Overcoming America's intelligence woes
John Stokes 4:24pm
The failed terrorist attack on a North West Airlines plane last month has reignited the debate about just what can be done to improve the performance of America’s intelligence agencies.
Despite spending close to $100 billion since the attacks of 9/11 nine years ago, it has become clear in the aftermath of the failed attack that all the old problems that were identified after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon still remain: Intelligence is not shared effectively and the analysis of available data remains weak.
To the reformers inside the intelligence community, none of this is exactly news. As money poured in after 9/11 there was little thought about overall strategy. The US intelligence system remains a mish mash, a massive and inert bureaucracy where insiders with no experience of managing budgets effectively are automatically appointed to the most senior jobs even though none of them would qualify to manage similar multi-billion budgets in the private sector.
The sheer scale of the mass that is US intelligence militates against efficiency – 200,000 people costing $75 billion a year in 16 different agencies all with their own parochial agenda. Whatever the political rhetoric, there has never been a US President smart enough and tough enough to take on the entrenched bureaucrats. Instead, there has been the constant application of Band Aids in the form of more money and people without the counter balancing force of accountability from top to bottom.
To take just three examples: The National Reconnaissance Office’s Future Information Architecture project to launch a new generation of spy satellites is years late and billions of dollars over budget. The NSA has spent billions trying to create a new generation of analytical tools that have failed to deliver. For at least ten years successive Presidents have tried and failed to create a national strategy to defend the nation against cyber attacks. And then there was 9/11. In every case not a single intelligence official has been held accountable for the squandering of taxpayer resources and for leaving the nation at risk.
To those in Washington who want real reform, the only answer is a complete restructuring of the intelligence community to reflect the needs of today and tomorrow rather than 50 years ago. What that means is cutting of the number of different agencies from 16 to four key components:
A single Director of National Intelligence would be a true CEO of the intelligence community with hire and fire authority and absolute control over all the budgets. This would not be a cabinet level position. To ensure the independence of the DNI, he or she would have a maximum 10 year appointment, much like that of the Director of the FBI. The DNI would run a distributed intelligence enterprise and lend his resources to those who require an indigenous intelligence capability in support of their statutory responsibilities. For example, the DNI would provide the Secretary of Defence and the Attorney General with the intelligence capability to fight wars and combat crime. The DNI would truly integrate intelligence activities conducted overseas and those conducted on the territory of the United States. FBI agents would return to investigative as opposed to intelligence work and soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines would fight wars, supported by an integrated intelligence capability.
The National Analysis Agency would be a single point of collection and analysis for all open source information. The other intelligence agencies and all government departments would come here for their basic information. This organisation will be charged with knowing what is knowable from open sources about threats, analysing gaps in our knowledge and performing social network analysis to determine who might have the information needed. Only after this initial work has been done will intelligence platforms be tasked or developed.
The National Collection Agency’s only purpose would be to develop secret collection sources (human or technical) to fill the gaps identified by the National Analysis Agency.
The National Processing Agency would be the single intelligence community information processing system; charged with making collected information intelligible to a human being and disseminating that information to end users and analysts.
But who will have the courage to drive through such a coherent solution to the nation’s intelligence woes? Judging by recent performance, Congress is too ignorant and partisan and the White House lacks the testicular fortitude.
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David Lindsay
January 4th, 2010 4:59pm Report this commentSo there you have it. America has long classified Iran, Sudan, Syria and, for some reason, Cuba (which has many faults, but even so) as "states sponsoring terrorism". But only now is she going to bother checking out their passport-holders at her airports. What was that about how much stronger against terrorism Clinton and Bush were, or the other Clinton and McCain would have been? And speaking of the Clintons and the Bushes, what, no Saudi Arabia? Why ever not...?
Frank P
January 4th, 2010 5:09pm Report this comment(a) Profiling and lockstep surveillance at airports.
(b) Deportation of any foreign nationals who proselytise for or actively propagate militant Islam, either written or verbal no matter how detected.
