Iran, Nukes, Diplomacy and other options (catch all thread 2007-2010)

[Rex Brynen]

The man said what he said just five months prior to this NIE.

As Ted has pointed out, the predominate view in the IC has changed on this issue (although the internal debate was older than five months).

I would much rather the IC shift assessments when new data and/or analysis suggests a correction is necessary, than that they dogmatically stick to a fixed conceptzia.

[Jedburgh]

....I would much rather the IC shift assessments when new data and/or analysis suggests a correction is necessary, than that they dogmatically stick to a fixed kontseptsia....

It is an axiom in the IC that it is better to be mistaken than to be wrong. In this context, "mistaken" means that the analyst was wrong, and admitted it, changing his assessment upon the receipt of new information. "Wrong" means that the individual was wrong, received the new evidence, yet refused to change his assessment - whether holding on due to ego or bias, it really doesn't matter. (There's a colorful Army saying about just how "wrong" that is....)

This NIE reflects a change in assessment. To state that a small number of people successfully manipulated the NIE because of a partisan political anti-Bush agenda is itself partisan nonsense.

Mike Tanji over at Haft of the Spear lays it out fairly well:

.....reports that the NIE was drafted by people with a known political agenda – or acute cases of Bush Derangement Syndrome – make for entertaining political hay, but it has been my experience that the principle drafters of such assessments come from one lead agency, not the executives at the top of the food chain. Anyone who can prove that partisan hacks cherry picked the intelligence information they wanted and then strong-armed the rest of the community to go along with their conclusions would have a bombshell on their hands. These executives do play an important role in the NIE process, which I’ll address later.

Finally, building an NIE is not unlike any other bureaucratic exercise that involves multiple agencies of the government. Competing opinions are argued, disputes are mediated, and dissent noted. At the end of the day a deliverable is due – the rough draft – and the involved parties get to sit at their home offices for a period of time, ruminate on the work, and forward to the principle drafter their comments, edits, suggestions and recommendations. What follows are several rounds of review and edit sessions with increasingly more senior members of the agencies involved and the National Intelligence Council, until the final draft is ready for review, approval and dissemination.

I spent almost 20 years in the intelligence community and I have absolutely no idea what the political affiliation or disposition of any of my colleagues or superiors were. No one talked politics; we talked data, methodology and analysis. The idea that a dozen-odd people would sit down for days at a time concocting a piece of work that was purely designed to thwart the efforts of a given administration is more than a little absurd. I have no doubt that I worked with people who did not agree with the Executive’s agenda (regardless of who the Executive was at any given time), but you show up to these things with data and arguments you can defend; you show up with political party talking points and you’re going to catch an intellectual beating.....

[Tom Odom]

Agreed, Ted. The agendas that come into a NiE session are more reflective of the agencies' collective cultures than the political leanings of the current heads of those agencies. We fought the agency culture battle in the NIEs and SNIEs leading up to Desert Storm. In some ways we have come full circle because one the outcomes of that effort was the complaint from senior leaders--CINCCENT in particular--about the use of caveats. As a result, there was greater emphasis placed on consensus buliding and reducing the number of caveats. I think it went too far. This NIE seems to have swung that particular pendulum back a bit.

The other issue with this NIE is that it does reflect a significant restructuring of the IC and tremendous changes in leadership. Mike McConnel as DNI is just one example. McConnell was the J2 in Desert Shield/Storm. Cambone is gone and Jim Clapper has replaced him. Clapper was the ACSI of the USAF in Desert Shield and went onto become Director DIA. Gates--a former DCI--is Sec Def. He became the DCI in 1991 after serving as Dep NSA during Desert Shield. All of these guys worked together at a critical time. Now they are doing it again. I have no doubt that McConnell and the other IC leadership wanted this NIE to be apolitical so it could weather the inevitable political battering it was likely to generate.

Best

Tom

[J Wolfsberger]

Anyone who is shocked that an intelligence product got reversed hasn't worked with intelligence very much (if at all). The new NIE reads as though they got their hands on a lot of new info.

What mystifies me is how the new one is, somehow or another, supposed to be an embarrassment to the Bush administration.

I'd also like to know why the brain surgeons in the punditocracy have decided we should develop policy against intentions rather than capabilities. I don't think we'll be ranking them with Sun Tzu, Clausewitz or Liddell-Hart any time soon.

[Tom Odom]

Anyone who is shocked that an intelligence product got reversed hasn't worked with intelligence very much (if at all). The new NIE reads as though they got their hands on a lot of new info.

What mystifies me is how the new one is, somehow or another, supposed to be an embarrassment to the Bush administration.

I'd also like to know why the brain surgeons in the punditocracy have decided we should develop policy against intentions rather than capabilities. I don't think we'll be ranking them with Sun Tzu, Clausewitz or Liddell-Hart any time soon.

John

Agree. Intelligence is all probability and never absolutes. Pundits regardless of ilk tend to offer absolutes regardless of probability.

Best

Tom