Is US Intelligence working?

[mindlight]

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.

No you missed my point just as you and your fellow debaters did when we argued this at the time. You were not there by agreement of the Iraqi government and did not need their agreement to remain and there was precious little they could have done about you remaining. The U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement did allow for a continued presence and was vague about what crimes by Americans would actually be punished by the Iraqi government and how such a process would work in practice. In fact they would never have gotten away with this so it was not a real reason for withdrawal. It was a lawyers justification for it. Also there were loop holes in the agreement that allowed for a continued presence and it was clear that Gates and Bush expected a continued presence. Obamas botching of the Iraqi withdrawal and your and many other Americans support for it is the major reason for the rise of IS, a substantial reason for the massacre or displacement of the church in the Middle East and the major instability we have all suffered from in Syria the last few years. So nothing to be proud of there.

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

Bush understood this but then Obama abandoned these very same Sunnis to the Shias. Given that the Intelligence community seems to be there to provide justifications for withdrawal (ie situation stable - no foreseen problems if American troops are taken out) that seems like wishful thinking really.

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 can accept that this might be the real issue here. Intelligence analysts speaking the truth and then watching their reports warp into some thing completely different on their way to the president. This political filtering process when it comes to intelligence is then the key problem faced both by an intelligence community stigmatised for things it never said and for the apparent failure of the link between intelligence and actual policy.

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.

I think secularisation is probably a bigger problem now than it was when you were in the community and the gap between using the right words to cover your backside and actually understanding what you are saying is the real difference between someone who genuinely understands a religious issue and one who describes it from the outside looking in. The weighting of truthes, the ways in which they are filtered and then presented are all effected by an understanding of their meaning and legitimacy. If people are not religious I cannot believe they are going to see religious things with the same level of understanding of those for whom there is a level of reality to these issues.

 

[mindlight]

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

You hear what you want to hear on this matter just as you did when we discussed the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement several years ago. In practice the withdrawal has proven a disaster and as argued at the time there was nothing compelling America to it beyond a failure of presidential leadership and a tiredness in the American public with the cost of the war. But withdrawal has merely transferred the cost from Americans to the church in the Middle East.

 

[Arcangl86]

Nope that was not the controversy at the time:

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

Oh a former governor with Presidential ambitions criticized the appointment. The actual people who are responsible for vetting and approving the appointment had no difficulty with him at all.

 

[Crusader05]

Speaking from my first hand knowledge the people in the intel community are too busy and focused on the mission to really care about all this. The lion's share of people doing intel for our nation are either in uniform or veterans themselves; they are dedicated, highly trained professionals and patriots.

 

[mindlight]

Speaking from my first hand knowledge the people in the intel community are too busy and focused on the mission to really care about all this. The lion's share of people doing intel for our nation are either in uniform or veterans themselves; they are dedicated, highly trained professionals and patriots.

These guys probably are as you describe them but if much of their effort is being filtered into politically warped reports that tell the decision makers what they want to hear ,whatever the facts ,then that effort may be largely wasted

 

[RDKirk]

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.

Nope, all the appointments are public information.

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.

So you took your first "if-then" conclusion--which was total speculation--and used it as though it were a fact for your next conclusion. Sorry, nope, that is not valid logic.

 

[RDKirk]

These guys probably are as you describe them but if much of their effort is being filtered into politically warped reports that tell the decision makers what they want to hear ,whatever the facts ,then that effort may be largely wasted

I've already been talking about how that can happen, particularly in the CIA. For instance, this is what happened to the CIA in the run-up toward the invasion of Iraq:

Life for an intelligence analyst in the beltway is similar to the world of academia: Publish or perish. They do analyses in particular fields and over the course of time become experts--sometimes 'way too narrow IMO. For instance, I knew a woman who had worked nothing but five Soviet bomber facilities in her entire career. Now, nobody knew more than she did about those five facilities--she was freaking amazing in her knowledge of what was going on in those five facilities every single day...made me feel like a piker. But I recall one day when someone started briefing about FLANKER aircraft and she asked, "Those are fighters, right?" Then I felt better.

In that atmosphere for the CIA, getting one's report into the Situation Room is the apple everyone is shooting for. That's what gets you promoted. You have to be writing what the president wants to hear about.

