Unintelligent Intelligence

For ten years at least and more likely 15, and most certainly since March 6. 2010 when President Mubarak of Egypt underwent gall bladder surgery, we have known that the 82 year old President of Egypt could die or be incapacitated at any moment.  We have also known that there was no clear path for succession.  Structurally, Mubarak had fixed the system so that his son Gamal could take over.  But there were serious doubts that the Egyptian military would accept a civilian like Gamal or accept the ignominy of copying Syria by passing the torch down the family line. Egyptian pride is a characteristic we know very well.  So we knew that the actuarial tables suggested an end in sight and that the process for succession was uncertain.  

So why was it a surprise when demonstrations peaked in Cairo and Mubarak was forced out by his military? Why was there no contingency plan on the shelf for an event that was unpredictable only in its timing? And why were we caught flat footed when two-thirds of the population, those who are under 30, said, Enough, "Kifayya."  And yet the Administration lurched from "Mubarak is not a dictator" to "Egypt is stable" even while the TV cameras were documenting a massive protest. Where was our intelligence community and who was advising our President, Vice President and Secretary of State? 

Prediction and sooth saying are very much the same thing - brilliant when proven correct and forgotten when proven wrong.  The signs were there - unemployment of the under 30's, an educated youth population without jobs and prospects, cultural barriers to the unemployed for marriage and family, an underpaid and undereducated police force, a judicial system that depends on confessions rather than forensics and investigation for convictions, a conscript military with the officers running a parallel state, a system of crony capitalism that enriched the connected and ignored the rest, the palliative of reasonable economic growth by the IMF's numbers that somehow never reached the people. 

But Mubarak had survived for 30 years. Our predisposition was to assume that he would survive for the next thirty.  What was the tipping point that would suggest that what had worked in the past would no longer work today? And who was paying attention to the 20 somethings who were about to lead a revolution?

Now we have another example of the failure of our intelligence.  We have just learned from Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, also known by the codename "Curveball," that he made up the reports of Saddam Hussein's mobile biological labs in Iraq.  And with those reports Secretary of State Colin Powell went before the world at the UN and accused Saddam Hussein of accumulating weapons of mass destruction - weapons that only existed in al-Janabi's mind and in his desperation to push the United State into war.  This despite the fact that the CIA's European chief had already raised doubts about the report and about al-Janabi.  Yet the Administration, through the CIA Director and others, pressed Powell hard with the absolute certainty that comes from true believers. 

In the case of Mubarak, we had a strong predisposition to accept his likely survival and so we were not prepared.  With curveball we had a key portion of our political establishment that wanted to believe in him so that we could justify the invasion of Iraq.  

We need to do better.  We need to break the chains of assumptions and expectations and predispositions and agendas.  We need to put analysis and critical thinking before ideology,political party, and the lessons of the past.  (We may have learned those past lessons too well.) And we need an analytical capability in our intelligence community that is immune from politics and changing administrations.  We have the talent.  But even if we had such an institution, would we listen to it? 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Walter Cronkite]

Disengagement in the Middle-East

The United States needs to make a fundamental change in its foreign policy in the Middle East. First and foremost we need drastic improvements in our energy security. It is absolutely irresponsible that our government has allowed the country to be economically reliant for decades upon a handful of dictators. Drastic steps need to be taken immediately to change this, including; a gasoline tax, cap and trade carbon emissions, new nuclear plants, more domestic drilling, etc. It is possible for the United States to quickly end our reliance on imported oil and stop the massive transfer of wealth from our dynamic and innovative economy to economically backward countries led by regimes whose values we don’t necessarily share.
The U.S. also must demand of the Israelis a good faith effort to create a lasting peace with the Palestinian people. This includes accepting a Palestinian State, ending new settlements, and agreeing to share Jerusalem. America’s strong support for Israel has caused great anger towards the United States in the Arab world, and even the broader Muslim world as a whole. The widespread anger towards the United States because of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict weakens the United States’ soft power and de-stabilizes the Middle East. The U.S. has great leverage over Israel and we must use it to demand a long-term peace.
By improving our energy security and ending our involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the U.S. can disengage with the region and focus on much needed nation building at home, necessary for America to remain the world’s leading power into the 22nd century.

[Tim Olsen]

The phrase, “hindsight is twenty-twenty,” comes to mind when discussing the political situation in Egypt. Although experts may now see the numerous problems within the Egyptian political and economic system, it is only because of this revolution that these problems were given credence and consideration. Both government and independent reports out of Egypt did show some signs of unrest and dissatisfaction with Mubarak’s government, but none significant enough to predict a massive change in Egyptian leadership. The belief that the United States could have dealt with Mubarak and his regime before the initial protests represents a flawed and shortsighted opinion. The U.S. witnessed the problem with entering a politically unstable situation without accurate and relevant information in Iraq and the U.S. government’s original reaction to the protests reveals that it once again did not have the most accurate information regarding the political situation in Egypt. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Biden’s comments claiming political stability in Egypt and supporting Mubarak government after the protests began display the lack of accurate information on the Egyptian political environment. The lack of information demonstrates the difficulty with becoming heavily involved in country building and overturning existing governments. Their reactions displayed that the U.S. government did not have the capabilities to accurately gage the overall unrest in Egypt before and after the protests began, exhibiting the government made the correct decision to not become involved in another Middle East conflict. If the government had reacted similarly to this misleading information before the protests, perhaps the U.S. would have provided Mubarak with a variety of economic, verbal and military support. Upon witnessing the overall discontent in the country, this obviously seems ludicrous, but the information we had before the protests obviously made the leadership of the U.S. government to believe that Mubarak still held some power and influence in Egypt. This revolution helped demonstrate the U.S. government’s need for more accurate intelligence. Although predicting events such as the Egyptian revolution remains almost impossible, better intelligence would have at the very least allowed the U.S. government to take a better course of action after the protests began.

