Is US Intelligence working?

[wing2000]

Actually there are 2 strands here to the failures in policy in Syria and Iraq under Obama. There are major foul ups by the decisions makers like:
1) Premature withdrawal from Iraq which caused the rise of IS in the first place.

The rise started long before the Iraq draw down. While US troops certainly could have been used to prevent IS from capturing territory, people seem to forget Americans were fed up with sacrificing their sons and daughters in Iraq.

But there are also failures in the intelligence community e.g. Identifying our friends as moderate Muslims (in an utterly radicalised context) led to some major issues with American weopans finding their ways into the hands of terrorists.

What was the alternative? Insert American combat units? The American people would never have support US combat operations in Syira.

Also there is a perception of a general religious illiteracy in the intelligence community blinding them to motivations and meanings that are redundant or considered irrelevant in the secular/liberal metanarrative that underpins American state institutions. It is that narrative that is increasingly redundant in a world that is growing more not less religious and where some of the primary threats to American security are essentially Islamist.

A perception.....but do you have evidence U.S. Intelligence Analysts do not take religious ideology into account today?

No but you guys spend a vast amount of money on cyberwarfare groups and the NSAs info gathering. If not forewarned you could have least done a similar thing to those who perpetrated the actions after the event to make it clear what the consequences were.

We don't know what offensive cyber actions the U.S. government has taken...they remain secret for a reason...

Of course it does. When the political appointee in charge of an organisation is there because he gay rather than competent, or black rather than the best choice, or a woman rather than the person with the best experience then you damage the effectiveness of your organisations. When profiling has to navigate its way through the language of politically correct terms and reports are submitted to politically correct thought police rather than understood on their own merits then major errors of judgment will occur. It is the underpinning secular/liberal narrative that needs to be challenged if we are to understand the threats and challenges of the modern world.

Which appointee to you have in mind? The current heads of our Intelligence agencies have served the profession over a lifetime....

 

[mindlight]

The rise started long before the Iraq draw down. While US troops certainly could have been used to prevent IS from capturing territory, people seem to forget Americans were fed up with sacrificing their sons and daughters in Iraq.

This was one of those decision moments where leadership was required. It was not necessary to keep American soldiers in combat roles but a presence of just 10000 men might have made an enormous difference to the policies of the Maliki regime.

What was the alternative? Insert American combat units? The American people would never have support US combat operations in Syira.

The time to intervene was the Arab Spring itself. In that case America would have been seen on the side of the people against a brutal dictator and there was the possibility of a moderate replacement of Assad. But the initial dithering led to radicalisation on the part of the rebels and by the time help was considered the situation had already changed . Supporting the Free Syrian Army has only perpetuated the conflict. So rather than supporting them,doing nothing would have been better.

but do you have evidence U.S. Intelligence Analysts do not take religious ideology into account today?

No I do not. They have been making the right kinds of noises recently - mentioning the genocide and expulsion of Christians in the Middle east. Particularly since the old approach was not working. This report from before 911 (July 2001) illustrates my point. It is insightful and predictive of many demographic trends but a complete blank regarding religion which is often the primary factor explaining the meaning and perceived legitimacy of actions and in this case population movement and birthrates for instance.

https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/Demo_Trends_For_Web.pdf

Which appointee to you have in mind? The current heads of our Intelligence agencies have served the profession over a lifetime....

No I could not name one. The appointment of an army secretary last year was the one I had in mind when I said about how political correctness might warp appointments. But I have assumed that Obama was doing the same with high level intelligence appointments. I cannot say for sure though

Meet the Highest-Ranking Openly Gay Military Official in U.S. History

 

[mindlight]

I think Saddam turned to his weapons people and said, "We have WMDs, right?" and they said, "Yes, sir!"



Nobody welcomes foreign armies, even as liberators. Remember the old WWII images of Parisians throwing roses at Americans liberating Paris? Well, what the generals actually did was put de Gaulle and the French army at the head of that parade...the Americans followed him.

