Category: Communities of Practice

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Journal: CIA’s Poor Tradecraft AND Poor Management

05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Methods & Process

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The CIA is proud to be on the front lines against al-Qaeda

By Leon Panetta

Sunday, January 10, 2010; A13

. . . . . . .

We have found no consolation, however, in public commentary suggesting that those who gave their lives somehow brought it upon themselves because of “poor tradecraft.” That's like saying Marines who die in a firefight brought it upon themselves because they have poor war-fighting skills.

. . . . . . .

From: Robert Steele, KR-594

To: Leon Panetta

Subj: Getting in touch with reality

As someone who scored in the top ten of their 65 person clandestine Ops I and Ops II training, and then went on to achieve five times the regional recruiting average across three tours focused on terrorists and extremists, ultimately serving in three of the four Directorates and being selected for the CIA Mid-Career Course; and as someone who has actually served in the US Marine Corps and in zones of conflict, I beg to differ with your Washington Post Op-Ed.

A number of us have tried to help you, from the day we intuited your selection, a selection I applauded because of your unique background as both a Chief of Staff in the White House (knowing what the President needed to know) and as a Director of the Office of Management and Budget (understanding means in relation to ways and ends).

The death of so many CIA personnel was a failure of tradecraft at multiple levels and also, I am sorry to have to point out, a failure of management. Were you to demand an honest report of the skills and experience of all those associated with this incident, you would learn two things:

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Reference: WH CT Summary, POTUS Directive, DNI Blurb

08 Immigration, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Analysis, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Military, Office of Management and Budget, Policy, Reform
White House Summary

EDIT of 9 Jan 10: Note seven comments from retired senior officers.

Critique of the CT Summary for the White House

This is a negligent piece of work that fails to include all that is known merely from open sources of information, but more importantly its judgments are misdirected.  This incident remains incompletely investigated until the person who video-taped events on the airplane comes forward and is identified.

Where we differ:

1. It was passengers who restrained the individual, not the flight crew, as is stated in the first paragraph.

1)  Does not identify the primary error.  The Embassy officer (or CIA officer) who interviewed the father did not elevate the matter.  The same kind of mistake occurred when the Taliban walked in and offered us Bin Laden in hand-cuffs.

2)  The absence of a machine-speed cross-walk among US and UK visa denials is noted, but the weakest link is overlooked.  The Department of State either didn’t check their visa files or, as has been remarked, may have failed to get a match because of misspelling.  The necessary software is missing. State continues to be the runt in the litter (we have more military musicians than we have diplomats) and until the President gets a grip on the Program 50 budget, State will remain a dead man walking.

3)  Another point glossed over: the intelligence community, and CIA in particular, did not increase analytic resources against the threat.  Reminds us of George Tenet “declaring war” on terrorism and then being ignored by mandarins who really run the place.

4)  “The watchlisting system is not broken” (page 2 bottom bold).  Of course it is broken, in any normal meaning of the word “system”.  John Brennan is responsible for the watchlisting mess, and this self-serving statement is evidence in favor of his removal.  If we are at war, we cannot have gerbils in critical positions (quoting Madeline Albright).

5)  “A reorganization of the intelligence or broader counterterrorism coummunity is not required…” at the bottom of page 2.  Reorganization, in the sense of moving around blocks on a chart, may not be required, but the entire system is broken and does need both principled redesign and new people the President can trust with the combination of balls and brains and budget authority to get it right.  Thirteen years after Aspin-Brown we still have not implemented most of their suggestions; the U.S. intelligence community is still grotesquely out of balance; and the Whole of Government budget is still radically misdirected at the same time that our policies in the Middle East are counterproductive.

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Journal: Selected MILNET Headlines

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Ethics, Government, Military, Reform

O's ‘Fixes' Will Fail:Feeding more fat to obese US intelligence (Ralph Peters)

None of these people, including our president, took what almost happened on Christmas seriously — until the public outcry spooked them.

