The Human Factor by Ishmael Jones
http://www.ishmaeljones.com/solution...elligence-ref/
Quote:
Solutions for reform of the clandestine service
Solutions for reform of the clandestine service within the current system:
1 Define the mission. Create a clear, one-line mission statement. Current CIA mission statements are multi-page documents, written by committees, which nobody ever reads. A clear statement, such as, “Provide foreign intelligence that will defend the United States,” would help employees measure and direct their efforts.......
.....Recent reforms demonstrate what happens when change is attempted at the CIA. Congressionally-mandated reforms, following the intelligence failures of 9/11, did the three worst things possible, by:
1 Adding extra layers of management. They created a new office of the Director of National Intelligence. No successful organizations have as many layers of management as the CIA.....
....The CIA is a failed organization that has proven resistant to reform. Therefore, the CIA should be broken up into its constituent parts, and those parts assigned to organizations that already have clear missions and defined chains of command, as follows:
1 Transfer CIA offices and personnel operating within the United States to the FBI . The CIA was never intended to be a domestic spy agency. The FBI is designed to handle domestic intelligence operations. The FBI is measured and held accountable by its ability to catch criminals, and this accountability provides the motivation for the FBI to perform.....
The blog post also includes comments on mission drift and motivation.
I agree with many of his "solutions,"
not all. But I think he misses the bigger picture. CIA, since it was created, has been built around 3 major directorates - Intelligence (DI), Operations (DO), and Scientific & Technical (S&T). While the names may have changed since I left any Intel or Intel related assignments, the functions are still there and have been there since Wild Bill Donovan created the OSS. Unlike his British mentors who had 2 separate and distinct operational components - SIS (MI6) and SOE - Donovan had both clandestine collection and paramilitary ops under the DO function. When CIA came along, it adopted the same organization.
In my understanding of intelligence, the questions that policy makers need answered should drive the intel agency to frame requirements. this framing of requirements is inherently an analytical function and, therefore, belongs in DI. The analysts should be tasking the collectors with specific requirements while the collectors should be sharing even the seredipitous collections with the analysts which, in turn, should generate both new requirements and new questions from the policy makers. As far as the covert ops and paramilitary ops go, these are NOT inherently intel functions. Those who conduct them are intel consumers just as divisions, brigades, and battalions are.
But, you might ask, what about the cav squadron in a division? Is it not an asset of the G2? Although the 2 has tasking authority, the squadron commander is primarily responsible to the G3. Historically, rewards in cIA have gone to the covert operators who were involved in both clandestine collection and covert ops. The latter held the bigger rewards so th former got short shrift. (Jones may be making a reference to this phenomenon.) From my perspective, it appears that the CIA was run as if the Cav squadron were driving the train - deciding on its own authortiy whether to meet the G2 requirements or not because combat was more fun.
I was told by a DI guy seconded to DO that he was not allowed to share a critical report with his fellow DI analysts. I was told by a DO guy that my perception of many of the case officers in Latin America as "cowboys" was shared by case officers from other areas of operations (this was in the late 80s and early 90s).
So, does creating DNI just add an unnecessary layer of management? I don't think so because the DCI was too closely identified with the CIA to effectively manage the entire intel community. I was encouraged that the first DNI, John Negroponte, came from the intel consumer community and not from the producers (or even the analysts). As an aside, the only CIA director ever to come out of DI was SECDEF Bob Gates. All the rest have been case officers or intel managers (often from NSA like Gen Hayden and DNI Adm McConnell).
Bottom line: The solution is not in reforming one agency but rather reforming the entire community as well as the agencies that make it up. If I were King (it's good to be the King ;)) I would always have a consumer as DNI and an analyst as Dir CIA. I would split off covert ops and paramilitary from CIA - where to put them is an open question but they should be neither primary collectors nor their own analysts.
Cheers
JohnT
Here's the Ismael Jones' Interview
from FrontPage. Selected the part relevant to the legal issues, but there is more on the nuts & bolts:
Quote:
Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com Friday, August 01, 2008
.....
FP: What is unique about your book?
Jones: Many CIA books are written by retired Headquarters managers who are accustomed to pontificating in front of their underlings, trapped within a windowless room at Headquarters, and their books can be a bit windy. I hope mine is not.
My book has also been disapproved in its entirety by CIA censors. I actively sought the approval of the censors, and repeatedly asked them during the course of a year what parts of the book they would like removed or rewritten. But they simply replied: all of it. In the end, CIA censors returned the manuscript to me as a stack of blank pages. There is no classified information in my book. It is simply highly critical of the organization.
My book is also the first CIA book for which all author profits will be given away. The recent George Tenet and Valerie Plame books, for example, were written for the profit of the authors.
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Article...F-599CFD1F1E7B
Bull is always with us...
From both sides of the political spectrum, too...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bourbon
The publisher, Encounter Books, is the publishing arm of a center-right not profit foundation. Founded by Peter Collier and associated with his pal David Horowitz...
While affiliation with Horowitz is always suspect, the content rather than the association should be the determinant. This is an issue that should never be approached in a partisan manner. Unfortunately, too many cannot rise to the level required to do that.
I'd also point out that partisanship cuts both ways; legitimate criticism can be negated by claiming partisanship and illegitimate criticism can be elevated by the same thing. What's required is to simply filter the information provided and apply logic instead of bias to the issue.
Quote:
The cover jacket praise also is a redflag with blurbs from uber-neocon wonk and McCain adviser Max Boot, and Lindsay Moran a DO veteran of all of one tour in Macedonia, and author of possibly one of the worst spy memoir ever published. Lindsay Moran was the best person formerly of the agency that they could get to vouch for it? Really? What about even the critics like Gerecht, McGovern or Robert Steele?