That's why the Army Chief of Staff and the Marine Commandant steadfastly declared that invading Iraq would require 250,000-350,000 troops while Rumsfelt was saying 70,000.



I think practically all needed changes are Congressional.

1. Poke some holes in the legal "wall" between foreign and domestic intelligence--at least on the analysis side, not the operational side. Right now, a request for intelligence must go from, say, an FBI agent at the working level though arduous validations to the senior officials of the FBI, then to the senior officials at the CIA and down though more validations to an analyst in a cubical who might have the answer. Then his answer has to go back up and across and down again. If the FBI has any further questions or needs clarification...it starts all over again. And there is plenty of CYA all the way up and down both chains. Most often, either question or response doesn't make the journey.

They can make that a lot simpler, quicker and easier...just maintain a tight audit of the communication.

2. Bring back "competitive analysis" as justified and permitted again. Prior to the end of the Cold War, intelligence agencies were authorized to "check each other's work." If one agency was first with an item, another agency tried at least to be more complete or more accurate.

But after the Cold War ended, everyone wanted a piece of the "Cold War Dividend," and part of that was cutting the heck out of intelligence capability. Lots of pink slips went around. And "competitive analysis" was seen as "expensive redundancy." Each agency got its "lane in the road" which no other agency could ride in.

A problem there, however, is that especially within the beltway, there might be only one analyst handling an entire area of concern...or an old senior analyst who made sure every report out of his section was in accord with his own theories. With "competitive analysis," there was someone somewhere else who might call his bunk.

An example of failure was the accidental US Air Force bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the Bosnian war. A lot of CYA finger-pointing went on after that, but we know exactly what happened. That location had been a Yugoslavian military building several years prior, and that's how it was still identified in the database--as such, it was a valid target. During the Bosnian bombing campaing, a specific CIA analyst had the job of validating whether or not it was still valid--it was in their "lane of the road."

However since its last report (done a few years earlier by the Air Force), the location had been sold to the Chinese, who razed the old structures and built their embassy.

Under the old "competitive analysis" regime, the Air Force would have been making regular reports of every potential targets--even low-priority structures like an obscure Yugoslavian military building would have been at least a training task for some young airman. He would have looked for a particularly described building, found something different, and gone to his sergeant, who would have told him to make a change in the database.

As it was, that particular CIA analyst (yes, we found out his name) was supposed to have actually sent someone to eyeball the building from street level. He failed to do that, and entered his report as NAC--No Apparent Change. And that's how that error happened. No "competitive analysis."

After that, I know several Air Force and Navy organizations started doing under-the-table competitive analysis out of their own budgets, not trusting the CIA with anything they needed for actual warfighting.

3. Give the DIA a seat at the table in the Situation Room. Right now, the CIA is the arbiter of intelligence that reaches the President. The Rules of Good Staffwork dictate that good staffers always reach agreement before meeting the Boss--they should never argue in front of the Boss. But giving the DIA a seat at the table would keep CIA honest, 'cause sometimes you have to break that rule.

4. Open an intelligence feed to the select intelligence committees in Congress that does not go through White House approval. The Congress needs more than the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment, which is frankly really just a vehicle for validating the Intelligence Community budget.

Brilliant post

The below article contradicts the view that the Intelligence community never said there were WMDs. It suggests they did this on circumstantial evidence.

The New Politics of Intelligence: Will Reforms Work This Time?

While the Church committee assumed Intelligence effectiveness but worried about abuse many today In the USA worry about effectiveness more. In Europe when the US hacks Merkels mobile the worry is more about how Intelligence power is being abused to spy on allies. This then has a negative impact on how America is perceived. Most of my German work colleagues assume the NSA is reading their emails and given the history of intelligence abuse in Germany fear that ( Gestapo or Stasi being the history)

Maintaining the delicate balance between legitimacy (both domestically and internationally) and effectiveness is the task of Trumps incoming administration

 

[mindlight]

Official report on Russian hacking

https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

 

[Nithavela]

I'm certain there will be a renewing, cleansing operation happening in the first months of 2017, ensuring that the actions of the intelligence agencies are more on line with the needs of the current government.

