The Iraq War and HUMINT

Why the Intelligence Community Ineffectively Uses HUMINT
“To address the challenges facing the U.S. intelligence community in the 21st century, congressional and executive branch initiatives have sought to improve coordination among the different agencies and to encourage better analysis.”—Richard A. Best, Intelligence Issues for Congress, 2011, p. 2
Introduction
Since 9/11, the intelligence community has been at the heart of numerous policy decisions—from the invasion of Iraq to U.S. foreign relations with China and Russia. While the objective of the intelligence community is to provide legitimate intelligence to policy makers, numerous researchers have pointed out that in the post-9/11, policy has often shaped intelligence rather than the other way around, as it is intended to be.[footnoteRef:2] As Best notes, “intelligence from human contacts—humint—is the oldest intelligence discipline and the one that is most often written about in the media.”[footnoteRef:3] As the CIA is the primary collector of human intelligence along with the Department of Defense (DOD), it plays a leading role in the use of HUMINT in the intelligence community. With the wars in the Middle East now dragging on for nearly 2 decades, many are wondering why, with so many HUMINT sources, these wars have proven so difficult and disastrous on many levels, and why faulty intelligence was used in the build-up to the Iraq invasion. This paper asks specifically: Why is the intelligence community so ineffectively using HUMINT? What is going on behind the scenes? This issue remains a puzzle because the reputation of the intelligence communities is that there is virtually very little that is kept from them in this day and age: there are few secrets—and fewer surprises. So for the intelligence community to get something so spectacularly wrong (as Hussein having mobile weapons labs and WMDs) is to give one considerable pause: how could such gross miscalculations of judgment occur? It is hypothesized that in the post-9/11 world, the intelligence community has allowed itself to be guided by policymakers instead of the intelligence community being the guide for policy. This study will conduct a case study analysis to determine if such an inversion has indeed taken place. [2: J. Pfiffner and M. Phythian, Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq: British and American Perspectives. TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2008), 178.] [3: Richard Best, Intelligence Issues for Congress. Congressional Research Service: CRS Report for Congress, 2011, 3.]
By using the qualitative approach and the case study research design, the study will answer those questions so as to better understand why HUMINT is not being effectively used by the intelligence community in the post-9/11 era. The specific case this study will examine is the way in which HUMINT was misused in the build-up to the Iraq War post-9/11, particularly with respect to the source CURVEBALL, whose information was problematically used to justify a full-scale invasion. This study will provide a review of relevant literature, with a focus on current knowledge gaps and explain how the study will address those gaps. It will also provide a discussion of the methodology used for collecting data and how data was analyzed. Finally it will present the analysis and findings with a section for discussing the findings in detail and explaining what it means in terms of the research question and hypothesis.
Review of the Literature
“Counterterrorism is highly dependent upon human intelligence (humint), the use of agents to acquire information (and, in certain circumstances, to carry out covert actions). Humint is one of the least expensive intelligence disciplines, but it can be the most difficult and is undoubtedly the most dangerous for practitioners. Mistakes can be fatal, embarrass the whole country, and undermine important policy goals.”—Richard A. Best, Intelligence to Counter Terrorism: Issues for Congress, 2002, p. 2.
While Colin Powell was testifying before the UN about Iraq’s yellow cake uranium deals with Niger (which former ambassador Joe Wilson vehemently denied ever took place)[footnoteRef:4], Richard Perle, who chaired the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, had been collaborating with Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard and Robert Kagan (both of who also headed the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)—a quasi dual-American-Israeli think tank) to put forward the story that Saddam Hussein was a legitimate threat to the U.S. particularly for its terrorist connections. Perle, Kristol and Kagan were advisors to policymakers: their role was to put forward ideas about how foreign policy should be conducted. They were not intelligence analysts. The CIA did not corroborate the story these policy advisors were putting forward: yet these advisors had the ear of the White House.[footnoteRef:5] Meanwhile, “CIA analysts complained publicly (through anonymous media leaks) that Vice President Dick Cheney was wrong to insist on a significant tie between al Qaeda and Saddam. Intelligence reporting had come to just the opposite conclusion, although CIA analysts warned that indeed a bond might be forged between global terrorists and the Iraqi dictatorship …if the West invaded Iraq”[footnoteRef:6]—which is in fact exactly what happened. The West invaded Iraq, the Iraqi infrastructure fell, and out of the vacuum created by the destruction and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians came ISIS, which went on to wreak havoc throughout the Middle East. In other words, the HUMINT indicated that Iraq posed no threat and that the threat of terror stemmed not from Iraq but rather from an invasion of Iraq. In short, the U.S. invasion would be a catalyst for the growth of terror in the region, HUMINT implied. [4: Joe Wilson, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/what-i-didn-t-find-in-africa.html] [5: David Rose, “Neo Culpa,” Vanity Fair, 2006. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2006/12/neocons200612] [6: Pfiffner and Phythian, 178.]
