Intelligence (Government/Secret) – Page 46

Three major scoops, useful summary of tidbits from others,

January 11, 2006

James Risen

EDITED to add note at bottom addressing anonymous sceptic. EDITED 6 Jun 06 to add note of Pentagon failing to capture Bin Laden.

There are three major scoops in this book that earn it five stars where the rest of the book might only merit four:

1) The obvious scoop now before Congress and the press, with respect to the National Security Agency (NSA) eavesdropping on citizens without a warrant.

2) The really really huge scoop, that Charlie Allen, then Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for Collection, was able to guide the recruitment of no fewer than 30 Iraqis able to travel back to see their relatives and conclusively document that there was no nuclear program and no weapons of mass destruction–this information was evidently not provided to Congress, the President, or (naturally), the public.

3) Slightly less sensational, the book reveals for the first time that a CIA “bait” operation actually delivered to Iran completely useful plans for creating a nuclear bomb…the CIA “flaws” intended to render the plans unworkable were detected in one glance by a Russian courier scientist, and easily correctable by the Iranians.

Over-all the book renders an important public service by pulling together in one place the many tid-bits that are publicly known, but is distressingly weak on crediting those many other sources (e.g. Jim Bamford, the last word on NSA).

The cover of the book is quite revealing in that it has photos of Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Tenet–those who follow the politics of the Executive know that Cheney is the man pulling the puppet strings, generally without being detected, and it is Cheney that allowed Rumsfeld to blatantly ignore the President, steam-roll Condi Rice, disrespect Tenet, and sideline Colin Powell.

Other major points in the book that merit our attention and respect:

1) According to the author, but consistent with my own experience across three three of CIA's directorates, CIA consistently screws those that try to tell the truth, such as the Chief of Station in Iraq that wrote the report saying the insurgency was going to hurt us badly and we were not winning.

2) CIA developed a “poisonous culture” that sought to mollify the President, avoid conflict with the Pentagon, and generally not be serious about its mission {“ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”)

3) CIA did not blow the whistle on the ramping up of Afghan drug production, and allowed the Pentagon to ignore the urgent calls from the Department of State for aerial spraying and other eradication measures–today Afghanistan provides 80% of the opium on the market.

4) Israel's Mossad briefed the neo-conservatives along lines they were pleased to hear, going around and against the CIA.

There are several minor flaws in the book that would normally reduce my appreciation to four stars, but the above scoops more than compensate. However, they are worth noting:

1) The book seriously over-sells and exaggerates NSA's capabilities. While they can indeed do some wondrous things, on balance NSA is in the 1970's and not at all ready for the modern world of emails, web directories, and phone texting.

2) The book touches on New York Times stories based on “leaks” from the White House but avoids naming Judith Miller or exploring whether she was an Israeli agent of influence.

3) The book touches on torture and rendition, but does not discuss how many have been imprisoned erroneously (in the dozens according to some accounts) or died as a result of torture (as many as two dozen according to some accounts). CIA literally made people “disappear” making it no better than the Argentines or the Israelis or the Nazis. Most of CIA is honest; a small segment engaged in torture and renditions is out of control.

4) The book supports the CIA field claims that the Northern Alliance allowed Bin Laden to escape, but fails to mention the well-documented facts that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, without consulting anyone, gave the Pakistanis an air corridor, ostensibly to evacuate a few of their “observers,” that was used to actually evacuate over 3,000 Taliban and Al Qaeda personnel trapped by US forces in the Tora Bora area; and that CIA tracked Bin Laden for four days from Tora Bora to the Waziristan border, but the Pentagon was too chicken to drop a battalion of Rangers in his path (see my review of “JAWBREAKER.”

5) The book comments on the 9-11 Commission being contradicted by open records in many respects, but fails to examine the close relationship between the White House, the Bush Family, and the Saudis, who were complicit in Al Qaeda's global growth and unwilling to help the US until after 9/11 and even then, very marginally.

6) The book has a highly questionable allegation that a single error by a CIA communicator “blew” all CIA Iranian assets. My understanding is that the CIA has been equally incompetent in recruiting Iranians as it was in recruiting Iraqis. This smells like a fish story.

Over-all the book delivers two compelling indictments:

1) Of CIA for self-censorship, pandering to the President and the Vice President, and failing to cover the Middle East properly over a period of decades.