An ideological purge, if you will.

 

[RDKirk]

This was one of those decision moments where leadership was required. It was not necessary to keep American soldiers in combat roles but a presence of just 10000 men might have made an enormous difference to the policies of the Maliki regime.

The Maliki regime wanted US troops out. They had even passed a law abolishing the wartime Status of Forces Agreement in order to prosecute American soldiers for any infractions under Sharia law--that was a direct threat.

The time to intervene was the Arab Spring itself. In that case America would have been seen on the side of the people against a brutal dictator and there was the possibility of a moderate replacement of Assad. But the initial dithering led to radicalisation on the part of the rebels and by the time help was considered the situation had already changed . Supporting the Free Syrian Army has only perpetuated the conflict. So rather than supporting them,doing nothing would have been better.

You weren't the one earlier wondering if US intelligence analysts understood the religious issues, were you?

Yes, we do. The primary issue is that the Syrian Rebels were Sunni, the Assad government is Alawite (essentially Shiite), and the rebels would have always had affinities toward the ISIS fighters (who are also Sunni). The Shiite-Sunni conflict underlies all of this...which intelligence analysts are completely aware of.

"Doing nothing" would have been the advice given (or at least that nothing done would be productive), but that wasn't good politics.

To be sure, CIA documents that the public sees will have been massaged for political correctness. But the analysts in the cubicles know their business, and we certainly take religion into account where it is a significant factor.

Even where it appears it might not be--such as in the old Soviet Union and in North Korea--we still keep close tabs on religion aspects, because those folk might be defector information or agent possibilities.

No I could not name one. The appointment of an army secretary last year was the one I had in mind when I said about how political correctness might warp appointments. But I have assumed that Obama was doing the same with high level intelligence appointments. I cannot say for sure though

Meet the Highest-Ranking Openly Gay Military Official in U.S. History[/QUOTE]

The political appointments are public information. All of them to the intelligence agency have been career intelligence professionals.

 

[Arcangl86]

No I could not name one. The appointment of an army secretary last year was the one I had in mind when I said about how political correctness might warp appointments. But I have assumed that Obama was doing the same with high level intelligence appointments. I cannot say for sure though
Meet the Highest-Ranking Openly Gay Military Official in U.S. History

Except of course Secretary Fanning was perfectly qualified for the position. As for senior intelligence officers, I'll just give you three of them. The Director of the CIA is John Brennan, who served for 25 years in the CIA and was Deputy Homeland Security Advisor for 4 years. The Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the DHS is Ambassador Francis X. Taylor who was both Director of Counter-terrorism and Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, and before that was a one star in charge of the AF Office of Special Investigations, which he had been an agent of for 31 years. Lt. General Vincent R. Stewart is the Director of the DIA and has been involved with military intelligence since 1990. These people all have immense amount of experience in intelligence and counter-terror work.

 

[mindlight]

The Maliki regime wanted US troops out. They had even passed a law abolishing the wartime Status of Forces Agreement in order to prosecute American soldiers for any infractions under Sharia law--that was a direct threat.

You were the occuppiers. There were things that could have been done and the agreement did allow for remaining. It was a botched and premature withdrawal that did not anticipate the depth of Shia antagonism to Sunnis and which facilitated the rise of IS.

You weren't the one earlier wondering if US intelligence analysts understood the religious issues, were you?

Yes, we do. The primary issue is that the Syrian Rebels were Sunni, the Assad government is Alawite (essentially Shiite), and the rebels would have always had affinities toward the ISIS fighters (who are also Sunni). The Shiite-Sunni conflict underlies all of this...which intelligence analysts are completely aware of.