To energize the bureaucratic proles, you have to chop off aristocratic heads. But President Obama won't use the guillotine. He's protecting incompetents. At our nation's expense.

The corrective measures announced Thursday boil down to two things: Buy more stuff (additional computer systems, full-body scanners, etc.), and re-arrange the deck chairs.

That won't do it. These measures don't address the two enduring handicaps our intelligence community (and our government) suffers in our duel with Islamist terrorists.

Yemen's Al Qaeda Scam (Robert Haddick)

It seems that whenever the international community discovers another al Qaeda franchise, a financial reward to the host seems to follow. Pakistan has perfected how to profit from this perverse incentive. Yemen is now showing itself to be an able student of the same technique.

U.S. Army In Africa: Dodging The Continent's Worst Wars (David Axe)

The U.S. Army’s role in all of this is to help strengthen the capabilities and capacity of our land force partners … so they can help protect their people, secure their borders, support development, contribute to better governance and help achieve regional stability.

Except, apparently, in cases where there’s too much terrorism, violent extremism, cyber attacks, piracy, illicit trafficking, crime, corruption, disease and displaced people.

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Journal: Open Source Vignette From Cuban Missile Crisis

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 10 Security, Communities of Practice, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence

Robert, I had lunch with an old friend, Herb REDACTED, a retired intelligence officer and military judge (Air Force). The subject of OSS and your role in the IC came about, and my friend sent me a very interesting, brief, story about the open source back channel in the Cuban Missile Crisis I want to share with you. You may well be aware of this, given your knowledge of history, but I wanted you to have this in case it, or my friend Herb, has potential utility to your initiatives. Perhaps the current environment, in DC, will result in a change in policy and effectiveness in the IC. In his note to me, he is commenting about the paper I presented at OSS '94, as a result of your gracious invite. I still tell people about the role you have played in bringing the intelligence community into the limelight, open source into greater adaptation. – REDACTED

Great to visit with you in Tampa-

Your OSS presentation is not simply impressive, it recognizes and highlights a very real and valuable component of intelligence currently as well as in those long distance days when I was immersed in the discipline. It was an open intelligence source that was the first indication that the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was resolved.

It's a rather long story but to offer a brief synopsis: A Reuters News Service correspondent posted to The Kremlin was close to Khrushchev (Big K), close enough to be the only correspondent to gain a private audience during the crisis. On Oct. 27th (I think it was) Big K. told the Reuters' fellow that: “I will do anything to prevent the world's destruction over Cuba.” The reporter then asked incredulously: “Mr. President, do you really mean ‘anything?”  The reply was: “Yes, I will not be the cause of the death of millions of Soviet citizens and radiating the world.”

In the USAFE Command Room in Wiesbaden, we intelligence wennies had every news service and major newspaper teletype machine known to mankind for open source material. Apparently the reported took a fast cab ride back to his office and put the conversation on the wire.  We had a method of verification, used it and confirmed the fact that he had placed the story on the wire.  Presuming it accuracy, we passed it on the Situation Room at the White House. In mere moments we (in the intel. Secure office) received a secure red phone (secure with those punched IBM cards) call from the WH (MacGeorge Bundy on the other end) asking me (since I picked up the phone) was the wire story accurate. I answered yes and handed the phone to Brig. General Julius Gibbons ( CoS for Intel. USAFE) and he spoke to RFK.

Within minutes the deal between JFK and Big K made in Washington was announced. But they knew the deal was to get closed by the USAFE report a few  minutes earlier. And don't overlook the excellent ploy hatched by RFK to ignore Big K's second letter that he was forced to write by his military goons.

The play-by-play version is suitable for a beer or two, it's a little longer.

Thus, your open source presentation was well appreciated as an old intel wennie.