2) Of Cheney and Rumsfeld, for orchestrating a virtual coup in which the President could be ignored, the National Security Advisor steam-rolled, the Secretary of State side-lined, and the entire policy process set aside in favor of Cheney-Rumsfeld dictates.

This is quite an amazing book, and highly recommended.

NOTE TO SCEPTIC: I bought this book from Amazon as soon as it was offered, read it on an airplane to Los Angeles on 10 Jan, and posted my review along with those of three other books I read on the trip, the evening I returned, 13 January. I read a lot, mostly on airplanes and hotel rooms. I put my notes on the flyleaf and mark the books up heavily.

2006/01/112009/12/04

Review: Treachery–How America’s Friends and Foes Are Secretly Arming Our Enemies (Hardcover)

4 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Useful but Hypocritcal,

January 11, 2006

Bill Gertz

Bill Gertz is a “thought leader” and what he has to say is always worth listening to or reading.

This book is absolutely first rate as far as it goes, in lambasting the French, the Germans, the Russians, China, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, and the United Nations for their varied contributions to global instability and corruption.

However, the book is also hypocritical in ignoring the documented fact that the U.S. is by far the largest arms merchant and the biggest bully on the block. The book also ignores Israel and the 38+ dictators that the U.S. supports (there are actually 44 still left but six are included in this book).

A third of the book is an appendix of classified documents with a great deal blocked out, this is one of the author's signature features, but the bottom line is that the book is a very large Op-Ed. Worth buying and reading, absolutely spot on, but hypocritical and incomplete.

2006/01/052009/12/04

Review: Under and Alone–The True Story of the Undercover Agent Who Infiltrated America’s Most Violent Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (Hardcover)

4 Star, Crime (Organized, Transnational), Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Over-Sold, Interesting but on the Margins,

January 5, 2006

William Queen

In a global economy of perhaps $5 trillion a year, fully another $2 trillion a year is illicit (see the book by Moises Naim of that title). This means not only that there is $2 trillion a year in illegal activities that include murder, rape, trade in women and children, and so on, but also that this $2 trillion is not taxed and therefore does not contribute to the social programs that are essential to keep a nation strong. Since motorcycle gangs are now global, vicious, and largely “out of control,” the book struck me as helpful and worth reading.

It is worth reading, and there is no question but that the author risked his life, perhaps even ruined his life, by spending a long time penetrating the Mongols, arguably the most vicious (and unwashed) of the motorcycle gangs.

I put the book down with three thoughts:

1) There has got to be a better way to put gangs like this out of business. Cities have sanitation codes, there ought to be a way to keep people like this in remediation without having to risk officer's lives penetrating their gangs.

2) An awful lot of taxpayer dollars and a lot of very high-quality officer time went into this, at great personal risk, with relatively marginal results.

3) Gangs share a couple of similarities with terrorists: they have access to very high-powered lawyers and a great deal of money when they need it; and law enforcement is ham-strung by out of date laws and conventions that insist on treating out and out ruthless “Mongols” with the same rules used for more civilized members of society. I cannot but help conclude that we ought to have a “no holds barred” option on gangs in the same way that we now have a no holds barred option on terrorists.

2005/10/112009/12/04

Review: Rain Fall (Spy Fiction)

4 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Been a Spy, Done Japan, This is a Great Tax Write Off,

October 11, 2005

Barry Eisler

I've been a spy, out from under cover for a long time, and I would not normally have touched this, but my spouse suggested it on a rainy afternoon, and I have to give it four stars because it held my attention and I finished it.

On balance, I would put this between a 3 and a 4, but I gave it a four for coherence. Still, this author is not John Le Carre at his best (George Smiley series).

What I found most interesting, as I read through the book and found connections with both my past and with Japan, was the manner in which the author appears to have found a formula for connecting what he has done in his own past, what he has read about, and what he is presumably writing off on his taxes–comprehensive travel.

I put the book down, not disappointed–I certainly recommend this book to anyone who has not been a spy–but thinking to myself, WOW, this is what I can do when I retire–travel all over the world, write a spy novel with details about each place I visit, and presto, it is all a grand tax write-off.