The US is a Christian nation that has applied a secular reading of its national self interest to its Syrian policy. Its morally relativistic reading of the situation in Syria has led to the decimation of the community that best shares its core national values ie Christians. Furthermore while being fully conversant with Sunni and Shia labels it completely botched its reading of the balance of forces in the region and the power of motivations and resources deployed in defence of Assad. Iran and Hezbollahs intervention altered the balance of forces. Obamas Iran deal empowered the Iranians. So the anti Shia and secular policy failed in 2 main ways. It killed the church and prolonged a civil war that led to hundreds of thousands dead and millions homeless. Russia has come out looking like the only effective foreign power in the country. While Israel benefitted from a broken Syria while Americas president was not that pro Israel it no longer does so now that Trump is fully supportive of Israel and more sceptical about Iran.

To be sure, CIA documents that the public sees will have been massaged for political correctness. But the analysts in the cubicles know their business, and we certainly take religion into account where it is a significant factor.

Even where it appears it might not be--such as in the old Soviet Union and in North Korea--we still keep close tabs on religion aspects, because those folk might be defector information or agent possibilities.

I think you might be reading an intelligence mentality from the time of the Cold war here. Christians were clear allies or sources of defectors in many cases then against the evil empire of communism. But now there is a misuse of religious readings from a dumb, morally relativistic perspective that does not understand the motivations and meanings, power and legitimacy that religion renders. Christians are just collateral damage to your state department and intelligence agencies now.

 

[mindlight]

Except of course Secretary Fanning was perfectly qualified for the position. As for senior intelligence officers, I'll just give you three of them. The Director of the CIA is John Brennan, who served for 25 years in the CIA and was Deputy Homeland Security Advisor for 4 years. The Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the DHS is Ambassador Francis X. Taylor who was both Director of Counter-terrorism and Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, and before that was a one star in charge of the AF Office of Special Investigations, which he had been an agent of for 31 years. Lt. General Vincent R. Stewart is the Director of the DIA and has been involved with military intelligence since 1990. These people all have immense amount of experience in intelligence and counter-terror work.

Fanning was qualified but not the best qualified. There was a controversy at the time. This was a political appointment.

 

[Arcangl86]

Fanning was qualified but not the best qualified. There was a controversy at the time. This was a political appointment.

Um, no. The controversy was that a senator put a hold on the nomination until he got a guarantee from President Obama that he wouldn't move prisoners from Gitmo to Leavenworth. Even that Senator thought he was qualified.

 

[aieyiamfu]

We don't get to hear about the 99% of problems and threats that they successfully take care of.

Or create.

 

[aieyiamfu]

I think the intelligence agencies just need to be purged of Obama's political appointments.

Obama has politicized just about every part of the government.

This was done long before Obummer.

 

[RDKirk]

Fanning was qualified but not the best qualified. There was a controversy at the time. This was a political appointment.

Fanning was not an intelligence official at any rate, so not pertinent to this discussion.

 

[RDKirk]

Or create.

Intel doesn't create any problems, unless we lie--which doesn't happen when agencies have freedom to tell the truth.

That's ops that causes the problems you're thinking about.

 

[Arcangl86]

Fanning was not an intelligence official at any rate, so not pertinent to this discussion.

The argument as far as I could tell was that Obama appointed a unqualified SECARMY and as such other national security appointees were probably also unqualified. Of course somebody who spends five minutes on Google would have discovered how incredibly experienced our national security appointees are.

 

[RDKirk]

You were the occuppiers. There were things that could have been done and the agreement did allow for remaining. It was a botched and premature withdrawal that did not anticipate the depth of Shia antagonism to Sunnis and which facilitated the rise of IS.

No, you didn't read what I wrote.

The "allowance for remaining" was only if American troops came under the authority of Iraqi Islamic law and Islamic courts--even when operating in the line of duty--which would have been unacceptable for any administration.

