National Security Intelligence

by Loch K. Johnson

  14 R. James Woolsey, author's interview, CIA Headquarters, Langley, VA (September 29, 1993).

  15 Admiral Stansfield Turner, author's interview, McLean, VA (May 1, 1991). For a vivid description of the Admiral's difficulties in trying to manage the CIA, let alone the larger Intelligence Community, see his Secrecy and Democracy: The CIA in Transition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985).

  16 See Loch K. Johnson, Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs: Intelligence and America's Quest for Security (New York: New York University Press, 2000), Ch. 3.

  17 Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, “A Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control,” Washington Post (July 19, 2010), p. A1. On espionage outsourcing, see Tim Shorrock, Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008).

  18 Clark Clifford, with Richard Holbrooke, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1991), p. 166.

  19 Michael Warner, “Central Intelligence: Origin and Evolution,” in Michael Warner, ed., Central Intelligence: Origin and Evolution (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 2001), reprinted in Roger Z. George and Robert D. Kline, eds., Intelligence and the National Security Strategist: Enduring Issues and Challenges (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2004), p. 43. See, also, Michael Warner, The Rise and Fall of Intelligence: An International Security History (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2014).

  20 Miller, Plain Speaking, p. 420 note.

  21 Clifford, with Holbrooke, Counsel to the President, pp. 168, 169.

  22 Ray S. Cline, The CIA under Reagan, Bush, and Casey (Washington, DC: Acropolis Books, 1981), p. 112.

  23 Clifford, with Holbrooke, Counsel to the President, p. 169.

  24 Amy B. Zegart, Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).

  25 Warner, “Central Intelligence,” pp. 45, 47.

  26 Warner, “Central Intelligence,” p. 38.

  27 Clifford, with Holbrooke, Counsel to the President, p. 168.

  28 Quoted by Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (New York: Knopf, 1974), p. 70.

  29 Phyllis Provost McNeil, “The Evolution of the U.S. Intelligence Community – An Historical Perspective,” Preparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of U.S. Intelligence, Appendix A; Warner, “Central Intelligence”; and Larry Kindsvater, “The Need to Reorganize the Intelligence Community,” Studies in Intelligence 47 (2003), pp. 33–7.

  30 Johnson, Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs.

  31 Warner, “Central Intelligence,” p. 49.

  32 Charles Babington and Walter Pincus, “White House Assails Parts of Bills,” Washington Post (October 20, 2004), p. A10.

  33 William M. Nolte, remark, International Studies Association meeting (March 27, 2008).

  34 Senator John D. Rockefeller, Confirmation Hearings, John M. McConnell, Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Senate, 110th Cong., 1st Sess. (February 1, 2007).

  35 Quoted by Mark Mazzetti, “Intelligence Chief Finds That Challenges Abound,” New York Times (April 7, 2007), p. A10.

  36 Bloomsberg News, “Director Wants More Authority in Intelligence,” New York Times (April 5, 2007), p. A13.

  37 Quoted by Mark Mazzetti, “Intelligence Director Announces Renewed Plan for Overhaul,” New York Times (April 12, 2007), p. A13.

  38 Admiral Mike McConnell, testimony, “DNI Authorities,” Hearings, Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Senate, 110th Cong., 2nd Sess. (February 14, 2008).

  39 Mark Mazzetti, “White House Sides With the CIA in a Spy Turf Battle,” New York Times (November 13, 2009), p. A12.

  40 See Loch K. Johnson, The Threat on the Horizon: An Inside Account of America's Search for Security after the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

  2

  Intelligence Collection and Analysis

  Knowing about the World

  Early one morning in October 1994, Secretary of Defense William J. Perry – a tall, thoughtful man with a PhD in mathematics – greeted the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili, in the SecDef's spacious office at the Pentagon. Under his arm, the General carried a portfolio of satellite photographs of Iraq. He spread the images across a conference table. Using a pointer, Shalikashvili directed Perry's attention to a disturbing set of pictures. Improbable as it might have seemed, coming just three-and-a-half years after a U.S.-led coalition had knocked Saddam Hussein's army to its knees, elements of the Republican Guard (Saddam's elite troops), supported by mechanized infantry, armor, and tank units, were moving at a rapid clip southward toward Basra, a mere thirty miles from the Kuwaiti border. The force was aimed like an arrow at the Al Jahra heights overlooking Kuwait City, in an apparent repeat of the same maneuver that led to the Iraqi conquest of Kuwait in 1990 and the first Persian Gulf War. At its current rate of speed, the Republican guard would stream across the Kuwaiti border within a couple of days.

