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There is no talking to some people (Update)

The Weekly Standard posts a well done bit of research (got to get me a think-tank job) on what is really needed in our war efforts from an intelligence perspective. Since I think it deserves a full read I’m not going to post an extract, suffice it to say that when presented with an opportunity to learn from the success and failure of others, it looks like we’re opting to fail on our own.

You can say a lot of things about Admiral Jacoby (late DR of DIA) but his move to push more collectors forward was on-track. That we’ve never really pushed the idea of sending analysts closer to those who feed them is also shown up as being a horrendous mistake. Granted, I am a big believer in a technical solution for most problems (blogs and wikis would go a long way in shorting the intel cycle), but some times you have to get out of the cube and get sand in your cracks in order to fully understand what is needed to win. If you are not living and breathing your mission, you’re slacking.

The American approach to developing intel talent – know a little about a lot, become a manager and move up; or know a lot about a little and stagnate - isn’t going to cut it in the long run. We need more than lip-service to the idea of dual-track success. This will require, among other things, a smaller and sharper cadre and a demolition of the pay structure. It’ll also mean a more functional re-structuring of the community and a culling of non-essential functions (read: a lot of single-discipline analysis).

Some of the material is not necessarily new, but its updating in light of recent events and from people with first-hand knowledge (note the tenure of most of the interviewees) reminds us that this is a long war that will not be won exclusively by the one thing we are dominant in: force.

Update: A timely note from a colleague provides me with a chance to elaborate somewhat . . .

After a decade+ of service this friend is bailing out. She’s amazingly qualified in several academic disciplines, has a penchant for languages (though has never been able to secure language training), and you would be hard pressed to find someone who has more practical experience. Based on qualifications she’s a shoe-in for a senior position (under 40-years-old, which is saying something) where someone with her background and leadership could really make a difference. But little birds have been landing on her shoulders and the word is that someone else in essentially being hand-picked for the job. His primary qualification? He’s an “old boy.”

The thing is this isn’t a racism/sexism thing, it’s a youth/outlook thing. At the upper echelons they like “known quantities” which is code for “people who won’t actually do anything significant.” It is that kind of attitude that Schultz and Godson ran into once they started promoting a new approach. Doing something dramatic, regardless of how successful it has been, isn’t going to happen as long as such “thinking” continues. People in the IC are accused of having no imagination. The fact of the matter is that it is driven out of them if they stay very long. There is a formula for everything, and introducing a new calculus is a sure-fire way to head- and heartache.

I go back and forth on the issue because there is a lot of useful knowledge in the upper echelons, but at the end of the day I still lean in favor of culling the herd of its older animals. These hide-bound nay-sayers view change as betting the farm. To think that we should avoid gambling with one of our most precious national security resources misses the point: We have been dragged into the game and the farm has been bet for us.

Pretenders

Army STRATCOM tries and fails:

Information Operations Newsletter 

Compiled by: Mr. Xxxx Xxxxxx
US Army Strategic Command
G3 Plans, Operations, and Exercises
Information Operations Branch 

Table of Contents

 […long list of somewhat relevant IO-related news stories . . .]

Everyone wants to be TWI-3; no one wants to make the effort.

Guys, if your audience isn’t already aware of what you are compiling, they are not doing their jobs. Why should they wait for a week to get your recycled news when this magical technology called RSS (or a Google Alert) is available to provide it to them as it hits the street? If you must produce a “newsletter” then take the time to make it worthwhile: add some analysis.  Provide some value for crying out loud. Search for my name on the high-side, find the weekly reports and copy the format shamelessly (someone has to). Do it right or you’re just committing fraud.

Two Steps Back (Update)

Welcome OTB readers . . .

Christine Axsmith, a software contractor for the CIA, considered her blog a success within the select circle of people who could actually access it.

Only people with top-secret security clearances could read her musings, which were posted on Intelink, the intelligence community’s classified intranet. Writing as Covert Communications, CC for short, she opined in her online journal on such national security conundrums as stagflation, the war of ideas in the Middle East and — in her most popular post — bad food in the CIA cafeteria.

But the hundreds of blog readers who responded to her irreverent entries with titles such as “Morale Equals Food” won’t be joining her ever again.

On July 13, after she posted her views on torture and the Geneva Conventions, her blog was taken down and her security badge was revoked. On Monday, Axsmith was terminated by her employer, BAE Systems, which was helping the CIA test software. […]

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano declined to comment on Axsmith’s case but said the policy on blogs is that “postings should relate directly to the official business of the author and readers of the site, and that managers should be informed of online projects that use government resources. CIA expects contractors to do the work they are paid to do.”