The depth of Shia antagonism to Sunnis was fully understood by intelligence analysts as well as by military operators. In fact, the entire success of the "surge" was based on the US Army ignoring US political policy by promising Iraq Sunnis that cooperation with US military forces would keep the Iraqi Shiite government out of their areas

The US is a Christian nation that has applied a secular reading of its national self interest to its Syrian policy. Its morally relativistic reading of the situation in Syria has led to the decimation of the community that best shares its core national values ie Christians. Furthermore while being fully conversant with Sunni and Shia labels it completely botched its reading of the balance of forces in the region and the power of motivations and resources deployed in defence of Assad. Iran and Hezbollahs intervention altered the balance of forces. Obamas Iran deal empowered the Iranians. So the anti Shia and secular policy failed in 2 main ways. It killed the church and prolonged a civil war that led to hundreds of thousands dead and millions homeless. Russia has come out looking like the only effective foreign power in the country. While Israel benefitted from a broken Syria while Americas president was not that pro Israel it no longer does so now that Trump is fully supportive of Israel and more sceptical about Iran.

We are talking about US intelligence analysts here. I've said that the intelligence analysts fully understand the role of religion in the area.

I've also said that US politicians ignore them.

I think you might be reading an intelligence mentality from the time of the Cold war here. Christians were clear allies or sources of defectors in many cases then against the evil empire of communism. But now there is a misuse of religious readings from a dumb, morally relativistic perspective that does not understand the motivations and meanings, power and legitimacy that religion renders. Christians are just collateral damage to your state department and intelligence agencies now.

My point was that intelligence analysts are aware of all major cultural issues of the people and places we study. In one case, we found even astrology to be an important indicator of one nuclear power prime minister--he actually timed the launching of test missiles according to his astrological "good days."

Intelligence does not have "collateral damage," btw. That's an operations consideration.

 

[aieyiamfu]

Intel doesn't create any problems, unless we lie--which doesn't happen when agencies have freedom to tell the truth.

That's ops that causes the problems you're thinking about.

Its intelligence agencies I'm thinking about.

 

[cow451]

No, you didn't read what I wrote.

The "allowance for remaining" was only if American troops came under the authority of Iranian Islamic law and Islamic courts--even when operating in the line of duty--which would have been unacceptable for any administration.

The depth of Shia antagonism to Sunnis was fully understood by intelligence analysts as well as by military operators. In fact, the entire success of the "surge" was based on the US Army ignoring US political policy by promising Iraq Sunnis that cooperation with US military forces would keep the Iraqi Shiite government out of their areas



We are talking about US intelligence analysts here. I've said that the intelligence analysts fully understand the role of religion in the area.

I've also said that US politicians ignore them.



My point was that intelligence analysts are aware of all major cultural issues of the people and places we study. In one case, we found even astrology to be an important indicator of one nuclear power prime minister--he actually timed the launching of test missiles according to his astrological "good days."

Intelligence does not have "collateral damage," btw. That's an operations consideration.

This constant harping on facts and information is quite annoying for some of your fellow posters. Keep up the good work.

 

[mindlight]

Um, no. The controversy was that a senator put a hold on the nomination until he got a guarantee from President Obama that he wouldn't move prisoners from Gitmo to Leavenworth. Even that Senator thought he was qualified.

Nope that was not the controversy at the time:

Huckabee rips Obama over choice to lead Army - CNNPolitics.com

 

[mindlight]

Fanning was not an intelligence official at any rate, so not pertinent to this discussion.

We are not going to get a proper overview of intelligence appointments cause it is all hush hush. If the Obama culture did appoint people according to a politically correct agenda in one area then it is possible he also did that in other areas also. Also by foisting that culture on the intelligence service it is possible that in turn influenced the ways in which intelligence reports were phrased. This recent Russian hacking scandal and the ways in which the intelligence services have been marshalled to produce damming reports before Trump comes in and changes American policy towards the Russians illustrates the level of presidential/political power asserted over the intelligence services.