thedrifter
01-15-05, 07:40 AM
01-10-2005
Centralized Intelligence No Guarantee of Success
By Michael S. Woodson
Where is intelligence reform going? Members of the U.S. armed forces have a special interest in the answer, as Russia and China hold joint military exercises, we continue fighting in Iraq, and now lead an international aid campaign for tsunami relief. In these unstable times, we must have honest intelligence untarnished by bureaucratic fiefdoms filtering out important dimensions of fact. The intelligence process is supposed to give the president the most comprehensive fact picture possible.
In a May 2002 article in National Review Online, writer Mark Riebling cited Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Russ Travers’ 1997 paper “The Coming Intelligence Failure,” in which Travers eerily predicted a successful 2001 terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Travers warned of the lack of any one agency with a “truly integrated analysis” of intelligence data. Riebling underscored Travers’ analysis by detailing the information about al Qaeda operatives that the CIA and FBI fatefully failed to exchange before 9/11.
Travers’ warnings resembled others. Nearly 30 years ago, FBI authority Sanford J. Ungar, in his 1975 book, FBI, warned that the FBI culture molded in J. Edgar Hoover’s image had a poor record of cooperation with local authorities and a shared mutual distrust with the CIA.
Riebling in his article noted that Hoover even raised unfounded fears of a Gestapo-like agency if the FBI and CIA were to share domestic counterintelligence duties. Hoover then ended the Bureau’s liaison program with the CIA, and the rocky road rolled on.
Now, new CIA Director Porter Goss has reduced the daily threat assessment meetings between CIA and FBI officials to three mornings a week instead of daily at 5:00 p.m., according to The New York Times last week. Some 20 top CIA officials have quit the CIA since Goss took the reins and made Dick Cheney’s former aide the agency’s spokesperson.
The Congress and Bush administration seem to support the idea of an intelligence czar. This bureaucratic layering over the weak link between the CIA and FBI presumes that concentration of authority will accomplish the shared intelligence and integrated analysis Travers called for, but it does not necessarily follow.
And recently, Bernard Kerik’s nomination to head Homeland Security fizzled because of vulnerabilities in his background causing him to withdraw within hours of his bid. Had he squeaked by, what dangers would he have brought to the office? The infamous Aldrich Ames betrayal from a high post at CIA urges caution.
Many Washington politicians have expressed shock about “intelligence failures” at the CIA and FBI as if the agencies were wind-up toys that quit running. It is as if politicians did not appoint their agency heads, control their priorities, nor fund their budgets. The data was there. The Phoenix FBI field agent did his job when he warned headquarters about Muslim males taking private flying lessons without the landing segment. His superiors higher in the bureaucracy did not listen to their field agent and heed his report.
How can we avoid this bureaucratic intelligence trap of top-heavy offices? First, we quit confusing centralized authority with centralized intelligence repositories for integrated analyses.
Several years ago, a number of government agencies told the GAO their personal security preferences for their cabinet level executives, in response to a GAO survey report of July 2000 “Security Protection: Standardization Issues Regarding Protection of Executive Branch Officials” presented to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight. The report stated:
“Most agencies favored establishing a central repository of protective intelligence to facilitate sharing of threat information about their officials. Security officials said the implications of establishing a central repository of protective intelligence to facilitate sharing of such information among agencies would involve determining who should administer the repository, how it would operate, whether specific statutory authority would be needed, and the cost of establishing and administering it.”
If a shared intelligence repository on threats to executives is possible between cabinet agencies that prefer to retain authority over their own security forces, then the FBI, CIA and others can surely share intelligence on national security threats daily, without giving expansive powers to a new overlord of intelligence.
There is enough central authority in the White House and existing executive branch agencies without naming a new czar, and in fact, the different agencies provide checks and balances against abuses. The commander-in-chief should hear the most complete intelligence product from all agencies. Finally, admission and surveillance technology exists that can control and trace each access to classified materials, much improved from Ames’ day.
Although the 9/11 Commission cited poor cooperation among intelligence agencies as warranting a centralized office overall, this would be an overreaction. By that logic, we need a Chief Congressman to veto his colleagues, a Chief Justice that can annul majority votes of the Supreme Court, or a Super Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who can cancel military orders.
When we hear of intelligence reform, we should hear about reform of what is actually wrong, not an intelligence revolution that changes everything without good reason. The only “czar” with access to all incoming intelligence should be the president.
Michael Woodson is a Contributing Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at singingmountains@yahoo.com. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.
