Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [193]
Once one gets beyond the traditional national security community, the issue of clearances comes up. Very few officials at the state, local, and tribal levels have clearances. Very few seem to want them. So. an immediate issue is how to pass along terrorist information without revealing sources and methods. This issue first arose as DHS was being formed. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., insisted that DHS have access to all raw intelligence. DCI Tenet refused to go along with this and was supported by the incoming DHS secretary, Tom Ridge. Ridge stated his view that if the DCI passed threat information, then he (Ridge) would assume it was well-sourced and needed to be acted upon. This rather common-sense approach is preferable to either withholding information from first responders because they are not cleared or requiring that they obtain clearances.
A more serious problem is doctrinal. U.S. policy makers and intelligence officers are still working out what homeland security intelligence (sometimes called HSINT—pronounced “hiz-int”) means. Doctrine matters because it helps determine what intelligence needs to be shared with whom and how quickly. This discussion is still under way, but some have advocated that DHS serve as a bridge between federal intelligence agencies of all sorts and the first responders, helping translate national intelligence down to the first responders and helping pass along detailed local knowledge from the first responders to the intelligence agencies. This means that DHS would take on responsibility for deciding which threats were passed and which were not, undoubtedly in consultation with other intelligence agencies. Some criteria for selectivity are crucial. Otherwise, DHS becomes a pass through for all threats, flooding the first responders, who recognize that they cannot protect everything all the time and want, most of all, vectoring information to help them safeguard those targets that are most threatened. It is important to recognize that the intelligence agencies and the first responders are working in a new field and still working out the parameters of their actions and their interactions.
But even information sharing is dependent, first, on information collection. For example, none of the investigations of September 11 found evidence that the one or two pieces of intelligence that might have led to the plot were somehow misdirected or not shared. Such evidence was never collected and may not have been collectible. Officials have also raised concerns about cyberattacks on the United States as part of a terrorist campaign. The main fear is that such actions could affect vital parts of the U.S. infrastructure. Such an attack would likely have even fewer indicators and the perpetrators might never be known after the attack.
The conduct of the war against terrorism raises questions about its future. U.S. officials have claimed that three quarters of al Qaeda’s senior leadership, including those who planned the 2001 attacks, were either killed or are in custody. The effect on al Qaeda is unclear. Presumably, deaths and arrests led al Qaeda to rely on more clandestine means of communications, including a greater use of couriers. The ability to communicate thus has been impeded, but the ability to avoid detection and interception has been enhanced at the same time.
Finally, the absence of any major attacks on the United States since 2001 (terrorist attacks took place in Madrid, Spain, in 2004 and in London, England, in 2005, and attempted in Algeria in 2007) raises questions as to why. Several possibilities come to mind, none of which precludes the others: al Qaeda may be less capable. They may feel themselves deterred by the array of U.S. and others’ actions. Or they simply may be in the midst of a long planning cycle. In the war on terrorism, much difficulty is found in gauging progress and having a sense of when the threat will be defeated.
It has been suggested that more time be spent