[Injun Lyo]

Ambassador Walker’s essential arguments in “Unintelligent Intelligence” (2011)
in regards to the United States’ intelligence, relates to George Tenet’s perspectives in his book At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (2007). Director of Central Intelligence, Tenet, argues that he and other CIA agencies strongly believe that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). Tenet claims, “Everybody in the room—as well as the most credible intelligence services in the world—already believed that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and was working on a nuclear program. The incomplete data declarations Saddam was giving to the UN and a stream of information from well-placed intelligence sources served only to buttress our confidence.” The assumption was that Hussein had WMDs and would give them to terrorists. Ambassador Walker points out that even a credible diplomat, such as Secretary of State Colin Powell, was wrong in his argument that Hussein had WMDs when he spoke at the U.N. because he received false intelligence information. Similarly, the United States’ assumption was that President Mubarak would continue to rule Egypt with corruption and violence for decades to come. However, this predisposition and assumption was wrong. In the information age, Egyptian citizens are able to protest and to mobilize because there are great exchanges of information and innovative technologies available, such as facebook, twitter, and cell phones. Ambassador Walker raises an important question, “Our predisposition was to assume that [President Mubarak] would survive for the next thirty. What was the tipping point that would suggest that what had worked in the past would no longer work today? And who was paying attention to the 20
somethings who were about to lead a revolution.” I agree with Ambassador Walker that
the intelligence was a failure. The United States’ decision to invade Iraq, based on the justification of WMDs and its’ prediction about President Mubarak continued rule in Egypt, was dependent on assumptions without concrete, empirical, and credible evidence.
Ambassador Walker’s arguments are thought-provoking. The United States had no contingency plan. The intelligence community needs to think more critically and analytically and not base their actions on false assumptions and beliefs. For example, there were warnings and signs that Egyptian citizens would rebel against the Mubarak government, and his regime would ultimately fall. President Mubarak’s vulnerability is his old age and his poor health conditions. There have also been external and internal struggles within his regime. The succession of his son, Gamal, would have been very difficult and unstable. Even though President Mubarak created a foundation to make it smoother for his son to be his successor, the question of whether the Egyptian military would allow his son to be the next president of Egypt is dubious as Ambassador Walker points out. Mubarak’s son is not part of the military. Furthermore, whether Egyptian citizens would allow the transfer of power from father to son is questionable because it creates conflict with Egyptian tradition and pride. Worst of all, the unemployment rate among young people is high, and there is no access to economic growth.
Despite these social and economic problems in Egypt, the Obama administration has struggled whether or not to support President Mubarak or put pressure on him to resign. The United States has had a good relationship with Egypt in the past, with Egypt playing an important role in the Camp David Accords. Ambassador Walker raises an important argument and question, “We need to do better. We need to break the chains of assumptions and expectations and predispositions and agendas. We need to put analysis and critical thinking before ideology, political party, and the lessons of the past. (We may have learned those past lessons too well.) And we need an analytical capability in our intelligence community that is immune from politics and changing administrations. We have the talent. But even if we had such an institution, would we listen to it.” I agree with his arguments that the United States’ intelligence needs to be more analytical and less political. Currently, both the executive and the legislative branches are influenced by political agendas. As American citizens, the country would be “better” when politicians do not allow their decision making to be influenced by their party ideologies. However, in reality, I believe that it would be extremely difficult for politicians to be “immune from politics and changing administrations.” Politicians cannot be completely unaffected by their party ideologies because of upcoming elections. In the context of today’s politics where there is great partisanship and division among the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the Tea Party, it would be difficult to promote an autonomous and independent intelligence agency.

[Maria Lozada]

Confirmation bias, where people search for information and interpret it in ways that confirm their already established beliefs, plagues intelligence analysis and the past decade especially has seen its effects on foreign policy in the last two administrations. Policy makeers have consistently chosent to view reports from a fixed perspective that only sees old known patters without granting importance to emerging trends. Regarding Egypt, none was more telling than the acknowledgement and quick dismissal of the very social group that help start a revolution, all in a single diplomatic cable. But how to solve it? Biases are notoriously hard to overcome and this one in particular is known to remain even when shown evidence to the contrary, which explains why CIA analysts questioning al-Jalabad’s reports were dismissed by officials. Like an addiction, the only way to counteract the effects of a bias is to counciously acknowledge its existance and deliberately develop scenarios that go against them, comparing them with past and present situations to really see which holds true. Unfortunately, politicians are not a group world-renowned for their self-awareness and willingness to set ideology aside. Even if intelligence analysts were themselves capable of it, and all current evidence suggests they are not, officials will still intepret the information provided based on their personal assumptions. Unfortunately, the likelihood is that these mistakes will be repeated and only world events will determine if the governement (analysts, politicians and bureaucrats) will learn fast enough to meet the next crisis.

[Michelle Franco]

To answer the question posed in the last paragraph of this post, even if we had an institution, immune from all the mentioned faults, I do not think that it would make much of a difference in how we ultimately react to compiled intelligence. Further, even if we put analysis and critical thinking before ideology, political party, and the lessons of the past prior to the upheaval in Egypt, I feel that the US approach to the situation would not have been any different.