Professionally speaking the book is way too facile. Planting an audio device is very very tough. The need for line of sight from the transmitter to the receiver kills most applications. Generally speaking, you have to listen for four hours to get five minutes worth of useful stuff. Killer technologies certainly abound, but as CIA found when it tried to kill Castro with exploding cigars, infected dive suits, beard killers, and the bomb-dropping pigeons, generally technology is not the answer.

3 for former spies, 5 for the general public, 4 on balance. Absolutely recommended for a rainy afternoon.

2005/10/032009/12/04

Review: Transforming U.S. Intelligence (Paperback)

4 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

“Must Read” Superb Collection, But Not Transformative,

October 3, 2005

Jennifer E Sims

This is a valuable book and merits careful study by policymakers, practitioners, and students who may be future intelligence professionals. The book is not, however, transformative, nor is it particularly innovative, and for that, I must with reluctance limit it to four stars, but with the caveat that it is a “must read.”

Some of the best contributions are those of Jennifer Sims, and the deeper that I read into the works of others, the more I wished that she had had the time to make the entire book her own, casting a broader net for iconoclastic thinkers, foreign intelligence practitioners, non-governmental experts in open source intelligence, religious and labor experts on foreign threats from foreign religions, whose thoughts do not appear in this book.

The book's major premise is that it was not the institutions that failed, but rather leadership–that all that is needed is a change in priorities, perspective, and methods. This is typical of books written by those who, by their own admission, were “part of the problem.”

The section on new requirements is more than adequate if one wishes to continue to focus on unilateral secret intelligence about major state threats but fails to acknowledge that we earned a D, at best, on everything else, to include terrorism, proliferation, environmental scarcity, ethnic conflict, and dictatorial corruption (our friends) as a long-term threat to our vision of participatory democracy and moral capitalism. The requirements section suffers from a rather staid focus on states and “actor” threats, with little mention of history, geography, culture, religion, or demographics, all forces vastly more potent than your average failed state or single transnational group.

The middle third of the book, on capabilities, is the strongest part of the book. It opens with a chapter on open sources by Amy Sands that I would say is now the best available short summary of that discipline's potential. I especially applaud the focus on the need for analysts (who are NOT under cover) to have professional networks that transcend borders and cultures, and to be comfortable with local as well as global information. Where this important chapter falls short, however, is in failing to recognize that 90% of what we need to know from open sources will never be shared with U.S. “intelligence” and we therefore need an Open Source Agency under diplomatic sponsorship; and that we will never unilaterally collect and process all that we need to know, hence we need a global network of regional information-sharing centers, initially doing open sources, eventually doing all sources. These latter two ideas are transformative, the chapter itself, while very solid, is not.

Clandestine intelligence is well covered from a traditional perspective, but stops short by contenting itself with asking for more authority, tighter lanes in the road, and “staying the course.” It does have gems of insight on both possibilities and obstacles, and is a good read. It does not, however, make the transformative leap toward a much larger non-official cover cadre hired at mid-career; toward regional multinational clandestine stations with mature officers on rotation from other nations; toward a much larger career principal agent network; and toward the excellent idea of one recently retired ADDO, that of one-time “it's just business” contracts for specific operations.

Digital dimension is very fine but could have benefited from a much stronger appreciation of what can be done in addressing the contributions that can be made now by man-machine translation networks with automated online dictionaries, and advanced geospatially-based analytics including predictive analysis.

I have no quarrel with the substance of either the analysis or denial sections, other than to observe that they completely eschew multinational, multiagency analysis.

The management section is strong in terms of understanding what insiders think the problems and solutions are, but for one who has read most books in this field, it is so deeply tied to the past and to past biases and perceptions as to forego any claim to being transformative.

The section on homeland defense is well-meaning, but incorrect in its assertion that the FBI has done well with a good model for joint terrorism task forces (JTTF). First off, the FBI remains a completely dysfunctional organization when it comes to either counterintelligence or sharing with state and local organizations. Secondly, as more than one expert has noted, it is the height of ignorance, especially in the aftermath of Hurricane KATRINA and the imminent bird-flu pandemic, to obsess on terrorism as the sole area where national to state and local sharing will take place. 50% of the “dots” that will help prevent the next 9/11 are bottom up dots observed by citizens and cops on the beat, and those dots have no place to go. We need 50 state intelligence centers and networks.

