Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [22]
As terrible as the 2001 terrorist attacks were, the initial Iraq WMD estimate points to much more fundamental questions for U.S. intelligence. The analytical failure in Iraq likely will be a burden for U.S. intelligence for many years to come. Subsequent analyses also seemed to point to increased politicization of intelligence, not by those who wrote it but by those in the executive branch and in Congress seeking to gain political advantage by using unclassified versions of intelligence.
The Iraq analytical controversy continued to serve as a touchstone for future intelligence analyses. In 2007, the DNI released unclassified key judgments of an NIE on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, which reversed its earlier (2005) findings and concluded that the weapons aspects of the program had stopped in 2003. This immediately became controversial not only because of the judgments themselves but also as some observers wondered whether this reflected either “lessons learned” from Iraq or some means of compensating for earlier errant estimates, a curious view that betrayed significant misunderstandings of the estimative process.
INTELLIGENCE REORGANIZATION (2004-2005). Three things contributed to the 2004 passage of legislation reorganizing the intelligence community: (1) reaction to the 2001 terrorist attack: (2) the subsequent 2004 report of the 9/11 Commission; and (3) the absence of Iraqi WMDs. despite intelligence community estimates that indicated otherwise. Congress replaced the DCI with a DNI who would oversee and coordinate intelligence but who would be divorced from a base in any intelligence agency. This was the first major restructuring of U.S. intelligence since the 1947 act. (See chap. 3 for details.) In March 2005, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction issued its report, recommending additional changes in intelligence structure and in the management of analysis and collection.
In 2006, CIA director Porter Goss resigned. By 2007, the first DNI, John Negroponte, had stepped down to return to the State Department after fewer than two years in the DNI position. Retired vice admiral Mike McConnell replaced Negroponte. Several senior jobs on the DNI’s staff proved difficult to fill. Many observers took such staffing problems as evidence that the new structure was not working as smoothly as proponents had hoped.
KEY TERMS
competitive analysis
groupthink
key judgments
monitoring
national intelligence
national technical means
render
verification
FURTHER READINGS
Most histories ot U.S. intelligence tend to be CIA-centric, and these suggested readings are no exception. Nonetheless, they still offer some of the best discussions of the themes and events reviewed in this chapter.
Ambrose, Stephen E., with Richard H. Immerman. Ike’s Spies. Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment. Garden City. N.Y.: Doubleday. 1981.
Brugioni, Dino A. Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Ed. Robert F. MeCort. New York: Random House, 1990.
Colby, William E., and Peter Forbath. Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978.
Draper, Theodore. A Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affair. New York: Hill and Wang, 1991.
Garthoff, Douglas J. Directors of Central lntelligence as Leaders of the U.S. lntelligence Community 1946-2005. Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA, 2005.
Gates, Robert M. From the Shadows. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.
Helms, Richard M. A Look over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central lntelligence Agency. New York: Random House, 2003.
Hersh, Seymour. “Huge CIA Operations Reported in U.S. against Anti-War Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years.” New York Times, December 22, 1974, 1.
Houston, Lawrence R. “The CIA’s Legislative Base.” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 5 (winter 1991-1992):