WHY INTELLIGENCE FAILED
Only Congress can help. And Congress won't.
By RALPH PETERS
New York Post
January 30, 2004 -- FEW human beings argue with conclusions they want to believe. When the U.S. intelligence community insisted that Saddam's regime possessed hidden weapons of mass destruction, President Bush and his advisers welcomed the "evidence."
Bush believed correctly that Saddam needed to go. And the supportive analysis provided by U.S. intelligence was seconded by the British. Even the French and German intel organizations believed Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Remember that the pre-war argument was not about Saddam's capabilities. It was about the best means to de-fang him.
What went wrong?
Three factors led our intelligence apparatus down the garden path: decades of overreliance on technology; a corresponding neglect of the human factor, and group-think.
Before examining those issues, let's look at the routine politics of intelligence. Former Chief Weapons Inspector David Kay stressed that he found no evidence of White House pressure on analysts. Yet, as someone who worked in intelligence for 22 years, I understand that the prejudices of every administration filter through the intelligence bureaucracy.
It doesn't fundamentally alter analysis, but it does becomes one of many factors shaping intel products. Fact of life. And that isn't going to change.
The systemic problems, on the other hand, can be reduced if Congress finds the will.
* The False God of Technology. Our technical collection means, from satellites down to battlefield drones, are marvels. Although they still fall short of Hollywood depictions, we have stunning capabilities to seek, find and — usually — identify material objects. We can intercept and sort communications with dazzling prowess. And the resultant deluge of data becomes a phony metric of success.
It doesn't matter how much raw data you collect if you can't make heads or tails of it. Despite their undeniable value, high-tech systems continue to be oversold. It's great to be able to see with heavenly eyes or hear with superhuman ears — but if the humans on the receiving end can't grasp the implications of the data, you're back on the road to Khobar Towers, the USS Cole bombing and 9/11.
We spend well over $30 billion a year on intelligence, primarily to buy and maintain technological systems. This suits the defense industry, which never tires of promising that the next multibillion-dollar gadget will finally solve all our problems. And it pleases Congress, which loves to buy from contributors and home-district employers. As a result, we get abstract capabilities in place of useful results.
But the intel challenges of our time are overwhelmingly human, not technological. No high-tech system peers into the human soul, where tomorrow's horrors dwell.
* The Human Factor. Over and over again, we hear of the need for more Human Intelligence. The problem has been festering for decades. But nothing serious is done about it. The car needs a new engine. We just slap on more bumper stickers.
Nor is it simply a matter of recruiting more spies — more HUMINT — although that's critical. The human factor has been slighted overall, from our deficit of linguists and interrogators, to the crucial need for more and better analysts. But you can't just hire spies and capable analysts through the want ads. Serious repairs will take a decade.
When reality bites back, Congress always howls for better intelligence. But it doesn't fund the recruitment, training and retention of the people required to deliver it. When the chips are down, the money goes to the defense industry yet again. The system is broken; only a profound, talent-oriented revolution can fix it — and that isn't likely to happen.
Only Congress can help. And Congress won't.
* Group-think. Ultimately, you can hire more people, even if identifying the right ones is harder than bureaucracies like to admit. But the most pernicious enemy of sound intelligence is group-think. It's so ingrained in the system, it's become invisible.
One tragic example: In the early-to-mid '90s, analysts with field experience warned that a new breed of violent actors, from transnational terrorists to tribal thugs, posed a serious danger to our interests. The proposition was treated as lunatic. Born and raised in the Cold War, the intel community's mentality was hardwired to identify "big," state-contained threats. No other possibility was admitted.
We all saw what happened.
Intel professionals — many of whom are far better than their sullied reputation — will respond that there was a great deal of internal debate on the issue of Iraq's WMDs. But it's the terms of the debate that matter: Once the system concluded, as it had done over a decade before, that Saddam had WMDs and wanted more, the internal discussions declined a fatal notch. It was no longer a matter of if, but of how much and where.
"Serious" questions could only be asked within the accepted paradigm. We had only the illusion of a debate.
Certainly, the evidence of WMDs was plentiful: Saddam had used chemical weapons in the past; inspections after Desert Storm found a vigorous WMD program, which the United Nations demanded must be dismantled; and Saddam, suicidally foolish, played cat-and-mouse games to the end — even though his stockpiles were gone.
Now we learn that even Saddam didn't have a grip on the situation — lied to by his subordinates, he, too, believed he had more advanced programs than actually existed.
All the while, craven Iraqi exiles told us what they knew we wanted to hear.
It would have taken brilliant "out of the box" analysis to get it right. But our intelligence system is, above all, a bureaucracy. And bureaucracies cherish consistency, while shunning the risks of excellence. Bureaucracies only deliver what executives demand. Left to their own devices, they plod along in a defensive crouch.
Administrations come and go. If we truly want to improve our intelligence system, only sustained, bipartisan congressional action can force the critical changes.
We all know that members of Congress have a genius for criticism. But can they summon the will to fix a system that their own neglect and rhetoric has crippled?
Ralph Peters is a retired Army intelligence officer and author. |