I believe that it is possible that the US would have ignored the signs (unemployment of the under 30's, an educated youth population without jobs and prospects, cultural barriers to the unemployed for marriage and family, an underpaid and undereducated police force, etc) because the only real form of tangible mobilization was over the Internet. Yes, Mubarak was old and in poor health, yes there was no clear path of succession, and yes we were still surprised when protestors hit the streets and Mubarak was forced out. I do not think it was necessarily that US intelligence was shocked by the discontentment of the people, I believe they were caught off guard by how they mobilized and how quickly and successfully they did so. US intelligence, which surely knew about the Facebook groups, YouTube videos, and Twitter posts, did not view the virtual mobilization occurring via these social media outlets as a serious or real threat. They did not think that any of the activism and protesting in these outlets as real tools of any powerful mobilization activity.

The only type of mobilization seen through social media in the United States is unsubstantial at best. While Facebook and Twitter may influence who is going to win American Idol or Dancing With the Stars, it has yet to have proven to be a major factor in political campaigns, much less led to any sort of legitimate demonstration or affect any real change. Even in cases outside the US, Iran’s so-called “Twitter Revolution” after the 2009 presidential elections was quickly squashed and any long-term effect was nullified.

I believe if US intelligence had analyzed and critically thought about possible results of mobilization on these sites, agencies still may have not seen their potential, even in such a volatile climate. This technology is still so new and the potential of such connectivity has not been fully explored. However, in the future, I believe that the spreading of ideas and virtual protests will be taken much more seriously by US intelligence and not just ignored as people hashing out their discontentment on the Internet.

[Caroline Maran]

The recent unrest and toppling of the Mubarak regime in Egypt should not have come as a complete surprise to the Obama administration. During last week’s Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing, an Associate Deputy Director for the CIA testified that the agency had warned President Obama last year about instability in the country and the potential threat to the rule of Hosni Mubarak.
As this blog accurately points out, the high percentage of unemployed, educated youth along with social injustices prove that the conditions for a revolution were ripe in Egypt. Furthermore, Ambassador Walker makes a key point when he states that the US’s predisposition was that the Mubarak regime “would survive for the next thirty years.” I completely agree with this statement and believe that the Obama administration turned a blind-eye to the intelligence reports received about the Egypt mainly because it did not want to restructure broader Middle East policy. The United States was aware that by condemning Mubarak, they would also be forced to place other key authoritarian governments in the region under the microscope.
While this blog post accurately cites recent shortcomings of the intelligence community, specifically the failure of the agency to thoroughly investigate claims made by “curveball” that Saddam Hussein possessed biological weapons, I believe that the CIA is not entirely to blame for its failure to predict the recent uprisings sweeping the region. After all, who could have predicted that a street vendor setting himself on fire in Tunisia could plant the seeds of revolution in the minds of youth across the Arab world? The role of the intelligence community in the United States is to collect information that can help reduce uncertainty and inform the President’s policy decisions. While intelligence was no doubt aware of the instability in Egypt, they could not pinpoint the exact event that would trigger such a revolution, those events being self-immolation in Tunisia, and a youth-led protest against police brutality in Egypt. As many in the intelligence community are recently professing, “they are not clairvoyant”.
While intelligence is not entirely to blame, I agree with the Ambassador that the CIA and intelligence collection practices in the US are by no means perfect. As recent events prove, US intelligence should have done a better job at tracking the popular sentiments expressed through social media. After all, it was Facebook and Twitter, which allowed Egyptians to successfully organize and conduct the protests that began in Tahrir Square on January 25th, 2011.
I believe that the recent failures to attain proper information regarding the Egyptian revolution also stem from the fact that for many years, the US intelligence community has enjoyed friendly relations with their Arab counterparts. This has been especially true over the last decade, when counterterrorism became the CIA’s primary concern. Thus the agency needed to maintain good relations with Arab countries such as Egypt in order to gather information regarding al-Qaeda and other regional security threats. In the case of Egypt, the CIA has fostered close friendships with key members of the Egyptian intelligence community such as Omar Suleiman. This type of friendship has become the dangerous paradox of intelligence collection in the Arab world. In Egypt, the dilemma occurred when proper intelligence gathering and unilateral operations were sacrificed in order to maintain “chummy” relations with the Mubarak regime. Ultimately in order to be successful the intelligence community and the Obama administration need to take Ambassador Walker’s advice and “ break the chains of assumptions and expectations and predispositions and agendas”.

[Chris Ravn]

Ambassador Walker correctly points out the unfortunate reality that politics often divert policy-makers from taking appropriate measures, even when problems appear clear in hindsight. Properly assessing risk needs to be the most important metric used in policy-making. The administration has fumbled through the Egyptian and Middle Eastern riots because they did not prepare for the contingency of political strongmen being ousted and the subsequent contagion of riots extending from Morocco to Bahrain. This is simply inexcusable. Strategic planning for unforeseen events is fundamental for enacting successful foreign policy. Instead, Obama and his NSC team struggled to form a cohesive opinion and flipped sides in less than a week. In an era where 24 hour news feeds and online social media are the norm, it is impossible to ignore the realities of global events. It is not enough to exclaim that things are stable when the world sees otherwise.
Although the president has positively garnered much global support from his soft and friendly speeches like the one delivered in Cairo during his early presidency, policy decisions require consistency and a transparent strategy. Obama fell short on both accounts. His administration however, is not alone as inconsistent messages have spewed out of Washington consistently over the past decade. On one hand we have become the champions of democracy, toppling Sadam Hussein to allow the Iraqi people to become liberated from the reigns of tyranny. While on the other, we have been content supporters of dictators such as Mubarak as long as they provide stability and shown the U.S. relative cooperation. There needs to be a significant change in the way in which the U.S. treats global dictators and oppressive regimes. We no longer live in a world where half of the global population lives under communism and remains silenced. The growth in internet usage and social networking has brought forth a new error of democracy where people will be able to network and form populist rallies to oust repressive regimes. The administration needs to understand this and make sure that next time the repercussions for under reaction may be a lot more costly.

