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Rethinking Intelligence

By Farrukh Khan Pitafi

The urge to reflect on ones past follies and to learn from them forms an inextricable part of common sense. It is a mystery then that how some leading lights in the world of 'intelligence' are found devoid of this basic human faculty. 

George J. Tenet, the US Director of Central Intelligence and the uncrowned Tsar of its supposedly most effective Central Intelligence Agency delivered a speech at his alma mater Georgetown University on Thursday, February 5^th and came up with some unusual pearls of wisdom. If it was meant to be an exercise in counterintelligence, unfortunately it failed miserably for this time he was supposed to dodge not an enemy but his own people and the free media. Very cunningly and unnoticeably Mr. Tenet shifted his responsibilities for misleading the administration on Iraq and the failure to preempt 9/11 as the DCI to the meek shoulders of his subordinates and usurped the credit from them for the recent successes in the field of non-proliferation.

Talking about AQ Khan case he claimed that he in his worldwide threat testimony before Congress last year had mentioned about him cryptically. And pointing to the breakneck speed with which this issue has surfaced in the recent days he said, "What did intelligence have to do with this? First, we discovered the extent of Khan's hidden network. We tagged the proliferators, we detected the networks stretching across four continents offering its wares to countries like North Korea and Iran".  And then "Through this unrelenting effort, we confirmed the network was delivering such things as illicit uranium enrichment centrifuges. And as you heard me say in the Libya case, we stopped deliveries of prohibited material". Finally he went on to crow about his supposed success. "Now, as you know from the news coming out of Pakistan, Khan and his network have been dealt a crushing blow and several of his senior officers are in custody".

Interestingly these claims about nonproliferation are being made by the director of an agency that was created by President Truman, the US president who had practically ordered the first-ever nuclear assault in the human history (i.e. the dropping of the nuclear bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Many analysts still think that had those bombings not taken place the pace of nuclear proliferation would have been far slower. After having wound up the CIA's precursor OSS (Office of Strategic Services) Mr. Truman finally realized the need of a central intelligence agency. Hence CIA was born in 1947. While the winding up of OSS meant the end of WWII the CIA's creation marked the start of Cold War. Amazingly while the cold war has ended the CIA still exists creating probably more problems today than solutions.

Mr. Tenet's speech was actually an ideal case of euphemism for the crimes committed in Iraq on behalf of his intelligence community. It seriously lacked any honest admission of fault in his realm of affairs. No intentions for the implementation of much needed reforms were hence visible. The only thing evident was the insatiable desire to hide behind the jugglery of words. The mobile biological weapons production facilities were actually trailers of which no one is as yet sure whether they produced hydrogen or were used for any shady activities. The stockpile of more than 100 metric tons of chemical weapon agent was actually at the conceptual stage and Saddam had all the intentions to produce them. Despite Mr. Kay's recent assertions the task of the Iraq Survey Group is not eighty five percent over. The best devices for the delivery of the chemical and biological weapons were UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) that were again at a conceptual and designs stage. Conclusion: Hence Iraq posed an immediate direct threat that had to be countered through a full blown invasion.

It is indeed unfortunate that Mr. Tenet fails to realize this simple fact that the criticism about intelligence failure is not so much directed against his community as is against his very person. Even a US pedestrian knows that in his capacity he is the only man with direct access to the President and the Vice President and hence a comfort in maneuverability. He is indeed among those few who were seriously worried about the fate of his organization after the end of the cold war. We are a community that some thought would not be needed at the end of the Cold War. "We have systematically been rebuilding all of our disciplines with a focused strategy and care". No wonder then that after his rise to the post of DCI Al-Qaida rose to its notorious fame with great speed too. He is the man who as the head of the intelligence community had the responsibility to connect the essential dots of information that could lead to the preemption of the 9/11 attacks. Yet he failed to manage that. He was the man who was supposed to report correctly on Iraq's WMD programs. Instead of reporting objectively he played at the hands of neo-cons like Dick Cheney and hence helped them wage war on Iraq. If he was so sure of the threat that Saddam Hussein's regime posed and that the regime was unpopular in the Iraqi masses as is portrayed today in the media he clearly failed to overthrow the regime. Why these claims despite such terrible failures? Were all these lapses deliberate? One thing that merits attention here is the fact that even in the foremost US cold war document NSC 68 that was published in April 1950 Paul Nitze had envisaged terrorism and insurgency as the next serious threat to the Soviet Union. Hence 'war on terror' had to be the second most natural construct of US establishment.

Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest in a recent article titled 'The Lie Factory' that was published in the January/February issue of journal Mother Jones tell us how an intelligence pressure group called Office of Special Plans comprising neo-cons with direct access to Mr. Cheney was formed to lean on the intelligence community to sex up the evidence against Iraq. Mr. Tenet was indeed not supposed to be its target. Poor folks of the intelligence community, who are sent abroad to die, were. And by the way Mr. Cheney is the same man who had requested President for the permission to shoot down hijacked planes before they struck another target during September 11 attacks.  Now the man who can afford to let innocent men and women die to save others can even tolerate the death of three thousand in twin towers to safeguard the interest of the Greater US and the corporate world. Mr. Tenet used three streams of information to justify his conclusions on Iraq namely history, fears and peripheral intelligence. Now history and fears can comfortably acknowledge the link between Osama, the CIA and Saddam. Let's suppose if our ISI provides Washington with proofs between Osama and CIA will its establishment take the equally swift action?

All this is a glaring example of the deep mess intelligence gathering is in the US today. Various thinking heads have come up with interesting proposals for reform in the intelligence policy. Some argue in favor of all high tech agencies like National Reconnaissance Office  (NRO) and National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) under practical and budgetary control of DCI. In addition a separation between the offices of DCI and CIA director is recommended for DCI currently heads not merely CIA but thirteen other organizations of greater proportion. The creation of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) is among a few actual examples of accepted proposals. Since a bigger and better dose of fresh blood was recommended you can find fictionalized promotional stuff already in the market like Spyglass Entertainment produced Al Pacino starrer 'The Recruit' and Robert Littell's beautiful novel 'The Company' that claims to do for the CIA that Mario Puzo did for the Mafia and glamorizes the lifestyle of a spy. No wonder then that a huge number of the American youth is already ready to volunteer for this life.

But our friends in White House, at Langely and at the Capitol Hills overlook one important aspect. The CIA was essentially a prodigy of cold war and hence it should have lapsed with the fall of the iron curtain for the very reason that it essentially works with a zero sum paradigm. While Communism was a serious and direct threat to the American way of life, religions of the world can hardly pose a threat as long as there is pluralism in the policies of the world's oldest and most powerful democracy. Now whenever the intelligence wizards decide to revamp the system they should try developing an intelligence culture, which works to help the world solve its problems with a healing touch instead of roam around fighting and knocking down false bogies. The world may mpt have any reservations on the leadership of the USA as long as it respects the sensitivity of others and displays pluralism. 

E-mail: [email protected]

Farewell to arms

It is the old habit of the US neo-cons. Even if an earthquake takes place in Iran call it the success of ?Bush Doctrine?. This doctrine of the perpetual use of naked force, lust and ignorance is invoked on even the slightest...Click Here  

The Bush doctrine
The results of the current military misadventure notwithstanding, it is observed with great concern that the US is indeed passing through the sad phase of what Paul Kennedy once termed as 'Imperial Overstretch'
By Farrukh Khan Pitafi
On 26th February addressing the conservative American Enterprise Institute US President George W Bush elaborated a bit in detail his future plans he seeks to implement through the conquest of Iraq. Punctuated by loaded words like 'America's Justice' his new vision for Iraq promised that 'a liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions.'