone from White House to Pentagon officials, rather than showing them their errors in judgment and/or policy decisions. It has been said it takes a Pearl Harbor before government finally gets things done. Time and time again, though, we are stunned to find that past prescribed measures were either done half-heartedly, lost in the mire of bureaucratic squabbling, or ignored altogether. This is the most glaring evidence that it is still business as usual.

One thing can be said about intelligence strictly being a wartime function prior to ‘47: war gave it urgency. Part of the problem of this most recent war is that it is at various points abstractly defined by the nature of the enemy we fight. Conceptually it is somewhat ill-defined: “War On Terror”. Terror is a tactic, not limited to just Islamic fundamentalists. These conceptual ambiguities notwithstanding, it must be said 9/11, Afghanistan, and now Iraq have given many in the intel community an existential understanding of the full implications of failure. But, as is human nature, when an event goes on long enough keeping that level of intensity is difficult to foresee (here again the military—and its emphasis on drilling—shows why intelligence was often a wartime function). Clear, one thing is: it is no longer acceptable to say we will do better next time. This is next time.


Sincerely,
Kevin M Bache
Chairman



1) Totalitarian & Authoritarian Regimes; Paul J Linz

2) http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html

3) IWP605: Intelligence & Policy. Guest lecturer, John Dziak. 9/19/2007

4) Pgs. 272, 273. “United States National Security Policy: Retrospect & Prospect”, James E Dornan, Jr.

5) http://www.iwar.org.uk/sigint/resources/national-security-act/1947-act.htm

6), 7), 8) 9) 12) 13) 15) pgs.124, 125, 137, 137, 128, 137, 131. Sharpening Strategic Intelligence: Why the CIA Gets It Wrong & What Needs to Be Done to Get It Right. Richard l Russell

10), 11) IWP605: Intelligence & Policy. Guest lecturer, John Dziak. 9/19/2007

14), 16) “How to Make a Spy”, pgs. 44, 47. Foreign Policy. Tim Weiner

17) IWP: Intelligence & Policy. Kenneth deGraffenreid. 10/24/2007

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