DIA Chief Fears Agency Becoming Irrelevant
The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency likened his own organization to the film company Kodak after it declared bankruptcy for failing to change with the times.
In a June 7 speech seemingly aimed at his workforce of some 16,000 personnel, Marine Corps Gen. Vincent R. Stewart said, “We are not indispensable unless we are relevant to our customers.”
ROBERT STEELE: There was a time when Vince Stewart cared about getting it right. He called me up many years ago when he was tasked by USDI to looking into OSINT, and with my help discovered, as he told me, “the most lying, back-stabbing, and unprofessional misbehavior” as he has ever seen in his career. Sadly, as he earned additional promotions, he fell in step with Jim Clapper's loss of both intelligence and integrity. In the 1990's Clapper was easily one of the five best flag officers in our inventory — over time he lost sight of the fundamentals and failed to produce more than 4% “at best” of what commanders needed despite having budgets as high at $100 billion a year.
We now know that a substantial part of the deeply secret IC is focused on extraterrestrial communications and operations, but on balance I have to give both Jim and Vince failing grades — they simply did not give a shit about producing strategic, operational, tactical, and technical (acquisition) intelligence useful to the President, each Cabinet Secretary, and all of the action officers across all threats and policies. I am quite certain neither one of them can state from memory what the ten high level threats to the USA are (as based on the work of LtGen Dr Brent Scowcroft and the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change).
I do sympathize — they both understand that no decision in Washington DC is based on intelligence (evidence-based decision support) and therefore they would be ignored, but they both refused to do the one thing I have been advocating since 1988, the creation of an Open Source Agency as a baseline for what can be known ethically and inexepensively, and also shared with all levels of the government, the legislative branch, the media, the public, and foreign parties.
It just breaks my heart to see these people destroy the craft of intelligence because they are not willing to examine their oath to defend and support the Constitution against all enemies, domestic and foreign, and act accordingly. An Open Source Agency, along with a ruthless counterintelligence element that can protect Members of Congress from blackmailers rather than what we do now — CIA, FBI, and NSA are all blackmailing specific Members as a matter of routine, based on decades of illegal surveillance against these Members — is a starting point for taking down the Deep State and restoring America the Beautiful.
See Especially:
On Defense Intelligence – Seven Strikes
2017 Robert Steele: OSINT Done Right
See Also:
Graphic: Tony Zinni on 4% “At Best”
Tony Zinni: Background & Confirmation of the 4% “At Best” Quote on Secret versus Open Sources
Fixing Intelligence II: Seven Precepts (PORTAL)
Reflections: Philosophy of Intelligence
Open Source Everything Engineering Page @ Phi Beta Iota
