Out of the box thinking - U.S. intelligence in Yemen

by Rick Francona

There has been a spotlight on the American intelligence and security agencies in the wake of the failed al-Qa'idah Christmas bombing of a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. A review of procedures and policies is obviously warranted in light of the abject failure of the agencies to prevent 'Umar Faruq 'Abd al-Mutallab from getting on an airliner with a bomb secreted on his body.

However, it is also right to point out some of the things the intelligence community is doing to get it right. There has been reporting over the last few months of a good program, generally overlooked by those of us that follow events in the region or the intelligence community. It has to do with Yemen and former adversaries of the United States.


Shortly after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, many Iraqi intelligence officers loyal to Saddam Husayn sought refuge in Yemen. Yemen's president, 'Ali 'Abdullah Salih, had been a long-time ally and supporter of the Iraqi president. Once the officers arrived, Salih took full advantage of the presence of these professional intelligence officers to improve his services' limited capabilities. In the Arab world, the Iraqis are good intelligence officers, probably second only to the Jordanians.

The Iraqi officers also took advantage of the situation. Having arrived in the country with some but not unlimited resources, the opportunity to practice their craft offered a chance to make a good living. Because of their professionalism compared to that of the Yemeni intelligence officers, they were able to assume prominent and influential positions in the country's intelligence and security services. Most of them have remained in Yemen rather than return to an Iraq where their experience - they did after all play key role in the repression that characterized the Ba'th regime - is neither valued nor desired.

When al-Qa'idah realized that its ability to conduct effective operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia came to an end, it moved many of its operatives and training bases to Yemen. Yemen, a backward country with poor infrastructure, a weak and highly corrupt central government and a growing Islamic fundamentalist movement, seemed a perfect place for the terrorist group. It also has a sketchy record when it comes to keeping terrorists in custody. Numerous convicted and alleged terrorists have been released or "escaped" - virtually all of the bombers of the USS Cole are at large in the country, as well as at least one member of the "Lackawanna Six" wanted in the United States.

As American intelligence began to focus on the country, it became apparent that cooperation with the local intelligence and security services was an imperative in the fight against al-Qa'idah. It only made sense to approach the Iraqis working for the Yemeni services and propose a cooperative relationship to deal with the growing al-Qa'idah problem in the country. It is useful to note that several of the Iraqi intelligence officers were familiar with the American intelligence services - they have been involved in the relationship in the 1980's between the Iraqi Intelligence Service and the Directorate of Military Intelligence on one side, and the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency on the other.

While we hurl stones at our intelligence and security agencies, we should also remember to acknowledge that they can think "out of the box" on occasion. This is a good example of a slightly unorthodox means of getting the job done.

CIA director balances spy agency, Washington politics

An AP article last week about CIA Director Leon Panetta's continuing efforts on behalf of his agency and appeasing Congress merely reinforces my previously offered opinion that he is miscast in the role of CIA director. Clearly his professional qualifications, the expectations the president has of him, and his efforts to date make it quite clear that he should be the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who is the President's intelligence advisor and is charged with oversight of all US intelligence agencies and liaison to Congress.

Mark Lowenthal's comment that "One of the things that's unique about CIA is that this is the president's agency. They don't work for anybody else. If they are not effective, the person who gets hurt here is the big guy." is disappointing from an intelligence professional of his stature. He seems to ignore that the 2004 Intelligence Reform Act removed the director of CIA as the principal US intelligence commubity leader in his comments. It also points to the fact that the IC, and perhaps the administration, has not fully grasped or accepted the DNI concept instituted by Congress in 2004 (see my previous comment on this topic).

Leon Panetta - Nominee for CIA Director

by Emily Francona

The local Monterey Peninsula community is all atwitter with the news of President-Elect Obama's nomination of local favorite Leon Panetta for the directorship of the Central Intelligence Agency. Local personalities and various self-appointed spokespersons, qualified or not, have already made statements for the record about the nomination. While most are justifiably proud of having a "local boy" potentially ascend to this highly responsible national position, it also reveals a lamentable lack of understanding of our intelligence community by these very same fans.

