Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [12]
Two major reasons explain this redundancy, and they are fundamental to how the United States conducts analysis. First, different consumers of intelligence—policy makers—have different intelligence needs. Even when the president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are working on the same issue, each has different operational responsibilities. The United States developed analytical centers to serve each policy maker’s specific and unique needs. Also, each policy agency wanted to be assured of a stream of intelligence dedicated to its needs.
Second, the United States developed the concept of competitive analysis, an idea that is based on the belief that by having analysts in several agencies with different backgrounds and perspectives work on the same issue, parochial views more likely will be countered—if not weeded out—and proximate reality is more likely to be achieved. Competitive analysis should, in theory, be an antidote to groupthink and forced consensus, although this is not always the case in practice. For example, during the pre-war assessment of Iraq’s weapon of mass destruction (WMD) programs, divisions formed among agencies about the nature of some intelligence (such as the possible role of aluminum tubes in a nuclear program) and whether the totality of the intelligence indicated parts of a nuclear program or a more coherent program. But these differences did not appreciably alter the predominant view with respect to the overall Iraqi nuclear capability.
As one would expect, competitive analysis entails a certain cost for the intelligence community because it requires having many analysts in several agencies. During the 1990s, as intelligence budgets contracted severely under the pressure of the post-cold war peace dividend and because of a lack of political support in either the executive branch or Congress, much of the capability to conduct competitive analysis was lost. There simply were not enough analysts. According to DCI George J. Tenet (1997-2004), the entire intelligence community lost some twenty-three thousand positions during the 1990s, affecting all activities. One result was a tendency to do less competitive analysis and, instead, to allow agencies to focus on certain issues exclusively, which resulted in a sort of analytical triage.
CONSUMER-PRODUCER RELATIONS. The distinct line that is drawn between policy and intelligence leads to questions about how intelligence producers and consumers should relate to each other. The issue is the degree of proximity that is desirable.
Two schools of thought have been evident in this debate in the United States. The distance school argued that the intelligence establishment should keep itself separate from the policy makers to avoid the risk of providing intelligence that lacks objectivity and favors or opposes one policy choice over others. Adherents of the distance school also feared that policy makers could interfere with intelligence to receive analysis that supported or opposed specific policies. This group believed that too close a relationship increased the risk of politicized intelligence.
The proximate group argued that too great a distance raised the risk that the intelligence community would be less aware of policy makers’ needs and therefore produce less useful intelligence. This group maintained that proper training and internal reviews