Standards of Intelligence Reasoning (Interesting article on cloak-and-dagger info analysis)

The Foreign Policy Research Institute ^ | November 14, 2003 | Stephen Gale

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Reading the news these days, one gets the feeling that there is an air of true cluelessness as concerns the methods of reasoning used in intelligence circles. Take for example “The Stovepipe,” Seymour Hersh’s recent article (New Yorker, October 27, 2003) about the intelligence analysis leading up to the Bush administration’s decision to engage in the war in Iraq. Hersh (who is nobody’s fool when it comes to matters relating to the workings of government) repeats, in one form or another, the refrain that key information was supplied to— and analyzed by — senior administration officials (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al.) “with little prior evaluation by intelligence professionals.” Hersh’s intent, I expect, is that we— those of us who are sufficiently interested in world affairs to have taken the time to read the article— will immediately recognize all that’s wrong with the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq issue and foreign affairs in general: that it is far too politically motivated (read, directed towards the re- election of the President) and that momentous decisions related to war and peace should be based on information vetted by the highest intelligence standards (read, vetted by members of the professional intelligence community). Some, I expect, will be shocked by the so-called revelations in the article; other might be awed. But at least as I see it, few will have gotten the real story.

Just what is this intelligence business anyway? What is it that these “intelligence professionals” (the “intelligence communities” of the world) do to earn their keep? What are their professional standards, their backgrounds, training, risks and rewards? And, short of having worked in the intelligence field, how can we, as engaged citizens, decide whether to be shocked or awed by accounts that point to failures in political decisions that are based on intelligence analysis?

Intelligence gathering and intelligence analysis are undoubtedly complicated and weighty businesses. From Sun Tzu onwards, the safety and security of cultures, civilizations, and nation states have rested, in large measure, on the effective and efficient use of intelligence and intelligence analysis. As Sun Tzu put it in The Art of War:

“Raising a host of a hundred thousand men and engaging them in war entails heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources. The daily expenditure will amount to a thousand ounces of silver. There will be commotion at home and abroad, and men will drop out exhausted.”

“Opposing forces may face each other for years, striving for the victory which may be decided in a single day. This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy’s condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver is the height of stupidity.

“One who acts thus is no leader of men, no present help to his cause, no master of victory. Thus, what enables the wise commander to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge. Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits; it cannot be obtained inductively from experience, nor by any deductive calculation. Knowledge of the enemy’s dispositions can only be obtained from other men.”

Historically, to know even rudimentary matters such as the direction to look for the coming sunrise required clear, unambiguous information, carefully analyzed, communicated in (as they say) a timely manner. Just imagine one of those great armies of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century looking to the Prophet for guidance on troop deployments at around two o’clock in the morning. It is pitch dark, no one quite remembers the terrain, and GPS devices are well over a thousand years in the future. Sound intelligence, primitive though this example may appear to be, was very likely a key factor in determining victory or defeat in the morning’s battle. Napoleon was supposed to have said “an army marches on its stomach.” To this he might have added Sun Tzu’s observation: “Hence it is only the enlightened and wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for purposes of spying and thereby they achieve great results. Spies are the most important asset, because on them depends an army’s ability to march.”

This is hardly the place to reconstruct the history of the value of intelligence in world affairs. What is of concern, however, is the issue raised by Mr. Hersh: Just what is gained by “the evaluation by intelligence professionals”? Where is the added value, the bang-for-the-buck that is supposed to be provided by Mr. Hersh’s professional intelligence analyses and evaluations?

As with so many of the journalists who specialize in the affairs of state, Mr. Hersh seems to be both in awe of the powers of intelligence analysts and shocked by the seeming reluctance of politicians to put those talents to good use. And, given the nagging problems that many now see with the conduct of US efforts in Iraq, Mr. Hersh could easily be justified in being shocked, awed — and possibly even angry. Hersh and others seem to feel that while Iraq may have been an easy military target, the aftermath — the on-going efforts to “rebuild” Iraq — is a disaster. What was the purpose of the war in Iraq anyway? If it was to eliminate Saddam himself, we did not get the right intelligence on his whereabouts and we still can’t find him. If it was to find and destroy all of those purported weapons of mass destruction — you know, the ones that the administration insisted were there but, apparently, never turned up — then Bush and his senior advisors obviously must have based their decisions on bad intelligence. And, at least according to Mr. Hersh, it was bad precisely because it had not been evaluated by intelligence professionals.

There are any number of problems with this perspective and, in the absence of some clarity on these matters, I fear that Mr. Hersh and others in his profession will continue to haunt us with tales of shock and awe rather than enlightening through the journalists version of “evaluation by intelligence professionals.” Admittedly, some of the problems are subtle; others are glaring; and still others are reminiscent of the fault that Mr. Hersh lays of the door of the Bush administration.

To get a fix on Mr. Hersh’s assessment of the Bush administration’s use of the intelligence process, we need to get some insight on just what intelligence analysts do— and are supposed to do. Although there are manuals that are used to train intelligence workers (most of which describe systematic, step-by-step approaches to the analysis and evaluation processes), as I see it there are really only four general characteristic standards and methods that are used in the practice of intelligence reasoning.

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I think that we would all agree that the evidence provided by the SISME (Re: Iraq buying Niger yellowcake) report did not conclusively establish the Iraq-Niger connection. At the same time, I also seem to recall that, since September 11th, there has been a sizable cottage industry devoted to pinning the blame for the hijackings on the fact that the Bush administration had failed to thwart the attacks precisely because it had not begged the question — that it had not evaluated and connected the dots. Dots? What dots? The amateur “red team” efforts by a handful of security experts and novelists? The assortment of disconnected incident reports filed by a few FBI agents who, under normal circumstances, were expected to provide documented evidence supporting existing (or sometimes even future) criminal actions? Without begging the question— without assuming that al Qaeda was preparing to strike at US domestic targets, that it was prepared to organize and execute to actions that potentially could have successfully decapitated the US government with a one-two punch, and that al Qaeda had already deployed operators within the US — those supposed dots had little more credibility than the questionable information that Mr. Hersh cites from the SISME report.

In Bush's case it's damned if you don't and doubly damned if you do!