[Fertaa Yieleh-Chireh]

I largely agree with the views of Ambassador Walker. In this regard, I think that the US’ initial posture as events in Egypt unfolded was not only as a result of “unintelligent intelligence”; but also, cognitive dissonance. This cognitive dissonance resulted in what is widely termed wishful thinking—in which a person chooses to believe what he or she wants to believe. Mubarak, for 30 years, has been a key US ally and has cooperated with the US on several issues in the Middle East, particularly, the peace, security, and stability of Israel. Aside this cooperation, Mubarak over the years has deepened friendships and made strong connections with several key policy makers in the US. Hence, for the US, it was just impossible to see a friend go. Consequently, it was only natural for the Secretary of State and the Vice President to have said: “Egypt was stable,” and “Mubarak is not a dictator” respectively, as that was what they wanted to believe.

With respect to the President of the US, I believe he deserves some credit as there is no statement, to my knowledge, he is reported to have made that indicated that he was uninformed of the happenings in Egypt and the potential consequences for the Mubarak administration. In fact, he has been ‘prophetic,’ for lack of a more accurate description. According to the New York Times, as the protests intensified, Mubarak assured Obama that the protests would be over in a few days. President Obama’s response: “I respect my elders. And you have been in politics for a very long time, Mr. President. But there are moments in history when just because things were the same in the past doesn’t mean they will be that way in the future.” Indeed Mr. President, your “predisposition” was not to “assume that he would survive for the next 30,” and that is highly commendable.

Additionally, with regards to the Iraqi invasion and Curveball’s confession that he made up the reports of Saddam Hussein's mobile biological labs in Iraq, Ambassador Walker rightly points out that the CIA’s European Chief had raised doubts about Curveball’s reports. Therefore, I do not think that US authorities did not have enough intelligence to ascertain the veracity of his claims; rather, the US was unprepared to properly investigate Curveball’s claims because of yet another cognitive error. This cognitive error is “biased assimilation,” described by Farhad Manjoo as people having the tendency to accept information that is in perfect synchronization with their views. It is instructive to note that the US Congress passed the Iraqi Liberation Act in 1998—which was a policy of the US to embark on regime change in Iraq. Therefore, Curveball’s information was in tandem with the views of the US on Iraq and provided the basis for a regime change.

Finally, I wish to make a few observations with respect to the happenings in Egypt and in the Arab world. I DO NOT support autocratic regimes; nevertheless, in my candid opinion, I do not think that a group of people should embark on protests and demand the downfall of a constituted authority as the only basis upon which they will return to their normal lives. I think that is in very bad taste and the happenings in Egypt and Tunisia set a very bad precedence. On the other hand, the use of violence against protesters by state agencies should be condemned in all unequivocal terms. Even in advanced democracies, there are still very huge income gaps and rising levels of poverty. The US, for instance has most of its wealth in the grips of just a few. Again, the economic crisis in the US resulted in foreclosures as well as immense unemployment. Though there have been protests, these have not called for the removal of any constituted authority. These protesters express their views very strongly on issues and when that is done, they return to their normal lives. I believe so should have been the nature of protests in Egypt. As Ambassador Walker said, “President Mubarak of Egypt underwent gall bladder surgery, we have known that the 82 year old President of Egypt could die or be incapacitated at any moment.” Hence, there was no rush in ousting him. The rush to oust him has achieved no significant results. Egypt’s economy lost a total $3.1 billion. Now how will that money be recouped? Won’t this rather lead to more economic hardships? The military has taken over, and they have suspended the constitution and are ruling by decree. Who can tell me the difference between this and Mubarak’s emergency laws? People should be made to understand that most of these leaders preside over bureaucratic systems. So their ouster will mean nothing unless steps are taken to completely overhaul the system. I will be a little charitable and not go as far to say that the problems of Egypt have just began. My point however is that we should seek lasting change. In other words, we should have a comprehensive plan on the way forward, and avoid joining the usual bandwagon of “this” or “that leader must go!” We all can then list all the bad things happening in our respective countries and call for the heads of our leaders. Is that what we want?

[Thomas Williamson]

Ambassador Walker raises two examples of U.S. intelligence breakdowns that have happened recently: our failure to foresee the eventuality of Mubarak’s overthrow despite the multiple indicators and the recent admission of Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi that he made up his reports of Hussein's mobile biological labs. These lapses call into question the U.S.’s ability to sift through the chaff to find the useful intelligence. Indeed, in both of these cases it appears that the intelligence community allowed the outcome they wished for to dictate their actions rater than the feasibility or veracity of the scenarios. Such prioritization, while perhaps useful in the short run to score short term political points, will ultimately hurt more than it helps.

In regards to Egypt, it is hard to imagine a scenario where no one in the intelligence community did not foresee that Mubarak’s days were numbered. Yet, the administration’s rhetorical waffling does seem to indicate that there was no actionable plan for this eventuality. One could make the argument that such a transition, a popular uprising with no certainty for success, was as unlikely a transition scenario as any, but after Tunisia one would certainly have to give greater weight to any uprising’s potential success. It almost appears as though that by not planning for this possible contingency, American intelligence was wishing it away with the power of positive thinking—if its not thought about, then it will not happen.