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-458) established the position of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) as the head of the U.S.intelligence community and as the principal advisor to the President. The Act directs that a nominee to this position "shall have extensive national security expertise" and prohibits the director of CIA from being dual-hatted as the Director of Central Intelligence, as was the case before this new law.

Let's review Panetta's qualifications: a legal background with extensive government experience, both in the legislative and executive branch, however little directly related to national security. While some of his experiences may well have brought him into passing contact with intelligence information and national security issues, such as when he was chief of staff for President Clinton, it is far short of the serious professional credentials needed to guide and direct the CIA, or any intelligence agency for that matter. While his public policy credentials are impressive, the CIA supports national security policy - these are two entirely different arenas.

Given the complexity of intelligence issues and the many real or perceived intelligence failures in the history of that agency, a thorough professional understanding of the intelligence profession is indispensable for effective leadership of the CIA. It is precisely because this agency needs reforms to produce more timely and actionable intelligence for U.S. national security decision-making, that its director must understand the capabilities and limitations of the intelligence business, and not be fooled by insiders’ ability to “wait out one more director.”

Some of the very qualifications touted by Panetta's fans are not desired or needed by a director: he does not need “the ear of the president” since that is the function of the DNI. Nor does this position require political savvy, since that is not a function of any intelligence agency director. In fact, it would be downright counterproductive, given repeated criticism of the “politicization of intelligence” in recent years. Similarly, the legal framework for the conduct of intelligence activities is provided by appropriate legislation, overseen by the DNI and checked by the legislative oversight committees.

It is surprising that President-Elect Obama apparently did not consult in advance with the leadership of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the very body who will grant or not grant Panetta’s confirmation. If anything, the very advantages Panetta supporters recite are more suited for the office of DNI: this position does require considerable political savvy and direct access to the presidential, but also a thorough understanding of national security issues. It remains to be seen if Admiral Blair is that person, if confirmed.

Mr. Panetta: with all due respect to your fine public policy credentials, decline this appointment for the good of the intelligence community and the decision makers it serves. You would make an effective governor of California!

Intelligence politicized - again?

Recent Congressional calls for yet another investigation, this time into the destruction of CIA terrorist interrogation tapes, highlights another common misunderstanding of the U.S. intelligence community: the difference between the overall intelligence community and the Central Intelligence Agency. While this is understandable for the average citizen not to be clear on that difference, it is puzzling to hear it from a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).

The Honorable Peter Hoekstra, one of many seeking an investigation, has been a member of the HPSCI since 2004. So why is he demanding that the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) be held responsible and threatening with subpoenas, when it was the deputy director of operations at the CIA who ordered the destruction of the agency's own interrogation tapes. Has he learned so little about intelligence organizations and the activities of the very community he is helping oversee?

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 created the office of the Director of National Intelligence and subordinated the CIA once and for all under a national office, on par with the other intelligence agencies (DIA, NSA, NGA, etc). Whether CIA has accepted this arrangement remains debatable and Hoekstra's description of intelligence community leaders as "arrogant" may well fit the CIA leadership of 2005, when the tapes were destroyed. No doubt certain elements within the agency will continue to consider CIA "first among equals" and act accordingly.

While congressional oversight of the intelligence community mandates that the HPSCI and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) must be notified of significant intelligence activities in a timely manner, it is debatable whether the destruction of the interrogation tapes actually rose to the level of significance requiring congressional notification. Much depends on how routine such actions are in other cases and if the tapes were destroyed after Congress requested them as evidence. Otherwise much of this latest congressional "outrage" could be viewed as yet another incident of playing politics with intelligence.

Any intelligence professional will view such "operational" documentation as highly sensitive and generally not releasable outside the organization. Consumers of any intelligence resulting from these interrogations, including congressional committees, should be concerned only with the end product, not the operational source information and methodology. The fact that some disagree with suspected methods and are eager to use such suspicions for political gains does not entitle them to this information. When dealing with national security and intelligence issues, there are good reasons for the classification and limited access to this information. This is also why each intelligence agency employs ever increasing legal staffs to review and approve specific activities. Let's not cripple ourselves in the pursuit of political correctness.