  Perry quickly ordered a U.S. armored brigade stationed in Kuwait to the Iraqi border. With a mounting sense of uneasiness, the SecDef and the top Pentagon brass waited as young captains and lieutenants brought new batches of satellite imagery into Perry's office over the next twenty-four hours. Upwards of 10,000 Iraqi troops had amassed in an area near Basra. Steadily the number rose to 50,000, some camped within twelve miles of the border. The American brigade had arrived, but consisted of only 2,000 lightly armed Marines.

  While the United States also had 200 warplanes in the area on standby alert, the Iraqi armored force dwarfed the American presence. President Bill Clinton ordered 450 more warplanes to Kuwait, along with the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division and a Marine contingent from Camp Pendleton in California. The aircraft carrier George Washington steamed at maximum speed toward the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean. None of these forces, though, would arrive in time to block an invasion of Kuwait. Perry and Shalikashvili faced the prospect of a rout that would quickly wipe away the small American brigade assembled at the border.

  The two men waited nervously for the next set of satellite photographs. When they arrived, Perry and Shalikashvili breathed an audible sigh of relief. The Iraqi troops had suddenly stopped and some elements were already turning back toward Baghdad.

  The good news was that imagery intelligence may have prevented the outbreak of another war in the Persian Gulf. Using these timely photographs to pinpoint the location of Iraqi troops, Perry had been able to place an American brigade as a barrier against Iraqi aggression. “Had the intelligence arrived three or four days later, it would have been too late,” he told the Aspin–Brown Commission.

  The episode revealed, however, troubling intelligence weaknesses as well. Even though vital information had arrived in time for the Secretary of Defense to put up some semblance of resistance at the Kuwaiti border, the thousands of troops in the Republican Guard could have overwhelmed the single Marine brigade. The best Perry could hope for was that the Marines might intimidate Saddam and make him think twice about another invasion. Fortunately, the bluff worked. Retrospective studies of the satellite imagery taken of Iraq before the crisis disclosed palpable clues that, for weeks, Saddam had been gathering a force near Baghdad for another invasion of Kuwait. The photos revealed trickles of Iraqi troops and armor moving toward Basra that would soon turn into a threatening flood of armed aggression. Intelligence analysts in the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC, now a part of NGA) had missed these signs, as had everyone else at the Agency.

  The problem had not been a lack of information: high-ranking government officials have access each day to enough imagery and other intelligence data to smother every desk in the Pentagon. Photos don't speak for themselves, however, and nobody had scrutinized them carefully enough, day-by-day, to notice the accretion of troop buildups that signaled the possibility of a gathering invasion force. “Had we analyzed the data better from techint [technical intelligence collection],�
�� said Perry, looking back at the crisis, “we could have had a seven-to-ten-day earlier alert. Better humint [human intelligence – spies on the ground] might have given this alert, too.”1

  The message from the SecDef was clear: the U.S. Intelligence Community still had much room for improvement when it came to support for military operations and a host of other collection and analysis responsibilities. This chapter examines key strengths and weaknesses of this preeminent mission for the secret agencies of every nation – what a DCI once referred to as “the absolute essence of the intelligence profession.”2

  The intelligence cycle

  The phrase “collection and analysis” is used here as shorthand to describe a complex process for the gathering, analysis, and dissemination of information to decision-makers. A convenient way of envisioning this flow is the theoretical construct known as the intelligence cycle (see Figure 2.1). Despite its oversimplification of a complicated process with many stops and starts, the “cycle” captures the major phases in the life of an intelligence report.3 The first phase is known as planning and direction.