It is said that hindsight is 20/20, but I would find it hard to at least not to call into question the information given by an individual with the codename “Curveball,” but it does highlight the consequences of acting on questionable intelligence advanced by politics. Intelligence is only useful if it is accurate; by advancing intelligence that wasn’t, the United State entered into a long war.

Ultimately, Ambassador Walker does come to the right conclusion, that “we need to do better.” Yet the real question, the much harder one, is how we do that. Each new Administration brings with it is own priorities and agendas that it seeks to advance. Getting political appointees to listen to the bureaucracy on the feasibility of those agendas is a difficult task. Getting them to do so when there is false intelligence that parallels their priorities makes it even more difficult. It boils down to trusting the career employees and their judgment, something that many political appointees are unwilling to do.

[Michael Bethoney]

This blog post provokes thoughts mainly in two aspects of analysis surrounding the Egyptian revolution and recent information regarding our intelligence reports of pre-Iraq War on Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program. First is the enormous importance of the quality and accuracy of our intelligence programs and, conversely, the terrible ramifications that can potentially result from political decisions made based on erroneous intelligence reports. Thus, we must do better collectively within our intelligence community to guarantee the highest quality Intel in the world. The second thought is how important it is for our government to improve the cohesion of our defense and intelligence gathering bureaus.
In order to improve our intelligence on international affairs, we need to adapt our intelligence-gathering programs in several ways. First, in a changing political climate internationally, our intelligence community needs to adapt to developing diplomatic relations as well. This entails catering our intelligence community to research Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, popular or influential blogging websites, and other social networking sites on the internet; we must adapt to recent evolutions in political revolt internationally and be analyzing the younger generation of internet users as potential political organizers. This holds especially true in developing nations that are run by repressive governments and dictatorial regimes. Although historically our intelligence community has focused on big wig politicians and older figureheads that have held power for long periods of time, our intelligence community must realize that younger, technologically savvy individuals with political motivations will be playing larger roles in shaping and changing the international political landscape for the foreseeable future.
Our intelligence community needs to adapt not only to generational and technological changes, but also to the shifting regional landscapes as well. Our intelligence cannot remain focused only mainly on European affairs, but must expand in its breadth to focus intensely on China, South Korea, India, Brazil, and many Middle Eastern/northern African nations too. Hopefully, this would further expand to include the sub-Saharan African, South American, and Southeast Asian regions as well, although it is impossible to have perfect intelligence on every country in every region of the entire world. However, it is simply inexcusable for the United States to have insufficient intelligence to understand that a nation as geopolitically important to our interests abroad is about to undergo a regime-changing revolution led by its citizens. Additionally, the last major adaptation the U.S. intelligence community should undertake is to eliminate the political jockeying and bickering that prohibits our federal government from performing its duties to its fullest capacity, at least within the defense and intelligence departments of our government. Simply put, intelligence must not be influenced by left and right, by liberals and democrats versus conservatives and republicans; intelligence must be in the best interests of preserving the safety of Americans domestically, and achieving U.S. interests abroad. If our diplomats are to perform their duties as U.S. representatives in other countries, it is crucial they receive accurate and substantial intelligence on potential situations and foreign diplomats with which they need to negotiate. As witnessed by the recent reports surfacing on the Iraqi informant ‘Curveball,’ for our diplomats and political leaders to be fed inaccurate intelligence could lead to history-shaping decisions, such as the Iraqi War, based on misinformation. These are devastating consequences we must not tolerate.
The second major thought sparked by the Ambassador’s blog post is that there needs to be increased cohesion within our government and among the various branches of the intelligence community. It is one thing to have diversity of opinion and to challenge one another’s ideas and ideals. However, it is another thing altogether to be so distrustful of one another and the opposing party to the point that the government cannot run even remotely efficiently. More directly speaking, the Administration needs to have a more unified message during international crises such as the recent situation with the Egyptian revolution. Also, the intelligence community cannot fail to report information across departments such as what happened with the CIA and FBI, supposedly, prior to 9/11. Further, we need to double-check our intelligence reports more carefully to ensure that our government is not manipulating intelligence to fit their political agenda, such as what Ambassador Walker commented on regarding the recent reports on our intelligence for Iraq’s nuclear weapons program prior to our invasion of Iraq in 2003. Finally, and significantly more broadly, we need to have a more consistent message for our international relations and be more consistent with a unified message and approach to world affairs, as this would prevent any type of conflicting statements from the country’s leadership such as the ones provided by the current Administration regarding the Egyptian revolution. These steps would go a long way towards improving America’s diplomatic relations with several regions of the world, and would improve our perception within the international community as well.

[Adam Minchew]

I think the critical points to take from the events and realizations of the past few weeks was astutely summarized by Ambassador Walker in his assertion that we as a nation too often rely on our assumptions, predispositions and prior expectations. Our intelligence community is vast, multidimensional, well resourced, and has the great advantage of having some of America’s best and brightest thinkers at its disposal. That being said, however, there has been a perceivable breakdown in communication between the several intelligence agencies, the white house, the military, the civilian arms of government, and third party intellectual organizations.

It seems that every president since the end of the Cold War has had a fundamental, yet impossible issue hindering their ability to lead effectively – the apparatus for gathering and acting on intelligence is obsolete and needs, at the very least, a restructuring of organizational efficiency. The men and women working for the US intelligence agencies have consistently shown themselves capable at providing timely, crucial intelligence. These men and women are not the issue.

If the United States is to assert itself in the 21st century as an adaptive, modern power, it must realize the limitations of such a vast, uncommunicative and unorganized intelligence community. In the 1950’s, the government was run out of one building in Washington DC that sits adjacent to the White house; this one building was home to the Department of Defense, Department of State, CIA, FBI, etc. Since then, the size of the federal government has grown exponentially and as a result, the agencies needed to ensure that actionable intelligence is gathered, reported and acted upon have grown apart.