It was almost as though the think tanks and policy makers were simply operating according to a pre-arranged plan and were simply trying to usher together some HUMINT sources to justify the invasion and give a pretext to the invasion that would look feasible to the world public. In fact, such a plan did exist: it was Oded Yinon’s 1982 policy paper for Israeli strategists on how to destabilize Israel’s enemies in the Middle East.[footnoteRef:7] That policy was now being coordinated and implemented by White House policy advisors under Bush—via PNAC and Perle[footnoteRef:8]--in spite of the overwhelming evidence of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that there was no link between Iraq and terror or the attacks on 9/11.[footnoteRef:9] [7: Oded Yinon A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties. KIVUNIM (Directions): A Journal for Judaism and Zionism, 14 (1982), 5742.] [8: Seymour Hersh, Selective Intelligence. The New Yorker, 2003. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/05/12/selective-intelligence] [9: Cirincione, J., Mathews, J., Perkovich, G., Orton, A. WMD in Iraq: Evidence and implications. DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004, 35.]
Current Knowledge Gaps
How did the disconnect between HUMINT and policymakers grow so large in the lead up to the Iraq invasion? As Warner and McDonald point out, “the publication of The 9/11 Commission Report, the war in Iraq, and subsequent negotiation of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 have provoked the most intense debate over the future of American intelligence since the end of World War II.”[footnoteRef:10] How the new use of power among the intelligence community will be used in the future is unclear. As the Overview of the United States Intelligence Community for the 111th Congress points out, the power bases are real: “the Director of the CIA is the National Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Manager and serves as the national authority for coordination, de-confliction, and evaluation of clandestine HUMINT operations across the IC, consistent with existing laws, Executive Orders, and interagency agreements.”[footnoteRef:11] However, “the National Clandestine Service (NCS) has responsibility for the clandestine collection (primarily HUMINT) of foreign intelligence that is not obtainable through other means. The NCS engages in counterintelligence activities by protecting classified U.S. activities and institutions from penetration by hostile foreign organizations and individuals.”[footnoteRef:12] In other words, there are many several cooks in the kitchen when it comes to organizing HUMINT and shaping analysis. The fact that these cooks can be politicized, as Warner and McDonald note, means that there blurring the line between intelligence and policy can create false narratives that lead to ineffective usage of HUMINT.[footnoteRef:13] How this happens needs to be better understood.[footnoteRef:14] [10: Michael Warner and J. Kenneth McDonald, US Intelligence Community Reform Studies since 1947. Center for the Study of Intelligence, Washington DC, 2005, 2.] [11: An Overview of the United States Intelligence Community for the 111th Congress, 2009, 2.] [12: An Overview of the United States Intelligence Community for the 111th Congress, 2009, 2.] [13: Michael Warner and J. Kenneth McDonald, US Intelligence Community Reform Studies since 1947. Center for the Study of Intelligence, Washington DC, 2005, 2.] [14: Michael Warner and J. Kenneth McDonald, US Intelligence Community Reform Studies since 1947. Center for the Study of Intelligence, Washington DC, 2005, 2.]
How the Study will Address the Gaps
This study will address the gaps in understanding by conducting a case study analysis on the use of HUMINT in the build-up to the Iraq War. There is clearly a need to understand how HUMINT is used by the intelligence communities, and how it is used by the policymakers and policy advisors who shape foreign policy directives. If HUMINT is not being effectively used, the public has to understand why. This study will show why by looking at the way in which policymakers emphasize HUMINT sources that are not substantiated by the intelligence community because those sources align more with the policy they want to push—and that ultimately the responsibility for pushing back belongs to the intelligence community.
Methodology and Research Strategy
The case study methodology was selected for this study as it has been shown to be an effective design for qualitative analysis.[footnoteRef:15] By using a case study to answer the research questions, the generalizability of the findings could be of use in fostering a better understanding of how HUMINT gets mishandled in the movement of information from the intelligence community to the realm of policy. [15: Merriam, Sharan B., and Robin S. Grenier, eds. Qualitative research in practice: Examples for discussion and analysis. Jossey-Bass, 2019.]
Variables
The dependent variable was determined to be policy and the independent variable was determined to be the usage of HUMINT. HUMINT could be used in different ways—to show uncertainty regarding information or to show certainty. Depending on the users of HUMINT, different policy outcomes could be achieved.