Critics from within have to walk a tight rope; Langley is mildly accepting of some things, reacts with some fury at others. Consider that Jones is essentially saying the same things Gerecht has said, just doing it more fully and with more force. The majority of former Officers will support the Agency even when they know its ills.
Quote:
I don't know what a "deep cover officer" is. And I am certain hat whatever they are, CIA does not have them.
Are you really? Interesting. It may or may not but what it does have is a jargon -- and that jargon is (1) Directorate dependent; (2) Time of most service dependent, the old and new differ; (3) Geographical area of service dependent.
Quote:
They do however have officers under Non Official Cover.
An official term given recent popularity but little used by many...
Quote:
...only to avoid taking such a posture towards Gary Bernsten or Bob Baer who undoubtedly profited from their books and are harder and cooler than they.
Do you know that for certain or are those your presumptions?
Quote:
Jones' reform to “transfer overseas human intelligence collection efforts to the US military” is misguided and would be fulfillment of the Rumsfeld era's naked assault on CIA.
Not really. Not really misguided that is. The history goes back a whole lot further than Pipes, Neocons and even Rumsfeld. The fact is that that US Army MI and US Navy ONI worked pretty well on the humint effort worldwide prior to, during and immediately after WW II (while the OSS contribution was spotty, some areas poor, some were fair, none were stellar, regardless of Dulles myths). The issue of who should do that humint surfaced with the creation of the CIA in 1947, literally before Pipes was born. It has waxed and waned as a topic ever since; generally when an Agency failure makes the news, DoD makes a play. That predates neocons and Rumsfeld by many years. Korea in 1950 comes to mind. So does the ascent of Castro in Cuba -- and the debacle with the Shah in 1979...
The real problems with national level Humint did not arise until Nixon had Schlesinger start the dismantling of the DO in 1973, the Rockefeller Commission and the Church Committee did their thing and James Earl Carter and Stansfield Turner completed the massacre. The Agency has never fully recovered. Efforts to ramp up DIA to cover the shortfall were probably necessary.
In short, Jones has some good points. He has some bad points. Accept the good and discard the bad -- and as the disagreement between you and I over the humint mission show, what's good and what's bad can be in the eye of the viewer.
The problem is that the IC is in disarray right now and this is not a good time for that to be the case. Congress means well but reform efforts will become a partisan political football and little will be done. While I strongly disagreed with the establishment of the DNI, his existence is a fact so we can only hope that the incumbent and his successors fix the problem.
As Tom and John said, a fix is needed -- that's one thing we can probably all agree upon.
Nope, about 250 miles west
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jmm99
...
PS1 (Ken) Do you happen to live near US 41 ?
on the Redneck Riviera...
About five hours out of the way... :wry:
I'll stand on Redneck Snowbelt...
Quote:
from White
Snowbelt or ice cube belt?
Snowbelt; Lake Superior adds a Med effect, even when it freezes over (which it does). Snow fall (as opposed to snow cover) in inches runs to mid-200's usually. High is just shy of 400" (78-79, when my dad cashed in his chips). See here for totals (Keweenaw runs a little higher than here - maybe a coiuple of feet).
http://www.johndee.com/history.htm
Ideal winter temp is about 20-25F. Anything at 32F or higher is a problem because snow melts, creates a mess and then freezes - leading to an ice cube belt in driveway. Plus, it makes igloo living wet; and bear can more easily breach the walls. See Pierre of the North comic strip.
I expect this site will tell you more about this region than you want to know.
Quote:
The City's proximity to majestic Lake Superior gives it beautiful mild summers and wonderful snowy winters.
http://www.cityofhancock.com/
Quote:
from White
You and I are on a direct N-S Axis as modified by a 3.175 deviation of magnetic north from this end to which the curvature of the earth and the transient effects of this years flood water have added a slight westward cant.
...as further modified by a almost 0.00 deviation of magnetic north from this end (making bearings and departures easy); plus the effect of snow load - and the glacier that is coming over the hill (no, no, Mike, that was the 70's Global Cooling Model).
Quote:
from White
My Mother told my wife before we married ...
My mother in law told me (before my wife and I married) that I shouldn't believe everything my wife would tell me. My wife claims that my father misrepresented to her everything about me - thus, she (my wife) should be able to sue me (why me; sue the old man) for fraud. So, married life goes on.
:D:D:D:D
Curses. How could I forget
Snepp discussion correction
My statement in above post was "The SCOTUS decision was mercifully brief (in comparison to most) - and unanimous."
Wrong on "unanimous". Though the decision was Per Curium (by the Court), there was a dissent by JJ. Stevens, Brennan and Marshall as to several substantive and procedural points.
The holding quoted is correct; and is the ruling presently in effect, unless and until overruled.
Explosive new book coming out on the CIA
There is a thread on Ishmael Jones ...
in Military Art & Science Applied > Intelligence forum at
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=5832
with quite a bit of relevant discussion (except for my off-topic back and forth with Ken White, which I should have done by PM).
A moderator will probably move your post (& this one) there.
No big sin & keep posting.
The Intelligence forum should have some topics of interest to you, in light of
Quote:
from Elevation
My name is John, I'm a 19 year old college student at UMBC in Baltimore.
....
After school I hope to be able to join up with either the DIA, CIA, or one of the individual intel branches that support the military services. Probably in an analytical position, but we'll see.
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...6211#post56211
If you are looking at analysis or other "home office stuff", plan on a PhD or law degree; keep up the language and area studies; and keep clean.
Same first name here, but I go by Mike (2nd name).
Now that we have been moved ...
into the right pew, we can address this:
Quote:
from Elevation
God help that guy with whats coming for him.
After reading all prior posts, please tell me:
1. What's coming for him ?
2. But, far more important, your reasoned analysis of why.
First class assignment Intel Law 101 :D