If the problem of communication between the various departments is among the primary issues facing our flawed intelligence system, how can it be fixed? It seems that intelligence has become a microcosm of government itself – cumbersome, reactive, and complicit in maintaining the status quo. In these respects, the intelligence community and government as a whole should learn from the private sector to be more efficient, dynamic, proactive and eager to change with the times. Indeed, intelligence personnel should be motivated and eager to do work that leads to progress of the US position at home and abroad. If thousands of man hours are being spent on intelligence that is filed away and is never used to inform policy decisions, then perhaps the community as a whole needs to prioritize what information is essential and what information is being gathered merely for the sake of gathering intelligence. Yes, it is important to have an abundance of information, but it is more important to have the right intelligence at the right time. What the US government must strive to do is task intelligence in a more efficient way to augment our ability to detect and intervene in future events that warrant our time and attention.

[Ayush Soni]

After looking at the United States’ international actions in the last decade and how these actions have looked in hindsight, I believe the main problem does not lie with our intelligence gathering, but rather with our patience regarding the information. Starting with President Bush’s administration and now continuing with President Obama’s, the United States seems too keen and eager to jump into international conflicts, either with military actions or rhetorical statements.

It is hard to fault the Afghanistan invasion, as that was a direct response to a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Afghanistan was a failed state that harbored terrorism and anti-American sentiment. The U.S. government obtained credible information that Al-Qaeda carried out the September 11th attacks and that the leaders and organizers were taking refuge in Afghanistan. President Bush made the correct decision to invade before anything worse occurred. However, the choices that followed showed a lack of judgment and patience. If one were to even ignore mistakes made in the Iraq invasion, the United States has still shown an inability to truly process information and intelligence reports. In violation of the Geneva Convention, the U.S. regularly imprisoned and tortured many innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan based on hunches or false reports from opportunistic rivals and village leaders. These actions have placed a black mark on the U.S. internationally.

While these physical mistakes have slowed down since Obama took office, overall mistakes have not. Perfectly exemplified in the Egypt situation is the current administration’s inability to sit back and gather more research and intelligence before making bold statements. Secretary of State Clinton and Vice President Biden made statements that were proven wrong only days later, forcing everyone to backtrack, never a good sign for a group that is supposed to be among the best informed and prepared leaders in the world. Though the U.S. government has close ties with Mubarak and that may have played a part in earlier statements, the President and his cabinet should have studied the situation better and seen that it was different than any other uprising Egypt has seen in the last 30 years. Egypt had many problems that Mubarak could not and was not willing to solve. If Clinton and Biden had waited for the situation to play out a little longer and seen that these protests were strong enough to start a revolution, they could have made much more informed and correct comments.

For the last decade, the U.S. has been too willing to compromise being correct for being in the action. The last two administrations have been so eager to get something done or say something definitive, that they are making mistakes more often and with more repercussions than ever before. Our leaders need to take a step back and fully assess these situations from all angles and perspectives before jumping to action or to the microphone.

[Jed Davis]

In regards to the last question, we would only listen to this hypothetical institution if there were the right structural incentives in place to ensure that this institution had the legitimacy necessary to have a significant effect on policy. What I mean by this is that while your suggestion is plausible and a good idea, there would need to be adequate steps taken to ensure that it could be insulated from politics, which in today’s climate seems to be a daunting task.
As far as misinformation regarding Iraq, this revelation epitomizes the Bush 43 Administration’s approach to that war: Groupthink to such a high degree that specious reports such as these were accepted as fact without any real verification. This and the Obama Administration’s less than fully coordinated response to the situation in Egypt prove the need for the type of organization that you suggest. However, as noted above, I’m not sure exactly how it could be protected from the kind of partisanship witnessed in the previous administration.

[Isabelle Van Hook]

Before the recent revolutionary events in Egypt unfolded, it seemed unimaginable that the longtime ally of the United States, President Hosni Mubarak would ever be forcibly removed from power. However, after the eighteen-day whirlwind of protests, it now seems unimaginable that Mubarak could have maintained his grip on power. The role of the military in the Egyptian political structure, growing inequality, and levels of educated unemployed Egyptians now seem like obvious indicators of the inevitability of the revolution.
Ambassador Walker asks the question—“where was our intelligence community, and who was advising our President, Vice-President, and Secretary of State?” From an outside perspective, one cannot be certain of whether or not the intelligence was there, accessible to the administration. Perhaps the early waffled response of the administration was due to a lack of accurate intelligence, but it is also likely that Washington simply ignored the intelligence reports, failed to sufficiently inform itself, or interpreted the intelligence to fit the mold of the policy agenda.
As Ambassador Walker points out, politics oftentimes interferes with the analytical capacity of our intelligence system, as was the case with WMDs in Iraq. The political wing of our government was searching for any tidbit of intelligence that could be construed as remotely reliable, and so when ‘Curveball’ supplied a scrap of evidence, Bush’s team took it and ran with it. Policy molded the intelligence, rather than intelligence molding our policy.
Along similar lines, assuming our intelligence community was sufficiently aware of the situation in Egypt, the administration seemed to selectively overlook signs of trouble that didn’t complement our strategic interests. Mubarak has been a cooperative ally and stabilizer in the region, especially regarding the security of Israel. As far as our involvement in the region goes, the administration is unenthusiastic about expanding our direct commitments—at this point in time, Washington cannot afford to put more boots on Middle Eastern ground. The administration’s fear of uncertainty and potential instability if a key figure such as Mubarak were removed from the Middle Eastern jigsaw clouded its ability to look at the facts. Again, as Ambassador Walker pointed out, Secretary Clinton declared on the first day of protests, “Egypt is stable,” as live media coverage showed burning trucks and thousands of agitated protesters. Obama’s administration didn’t publically suggest that Mubarak would not continue as part of Egypt’s government until the 12th day of protests, when the State Department and White House distanced themselves from special envoy and former ambassador Frank Wisner’s assertions that Mubarak needed to remain in power through the transition process.
A failure to gather and analyze intelligence objectively forced the administration to scramble to play catch-up on its public stance once it belatedly realized that the protests were decisive and that Mubarak’s ousting was a realistic outcome.

