Short URL: http://tinyurl.com/Steele-IG
Executive Reading (Printable 10-Pages):
2013 Steele Reflections on Inspectors-General 1.7
Updated 6 October 2012 Version 1.7
When I was selected for an interview to be the Defense Intelligence Senior Leader (DISL) for Human Intelligence (HUMINT) at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), it was General Ron Burgess, USA and Ms. Tish Long that decided whether to accept panel recommendations or not. [Today DIA is under new management — one can only hope that General Mike Flynn, USA, has it in him to clean house, restructure, and start being effective at providing decision support to policy, acquisition, and operations, leveraging what he can control: use MASINT as the bill-payer, and execute full-spectrum HUMINT in M4IS2 mode, while flushing the DI. I continue to believe an Open Source Agency is needed, but NOT under intelligence auspices.]
I learn from every experience, and was inspired by Peter W. in particular, then Chief of Staff for DIA/DH, to the point that after my interview I went home, sat down, and wrote the following in one sitting (polishing it considerably over the weeks to follow). I am including the pre-publication approval letters below because I understand there are still köyün delisi out there who think that just because I have been under non-official status these past 20 years, I have somehow forgotten my obligations.
Human Intelligence: All Humans, All Minds, All the Time (Strategic Studies Institute, 3 June 2010)
HUMINT DoD OK with two changes
The single most important graphic in the above work is shown here to the side.
Today I want to focus on one of the fifteen HUMINT slices, the Inspector-General (IG). Although some progress has been made in developing Inspectors General for every agency and department, and in creating networks of Inspectors General both across the federal government and internationally, I do not believe the fundamentals of the Inspectors General have evolved properly, and therefore consider most Inspectors General to be doing the wrong things righter (reactive micro audits) instead of the right things (proactive holistic meta-training and education — integrative program formation).
Executive Summary:
The role and responsibility of the Inspector General (IG) should be reframed, to encourage the critique of programs from an additional perspective. For IGs in national security, in national competitiveness, and in national intelligence (including education and research) that perspective should hold up as a standard that the IG communicates well to policy makers, acquisition managers, and operational commanders; at the same time that the information provided is relevant to whole-of-government action, serving whole-of-nation interests, with inter-agency and inter-agency transparency allowing for error detection and correction. Such a perspective is assumed to be the responsibility of those higher in a hierarchy, but that is a mistake. It is a perspective that can be applied at all levels, and in fact can only be effective if it is applied at all levels. IGs might be better at applying this perspective exactly because they are in the middle – able to connect operational knowledge with national interest. Just as the General Accountability Office (GAO) changed from Accounting to Accountability, so also must Inspectors General now follow suit: my vision empowers IGs and those they support by enabling a holistic and integrity forcing function to operate across all boundaries….in addition to inspecting they are sensing, engaging, empowering, educating, and above all, ensuring that the public interest is addressed in a coherent holistic honest manner at every level (strategic, operational, tactical, and technical). Beyond an order of magnitude increase in the IG's value within their individual relative domains, there is an opportunity at the grand strategic level. The ultimate task of a 21st Century IG, in my personal view, is to work as a body whole across all boundaries, to assure the public that its government will always seek righteous ends, administer cost-effective ways, and live within our means, the public means. St.
Table of Contents
- Historical Gravitas of the Inspector General
- Inspector Generals Today (Focus on the USA)
- Dr. Russell Ackoff’s Wisdom — Bright Light for Inspectors General
- Intelligence is Irelevant
- Communications is Broken Beyond Repair
- Irrelevant Noise
- The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Does Not Manage
- Inspectors General as the Seed Crystal for Elevating Intelligence with Integrity
- What Is the Big Picture?
- Appreciating Waste in the USA Today – 50% of Every Tax Dollar
- What is Our Starting Point? Intelligence with Integrity, Championed by Inspectors General
- “Strategic Decrepitude” — Hell's Front Door
- What Is To Be Done?