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Journal: Mind-Reading Systems Instead of Human Minds

09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Methods & Process, Peace Intelligence
Full Story Online

Mind-reading systems could change air security

By MICHAEL TARM Jan 8, 2010

CHICAGO (AP) – A would-be terrorist tries to board a plane, bent on mass murder. As he walks through a security checkpoint, fidgeting and glancing around, a network of high-tech machines analyzes his body language and reads his mind.

Screeners pull him aside.

Tragedy is averted.

As far-fetched as that sounds, systems that aim to get inside an evildoer's head are among the proposals floated by security experts thinking beyond the X-ray machines and metal detectors used on millions of passengers and bags each year.

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Journal: Ivory Tower Musings on Intelligence-Sharing

Academia, Cultural Intelligence, Methods & Process
Full Op-Ed Online

Why intelligence-sharing can't always make us safer

By Jennifer Sims and Bob Gallucci

Friday, January 8, 2010; A19

Phi Beta Iota: This Op-Ed is stunningly irrelevant to the problem at hand: a secret intelligence community that over-emphasizes cash inputs and secret remote collection, and simultaneously fails to exploit machine-speed all-source geospatially and time tagged processing, multi-lingual open sources, or analysts that actually know anything  in the way of historical, cultural, and linguistic context.   Intelligence-sharing–as the CIA Mid-Career Course teaches so very well–is a cultural trait that ultimately can only be achieved by humans who know each other, walk around, and frequently engage in informal non-bureaucratic non-mechanical interaction.  We're not there.  The alternative below is what was done when Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski (two sides of the same coin) tried to be their own intelligence analyst, with the futher unprofessional crime of not sharing what they gathered with their intelligence support team.  As Ellsberg lectured Kissinger, this ultimately made him “like a moron,” a phrase that will be instantly pushed back by those who have “bought in” to the Potemkin Village (or what Chuck Spinney calls “Versailles on the Potomac”) but instantly embraced by those who live in the real world and understand Whole Systems.

Three representative sentences from their Op-Ed:

To win against a networked adversary, the intelligence community must share critical information with decision makers but not always with every element of its own community first.   . . . . . . .

Yet if this instance suggests that single, timely tips can be enough, psychological research suggests that intelligence-sharing can be downright bad.   . . . . . . .

To win in network warfare, then, decision makers must think of themselves as collectors and analysts, too.

Phi Beta Iota: The new book,INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH, with chapters loaded as they are finished in first draft, is both a captone work about decades of work by hundreds that this Op-Ed ignores, and a primer for leaders who wish to get intelligence (decision-support) tuned up for the transnational non-state and often human-created but global non-human threats identified in priority order by the UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change in their report A More Secure World–Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.

See also:


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Worth a Look: Rahm Emanuel conducting pogroms within Obama administration and Democratic Party

Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement

Phi Beta Iota: This is a replay of a Wayne Madsen report.  Over lunch we checked with our most connected consultant and learned that this is roughly half right, with some of the specifics names and methods not right, but that over-all there is general consensus on three points:  Rahm is playing dirty “within and against the Democratic family”; Rahm is a big problem for the President; Rahm has to go (along with Brennan and if it were up to us, Axelrod would also be moved out of the White House).  The President needs a neutral professional Chief of Staff, someone like General Jones, who is the perfect Presidential-level administrator.  The President needs a national STRATEGY & POLICY advisor that can restore Whole of Government balance, an Office of Management and Budget director that can MANAGE, and a Director of National Intelligence–Admiral Blair deserves first shot–with AUTHORITY.  The below material is replayed to provoke reflection, nothing more.

Emanuel conducting pogroms within Obama administration and Democratic Party

WMR's White House press sources have revealed that President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, is conducting a virtual political pogrom within the administration and the Democratic caucus in Congress. WMR has learned that the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program, once known as STELLAR WIND but changed after the classified code name was leaked to the media, is being used by Emanuel to force administration officials and Democrats in Congress to “toe the line” in their support of Obama's policies, including health care. the surge in Afghanistan, and the bail out of Wall Street.

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