U.S. Intelligence Agencies; SNAFU

[jimmy olsen]

Why is it so hard to share information?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/31082.html

Critics bemoan 'familiar' intel issues

By JOSH GERSTEIN | 12/30/09 11:46 PM EST

President Barack Obama's announcement that intelligence agencies had information that could have headed off the attempted airplane bombing on Christmas Day but failed to share it has left many of those who have urged a dramatic overhaul of the intelligence community exasperated.

"It's discouragingly familiar," said Tom Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey who co-chaired the 9/11 Commission. "It's exactly the language we heard when we were making recommendations for the 9/11 report. That was five years ago. We made our recommendations based on the fact that agencies didn't share information and it seems to be the case that, once again, they didn't share information. It's very discouraging."

"We thought that had been remedied," the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kit Bond (R-Mo.), told POLITICO. "If they're not talking with each other, that's a problem that we've been tearing our hair out over for a long time, demanding that they talk to each other. ... I'm very upset."

Since 2001, the federal government has invested tens of billions of dollars and untold man-hours in a massive reorganization of the intelligence gathering and security apparatus. Two new agencies, the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, were created. The Terrorist Threat Integration Center, later renamed the National Counterterrorism Center, was set up to make sure that agencies such as the FBI and CIA no longer "stove-piped" critical information needed to protect the country.

"Our recommendations resulted in the largest reorganization of the U.S. intelligence community in its history,' Kean noted.

As a senator, Obama supported legislation to implement the recommendations of Kean's commission. However, as president, his administration has resolved some of the CIA-DNI battles in ways that inch away from the panel's proposals.

When Obama visited the NCTC in October, his praise for its work was unstinting. "You are setting the standard. You're showing us what focused and integrated counterterrorism really looks like. ... For that, America is in your debt.," he said, while carefully adding, "No one can ever promise that there won't be another attack on American soil."

On Tuesday, Obama's tone was less cordial, as he spoke of both accountability and change to address what he described as the "systemic failure" that preceded the near-disaster on Christmas Day. "It's becoming clear that the system that has been in place for years now is not sufficiently up to date to take full advantage of the information we collect and the knowledge we have," he said.

Still, as Paul Pillar and other critics of the 9/11 Commission point out, organizational changes don't always address the real problem and sometimes have their own unintended consequences.

"Last week's incident is a reminder that rearranging the government organization chart trying to find bureaucratic or organizational solutions to problems about 'connecting the dots' and the like is misplaced," said Pillar, a former CIA analyst who teaches at Georgetown. "It's a misdiagnosis. ... How the government wiring diagram exactly happens to be arranged is not the cure-all here."

While many of the structural reforms were aimed at encouraging agencies to cooperate, the furious round of finger-pointing that has broken out in the past day or two indicates that when the chips are down, agencies are still eager to defend their turf by deflecting blame onto others.

Once word emerged that the father of the suspect in the Christmas Day bombing attempt expressed concerns about his son's radicalization to a U.S. Embassy official in Nigeria a couple of months ago, the State Department found itself pressed to explain why Omar Abdulmutallab's visa wasn't revoked. A State Department spokesman, Ian Kelly, said that while his agency issued the visa, it wouldn't have made the decision to pull it back.

"I think it's incumbent upon the NCTC, as I understand it, for them to come to us and ask us to revoke the visa," Kelly said Monday.

A source familiar with the watch-list process, which is conducted by the NCTC, seemed to pass off blame by downplaying the reporting by State as thin. And after CBS reported Tuesday that the CIA had information in August about a possible terrorist in Yemen referred to as "the Nigerian," officials seemingly sympathetic to Langley sought to push the spotlight back towards the NCTC, which is overseen by the Director of National Intelligence.

"The United States government set up NCTC — and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — to connect the dots on terrorism. If somebody thinks it could have been done better in this case, they know where to go for answers," one intelligence official told POLITICO.

Kean said he finds the blame game tiresome and a distraction for a nation facing real threats. "No question about it that that should have been put a stop to a long time ago," he said. "It's not in anybody's best interest and certainly not in the country's best interest."

Both Kean and Bond said they remain concerned that the DNI, currently Dennis Blair, still has not been given the degree of autonomy and power needed to oversee and direct the intelligence community. "Somebody needs to take a hard look at the DNI to see whether it's working the way the 9/11 Commission intended it," Kean said. "It was weakened by Congress. We always thought with the president behind the DNI it would work. ... but the president has got to look at that."

However, some former officials say the post-Sept. 11 reforms have introduced new frictions and weaknesses into the intelligence effort. In recent months, Blair and CIA Director Leon Panetta, and their agencies, have been locked in a series of battles over control of intelligence gathering in foreign countries.

"You didn't have that problem at all five years ago because the DNI didn't exist," Pillar observed. "Sometime when you think you're solving one problem you create other problems."

Another former CIA official, Tyler Drumheller, said the creation of the NCTC actually distanced those whose job it is to connect the dots from the people gathering the information and transferred the task of analysis to younger, less experienced contractors.

"They've broken the link between the analytics and the people in the field," Drumheller said on CNN Wednesday.

Some intelligence experts insist that the changes made after Sept. 11 have, by and large, worked.

"I think we have made a good deal of progress," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a member of the 9/11 Commission. "Human being are involved and mistakes will be made. ... The question is whether we have the will to identify those problems and promptly take steps to correct them."

Ben-Veniste, a Democrat, said he hasn't heard compelling evidence yet that the intelligence system broke down. But he said Obama's statement Tuesday about a "systemic failure" that was "totally unacceptable" signals that he knows something the public doesn't yet know. "The president's indignation and stridency and generally being pissed off would make it appear that he's been briefed on information that's not yet available to us," Ben-Veniste said.