So it became pretty well understood by the Iraq team at the time that unless they were saying something about WMD, their reports had no chance of getting into the Situation Room, and if they didn't get reports into the Situation Room, then...no promotions. That's how the political twisting works. So...they talked about WMD. And then heavily caveated their reports.

I remember one analyst in CIA who loved ending his reports with the phrase, "However, the possibility of the converse cannot be overlooked." Sheesh. If I had ever said that in a briefing to a military commander at any level, I'd get thrown out of the room. Physically. So hard I'd bounce.

When I first got to DIA, I met one guy, a long-time civilian analyst, who seemed pretty bright. But I learned quickly that everyone considered him rather a dunce. It seemed he had this theory of this one very significant Soviet installation that he claimed was inoperable...and had always been inoperable from the day it was completed.

The problem was that the US was using the existence of that installation as a stick to beat the Soviets over the SALT talks. So none of the political folk wanted to hear that the installation didn't even operate.

This guy stuck to his guns and it affected his career. He lost promotions and lost credibility.

Then the Soviet Union fell and some Senators got a tour of that facility. They discovered exactly what that analyst had said years earlier: The facility had never been operational, and exactly how that analyst had described it.

But did he get those promotions and regain credibility? Of course not.

 

[Crusader05]

These guys probably are as you describe them but if much of their effort is being filtered into politically warped reports that tell the decision makers what they want to hear ,whatever the facts ,then that effort may be largely wasted

Exactly, that is in issue and was documented in the 'cooking' of intel from CENTCOM to downplay the expansion of ISIS so as to not embarrass the Obama administration. That's the kind of stuff that really impacts morale at these agencies.

 

[RDKirk]

No you missed my point just as you and your fellow debaters did when we argued this at the time. You were not there by agreement of the Iraqi government and did not need their agreement to remain and there was precious little they could have done about you remaining.

I'll quote something a commander of mine once said: "Operations wins battles, but logistics wins wars." Most people think of combat only in terms of numbers of troops and weapons. Most people do not understand the essential importance of massive continuous materiel support ("beans 'n' bullets") needed to sustain a modern combat-capable military force.

This is a fact of warfare for the USA: If the US does not have a secure seaport contiguous to the combat zone to permit continuous massive combat support logistical operation, the US cannot successfully occupy that territory. Period. No cognizant debate about that.

 

[RDKirk]

Exactly, that is in issue and was documented in the 'cooking' of intel from CENTCOM to downplay the expansion of ISIS so as to not embarrass the Obama administration. That's the kind of stuff that really impacts morale at these agencies.

That was probably done more to cover their own okoles, an example of the Iron Law of Bureaucracy, than out of loyalty to the Obama administration. Remember that career government employees intend their own careers to last longer than the current short-timer in the White House.

However, I don't see real evidence that Obama has been any more acceptable of intelligence that does not suit his policy than GW Bush, Bill Clinton, or Richard Nixon.

GHW Bush paid due attention to intelligence. Jimmy Carter's mind could be changed with effort. With Reagan, the Intelligence Community had GHW Bush as its effective intermediary.

 

[wing2000]

That was probably done more to cover their own okoles, an example of the Iron Law of Bureaucracy, than out of loyalty to the Obama administration. Remember that career government employees intend their own careers to last longer than the current short-timer in the White House.

However, I don't see real evidence that Obama has been any more acceptable of intelligence that does not suit his policy than GW Bush, Bill Clinton, or Richard Nixon.

GHW Bush paid due attention to intelligence. Jimmy Carter's mind could be changed with effort. With Reagan, the Intelligence Community had GHW Bush as its effective intermediary.

....except in Reagan's Central America where ideology trumped the reality on the ground. CIA's Casey was given a long leash to run covert ops....

 

[RDKirk]

....except in Reagan's Central America where ideology trumped the reality on the ground. CIA's Casey was given a long leash to run covert ops....

At the Strategic Air Command Museum in Nebraska, there is an old SR-71 on display. The placard indicates that it flew the first intelligence collection mission over Nicaragua.

Well, not quite. But it was the first one they had the ability to detect (inasmuch as it boomed the heck out of people on the ground).

The interesting thing about that flight is that it had no cameras aboard. Reagan loved the Sled, and we were flying it so much all around the world that the cameras were needing extra maintenance and we were shell-gaming them around the world to meet the mission demands.