I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for a 42-year-old woman who hasn’t figured out the difference between “work” and “personal.” If she should be blogging on anything at work it ought to be technical issues. Double-dumb-@$$ on her supervisors who set her up for unemployment by not squashing any non-work-related chatter from the get go. Insiders from Meade know full well the result of letting people publicly rant on about whatever nonsense pops into their heads (hint: misc.misc). There is a place for people – even cleared people – to express their personal opinions: Blogger.

The down-side of course is that the agency is likely to do what any agency in similar circumstances would do: drop the hammer on blogging. They won’t do away with it, but watch out for all sorts of new policies, increased monitoring, and smack-downs for minor infractions. Attitudes about blogging will cool especially with the old-school who will stand by and cluck-cluck about how they just knew this new-fangled nonsense would lead to no good. Those who were making the most of the new medium will sense this unspoken but real pressure to focus on “real” production and traditional communications.

Update: To be clear, I don’t think the bureaucracy will have a negative impact on Intelink (something they don’t control) but on blogging at the CIA (something they definately can control).

And since I’ve now been labeled a member of the VRWC let me note that of all the national security/intel beat reporters at the post she could have gone to, she goes to Dana Priest. The not-so subtle message: CIA squashes dissent from all quarters, even lowly bloggers. Heaven forbid anyone point out that they’re dealing with a waste, fraud and abuse issue. Not that there isn’t plenty more to root out, but even low-hanging fruit is worth something.

Besides, _everyone_ knows you don’t eat in the cafeteria; you get it your way at the BK.

Info Sharing: Still Not Getting It

U.S. officials said Tuesday the U.S. intelligence community was grappling with policies to effectively share information. […]

Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn., chairman of the Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives, said he was not satisfied with progress on reforming national intelligence capabilities to counter threats. […]

The U.S. Congress mandated modernization through a 2004 intelligence law, which created a director of national intelligence position and a counter-terrorism center to coordinate intelligence activities and disseminate information. Simmons said Congress should not mandate more changes. Rather, he said the administration must offer solutions. “The last thing you really want to do, in my opinion, is have Congress solve the problem,” he said.

Russ Travers, the counter-terrorism center’s deputy director for information sharing and knowledge development, said the “single-biggest question” that needs answering is what is each agency’s specific responsibility.

He said the center was “clearly not there yet” on fully implementing the intelligence statute. For example, the center does not have standards for evaluating and incorporating suspicious activity reports created by state and local law enforcement.

Gaaah! Once again, thinking that information is best handled in a linear fashion is keeping us less safe. Organizations in DC live and breath based on the idea that a given piece of text provides them with a right/justification/lee-way to do this or that, so the claim that they don’t know who should do what is at the same time legitimate and a cop-out. The fact of the matter is that no one can say that agency X, that collects and “owns” data Y, is the best agency to make full and effective use of that data. OPENING access to everyone with a stake in the fight (yes, of course, keep your handling caveats if you must) means that you’re not wasting time while the data flows up, over, and then back down. Nothing against liaisons, but there are enough delays built into the system.

Army of Analysts people, Army of Analysts . . .

Location, Location, Location

Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte may have his eye on history as he attempts to secure a prime downtown Washington property - Navy Hill, overlooking the Potomac River - for his headquarters.

During World War II, the property’s gracious Central Building, constructed in 1910, served as the home office for William “Wild Bill” Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services. It later became the first headquarters of the CIA, formed in 1947. […]

Although some nostalgia might be involved, Negroponte’s purpose just as likely may be to reduce the time he and his top aides spend traveling from Bolling Air Force Base in Southwest Washington, where they temporarily occupy two floors at the newly completed Defense Intelligence Analysis Center building.

One top Negroponte aide has complained that he spends almost half his day in automobiles going to meetings in downtown Washington, on Capitol Hill, or at the White House, the Pentagon or CIA headquarters. […]

Getting hold of [Navy Hill], however, may not end the DNI’s housing problems. As a National Historic Site, any structural changes, including upgrading, would have to be approved by the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts and the District’s State Historic Preservation Office.

Friend R.N. tells the story of how a buddy saw this black town car pull up the still-under-construction DIAC. General gets out of the car, receives the guy’s salute, and is asked if he needs help with anything (since such occurrences are fairly rare). “Nope,” he is told “just checking out the real estate. Look good to you Ambassador?” he says into the open door of the car . . .

The historical angle is not to be taken lightly. If you’ve ever briefed Brits in London in July you know what I mean, since air conditioning their historical military buildings is considered a no-no from a preservation perspective.