The possibility of politicizing intelligence also comes to mind with the release of the latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program. The 2007 NIE assesses "with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." Contrast that with the 2005 NIE assesses "with high confidence that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons." What is really behind this reversal? Should we assume an intelligence failure in 2005 or in 2007? Are there elements within CIA who disagree with national security policy and are using the NIE process to pursue political preferences?

Inquiring minds want to know...

A bad week for the intelligence community....

This article appeared on MSNBC.com

A bad week for the intelligence community
First the NIE, now the interrogation tapes

It must have been a long week for senior U.S. intelligence officials. Last Monday, the National Intelligence Council released a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear intentions and capabilities, essentially reversing the community’s earlier assessment that Iran was pursing a nuclear weapon, a position taken in a 2005 estimate.

Before the debris had settled from that bombshell, CIA Director General Mike Hayden announced on Thursday that his agency had destroyed tapes of the interrogations of senior al-Qaida members Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Bin al-Shibh. Those tapes contained images of CIA officers employing “enhanced interrogation techniques” – that’s CIA-speak for water boarding. Hayden claimed the tapes were destroyed to prevent retaliation against CIA officers in the tapes if they had somehow leaked.

The long knives have come out on both sides of the Congressional aisle. Republicans are demanding hearings into the intelligence that led to the about-face estimate of Iran’s nuclear program, hinting that they believe the NIE to be politicized. Democrats, on the other hand, are calling for an investigation and possibly a special prosecutor to determine if laws were violated by CIA’s destruction of the interrogation tapes. At least one senator is charging a cover-up of CIA misconduct in the treatment of al-Qaida detainees.

Flash bulletin for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell (whom I know and respect): At a time when you are trying to rebuild international credibility and shore up the American public’s confidence in the U.S. intelligence community, you don’t need the perception of incompetence these two incidents are going to generate, nor do you need the explosion of bipartisan witch-hunting that has already started.

The NIE

Granted, Iran is a tough intelligence problem for the United States – I spent years working the Iranian issue in both the signals intelligence (communications intercepts) and human intelligence (source operations) disciplines and can personally vouch for the difficulty in penetrating this target. With no official U.S. presence in Iran, all intelligence must be collected from outside the country or gained from the cooperating intelligence services of other countries (Israel, the United Kingdom, etc). These factors detract from the quality of information we are able to collect and the intelligence we are able to produce.

Intelligence, by its very nature, is normally based on incomplete and often contradictory information. Analysts are called on to make assessments with the scarcest of data. Reliable sources with access to required information in Iran are difficult to develop. The 2007 estimate, supposedly based on new information, has been touted by many as an indication of an earlier intelligence failure. If this latest NIE is accurate, it could be viewed as an intelligence success.

That said, the question for the intelligence community remains: You were wrong in 2003 about Iraq. You were wrong in 2005 about Iran. Why are you right in 2007?

The tapes

There was probably no worse time for the revelations of the 2005 destruction of the interrogations videotapes. While I generally support the decisions of senior intelligence officials in these matters, I have to take issue with General Hayden. Destroying the tapes to protect CIA officers this is important, or course, but you cannot run an intelligence community on the assumption that information will leak. If so, you would not be able retain any source identification information. The tapes would be useful to prove to the Congressional oversight committees that CIA officers were operating within approved guidelines.

The tapes were destroyed in 2005, before Mike Hayden took over at CIA. He did not make that decision, but he now gets to defend it. Good luck.

We need accurate intelligence. We need an independent, nonpolitical intelligence community to produce that intelligence. It is unfortunate that these two events – the NIE reversal and the revelation of the videotape destruction – come at a time when the community needs all the credibility it can get.


Rick Francona is a retired USAF intelligence officer with over 25 years of operational assignments with the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency in the Middle East. He is an MSNBC military analyst. See www.rickfrancona.com.

Israel and the Iran NIE

This article appeared on MSNBC.com

Israeli perspective on the NIE
Francona: Israel believes Iran is now the country's own problem to fight

The recently released National Intelligence Estimate – Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities – reverses the American intelligence community’s assessment of the Iranian nuclear program. The key judgments state that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and likely had not restarted it by mid-2007.

