Article: The Intelligence War 

Summary

Attention is turning to the need for an intense, covert war in which the American intelligence community will play a leading role. At the same time, there is a crisis of confidence concerning the ability of the intelligence community to wage that war. The most important and frequently neglected part of intelligence analysis thus far has received scant attention. Without increased resources and freedom directed toward the intelligence analyst, a quantum increase in operational effectiveness will not be possible.

Analysis

Throughout the day Sept. 16, the tenor of the Bush administration's public discussions shifted subtly away from conventional military options toward waging a covert war against terrorists. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld referred to a long "shadow war" that would have to be waged against those suspected of involvement in the Sept. 11 strikes at the Pentagon and World Trade Center and against other organizations that might be planning future attacks. Secretary of State Colin Powell referred to a war that would last as long as anyone might imagine. Discussions intensified over lifting the ban on political assassinations and ending restrictive controls on those whom the intelligence community might recruit as spies.

At the same time, congressional voices led by Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, blasted the CIA and its director, George Tenet. Shelby said: "This was on his watch. If we didn't have a clue, then something's wrong. If we had a clue and didn't act, then something's worse.'' We know Shelby has had a long, running feud with Tenet, and there is personal animosity involved. But the fact that the administration is turning to the intelligence community to lead this fight while the leading Republican Senate committee member is calling for the CIA director's head, points to serious trouble -- and we do not mean normal Washington political trouble.

Shelby clearly has a point. On Dec. 8, 1941, when everyone was calling for the head of Adm. Husband E. Kimmel --then commander in chief, Pacific -- the issue wasn't just that the country wanted a scapegoat. That was a factor, but there was also a deeper issue. Multiple failures of intelligence and prudence happened at Pearl Harbor. Most of all, "business as usual" in communications and responses led to the fleet's devastation. The question was whether the commanders who had the watch at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7 could be expected to wage a winning war.

There are striking similarities between Dec. 7, 1941, and Sept. 11, 2001. In both cases, there were extensive discussions of impending actions by an identified enemy. In both cases, the precise action that would be taken was unanticipated. In both cases, warnings that were clear in retrospect were obscure at the time. In both cases, a strong case could be made that senior field commanders had their hands tied by higher command authority. Kimmel did not have timely intelligence from Washington. Tenet did not have the authority to hunt and kill Osama bin Laden nor to recruit members of his gang who may have committed terrorist acts or human rights violations -- which is the same as saying that he could not recruit spies in bin Laden's camp.

This is not about the person of George Tenet. By all accounts, he has been one of the more effective CIA directors. It is instead a question of the institutional capabilities not only of the CIA, but of the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and a host of other intelligence agencies that frequently compete with each other, sometimes undercut each other and on occasion cooperate wholeheartedly with each other. The issue is whether the American intelligence community as a collective institution is capable of carrying out its mission.

The heart of our intelligence community is its ability to collect information -- from NSA's signals intelligence to the National Reconnaissance Office's image intelligence to the CIA's human intelligence. The amount of intelligence washing into these organizations each hour boggles the mind. Computerized systems have been created to sort through the mountains of intelligence that come in each day. But even after the sorting -- and even accepting the dubious assumption that the sorting does not lose as much valuable information as it finds -- a mountain of material is left to read, think about and analyze.

But all the collection in the world has no value if there is no one to connect pieces of information and from them draw intuitive insight. We have no doubt that after the databases have been searched, it will be found that U.S. intelligence had plenty of information in some highly secure computer. The newspapers will trumpet, "CIA knew identity of attackers." That will be only technically true. Buried in the huge mounds of information perhaps once having passed across an overworked analyst's desk, some bit of information might have made its circuit of the agencies. But saying that U.S. intelligence actually "knew" about the attackers' plots would be overstating it. Owning a book and knowing what is in it are two vastly different things.

Analysis has been the stepchild of the intelligence community. Billions are spent on technology while the numbers, morale and resources of the analysts have been treated as an afterthought. To Tenet's tremendous credit, he recently created the first school for analysts at the CIA. Until that point, there was no formal training program for analysts. The field operatives had numerous facilities in which to train. The analysts, whose job it is to make sense of the situation -- to explain what exactly is going on -- were simply hired and, if lucky, enjoyed good apprenticeships with senior analysts. If unlucky, they were left to flounder.

The CIA is about to surge its collections. That's what it does best. But stepping up its analytic functions is the key. The technicians who pull in the signals from Afghanistan, the computer programmer who writes the code for sorting through them, the cipher specialist who breaks the code, are all vital, and huge amounts of money are spent on them. But who is going to read and understand the material?

Tasking is equally as important as analysis. The analysts are the ones who can best judge what they know and what they don't. They need to have tremendous influence and even control over what information is pursued. The collectors cannot keep collecting information in a way that vastly outstrips the analytic community's ability to assimilate it. There must be symmetry between collection and analysis. That means that the quantity of collections cannot be the measure of effectiveness. The quality and the timeliness with which they are delivered to the analyst must be the measure.

The government must take a careful look at the degree to which the intelligence community compartmentalizes intelligence. Compartmentalization is an important tool in limiting the damage done by espionage. Compartmentalization can also mean that very few people ever get to see the entire picture.

The fact is that those who do get to see it -- senior analysts -- tend to be the ones who are most assimilated to the system, least inclined to rock the boat and most caught up in CIA and Washington group-think. Younger analysts, who are capable of thinking out of the box and who have, frankly, higher energy levels, are less likely to see the whole constellation of data and therefore are least able to make the intuitive leap. There may be a link between security and longevity, but it is not self-evident. There is a cost. Fresh blood and the best data frequently don't get a chance to meet.

We have no doubt that the United States will be able to improve its human intelligence. Nor do we doubt that the CIA, using its own personnel and the military's Special Operations Command, will be extremely effective when launched into action. These are the matters that are getting special attention in Washington today, along with the standard Washington scalp-hunting.

We do not doubt someone's head will roll. We do not doubt the CIA will reform itself on the fly much as the U.S. Navy did following Pearl Harbor. But it is much less clear to us that the essential change will occur. Adding more robust human intelligence to technical intelligence capabilities is an obvious necessity. Loosening the chains on covert operations is also needed. But the most fundamental shift necessary does not have to do with collecting intelligence or conducting operations. It has to do with understanding what it all means and identifying that strange anomaly that might lead to identifying an attack on the United States.

Analysis is not sexy work. No movies will be made about it. But it is the most important work to be done, and not enough money or attention is paid to it. If reforms are going to be made, we would urgently hope that they would be made in elevating the standing of analysis in the intelligence community.

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