A Different Kind of Intelligence Failure

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
A Different Kind of Intelligence Failure
83
Sat, 04-17-2004 - 8:45pm
"Intelligence failures are to blame, so we are told, for the tragedy of 9/11 and the unfolding catastrophe in Iraq. If the Bush administration had heeded its intelligence agencies, say its opponents, it might have prevented the 9/11 attacks and avoided its mishaps in Iraq. Administration officials, meanwhile, say that their intelligence was either not accurate or not "actionable." This finger-pointing reflects misconceptions about the nature of intelligence — and suggests an intelligence failure of a different sort..."

April 17, 2004

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

A Different Kind of Intelligence Failure

By ADLAI E. STEVENSON III

CHICAGO — Intelligence failures are to blame, so we are told, for the tragedy of 9/11 and the unfolding catastrophe in Iraq. If the Bush administration had heeded its intelligence agencies, say its opponents, it might have prevented the 9/11 attacks and avoided its mishaps in Iraq. Administration officials, meanwhile, say that their intelligence was either not accurate or not "actionable." This finger-pointing reflects misconceptions about the nature of intelligence — and suggests an intelligence failure of a different sort.

If one looks closely enough, there is generally a chance to see what lies ahead. For instance, shortly after the Six Day War in 1967, I trailed Israel's troops into the West Bank and Golan Heights and visited a Palestinian refugee camp. Ten years later I returned. By then — especially after Israel announced its plans to build settlements in the West Bank — anyone with experience in the region could foresee the dangers to come.

When I was in the Senate, I conducted a study of terrorism, which concluded in 1979 with predictions of "spectacular acts of disruption and destruction" in the United States and proposals for preventing them. These recommendations required no use of foreign intelligence. Similarly, the chaos in Iraq should come as no surprise to anyone with knowledge of Iraq, a quasi-state of tribes, religions, sects, ethnicities and foreign interests carved from the carcass of the Ottoman Empire.

Foreign intelligence supports foreign policy. Its priorities are determined by policy makers. Sometimes the products of foreign intelligence are tailored to fit the preconceptions of policy makers. Intelligence is often flawed. The intelligence agencies have conflicting and overlapping missions, lack central responsibility and are overwhelmed with information, much of it technical. It requires "production" — often without the necessary regional specialists and linguists.

Investigating the Iran intelligence failure in the late 1970's, I learned that the C.I.A. had no analyst who spoke Farsi. The agencies rely on foreign intelligence services, which support the policies of their own governments.

Foreign policy in the Bush administration reflects a lack of experience in the real world away from a Washington overrun with armchair polemicists and think-tank ideologues. Too many inhabitants of this world have no experience in the military, where one learns to expect the unexpected, or in international finance, where America's vulnerability also resides. This White House is well known for its hostility to curiosity and intellectual debate.

After all, terrorism is not a phenomenon of recent origin. Gavrilo Princip, the Serb nationalist who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand in 1914, did not expect his gunshot to bring about the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He expected only a reaction — and the empire's reaction led to World War I and its own downfall. The United States government's reaction to the attacks of 9/11 could end up inflicting great damage on America.

The Bush administration demonstrates the point. One pre-emptive war against the dictator of a desert quasi-state crippled by international sanctions has stretched the American military thin. The United States is widely perceived to be waging war against Islam in the Middle East, a perception reinforced by the president's decision this week to support Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel and his settlement plan.

Meanwhile, the dollar — a barometer of confidence in the American economy and polity — has sunk against other currencies. In Spain, Argentina, Germany, South Korea and Pakistan, candidates win public office by denouncing or distancing themselves from the Bush administration. This record owes nothing to failures of intelligence.

Studies have recommended reforms of the intelligence community. But reform does not change the limited nature and function of intelligence. There is no substitute for the pragmatic intelligence of policy makers acquired from history and experience in the real world — and the courage to act on it.

Before 9/11, neoconservatives like Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and Vice President Dick Cheney inhabited a world of contending great powers in which force and technology were transcendent. Terrorists armed with box cutters — and now Iraqis resisting the occupation — have exploded their fantasy. The failures of the Bush administration are not those of foreign intelligence but of a cerebral sort of intelligence.

Adlai E. Stevenson III is a former United States senator from Illinois.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/17/opinion/17STEV.html

Pages

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Sat, 04-17-2004 - 9:15pm
<>

Although I am a pacifist, I come from a military family and have questioned how "chicken hawks" like Cheney, Rove and Wolfowitz had so much influence over the decision to wage a pre-emptive war on Iraq.

C

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 04-18-2004 - 10:11am

>"how "chicken hawks" like Cheney, Rove and Wolfowitz had so much influence over the decision to wage a pre-emptive war on Iraq. "<


Bush was

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 04-18-2004 - 10:29am

>"When I was in the Senate, I conducted a study of terrorism, which concluded in 1979 with predictions of "spectacular acts of disruption and destruction" in the United States and proposals for preventing them. These recommendations required no use of foreign intelligence."<


If there was a study in '79 why was nothing done? Complacency?


 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Sun, 04-18-2004 - 11:45am
I see the problem some what differently, sure there is a "intelligence" failuree, but the US suffers from a particular type of myopia. The country is unable to plan for the future. Every president sees only the length of his term, because of this short-sightedness the country is leaf in the wind, drifting from one foreign policy another always focused on what is "in our best interest at the time"; so again and again we get into situations where the short-term solution is disastrous in the long term. Even the idealism which guided the development of this country has proved to be lacking in the face of globalization, which forces us move past nationalism. Every CEO asks the question, "Where do we want to be in 5 yrs, 10 yrs, 20 yrs;" it's called strategic planning. Our government has nothing that can assume this role.

Sure GWB tried; he had a grand, expansive, bold vision. A vision he had no idea how to implement and he didn't see the necessity of enlisting the support of his countrymen, ostensibly because they wouldn't support him. He did not have a short-term or long-term plan because God was with him. He decided to use US power and his faith to achieve the mission. This type of adventured is known by another term and may in the future be called "Bush's Folly". His arrogant attitude divided the country into friends and foes. Those who agree with us are and friends and invited into the fold; those who disagree with us are foes and will be beaten by whatever means necessary (coersion, vingence, and threats) there is to be no middle ground. This is hubris, and we will suffer for GWB's ego satisfaction, not his intelligence failure.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 04-18-2004 - 11:54am

>" "Where do we want to be in 5 yrs, 10 yrs, 20 yrs;" it's called strategic planning. Our government has nothing that can assume this role. "<


Valid

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2003
Sun, 04-18-2004 - 1:04pm
Why would a person lacking in the qualities that are required for this job be in the White House?

Many asked the same about Bill Clinton....but there he was...

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Mon, 04-19-2004 - 5:49am
ITA about McCain.

C

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Mon, 04-19-2004 - 5:55am
<>

Perhaps, but I don't see how after 9/11 and with what I hope will be tough recommendations by the 9/11 Commission, that complacency can continue.

C

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Mon, 04-19-2004 - 6:23am
I agree about the myopia and I think that much of it is due to the re-election campaigning that starts almost immediately after any elected official takes office.

Originally I thought that term limits was the answer, but then I realized that having so many "reinventing the wheel" wouldn't bring effective governing.

Next, campaign financing legislation seemed to be a way to keep elected officials from spending all their time paying back their financial backers, but Humvees are driving through the holes in that legislation.

So, it has to come back to an informed electorate forcing those who serve us to answer for their poor judgment, by going to the polls and voting.

C

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Mon, 04-19-2004 - 7:46am
There is no "catastrophy" in Iraq. 9-11 was a catastrophy, it happened in America.

Pages