The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
For the past year the Executive Director of Earth Intelligence Network, “JZ” Jason Liszkiewicz has been pursuing a self-designed project to understand, deeply and in detail, the “true cost” of a plain cotton t-shirt. Click on either photo to read all about it and if you wish, to order one of these examples of citizen intelligence in action.
The QDR slides got me thinking about the fact that DIA could be a really first rate intelligence agency and an effective counter to ODNI and CIA for the SecDef, JCS, and the military services, especially field commanders.
Although badly executed, DIA has two vitally important missions: support to military operations; and support to military strategy formulation. Unfortunately, DIA has always suffered from unimaginative senior leadership and the worst form of military thinking whereby rank trumps truth and an incompetent major trumps a competent lieutenant.
If DIA is going to achieve its potential and rally to provide the best intelligence possible to the SecDef, JCS, and service field commanders it needs to break free from the military hierarchical thinking and its influences on intelligence judgments.
In point of fact DIA has and has always had an excellent group of military and civilian analysts working there although there is a constant churn due to service requirements and limited prospects for civilians.
So what does DIA need? It needs an influx of original (out of the box) strategists who can visualize and articulate the multi-level threats to U.S. National Security, who understand the phenomenon of globalization and its effect on DOD strategic thinking, and can effectively relate such 21st Century phenomenon as trans-national asymmetric warfare to U.S. force and command structures.
Perhaps most importantly, DIA needs to build a capability to exploit the fact that increasing amounts of information relative to DOD concerns that are actually available from open sources. At the same time DIA needs to introduce much more effective information management systems to support its intelligence production.
Phi Beta Iota: This comment is repeated from the QDR OSINT thread. We've been saying this for 21 years. Perhaps we should have shouted. The two DoD OSINT briefings and the future of OSINT material are now circulating among presidential staffs of a handful of other countries. They get it, we don't. How sad is that?
CNN Editor's note: Charles S. Faddis is a retired CIA operations officer and the former head of the CIA's unit focused on fighting terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction. The author of a recently published book about the CIA, “Beyond Repair,” Faddis is also president of Orion Strategic Services, a Maryland-based consulting firm.
Phi Beta Iota: We know and admire Charles Faddis. Below the fold are other references on the implosion of CIA, which is no longer fit for duty. Panetta means well, but he does not know what he does not know, and the stuffed shirts surrounding him are not about to tell him what he really does need to know, in part because they don't know, they've made a career out of pushing paper, inflating success, and avoiding accountability. The difference between the earlier set of anti-CIA retirees and our set are two: 1) we're not breaking rules and cannot credibly be labeled as traitors; and 2) we know vastly more about the real world of all-source intelligence than the incompetent insiders and we cannot be silenced. Eventually an honest political leadership will hear us.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Earlier Relevant Journal Entries:
Continue reading “Reference: Retired CIA officer–Fix the Agency”
UNIDIR (United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research) has produced a superb checklist approach to the mission of reducing the proliferation of small arms, which kill and maim and orphan tens of millions at a time. The Director of UNIDIR at the time, Dr. Patricia Lewis, was the first UN official in modern times to contemplate the need for a UN-sponosred World Brain. 2003 Lewis (UNIDIR) Creating the Global Brain: The United Nations.
Citizen science is a term used for projects or ongoing program of scientific work in which individual volunteers or networks of volunteers, many of whom may have no specific scientific training, perform or manage research-related tasks such as observation, measurement or computation.
The use of citizen-science networks often allows scientists to accomplish research objectives more feasibly than would otherwise be possible. In addition, these projects aim to promote public engagement with the research, as well as with science in general. Some programs provide materials specifically for use by primary or secondary school students. As such, citizen science is one approach to informal science education.
Phi Beta Iota: Citizen Science is in its infancy, but with the emergence of open source software and open source intelligence combinations such as represented by SourceMap.org, Citizen Intelligence and Citizen Counterintelligence are sure to be coming along soon….and if combined with multi-lingual networks such as provided by Telelanguage, a global multinational citizen information-sharing and sense-making grid can be created that implements the Swedish vision of M4IS2: Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making. This has enormous implications for both real-time science and real-time warning as well as real-time Emergency Action.
Wall Street Journal Reuel Marc Gerecht January 8, 2010 [safety copy of entire piece below the fold]
Amid the Hysteria, A Look at What al-Qaeda Can't Do
TIME Magazine By Peter Beinart Monday, Jan. 18, 2010
National Journal By James Kitfield Saturday, Jan. 9, 2010 [Subscription]
Hidden behind walls of top-secret classification, senior U.S. government officials meet in what is essentially a star chamber to decide which enemies of the state to target for assassination. There is no single master list, but all names pass through an elaborate, multi-agency vetting process that ends at the level of the National Security Council and ultimately requires presidential approval.
Overwhelm. Divide. Spread. Bankrupt. Diversify: Al Qaeda's new grand strategy
Washington Post By Bruce Hoffman January 10, 2010
London Sunday Times By David Leppard and Hala Jaber January 10, 2010
Continue reading “Journal: What Al Qaeda Et Al Can and Cannot Do”
Terrorism Fight Requires Intelligence Accountability (Senator John Kerry)
Frankly, we don’t need more commissions or bureaucracies. We do need intelligence professionals and their managers who are committed to a new culture of quality, cooperation, and accountability.
Two attacks highlight counterterrorism's bureaucratic bog (David Ignatius)
Talking to veteran counterterrorism officers, I hear a common theme that unites these two disastrous lapses: The CIA has adopted bureaucratic procedures that, while intended to avoid mistakes, may actually heighten the risks. In the words of one CIA veteran, “You have a system that is overwhelmed.”
But those standard agent-handling rules have been violated routinely, in Iraq and now Afghanistan, because senior officials have concluded it's too dangerous outside the wire. “At least 90 percent of all agent meetings are conducted on bases,” estimates one CIA veteran. The agency wants to protect its people, understandably — but the system actually works to increase vulnerability.
The Khost tragedy shows that the CIA needs to take the counterintelligence threat from al-Qaeda more seriously. Intelligence reports over the past year have warned that groups linked with al-Qaeda were sending double agents to penetrate CIA bases in Afghanistan.
The brave CIA officers serving overseas deserve a better system than this.
CIA Director Leon Panetta should use these searing events to foster a culture of initiative and accountability at a CIA that wants to do the job — but that needs leadership and reform.
Holes For The CIA To Close (David Ignatius)
A replay of long-standing criticisms of CIA's short-tours, lack of memory, refusal to take counterintelligence seriously, and general ineptitude outside the Embassy cocktail circuits.
Confusion Grows Over How Bomber Infiltrated CIA Base (Los Angeles Times)
A CIA inquiry is focused on two main questions: why the bomber was not more thoroughly screened and where he received the training and explosives used in the attack.
Deja Vu Stories
U.S. Saw A Path To Qaeda Chiefs Before Bombing
Suicide bomber who attacked CIA post in Afghanistan was trusted informant from Jordan
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