Senator Roberts proposes breaking up the CIA into three pieces (Ops, Analysis and Science and Tech). In business such separation is considered a prerequisite to effectiveness because it allows an organization to optimize its operations around a perceived core competency. Dig deeper, though, and most business leaders, their consultants and even professors can't really define the notion of core competency beyond the idea of doing One Thing really well. But since doing One Thing really well requires doing well the actions that contribute to doing that One Thing really well, the idea is not entirely coherent as it reduces to not one, but many things that must be done well.
Some questions that I would need answers to before making up my mind on this point:
1) How will the new agencies work more effectively separately than together?
2) Will separation lead them to be more effective in their individual missions than separately?
3) Will national security be better protected with separate agencies than with the current system?
Kerry's military record is getting a lot of press these days. Even Bob Dole stepped up to criticize it rather harsly. I'm not certain that this is smart politics.
Hit Kerry on changing his mind about troop redeployment (he agreed with the idea earlier this month, but then opposed it when Bush supported it). Hit Kerry on his support/lack-of-it for the Iraq affair. Hit Kerry for his opposition to the US military for so many years and now transforming into the liberal HeMan. But hitting him for his service record may make the Right look mean and cheap. Unless we have unambiguous evidence as support, drop it.
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"Bureaucrats and Cabinet barons do not want their power reduced and will fight that, no matter how much the change might benefit the country," Patrick Lang, former senior Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) official.
I think this sums up the political reality of this proposal. Whatever is the final product of the legislative battle that will surely unfold over intelligence reform, the bottom line is that Senator Robert's proposal stands a poor chance against the sacred cows of the intelligence world. Bureaucrats are great at “gumming up the works,” and they will undercut this proposal at every turn.
As to the merits of Senator Roberts proposal, I think he is attacking the problem of intelligence reform without addressing the real problem – intelligence collection. For intelligence collection is the source of information from which policy analysts draw their conclusions.
If we were to create an “Operations Bureau,” as the Roberts proposal suggests, it would mean very little if the U.S. did not follow it up with a sizeable shift from reliance on technological sources for intelligence collection versus human sources of intelligence.
Bottom line – we need more spies and informants on the ground infiltrating terrorist organizations.
It is important to note that the Clinton Administration allowed a 30 percent decline in field personnel for the intelligence community over its tenure. However, (in all fairness,) the shift from human intelligence to technological sources has been occurring since the “Church Committee” days of the early seventies as intelligence operations have come under more public scrutiny, and therefore subject to the whims of the politically correct media.
During this same period, policy analysts began to rely too heavily on foreign intelligence agencies for human intelligence. We should not underestimate the desire for foreign countries to paint us a picture that they – not us – want us to see. Thank you Egypt and France for the “hot tips” on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
It stands to reason that if we reverse the damage done over the last thirty years, and spend our money on training our personnel in clandestine trade craft skills, we will develop more human intelligence sources, and our intelligence analysts will be able to make better conclusions based on better information.
Therefore, policy makers can make informed decisions and we prevent more terrorist attacks.
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