How the Research Approach was Operationalized
The research approach was operationalized by creating a construct for measuring the variables. The independent variables was measured in the case study by describing the ways in which CURVE BALL was used by the various actors, and how this had an effect on the dependent variable—policy. Since the study was qualitative, it required careful description of these processes in order for operationalization to be achieved.
Data Found
Data was collected by using keyword searches related to the topic including “curve ball,” “nie report Iraq,” “cia mi6 intel iraq,” “intel failure Iraq,” and “humint failure Iraq.” The data that was found was that CURVE BALL, the main source of HUMINT for policy advisors leading up to the Iraq War, was deemed a doubtful source by the intelligence community but was deemed legit by policy advisors who wanted to have a reason for invasion so as to implement their PNAC plan, which was predicated on the Yinon plan.
How Data was Analyzed
Data was analyzed by identifying themes among the various data sources and conducting content analysis to see how the variables intersected. The common themes were then assessed using eidetic reduction to block out the noise and imaginative variation to provide the essence of the information in a distilled form, which is a recommended practice in content analysis.[footnoteRef:16] [16: Katsirikou, A., & Lin, C. S. (2017). Revealing the “Essence” of things: Using phenomenology in LIS research. Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries, 2(4), 470 ; Patton, M.Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.; Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. B. (2014). Designing qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ]
Limitations and Overcoming Them
The limitations of the study design were that it could potentially lead to confirmation bias. For that reason, Fischer recommends bracketing out researcher bias up front so that it does not interfere with data collection.[footnoteRef:17] The beliefs that the researcher held prior to data collection for this study were that HUMINT is mismanaged by the disparate aims of the intelligence community. This belief was not born out in the data. [17: Fischer, C.T. Bracketing in qualitative research: Conceptual and practical matters.Psychotherapy Research Methods, 19(4-5) (2009), 584]
Analysis and Findings
“Most intelligence dollars are embedded in the defense budget for security purposes. All but the topline budget numbers are classified. Disclosure of details associated with the intelligence budget has been debated for many years, with proponents arguing for more accountability and IC leadership arguing that disclosure of such figures could damage national security.”—Michael E. DeVine, Intelligence Community Spending: Trends and Issues, 2018, p. 5.
Devine pointed out that secrecy is critical to the intelligence community’s and that, therefore, it is difficult for the public to understand how operations are proceeding and where money is being spent to obtain or shape intelligence.[footnoteRef:18] Former CIA Director George Tenet argued that by showing the American public how the intelligence community conducts its business, foreign governments would become privy to that information as well, which would then aid them in counter-intelligence operations. This would hamper the CIA’s ability to collect accurate HUMINT, Tenet argued.[footnoteRef:19] As a result, secrecy is an issue that is unlikely to be resolved—and yet transparency is demanded by the public. For HUMINT to be used effectively, it would requires some form of transparency, but such goes against the wishes of the DCI. [18: Michael E. DeVine, Intelligence Community Spending: Trends and Issues, 2018, 5.] [19: “Declaration of George Tenet,” Aftergood v. CIA, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Civ. No. 98- 2107, April, 1999, at http://fas.org/sgp/foia/tenet499.html.]
Pfiffner and Phythian pointed out that even though the CIA and MI6 failed to push back much against the “alarmist stance toward Iraq,” a few CIA analysts did come forward publicly to express disconcertion about the Vice President’s view on Iraq: “CIA analysts complained publicly (through anonymous media leaks) that Vice President Dick Cheney was wrong to insist on a significant tie between al Qaeda and Saddam. Intelligence reporting had come to just the opposite conclusion, although CIA analysts warned that indeed a bond might be forged between global terrorists and the Iraqi dictatorship …if the West invaded Iraq.”[footnoteRef:20] This shows that the intelligence indicated that the threat was not Iraq, but rather the West. [20: Pfiffner and Phythian, 178.]
As Hersh points out, the policy advisors were overruling the HUMINT analysts and so foreign policy was being determined by by pro-Israel agents such as Abram Shulsky, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Doug Feith, and Scooter Libby: “a small cluster of policy advisers and analysts…based in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans (OSP)”.[footnoteRef:21] The OSP helped turn the HUMINT source CURVE BALL, which was nothing more than a source of soft evidence of collusion between Iraq and terror networks that was never substantiated by other HUMINT sources, into the main impetus for policy making. [21: Seymour Hersh, Selective Intelligence. The New Yorker, 2003. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/05/12/selective-intelligence]
The OSP used CURVE BALL as the main source of information for the Bush Administration, which was looking for something that connected the Iraq regime to terror. The source CURVEBALL was one that the CIA had been using in its HUMINT, but had never been able to verify anything CURVE BALL had said. Everything this source was giving to the CIA was unsubstantiated. For that reason, the CIA deemed CURVE BALL to be nothing more than “soft” data. CURVEBALL had claimed that Iraq was involved in terror networking. However, the UN had not found any evidence of a WMD program in Iraq, as the Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq showed.[footnoteRef:22] This was not hard evidence but rather what the CIA termed “soft” data—data that really could not be relied upon because there was no way to establish its veracity. [22: Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, 2004, 181.]