  Figure 2.1 The intelligence cycle

  Source: Adapted from Fact Book on Intelligence, Office of Public Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency (October 1993), p. 14.

  Planning and direction

  The beginning of the intelligence cycle is critical. Unless a potential target is clearly highlighted when officials gather to establish intelligence priorities (“requirements” or “tasks”), it is unlikely to receive much attention by those who collect information. The world is a large and fractious place, with some 200 nations and a plethora of groups, factions, gangs, cartels, and terrorist cells, some of whom have adversarial relationships with the democratic societies. A former DCI, R. James Woolsey (1993–95), observed after the Cold War that the United States had slain the Soviet dragon but “we live now in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes.”4 As noted in Chapter 1, some things – “mysteries” in the argot of intelligence professionals – are unknowable in any definitive way, such as who is likely to replace the current leader of North Korea. Secrets, in contrast, may be uncovered with a combination of luck and skill – say, the number of Chinese frigates, which are susceptible to satellite tracking.

  At some point the degree of danger posed by foreign adversaries (or domestic subversives) becomes self-evident, as with the 9/11 attacks. Unfortunately, however, intelligence officers and government officials are (like other mortals) rarely able to predict exactly when and where danger will strike. As former Secretary of State Dean Rusk once put it, “Providence has not provided human beings with the capacity to pierce the fog of the future.”5

  Rwanda provides an example. Les Aspin recalled: “When I became Secretary of Defense [in 1993, at the beginning of the Clinton Administration], I served several months without ever giving Rwanda a thought. Then, for several weeks, that's all I thought about. After that, it fell abruptly off the screen and I never again thought about Rwanda.”6 The central African nation had become the “flavor of the month” for policymakers, as intelligence officers scrambled to find information about the genocidal civil war that had erupted there. Such unexpected “pop-up” intelligence targets are also known as the “ad hocs.” Lowenthal notes how these international surprises can sometimes dominate the intelligence cycle and divert attention from the established formal targets of perceived danger or opportunity. He refers to this risky displacement as “the tyranny of the ad hocs.”7

  The Iranian revolution in 1979 offers a further illustration of the difficulties intelligence analysts face in anticipating future events. A top CIA analyst on Iran recalls that on the eve of the revolution,

  we knew the Shah was widely unpopular, and we knew there would be mass demonstrations, even riots. But how many shopkeepers would resort to violence, and how long would Army officers remain loyal to the Shah? Perhaps the Army would shoot down 10,000 rioters, maybe 20,000. If the ranks of the insurgents swelled further, though, how far would the Army be willing to go before it decided that the Shah was a losing proposition? All this we duly reported; but no one could predict with confidence the number of dissidents who would actually take up arms, or the “tipping point” for Army loyalty.8

  A further example of a threat that was shrouded in ambiguity was the Soviet Backfire bomber during the Cold War. Analysts in the CIA concluded that the bomber was a medium-range aircraft, which its specifications seemed to indicate. Yet DIA analysts pointed out that if the Soviets operated the bomber in a certain manner, sending its pilots on a one-way, no-refueling, kamikaze mission, then clearly the range of the Backfire would be much longer. From the DIA's point of view, under these conditions the Backfire bomber was a weapon of strategic significance that could reach the United States, not one solely for tactical operations on the Soviet perimeter.

  Sometimes differences in analytic conclusions seem driven by political considerations. For example, when North Korea failed to put a satellite into orbit in 2009, some analysts concluded that the country's technical capabilities were far less than Cassandras had warned. Other analysts, though, attempted to “hype the threat” of North Korean missiles in order to “scare people” – so observed Philip E. Coyle III, a former director of weapons testing at the Pentagon. Their goal, according to Coyle, was the promotion of the Pentagon's costly and controversial anti-missile program.9