One former senior CIA official said the reforms are a mixed bag but have generally worked better than he expected.

"The bottom line is it isn't all for naught, but it is still a work in progress," the official said. "We have a lot of complications we didn't have at the time of 9/11. ... Now there are a lot of different institutions. I think there is always a question of who plays what role. You got NCTC, the Homeland Security adviser, DHS, CTC at CIA. If you look at the Zazi case, I think it all worked pretty well," he said, referring to a Denver taxi driver charged in September in connection with an alleged plot to detonate a bomb in New York.

"You can never design a system that will be flawless," said the official. "If you're willing to die and break all the rules, you can figure out a way to beat any system."

[HisMajestyBOB]

Turf wars FTL.

[grumbler]

I don't know why anyone expected more bureaucracy to be the answer to "too much bureaucracy."

I am gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the answer to the "more bureaucracy just adds to the problem of too much bureaucracy" will be the establishment of more bureaucracy. 

Empowering responsible people and then making them accountable is never the solution, it seems.

[grumbler]

Turf wars FTL.

That's like saying "breathing FTL."  Turf wars are absolutely inevitable when you create new bureaucracies to overcome the bureaucratic blockages of existing organizations.  Do we really, really need a Director of Central Intelligence and a Director of National Intelligence?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Thats a tricky question........perhaps if we recruit a Central Intelligence Director and commission an inquiry we can find the answer.

[Monoriu]

In a government, you have tons of small goals, many medium goals, and a few big goals.  The problem is, these goals often conflict with each other.  Protecting privacy of individuals conflicts with stopping terrorists, for example.  You have low-medium level staff who are charged with making sure that the small goals are met.  Then you say, hey, I need to get the big ones right and I need you to help me.  If helping you means they'll need to abandon their small goals, they won't do it. 

[grumbler]

In a government, you have tons of small goals, many medium goals, and a few big goals.  The problem is, these goals often conflict with each other.  Protecting privacy of individuals conflicts with stopping terrorists, for example.  You have low-medium level staff who are charged with making sure that the small goals are met.  Then you say, hey, I need to get the big ones right and I need you to help me.  If helping you means they'll need to abandon their small goals, they won't do it.

The goals of virtually anyone in a bureaucracy involve getting promoted within the bureaucracy.  To the extent that those goals are met by fulfilling the organization's mission, bureaucrats fulfill the organization's mission.  When fulfilling the organization's mission conflicts with getting promoted within the bureaucracy, though, the bureaucrat ignores the mission.  It is the nature of bureaucracies and humans.  Any group of humans is more stupid than any of those humans are individually.  The key is making people in a bureaucracy accountable for the mission, and that is hard.

[CountDeMoney]

I'm just going to preempt Hansy, and blame the Clinton Administration.

[Admiral Yi]

"Last week's incident is a reminder that rearranging the government organization chart trying to find bureaucratic or organizational solutions to problems about 'connecting the dots' and the like is misplaced," said Pillar, a former CIA analyst who teaches at Georgetown. "It's a misdiagnosis. ... How the government wiring diagram exactly happens to be arranged is not the cure-all here."

The Hoya has it right.  The issue is not getting the organization right, it's whether we want to blacklist Muslims who have been reported by their fathers as suspected of radical sympathies.  The tradeoff is between false negatives and false positives.

[viper37]

I don't know why anyone expected more bureaucracy to be the answer to "too much bureaucracy."

Not everyone.  Only the guys whose motto is "less government" prefer to create one more agency to do the work the 2 previous ones were supposed to do.

Empowering responsible people and then making them accountable is never the solution, it seems.

It would work nice in theory, but in the field, I think there's just too many people working for the government for this to ever be realistically applied.  Too many people = Too easy to shift the blame.

But it should be working like that, nonetheless.

[Barrister]

The goals of virtually anyone in a bureaucracy involve getting promoted within the bureaucracy.  To the extent that those goals are met by fulfilling the organization's mission, bureaucrats fulfill the organization's mission.  When fulfilling the organization's mission conflicts with getting promoted within the bureaucracy, though, the bureaucrat ignores the mission.  It is the nature of bureaucracies and humans.  Any group of humans is more stupid than any of those humans are individually.  The key is making people in a bureaucracy accountable for the mission, and that is hard.

I have bolded the flawed part of your analysis.

[Barrister]

You'd think the primary goal of my bureaucracy would be the successful completion of trials.

Yet you'd be surprised how far removed the successful completion of trials is in determining promotion.  It's even worse with non-lawyers, but is still quite pronounced for lawyers.

[Grallon]

You'd think the primary goal of my bureaucracy would be the successful completion of trials.

Yet you'd be surprised how far removed the successful completion of trials is in determining promotion.  It's even worse with non-lawyers, but is still quite pronounced for lawyers.

It is well known that the primary skillset required for advancing in any bureaucracy - public or private - is a marked ability for cocksucking and assmunching. 




G.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I'm just going to preempt Hansy, and blame the Clinton Administration.

Dumbass.  He did an end run around you and blamed Carter.

[Barrister]

You'd think the primary goal of my bureaucracy would be the successful completion of trials.

Yet you'd be surprised how far removed the successful completion of trials is in determining promotion.  It's even worse with non-lawyers, but is still quite pronounced for lawyers.

It is well known that the primary skillset required for advancing in any bureaucracy - public or private - is a marked ability for cocksucking and assmunching.