Ineptitude – Page 55 – Public Intelligence Blog

Jihadist Gains in Iraq Blindside American Spies

First Crimea, now Iraq. Why does America's $50 billion intelligence community keep getting taken by surprise?

Shane Harris

Foreign Policy, 12 June 2014

nited States intelligence agencies were caught by surprise when fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) seized two major Iraqi cities this week and sent Iraqi defense forces fleeing, current and former U.S. officials said Thursday. With U.S. troops long gone from the country, Washington didn't have the spies on the ground or the surveillance gear in the skies necessary to predict when and where the jihadist group would strike.

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2014/06/092014/06/07

Steve Aftergood: CIA Gets Population of Syria Way Wrong

Government, Ineptitude, IO Impotency

CIA UNDERESTIMATES THE POPULATION OF SYRIA

The population of Syria is 17,951,639, according to the CIA World Factbook.

That figure (oddly identified as a “July 2014” estimate) is wrong, according to everyone else.

The discrepancy was noted yesterday in the intelligence newsletter Nightwatch.

“NightWatch consulted six separate sources for the total population of Syria. They agreed that it is between 22 and 23 million people, not 17.9 million as indicated in the CIA World Factbook. There are about 7 million Syrians under voting age of 18 and more than 15 million registered voters,” the newsletter said.

“NightWatch relies on the CIA World Factbook as a standard reference for unclassified factual, baseline information, as does the Intelligence Community. On three occasions since 2006, NightWatch has found errors in the Factbook,” the newsletter added. “This was the third occasion.”

A Congressional Research Service report last month also cites a total Syrian population of “more than 22 million.”

Errors, of course, are to be expected– even, and especially, in intelligence publications. One great virtue of the CIA World Factbook is that it is a public document. This makes it possible for readers to identify such errors, to draw attention to them, and to promote their correction.

2014/06/062014/06/04

Berto Jongman: DHS Intelligence – Additional Actions Needed

Government, Ineptitude, Law Enforcement

DHS Intelligence Analysis:

Additional Actions Needed to Address Analytic Priorities and Workforce Challenges

GAO-14-397: Published: Jun 4, 2014. Publicly Released: Jun 4, 2014.

What GAO Found

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has established mechanisms—including an intelligence framework and an analytic planning process—to better integrate analysis activities throughout the department, but the mechanisms are not functioning as intended.

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2014/06/042014/06/05

EXTRA: Video of Bergdahl Handed Over to Contractors or CIA — Patted Down Next to Helicopter Not Before

Ineptitude, Military, Officers Call

Evidently the US military did not feel it could or should be responsible for the direct recovery of Bergdahn, whether he is a returning deserter or a freed prisoner. A more professional exchange would have dropped off the receiving team, which would have a) taken the time to engage and b) called in for lift-off after being fully satisfied Bergdahl was not another Khost Kathy moment (do not, EVER, wait until you are next to the platform before doing your explosives search).

VIDEO, Photos, Story

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2014/05/222014/05/22

Penguin: Obama and Vets — Neglect & Hyposcricy

07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Ineptitude, Officers Call

Politics at its worst — zero credibility.

Obama: ‘I Will Not Stand For' Misconduct At Veterans Affairs Hospitals

Phi Beta Iota: There is no lack of substantive information about what needs to be done, nor is there a lack of integrity among those who actually believe our veterans should receive the best of which America the Beautiful is capable. What we lack in Washington is the integrity to spend on behalf of the humans in our system instead of the financial system commoditizing and disrespecting our humans.

Republicans for Obama Memorandum to the Campaign (August 2008)

Soldiers: Back in the Day (1980's)

2014/05/182014/05/18

Penguin: Senior USAF Officer – F-35 Is Epic Waste — Terminate F-35 & F-22, Buy 450-Ship Navy Instead…

Corruption, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military

Senior Air Force Officer: The F-35 Is An Epic Waste

A senior US air force officer says Britain's new stealth jet may be no better than existing aircraft.

Britain's long-delayed $117 million stealth fighter may need to be cancelled because of its poor performance, according to analysis by a senior US Air Force officer.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter being built for British and US forces is based on outdated ideas of air warfare, it is claimed. The aircraft could be unable to evade enemy radar and be too expensive for long campaigns.

The critique in the US Air Force’s own journal concludes that the new fighter may even have “substantially less performance” than some existing aircraft.

Britain is preparing to buy at least 48 of the Lockheed Martin aircraft to replace its scrapped Harrier jump jets; the US military is expected to order more than 2,400.

The $395 billion programme is the most expensive weapons system in history at a time when defence budgets on both sides of the Atlantic are being cut.

The analysis in the Air and Space Power Journal states: “Even if funding were unlimited, reasons might still exist for terminating the F-35.

Read full article.

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2014/05/152014/05/17

Mini-Me: US Intelligence Community’s Kodak Moment — IMPLOSION — Comment by Robert Steele

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Ethics, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Impotency, Military

Huh?

The U.S. Intelligence Community's Kodak Moment

The game is changing rapidly. Can Washington's intelligence community keep up?

Josh Kerbel

National Interest, 15 May 2014

Josh Kerbel is the Chief Analytic Methodologist at the Defense Intelligence Agency. He writes often and openly on the intersection of government (especially intelligence) and globalization. The views expressed in this article are his alone and do not imply endorsement by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense or the US Government.

In 2012, the once-mighty Eastman-Kodak company declared bankruptcy. It was an event that should have reverberated strongly with the United States Intelligence Community (IC)—and not just due to the obvious connection between imaging and spying. Rather, it should have resonated because in Kodak the IC could have glimpsed a reflection of itself: an organization so captivated by its past that it was too slow in changing along with its environment.

To understand the IC’s similar captivation and lethargy—to remain focused on classified collection in an era of increasingly ubiquitous, useful and unclassified data—one must first understand the type of problem around which the modern IC business model remains designed: the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was fundamentally a collection problem. That is to say, it was a closed system (i.e., a discrete entity) with clear edges and a hierarchical governance structure. Given that nature, knowing what was happening in the Soviet Union required the use of classified means of collection—most of which the IC alone possessed.

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