ADMINISTRATION CONCERN ABOUT THE FLAWED INTEL

“No one will want to know more than the president the comparison between what we found when we got there and what we thought was there going in,” Rice said on NBC television’s Today show...

“I think that what we have is evidence that there are differences between what we knew going in and what we found on the ground,” Rice said...

I hope this signals a change in direction for the White House.

Meanwhile, I heard again from Defense Contractor Guy...he was an Army Intel Officer a few years back. Regarding our discussion here about the flawed intel he had this to say:

I think you hit the nail on the head - our intel analysts did not have the information needed to make the call on weapons of mass destruction. However - I doubt there were many analysts that really tried to get new and relevant information to analyze. I'm kind of scared about the whole intelligence community. I believe that stagnation and specialization is a real problem.

I believe the Intel estimates that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction came from information that was the best they had to work with - However, I'd be willing to bet that some of the information was as much as 10 years old. - you know why? Because we had a great lack of spys before 9/11. Hopefully they are working on that problem - but an analyst sitting behind a desk at Langley or DIA has little chance of creating a intel estimate on a program the Iraqis were trying to keep secret using only standoff
technical means.

The intelligence community relies on technology (and old technology at that) to gather information. What they need is HUMINT. (Spys - there is a major shortage). If relying on technology they may have missed the destruction - or hiding - of WMD then the estimate may never change ... eventually the "estimate" becomes "truth" because everyone is quoting someone else as a "verified source".

One of my intel failure theories goes like this --- A US intelligence organization (Say the NSA) makes an estimate on WMD - this is given to a lot of US Agencies (DIA, CIA, etc.) and the UK. The UK use the US information in a report. The DIA sees the NSA information uses the information in a report. CIA uses DIA information based on NSA information and uses that information in their own report. And finally the NSA looks at a CIA report (based on the DIA report that came from the NSA Report .).. get the picture? - full circle - Any mistakes become fact because each agency sometimes uses another as a source. Lastly someone in the US reads the UK report ( that may have used the US estimate to verify their suspicions) and concludes - ah ha! this is verification and validation of our estimate - I've seen it happen (really). That is why you need people on the ground - to get new and pertinent information.

(The press has the same problem ... ever notice how often you see reporters interviewing reporters or CNN quoting Reuters)

The bigger problem though is that there is no HUMINT in the mid east. Troops on the ground are getting good info but are not trained for the task - you really need some guy willing to go undercover to get really great info.

DCG's assessment seems to be born out by this recap of the situation:

Kay has now offered the most novel and convincing explanation for why U.S. intelligence -- and, for that matter, U.N. inspectors and the intelligence agencies of every country that mattered -- misjudged what Iraq possessed.

It was a combination of Iraqi bluff, deceit and corruption far more bizarre than heretofore suspected. Kay discovered that an increasingly erratic Saddam Hussein had taken over personal direction of WMD programs. But because there was no real oversight, the scientists would go to Hussein, exaggerate or invent their activities, then pocket the funds.

Scientists were bluffing Hussein. Hussein was bluffing the world. The Iraqis were all bluffing each other. Special Republican Guard commanders had no WMDs, but they told investigators that they were sure other guard units did. It was this internal disinformation that the whole outside world missed.

And odd as it may sound, I find this whole thing, while disturbing, to be good news. There are few things as invaluable as a good eye-opening event in which one discovers the assumptions in play (in this case, that our Intel systems are accurate) are way off the mark.

You can't find the proper fix if you don't know what is broken.