Intelligence Failure and Politicization - Essay Example

Intelligence Failure and Politicization I Introduction The tragedy that befell the world on September 11, 2001 immediately gave rise to the nagging question as to why such a massive and ambitious attack against one of the most powerful and advanced nations in the world escaped unnoticed by its intelligence networks. It is impossible to believe that such an ambitious attack did not entail extensive and thorough planning, deployment of major players under its very noses and the tell-tale sign of changing of hands of a considerable amount of money. The element of surprise can be also seriously discounted given the fact that it was not the first time religious extremists had targeted and actually attacked US security. It can also be recalled that the US intelligence community also seemingly bungled in various US operations particularly in Asia, such as the Tet offensive in Vietnam in the 1960s, the fall of the Shah and the accompanying rise of Khomeini in Iran in the late 1970s and the miscalculation of the extent of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in the early 21st century, amongst others. All these put into serious question the reliability and efficiency of US intelligence networks. A study of relevant articles that dwelt on the subjects of surprise, intelligence failure and politicization written by, amongst others, former CIA chief Richard Gates and political book author Richard Betts, reveal, however, that the US intelligence network is not a stand-alone, simple government operation unfettered by concerns other than pure information and data gathering but is actually a compulsory balancing act of objectivity and political concessions covertly, or overtly, imposed by their policy-making customers. This paper looks back into the critical events involving the US, which has seriously put into question its intelligence capability incorporating the subjects of surprise, intelligence failure and politicization. Intelligence failure in the US context is defined by Stephen Marrin as something that has a negative impact on the country’s national security as well as an unpredicted international incident that previously escaped intelligence gathering and came about as a surprise to the international community. An example of this, according to Marrin is the India nuclear weapon test. As can be gleaned, the concept of surprise is allied to the concept of intelligence failure because surprise can only occur as a result of the latter (2004 p. 657). Robert Gates, former CIA head, defined politicization in the context of intelligence operations as involving intentionally distorted analysis or judgment leaning and favouring a certain line of thinking despite insufficient evidence to support it (1992 p. 5). 2.0 Vietnam and the Tet Offensive The Vietnam War was a battle between the once French-ruled south and the Communist north. The US’ engagement in the Vietnam War was considered one of the most controversial ever in its history marked by relentless protests at home and the mind-boggling defeat of its forces in the battlefield. Three of the articles examined by this paper dealt with, amongst others, the US engagement in the Vietnam War and the controversies surrounding the seeming failure of its intelligence units in predicting the extent of the strength of the North Vietnamese forces. James Wirtz’s article “Intelligence to Please? The Order of Battle Controversy during the War,” dealt with the issue of the controversy of the disparity between the figures cited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) in the Order of Battle and the ensuing clash between their respective analysts. The most controversial aspect of this controversy was the charge by Sam Adams, a junior CIA analyst, of the existence of “a conspiracy at the highest levels of American military intelligence” (1991 p. 239), an allegation that became highly publicised and was featured in magazines, television and in a subsequent Senate hearing for that issue. This allegation stemmed from the discrepancy of the Order of Battle estimates reported by Adams for the CIA and the MACV where the former pegged the number of enemy units and personnel at a much higher figure than the latter because of the inclusion of potential Vietcong recruits in the various South Vietnam provinces on the basis of documents seized from captured VCs showing the active recruitment of teenagers in the provinces. The controversy heated up after the VC Tet offensive that took the Americans and North Vietnamese forces by surprise (Wirtz 1991 p. 239-263). In tackling the controversy that became attached to the intelligence community during the Vietnam War period, Wirtz merely presented an intelligence-related issue, which he believed did not cut into the heart of the American intelligence operations. On the contrary, he