[Cobus van der Ven]

There is no doubt that messages from the White House regarding Egypt were inconsistent. Perhaps this inconsistency was the result of poor intelligence based on predispositions and outdated assumptions. Yet if the U.S. had access to perfect intelligence, would the messages have been that different?

Egypt is a critical ally in an unstable region, and therefore it is vitally important that the U.S. maintain good relations with the government that ultimately triumphed. Therefore, the U.S. had a vested interest in picking the side of the winner. Regardless of the actual outcome of the protest, its initial chance of success was remarkably low. Mubarak had maintained power for 30 years through strong authoritarian rule, and his government was infamous for their questionable tactics of quelling anti-government speech. Even if his military did not support Mubarak’s son, the military senior leadership remained fiercely loyal to the senior Mubarak. General Tantawi had even been described as “Mubarak’s poodle.” Even in the face of the evidence regarding the volatile discontent in the region, the controversy surrounding Gamal, and the uncertain path of succession, the protests still had a high probability of failure. Thus perhaps Secretary of State Clinton’s statement that “Egypt is stable” and Vice President Biden’s belief that “Mubarak is not a dictator” were in fact semi-calculated attempts to support the side of the statistically probable victor.

As the situation unraveled, however, it became clear that they things would not progress as initially thought. When the military decided not to fire on the protestors, the power and chance for ultimate success drifted away from Mubarak. So did the stance of the U.S. government.

Certainly, there were missteps—the debacle surrounding Ambassador Wisner comes to mind—yet even with strong intelligence, it is not clear that the basic structure of U.S. government messages would have been radically different. Perhaps the inconsistent messages were the result of changing probabilities rather than poor intelligence.

[William Brodt]

To the credit of the intelligence community, it is difficult to predict exactly what, when, and why events like the recent Egyptian protests occur. However, there were clearly holes in the United States’ preparation for such an event, and President Obama publicly voiced his displeasure with the efforts of the intelligence community. This is not the first time our intelligence agencies have failed to predict monumental changes in regions of great importance. Regardless, there are many potential reasons for why we failed to adequately prepare for such an event. For instance, it is possible that the Egyptian military initially supported Mubarak but changed their position after unrelenting protests. Nevertheless, overall our intelligence was flawed. It seems as if some of the contingency plans were not re-evaluated recently to account for the actions of the Egyptian Youth and social media. It would be interesting to discover how the intelligence community re-visits contingency plans with the development of new technology, people, and conditions. Regarding the Iraq war, the United States knew that Curveball was unreliable because the Germans explicitly told us so. He was a desperate man willing to say anything that the United States wanted to hear. Yet we based an entire UN testimony, with the Germans present, on Curveball’s information. Even though politics may move faster than our law enforcement systems, this ignores every investigative process our country has. At the very least, this represents a monumental failure of critical analysis and a hasty, irresponsible call for war. After the release of documents concerning DCI George Tenet’s “Slam Dunk” promise to President Bush, it appears to be more of a deliberate fabrication. This suggests that the problem does not necessarily lie within the intelligence community: it can lie within our country’s leadership that willingly chooses to ignore the warning signs in the pursuit of another agenda.

Isolating analysis from political orientation should not be an issue, but past evidence suggests the contrary. The Bush administration demonstrated that it was willing to bully or expose members of the intelligence community in order to get what it wanted. Institutions and restrictions to prevent this type of behavior have been in place for decades, but their reach and power is limited. Tenet violated the CIA charter’s stance on isolation from domestic affairs when he became a part of the propaganda machine that helped the United States go to war. CIA operatives involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal received slaps on the wrist and subsequent promotions. The NSA shouldn’t have been able to conduct Projects Shamrock and Minaret, but they did so without serious consequence. Although people may debate whether or not such operations are necessary, at the very least our intelligence community has not been held to the standards of their charters or federal law for quite some time. Such institutions are in place already, but they are ignored. The creation of another governing body in a supervisory role sounds great, and if implemented well, it may be useful. However, past history suggests that any attempt to create such an institution will merely be pointless as our political and intelligence leaders circumnavigate their restrictions.

This paints a grim picture of our intelligence and political communities, but many of our country’s intelligence failures have been predicted by at least some analysts. As current DCI Leon Panetta describes, gathering intelligence is much like an earthquake; sometimes people can predict where an event will take place and what will happen, but it can be difficult to determine exactly when it will occur. However, a lack of coordination among intelligence agencies has hurt our collective analytical capability, and many reports go unnoticed. With analytical reform in the intelligence community or better records management, our country may be better prepared for future conflicts.