(c) Prosecution of any national born Muslims who expressly or actively support the Jihad.
(d) Immediate firing squad for any infidel expressing support for the jihad.
That should help in the war effort.
logdon
January 4th, 2010 5:46pm Report this commentHere's the answer.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/135346
‘Passenger Behavior’ Key to Catching Airline Terrorists
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
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(IsraelNN.com) While the United States and other countries beef up airport searches for terrorists, an Israeli expert advises that eying passenger behavior is critical for preventing attacks.
Rafi Sela, a security consultant at Ben Gurion International Airport, explained to the Canadian news agency Canwest, "If you have a suicide bomber or somebody who wants to make an impact, he doesn't have to bring down a plane. He can just explode in the middle of this huge crowd that is waiting for security."
Sela's advice was given shortly after the United States announced stricter inspections following last month’s failed bombing of an Amsterdam-Detroit flight. Passengers overcame the terrorist, who had put together an explosive device on board. Following the incident, Amsterdam officials hastily installed expensive scanning equipment.
Airlines and other companies around the world have frequently studied Israel’s airport and airline security to learn how to combat terrorists. The United States often has been charged by minority groups with “profiling,” but Sela criticized security procedures that check everyone equally, regardless of whether he is a potential threat or a tourist who is among the majority of harmless travelers.
"You have to actually look for the things that are dangerous, and not just scan everybody," he advises. “This calls for a total change in approach to the transportation security issue."
Sela said that direct eye contact by security officials can help them spot abnormal behavior. Using such procedures probably would have stopped last month’s bomb maker if he had tried to board the plane in Israel - although no system is failsafe, Sela added.
He also noted that the security warnings that the U.S. State Department received on the terrorist would have red-flagged him at Ben Gurion Airport.
The United States has announced it is increasing body scans and physical inspections for all passengers from 14 countries that are considered prone to terror. They are Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen.
The Transportation Security Administration said that the "majority” of all other passengers, including American citizens, will undergo stricter security searches.
logdon
January 4th, 2010 5:53pm Report this commentHere's the key to Israels success...
‘Passenger Behavior’ Key to Catching Airline Terrorists
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(IsraelNN.com) While the United States and other countries beef up airport searches for terrorists, an Israeli expert advises that eying passenger behavior is critical for preventing attacks.
Rafi Sela, a security consultant at Ben Gurion International Airport, explained to the Canadian news agency Canwest, "If you have a suicide bomber or somebody who wants to make an impact, he doesn't have to bring down a plane. He can just explode in the middle of this huge crowd that is waiting for security."
Sela's advice was given shortly after the United States announced stricter inspections following last month’s failed bombing of an Amsterdam-Detroit flight. Passengers overcame the terrorist, who had put together an explosive device on board. Following the incident, Amsterdam officials hastily installed expensive scanning equipment.
Airlines and other companies around the world have frequently studied Israel’s airport and airline security to learn how to combat terrorists. The United States often has been charged by minority groups with “profiling,” but Sela criticized security procedures that check everyone equally, regardless of whether he is a potential threat or a tourist who is among the majority of harmless travelers.
"You have to actually look for the things that are dangerous, and not just scan everybody," he advises. “This calls for a total change in approach to the transportation security issue."............................................
David
January 4th, 2010 6:44pm Report this commentThis article twice refers to a failed attack, that is an assumption not supported by the facts. Did it fail or was it absolutely succesful in causing a worldwide scare and counter measures? A low yield chemical initiation as was attempted would have been unlikely to bring the plane down. The quantity of explosive would probably have needed to have been in a shaped and contained charge to damage the fuselage, certainly not in a plastic bag attached to humnan flesh. While it is possible even probable that the bomber did not himself realise that, we can be reasonably sure that those who set him up would have known.
John Tait
January 5th, 2010 5:15am Report this commentA very good and well written article succintly summed up in your comment:
"Whatever the political rhetoric, there has never been a US President smart enough and tough enough to take on the entrenched bureaucrats".
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