Britt Snider is unique in America-one of two people, the other being Loch Johnson-who have served on both the Church Committee staff and the Aspin-Brown Commission staff. He is one of America's foremost observers of national intelligence, and his chapter on Congressional oversight is one of the best pieces in the book. Having said that, I would note that it lacks two transformative thoughts, both being explored at this time: first, the time has come for every Congressional committee to have its own Sub-Committee on Intelligence and Information Operations (I2O), and for the ranking members of those sub-committees to form a new Special Committee on I2O with concurrent jurisdiction over both secret and open source information expenditures and capabilities across the entire U.S. Government; secondly, and enabled by this new committee, it is time for a new form of hybrid agency, an Open Source Agency that integrates the Library of Congress and is equally responsive to Congress, the Governors, and the Executive as well as the public, with its Director appointed for life, as are Supreme Court justices, and a fixed percentage of the disposable budget (1%) for complete independence from the White House.

“Must read,” but not transformative.

2005/09/282009/12/04

Review: The World Was Going Our Way–The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (v. 2) (Hardcover)

5 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Extraordinary largely for showing contractors as the weak link ,

September 28, 2005

Christopher Andrew

This is, like the first book, an extraordinary piece of scholarship. While it can be tedious in both its detail and in the drollness of the “accomplishments” that enjoyed so much Politburo attention and funding, it joins books such as Derek Leebaert's The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World in documenting the insanity and waste that characterized much of the so-called “secret wars” between the US Intelligence Community (within which the CIA is a $3 billion a year runt against the larger defense budget approaching $50 billion a year) and the KGB and GRU.

For those who have the patience or speed to get through this entire book, the single most important revelation and documentation concerns the ease with which the Russians were able to recruit traitors within the US defense community contractors. Ralph Peters has written about this in New Glory : Expanding America's Global Supremacy but speaks mostly of legal treason–corruption and waste. This book carefully addresses the sad reality that DoD is totally penetrated by foreign spies (one would add, Third World and allied spies including France, Germany, and Israel, never mind China and Iran) via the contracting community.

One day someone will do a careful calibration of both the good and the bad of secret intelligence. When that day comes, this book will be as good a place as any with which to start.

Best General Couonterintelligence Books:
Traitors Among Us: Inside the Spy Catcher's World
Merchants of Treason America's Secrets for Sale from the Pueblo to the Present

2005/09/282009/12/04

Review: Burn Before Reading–Presidents, CIA Directors, and Secret Intelligence (Hardcover)

4 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Useful to Congress, a President, or a Future DCI,

September 28, 2005

Stansfield Turner

This is a useful retrospective by Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence under President Jimmy Carter, but it is most useful if you are a Member of Congress, a sitting or future President, or perhaps being considered as a future DCI. For the general public, and even for intelligence professionals, this is an interesting personal recollection and evaluation that reflects a limited appreciation for the broader literature on intelligence reform and is less likely to be exciting to those seeking to understand the minutia of intelligence.

It could be very useful to the public under one condition or rather one hope: that the public react to this book as I did, to wit, the author may not have intended this, but his superb tour of the relations between Presidents and Directors of Central (or in today's terms, National) Intelligence has persuaded me that our national intelligence community must be removed from the Executive Branch. We need a new hybrid national intelligence community in which the Director is simultaneously responsive to the President, to Governors, to Congress, and to the public. It's budget must be set as a fraction of the total disposable budget of the federal government, on the order of 1%. This agency must be completely impervious to Executive or Congressional abuse, and must act as a national objective source of truth upon which to discuss policy and acqusition and liaison options. A national board of overseers could be comprised of former Presidents, former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former Leaders of the House and Senate, as well as selected representatives of the public. Intelligence is now too important to be subject to the whims of politics. Intelligence is the revolutionary source of wealth as well as conflict resolution, and this author has made it clear that most Presidents simply cannot be trusted to either manage it or listen to it with wisdom. I would go so far as to suggest that national science and education also require a similar form of hybrid oversight and management. This is not to say that each Executive agency should not have its own intelligence and information operations (I2O) capabilities and functions, only that intelligence and science, like justice, need a court of last resort that cannot be undermined by ideology and personality.

This suggestion is probably too radical, BUT there is one opening for a first step: the DNI should recommend to the President and to Congress that the new planned Open Source Agency integrate the Library of Congress and be the first new hybrid organization, with the Director appointed for life, as are Supreme Court Justices.