The Bush White House wanted to act quickly in response to 9/11—and it wanted a target. The policy advisors latched onto Saddam Hussein, as it fit in with their previously written policy regarding the Middle East. This was an example of policy trumping HUMINT. As Tenet and MI6, both of whom were aware of the insubstantial evidence of CURVE BALL, did little to nothing to actually use HUMINT effectively to transfer knowledge and information to the White House, the policy advisors to Bush were able to take a “soft” source and turn it into the provocation needed to unleash an incredible demolition throughout the Middle East.
CURVE BALL was thus used as a pretext by policy advisors to push the Yinon plan from 1980s, which stated in no uncertain terms:
The dissolution of Syria and Iraq…into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon… Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel.[footnoteRef:23] [23: Oded Yinon A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties. KIVUNIM (Directions): A Journal for Judaism and Zionism, 14 (1982), 5744.]
CURVE BALL was literally a tool used by the policy advisors to counter the UN’s claim that Iraq possessed no WMDs. CURVE BALL said the WMDs were being stored on wheels and thus were able to be moved away from inspectors.[footnoteRef:24] The outcome of the intervention—the destabilization of Iraq and, what would have been Syria had Russia and Iran not intervened, indicates that the Yinon plan was the motivating factor for the policy advisors. [24: Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, 2004, 181.]
CURVE BALL was being used by Scooter Libby and others in the White House to essentially plant information or intelligence officers to find and report on. Those reports were then used to justify the war plans. It did not matter that the intelligence officers could not corroborate what CURVE BALL was saying—all that mattered was that the stories about Iraq possessing uranium were out there—and this was deemed sufficient for the Bush White House.[footnoteRef:25] [25: Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States (Gallery Books: 2012), 514. ]
Conclusions
This project conducted a case study analysis of the manner in which HUMINT was used to justify the invasion of Iraq and why it was an ineffective use of HUMINT. The findings showed that policy overrode intelligence and the intelligence community failed to respond, as it should have done. This project conducted qualitative research to assess why HUMINT is used ineffectively. The results show that policy has to be kept out of intelligence because the latter is what should be used to inform and shape the former—otherwise, entire nations can be leveled not because of intelligence but because of the policy advice of a small cabal as Hersh called them.
Selective intelligence was used by policy advisors, as Hersh pointed out, to shape the lead-in to the Iraq War. This use of HUMINT by policy advisors and the distortions that they brought about in the intelligence community indicates that the reason HUMINT is so ineffectively used is that there is no oversight to prevent policymakers from influencing intelligence. Intelligence should be influencing policy, not the other way around. Yet, as this case study shows, policy advisors and makers can cherry pick data and even use inappropriate or soft HUMINT to provoke actions that are in line with their policies rather than implement policies that are in line with the intelligence.
This is definitely problematic as it indicates a lack of ability to effectively use HUMINT at the top levels of government. If all the work that goes into verifying and substantiating sources is going to be disregarded by top level policy makers who have their own agenda in the upper levels of government, HUMINT itself because a façade of intelligence activity. It indicates a corruption within the system.
What these findings add to the current body of knowledge is that HUMINT is not always used in the shaping of policy as it should be used. If the case study of the lead-up to the Iraq War shows anything, it shows that policy advisors should not be privy to intelligence work that has not been confirmed, nor should they have the ability to plant stories as Libby did to create a false narrative. This shows a severe weakness within the intelligence community and how it handles data and conveys it to the President.
Avenues of future research for other scholars should include ways for the intelligence communities to safeguard their data and the way that data is communicated to the President. There should also be some investigation into the reasons why the intelligence community does not have a stronger role in the shaping of policy as opposed to those in roles that are of lesser stature and significance. Intelligence is there to be used effectively, and those in the intelligence community work hard to make sure all sources are properly vetted. More research has to be conducted, therefore, on the problems within the structures of government that can allow for HUMINT to be used so recklessly by advisors in the State Department just so they can push their policies in the White House. Research should focus on exploring whether this problem has ever been addressed and if it has how well the solutions have worked and whether any discernible improvement is measurable.
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