Tuesday, September 25, 2007
The Operation was a Success, but is the Patient Already Dead?
Jeffrey R. Cooper's paper, Curing Analytic Pathologies looks at the current state of the CIA and its analysis arm. A review by Secrecy News is a little depressing, but it's a fascinating read. There's no peer review within the CIA and due to secrecy compartmentalization, one analyst may know something important and relevant to a second analyst's work, but never know about the second analyst's report. Possibly the worst revelation was the fact that the CIA became essentially a newsletter to the President. I think calling the CIA a newspaper to the President is a little inaccurate, so I used the analogy of a newsletter. The government is trying to change that with Intellipedia, which is wikipedia.org for spooks.
The reason I am bringing up the CIA at this point is that computer network security and analysis has many parallels with intelligence gathering and analysis. The problems are similar as well - never enough knowledge about the remote network you are dealing with, people compartmentalizing information that would be helpful to you, the risk of losing credibility if you get it wrong too many times, and senior managers playing politics with your results.
The reason I am bringing up the CIA at this point is that computer network security and analysis has many parallels with intelligence gathering and analysis. The problems are similar as well - never enough knowledge about the remote network you are dealing with, people compartmentalizing information that would be helpful to you, the risk of losing credibility if you get it wrong too many times, and senior managers playing politics with your results.
Labels: network security national security politics
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What continually doesn't surprise me is that commissions of politicians and review studies by people ulimately paid by the government always avoid the continuing and main intelligence failure.
That is the use and quoting of intelligence by politicians to back up their policy preconceptions.
No amount of academic slang or blaming of the CIA should hide that.
Politicians demand certain intelligence findings and it is mainly that that screws the system.
Pete
That is the use and quoting of intelligence by politicians to back up their policy preconceptions.
No amount of academic slang or blaming of the CIA should hide that.
Politicians demand certain intelligence findings and it is mainly that that screws the system.
Pete
Well, that certainly happened with Cheney and the CIA with Iraq and the NIE that was submitted about Iraq. Then we go into Iraq and the CIA looks like idiots. If truth is not spoken to power, then you get blamed for the failure when the surprise happens. If you tell them what they want to hear, then you save your career, especially if they only like yes men, but what kind of leader is it who only likes people who aren't dissenters on occasion? I agree that the majority of blame lies with the pols who are the client, and ultimate responsibility falls on them anyway. It was clear reading the 9/11 Commission Report and other reports that Tenet was more friend than DCI to the Presidents he served, though. So, some small blame rests with him.
Yep Tenet recognised that he (Tenet) was a political lightweight who could not assert himself even if he knew about the threat from al Qaeda and about the lack of Iraqi WMD's.
Tenet suffered from being a Clinton appointee then he lost even more credibility over 9/11.
So by the Iraq invasion he had become a yes man who hoped to keep his job.
Lets hope McConnell and Hayden have more independence and authority.
Pete
Tenet suffered from being a Clinton appointee then he lost even more credibility over 9/11.
So by the Iraq invasion he had become a yes man who hoped to keep his job.
Lets hope McConnell and Hayden have more independence and authority.
Pete
The fact that Negroponte left so soon after being made "Intelligence Czar" tells us what this administration thinks of it's spies more than anything. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is a cabinet level agency meant to streamline and coordinate intelligence across the government. But then DHS was supposed to make guarding our government's borders more efficient. FEMA went from an efficient and effective government agency to a mismanged and ineffective government agency under DHS. DHS has likely been a disaster. The DNI cabinet position has just resulted in another layer of government bureaucracy and another layer of inefficiency, not to mention it's made the DNI a political position, a cabinet level position where intelligence has to jockey for position with other cabinet members. So, "Intelligence" has gone from being an impartial advisor to the President, to being a biased political player in the Cabinet. It is never good to politicize a crucial advisory position that is supposed to deliver "objective" advice on policy.
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