Posted on 08/26/2006 6:29:11 AM PDT by kellynla
Our national intelligence system will never meet our unrealistic expectations, nor can it ever answer all of our needs. No matter what we do or change or buy, intelligence agencies will remain unable to satisfy our government's appetite for knowledge. This isn't defeatism, but realism. We had better get used to the idea.
This does not mean that our intelligence system cannot be improved. It can. Nor does it imply that our leaders should be less demanding. Stressing the system enhances its performance. But our fantastic expectations must be lowered to a level more in accord with our present and potential capabilities.
And we must end the decades-old practice of blaming flawed intelligence for broader policy failures. For all of its indisputable shortcomings, the U.S. intelligence community has become a too-convenient scapegoat for erroneous decisions made by a succession of leaders indifferent to the substance of intelligence, but alert to the advantages of politics. If we want to improve our comprehensive security, we need to begin with a sharp dose of realism regarding what intelligence can and cannot deliver. We do not expect our health-care system to return every patient to perfect health. It is just as foolish to expect perfect intelligence.
While there are real, endemic problems within our intelligence system, the greater problem may be with the expectations of the public, the media, and our Nation's policymakers. From indefensible defense-contractor promises to the insidious effects of Hollywood's long-running fantasy of all-seeing, all-powerful intelligence agencies, the lack of an accurate grasp of what intelligence generally can provide, occasionally can deliver, and still cannot begin to achieve results in reflexive cries of "Intelligence failure!" under circumstances in which it would have been impossible--or a case of hit-the-lottery luck--for intelligence to succeed.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
ping
Tip Off by Darkwing104
The salvation-through-technology types do great damage to our intelligence effort. They deliver massive amounts of data, but become so mesmerized by what technology can do that they slight the importance of relevance. And humans are messy, while technology appears pristine. Furthermore, there are massive profits to be made on the technology side (and good retirement jobs for program managers); thus, Congress leans inevitably toward funding systems rather than fostering human abilities.I consider myself very pro-technology in everything, including and especially defense, but I agree with this paragraph. Sometimes technology is not only lacking, but can become a dangerous diversion. (As in education, when kids learn computers but not books.)
Ralph makes so many great points in this article that I hardly know where to start. These lines probably sum up the essence of what he is saying:
"As then-Lieutenant General William Scott Wallace, the Army V Corps commander on the march to Baghdad, observed, the enemy we ended up fighting (albeit successfully) was not the enemy the intelligence community had briefed. Commanders learned as they fought, after our best intelligence had promised them a different war. In Iraq, we couldn't see what we wanted to see, so we refused to see what we didn't want to see. We relied so heavily on technical collection means that we forgot to think."
"Only human beings can penetrate the minds of other human beings. Understanding our enemies is the most important requirement for our intelligence system. Yet, "understanding" is a word you rarely, if ever, find in our intelligence manuals. We are obsessed with accumulating great volumes of data, measuring success in tonnage rather than results. Instead of panning for gold, we proudly pile up the mud."
"If we want to improve the quality and usefulness of the intelligence that reaches our nation's leaders, we need to accept the primacy of the human being in intelligence. Instead of the current system, in which people support technology, we need our technologies to support people."
Truer words have never been spoken. 'Intelligence' in our government has been in critical short supply for quite some time!!! Corruption, on the other hand, we've had an abundant surplus.
http://www.highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2006/03/07/4911
Is this the Ralph Peters? Looks like the left is using FR for misinformation.
Ralph, tell us your combat Intel experience?
Ralph: 22 years as an EM great, How did ya make LTC?
Please tell us. All active duty? You are my hero.
Thanks for the bump and ping!
Thanks for the ping. Our intelligence capabilities were trashed by the Clinton administration. Especially Humint.
I'm fairly sure LTC Ralph Peters (retired) had all of his military time as a commissioned office in the military intelligence corps. He was a Major, MI, when he was assigned to Research and Analysis Directorate of the old US Army Intelligence and Threat Analysis Center in 1991. I had just moved from being the R&A Directorate Operations Officer to doing intel analysis in the Soviet/Warsaw Pact Division. Peters was suppose to be in the division, but was detailed to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (DCSINT/G-2) as an analysis because of his reputation.
Regarding combat experience, he would have come into the Army at the end of the Vietnam war so missed it, but may have been in Operation Desert Storm. He retired to write books and be free to comment on military matters.
Peters enlisted in the Army as a private, and spent ten years in Germany working in military intelligence. Years later, during the 2004 Killian documents controversy, Peters pointed out that in his front-line division in 1977, five years after the memos in question were allegedly written, only the general's secretary had an electric typewriter. It was, he says, too primitive to produce the documents in question, and moreover, National Guard units "…got the junk we didn't want."
After returning from Germany, Peters attended Officer Candidate School and received his commission, eventually attending the Command and General Staff College and U.S. Army War College. His last assignment was to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence. He retired in 1998 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Peters
In other words, Ralph Peters was the Buckhead of his time...
The word is that HUMINT budgets were cut by 80 percent during Clintoon.
There are two issues that will linger forever as concerns the intelligence services.
1. The Klintonista regime gutted it during their ugly reign.
2. The Intel services have been at each other's throats forever and the competition btwn them (e.g. withholding info) has been around since the start of time and will be around until the end of time. Life is like that, live with it.
'"Only human beings can penetrate the minds of other human beings. Understanding our enemies is the most important requirement for our intelligence system. Yet, "understanding" is a word you rarely, if ever, find in our intelligence manuals. We are obsessed with accumulating great volumes of data, measuring success in tonnage rather than results. Instead of panning for gold, we proudly pile up the mud." '
Wasn't it that great Dimocrat patriot, Robert Toricelli (D-NJ) who put thru the bill to outlaw the use of human intelligence folk who had a felony record? Another example of a momentus Dim decision.
"Peters enlisted in the Army as a private, and spent ten years in Germany working in military intelligence. Years later, during the 2004 Killian documents controversy, Peters pointed out that in his front-line division in 1977, five years after the memos in question were allegedly written, only the general's secretary had an electric typewriter. It was, he says, too primitive to produce the documents in question, and moreover, National Guard units "…got the junk we didn't want."
After returning from Germany, Peters attended Officer Candidate School and received his commission, eventually attending the Command and General Staff College and U.S. Army War College. His last assignment was to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence. He retired in 1998 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel."
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Mustangers generally are topped out at O-4. It doesn't matter how good you are, if you came in as an EM, you're considered used goods til the day you leave. My CO in VN was, by far, the best officer I've ever encountered; he was a Navy LCdr -should have made it to Admiral. His name was LCdr Karl Burnet - made it to E-8 before junping then rapidly made rank but topped out as an MI officer at LCdr.
Green Lantern
I think so. Dumb, dumb, dumb...
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