  In the United States, the job of evaluating the nature of threats to the United States and determining intelligence priorities is known as a “threat assessment.” Experts and policymakers convene periodically to evaluate the perils that confront the nation, starting at the beginning of every incoming Administration in the January that follows the presidential election year. They establish a ladder of priorities from the most dangerous threats (labeled Tiers 1A and 1B in some administrations) to the least dangerous but still worthy of attention (Tier 4). A further Tier 0 is reserved for crisis situations that might entail the immediate use of military force.10

  The Pentagon is always the most voracious consumer of intelligence, especially when wars involving the United States are under way. The combatant commanders (COCOMs) – the four-star officers who lead America's troops and sailors around the world – are always hungry, understandably, for information that will help to protect their forces and, in wartime, to advance America's battlefield objectives. This so-called SMO (support to military operations) tends to dominate the U.S. intelligence budget and target planning. The payoff can be substantial. America's secret agencies were far off the mark in predicting that the Saddam Hussein regime was developing a robust WMD program threatening to the United States in 2002; but once the U.S. invasion against Iraq began the following year, these agencies performed well. The U.S. forces benefited from full battlefield transparency, knowing the location of practically every Iraq tank, plane, boat, and even combat patrol. This dominant battlefield awareness (DBA, in Pentagonese) was remarkable in the annals of warfare. The same had been true during America's earlier invasion of Iraq in 1990–91. In both instances, the outcome was victory – coming quickly in the first war, though much more slowly in the second. Best of all, in both cases the United States suffered relatively few casualties compared with other major wars. America's military firepower was the most vital ingredient in these successes; but DBA played a significant role, too. For adversaries, fighting the United States in the post-Cold War era became equivalent to wearing a blindfold while confronting a superpower with seemingly omniscient vision – at least at the tactical level of the battlefield.

  Some 80 percent of U.S. intelligence funding is related to military matters. This tilt of the Intelligence Community toward SMO has had its critics. They would prefer to see more funding for what might be called support to diplomatic operations, or SDO – gathering intelligence from around the world that might help to advance U.S. interests through diplomacy: a focus on peacemaking rather than war-fighting.

  In addition to a threat analysis durin
g the planning and direction phase of the intelligence cycle, important, too, are calculations about global opportunities. Intelligence is expected to provide a “heads up” regarding both dangers and chances to advance America's global interests. Whether related to threats or to opportunities, bias and guesswork enter into the picture, along with the limitations caused by the inherent opaqueness of the future. On which tier should policymakers place China? Iran? What about the Russian Federation, less hostile toward the United States than during the Cold War but still able to destroy every American metropolis in the thirty-minute witchfire of a nuclear holocaust? Or global climate change?

  Around the Cabinet Room in the White House, or in the comparable forums of other nations, the arguments fly regarding the proper hierarchy of concerns. This is not an academic exercise. The outcome determines the priorities for multibillion-dollar spending on intelligence collection and analysis. It pinpoints locations on the world map where spies will be infiltrated; telephones and computers tapped; surveillance satellites set into orbit; reconnaissance aircraft dispatched on overflight missions; and potentially lethal covert actions directed. All too frequently in this process, intelligence officers are left in the dark about the “wish list” of policy officials, who assume that the secret agencies will somehow divine their needs. The solution: more regular discussions between the two groups – spies and the nation's leaders – to ensure that the secret agencies fully understand the top priorities of the nation's decision-makers.

  Different nations are apt to have differing threat perceptions. Al Qaeda, ISIS, and other jihadi terrorist organizations, plus insurgents on the Iraqi and Afghan battlefields, global WMD proliferation, and state-sponsored cyberhackers, have recently been the top 1A intelligence targets for the United States and the United Kingdom. In many African nations, however, AIDS and poverty are the greatest threats to national security; in Brazil, crime is high on the list; in New Zealand, a top priority is the encroachment of Japanese fishing vessels into the Tasman Sea; for Norway, it is fishing rights in the Barents Sea, as well as Russian dumping of radioactive and other waste north of the Kola Peninsula. These variations in intelligence priorities can make it difficult for the secret services in the democracies to work together in sharing intelligence responsibilities.