The more appropriate move at the time would have been to let the DNI take over the old DIA leases in N. VA (central location, close to Metro, bar on the ground floor, etc.) and let DIA consolidate it’s workforce as planned in the post-9/11 rush for dollars. Then again, if planning was a strong suit in the ranks of the IC, we wouldn’t have hired more people than a building could hold (three men in a cube is not the title of a comedy, though the results were certainly a joke). If nothing else the upper echelons get a reminder of what life is like at the working-level, where a one-hour meeting downtown turns into an all day affair due to simple Capitol-area logistics. Perhaps it will open their minds to some radical ideas like dispersing the workforce out to places where people might actually want to live (a business-continuity effort as much as a quality-of-life one) or accepting the fact that every other organization of substance uses this thing called “tele-conferencing” and “video-conferencing” for meetings.

HLS: Serious

The Transportation Security Administration, which has faced start-up pains for much of the past four years, is expanding career opportunities for passenger and baggage screeners in hopes of reducing staff turnover and improving aviation security.

For the most part, TSA screeners have had little chance to advance in their jobs, and many have quit because they did not see a way to qualify for promotions. For a time, one in five full-time screeners was leaving, driving up hiring and training costs.

The career opportunities, announced this week, will permit screeners to compete for jobs as supervisors and technical experts, such as behavior detection officers, who look for high-risk individuals, and bomb appraisal officers, who spot improvised explosive devices. […]

As screeners move up in the TSA, they also will be able to apply for other Homeland Security jobs, such as air marshal and customs and immigration inspection. Rossides predicted the screeners will be “very attractive candidates” because they will have undergone extensive background checks and will be seen as part of the Homeland Security family.

After my recent experience with TSA, all I can say is: Bravo Zulu.

Now Please

Now is the time to tell our soldiers in Iraq that “hot pursuit” is okay, that the terrorist training camps on both sides of Iraq are legitimate targets, to be attacked in self-defense. Now is the time to tell the Iraqi government to come forward with the abundant evidence of Iranian evil-doing, and that we will support a fight against the mullahs’ foot soldiers in Iraq. These actions will signal the next stage of the war against the terror masters, which is the vigorous support of the pro-democracy forces in Syria and Iran.

It is a wondrous window of opportunity. As so often in our history, it was opened by our enemies. Let’s go for it.

You grab the tiger by the tail – even a seemingly lethargic and wary one - you should have a plan for dealing with his teeth. Predators don’t take a bite out of a hind-quarter and let the prey amble off; they go for the neck because a) you eat better and b) swinging hooves and horns can kill.

How Soon?

More a current events than an intel post, so pardon the interruption . . .

So I’m reading about Hezbollah rocket attacks against Nazareth and for some reason I’m taken back to the spring of 2001 when the Taliban blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas and I wonder: how soon before there is no physical evidence of what everyone in the region is fighting over? Time passes and conquerors build on the ruins of the conquered, but there is always a little something left over to point to and say; “Hey, I’ve got just as much right to be here as anyone!” When the Western Wall becomes a hole in the ground, and the Dome of the Rock becomes so many rocks in a pile, what is going to drive the urge to fight? Fading, fallible memories? Someone please tell me I’m not channeling an old Sci Fi story.

If you ever needed an indication that things are going tribal . . .

Bassem gets out from under a cloud

An internal investigation by the [FBI’s] Office of Professional Responsibility found “sufficient circumstantial evidence” that Special Agent Bassem Youssef was blocked from a counterterrorism assignment in 2002 after he and U.S. Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) met with FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III to discuss Youssef’s complaints. […]

 

Youssef, who served as FBI legal attaché in Saudi Arabia for four years, earned raves for his work on the Khobar Towers bombing and other investigations, including praise for his “very, very high performance” by former FBI director Louis J. Freeh, according to court testimony and the report.

 

Youssef, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Egypt, says his expertise in Arabic, terrorism and Middle Eastern issues was ignored after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He began making formal complaints after being assigned to a budget unit in February 2002. He was later transferred to a unit that processed documents taken from Afghanistan and other overseas locations.

 

I knew Bassem from his work in the “unit the processed documents.” I know nothing of the details or the merits of his lawsuit, but do know that someone with his quals probably should have been doing something more substantial than . . . well . . . what he was doing in the unit in question. So what have we lost not putting him to maximum use these last few years?

Good Points

SOI reminds us that success in this fight means less about territory than some would suggest. The down-side; it means that it’ll get uglier before it gets prettier.

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