• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 593 0

been implemented in the past and would be difficult to enforce, but it is necessary before questioning why the technology does not work. One example of the types of policies that are needed is the concept promoted by Gen. Michael Hayden, noted earlier, about getting the intelligence out sooner. Underlying the emphasis on technology may be the unstated belief that IT improvements can affect analysis. Although Americans have had a historical belief in the power of technology, no substantive cases serve as examples in which technology precluded either sharing or better analysis. Abundant stories can be told about incompatible IT systems from agency to agency, but that is not the same issue. This belief is, in some respects, the technological counterpart to the right-or-wrong analysis belief. To date, the search for improved analytical tools has not been particularly successful, and for some it has taken on the aspect of a hunt for the Holy Grail. Part of the problem is that intelligence analysis remains an intellectual process, not a mechanical one. IT can be helpful in amassing data, collating it, sifting it, creating relationships among databases, and so on, but it cannot replace an insightful and experienced analyst.

The 2003 capture of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein may be instructive. U.S. military officials and intelligence analysts assumed that Saddam had to be depending on someone for support while he was in hiding. They began by focusing attention on his innermost circle, but the search proved fruitless. So, they began to widen the group of people in whom they were interested to more relatives, tribal allies, and lower level functionaries. More raids, more arrests, and more interrogations resulted, all of which served to expand the lists further. Eventually. they located Saddam’s hideout. Although IT could have played a role—amassing names, comparing them, creating relationship maps—the key was analysis.

The other argument in favor of improved IT tools is the commonly held perception that analysts are drowning in information. No substantive studies are available to compare the amount of data available to analysts twenty years ago, when everything was in hard copy, and today. The perception may be based, in part, on confusing the means by which the intelligence is delivered, IT, and the amount that is delivered. IT has not greatly expanded the working day of the French Foreign Ministry or the Chinese army. People can still work on and produce only so much information in a given day, whether or not there is IT. Technical collectors are struggling to put out as much finished imagery intelligence (IMINT) and SIGINT as they have in the past, so they are not sources of a major flood of information. IT certainly creates unnecessary redundancies of information, as the same data come in from separate sources. But this is not the same as a flood of new information. The irony is that people are looking to IT to solve the problems largely created by IT.

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. An important although seemingly minor issue is administrative reform. Because the intelligence community is composed of separate agencies, it has many distinct processes for security, personnel policies, training, and so on. To many, these seem wasteful and duplicative. Although significant differences exist in training a cryptanalyst, an imagery analyst, and a case officer, personnel procedures and some training are to a certain extent generic. The disparate infrastructure systems impose unnecessary costs. For example, if a terrorism analyst at the DIA seeks a better job at the CIA, also covering terrorism, more is involved than a simple transfer. The analyst must apply to the CIA, be re-vetted for security, and resign from the DIA. Managing analysts as some larger integrated corps would be an improvement. This may be a seemingly minor area where the DNI can make real progress. Several of the goals in DNI McConnell’s 100 Day Plan and 500 Day Plan focus on these issues. In addition, the DNI has been emphasizing more education and training that cuts across