Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [139]
The same questions are relevant for the DNI. Like the DCI, the DNI needs to have access to the president. In some respects this may be even more important for the DNI because, unlike the DCI, the DNI has no large institutional base (the CIA) on which to fall back. The DNI may have to put more effort into keeping abreast of what the intelligence community is doing and which parts of it are also communicating with the president. There is no definitive answer. Frequent contact between the DNI and the president is bound to run risks, but no DNI would be likely to choose the alternative relationship. The DNI should trust his or her instincts and rely on professionalism to maintain the proper bounds on the relationship.
Proximity to the president can also have a cost within the ranks of the intelligence community, especially if the DNI is not a professional intelligence officer. Like any other group of professionals, intelligence officers prefer to be directed by one of their own, someone who understands them, who shares their values and cultures and who shares some of their experiences. Remember that only three DCIs were professional intelligence officers (Richard Helms, William Colby, Robert Gates) and two had wartime intelligence experience (Allen Dulles and William Casey). The other DCIs tended to be treated skeptically at first by the intelligence community or, more specifically, by the CIA, with some gaining acceptance and others not. Therefore, a DCI who was seen as being too close to the policy makers and was also not a career intelligence officer would be seen as perhaps being more suspect by the rank and file. The same may run true for the DNIs, whose only legal requirement for the job is “extensive national security experience.” The added liability for the DNI is separation from all intelligence agencies, including the CIA. Again, much will depend on the nature of the DNI’s relationship with the president and how DNIs conduct themselves vis-a-vis the rest of the intelligence community.
The intelligence community also wants to be kept informed about policy directions and preferences. Although this would seem obligatory if the intelligence community is expected to provide relevant analysis, it does not always happen. All too often, policy makers do not keep intelligence abreast, either by design or omission. Such behavior not only makes the role of intelligence more difficult but also can lead to resentment that may be played out in other ways.
Another difference between the two groups is that of outlook. As a senior intelligence officer observed, policy makers tend to be optimists. They approach problems with the belief that they can solve them. After all, this is the reason they have gone into government. Intelligence officers are skeptics. Their training teaches them to question and to doubt. Although they may see an optimistic outcome to a given situation, they also see the potential pessimistic outcomes and likely feel compelled to analyze them as potential outcomes.
A revealing indication of the potential costs of the difference in outlook emerged in 2004, when relations between the Bush administration and the CIA deteriorated seriously. Differences over the progress being made in containing the insurgency in Iraq appear to have been the main stimulus. Leaks of intelligence analyses, which some White House officials characterized as being written by “pessimists, naysayers, and handwringers,” exacerbated the problem. At one point, President Bush said the CIA “was just guessing” about potential outcomes in Iraq, a remark that some intelligence officers found demeaning. It became customary to say that the CIA and the White House were “at war.” The fact that the exchange took place in the middle of a presidential election undoubtedly added to the tension. Indeed, the relationship deteriorated to the point where the acting DCI, John McLaughlin, felt it necessary to go to President Bush and assure him that the CIA was not covertly supporting Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry, Mass., in the election.
Several lessons