Within a week of the NIE release, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was invited to Tel Aviv to meet with senior Israeli military intelligence officials to hear their contradictory assessment of the Iranian nuclear program. In Israel, the military intelligence service (Aman) is the senior intelligence entity – it is responsible for intelligence estimates. In the United States, estimates are the responsibility of the community-wide National Intelligence Council.

The Israeli perspective

Israel views Iran differently than we do. To Israelis, Iran represents the “existential” threat to the Jewish state. While other countries present threats, only Iran is perceived to be pursuing capabilities that could destroy Israel. I was in Israel recently and every official presented the same position – Iran is intent on developing nuclear weapons to complement its existing ballistic missile capabilities. When Iran has acquired the ability to strike Israel with a nuclear warhead, it will. Israeli analysts posit that three well-placed nuclear weapons in the area from Haifa to Tel Aviv, home to about half the world’s Jews, could deliver an unrecoverable blow that would effectively destroy the country.

Iran has topped Israel’s threat list for some time. No wonder when you look at Iranian involvement in Israel’s back yard. To the north, Lebanon is home to probably the world’s most effective irregular army – Hezbollah. Hezbollah is almost completely funded, equipped and trained by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force – the same group that funds, trains and equips the Shia militias that are killing American troops in Iraq. Most of the rockets that landed in northern Israel during the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006 were made in Iran and funneled into Lebanon via Syria.

To the northeast, Syria is probably Iran’s closest ally. They have had a defense cooperation agreement going back over two decades. Damascus is the gateway for Iranian support to Hezbollah, as well as home to several Palestinian groups opposed to any peace agreement with Israel. Syria and Iran also operate joint intelligence sites intercepting Israeli communications. To the south and east, Israel is faced with terrorism at the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. As with Hezbollah, both Palestinian groups are funded, equipped and trained by Iran.

Israel’s outlook

Israel believes that Iran has had an ongoing nuclear weapons development program, one that did not stop in 2007. In fact, Israeli intelligence analysts believe Iran could develop a weapon by 2010. Given the estimate just been released by the U.S. intelligence community, there is almost no chance there will be any American military action against the Iranian nuclear program. To Israel, that means what they believe to be a world problem will no longer have a world solution. It now falls on their shoulders to solve the Iranian problem.

While the recent NIE probably eliminated the possibility of American military action against Iran, it may have actually increased the likelihood of an Israeli attack.

www.rickfrancona.com

The Dual-Hatted Syndrome

Haven't we learned anything from past intelligence reorganizations?

Just two years ago intelligence reform efforts created the Director of National Intelligence and finally broke up the dual responsibilities of the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI)/Director, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This long-standing position raised frequent issues due to the built-in conflict of interest, managed better or worse by successive incumbents. The DNI, currently retired admiral Mike McConnell, is expected to function as the actual head of our intelligence community, independent of potential conflicts of interest or loyalties to any of the intelligence agencies - THE intelligence czar. Meanwhile the Director of the CIA should be able to focus on optimizing the heavily-criticized performance of that agency, unhampered by other responsibilities. We'll see if all this works out as intended.

Last month the Department of Defense created, and congressional oversight committees approved, another dual-hatted intelligence position begging for conflicts of interest and chain-of-command confusion: designating the under secretary of defense for intelligence, currently retired general Jim Clapper, also as the Director of Defense Intelligence within the Office of the DNI. If anything, this seems to deepen the divide between the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. It begs the question of who will actually determine tasking priorities for defense agencies (DIA, NSA, NRO, etc) - the DNI or the Secretary of Defense? Based on the DoD press release announcing this new position, SecDef Bob Gates appears to envision this as an equal, not subordinate function to overall U.S. intelligence activities, supposedly directed and coordinated by the DNI. And Gates has experienced the pros and cons of a dual-hatted DCI and CIA director himself. So much for ONE intelligence Czar!

Perhaps more details will emerge soon and make this all appear more logical.

This initial perspective is based on the DoD news release of 24 May 2007 and intentionally without the benefits of any media "wisdom" on this issue.