That particular time, I took a phone call from our DC customer that the president wanted a mission over Nicaragua on a particular day. That seemed peculiar inasmuch as we were collecting good intelligence, undetected, by other means. I told my contact that the first time we boomed them, the Cubans there would know exactly what it was, and they'd start hiding things. He didn't care--a mission on that date was what the president wanted.

But we also had no cameras available at that launch location on that date--give us another week...

"No, it can go without sensors."

"What?"

"We don't need sensors. Just make the date."

"You'd better send me a message on that. I'm not even going to give a heads up to the wing without that in writing."

And we did fly it without sensors. That wasn't the only time we flew the Sled during the Reagan administration for no other reason than the boom.

 

[bhsmte]

At the Strategic Air Command Museum in Nebraska, there is an old SR-71 on display. The placard indicates that it flew the first intelligence collection mission over Nicaragua.

Well, not quite. But it was the first one they had the ability to detect (inasmuch as it boomed the heck out of people on the ground).

The interesting thing about that flight is that it had no cameras aboard. Reagan loved the Sled, and we were flying it so much all around the world that the cameras were needing extra maintenance and we were shell-gaming them around the world to meet the mission demands.

That particular time, I took a phone call from our DC customer that the president wanted a mission over Nicaragua on a particular day. That seemed peculiar inasmuch as we were collecting good intelligence, undetected, by other means. I told my contact that the first time we boomed them, the Cubans there would know exactly what it was, and they'd start hiding things. He didn't care--a mission on that date was what the president wanted.

But we also had no cameras available at that launch location on that date--give us another week...

"No, it can go without sensors."

"What?"

"We don't need sensors. Just make the date."

"You'd better send me a message on that. I'm not even going to give a heads up to the wing without that in writing."

And we did fly it without sensors. That wasn't the only time we flew the Sled during the Reagan administration for no other reason than the boom.

I guess then, Reagan was simply interested in sending a message. Do you think it was effective?

 

[wing2000]

Yes, flying a Blackbird would have been a bit of overkill. We flew much slower RC12G recon aircraft along the border. One day a pilot mis-entered the coordinates into the GPS. Not long into the mission we received a call from our Air Force colleagues asking us to check our bird's position as Nicaraguan radar was tracking an unidentified aircraft in Nicaraguan air space on a beeline to Managua. Needless to say our aircraft made a quick u turn. Nicaragua didn't have any fighter aircraft but they did have a few SAM's....

At the Strategic Air Command Museum in Nebraska, there is an old SR-71 on display. The placard indicates that it flew the first intelligence collection mission over Nicaragua.

Well, not quite. But it was the first one they had the ability to detect (inasmuch as it boomed the heck out of people on the ground).

The interesting thing about that flight is that it had no cameras aboard. Reagan loved the Sled, and we were flying it so much all around the world that the cameras were needing extra maintenance and we were shell-gaming them around the world to meet the mission demands.

That particular time, I took a phone call from our DC customer that the president wanted a mission over Nicaragua on a particular day. That seemed peculiar inasmuch as we were collecting good intelligence, undetected, by other means. I told my contact that the first time we boomed them, the Cubans there would know exactly what it was, and they'd start hiding things. He didn't care--a mission on that date was what the president wanted.

But we also had no cameras available at that launch location on that date--give us another week...

"No, it can go without sensors."

"What?"

"We don't need sensors. Just make the date."

"You'd better send me a message on that. I'm not even going to give a heads up to the wing without that in writing."

And we did fly it without sensors. That wasn't the only time we flew the Sled during the Reagan administration for no other reason than the boom.

 

[cow451]

You hear what you want to hear on this matter just as you did when we discussed the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement several years ago. In practice the withdrawal has proven a disaster and as argued at the time there was nothing compelling America to it beyond a failure of presidential leadership and a tiredness in the American public with the cost of the war. But withdrawal has merely transferred the cost from Americans to the church in the Middle East.

We will forever disagree on these facts. Far more Muslims than Christians have been killed and displaced due to the destabilization resulting from the Western (primarily US) policies in Iraq.