blamed Adams for his hysterical attempt to impose his findings on senior policy-makers. Thus, instead of presenting a problem Wirtz proceeded to prove that Adams and the CIA were wrong in their allegation. Wirtz pointed out, for example, that the actual number of forces that made up the Tet offensive paled in comparison to his estimate and even that of the MACV. Thus, Wirtz concluded that as between CIA and MACV estimates, the latter was nearer the truth than the former. Moreover, Wirtz belied that there was a conspiracy to prevent the higher CIA Battle of Order estimate from reaching the highest echelon of power. Document record, according to Wirtz, proved a contrary finding. President Johnson was shown to have been apprised of the conflict of the two intelligence units with respect to the Order of Battle estimates. Notwithstanding his seeming disapproval of Adams, Wirtz admitted the existence of an intelligence-to-please syndrome in the military intelligence, where junior analysts fit their intelligence reports to support the policies of senior military policy-makers (Wirtz 1991 pp. 239-263). Harry Howe Ransom, on the other hand, tackled the same controversy in his article The Politicization of Intelligence, but with a focus on the politicization of intelligence. He evidently wrote the piece on Vietnam not to offer a solution but to highlight the inevitable close link between intelligence and politics. Here, instead of belittling Adams’ move to bring the conspiracy issue nationally, Rowe focused on the fact that the policymakers, with President Johnson at the helm no less, seemed to be making a deliberate effort to present a positive front throughout the controversy. This was, according to Ransom, to manipulate the public into thinking that the Americans were winning in Vietnam and to silence public protests against it. Ransom believed that there was indeed a politicization of intelligence during the Vietnam War and this was proven by the big shock that the Tet offensive dealt the public with images of North Vietnamese taking over the American embassy in South Vietnam, a far cry from the victorious America that it was often fed by the government. Even the CIA, according to Ransom, was not immune to politicization notwithstanding Adams. Records showed that during crucial moments, the CIA gave in to the military position for political purposes. The fact that CIA was not immune to political influence was evidenced by its role as a policy implementer during the Cold War, where it manipulated the overthrow of unfriendly governments and steered the direction of elections in third world countries. Ransom winded up his article with the observation that intelligence community tends to be at its neutral best when national consensus exists but inclines towards politicization when policy makers are at great odds when American pluralism prevails and consensus as to policy cannot be had (1987 pp. 176-177). In Why CIA Analysts Were So Doubtful about Vietnam, Harold Ford likewise tackled the subject of Vietnam but did not narrow his discussion to the controversy generated by junior intelligence analyst Adams. Rather, Ford discussed the general uncertainty and pessimism that the CIA took as a position during the Vietnam War, which was nevertheless, less influential because of the prevailing political perspectives of policy-makers against communism as whole, the Chinese and Soviet threat and the American image in the international scene. On hindsight, Ford believed that such a position was highly justified. Ford enumerated the basis of the CIA pessimism as against the American position re Vietnam on the following: many of its analysts had gained their expertise on Indo-China affairs from long years of experience; the knowledge that the VCs have an enormous advantage in the public mind with their justification of the war as nationalism and their bravery in meeting the combined American-French-North Vietnamese forces; awareness of the difficulty posed by local military warfare to the French and the Americans; refusal to see the Chinese and the Soviet hands behind the North Vietnamese war effort, and; trust in the increasing ability of the South Vietnamese to deal with the VCs. Ford’s article was an incisive look into the past, without pretending to offer solutions for the future although it is testament to the notion that policymakers based their decision more on prevailing political perspectives rather than on objective data (Ford 1997 pp. 1-14) 3.0 Iran and the Shah The article Iran: Intelligence Failure or Policy Stalemate co-written by Doug MacEachin and Janne Nolan details the group study conducted by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University to review the failure of the US to predict the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini to power. The issue in that study was whether this failure was due to the inadequacies of the US intelligence or the failure or refusal of the policymakers to heed intelligence reports. The study showed that intelligence report had already surfaced concerning the growing public dissatisfaction with the Shah’s policies, which deeply gravitated towards military expansion to the exclusion of public welfare and the increasing popularity of Khomeini. However, the US government did not heed these intelligence reports because the Shah’s reign was politically strategic to it. Thus, the authors concluded that had the US heeded intelligence reports, it would have distanced itself from the Shah as early as possible. 