Ellie
Centralized Intelligence No Guarantee of Success
By Michael S. Woodson
Where is intelligence reform going? Members of the U.S. armed forces have a special interest in the answer, as Russia and China hold joint military exercises, we continue fighting in Iraq, and now lead an international aid campaign for tsunami relief. In these unstable times, we must have honest intelligence untarnished by bureaucratic fiefdoms filtering out important dimensions of fact. The intelligence process is supposed to give the president the most comprehensive fact picture possible.
In a May 2002 article in National Review Online, writer Mark Riebling cited Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Russ Travers’ 1997 paper “The Coming Intelligence Failure,” in which Travers eerily predicted a successful 2001 terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Travers warned of the lack of any one agency with a “truly integrated analysis” of intelligence data. Riebling underscored Travers’ analysis by detailing the information about al Qaeda operatives that the CIA and FBI fatefully failed to exchange before 9/11.
Travers’ warnings resembled others. Nearly 30 years ago, FBI authority Sanford J. Ungar, in his 1975 book, FBI, warned that the FBI culture molded in J. Edgar Hoover’s image had a poor record of cooperation with local authorities and a shared mutual distrust with the CIA.
Riebling in his article noted that Hoover even raised unfounded fears of a Gestapo-like agency if the FBI and CIA were to share domestic counterintelligence duties. Hoover then ended the Bureau’s liaison program with the CIA, and the rocky road rolled on.
Now, new CIA Director Porter Goss has reduced the daily threat assessment meetings between CIA and FBI officials to three mornings a week instead of daily at 5:00 p.m., according to The New York Times last week. Some 20 top CIA officials have quit the CIA since Goss took the reins and made Dick Cheney’s former aide the agency’s spokesperson.
The Congress and Bush administration seem to support the idea of an intelligence czar. This bureaucratic layering over the weak link between the CIA and FBI presumes that concentration of authority will accomplish the shared intelligence and integrated analysis Travers called for, but it does not necessarily follow.
And recently, Bernard Kerik’s nomination to head Homeland Security fizzled because of vulnerabilities in his background causing him to withdraw within hours of his bid. Had he squeaked by, what dangers would he have brought to the office? The infamous Aldrich Ames betrayal from a high post at CIA urges caution.
Many Washington politicians have expressed shock about “intelligence failures” at the CIA and FBI as if the agencies were wind-up toys that quit running. It is as if politicians did not appoint their agency heads, control their priorities, nor fund their budgets. The data was there. The Phoenix FBI field agent did his job when he warned headquarters about Muslim males taking private flying lessons without the landing segment. His superiors higher in the bureaucracy did not listen to their field agent and heed his report.
How can we avoid this bureaucratic intelligence trap of top-heavy offices? First, we quit confusing centralized authority with centralized intelligence repositories for integrated analyses.
Several years ago, a number of government agencies told the GAO their personal security preferences for their cabinet level executives, in response to a GAO survey report of July 2000 “Security Protection: Standardization Issues Regarding Protection of Executive Branch Officials” presented to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight. The report stated:
“Most agencies favored establishing a central repository of protective intelligence to facilitate sharing of threat information about their officials. Security officials said the implications of establishing a central repository of protective intelligence to facilitate sharing of such information among agencies would involve determining who should administer the repository, how it would operate, whether specific statutory authority would be needed, and the cost of establishing and administering it.”
If a shared intelligence repository on threats to executives is possible between cabinet agencies that prefer to retain authority over their own security forces, then the FBI, CIA and others can surely share intelligence on national security threats daily, without giving expansive powers to a new overlord of intelligence.
There is enough central authority in the White House and existing executive branch agencies without naming a new czar, and in fact, the different agencies provide checks and balances against abuses. The commander-in-chief should hear the most complete intelligence product from all agencies. Finally, admission and surveillance technology exists that can control and trace each access to classified materials, much improved from Ames’ day.
Although the 9/11 Commission cited poor cooperation among intelligence agencies as warranting a centralized office overall, this would be an overreaction. By that logic, we need a Chief Congressman to veto his colleagues, a Chief Justice that can annul majority votes of the Supreme Court, or a Super Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who can cancel military orders.
When we hear of intelligence reform, we should hear about reform of what is actually wrong, not an intelligence revolution that changes everything without good reason. The only “czar” with access to all incoming intelligence should be the president.
Michael Woodson is a Contributing Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at singingmountains@yahoo.com. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.
Ellie