 

[bhsmte]

I've already been talking about how that can happen, particularly in the CIA. For instance, this is what happened to the CIA in the run-up toward the invasion of Iraq:

Life for an intelligence analyst in the beltway is similar to the world of academia: Publish or perish. They do analyses in particular fields and over the course of time become experts--sometimes 'way too narrow IMO. For instance, I knew a woman who had worked nothing but five Soviet bomber facilities in her entire career. Now, nobody knew more than she did about those five facilities--she was freaking amazing in her knowledge of what was going on in those five facilities every single day...made me feel like a piker. But I recall one day when someone started briefing about FLANKER aircraft and she asked, "Those are fighters, right?" Then I felt better.

In that atmosphere for the CIA, getting one's report into the Situation Room is the apple everyone is shooting for. That's what gets you promoted. You have to be writing what the president wants to hear about.

So it became pretty well understood by the Iraq team at the time that unless they were saying something about WMD, their reports had no chance of getting into the Situation Room, and if they didn't get reports into the Situation Room, then...no promotions. That's how the political twisting works. So...they talked about WMD. And then heavily caveated their reports.

I remember one analyst in CIA who loved ending his reports with the phrase, "However, the possibility of the converse cannot be overlooked." Sheesh. If I had ever said that in a briefing to a military commander at any level, I'd get thrown out of the room. Physically. So hard I'd bounce.

When I first got to DIA, I met one guy, a long-time civilian analyst, who seemed pretty bright. But I learned quickly that everyone considered him rather a dunce. It seemed he had this theory of this one very significant Soviet installation that he claimed was inoperable...and had always been inoperable from the day it was completed.

The problem was that the US was using the existence of that installation as a stick to beat the Soviets over the SALT talks. So none of the political folk wanted to hear that the installation didn't even operate.

This guy stuck to his guns and it affected his career. He lost promotions and lost credibility.

Then the Soviet Union fell and some Senators got a tour of that facility. They discovered exactly what that analyst had said years earlier: The facility had never been operational, and exactly how that analyst had described it.

But did he get those promotions and regain credibility? Of course not.

thanks for posting. This is one reason the cia (like any organization) can take on a life of its own and move further away from objectivity.

 

[mindlight]

Michael Flynn is pushed to resign following the leakage of classified tapes that monitored conversations with Russian diplomats and the subsequent who hah in selected media outlets. How is it that I am even able to commentate on this?!

'Just like Russia': Trump renews fight with intelligence agencies amid leaks

 

[HannahT]

Nigel Flynn is pushed to resign following the leakage of classified tapes that monitored conversations with Russian diplomats and the subsequent who hah in selected media outlets. How is it that I am even able to commentate on this?!

'Just like Russia': Trump renews fight with intelligence agencies amid leaks

I heard about this yesterday. They say he didn't do anything illegal, which to me says it couldn't be that much of a conversation quite frankly. Yet, he diminished the trust that Trump had in him due to changing answers and what have you. That part I can understand.

It did bother me that those recorded conversations are to go to court prior to releasing any American name that could be on the tapes, and yet they choose to leak it instead - and by passed the legal obligations.

I have ALWAYS hated these leaks when it came to any administration. I never understood why they don't go after the government rep that is leaking this stuff. They have done it to every President, and it really shouldn't be. I honestly never understood why the President's don't go after these leakers.

 

[Rion]

I heard about this yesterday. They say he didn't do anything illegal, which to me says it couldn't be that much of a conversation quite frankly. Yet, he diminished the trust that Trump had in him due to changing answers and what have you. That part I can understand.

It did bother me that those recorded conversations are to go to court prior to releasing any American name that could be on the tapes, and yet they choose to leak it instead - and by passed the legal obligations.

I have ALWAYS hated these leaks when it came to any administration. I never understood why they don't go after the government rep that is leaking this stuff. They have done it to every President, and it really shouldn't be. I honestly never understood why the President's don't go after these leakers.

Obama did, with a fury. However, there is a difference between people who leak whole documents to allow people to know that the government is lying (ala Snowden and Rich) vs. what the CIA/FBI does which is leak select, possibly out of context, bits of information to destroy a specific target.

 

[lasthero]

Obama did, with a fury. However, there is a difference between people who leak whole documents to allow people to know that the government is lying (ala Snowden and Rich) vs. what the CIA/FBI does which is leak select, possibly out of context, bits of information to destroy a specific target.

What was out of context about the information that came out?