4.0 Pearl Harbour, Barbarossa, Korea and Yam Kippur War The article Preventing Intelligence Failures by Learning from the Past departs from the previous aforecited articles in that it is emphatic on solutions. It cited examples of strategic surprises in the cases of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, which paved the way for the creation of the CIA; the surprise attack of Germany against Soviet in what is called Operation Barbarossa in 1941; the 1950 attack of North Korea on South Korea, and; the 1973 attack of Saudi Arabia on Israel known as the Yam Kippur War. Marrin summarised possible solutions to prevent strategic surprises into the minimisation of analytical failure and the maximisation of intelligence analysis and information on policymaking (Marrin pp. 658-662). In explaining his minimisation-maximisation solution, Marrin cited the need to declassify information from their labels so as to remove as much as possible barriers to accurate information. Marrin emphasised that this would result in an open, unimpeded horizontal flow of information from one intelligence agency to the next. This should also include identifying vulnerabilities in intelligence collection that would prevent concealment of real activities from the intelligence community. In addition, intelligence product should be improved by increasing its quality and worth, according to Marrin, which could be done through the adoption of various mechanisms exposing intelligence results to review and ideas of others. 5.0 Conclusion Undeniably, two factions are involved in intelligence: the intelligence analyst and the policymaker. As can be gleaned from the aforecited articles, politics and policymakers heavily figure in every intelligence analysis, which is not surprising considering its consumer-driven nature. Betts refer to them as the two tribes “speaking two different tribes” (Betts 2009 p. 67). The implication of this is obviously the presence of conflict, but according to Betts, the influence of policymakers on intelligence analysts is not always bad, when politicization successfully packages intelligence reports into something politically acceptable preventing its rejection as irrelevant. Thus, an accurate intelligence analysis is only useful if the policymaker uses it (2009 pp. 68-71). The intelligence and policymaking divide is underpinned by the opposing dynamics of the two processes. Thus, while intelligence entails objective and intellectual analysis, policymaking entails usefulness and practicality of decisions. Effective intelligence requires a balancing act that will satisfy both intellectual and utilitarian needs. Thus, an analyst must come up with a careful and accurate paper that the policymaker can use. This is just practical, according to Betts, because intelligence is essentially consumer-driven. In this sense intelligence, therefore, cannot totally divorce itself from politicization. However, the requirement of accuracy of intelligence is indispensable as emphasised by Marrin, to prevent strategic surprise. One way of testing its accuracy and credibility is to open it to the scrutiny of other intelligence units. References: Betts, R. 2009. Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledge and Power in American National Security. New York: Columbia University Press. Ford, H.P., 1997. Why CIA Analysts were So Doubtful about Vietnam. CIA’s Studies, 1997, 1-14. Gates, R. 1992. ‘Guarding against Politicization,’ CIA’s Studies in Intelligence. 36/5(1992). 5-13. Gentry 1993. “A Primer on Review and Politicization.” Lost Promise: How CIA’s Analysis Mis-serves the Nation. 1993. 229-248. MacEachin, D. & Nolan, J., 2004. Iran: Intelligence Failure or Policy Stalemate? http://www12.georgetown.edu/sfs/isd/Iran_WG_Report.pdf. McGarvey, P. 1970. “DIA: Intelligence to Please,” Readings in American Foreign Policy.1970. 318-28. Marrin, S. 2004. Preventing Intelligence Failures by Learning from the Past, IJIC, Vol 17:4 Taylor & Francis. Ransom, H.H.,1987. “The Politicization of Intelligence” in Johnson and Wirtz, chap. 14, pp. 171-182. Wirtz, J., 1991.’Authority to Please? The Order of Battle Controversy during the Vietnam War,’ Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 106:2. Read More