[James Lacy]

The fact that the United States was caught off guard when the former Egyptian President Mumbarak was driven from power by youth protests and the military is a sign that our country needs to reexamine and reinvest in our embassies and diplomatic agents around the world. We cannot be taken by surprise by political, economic and military activity, especially in countries and regions of the world were we have strategic interests. Embassies, ambassadors and diplomatic contacts, once considered to be on the way towards insignificance because of advances in communications technologies, are now more important than ever.
The value of embassies is that they position US personnel amongst the population of different countries. Press statements from government bureaucrats that run on 24-hour news networks, and instantaneous telephone conversations between world leaders are certainly important, but there is a lot to be said for boots on the ground. An embassy staff that is able to mingle with the population and establish contacts with different facets of society could give us a better feel for public sentiments and social movements. While there are obvious security concerns, we need to start opening ourselves up to other populations around the world if we want to be on top of changing trends.
There is also something more transparent about publicly acknowledging that the US government has people on the ground with the purpose of working with local governments and people. In a changing world where the US needs to be perceived more as an assisting partner and less and a dictating leader, transparency and openness seem like good traits to promote.
I cannot speak about the operations of the US Embassy in Cairo, besides that we clearly misread what Tantawi was capable of, but it seems clear that our government missed something important. Perhaps a greater presence would have kept us better informed. Embassies, ambassadors, and intermingling might not be the end all solution to our unintelligent intelligence, but it cannot hurt to have more people interacting with and talking to the most important source of intelligence; the local population.

[Shantanu Tata]

To the millions of people who watched the events in Egypt unfold over the last month, one of the most interesting subplots was what the US reaction would be. What made the situation even more interesting is that it appeared as if the US government had been caught slightly off guard by the protests and didn’t have a thorough understanding of the situation. Vice President Biden stated that Mubarak was not a dictator, and Secretary of State Clinton declared that the situation in Egypt was stable, while it was becoming increasingly clear that it was anything but. What this indicated was that our intelligence officials and country analysts failed to clearly communicate the situation on the ground to key decision makers such as Secretary Clinton and President Obama.

One of the main reasons we have embassies in foreign countries is so that US diplomats and intelligence officers have the opportunity to assess the conditions on the ground first hand and gain a sense of what is going on. As mentioned in the post, all of the signs in Egypt seemed to indicate that Egypt was due for an uprising, and that the vast majority of the population was unhappy with the status quo. The situation in Egypt illustrates the fact that American diplomats and intelligence officials need to develop better relationships with the local populations in the countries they are stationed in so that they can have a better understanding of the general public sentiment. In other words, State Department officials should direct greater attention towards public diplomacy. If officials in Egypt had engaged in a high level of public diplomacy they would most likely have realized that this movement was more than a charade, and had a lot of public support. Consequently, they would have been able to communicate this information to the proper officials.

[Landry Frei]

It’s easy in hindsight to look back at any event and believe that the signs should have been obvious to those who were there. But as much as we would love history to be predictive, it rarely is and we simply cant expect it to ever be, at least in any useful capacity. Too many factors play a role for even the best foreign policy experts to accurately predict the outcome of any event, especially years in advance. As we recently witnessed this month, we weren’t even able to accurately predict and respond to the unfolding Egyptian revolution on a day-to-day basis. We also have to consider that we are dealing with a government here. A very very large government with an equally large bureaucracy. Governments by nature are inefficient, slow to react, and when they do react, it is usually not with precision and finesse. It might seem that with so many people working for such a large government as ours, something as crucial as Egypt’s situation should never have slipped through the cracks, but it did and it has happened before and it will happen again. After all, we are talking about a government that had to witness the assassination of three sitting presidents within half a century (Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) before it saw fit to grant the president a large and permanent protection detail. Such response does not bode well for future ventures.
It must also not be forgotten that in the modern world where there are over 200 officially recognized nations, the United States has never been busier dealing with the issues of foreign affairs. This, compounded by our military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, surely occupy a considerable amount of our foreign service officers’ time. Prior to the Egyptian revolution, I image that Egypt ranked significantly lower on the United States’ list of prioritizing foreign issues (though I may be entirely incorrect). Rouge nations like Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan and even more stable but still dangerous nations like China and Russia must dominate the time and effort of the bulk of American’s foreign service personnel.
Nevertheless, I agree with Ambassador Walker that many of the signs should have been recognized and should have triggered red flags. While it is probably unrealistic to think that we can monitor every nation on earth (or even a small fraction of them) with enough precision to see every little situation coming, we should be able to develop a program that can analyze the data coming out of foreign countries and look for certain patterns or indications that something big may happen. Whatever the details of such a program would be, I surely do not know, but there is always room for innovation and improvement.

[Kelsey Lawler]

We certainly did not predict the protests, unrest, and ultimate breakdown of the Egyptian state and were not paying close enough attention. However, it seems that the concept of carefully watching and monitoring the civil society of another country is new and still developing. Organizations like Freedom House, Polity IV, and Human Rights Watch are all modern creations that have developed and become more popular as we become more concerned with not only the current state of the government but also the state of the people. The realist perspective that the state is the main actor in all politics may be slowly pushed back as more societies overpower the entities that govern. But could we have ever predicted that the government would not force the military to shoot at the Egyptian people? Did the people really overcome their government, or did the government simply allow the people to take control by voluntarily backing down? I don't think any manner of intelligence could have foreseen the events in Egypt.
Unlike this revolution, however, I believe we should have had much stronger intelligence regarding the biological weapons that one person "confirmed" to be present in Iraq. If such weapons had been detected in any country which we did not already have an agenda to enter militarily, we likely would have brushed aside the intelligence and taken no action.
We see what we want to see. Unfortunately, governments are controlled by individuals and every individual has their own desires and agendas, and they act on these desires when they see the chance, regardless of how intelligible the intelligence may be.