The author has done an excellent job, albeit with some obvious gaps and a few errors, in focusing on the relationships between Presidents and Directors of Central Intelligence. However, the book suffers from the author's understandable but incorrect assumption that national intelligence should remain focused on secrets by, of, and for the President. In fact, not only is most intelligence today from open sources of information, but finished intelligence is a small fraction of Information Operations (IO), that larger matrix of all operational, logistics, geospatial, and other information (including information from non-governmental organizations, universities, and corporations as well as religions and labor unions), and thus the author's perspective and recommendations, while valuable, are relevant only to 10% of the challenge facing DNI John Negroponte and DDNI Mike Hayden.

A few notes from the margins:

The author's largely cursory review of past reform efforts completely ignores the earnest efforts of Senator Boren and Congressman McCurdy with the National Security Act of 1992. That Act was undone by Dick Cheney, then Secretary of Defense, and Senator John Warner, then ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The author does correctly note that all of the recommendations of the Aspin-Brown Commission, a device used by Senator Warner to delay and stop reform, have not yet been implemented.

The author is incorrect when he credits Tenet with focusing on the operational side of the CIA, and for focusing on global coverage. In fact, Tenet appointed a White House mess buddy to be DDO, James Pavitt screwed up for seven years, and then Tenet has the temerity to tell the 9-11 Commission that he needed seven more years to get it right. Tenet also commissioned and then refused to follow the recommendations of a report called “The Challenge of Global Coverage,” where Keith Hall, then Director of the National Reconnaissance Agency, among others, told Tenet directly that with the secret world's obession on seven hard targets, it desperately needed an insurance policy on the order of $10M a year for each of 150 countries or topics including terrorism and disease. Tenet is reported by one present to have said “we are in the business of secrets, speak no more of this report.”

The author is politically correct but wrong to give the recent intelligence reform legislation a qualified “yes” when asking it makes us safer. It does not. The lead article in the Fall issue of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, by Michael Turner, is absolutely on target when it calls the legislation a loss for the American people and the widows and orphans of 9-11, and a victory for entrenched interests including Congressional pork rolling in Virginia.

The author is completely correct to suggest that “CIA” is an acronym ready for retirement. As I suggested in my first book, ON INTELLIGENCE (with a Foreword by Senator David Boren), CIA needs to be come the National Analysis Agency, and be stripped of its S&T and clandestine functions. [NSA needs to become the National Processing Agency–Washington is operating on 2% of the relevant information, and most of it is not online.]

There are two important recurring themes across the book that the author is extraordinarily qualified to address. The first is the long-term political, social, economic, and cultural costs of “covert actions” including assassinations, coups, and other nefarious interventions in foreign affairs. The second is the extremely negative impact on national intelligence of military ownership of three “national” agencies. He points out that we missed the Indian nuclear developments in part because the Department of Defense was demanding that all the satellite capabilities be focused on Iraq, and through ownership, was able to enforce its demands and neglect national priorities.

The author praises George Bush the First as a model President and director, and seems to hint that the son would do well to follow his father's active engagement. The author is brutal about Casey, suggesting (to this reader) that not until Karl Rove has there been a more negative employment of government assets for political advantage. The author is subtly critical of Henry Kissinger, calls Woolsey's tenure a lost opportunity to redirect CIA, and has many other insights that can only come from a DCI, about other DCIs. Overall this is a good read for anyone who cares deeply about the health and nuances of U.S. intelligence.

The book loses one star for gaps here and there. The sources used are very limited–in the critical Viet-Nam era, for example, the author does not cite George Allen's “NONE SO BLIND,” and he does not mention at least 15 other retrospective books on intelligence that would have added substantially to his endeavor, which seeks to end with recommendations for the DNI and future reform legislation that remains needed.

Category: Intelligence (Government/Secret)

Review: State of War–The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (Hardcover)

Review: Treachery–How America’s Friends and Foes Are Secretly Arming Our Enemies (Hardcover)

Review: Under and Alone–The True Story of the Undercover Agent Who Infiltrated America’s Most Violent Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (Hardcover)

Review: Rain Fall (Spy Fiction)

Review: Transforming U.S. Intelligence (Paperback)

Review: The World Was Going Our Way–The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (v. 2) (Hardcover)

Review: Burn Before Reading–Presidents, CIA Directors, and Secret Intelligence (Hardcover)